U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and World Heath Organization officials have been working to inform citizens about the status of the H1N1 virus. Napolitano briefed members of the media on Monday in Washington, DC.
At this point, it's pretty hard not to hear something about the notorious swine flu virus. As of Sunday, the Associated Press confirmed swine flu cases had risen to 226 in the U.S. Since that announcement, people have taken a proactive role to ensure their communities are safe from the H1N1 or swine flu virus.
Precautions in these times are necessary; there's no doubt about it. However, I think some may go overboard in their level of safety measures. For example, there have been cases in Texas where school districts were completely shut down to potentially stop the spread of new cases.
Closing the school where the initial outbreak occurred may have been appropriate, but shutting the entire district down leaves me more concerned about how authorities might react to similar situations should a health alert occur in their town. For that reason, I hope there's a better balance between how people take precaution and react with respect to this virus.
In an attempt to calm fears and keep the public informed, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been working diligently to communicate the necessary precautions people can take to stay healthy during this time of concern.
If all goes well, this apparent epidemic will come to a close soon. In the meantime, my hope for everyone is that we all keep a level head and work together to keep things under control.
How are cities taking health precautions in your area?
Although his birthday is not a national holiday and he might not be discussed as much as King in the mainstream media, Malcolm X's life, speeches and legacy are certainly worth noting. But why doesn't May 19th receive more attention? What are your thoughts?
On Friday's show, J.J. Abrams was Tavis' guest to discuss his new Star Trek prequel, which, as of writing, has scored a very respectable 96% on the review site RottenTomatoes.com. Reviews from all the big names (LA Times,NY Times, SF Chronicle,Salon.com) have come in, and the consensus seems to be that while the new Star Trek is not quite Gone with the Wind (or even Alien) as small-to-big-screen adaptations go, it works, which Will Smith discovered a few years back is not always the case.
What I wanted to know more about, however was Abrams' formerly much talked-about series Lost, a show that in the latest season has appeared to slip off the radar entirely. Once, I dare say that Lost was one of the coolest shows on TV. Yes, the writing could be cheesy, but for pure addictiveness it had no rival.
What this has been credited to is Abrams' “magic box theory,” that is, that if you have a sealed box with something mysterious inside it, the mystery of what that thing could be is infinitely more interesting than what that thing actually is, whatever it is. As anyone who's seen Lost will realize, this theory is to that show what one-liners about adult diapers were to the Golden Girls. Without the mystery, there is no show.
But Abrams made a serious miscalculation with Lost. That is, that you can keep up the suspense, piling mystery upon mystery upon mystery, indefinitely, without losing the audience's attention or faith. This may in theory be possible (I have my doubts), but it didn't happen on Lost. Things that went unexplained on the first and second seasons became increasingly hard to reconcile as the show continued. Questions piled up and were forgotten, replaced by still more, increasingly implausible questions. Little was explained, and you got the feeling that even if they did eventually get around to explaining the jumble of mysteries that were introduced each week, the answers would never be as interesting or satisfying as you wanted them to be. Which, of course, they never could be.
So gradually we stopped watching. We moved on toThe Mentalistand Damages (another show that relies heavily on magic-box theory, but because it's about the law, not smoke monsters and time travel, you know everything will be revealed eventually) and Lost continued on in its 5th and (thankfully) penultimate season, growing weirder and less plausible every episode.
Abrams' latest series creation, Fringe, seems to follow the same formula. A mystery is introduced in the first episode ("the Pattern") and the characters spend the rest of the series trying to find out what's behind it. It's a neat idea that has worked in the past, but one wonders if it's sustainable over the life of a series. Lost would suggest it isn't.
Do you get your information from newspapers, on television, on the radio or online? Do you think everyone in your community has access to the networks they need (online or in-person) to find important information? How would you improve the quality of information available to the general public?
Fascinating questions, huh? Even more fascinating when you consider the fact that we're living in a democracy and we (the people) need to be well informed.
The study is in its public input phase right now, and that's where PBS Engage comes in.
PBS Engage has created an interactive page for this project and would like Americans (that means you) to share how you get (and would like to get) your information in this digital age.
So check out the project, add your input and, of course, share your thoughts with the Young Voices below.
If 'Black Art' does exist, then what is it? If 'Black Art' doesn't exist, then can there be a Black art exhibit or a Black art gallery?
The Laband Art Gallery at L.A.'s Loyola Marymount University invited a group of LMU students to discuss these and other questions by holding a symposium at the gallery's exhibit called "Gallery 32 and Its Circle." The exhibit honored a late 1960s-era art gallery with art pieces from mostly African American artists.
I attended the symposium to look at the art work and to get the students' take on the concept of 'Black Art.' Check out the video from my visit.
“The story has everything you'd expect to find in a John Grisham novel”
In one of the most news-ready stories to break this week, a prominent New Jersey defense lawyer is accused of arranging hits on witnesses to assure favorable verdicts for his clients, many of whom were prominent gang members and other criminal types. This after being involved in a prostitution scandal earlier this month.
According to the story, found here in The New York Times, Paul Bergrin, the accused, was fond of saying, "No witnesses, no case," and is accused of leaking the names of witnesses to his clients, who promptly had them gunned down. Not only that, Bergrin is also accused of having attempted to orchestrate a hit himself.
The story has everything you'd expect to find in a John Grisham novel, or, more appropriately, an episode of The Wire. Speaking of which, there was a character on The Wirewho did this very thing. I think he got away with it, however. In this case, does life imitate fiction, or the other way around?
“All the reasons political pundits might chafe at some of McCain's ideas are ironically the reasons why they should actually embrace them”
Honest, direct and filled with fiery passion must be what makes Meghan McCain a die hard, no nonsense kind of person. Appearing on the Colbert Report recently, she held court with Steven Colbert to share some of her views on what's ailing the Republican Party.
The ideology proclaimed “pro-sex,” “pro-life” and “pro-gay” daughter of the Republican Party's presidential nominee said that the party should be more inclusive and less “far right conservative” in their approach to growing the party.
Her honesty and candor on the show was surprising, yet refreshing for many to see. All the reasons political pundits might chafe at some of Meghan McCain's ideas are ironically the reasons why they should actually embrace them.
With party numbers dwindling, MSNBC analyst Lawrence O'Donnell likened the future of the Republican Party to that of the old men on the Muppet Show. A bunch of sad grumpy elders complaining about the show from balcony seats. A comical statement perhaps, but, for the sake of the Republican Party, I hope they figure out what to do soon.
Madam McCain, you are definitely your father's daughter. And it's meant to be a compliment.
25-year-old NYPD officer Omar Edwards was mistakenly gunned down last week in in a tragic shooting.
I was visiting New York last week, to say hello to some old friends. While I was there, I sat back and reminisced with folks, caught up on all the latest happenings and was even able to make some new friends in the process.
I also heard a story that was sad and arguably all too common when it comes to stories involving the police and communities of color in New York.
Off-duty police officer Omar Edwards approached his vehicle Thursday night to find someone breaking into it. In plain clothes, he ran after the burglar with his gun drawn. Officer Edwards was black.
As he ran down the street, an unmarked police crime unit spotted Edwards. One of the officers from the mobile unit, who is white, got out of the car and fired his gun at Edwards.
Shots were fired from this officer's gun six times, leaving Edwards hit three times. Officer Edwards died an hour later at Harlem Hospital from the gunshots. His gun was never fired in the incident.
Some are concerned that race may have been an issue in the shooting, while others are calling this a case of friendly fire.
No one knows if either Officer Edwards or Andrew Dutton, the officer from the mobile unit, announced themselves as police officers. An investigation is currently underway to determine whether or not proper protocol was used in the incident. Al Sharpton, a man all too familiar with incidents such as these, has called for an independent federal investigation on the matter.
Being in New York again brought back a lot of memories for me, but this is one memory that I'd rather soon forget.
As California's Proposition 8 fight continues, I thought it might be worth it to talk to a couple of experts about a question that I've run across while covering the Prop. 8 challenge: Is the same-sex marriage battle a civil rights struggle reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights movement?
Hear what a civil rights law expert and sociology professor have to say about it.
Also check out our same-sex marriage special features page “The Right to Marry.”
“Much like a particular previous high-profile celebrity murder case... The question was whether he'd get off.”
Well, it looks like the jury has carefully weighed the evidence and decided that Phil Spector is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This after 6 years and two trials.
Spector, who was famous for creating the "wall of sound," producing the Beatles, and creating one of the best Christmas albums ever, was on trial for the 2003 murder of Lana Clarkson at Spector's home in Alhambra, CA. Clarkson was a former B-movie actress who had been working as a hostess at the House of Blues on Sunset, where she met Spector earlier that evening.
The whole case hinged on the testimony of Spector's chauffeur, who testified that the music icon emerged from the house following a gunshot and said, “I think I killed somebody.” There was that, plus testimony from several women from Spector's past who claimed the famed music producer had threatened them with guns, too.
According to the L.A. Times, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson hoped to send a message to other would-be celebrity murderers with this verdict. "No matter your fame or your wealth or your supposed celebrity,” he said, “you will stand trial and you will be held accountable."
Fair enough. But I figure if Johnnie Cochran was still around this might have ended differently.
Now, if you're concerned that a "cyber-security czar" sounds a lot like “Big Brother,” Obama offered this reassurance in his speech: “Our pursuit of cyber security will not include -- I repeat will not include monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic. We will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as Americans.”
When asked by Tavis how serious he is about acting, Common replied, “I'm very passionate about acting. I love it as much as I do music. You know, I put my soul into it.” Given the quality of music Common has produced, as well as some of his acting roles in the past, no one should have any reason to doubt this. It's just too bad about Terminator.
The fourth installment in the Terminator franchise, and the first one minus Ahhnold, raked in $43 million dollars over the weekend, putting it a considerable distance behind Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum 2 (which I think should have really been called Another Night at the Museum. Right?) The fact that this long-awaited installment couldn't even beat the opening box office of T3: Rise of the Machines, much less a Ben Stiller sequel featuring Teddy Roosevelt, says much about the film.
In review after review after review, the new Terminator has been picked apart, from its paper-thin characters to its shoddy dialogue, to the fact that Australian Sam Worthington's American accent ended up sounding Cockney most of the time. In recent years, with films like Casino Royale and The Dark Night, Hollywood has proven that interesting characters and sincere filmmaking can revive even the saggingest of franchises. Unfortunately, it seems that Terminator Salvation is destined to be the Batman and Robin of the Terminator series, rather than its Dark Night.
For his part, Common's prodigious acting abilities were wasted on stupid expository exclamations that sounded like dialogue from a videogame, and not a good one at that. He was in good company, of course. His costar's talent was equally wasted in one forgettable scene after another.
Common has some interesting things to say about the alienating role technology and machines have on humanity, which makes it all the more disappointing that the only message he was able to get across in this film was, “You should be watching Ben Stiller right now.”
The Today show celebrated The Cosby Show's 25-year anniversary by bringing together one of TV's most beloved families once again.
Nearly three decades ago, the Huxtable clan first hit the airwaves on NBC, in September of 1984. Each week, for eight seasons, audiences were welcomed into the home of Cliff Huxtable and his wife Clair.
The two shared a romantic passion for each other as they worked to raise their five children, that viewers affectionately called the Cosby kids, in New York City .
The Cosby Show, after its first year, began to debut at number one for several seasons. Through all of the fights, laughter and life lessons demonstrated on the show, audiences fell in love with the rich tapestry that made up the Huxtable family. Unsurprisingly, many realized over time that the Huxtable family was in many ways sort of like their own family.
One of my favorite episodes of the show is when Rudy and her friend Peter went into the kitchen and used Cliff's new juicer. Grape juice exploded all over the kitchen and Peter ran like a boy ready to compete in the national Olympics. I'll never forget that.
Here's to the best of memories and many more laughs of The Cosby Show!
In a report out this week, the Economic Policy Institute says that more than half of African American children will likely be living in poverty next year. The numbers are staggering. The overall childhood poverty rate will climb to 27% and the poverty rate for African American children will reach 52.3% in 2010.
It's Monday. There's stuff to do that I don't want to do. I'm procrastinating. It's times like this that YouTube becomes my best friend. Sure there's lots of random hilarity to be found, but more importantly, there are little historical gems like this video of singer/songwriter Odetta performing at the Newport Folk Festival in what looks to be the very early '60s.
Odetta was a guest on the show back in 2008, just shy of a year before she died at age 77. One of the most important African American figures in folk music, she brought more soul in 55 seconds than most artists these days can summon in a whole album. See that guy at 0:39? That's me. Or that's how I feel watching this, anyway.
Sadly, other than that and another other clip of her doing a stirring rendition of "Water Boy", there seems to be a real shortage of vintage Odetta on the Internet video tubes. There is, however, no shortage of other stuff to while away a lazy Monday. Enjoy.
“If people are suffering and dying, it's hard to begrudge anyone trying to stop it, but what good does disrupting civil society do?”
Sitting in the car yesterday, locked in traffic that brought the core of Canada's largest city to a near-standstill, I had some time to contemplate the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
The Tamils are an ethnic minority who have been fighting a civil war for sovereignty in Sri Lanka since the 1980s. Recently, the war has escalated, massive casualties have been reported on both sides, and refugee camps inside Sri Lanka have filled with close to a quarter of a million displaced people.
Here in Toronto, where I happened to be on that otherwise balmy mid-May afternoon, there is a sizeable Tamil community, numbering more than 250,000, and they have been making their presence felt in recent days.
The reactions to this have ranged from tempered sympathy to outright outrage. So the argument goes, in a peaceful, democratic nation, all citizens have the right to protest, so long as they don't endanger anyone else. Beyond the fact that the protesters were extremely lucky they didn't cause a serious, potentially-fatal pileup, illegally blocking an expressway is not within anyone's rights.
Protests in some form or another have taken place recently in a number of international cities with Tamil communities, and while they have pushed the cause of the Tamils onto the headlines, they have garnered little sympathy by their actions, much less an increased international response.
So how far is too far, when protesting is concerned? Especially when the issue being protested is not one that most people witnessing it would recognize, much less be affected by. Would you support a rush-hour blockade of a major freeway in your city to call attention to a humanitarian crisis?
On the one hand, if people are suffering and dying, it's hard to begrudge anyone trying to stop it, but what good does disrupting civil society do? It's a question Torontonians are struggling with this week, and one that we'd all be well served to consider.
“You know things are bad when you can't trust the mailman.”
The almighty dollar has some people succumbing to its power.
A 42-year-old postal worker was stealing $0.42 stamps that were supposed to be sold to retailers. Instead of the stamps being mailed out to the stores, he began to sell them online at a discounted price. He made so much money from his scheme that he was able to pay $20,000 in mortgage payments.
When I heard about this, it really surprised me. I mean, that's a lot of stamps. I wondered if anyone else had done something like this. After doing some more research, I found that this isn't the only time folks from the post office have been caught doing shady business.
A postal worker in Marysville, California was reportedly caught stealing money from greeting cards being mailed. He's said to face up to 5 years in federal prison for this crime. It's incredible what some folks are willing to do for money.
I know times are tough people, but this is pretty bad. You know things are bad when you can't trust the mailman.
President Obama meets with health care industry leaders at the White House to discuss reform.
President Obama announced yesterday a new level of collaboration in the fight to bring affordable health care to the U.S. Speaking before members of the media at the White House, the president shared his enthusiasm on the willingness of all parties to come together to address the mounting difficulties in creating a 21st century healthcare system.
Described by Obama as “a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for healthcare reform," the Obama administration announced the healthcare industry's commitment to cutting $2 trillion dollars over the next 10 years.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney offers sharp criticism towards former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney made headlines again after making startling comments on Sunday about former Secretary of State and Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell.
When asked on "Face the Nation" about the future of Republican leadership among other things, Cheney stated that he was under the impression that Powell had left the party. "My take on it was Colin had already left the party," Cheney said. "I didn't know he was still a Republican."
You weren't sure he was still a Republican? Wow, that's surprising Mr. Cheney. Pretty surprising indeed.
Having real, honest discourse between members of one's respective party is natural and healthy. To say, however, that Powell left the party and is no longer a Republican after an endorsement is flat out wrong. For the record Mr. Cheney, Arlen Specter has left the Republican Party, not Colin Powell.
By the way, numerous conservatives had similar concerns about Sarah Palin during the presidential election, and I don't recall Mr. Cheney saying they left the party.
Will the new role of the GOP be to tear each other down and the last person standing becomes the winner? Or is this just an example of one bad apple spoiling the bunch?
Growing up in Canada in the eighties, you used to hear these stories about this mythical mall that had a roller coaster in it. AND a water park. AND a skating rink. To my young mind this was very impressive indeed. In fact, I suspected for a long time that it was one of those urban legends, like gum taking seven years to digest or snakes living in the sewer pipes, and didn't actually exist at all. The mall, it turned out, was real. It's in West Edmonton and does indeed have all of those things. It remains the biggest mall in North America, in fact.
When I started hearing things about Dubai, my reaction was similar. “What? A mall with an indoor ski hill?” What a notion! As with the other mall, however, it turned out to be true. The Mall of the Emirates has not just an indoor ski hill, but (because it's in Dubai and they don't do anything in a small way) the LARGEST indoor ski hill in the world.
This mall must be something truly spectacular, I thought. Something unlike anything I'd ever seen before. When I found out I was being sent to Dubai to write about the place, I knew my trip would not be complete without a stop there, and possibly a run down the fabled indoor slopes. I was looking forward to it.
My time at the Mall of the Emirates, it turned out, was limited. But after getting a look at the place, it didn't seem like such a big loss. To be fair, The Mall of the Emirates is big. It's a very big shopping mall. And it does have an indoor ski hill, which if not the largest in the world is certainly the largest I've ever seen. But that doesn't really change the fact that it's just a big shopping mall. And maybe this makes me the wrong person to be writing about it, but I've never really liked shopping malls.
Finding yourself on a ski hill on a 100-degree day is an odd thing, but you get used to it after a while. Our tight touring schedule didn't permit us to ski, so we donned ankle-length Ski Dubai parkas and rode the chairlift to the top of the hill and down again. It was surprisingly cold inside, like a walk-in freezer, and the crisp air-conditioned air smelled faintly of sweaty ski boots. Most of the people we saw on the slopes looked European, but that may be because the Emiratis don't wear their traditional robes to ski, and without them they look pretty much like everyone else.
After snapping some pictures of each other by the chairlift, framed by the evergreens and quaint wooden ski chalets painted on the walls, we went off to explore the rest of the mall. It's new, shiny and bright, with huge domed skylights and elevated walkways. There's an Adidas store, an H&M, and a Virgin Megastore, among countless others. Women in black burkas stroll in pairs and trios, differentiated only by height, sneakers and the brand of designer handbag they carry. It occurs to me that they must have a hard time picking each other out in a crowd. Men in dishdashas push strollers, past stores selling Chopard, DKNY, Louis Vuitton and Versace, window shopping with their hijab-clad wives. In one jewelry store, a couple of older Asian women are trying on watches. At 4pm the call to prayer sounds over the mall's PA system.
Before we leave I stand for a while by the exit to the carpark, watching the people exiting the mall with their shopping bags. Every time the automatic doors slide open a blast of cool air blows out and is immediately quashed by the desert air. It's hot outside, and I'd forgotten about that.
Watch this space for more of my Arabian adventures, coming soon…
Check out this video from the end of my trip to Dubai. To everyone I met in the UAE, who let me visit and take up way too much of their time, I say Shukran.
It is a funny coincidence that both Tamika and myself have been to Dubai in the last few weeks, separately. But it's not so much of a coincidence considering the resources the Emiratis are putting into their current PR campaign. And as everyone who has read anything about Dubai in the last few years knows, they don't like to do things by half measures over there.
The flight from the east coast is just over 12 hours, and added to the nine hour time difference, that means you leave at night and arrive early the next evening. It's always a bit disorienting going to sleep on an airplane and waking up halfway around the world, but it's twice as disorienting waking up in Dubai, a glittering metropolis in the desert.
After a short drive from the airport we arrive at our hotel, a brand new 63-story five-star deal next to the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building. I'm with a group of five other journalists, all here for the same reason I am, to visit this place and report what we see. I'm not tired, because I slept well in my comfy business-class chair-bed, and I'm not hungry because I ate on the plane, so I join my comrades in the hotel bar.
Dubai, like some parts of Texas, has odd liquor laws. Being a Muslim nation, alcohol is relatively new to the region, and bars are only allowed to operate out of hotels. Neos, one of two bars in our hotel, is on the 63rd floor. It has glittering marble floors and panoramic views of the city, dominated by the glittering sci-fi spire of the Burj, spiking upwards half a mile into the warm desert air.
The bar is busy, and getting busier by the minute. Around the room, British and South African expats sit in groups, drinking and laughing. Around the bar, men with good tans and their expensive looking dates sip cocktails and smoke cigarettes. People eye each other. It's almost like being in a bar anywhere else, except that people are smoking and all the bartenders are Indian. Every few minutes the elevator doors open and a new group steps out, women in strappy dresses and delicate sandals, men with gold chains.
It takes me about three seconds to realize this isn't my scene, but I stick around for a while just watching everyone. I order a drink and finish it. My grasp on the currency's pretty limited at this point, but I know it comes to more than $20. I give the Indian guys some of the funny-looking money and decide it's time to move along. In the elevator on the way down, a group of young, hip-looking Arab guys are talking about the price of iPhones. I don't speak Arabic, but I understand iPhone, and they say the numbers in English, so I can kind of follow along.
A friend of a friend, an American expat who lives here, has offered to meet me at the hotel and take me out on the town, so I go down to the lobby to wait for him. Outside is a steady stream of cars, a lot of Toyota LandCruisers and Range Rovers, and a more than normal number of Lamborghinis. There's a big crowd of people on the curb waiting to go inside. I realize that I didn't tell my friend's friend what I look like, and I don't know what he looks like, so I stand in the middle of it all and try to look conspicuous. This isn't too hard because I'm not getting out of a Range Rover and also because I'm the only one taking notes.
Watch for more of my Arabian adventures, coming soon…
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