After I got linked to it via reddit, I was hoping against hope that this was some sort of hoax, a commentary, perhaps, on the degraded, increasingly inane state of mass media entertainment.
No, it's real. IMDB confirms that it will include the voices of Drew Barrymore, Salma Hayek, and Jamie Lee Curtis, all of whom will presumably, some might say hopefully, fall victim to some ancient Aztec curse shortly thereafter. (Or is it Incan? Some redditcommenters have pointed out that the trailer seems rather vague on the matter.)
Late edit: I only just now noticed this, but the rapping chihuahua (two words that should never appear consecutively, by the way), who is ostensibly Aztec (Incan? Mexican? You know, one of those Spanish countries down thurrr), has what is more or less a Brooklyn accent. Sweet.
Ramya Raghavan left the Campus Progress staff this week after two years here. Thousands of young people across America know Ramya because she did an amazing job working on Campus Progress's communications, media, outreach, organizing, issue campaigns, events, trainings, etc. Because I am temporarily sidelined, recovering from a bike injury, and because Ramya is headed to San Francisco to work at YouTube, I will type no more but will let this homemade video (made for Ramya's going away party), do the talking.
Myself and Campus Progress' own Shereen just attended a screening of Nanette Burstein's "American Teen", a documentary following the senior years of a few Indiana high-schoolers. A longer article may follow so I'll hold my tongue for now, I just wanted to say go and see it, it's great!
(though it isn't released until mid July, which in recommendation terms is an age away)
Campus Progress, along with the Scripps School of Journalism, is sponsoring a media reform conference this weekend at Ohio University. Campus Progress Student Advisory Board member Chelsea Toy is one of the lead organizers. Myself and Tanya from Campus Progress will be at OU for the event, which includes a film screening of A Soldier's Peace and a Q and A with producer/director/Iraq veterna Marshall Thompson. You can check out the full schedule of the conference here. Pre-registration is not required, so just show up Friday night and Saturday! Let Tanya or I know if you want to meet up and hear more about Campus Progress.
Thursday morning in the Wall Street Journal, Club For Growth head Pat Toomey has an oped ("In Defense of RINO Hunting") defending the success and legitimacy of his organizational's primary election efforts. For those unaware, Club For Growth is an ultra-conservative PAC with the goal of making the Republican Party even more rabidly anti-tax (for the rich) and friendly to the policies favorable to big business. The Club for Growth raises large amounts of money - both for right wing challengers to semi-moderate GOP incumbents, and for conservatives in competitive races with Democrats.
Though it is very difficult to seriously compare the expansion of the progressive movement and the transformation of the Democratic Party to the nefarious Club for Growth, some of the Toomey's rhetoric is interesting. After noting that the Republican establishment usually writes the CFG off as "stupid" (Tom Cole) and "wrong" (Newt Gingrich), Toomey makes a rather critical point:
Thus comes the demand for an uncompromising obeisance to the bottom line: Elect as many Republicans as possible, regardless of how they will vote once in office.
Registration just opened for the 2008 Campus Progress National Conference. If you thought last year's conference was great, just wait for this year's event. Past keynotes have been Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi. And if one day of hearing from amazing speakers, networking with students activists from all 50 states, and building the skills you'll need to transform your campus into a progressive bastion in the fall aren't enough, then don't worry, Campus Progress has you covered.
On July 7th, Campus Progress is organizing with USSA and the Student PIRGs a Grassroots Training Day.
On July 9th, Campus Progress and The Nation present their annual National Youth Journalism Conference. Speakers already confirmed include Eugene Robinson, Asra Nomani, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and Mathew Yglesias.
All of these events fill up quickly so apply to attend today!
I agree with a lot of this Joseph Rago column in the Wall Street Journal (now there's something I don't say often), which details the story of Priya Venkatesan, a professor at Dartmouth. Venkatesan left the school for Northwestern and threatened to sue her students (along with her bosses) for violating her civil rights due to their "anti-intellectualism" after they were less than receptive to her ideas.
There is widespread support in Congress and across the country for new legislation to deal with the increasingly apparent problem of anthropogenic climate change and global warming. However in the opinion of a new report released today by CAP, waiting for Congress is unnecessary because the U.S. already possesses powerful laws which are unfortunately being under-employed in the fight - The Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) - the list is extensive. The latter act, in particular could be better utilised.
NEPA requires federal agencies to assess the likely environmental and social effects of major projects before initiation. Unfortunately, even when this is complied with, the assessment rarely looks at how larger global environmental trends will affect the action over the long term. In an example given by Bill Clinton's Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, the keynote speaker in an event hosted by CAP to coincide with the report's publication, the Army Corps of Engineers made a major error when planning their Coast 2050 project in Louisiana. The $14 billion endeavour, covering a 10,000 square mile section of the Mississippi delta in Louisiana, ignored the world-wide problem of rising sea levels when making its environmental assessment. According to Mr. Babbitt, 95% of the area is less than 3 ft above sea level and is subsiding (sinking) at an average rate of 1 ft per century. At the time of the assessment, IPCC estimates for the rise in sea levels over the same century were approx. 1 metre (roughly 3 ft). Therefore, over the course of the hundred years most of the area which the Corps would have worked on will end up a foot under water, thus making the project a massive waste.
The CAP report "outline[s] an Executive Order that clarifies what we believe is already a requirement under NEPA — that federal agencies can and should explicitly assess the implications of their actions for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming." It represents an entreaty to the current and future Presidents, a request that they use their executive prerogatives to help apply the existing law properly. Government efficiency, helping the environment - what's not to love?
I recently blogged about my perceived solution to climate change and my criticism of nuclear and coal solutions. Some people replied aggressively saying that Nuclear is 'safe and cheap' and calling me shortsighted.
I would like to share a couple of articles about nuclear energy that I read recently.
When you spend a lot of time on the internet, where news of petty cruelties travels at the speed of light, you get jaded pretty quickly. You find yourself thinking things like, “Well sure, that video of a policeman tazing an 80-year-old nun who was leading an orphanage field trip is pretty bad, but it’s nothing compared to that jackass ‘artist’ who starved a dog to death for one of his ‘exhibits.’” In other words, it becomes more and more difficult to be impressed or shocked by the random idiocy and violence that’s out there.
But once in awhile, you come across a story that far exceeds the internet’s usual standards—a story that replenishes your faith that humanity has yet to plumb its deepest depths, that we still have miles to go.
Five years after President Bush declared the Iraq War “Mission Accomplished,” more than 4.7 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes –about 15% of Iraq’s population or the populations of Iowa, New Hampshire, and Washington DC combined. Five years later, the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is still one of the most underreported catastrophes of the Iraq war and it’s not getting better.
This is the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948 and was directly caused by the U.S. invasion. Yet, the United States has done little to alleviate this massive humanitarian crisis. Fewer than 6,000 Iraqis have been resettled in the U.S. since the war began.
Just on Tuesday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees released a survey of Iraqi refugees in Syria. 95 percent of respondents said they “fled Iraq because of direct threats or general insecurity” and only 4 percent of the respondents had any plans to return home.
An AP story reported today that a woman in Afghanistan who was raped and abused was arrested and given a four year sentence for adultery and escaping her house. The young woman said she was kidnapped by a neighbor and delivered to an Afghan man along with her 3-year old son. The man raped her for three months. Afraid of losing her son, she attempted to run away. When she was found and brought home, the man beat her and her son. She reported it to the authorities, they came and arrested him (who is serving 20 years for the murder of the 3-year old boy he beat) and her. Given the four year sentence on December 5 and now in jail, she asks "Why am I here?" The chief prosecutor on the case, Abdul Qayum, said “She committed adultery. It was rape, but the woman is also guilty.”
After suggesting that she got a light sentence, Qayum said, "This is Afghanistan, not America.” While his comment suggests the difficulty of applying human rights standards, especially women’s rights, cross-culturally, this is a huge setback to the past improvements for Afghan women. Although the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission documented an increase in the number of women complaining of violence, this case threatens that improvement and could set a precedent for women to keep quiet despite horrific conditions and abuse.
In a recent Center for American Progress Action Fund event, several experts from the Asian American, Latino, Native American, and African American communities discussed their views on the role minorities are playing in this year's campaigns, how they are participating, how the media are viewing them and how the candidates are treating them in their quest for votes. General themes were the existence of the first ever truly competitive non-white presidential candidacy, the recent decision by the Supreme Court to uphold an Indiana law requiring all voters to present a government issued photo ID on voting day and how building coalitions between America's minority populations was important, but held great challenges.
Some of the most prominent points were:
The contradictory media treatment of minority communities - they are often painted as a general block to contrast with whites and yet there is the portrayal of groups in tension, for example the commonly heard assertion that Latinos would never vote for an African American presidential candidate.
The need to work together as communities of colour to achieve change. One speaker identified the successes that have been achieved when this happens, for example the recent reauthorisation of temporary sections of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) saw cooperation between them despite differing interests. Preclearance, for example (whereby certain, mostly southern, states and counties must apply for federal permission before changing voting laws), is an issue for African Americans who have large populations in the affected states, but was less important to Asian Americans who don't. By contrast Section 203 of the 1975 VRA, which requires bilingual ballots and oral assistance to those who speak Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Native American languages, and Eskimo languages, is not overly critical to African Americans but vital to Asian Americans (Latinos and Native Americans are very interested in both). Despite these diverging interests, the coalition stuck together and achieved success on all fronts.
The problem of working together like this without being portrayed as a monolithic, stereotypical block. There is no such thing as a "Latino voter", an "Asian American voter" or a "minority voter". The important thing is for coalitions within and between communities to realise the differences and be flexible enough to survive diverse opinions.
The reality that some minority groups are left behind. There is very little polling data or media coverage for Asian and Native Americans, for example.
The effect of the recent Supreme Court decision on minority communities will be significant. They are less likely to have the required ID and the resources and time necessary to get it.
All in all it was a very interesting discussion. I took more detailed notes which I can type up if someone desperately wants to read them.
A senior official with Zimbabwe’s ruling party (ZANU-PF) announced that a run-off vote was needed to decide the country’s presidential election that originally took place on March 29. This sparked much anger among the opposition party because the current situation proves that Mugabe has been and will continue to rely on violence and intimidation to stay in control of the country. A spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party, said that they will refuse to participate in a run-off because they claim they won the first election and the results being released are rigged. While protestors arrested last week as part of a crackdown were released, this is no indication of hope in Zimbabwe as the Human Rights Watch said that organized violence and terror against opposition supporters has intensified.
The UN Security Council had been divided in how to respond to the situation in Zimbabwe. President Bush called on Mugabe to respect the decision of the people of Zimbabwe and accept defeat. At a UN Security Council meeting (after turning away an MDC representative because he was not part of a government, therefore he was not allowed to join them), the U.S., Britain and France supported intervention (a U.N. special envoy and a voluntary arms embargo). But other members, particularly South Africa, were more reluctant to intervene. China, Russia, Libya, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, and Vietnam also agreed that international intervention was not appropriate until Zimbabwe asked for it. While the opposition party has been asking for intervention, it is highly unlikely Zimbabwe will because the ruling party is deeply suspicious of any US intervention.
I am also suspicious of intervention because, as history has taught us, it can be disastrous. But it’s hard to be an onlooker in this situation. How much more violence can Zimbabwe take? Mugabe’s presidency has overstayed its welcome. Because of the political intolerance that has plagued the country not just the past few months, but years, the fact that the opposition party even was able to get this close in some ways surprises me and gives me some hope, but I’m afraid that as the opposition gets stronger, Mugabe and the ruling party will get more and more desperate to hold onto control.
Most development experts will tell you that clean water scarcity is one of the greatest obstacles to lifting people out of poverty.
Check out this video from the winning entry of the "Innovate or Die" competition to develop a pedal powered device which has a positive impact on the environment.
Even though this isn't goint go solve the problem on its own, might not be practical or affordable or a believable solution (I really don't know enough about the product or the issue to judge), what I love about this is that it shows our potential to innovate sustainably.
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound"
Isaiah 61:1
Growing up in northern Georgia I have seen my share of bigoted Christian white American's who not only hated their fellow black citizens, but found absolutely no contradiction in following a peace-loving Jesus Christ and defending the War in Iraq or historical acts of U.S. imperialism abroad. In high school I began to question the legitimacy of my faith and the existence of a God that ordained the powerful to commit acts of brutality and intolerance while ignoring the cries of the world's poor and most vulnerable. That is when I stumbled upon the writings of Gustavo Guitierrez. Guitierrez was a priest in Latin America who asked many of the same questions I had been wondering about my self. The end result was an inspirational message for the poor and oppressed known today as Liberation Theology--a doctrine which holds that God desires not only salvation but liberation of the marginalized, and defenseless.
The recent controversy around the comments of Barack Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright fails to acknowledge that the statements he has made over the last several decades are not a militant "black" thing but a deeply human attempt at touching a distant God. The outrage over the comments of Rev. Wright are troubling because they completely ignore one of the most disgusting attributes of America's short history--a violent combination of Christian Protestantism, white supremacy, and capitalist expansion Westward in this land or in others across the oceans. My statements are not controversial except in an American society that is out of touch with the world's poor and oppressed. Perhaps, this is why so many American's find it hard to understand contemporary events in Latin America.
In Latin America today, Liberation Theology is a pain in the side of the Roman Catholic Church. It (the Catholic Church) has publicly gone great lengths to distance its self from priests and theologians who believe in a God of the oppressed. When the Pope made statements defending the crusades in Latin America, which lead to the mass subjugation and slaughter of indigenous people, it further unveiled a dialectical split between opposing Christian theologies and conceptions of God. The recent election of the Paraguayan president, Fernando Lugo himself is an example of a priest who found the dominant theologies of the Christian faith incompatible with the living conditions of the majority of his people.
Liberation Theology is not anti-Americanism. Instead of trying to deny the troubling history of a nation who's founder said "all men created equal" and simultaneously defended the rape of black women slaves in his Notes On Virginia, we resign ourselves to labeling people anti-American. Not only is the categorization baseless libel, it is an oversimplification of a global phenomena many of us would rather pretend did not exist. Rev. Jeremiah Wright did the correct thing in pointing this out during his history lesson at the National Press Club.
Timesonline reports that Llewellyn Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is dumping $500 million into The Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience – an American-style amusement park featuring a skatepark, rides, a concert theatre, and a museum.
The park is being designed by the same firm that developed Disneyland.
Werner will retain exclusive rights to the development project. He told the Timesonline:
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t making money,” he said. “I also have this wonderful sense that we’re doing the right thing – we’re going to employ thousands of Iraqis. But mostly everything here is for profit.”
Petraeus is a “big supporter” of the park, according to the Timesonline.
Does a Disneyland-style amusement park in a volatile, war-torn country reek of cultural hegemony and yet another excuse to privatize more of Iraq’s resources for US profit? It does to me.
Today Emily Bazelon looks at a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education that talks about how colleges and universities with the biggest endowments -- usually over $500 million -- are working at increasing class and race diversity, but somehow the number of students who receive Pell grants are falling. So if these schools were really successfully recruiting lower-class students, wouldn't the Pell grant numbers be going up? The answer is, they're not. The answer, then, isn't to increase recruitment in schools where they might find lower-class students, but instead Yale and Harvard are expanding to upper middle class families with incomes up to $200,000.
These premium colleges and universities seem to be so out-of-touch with the lower class students that they're not recruiting successfully. I grew up in a small town full of middle- and lower-class working folk, something those coastal elitists like to call "flyover country." Part of the problem is that education for a lot of people that might be in the classes that they'd want -- the kind that are in the Pell grant-receiving brackets -- view education as a much more practical venture. They want to earn a degree that will take them the furthest without breaking the bank.
Please remember that Campus Progress' terms of use do not allow promoting or endorsing any particular political party or candidate for office. Posts or comments that do this will be deleted.
Posts
