We are thinking of buying off Taliban fighters.....
"In advance of an international conference in London to discuss Afghanistan's future on Thursday, Japan, the United States and Britain are said to be leading the proposal.
The scheme would offer cash, jobs and other incentives to the Taliban and fighters in other armed groups.
"The sum could be as much as between $500m and $1bn over the next five years", Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from London, said.
He said the money would be used to persuade individual Taliban fighters that they are better off on the government's side rather than fighting on the side of the Taliban."
Read the whole article here. After the billions already spent trying to kill them all, now this. Why don't we try this in the first place? How can you be sure they won't use the $$ against us. Isn't that why we are in this mess in the first place because we funded Bin Laden?
This cracked me up only because I remember in the 70's when the US was going to go metric and we had to learn it in school. Metric measurements started showing up on food. By the time I reached high school (late 70's, early 80's)our conversion seemed to have been forgotten. Not only did I wonder what happened I was pissed at the time wasted on some "big change" that never happened. Click on the image for an enlargement.
Several amazing photos here. I tried to find the video on Youtube but from the article it sounds like the guy who took the video is making a documentary so I think we will have to wait for that. It just blows my mind that such a large creature feeds on Krill which are soooo small.
I'll try to keep this brief. Believe me, I know I'm a verbose person. Until Modern Family gays were used on tv as side kicks or utilized as a supporting actor. Usually a best friend. Even when we got Will & Grace, actual gay actors were passed over to have Eric McCormick play a gay man. Then the show never showed him in a relationship or in a romantic situation. It was overly safe. Then we had another "straight" man playing Jack - the normal flamboyant sidekick. I would count Queer as Folk, but that was on HBO. It isn't public.
Modern Family came out which follows 3 families and it is an ensemble show, so there is no main character. Out of nowhere there is a realistic gay couple on tv (not shown romantically) but realistically. They even adopt a baby. There is a gay family shown for what one really is like and there is no fan fare. The fact that there is no fan fare is actually kind of comforting. It's no big deal. Then within the show, the family is an equal compared to the other "normal" families. It's amazing and it is a very good show.
One of the couple is a large flamboyant country guy and he is with a redhead who is a paper pusher. He has a stick up his ass and he is not comfortable with his sexuality. This show captures the extremes of the gay community. The redhead often roles his eyes at his partner when he is flaming and tries to assimilate him and then Cam (the bigger one) is 100% comfortable with himself. They adopt a baby from an Asian country and the show focuses on what it is like being gay and raising a child in a straight world. One is always trying to show who he is and his partner is always trying to hide who they are. It sounds dysfunctional, but that is only when you compare it to a Rockwell painting.
I think our community is finally becoming equal in society, not politically, but in actual everyday life. They say that to understand a culture you need to looks at its art, and we are finally starting to get there if that is an accurate indicator. We even just had Kiss Kiss Bang Bang where Val Kilmer plays an overweight gay hit man lawyer with no apologies. He is a real life kind of gay man who is a little more tough than average. I loved it because it was SO dark and the comedy was so brutal. It's been that way in movies for a while now, but TV has been different. They even blurred out Adam Lambert (I don't get the obsession with him) when he was dancing but will show Hannah Montana working a stipper pole in front a theatre filled with pre-teens. It is an uphill struggle, but I think we are nearing the pinnacle.
Now we just need to get the word homosexual out of the english vernacular and allow us to serve in the military, get married, and have kids. That's all. Easy-peasy.
If you like this classic clip from Fawlty Towers and Absolutely Fabulous, then you should check out the Catherine Tate Show. It's the same British humor but with super high quality sketches. I feel like I may have already posted this next clip, but I may not have. It's one of my favorites from that show.
Here is more of the gay irish skit. Those were a bunch of different but continuous sketches mashed together and the link has more of them. I thought Kerry might like it being Irish. I think it might answer your questions about comedy at the expense of gays. It's completely fine so long as it isn't hateful.
Modern Family Trailer - Very Good Trailer, except the show doesn't use that music. It is an intro for the whole show. The clip after this is my favorite to date. Look at the guy from Married with Children's eyes at 1:03 - that's a good actor... I could write a term paper on the gay couple in this tv show. Also I would drink the straight dad's bath water.
A trailer doesn't really work for Galaxy Quest (I was spelling it wrong), but here is one anyways. Basically they are the actors of Star Trek doing whatever they have to do to make money, which is doing conventions. They hate their fans and they hate Shatner. Then real life aliens catch the tv transmissions and think the episodes were "historical documents" so they find them at a convention and the actors think they are getting offered another gig (convention nerd stuff) so they take them up on it. Then they really go to space and have to save this race of people, while lying to them about being actors. They try to play it cool because their egos need boosting. It all sounds cheesy, but it is a great comedy.
This is hard because there are like 10 songs I want to put up on here, but I'm not going to do that. I'll limit myself to 3 videos. I'm not a super fan or anything so I couldn't write a biography or tell you what city she is in right now or anything. I can tell you that she is an artist who has happen to become a pop star, but I really think she only does it to make money to fund her humanitarian work. She is a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. and has her own charity called the Barefoot Foundation that does a lot of stuff.
She was on CNN talking about how she is personally going to have schools built in Haiti, like she has had done all over central america. She has written an article for the Economist within the last few months as well as other legitimate humanitarian work. I say legitimate, because she doesn't just write the checks and phone it in. She's been this active year after year. When was the last time you heard about Madonna writing a piece for the Economist? I love her music and the rest is just stuff I've learned about her since. I kind of hate the fact that I met so many famous celebrities in Miami, most of which have condos there. Shakira lived there when I did and I never ran into her. She has since bought an Island off Miami.
Shakira's Unplugged CD rivals Nirvana's. I'm so tempted to post all of the songs, but here is Octavo Dia. I never heard back if Kerry understood Spanish or not, so I've found one that has translation but the video is off synch. If you're reading the lyrics, then you won't notice anyway. This song is political, so you will want to read the lyrics.
This is probably my favorite song of hers: Ciega Sordomuda and this version she sings with a mariachi, but the album is different. Thank god this version has the lyrics because it is my favorite. If you are a sucker for good lyrics about love then this your girl and this is your song. The title doesn't translate into english right, but it means a person who is incapable of speaking and hearing. It almost means deaf and dumb. Also, if you were to put this on your ipod and you don't speak spanish, you would know the chorus word for word.
Here is her covering Dude Looks Like a Lady for Aerosmith.
