The most amusing commentary I’ve seen yet on the illogic of American gundamentalists.
The Daily Show’s John Oliver makes a trip down under to interview former Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.
related – Gun politics in Australia
… South Africa is believed to have more people with HIV/AIDS than any other country in the world.
The 2007 UNAIDS report estimated that 5,700,000 South Africans had HIV/AIDS, or just under 12% of South Africa’s population …
The other top five countries with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence are all neighbours of South Africa. …
The four main HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in South Africa are Khomanani (funded by the government), LoveLife (primarily privately funded), Soul City (a television drama for adults) and Soul Buddyz (a television series for teenagers).
Soul City and Soul Buddyz are the most successful campaigns although both campaigns experienced a slight loss of effectiveness between 2005 and 2008. Khomanani is the least successful campaign, although its effectiveness has increased by more than 50% between 2005 and 2008.
The dubious quality of condoms which are distributed is a setback to these efforts. In 2007, the government recalled more than 20 million locally manufactured condoms which were defective. …
One local told me that there are some poor South Africans not worried to get AIDS so they can go on benefits.
Some of those, of course, are pregnant.
The Red Location Museum is an Apartheid museum in New Brighton township of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
… the floor space contains various “memory boxes”, each one exhibiting the life story or perspective of people or groups who fought against the Apartheid regime. …
It’s in the middle of one of the Townships, a place where the poor live.
We visited at night, a private tour after closing.
Very impressive.
Very moving.
… Many prominent political and cultural leaders were either born or lived in Red Location and a number of significant “struggle” (umZabalazo) events occurred here. …
District Six … is the name of a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. It is best known for the forced removal of over 60,000 of its inhabitants during the 1970s by the apartheid regime. …
MUST see attraction.
After World War II, during the earlier part of the apartheid era, District Six was relatively cosmopolitan. Situated within sight of the docks, it was made up largely of coloured residents which included a substantial number of coloured Muslims, called Cape Malays. There were also a number of black Xhosa residents and a smaller numbers of Afrikaans, whites, and Indians.
Government officials gave four primary reasons for the removals.
In accordance with apartheid philosophy, it stated that interracial interaction bred conflict, necessitating the separation of the races. They deemed District Six a slum, fit only for clearance, not rehabilitation. They also portrayed the area as crime-ridden and dangerous; they claimed that the district was a vice den, full of immoral activities like gambling, drinking, and prostitution.
Though these were the official reasons, most residents believed that the government sought the land because of its proximity to the city center, Table Mountain, and the harbor.
On 11 February 1966, the government declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act …
… in 1994 the District Six Museum came into being. It serves as a remembrance to the events of the apartheid era as well as the culture and history of the area before the removals.
The ground floor is covered by a large street map of District Six, with handwritten notes from former residents indicating where their homes had been; other features of the museum include street signs from the old district, displays of the histories and lives of District Six families, and historical explanations of the life of the District and its destruction.
In addition to its function as a museum it also serves as a memorial to a decimated community, and a meeting place and community center for Cape Town residents who identify with its history. …
District 9 is a 2009 science fiction film produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp. Although set in an alternate Johannesburg, it is inspired by the events surrounding District Six. …
I really liked this oddball film.
… the setting of District 9 is inspired by historical events that took place in South Africa during the apartheid era, with the film’s title particularly alluding to District Six.
District Six, an inner-city residential area in Cape Town, was declared a “whites only” area by the government in 1966, with 60,000 people forcibly removed and relocated to Cape Flats, 25 km (15 mi) away. …
Sony Pictures launched a “Humans Only” marketing campaign to promote District 9. Sony’s marketing team designed its promotional material to emulate the segregational billboards that appear throughout the film. …
The film received very positive reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 91% of critics gave the film a positive review …
The film received four Academy Awards nominations … It was also the first mockumentary style film to be nominated for Best Picture. …
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
I love everything Bill Murray. Predictably, I smiled all the way through this romp.
Hyde Park on Hudson is a 2012 British biographical comedy-drama film directed by Roger Michell. The film stars Bill Murray and Laura Linney as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Margaret (Daisy) Suckley, respectively. It was based on Suckley’s private journals and diaries, discovered after her death, about her love affair with and intimate details about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. …
In June 1939, King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, made a visit to the United States, during which they stayed at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s country estate in Hyde Park, New York. …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Though Rotten Tomatoes ranks it rank — 37% — Bill Murray was nominated for a Golden Globe.
Olivia Williams as Eleanor Roosevelt was my favourite character.
Ralph. Ralph. Ralph.
I liked him as Mayor of Calgary. And mostly liked him as Premier of Alberta.
Sure he had his faults. OK, many faults.
But ran consistent, increasing surplus budgets.
Politicians are trustees of other people’s money.
I wish he was still running the show. We’d be in much healthier shape than with Stelmach or Redford.
The best summing up I’ve read is in Macleans by Colby Cosh – Ralph Klein, R.I.P.: the deceptive shape of a shadow
by Nigerian filmmaker, Jeta Amata.
… “Black November” is a drama about Nigeria’s Niger-Delta region. The film is weighing into the 50-year history of western exploitation of the region’s oil resources, local collusion and violent resistance to it.
Nigeria’s Niger Delta region is the world’s third largest wetland but decades of oil drilling have turned it into one of the most oil-polluted places on earth. …
… The film has a cast that include Mickey Rourke, Kim Bassinger, Hakeem Kae-Kazim and Enyinna Nwigwe.
It also features Mbong Amata, Jeta’s wife; his father, Zack and his uncle, Fred. …
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
official website of the film
… The cinema of Nigeria grew quickly in the 1990s and 2000s to become the second largest film industry in the world in terms of number of annual film productions, placing it ahead of the United States and behind the Indian film industry.
… The average film costs between US$17,000 and US$23,000, is shot on video in just a week—selling up to 150,000–200,000 units nationwide in one day. …
… about “1,200 films are produced in Nigeria annually.” And more and more filmmakers are heading to Nigeria because of “competitive distribution system and a cheap workforce.”
I liked both films. But Lincoln is by far the more important, the more skillful.
It should have won Best Picture.
Lincoln … produced by Steven Spielberg, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln. The film is based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and covers the final four months of Lincoln’s life …
Lincoln received widespread critical acclaim, with major praise directed to Day-Lewis’ performance. ..
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
Daniel Day-Lewis is first to win three best actor Oscars, having previously triumphed for 1989’s My Left Foot and 2007’s There Will Be Blood.
The role I remember him best for is William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting in Gangs of New York.
Obama might be bad. Even terrible.
But history will confirm that G.W. was the worst President all time. He did more damage in 8 years than is even conceivable. I’m not sure anyone will be able to bring in a surplus budget in the foreseeable future.
By comparison, I thought George H.W. Bush was pretty good.
Tomas Young, dying American vet:
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. …
… I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens.
I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States.I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East.
I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion.
I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes.
The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences. …
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Rick McCharles 