An offer to save the Nasdaq from Germany’s ownership has Wall Street popping open the bolli today.
The front cover of the Wall Street Journal offsets stock market news with the tragic news involving UN workers being slaughtered. The story is pitted as a ‘religious war.’ Kinda.
Alan Kurtz of All Voices gives us this story with links – “In a bold stroke of religious one-upmanship, Terry Jones who has confessed to burning a copy of Qur’ an on US soil, has shifted blame from himself to Muslims for the massacre of 12 men at the United Nations Assistance Mission at Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan on April 1, 2011. Seven UN workers and five protestors were killed when a demonstration against Jones’s Qur’an burning turned violent.
The UN fatalities included three civilian aid workers from Sweden, Norway and Romania, and four Nepalese security guards. The incident began at Friday prayers, during which mullahs angrily incited worshipers to avenge the Qur’an burning. Thousands of rioters throwing rocks, wielding AK-47s, burning the U.S. flag and chanting “Death to America,” quickly overran and set fire to the UN compound.
Yet instead of issuing a mea culpa and making the talk-show rounds to contritely say “My bad,” Pastor Jones called the attacks a “tragic and criminal action” and demanded retaliation against the perpetrators by the U.S. government and the United Nations. “The time has come to hold Islam accountable,” he declared. “We must hold these countries and people accountable for what they have done as well as for any excuses they may use to promote their terrorist activities.”
Cafe Talk on the Matter – Joe and Michael swerve in to the next door table at the cafe in West Hollywood, we talk about this. Both are in their 70′s getting coffee before going to see a local play. They’re IT savvy grey powered people.
Joe says: “This whole thing is celebrity driven. It’s like people will do anything to get their 15 minutes of fame. They’ll kill UN workers. Whatever, just to get it. There’s vulnerable people in the world, programmed by others to do such things. I totally blame Facebook and movie stars. No, I blame Oprah. She started it on her show. We loved it, when people confessed big moments of meaning in their life to us all. Now there’s all those reality TV shows, Oprah started that. But really, I blame our American movie stars who get these ridiculous salaries and every one thinks Facebook culture offers them an opportunity to be one of them. All of this, “how many people are following me” stuff, is all a load of nonsense.”
Yes, many times it is. I try and look innocent.
RICKY GERVAIS AS GOLDEN GLOBES AWARDS HOST 2011
It has to be said that Ricky Gervais p*ssed a lot of people off last night at The Golden Globes. For example, he dissed Cher for her age and introduced Hollywood box office heavyweight Bruce Willis as “Ashton Kutcher‘s dad.”
In a way, before we all get charmed by the Brits this year on April 29th with Will and Kate‘s royal wedding, that many predict will be the most watched piece of happy television, this decade–I guess Ricky being described as a “polarizing host” by the LA Times–gives everyone in America a chance to spit tacks at a British twack, a little –before the big upcoming televised moment. That seems only fair.
When spicing up TV ratings next year, means offending people this year in the age of social media and televised Awards shows media and entertainment culture–the only main winner we already know is going to be –where everyone will natter on about Ricky’s remarks for days.
I like what Tom Hanks said about Ricky, how he knew him when he was “chubbier and a kind comedian” where tonight, he is “neither of those two things.” Lol! Ricky did give American audiences The Office TV show and created a vehicle for Steve Carell to shine as an American home name entertainer, so in a way he is a dad of American culture, not just a UK prat. But gosh – he was full on!
Here’s the advertisement, from a week ago heading into the Globes from L.A Weekly. As you can see, the ad features a cuban cigar smoking Ricky with a warning: “Prepare for Global Warming.” Crikey! Yep! He sure lived up to this ad. Not a good advertisement for atheists but as my dad says: “Wild fire is better than no fire.” Ricky was tots wild verging on maniacal disturbia last night.
Ricky now has the cart blanche card to say ‘nice things’ and everyone thinks he’s made personal growth from this point forward. Kind of clever really. And why does almost ‘everything’ have to be positioned as ‘polarized’ before it’s seen as cutting edge topic-worthy here in the US? We have Rush Lim-whatever his name is, getting way too much exposure on radio playing the same tactics. It’s a bit of an overrated snoozefest sometimes here–from people who are actually quite boring, earning way too much money, playing the ‘polarizing rhetoric card.’ Someone needs to call guys like Ricky and Rush out on this over-pampered-veneer. Oops, I just did.
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 1.17.11~
Posted by horiwood on January 17, 2011 in Aetheists, Commonwealth, Golden Globes, Hollywood Entertainment News, Not Funny, Pop Cultural Commentary, Ricky Gervais, UK