Archive for March, 2006
The fuss about Dubai: JLo
5:11 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Culture|society|World · 1 Comment
22 Mar 2006
Now that the Dubai port controversy is finally over, there’s a one more reason to talk about the UAE: JLo is going to give a “rare” concert there:
Jennifer Lopez, a well-known American actress, Latin Pop singer, fashion designer, and dancer, will exclusively perform live in concert at the Dubai Autodrome on April 27.
This will be her first ever concert in the Middle East region.
While Dubai is considered by many one of the more progressive parts of the Middle East, one has to wonder what people in the region make of JLo and her visit. Curious about that, I found one web site, Waleg.com, which has a comment string open about the JLo concert. The first comment reads:
all american singers are turning arabs like them, i hate them, athum kofaar. Dubai should kick jen out. she trying to seduce arab guys with her look. inah ilah wa inah ragoon.
Another commenter says:
Don’t you think that we have worst than JLO in the arab world now, Arab guys have enough to be distracted and seduced in their own countries.
While a few people chatting online cannot accurately reflect the mentality of an entire nation, I do wonder if John Q Public in Dubai — the non-expat community — believes that JLo and artists like her are contaminating the moral fabric of their culture with her wicked Western ways.
Dubai recently banned a concert by metal band Saxon (scary name!), citing their song, Crusader, as anti-Muslim.
Via / Trade Arabia and Waleg.com
Loco for Pedro.
22 Mar 2006
I saw my first Pedro Almodovar film when I was about 12 and it felt dirty and delicious, the way everything at the beginning of puberty should feel. I can’t even imagine how I will handle the Viva Pedro! film retrospective featuring eight of the Spanish filmmaker’s works. His creativity, vision and in your face boldness in dealing with heavy social issues continue to astound me. The retrospective runs from April to July which should hold fans over until his new film Volver is released. To find out more about the Viva Pedro! retrospective log onto : Sony Pictures Classics
Supreme Court Tells Ricans “No Vote For You”.
8:00 am By Maegan La Mala · Puerto Rico · 4 Comments
22 Mar 2006
On Monday the Supreme Court rejected an appeal that asked for Puerto Ricans to have the right to vote for president. According to Attorney Gregorio Igartua, who filed the appeal:
For 107 years and 22 presidential elections since Puerto Rico became part of the United States, the American citizens of Puerto Rico have an inferior type of American citizenship.
Puerto Ricans, who are born as citizens of the U.S., cannot vote in presidential elections and their congressional representative cannot vote. The only way Puerto Ricans could get the vote would be if Puerto Rico became a state. The only body who legally can make that happen is the U.S. Congress who has yet to make any move to do so.
Via / DiversityInc.
Thalia’s trip to NASDAQ
7:19 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Money|PR · 12 Comments
21 Mar 2006
(File under WTF) Do my eyes deceive me or is that Thalia I see closing the trading day at NASDAQ? Why, yes, it is the star of Maria Mercedes ringing the closing bell, with some March of Dimes people and a K-Mart executive. Struggling to find the tie-in…doh, there it is:
The reason she was there wasn’t financial but humanitarian: the Mexican superstar is part of a campaign that looks to inform pregnant women on ways to avoid premature births.
Apparently Thalia is a spokesperson for both the March of Dimes and K-Mart. I also remember her hawking some Hershey’s chocolate a while back.
I always have wondered about the “closing bell” ceremony and why it’s so often used as a PR platform. I mean I can see the relevance if a company is going public, but what does Thalia ringing the bell at NASDAQ do to promote the March of Dimes? If anything, it will just have a bunch of business men thinking “who the hell is this person?” when it dawns on them “oh, that’s Tommy Mottola’s wife.”
The mean, mean person inside of me wonders if Thalia even knows what the NASDAQ is.
Check out more photos of Thalia’s field trip to NASDAQ.
Via / Univision.com
Immigration, blogging and the power of media
3:25 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Blogs|Immigration|Movies|New York City · 1 Comment
21 Mar 2006
My friend Oso pointed me in the direction of a very intriguing documentary project being developed in the Bronx which proposes to explore how using social mediums such as blogs affects the lives of new immigrants:
What happens when immigrants in the Bronx start blogging? Can social media help people communicate better with friends and family back home? Can it help communities sustain themselves? The Bronx Blog Project is a multimedia documentary about community, immigration, homesickness, and technology. Focusing on the experiences of a handful of ESL students and utilizing video and the Internet, the project documents the effects of new communication technologies on people looking for better, cheaper ways to communicate to friends and family both in the United States and their home countries, and wishing to develop and maintain new communities in the U.S.
links for 2006-03-21
3:19 pm By Blogs Media · Quicklinks · Comments Off
21 Mar 2006-
The Republic of Baseball: Dominican Giants of the American Game,” a moving 90-minute documentary by Ruck and Manatt, is the complex story about the first generation of baseball players from the Dominican Republic
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Interesting take on the movie “Crash”
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St. Patty’s celebration for everyone — Latinos included.
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As Cuba and Japan prepared for Monday night‘s game in San Diego, Miami‘s Cubans found themselves in an awkward position, split over whether to root for the Cubans or protest the participation of the communist country in the tournament.
And What About the Immigrant Children?
7:51 am By Maegan La Mala · children|Immigration · 1 Comment
21 Mar 2006
There is so much talk about immigration reform. Shut down the borders. Build a bigger fence. Create an amnesty program. Create a visiting worker program. Kick em all the hell out. But very little attention has been paid to immigrant children (unless right wingers are complianing about how much is costs to educate them). Immigrant children fall into one of two catagories. They are immigrants themselves or they belong to mixed status families, meaning they were born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, who often lack legal status. The children in mixed status families are the ones most often at risk for poverty and all that comes with it (poor health, poor education, poor nutrition). And fpr those who say the immigrants are lazy, sucking up the resources of the U.S. :
According to a report by the National Center for Children in Poverty, 97 percent of children with foreign-born parents have a parent who works and 72 percent have a parent who works full-time, year round.
What happens when and if there are mass deportations, to the children who are legally citizens and legally have rights? Are people hoping Angelina Jolie will adopt them?
Via / TomPaine.com
A kinder, gentler Jeb Bush?
6:27 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration|Politics · 1 Comment
20 Mar 2006
Jeb Bush is calling for a “more liberal” immigration policy?
Bush told Notimex “we have plenty of people who have been here for many years and they do not have a way to legalize their status. A process should exist to create it”.
“It is not an amnesty, but I think it is important that if there are researchers and capable people all over the world who want to come here to pursue their dreams and they offer a quite important brain capacity for the new economy, we should capture it”, he said.
This regularization must come “along with a more liberal immigration process“, American President George W. Bush’s younger brother explained.
Brain capacity?
Anyone else think this is the world turned upside down? This is too liberal even for a “moderate” Republican. I mean he sounds like Hillary Clinton. Apparently he’s also too liberal for right wing crazies.
This reeks of presidential election bid.
More of Jeb Bush’s position on immigration.
Via / Que Pasa
Reality TV kills
3:54 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · TV|Uruguay · Comments Off
20 Mar 2006
Reality TV — America’s collective crack pipe — can sometimes be unbearable to watch, but who knew that it could also be deadly?
When I occasionally have watched shows like Fear Factor, I always thought “What if someone got seriously injured or killed? How do they protect against this?”
It seems that sometimes these shows are less than vigilant and the unthinkable happens. That’s what happened during the taping of a reality show in Uruguay last week:
A runaway train killed seven people and injured at least 11, severing some of their limbs, during the filming of a TV show in Uruguay, police said.The accident occurred during a “test of strength” challenge to raise money for a hospital in Young, 380km (235 miles) west of the capital, Montevideo.
Contestants were pushing and pulling a train and two carriages when the vehicle gained speed and ran them over.
Good God. This begs the much asked question “Has reality TV gone too far?” I personally think that the business model of low-production costs for high profits should at the very least take into consideration the safety of the participants.
Via / BBC News
Is Sending Money Back Home Bad ?
9:18 am By Maegan La Mala · El Salvador|mexico|Money · Comments Off
20 Mar 2006
Every day immigrants send millions of dollars back home, to where they came from and families they left behind. In the words of Martha Stewart, it’s a good thing. Or is it? An article posted today at AlterNet calls takes a really interesting look at some of the negative consequences of remesas. For example is the dinero that is being sent back home and being pooled to provide infrastructure development letting foreign governments off the hook from providing services they are responsible for providing like clean water? On a more global scale, do so called First World governments like the U.S. take into account the amount of money being sent back home when developing foreign aid packages? This article takes the issue to a different level I know I personally never have reached when passing the countless money transfer locations here in New York City.
Via/ AlterNet
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