Archive for July 15th, 2008
The Roots, Broken Social Scene Play Whistler Music Festival
There’s more to alpine mecca Whistler than just year-round outdoor sports and packed ski slopes, there are increasing opportunities to see incredible live music.
This weekend the inaugural Whistler Music Festival will showcase outdoor performances by The Roots, Broken Social Scene, Elvis Costello on July 19-20, 2008. If you can afford a weekend getaway, this might be a great way to get away.
Summer sizzles in the resort as the inaugural Whistler Music Festival brings in an impressive and eclectic roster of musicians for two spectacular days of music and fun in the great outdoors. Set to be one of the hottest music events of the summer, the Whistler Music Festival features a high-calibre line up of artists performing amidst the spectacular scenery of Base II’s Tube Park on Blackcomb Mountain.
Including Elvis Costello & the Imposters, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Bedouin Soundclash, Broken Social Scene, The Roots
Tags: Canada | Culture | Music | Whistler | festival | mountain | artists | BC | scene | martin | WOOD | Blackcomb | outdoor | musicians | bedouin | elvis | Social | broken | roster | soundclash | costello | The Roots | culturite | Medeski
McCain Criticized for Opposing Gay Adoption
McCain can’t expect to get away with this kind of moralizing, hetero-normative, ‘traditionalism’ in 2008. He should know better. But he doesn’t.
Advocates for gay and lesbian parents are denouncing Sen. John McCain, an adoptive father himself, for opposing adoptions by gays, which prompted his presidential campaign to clarify Tuesday that he does not seek a federal ban on the practice.
Only one state, Florida, outlaws adoptions by gays, which have become commonplace in much of the nation.
The Republican nominee-in-waiting was asked for his views on the subject in an interview published Sunday in The New York Times.
“I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption,” McCain replied.
McCain then remarked that he and his wife, Cindy, were proud to be adoptive parents of a daughter born in Bangladesh, and he encouraged others to adopt. Asked if those adopting should be a “traditional couple,” McCain answered, “Yes.”
The responses were condemned by gay and lesbian groups.
“He’s completely out of touch,” said Kara Suffredini, public policy director for the Family Equality Council. “There’s no reason, except for the sake of red meat for his base, to throw up screens in the way of children in foster care getting homes.”
Jody Huckaby, executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, said McCain’s comments were especially dismaying because more than 100,000 children are in foster care waiting to be adopted.
“Sen. McCain would deny loving homes to children who desperately need them simply because of an outdated prejudice about what a family may look like,” Huckaby said.
Tags: New York | Politics | Florida | republican | adoption | gay | lesbian | gays | World | campaign | John | US | McCain | PARENTS | presidential | ADOPT | oppose | culturite
Nelson Mandela’s Life As Graphic Novel
Having been feted with a huge 90th birthday party in London several weeks ago, Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela is receiving a new honour: his life story is to become a graphic novel.
What a great way to be immortalized, to share your story, and to raise money for charity.
A comic book series telling the life story of South African leader Nelson Mandela will be published in North America next year.
The graphic novel series was commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, with the first issue coming out in South Africa in October 2005.
The latest comic in the eight-part series is being issued in South Africa this year to coincide with Mandela’s 90th birthday.
A group of young black artists was hired to draw the story, which was approved by Mandela and his foundation.
All proceeds from the sale of the comic books go to the foundation’s work, which includes education, health care and other social justice issues.
W. W. Norton & Company has acquired North American publishing rights to Nelson Mandela: The Authorized Comic Book, according to a report in the New York Times. It says it will issue the series in July 2009.
Tags: North America | New York | Culture | Africa | London | Charity | birthday | Johannesburg | Series | Foundation | South Africa | Print | comic | NELSON | mandela | publisher | proceeds | 90th | graphic novel
New York Hosts Dark Knight Premiere
Anticipation continues to build toward the much-hyped opening weekend of The Dark Knight, as the film had its world premiere screening in New York last night, with the film’s stars and family of the late actor Heath Ledger in attendance.
The Dark Knight opens on July 16, 2008 in Australia, July 18, 2008 in North America, and July 24, 2008 in the UK.
Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman walked down the black carpet at the world premiere of The Dark Knight in New York.
Celebrity guests Josh Hartnett, Emile Hirsch, and Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick, Penn Badgley and Blake Lively also turned up at the AMC Lincoln Square.
Heath Ledger’s family, including his dad Kim and mum Sally Bell, flew in from Australia to attend the star-studded screening to see the late actor’s performance as the Joker, but they skipped the dark carpet, which tied in with the film’s darker atmosphere.
Christian Bale, who reprises his role as the Caped Crusader, gushed about the film, saying: “It’s great. I hope it lives up to their expectations. It’s wonderful when you’ve worked on something so hard and it’s a great cast, and a great filmmaker. I hope that it’s going to be appreciated but let’s not speak too soon.”
Director Christopher Nolan added: “I feel very excited that there’s so much anticipation around the film but obviously, that in itself is somewhat daunting.
“The film has a lot to live up to now so hopefully we’ve done it right.”
Tags: New York | Culture | Family | Australia | Premiere | celebrity | Batman | movie | United States | Screening | actor | dark | joker | Knight | Morgan Freeman | Christian Bale | culturite | Heath Ledger | gary oldman | Maggie Gyllenhaal | Michael Caine
Twitter Acquires Summize; Launches Official Twitter Search
As NowPublic speculated last week, Twitter has been getting set to purchase Summize, a search tool built on the Twitter API.
Today, it was announced that the acquisition has been made official — and Twitter simultaneously launched its own search engine at search.twitter.com with an admittedly catchy tag line:
Twitter has announced
that it has acquired Summize, and simultaneously launched its own search engine at search.twitter.com
We’ve followed Summize closely at Mashable, first reporting news of the company’s re-launch as a Twitter search engine back in April. Since then, Summize has added impressive features like local search, while also hinting at its distribution plans in inking a deal with the Huffington post.
The team behind Summize will be staying on, with all 5 engineers joining Twitter, according to a blog post by Evan Williams. Additionally, Williams says that Summize’s API will be combined with Twitter’s and “integrated under the Twitter brand.”
It should be noted that Summize was not the first mover in the Twitter search space and was preceded by projects like Tweetscan. But eventually they did it best and offered the most commercially viable product, and hence, to the victor go the spoils.
Tags: Blog | search | Web | Williams | tech | tool | 2.0 | ENGINE | Evan | twitter | culturite | Tech & Biz | Summize
U.S. Watch List Suggests Everyone’s A Terrorist
The U.S. terrorist watch list now has more than one million names on it, according the ACLU. Just don’t look too hard at who’s on it — you might find a few dead folks, the odd Nobel Peace prize winner, and maybe even yourself. At this rate, everybody’s a terrorist until proven otherwise! If in doubt, go ask The New Yorker about it.
A watch list of suspected and known terrorists, compiled by the US authorities, has ballooned and contains more than one million names, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday.
The ACLU said it derived that figure from a Justice Department report on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which consolidates terrorist watch list information.
The Center “had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month,” according to a report by the Justice Department Inspector General, the rights group said.
“By those numbers, the list now has over one million names on it,” the ACLU said in a statement.
Among those on the watch list are deceased people, such as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who was hanged in 2005, decorated war veterans, and US Senator Ted Kennedy, the ACLU said.
Nobel Peace Prize winner, former South African president Nelson Mandela, was also on the list until an act of Congress removed his name — the only way, according to the ACLU, to get off the list.
Tags: Washington | union | privacy | ACLU | terrorist | database | World | justice | million | American | List | names | LIBERTIES | watch | department | civil | authorities | culturite
Death Row Records Auctioned for $24 Million
Suge Knight’s infamous Death Row Records has been auctioned to Global Music Group for a cool $24 million. The gives Global access to the label’s extensive back catalog of multi-million selling rap records by artists like Tupac, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg.
My only fear is that this will result in yet another barely mediocre, posthumous cash-grab Tupac release that’s been pieced together from various discarded verses, hooks, and freestyles that hardly qualify as an album. Then again, the legacy of Tupac is a big part of the reason Death Row was sold in the first place. We’ll see how it plays out.
Death Row Records, the hip-hop label that released seminal gangster rap albums by Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, has been auctioned for $24 million.
The New York-based Global Music Group Inc. said in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday that on June 24 it purchased Death Row, including its enviable back catalog and current artist contracts.
The purchase concluded the roller-coaster saga of one of hip-hop’s most famous labels. Under owner Marion “Suge” Knight, Death Row sold tens of millions of albums in the heyday of early `90s rap _ its artists often flashing the spoils of the high life in music videos _ before collapsing in debt and mismanagement.
A former couple, Lydia and Michael Harris, claimed they helped found the label, and won a judgment of $107 million, which they tried to collect in 2006. Unable to pay, Death Row and Knight filed for bankruptcy in April 2006, claiming debts of more than $100 million.
In 2006, a federal judge ordered a bankruptcy trustee takeover of Death Row Records, saying the label had undergone gross mismanagement. Knight’s decision to file for bankruptcy protection staved off a move by the court to appoint someone to take control of the record label and his assets.
Global Music Group, an independent label, takes ownership of albums including Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic,” Shakur’s “All Eyez on Me” and Snoop Dogg’s “Doggystyle.”
Other assets are believed to include unreleased material from Shakur that could result in another posthumous release from the rapper.
Tags: New York | Culture | Music | rap | hip-hop | death | auction | artists | million | RECORDS | group | album | SNOOP | MARION | dogg | gangster | row | tupac | Knight | label | catalogue | Shakur | Suge | Global
Obama Tells NAACP Blacks Must Take Responsibility
08:21pm EST — Listen live to Barack Obama’s speech to the 99th NAACP convention in Cincinatti at http://www.naacpwebcast.com/naacp2008/
Barack Obama is conceding that he has angered some blacks by calling on them to show greater personal responsibility, but he says he’s not going to stop.
In remarks prepared for a speech Monday night to the NAACP convention in Cincinnati, the Democratic presidential candidate will say that while Washington has to provide more education and economic assistance, blacks must demand more of themselves.
He says that starts with parents guiding their children, turning off the TV and putting away video games.
Tags: Politics | Ohio | Washington | democrat | speech | United States | NAACP | World | responsibility | cincinnati | Obama | CANDIDATE | presidential | convention | Webcast | Barack | culturite
