Things that matter
The Pakistani Telecommunication Authority has put together a list (two lists actually, an Urdu one and an English one) of more than 1,600 “obscene” terms that will have to be blocked in all text messages by the country’s mobile operators.
Among the words and phrases that will be censored:
Even though Hosni Mubarak was overthrown from his position as President of Egypt back in February, the country is still nowhere near where it wanted to be and democracy continues to be a distant dream.
Immediately after Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed leadership of the country and promised that parliamentary elections will be held on November 28, later announcing that Presidential elections will be held sometime in 2012 or 2013.
The people of Egypt, however, wanted a much swifter transition of power and so they got back out in the streets to demand it. The army didn’t like that.
Protests began on Saturday and police used batons and tear gas to try and disperse a sit-in in Tahrir square. The situation escalated on Sunday, when police forces began to violently beat protesters and fire live ammo in the crowds to disperse them.
Below is a photograph taken yesterday, showing a pile of bodies surrounded by police forces in Tahrir square.
On Monday, the third day of protests, Cairo morgue officials said at least 33 people were killed, while the Egyptian Health Ministry announced over 1,500 wounded. People on Twitter are saying:
“And we’re back. The fighting has resumed. Tear gas, shotguns, rockfights, and Molotovs in Cairo.”
It looks like this is the start of the second, bloodier, revolution.
Updated information on the situation in Egypt:
According to US lawmakers, pizza is now a vegetable. Well, technically, only the tomato paste which goes on the pizza has been declared a vegetable, but that is enough to enable food makers to market the pizzas themselves as healthy vegetables.
This happened because the food industry didn’t want their frozen pizzas to be replaced by actual veggies in the nation’s federally subsidized school lunches as the US Department of Agriculture suggested earlier this year. So after some quick lobbying, food makers got this to happen:
“[...] nutrient-rich vegetables such as potatoes, corn and peas will remain part of a balanced, healthy diet in federally funded school meals [...] ensuring that students may continue to enjoy healthy meals such as pizza and pasta.”
More dirty details on this here and here.
Anyway, if you’re a kid in the US and you’re tired of your parents telling you to “eat your vegetables!” you can now ask them for pizza. Legally, pizza totally counts as a vegetable. If they don’t like it, tell them to take it up with Congress.
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Keeping in line with their regular attention-whoring statements, PETA has just declared war against . . . Mario?
After finding out that the recently released Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS features a Tanooki suit (Tanooki is what the Japanese raccoon dogs are called), PETA has declared that “Mario Kills Tanooki” and that he “is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur.”
When on a mission to rescue the princess, Mario has been known to use any means necessary to defeat his enemy – even wearing the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers.
Tanooki may be just a ‘suit’ in Mario games, but in real life, tanuki are raccoon dogs who are skinned alive for their fur. By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur.
For those of you unfamiliar with the game, the Tanooki suit allows Mario to float in the sky to collect coins and traverse difficult jumps.
The suit first appeared in a Mario game back in 1989 but PETA has never had a issue with it until now, which means the organization may soon target The Flintstones and Tarzan for their unethical use of fur.
When asked about the reasoning behind their ridiculous campaigns, PETA representatives were quoted as saying “We honestly have nothing better to do.”
In any case, here is Nintendo’s reply to PETA’s accusations:
Mario often takes the appearance of certain animals and objects in his games.
These have included a frog, a penguin, a balloon and even a metallic version of himself. These lighthearted and whimsical transformations give Mario different abilities and make his games fun to play.
The different forms that Mario takes make no statement beyond the games themselves.
Hear that, PETA? It’s just a game.
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See that shack above? It’s located in the Dharavi neighborhood of Mumbai and has faulty electrical lines, no water supply, barely any sewage system, it floods during heavy rains, has only one room with barely any furnishings, the neighborhood is filled with mud and stinking trash, and yet the property is valued at ~$24,000.
Things are even more surprising in other slums, though, where “shanties as small as 120 square feet, located on the 90 Foot Road (photo below) [...] are as expensive as $93,000.” And some of those shanties don’t even have their own toilets, instead sharing a common toilet facility with hundreds of other people!
But wait, that’s not all! Apparently people are prepared to pay those high prices despite the fact that many shack sellers don’t even officially own the land under their shanties!
The reason for the crazy prices, however, is simple:
“We can reach Colaba in less than an hour, people would kill to be in a place like this,” said Sundar, a slum dweller who lives near the 60 Foot Road intersection in Malad East. “There are four local train stations close by. And the bus stop is a stone’s throw away,” he said.
I bet none of those shanty dwellers expected their homes to ever skyrocket in price.
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So the Recording Industry of South Africa (RISA) recently launched an anti-piracy campaign called “Shoot the Pirate.” In support of it, many artists in the South African creative industries went out on the streets to confront the pirate vendors selling their works. Things didn’t go as planned.
Artist groups and their fans ended up engaging in brawls with pirates and their supporters, brawls which sent a few artists to the hospital and others to the police station. Not very surprising considering the name of the campaign and artist to pirate ratios. But it gets worse.
Angered by what they call “infringement of our economic rights”, Creative Workers Union of South Africa president Mabutho “Kid” Sithole said some of the entertainers in both television and music had taken a decision to take the fight to both the street vendors who sell their products and manufacturers.
“We were invited to a TV show last week and the guys were clearly enraged at seeing their products sold cheaply on the streets.
“This is their hard work and people are making a living out of it without their authorisation. We want the government to show the same determination on piracy as they do to rhino poaching,” he said.
Poet Mzwakhe Mbuli warned: “We will now fight violence with violence. Artists get injured when they are out campaigning against this crime. Enough is enough,” Mbuli said.
Stay classy, African artists. Violence will surely get people to pay for your works.
PS: A poet involved in a fight against piracy? Who pirates poetry?
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