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November 2008
Who’s NOT coming to Christmas dinner?
Who’s the Hollywood star Americans would most like to chow down on turkey with this Thanksgiving? According to a survey by AOL, it’s none other than Jennifer Aniston.
Now London’s Guardian newspaper is wondering who your Hollywood Guest List From Hell would be for Christmas dinner. In a column this week, associate editor Xan Brooks said he’d steer clear of the superstars who traditionally are featured on “most hated” lists such as Tom Cruise and Lindsay Lohan. “I figure they’d actually be quite good value as Cruise might jump around on the table and Lohan would get loaded and start hitting on the next-door neighbor,” he said.
Instead, Brooks decided to go for the pompous and the preening, the precious and the fussy, the sanctimonious and the self-obsessed.
So who would he most hate to spend this Christmas with? His six worst guests would be Kate Hudson, Hugh Grant, Sharon Stone, Tim Robbins, Sofia Coppola, and M. Night Shyamalan.
These stars “would make me feel truly wretched about my shabby little life and paltry attempts to lay on a Christmas spread,” he said. Bah, Humbug.
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Guns N’ Roses album a plot to embarrass China?
The new Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy” is an attempt by the aging rockers to “influence the world’s (opinion of China) by using democracy as a pawn,” a newspaper run by China’s ruling Communist Party editorialized on Monday.
“(The) western stars, who are surrounded by news of drugs, sex and violence, rarely come to China and don’t have any understanding of Chinese democracy,” the Global Times reported in an article titled “American band releases album venomously attacking China.”
The band began recording the album in 1994 and it was released in the United States on Sunday. But Beijing’s censors, who maintain tight controls over films, music and books, are unlikely to allow the work to be sold legally in China.
The record’s title track makes a reference to the Falun Gong spiritual movement that Beijing banned as an “evil cult.” In an apparent message to China’s authoritarian government, it warns that “if your Great Wall rocks, blame yourself,” the Associate Press reported.
Beijing approves only a limited number of foreign films and recordings for distribution each year and regulates live performances, including by forcing bands to submit set lists before shows.
The Rolling Stones were barred from playing several songs with suggestive lyrics during a concert in China 2006, including “Brown Sugar” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”
Censors tightened restrictions earlier this year after Icelandic singer Bjork shouted “Tibet!” at the end of a concert in Shanghai.
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Europe loves Hillary Clinton, but as Secretary of State?
Europe loves Hillary Clinton more than any other part of the world. But the idea of her being the next U.S. Secretary of State has drawn a tepid response from Europeans.
Simon Tisdall, an editorial writer for London’s Guardian newspaper, said the choice of Clinton would make no one happier than the Republicans. “In their jaundiced view, it would be a first, encouraging indication that the president-elect, who has sometimes seemed to walk on water, is capable of making unforced errors,” he wrote.
He wrote that the choice of Clinton would give the Republicans a familiar target. “The resulting uproar might quickly become a serious distraction for Obama just as he tries to seize the political agenda,” he wrote.
Even Bronwen Maddox, the chief foreign commentator for the London Times — and a female — said that Hillary is not the right woman for the job.
“It’s not that the choice would be terrible for U.S. foreign policy. She would surely do an excellent job - thorough, detailed, tenacious - as she has in her eight years as senator for New York,” she wrote. “But it would hand the rebuilding of America’s worldwide reputation - one of the defining themes of Mr. Obama’s campaign and presidency - to someone who has her own strong views. Not disastrous views, at all, from what we know. But different from his; sometimes subtly, sometimes sharply, and very definitely hers.”
In the end, she wrote that: “There is an old principle that you shouldn’t hire someone you can’t fire. That is why Barack Obama would make a huge mistake if he were to pick Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State.”
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Chinese say Yao Ming should fight back
Hundreds of Chinese criticized Houston Rockets basketball center Yao Ming - China’s best-loved athlete - for backing down in a shoving match between the Rockets and Phoenix Suns on Thursday.
The fracas started when Houston’s Rafer Alston pushed a Phoenix player at midcourt. Tracy McGrady then shoved Steve Nash and was in turn pushed down by Shaquille O’Neal, “who with one arm moved the entire scrum several feet,” the Associate Press reported.
When Yao came to pull McGrady out of the mess, O’Neal shoved him down as well, China’s Sohu Sports website said.
When Sohu Sports asked readers if Yao should have fought back, 82 percent said he should have.
One typical posting to the site blamed Yao for weakness. “You should have hit him,” the anonymous posting states. “You can’t let people think you can be pushed around.”
“If Yao gets in a fight and no one comes to help him, it will be horrible. The whole Chinese nation will lose face,” the comment said.
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Coming soon to a theater near you …
With the U.S. presidential election finally over, we can turn our attention to more important things — the biggest films of 2009. And, according to the London Times newspaper, there are plenty of big ones coming out next year. Here are what the paper’s reviewers believe will be the top five movies of the year.
1) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July) Harry Potter fans will already have a fairly good idea of what happens in this, the sixth film in the hugely popular boy wizard film adapted from JK Rowling’s all-conquering books. It was an early script draft of this film that prompted Rowling to ‘out’ Dumbledore while promoting the final Potter book.
2) Public Enemies (July) Starring Christian Bale and Johnny Depp
3) Star Trek (May) Starring Winona Ryder as Spock’s mom
4) Watchmen (March) Alan Moore’s superlative comic book comes to the big screen
5) X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May) Hugh Jackman’s back
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Latin America not expecting too much from Obama
With the U.S. facing the worst financial crisis in a generation, many here believe Obama will be far too preoccupied with fixing the U.S. economy to get into a battle over immigration.
In Mexico and throughout Latin America the feeling is that the Bush administration has largely ignored the region. If it didn’t have to do with drugs or border security, most here believed, the United States wasn’t interested. Now that worries over terrorism have been replaced by worries over a cratering economy, Latin America still seems far from becoming a focus for the incoming administration.
“Obama has said little about the relationship with Mexico and in fact, there’s little to be hopeful about in the short term,” wrote the influential Mexico City daily El Universal on Wednesday.
And here’s what Mexico City office worker Juan Juarez told us when we did a round of man on the street interviews after the election: “I think that for Mexico it doesn’t make a big difference who won the presidential election in the United States, since the Americans will continue their cold and distant way of treating issues of importance to us like immigration reform.”
That sentiment echoed throughout the region. Guatemalan Chamber of Commerce President Edgardo Wagner said he isn’t expecting much from an Obama presidency. “The issue of immigration will continue to be treated the same way,” he said. “If in better times the United States didn’t support us, now even less so.”
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Obamamania in China
The photograph on the cover of Friday’s China Daily showed a poster of Michael Jordan soaring towards a slam dunk — with a picture of President-elect Barack Obama taped over his head.
The image highlights China’s growing infatuation with Obama. While Beijing analysts expected a McCain or Obama administration to have similar China policies, average Chinese have been caught up in the global Obamamania.
“The Illinois senator has fans all across the globe,” an editorial by Raymond Zhou in the China Daily read on Friday. “And over here in China, he seems to have a grip on the imagination of Chinese youth.”
One recent survey on the China Daily’s website found that 80 percent of respondents preferred Obama to McCain.
Why do Chinese like Obama?
According to informal poll Zhou conducted on Beijing college campuses, the top reason was that “Obama belongs to an ethnic minority, which will change the way people outside America perceive racism and the American Dream,” Zhou wrote.
Other respondents said they expected an Obama administration would be more likely to work with foreign governments than a McCain administration would have been.
Even Beijing seems to be warming to Obama. An official editorial in the China Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, called Obama’s message “forceful and uplifting”.
“China waits to see the change it can believe in,” the paper said.
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For America, a post-election boost in Europe
What a difference a day makes. Since Barack Obama’s victory, America has gone from being a pariah in Europe to being a most admired nation. In newspaper after newspaper across Europe, politicians, pundits, and writers welcomed America back to the fold this week.
The lead editorial in London’s Guardian newspaper on Thursday was titled “Welcome Back America.” It said that the world has been waiting patiently to welcome America back into the community of nations.
“The Bush doctrine, which gives America the right to secure itself from international threats, must be turned on its head,” it said. “If the threats facing America - terrorism, nuclear proliferation and climate change - cannot be faced by one country alone, international coalitions must be genuine.” It added that: “Eight years of failed foreign policy is enough. Enough lives have been lost, enough countries ruined, by doing things the other way. America, welcome back into the world.”
An editorial in London’s Independent newspaper echoed those sentiments, saying that: “For all the cruelties and prejudices of the past, it speaks well of the United States that such a victory came to pass - or, as the President-elect expressed it with more poetry, the true genius of America is that America can change.”
Berlin’s Der Spiegel newspaper also said that America had rediscovered its political calling. “America has reinvented itself by choosing Barack Obama as its new president in an election that has fanned enormous expectations in America and around the world.”
Overall, Europeans say they are looking to Obama to lead the way on climate change, close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center, and ease America out of Iraq without destabilizing the country. Oh, and they hope he fixes the economy, too.
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Election Day Question: Who were among the greatest U.S. presidents?
With the election finally upon us, the venerable Times newspaper of London has decided to enlist the help of a panel of staffers to pick the greatest U.S. presidents of all time.
So who is the greatest of them all? It’s no surprise that No. 1 on the list is Abraham Lincoln, chosen because of his ability to keep the fledgling nation alive when it could have collapsed.
The other best commanders-in-chief include:
2) George Washington 3) Franklin D. Roosevelt 4) Thomas Jefferson 5) Theodore Roosevelt
One surprise is that Ronald Reagan comes in at No. 8. According to the Times’ American editor, Gerard Baker, he “revived American self-confidence at its lowest ebb.” (Incidentally, Bill Clinton is ranked 23rd and Jimmy Carter is ranked 32nd — narrowly escaping the worst 10.)
So where is George W. Bush ranked? He’s tied with the dastardly Richard Nixon at No. 37.
The worst all-time president, according to the panel, was actually James Buchanan, whose failure to prevent the Civil War was noted as the greatest single mistake ever made by any president.
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