| Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the US
PETER Carey and the Who's Pete Townshend make curious fellow travellers. Keen to fathom the siren call of Japanese popular culture to their respective teenage sons, they take different routes to the answer. Carey's ill-planned journey to unmask the real Japan was prematurely doomed to confirm, as his travel memoir avers, that he was wrong about Japan. He'd have been better advised to borrow Townshend's copy of Japanamerica, which the guitarist praises on the book jacket. Japanamerica is a stimulating guide to how Japanese pop culture has invaded the US. As a Japanese-American who divides his time between Tokyo and New York, author Roland Kelts is well positioned to explore the roots and ramifications of a steadfast and, to many, mystifying trend. Although artistic interchange between Japan and the West is centuries old, Kelts sees America's recent embrace of manga (comics), anime (animation) and video games as signifying and strengthening deeper connections between the two nations.
WWE News: Orton, DVD Sales, O'Haire, Hogan, More
- Former WWE and WCW star Sean O'Haire has been charged with aggravated assault and battery for the brawl he was involved in a few weeks back outside of the Hilton Brewing Co. O'Haire is currently being held at the Beaufort County Detention Center awaiting prosecution. The other guy involved in the brawl, Juan Hamilton Brantley, is also being held on the same charges. Both sides claim the other is the one who started the incident. [PWInsider.com] - Variety has an article today on "fringe DVD" sales. The article mentions strong sales for WWE DVDs. WWE's Joel Satin says in the article that even though some stores don't like the stigma associated with carrying wrestling DVDs, they do anyway due to the sales. - WWE.com says that the scheduled Edge vs. Randy Orton match was "pulled" from RAW last night due to the Shawn Michaels vs.
Nepali Media Boom in North America
A slow but steady growth in the population of non-resident Nepalis in North America has contributed to the growth of a nascent ethnic Nepali journalism in the continent. It is a story of constant growth, even as we speak, and far too younger than even the relatively short history of journalism back home in Nepal. As the Nepali community has grown, now estimated to be 150,000, the need to communicate among members of this community has also naturally increased. As a result, news outlets and other means of mass media have grown phenomenally in the past few years. These news media and informational outlets also serve as forums where members of the Nepali community, who constitute a segment of the new immigrants in the USA, share their common cultural identity and heritage. At a time when the power of media has become so pervasive in the United States, sometimes a medium in itself is the message, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan.
Blacks also are longtime critics of rap, hip-hop, forum shows
If an outcry over offensive language directed at black women sank Don Imus' radio career, why haven't black people complained about black rappers who use similar language? Well, they have, but relatively few people listened to their cries for a stop to the words and images depicted in rap and hip-hop music, said a panel of black scholars and activists who participated in Wednesday night's town hall discussion of "Does Hip-Hop Hate Women?" at Case Western Reserve University. Mark Anthony Neal, a popular culture professor at Duke University, said a generation of hip-hop aficionados has criticized the negative aspects of the music almost from the beginning. "It's not like no one has been having these conversations," he said. But Joan Morgan, former executive editor of Essence magazine and author of "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost," said she was angry because some celebrities garnered all the media attention in the wake of the Imus affair, while informed hip-hop activists were ignored by mainstream media.
What’s with the art world’s fascination with ‘bad boys’? by Nancy ...
I recently watched The Devil Wears Prada (2006) on a flight from London to New York, a not-so-new film that got a lot of press attention because of Meryl Streeps Oscar nomination for best actress. I had been curious about this movie since it tells the story of a mega-successful woman (its a thinly veiled portrait of US Vogue editor Anna Wintour) and her young female protge in the cut-throat, high-glamour world of fashion. In our allegedly post-feminist culture I wanted to see how Hollywood would treat the proverbial phallic woman, whether it would allow her to revel in her hard-earned authority or crush her under her own emotional shortcomings which, of course, is the typical outcome. (Full disclosure here: I once worked for Wintour while a fact-checker at New York magazine, hence my more than passing interest in the subject.) I wasnt too surprised that the film reiterated every misogynist Hollywood trope.
CT Classic Winning Isn't Everything
In the White House, the moral forces are strikingly friendly to most theological conservatives. As for the Supreme Court, hope flows like a freshet in anticipation of a new majority that will change the onerous Roe v. Wade decision. Nativity scenes on public property are, officially, no longer a sinister threat to the Constitution, and high school students may now study the Bible in classrooms after school. Prominent televangelists are emboldened as never before to speak up on public affairs. They are generating high voltage awareness about public issues among their mass congregants, and because of that they are becoming a potent force on the political power spectrum. Clearly, conservative moral forces are having more influence in the councils of government than in a generation. Why is this so? Those who closely follow the changing "power curve" point to several influences: a general conservative swing in the United States; religious radio and television personalities who have captured huge audiences (this giving them unprecedented publicity in the national news media); and evangelical lawyers who have used the courts intelligently to advance the cause of religious freedom.
King celebrates his 50-year reign on top of TV talk
When CNN Presents: Larry King -- 50 Years of Pop Culture airs, Anderson Cooper says a joke about his CNN colleague Larry King is that King likes to ask questions. His favourite question: Will you marry me? Yes, King has had many queens -- he's been married seven times to six different women. But while his matrimonial record is curious, it's just part of the legend of Larry King the broadcaster. The show was pre-empted for continuing coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. It will air on a later date. This week, the mighty, suspenders-wearing mouthpiece is celebrating 50 years in the broadcast game. During that half a century, King has notched 40,000 interviews. .
Survey tests college knowledge of politics
A recent study done at Tufts University in Massachusetts found college students are more likely to know that Gardner and Strickland are an Ohio senator and governor respectively, than that Malakar and Doolittle are contestants on this season's American Idol.
Last spring Melissa Miller and Shannon Orr of the University's political science department surveyed a random sample of 965 undergraduate students to test student's knowledge on political and government questions. The questions ranged from "Whose responsibility is it to determine if a law is constitutional or not" to "What school does Harry Potter attend." Miller and Orr found that more students answered the political questions correctly than the pop culture questions.
"I am always struck by how tuned in students are to politics," Miller said.
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