| Simon Pegg: Zombies, Cops and Ewoks?
Three decades before British actor and comedian Simon Pegg was smacking zombies upside the head with a cricket bat (Shaun of the Dead) or chasing down suspects in a not-so-innocent English village (Hot Fuzz), he was, like many kids of the '70s, completely enthralled by bizarre characters inhabiting a galaxy far, far away. "I was at my friend Chris's birthday party in 1977," Pegg says. "He'd already seen Star Wars, although at this point I had not. Someone had bought him a set of rub-on transfers of all the characters which I helped him apply to the Death Star diorama that came with them. I clearly remember being fascinated by the character names and not knowing who was who. I wondered why the old man's sword appeared to be on fire. It's the last memory I have before the day my parents finally took me to see the film.
Comment: Descent from misfit to mass ...
CHO Seung-Hui. A very plain, sullen, bespectacled, straight-haired, 23-year-old college undergraduate with clearly Oriental looks of the less glamorous type, friendless and reading English literature, a sensitive and creative field of study, and presumably with a home-front where a caring mother cooked and washed for him and a father who worked hard to earn the dollars but when they discovered he might be suicidal, they thought the best they could do was to call the university.
Cho was clearly at odds with himself, his own home culture and those of his peers on campus. His confessional videos and notes indicate that he might have also been a victim of school bullying, some of it perhaps severe.
Emily Hilscher. Beautiful, vivacious, popular, fresh-faced, long-haired, stylish, sporty.
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.
Why we must address both economics and values
From the 1970s through the mid-1990s, poverty policy was among the nastiest battlefields in the national culture war. Left and right slugged it out over why people were poor and how (or whether) to help them. Conservatives generally enjoyed the upper hand in these debates by focusing on individual-level causes of poverty, like family breakdown, drug addiction, and poor work habits -- pathologies said to be enabled by government largesse. This story line struck a chord with the American public, helping ensure the demise of the federal welfare entitlement and the introduction of strict work requirements in 1996. But since then, a structural understanding of poverty has come back in vogue, fueled by more awareness of globalization and dead-end jobs. Popular books like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and Beth Shulman's The Betrayal of Work have drawn a fresh picture of the poor -- as mostly hardworking Americans who can't make ends meet through no fault of their own.
Mauritius: Preserve the Delicate Balance...
The loudspeaker issue has finally been solved thanks to discussions that led to an agreement between parties concerned. Biotechnology comes in colours - red for pharmaceuticals, green for agriculture and white for the use of plants to replace petroleum in everything from fuel to textile and plastic. The Mauritian nation just like biotechnology is a multi-coloured and peace-loving multi-racial society. In this diversity, lies our strength and unity. The whole world is aware of it. Desmond Tutu, a few days back, made this truth of ours shine with diamond lustre. .
ambassadors of Japan-China culture and sports exchange year
TOKYO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Famous Japanese table tennis player Ai Fukuhara and pop star Noriko Sakai on Thursday were named good-will ambassadors of the 2007 Japan-China Culture and Sports Exchange Year. Fukuhara and Sakai will take part in almost all of important activities of the exchange year, which aims to enhance understanding between Japanese and Chinese people, especially the youth of the two countries, and to boost bilateral exchanges, said officials from the Japanese executive committee of the exchange year. Under the theme "bringing forth a new image of Japan and the Japanese people to the new Chinese generation," Fukuhara and Sakai were selected because of their image and popularity in China, the committee said.
ambassadors of Japan-China culture and sports exchange year
TOKYO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Famous Japanese table tennis player Ai Fukuhara and pop star Noriko Sakai on Thursday were named good-will ambassadors of the 2007 Japan-China Culture and Sports Exchange Year. Fukuhara and Sakai will take part in almost all of important activities of the exchange year, which aims to enhance understanding between Japanese and Chinese people, especially the youth of the two countries, and to boost bilateral exchanges, said officials from the Japanese executive committee of the exchange year. Under the theme "bringing forth a new image of Japan and the Japanese people to the new Chinese generation," Fukuhara and Sakai were selected because of their image and popularity in China, the committee said.
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