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Newsy things
Oct. 4th, 2009 10:51 amI used to watch the national news every night. I used to watch two separate broadcasts, because one of the Atlanta stations pushes it back half an hour. I've been trying to decide whether I'm any more or less informed now than I was last year, and if it matters, if I'm not going to do anything about it. I do try to read at least the headlines, somewhere. It ends up being the New York Times mobile site on my phone, more often than not. I forget a lot of things as soon as I read them, and forget to mention more, like the article about waning casino profits from a few weeks ago that mentioned lifting the ban on smoking as a way to bring in more traffic.
I don't have anything to link (or say) on the health care debate or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, but they're still going on, in case you were curious.
Sesame Street on Palestinian TV
Each season, in each country, Sesame productions are built around a few particular curriculum items, like cooperation or numbers. For the coming season of “Simsim,” respect was one chosen theme. When it came time for Taha Awadallah, the young film student, to share his pitch, he explained, “I focused on the theme of respecting myself and respecting others.” Awadallah had been working on revising his Gaza segments. The new script began with Saleem, the handyman character on the show, watching the Gaza coverage on TV. “Saleem is sad and worried, so he calls his sister in Gaza,” Awadallah said. “She is O.K., but her friend Tariq is missing.” In the next scene, Awadallah explained, the Muppets Karim and Haneen would encounter Saleem while playing hide-and-seek. “He is still sad,” Awadallah continued, “so they do funny things to make him forget he is sad.” He acknowledged that so far he was stumped as to what those things could be. “I need some help in coming up with funny scenes and jokes,” he said. “But they will go on until the conclusion, where Saleem says: ‘You made me laugh! Thank you for making me forget that Tariq is missing.’ ”
No one said anything. Then Othman said, in a quiet voice, that she wasn’t sure that “Simsim” could really address the Gaza issue so directly.
Malhas, the teacher, turned to Awadallah: “Will Saleem find Tariq?”
Awadallah nodded. “Yes, I want him to find his friend at the end of the episode,” he said. “It will turn out that Tariq was missing for an unexpected reason.”
Maha Atmawi, a 30-year-old teacher from Qalqilya, objected. “You can’t lie to children,” she said. “Most people in Gaza who are missing will not be found. This can’t be a trick. We have to show reality.”
The High Price of Being a Gay Couple
Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.
Housing Battle Reveals Post-Katrina Tensions
Providing housing for low-income families has been one of the most vexing problems for the New Orleans area in the four years since the hurricane. Tens of thousands of homes, many of them dilapidated, are still vacant. But, in part because the houses that were destroyed were disproportionately for low-income renters, market rents in the city are 35 percent higher than they were before the storm, out of the reach of much of the city’s work force.
I don't have anything to link (or say) on the health care debate or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, but they're still going on, in case you were curious.
Sesame Street on Palestinian TV
Each season, in each country, Sesame productions are built around a few particular curriculum items, like cooperation or numbers. For the coming season of “Simsim,” respect was one chosen theme. When it came time for Taha Awadallah, the young film student, to share his pitch, he explained, “I focused on the theme of respecting myself and respecting others.” Awadallah had been working on revising his Gaza segments. The new script began with Saleem, the handyman character on the show, watching the Gaza coverage on TV. “Saleem is sad and worried, so he calls his sister in Gaza,” Awadallah said. “She is O.K., but her friend Tariq is missing.” In the next scene, Awadallah explained, the Muppets Karim and Haneen would encounter Saleem while playing hide-and-seek. “He is still sad,” Awadallah continued, “so they do funny things to make him forget he is sad.” He acknowledged that so far he was stumped as to what those things could be. “I need some help in coming up with funny scenes and jokes,” he said. “But they will go on until the conclusion, where Saleem says: ‘You made me laugh! Thank you for making me forget that Tariq is missing.’ ”
No one said anything. Then Othman said, in a quiet voice, that she wasn’t sure that “Simsim” could really address the Gaza issue so directly.
Malhas, the teacher, turned to Awadallah: “Will Saleem find Tariq?”
Awadallah nodded. “Yes, I want him to find his friend at the end of the episode,” he said. “It will turn out that Tariq was missing for an unexpected reason.”
Maha Atmawi, a 30-year-old teacher from Qalqilya, objected. “You can’t lie to children,” she said. “Most people in Gaza who are missing will not be found. This can’t be a trick. We have to show reality.”
The High Price of Being a Gay Couple
Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.
Housing Battle Reveals Post-Katrina Tensions
Providing housing for low-income families has been one of the most vexing problems for the New Orleans area in the four years since the hurricane. Tens of thousands of homes, many of them dilapidated, are still vacant. But, in part because the houses that were destroyed were disproportionately for low-income renters, market rents in the city are 35 percent higher than they were before the storm, out of the reach of much of the city’s work force.
