Since we already covered some musical annotations from the current president of the US, Barack Obama, as well as one of the Republican hopefuls, Mitt Romney, we couldn’t leave out one of the other main runners for the Republican candidacy: Rick Santorum. A video has gone viral some time ago that shows two girls expressing their love for Rick Santorum’s policies – through song.
Continue reading Santorum girls
Earlier this month worldwide media reported that dozens of kids were killed in Iraq. All of them supposedly were supporters of the emo-lifestyle. Emo originated out of the pop culture of the nineteen-eighties, but has gone a long way since and became a popular lifestyle for Western youth, even to this day. Emo as a fashion statement comes in many forms and shapes and is impossible to accurately describe, but generally it is associated with heavy make up, dark clothes, painted hair and androgynous looks. In Iraq this is considered to be synonymous with homosexuality, which apparently is the reason for these organized killings and the publication of an online death list of 33 youngsters who are condemned for their appearance.
Continue reading Being Emo in Baghdad
The Kazakh athlete Maria Dmitrienko won the golden medal at the Arab Shooting Championships on March 23 in Kuwait. She was confronted with a very unpleasant surprise. Instead of the national anthem from Kazakhstan, the parody of the anthem was played. The organizers downloaded the wrong and offensive anthem from the internet. They were very ashamed and apologized. Maria Dmitrienko, as you can see in the video below, felt awkward but she remained firm and even smiled at the end.
Continue reading Wrong anthem of Kazakhstan at medal ceremony
Last Saturday (March 17) a demonstration was held in the suburbs of Baku. The protesters were represented by the youth organizations of the opposition (Azeri Report). The musician Jamal Ali was arrested for having insulted President Ilham Aliyev’s late mother at the demonstration. Insulting the “King clan” can be extremely dangerous according to his friend and singer-songwriter Cirttan. With the coming Eurovision Song Contest coming to Azerbaijan, it seems particularly sour that singer-songwriters are put behind bars.
Continue reading Azerbaijani musician arrested for insulting
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered his government to draft a new law punishing denial of the Armenian genocide. The French parliament recognized the killing of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War as genocide in 2001. In December 2011, The French MPs went further, approving a bill that would make denying the Armenian genocide a criminal offence punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros. France’s top court struck it down last month as unconstitutional. Sarkozy, running for re-election next month, stressed again to the Armenian Diaspora in France (around half a million strong) his commitment to a new law.
Continue reading The Ottoman Armenian