Is it just me? Or does it seem like there have been way too many plane crashes lately? First, we had the plane go down into the Hudson River about a month ago. And now, we have a plane (that departed from Newark) crash into a Buffalo, New York neighborhood. Strangely, both of these flights originated in the New York metropolitan area. Should we be concerned about traveling in and out of the Big Apple?  The official report is that a Continental Airlines commuter plane (flight 3407 leaving Newark, NJ bound for Buffalo, NY) carrying 49 passengers crashed into a suburban Buffalo house late Thursday. The crash killed everyone on-board and one person inside the home. However, the mother and daughter who lived in the house made it out safely and were treated at a local hospital for minor injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board has collected the data recorders and cockpit voice equipment to search for clues as to the reason for the crash.

The details about the crash victims are just starting to come in. There was a senior adviser for the Human Rights Watch – Africa Division, Alison Des Forges; a widow of a 9/11 victim, Beverly Eckhert; and a cantor, Susan Wehle, were killed in this crash. These passengers along with the others on this flight will not be forgotten.

“It’s hard to make sense of it today, but God hasn’t left us,” New York Gov. David Paterson said at a news conference, expressing hope that people could find comfort in the few stories of survival — or luck — in the crash.

Today is a really sad day. Call me a sap, but I absolutely love animals. So, I was extremely saddened to find out that millions of animals have died in the recent Australian fire. (This blaze scorched about 1,2000 square miles of land and the human death toll is expected to hit 200.) Kangaroo corpses have been found along with other burnt animals. And if that wasn’t enough, the animals that have survived the fire will likely perish, if not rescued soon, because their food supply is gone. Wildlife animal rescue is working hard to save the animals. According to the Associated Press, several animals were even harmed after trying to return home.

Kangaroos that survived are suffering from burned feet, a result of their territorial behavior. After escaping the initial flames, the creatures — which prefer to stay in one area — likely circled back to their homes, singeing their feet on the smoldering ground.

Let’s hope all the Aussie animals are rescued and their homeland is restored.

And in a related story…. An Australian volunteer firefighter, David Tree, saw a female koala that looked to be in pain. He began putting water on her paws and took her to a wildlife shelter. The koala, now named Sam, is doing well but will faces a 7 month recovery period for her injuries. She’s made friends easily and even has a boyfriend. Check out the video about her rescue.

There is some possible good news for Australia. The recent Australian fires in Victoria, which were partially caused by arson, has spurred plans for a new fire alert system.  On Thursday, Australia vowed to put a national fire warning system in place. Experts are unsure whether the coordinated alarm system could have saved lives in the country’s worst-ever wildfire. The proposed system would send automated warnings to phones in the affected areas.  Hopefully, the Australian government will implement the much needed system.

And although the fire alert system may help once there is an active blaze, it appears global warming could have partially contributed to the fires, and lead to an increase in future ones. (Note: One man has been arrested for arson related to these fires.) The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that “fires in Australia were virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency because of steadily warming temperatures over the next several decades.” According to TIME.com, Australia’s temperature has warmed 0.9°C since 1950, and climate models predict it could increase 5°C by 2070, especially if global warming isn’t stopped. In addition to fires and increasing temperatures, climate change could cause heat weaves and droughts in Australia. Those of us in California know that dry weather along with hot temperatures is a breeding ground for wildfires. These fires are just another reason why everyone needs to work together to stop global warming.

smooches,
The Caramel Bella

(Note: This piece was published on Huffington Post today! Hooray!  I’d like to say that I am not Muslim, however I honor and respect all religions. I believe that we all should.)

Terrorism. Terrorists. Since the planes flew into the World Trade towers on September 11, 2001, these words have become almost synonymous with Islam and being a Muslim. For many Islamic believers in Southern California, the aftermath of September 11 didn’t result in physical harm or even personal attacks, although there were some incidents. Muslims in Southern California express a different pain — the hurt of having their religion constantly associated with terrorism and violence.

From the front page of the daily newspaper to the broadcast channels on television, Southland Muslims said they feel the effects of this post 9/11 characterization of the religion that they care for and believe in deeply. For many, the Islam depicted in the media rarely resembles the one they practice.

“This event had a lot of effects on everybody, especially Muslims,” said Idris Traina, the President of the Board of Directors of the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, California. “The media associated this event with Islam, not a group of people who were terrorists. That’s the problem. That’s the stigma that happened with 9/11, and it has had a large effect on Muslims here and everywhere.”

Traina, who is also a member of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California estimates there are more than a half a million Muslims in the Southland. He admitted there isn’t an official census of the Muslim community, but used the figure given by the Islamic Shura Council that compiles this information. The Council, which started in 1995, is an umbrella organization of Southern California mosques and Muslims organizations.

The Islamic leaders and Muslims of Southern California expressed a consistent response concerning their present life after September. Essentially, they think their lives are plagued with a persistent misunderstanding of their religion due to Islam’s repeated association with terrorism. And many Southern California Muslims think America has developed an anti-Muslim sentiment or Islamophobia, which can be seen in the mainstream media.

“Too many Americans associate Islam with terrorism and extremism,” said Malik El-Amin, a 33-year old African American Muslim. “The American public is much more aware of Islam now than before 9/11, but the awareness derives almost entirely from negative stories, stereotypes and misconceptions.”

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey in 2007 found that “public attitudes about Muslims and Islam have grown more negative in recent years.” Thirty-five percent of Americans polled expressed a negative view of Muslims in 2007, up from 32 percent in 2004 and 29 percent in 2002.

In addition to negative impressions, “twice as many people use negative words as positive words to describe their impressions of the Muslim religion (30% versus 15%),” according to the 2007 Pew Report. The survey also found that “fanatic”, “radical” and “terror” were the most frequently used words to describe Islam.

The American association of the Muslim religion with words like “fanatic” and “terror” serve as examples to what many people now call Islamophobia, which has become a recognized form of intolerance alongside Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism since the 2001 “Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance.”

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Okay… I want one – a Kindle 2, that is! If you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a tech nerd. I love technology, especially when it can improve my life. At first, I was really apprehensive about the Kindle, a wireless book reader because I love books. There is something wonderful about the smell of them and the weight of books (and magazines) in your hand. And the cost of $359 seems a bit pricey. Then, an author friend of mine told me the best benefit ever — the ability to take your library with you to the beach. That sold me instantly. I live near the beach and often wish I had brought a certain magazine or book with me during my many trips to gaze at the ocean. Engadget did this great post about the new Kindle (as did Fast Company).  Here’s the video.

Is the Kindle 2 on your wish list? If not, why?

The Kindle goes on sale February 24th. Get one here:

Smooches,
The Caramel Bella

Weird Al Yankovic has some competition. The guys behind Saturday Night Live (SNL) skits are dropping their own album, “Incredibad,” on February 10. Their latest video, “I’m On A Boat,” features SNL staffers, Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer, and hip hop, megastar T-Pain (You have to include “The Pain” on the track because his sound equals instant hit.) The video is ridiculous and it’s nice to know T-Pain can laugh at himself (because we sure are).

I’m super excited about my latest gig. I am the host of Annenberg Radio News on Tuesdays. Our radio show airs on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00 – 4:20 p.m (PST). In addition to reading scripts, I also get to conduct a host interview where I speak with someone relevant to the show’s topic. Last Tuesday, I spoke with Professor David Hernández of UCLA‘s Cezar E. Chavez’ Chicana and Chicano Studies Department regarding illegal immigration deportation quotas. The show concentrates on local stories mostly. Tuesday’s show had stories on immigration, the Mayor’s policies and parks in South Los Angeles.

Please feel free to listen to my very first radio show (click here), in which I made very few errors. Woo hoo.. even though I’m glad it was the test show. (We go live this Tuesday!) My goal.. zero errors (although I’ve now noticed how often NPR hosts make mistakes). To err is human, right?! Just don’t laugh.

Stay tuned for my upcoming show. You can hear it on Tuesday at 4 p.m. (PST) on the radio at KCRS 1560 AM. And for those of you outside of Los Angeles, you can click on the Annenberg Radio News site, where the show will stream live. The shows are also archived on the web site too.

Smooches,

The Caramel Bella

Okay, call me crazy or a little out of my mind… but I’m loving Common’s new song, “Universal Mind Control.” I just keep playing it and playing it. It’s stuck on rewind. It’s something about the beat, which is reminiscent of Afrika Bambaata’s Planet Rock, that makes me start dancing. I can’t sit still. That’s one of the qualities of all my favorite tracks. (And of course, the male beauty that is Common surely adds to the package.) Check it out.

Smooches,
The Caramel Bella

P.S. So are you feeling the song and video like I am???

So, what do you all think of Beyoncé’s “If I Was A Boy” video? Personally, I’m digging the video – it makes me like the song. It depicts the complexity of relationships as well as plays into the men are from mars, women are from venus stereotypes — albeit successfully. Most women could probably relate to Beyoncé’s “female-role” character at some point in their lives. Let’s home the boys are listening so our relationships could improve.

And I’m sure all the men out there are loving Beyoncé in the police officer outfit. (Lil Wayne’s Mrs. Officer lyrics quickly come to mind.) She looks great in anything.

Check out the video for yourself. Once again, Ms. B is doing her thang!

Despite Taken’s (2009) action-packed, hyped up trailers featuring an angry, revengeful father who is on a fast-moving, butt-kicking warpath to find his daughter who is taken, hence the title, this action flick actually begins at an agonizing snail’s pace. Not surprisingly, the biggest suspense of the film was actually experienced in the beginning of the film as viewers wait impatiently for the action to commence.

For an action flick, Taken begins slowly by showing father and ex-CIA operative, Bryan Mills, (Liam Nelson) reminiscing about his daughter’s childhood. The audience is led through a series of uneventful scenes that depict a somewhat pathetic Mills trying to make-up for lost times and rebuild his relationship with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). He has even given up his career, which kept him away from his family, and moved to be closer to his precious Kimmie. Although it appears as though no love is lost between Mills and his daughter due to his absent years, he struggles with playing second fiddle to his ex-wife’s new husband and new money.

And just as the audience is about to give up on seeing any action in this movie (which now closely resembles a drama), the foreshadowing begins as Mills is characterized as an overprotective and paranoid father who is extremely concerned about his 17-year-old daughter traveling abroad without parental supervision. Kimmie tells her father, “Mom said your job made you paranoid.” To which Mills blandly responds, “I was a “preventor” of bad things from happening.”

From this point forward the pace begins to quicken as the viewer waits wearily for the daughter to be “taken.” Although the kidnapping was not a surprise, Mills’ timing and sideline involvement added an interesting flip on the standard abduction scene. It is only after poor Kimmie is captured that the viewer gets what they’ve been waiting for – the angry, taking-no-prisoners Mills who not only vows to get his daughter back but threatens her kidnappers. In the most famous line of the movie, Mills says, “I don’t know who you are but if you don’t let my daughter go, I will find you and I will kill you.”

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Do you know what it’s like to be so excited about a story that you run to tell everyone you know about it? And in your excitement, you may repeat yourself a lot. Or you may tend to over-explain something that may be relatively obvious to others. Or perhaps, the story is so emotionally titillating that you relay it a bit out of order and in an incoherent manner at times. Or even worse, can you remember being so thrilled by your story that you even give away the ending first? Luis Alberto Urrea makes all of these mistakes in his zest to tell the story of the Yuma 14, the Mexican immigrants, who died in 2001 while attempting to cross the brutal Arizona desert in The Devil’s Highway.

Although delivered in a confusing and long-winded manner, author Urrea spends 220 pages describing the complex illegal immigration and border situation between the United States and Mexico through the story of the Wellton 26 (also known as the Yuma 14). Seeking to explain the multilayered, multifaceted elements of illegal immigration, Urrea, a reporter, presents a multitude of viewpoints and characters to reflect the complexity of the issue. From Border Patrol accounts to the walkers who braved the desert to the coyotes and guides who smuggled them across the border, Urrea haphazardly presents their stories, which are often left incomplete.

His kaleidoscope storytelling begs the reader to organize and assemble the facts and information on his or her own into a comprehensible and moving tale of the 14 economic migrants who died during their walk across the “Camino del Diablo” and the 12 others who narrowly escaped death.

Somewhere in Urrea’s attempt to provide a full picture of the tragedy of the Mexican immigrants who got lost in the Southwestern desert, he forgot that his readers understand the very meaning of the word “desert” – hot areas that receive very little precipitation. He repeatedly describes, and often over-describes, the Arizona desert and its harsh conditions. The only thing left for him to do was to provide additional maps throughout the book to correspond with the number of descriptions of the terrain. And yes, that would be overdoing it.

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