As many of you know (from an earlier post), I really want a Kindle. Although I’m a big booklover, I’d love to have my entire library at my constant disposal. Major Kindle bonus!! Well, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (& Kindle maker) appeared on The Daily Show recently to tout the Kindle 2. Jon Stewart couldn’t quite get with the idea of cozing up to a Kindle at night or the whopping $359 cost. (Oh yeah, and the electronic books cost $9.99). Nevertheless, I still want one. (Maybe graduation gift??) Check out the video.

Smooches,
The Caramel Bella

P.S. You can get one here.

The country is going nuts over the Rihanna and Chris Brown story in which he allegedly hit her. And more recently, TMZ’s battered and bruised photo of Rihanna was leaked all over the internet. Has anyone stopped to wonder if the photo leak was a good idea. First of all, poor Rihanna. What about her privacy rights? How could the Los Angeles Police Department leak this photo? It’s like someone should have to pay for her privacy breach. It’s bad enough that she had to go through this whole incident without seeing a picture of her battered face splattered on the front page of several magazines and all over the Internet (I hate posting the picture here).

And recently, an ABC News story reports that Rihanna’s unauthorized photo may discourage other domestic violence victims from reporting the abuse. “For victims who see these kinds of pictures it’s all too real,” said Bea Hanson to ABC News.  Hanson is “chief programming officer at victim assistance agency Safe Horizon in New York City, who routinely treats women who have endured domestic violence.” The media and the police (who leaked the photo) seems to have gone too far — and with little regard to the women both organizations claim they want to protect.

Okay… with just minutes until the Oscars. I’m going to run through my selections (or predictions rather) for the awards.

BEST PICTURE: “Slumdog Millionaire”
ACTOR LEADING: Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler” (2nd choice: Sean Penn in “Milk”)
ACTOR, SUPPORTING: Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road”
ACTRESS, LEADING: Kate Winslet in “The Reader” (or… Meryl Streep in “Doubt”)
ACTRESS, SUPPORTING: Viola Davis in “Doubt” (just hopeful.. if not Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”)
SCREENPLAY, ADAPTED: “Slumdog Millionaire”
SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL: “Milk” (I have to vote for this movie somewhere. I really enjoyed it. Although I heard Harvey Milk was portrayed a bit too stereotypical gay and effeminate than he was in real life. Hmm?)
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “Waltz with Bashir” (loved it)
ANIMATED FEATURE: “WALL-E”
ART DIRECTION: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
CINEMATOGRAPHY: “Slumdog Millionaire”

The current state of America’s priorities and challenges can be summed up by looking at one place: the negotiations surrounding the 2009 Obama Economic Stimulus package. This plan, totaling nearly $790 Billion, aims to help revive the struggling economy, while laying a heavy financial burden on future generations to pay for. Democrats and Republicans battled over which financial expenditures in the areas of education, technology, health care, energy and infrastructure, will likely yield the greatest number of jobs, fix the economy and secure America’s future.

These competing priorities are at the heart of the Dowell Myers’s book, “Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America.” In this treatise, Myers argues that a new intergenerational contract needs to be created between retiring Baby Boomers and newly arrived immigrants to solve our economic and demographic challenges. Myers describes it as a “social contract of intergenerational support,” which is “based in intergenerational transfers of resources through the mediums of taxation and social expenditure.”

Quite simply, Myers proposes a more enlightened view of immigrant arrivals and the challenges that it presents to America. Instead of thinking of immigrants in what he describes as a “Peter Pan” way, whereby they remain stuck in an infancy stage of assimilation, he challenges the voting public to consider a picture of immigrants who have evolved, developed and contribute greatly to society. It is these immigrants (in addition to the native born) that will become the taxpayers of the future who will provide the financial support to the elderly Baby Boomers. In essence, the immigrants of today will pay for the Social Security, pensions and health care of aging Boomers. Subsequently, it is in our shared best interest to invest in education and assist in the integration and assimilation of our foreign born entrants.

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(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

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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