Posts by Liza Sabater

Liza Sabater blogs at Culture Kitchen.

U.S. Promises to Stop Treating Nelson Mandela Like a Terrorist
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on July 2, 2008 at 11:18 AM.

This is so mindboggling it defies commentary. Up until the 1st of July of 2008, Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by the United States.

Bush Removes Nelson Mandela from Terror Watch List

By VOA News

01 July 2008

U.S. President George Bush Tuesday signed a bill that allows Nelson Mandela to enter the United States without special clearance.

The measure officially removes Mr. Mandela and his African National Congress from a U.S. terror watch list.

The former South African president may now visit the United States without the U.S. secretary of state having to certify that he is not a terrorist.

Mr. Mandela was placed on the list because of his work with the African National Congress (ANC), which fought to end white minority rule in South Africa.

Mr. Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his work with the ANC to fight apartheid rule in South Africa.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner turns 90 on July 18.

Un.

Be.

lievable.

[Photo by Mr. Jaded.]

Detained Immigrants Continue to Die in American Custody
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on June 19, 2008 at 10:15 AM.

I would have subtitled this video "America's New Civil War":

From the production company :

The New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the "System of Neglect," namely, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52- year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.

Michelle Obama gets a War Room of her Own
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on June 17, 2008 at 9:00 AM.

Michelle Obama gets her own War Room.

HOT!

She's not going to wait for the vultures to do the talking about her. Michelle Obama gets her own war room along with a new chief of staff:

Later today, the campaign is set to announce the hiring of Stephanie Cutter, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked as Senator John Kerry’s communications director in 2004, as chief of staff to Mrs. Obama. Ms. Cutter is scheduled to begin soon, with the first task of re-crafting the image of Mrs. Obama, who has come under intense criticism by Republicans and even some Democratic rivals. She also will lead a war room to fight attacks against Mrs. Obama.

At first I found it odd that, given Kerry's slow response to the Swift Boat attacks, his former communications director is working for Ms. Obama. Maybe it makes sense because she's already "been there, done that" and won't let that happen ever again.

Hopefully that's the reason why they hired a former John Kerry staffer. Because she's indeed lived through all the republican's filth and knows now how to handle it.

Think about it, though. Michelle Obama has a war room. She's gonna get her shero on.

How HAWT is that!

AP Goes After Bloggers Under DMCA
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on June 13, 2008 at 12:01 PM.

Rogers Cadenhead, founder and publisher of The Drudge Retort, has been Cease and Desisted by AP News for publishing fragments of their syndicated news articles and reports.

Yes, fragments, not the whole articles. Go to Rogers' site to read the reasons given by AP.

Adding a quote to a blog post is very much like the sampling of a hook or a beat on a song. It's why so many people were opposed to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It's not only that albums like Beck's Odelay or Public Enemy's Fear Of A Black Planet would never had happened. Documentaries, archival works, opinion or scholarly writing would be all but non-existent if it means that now journalists, bloggers, historians and scholars would need to pay publishing houses for every single quote and/or sample they need for their work.

That's why I blame Hilary Rosen, the woman who became the face of the RIAA and the lobbyists who successfully paid Congress to pass the DMCA. Granted, I applauded her for her recent "I am not a bargaining chip" post, in re: the other Hillary (La Clinton), but it doesn't mean La Rosen gets a free pass.

The DMCA's main purpose is to circumvent due process by saying that trade laws trump civil rights law. So a corporation's right to make money from their "product" however way they want trumps the rights of individual citizens who would want to express themselves freely about said product through comment, parody, sample or quoting.

The DMCA throws the onus of proving Fair Use on the individual "speaking" the copyrighted materials and not on the owner of the copyright. It was an unprecedented move and one that many consider anti-constitutional since it basically allows for individuals to be considered guilty of copyright infringement until they prove themselves only in a court of law to be innocent.

Rogers gives us the perfect example of how the "corporate bottom-line trumps free speech" shenanigans is rationalized by AP using the DMCA:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

There's a Reason for Low Voter Turnout in Puerto Rico
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on June 2, 2008 at 4:58 AM.

And guess why :

BECAUSE PUERTO RICANS KNOW THEY CAN'T VOTE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.

"Most people in Puerto Rico, I would venture to guess, they are not even aware that there's a primary going on," said Luis Pabón-Roca, a local political analyst.

He said the political atmosphere on the island this week is subdued compared to the fever that sweeps the island before local elections.

Some poll workers in small towns started abandoning the polling stations because turnout was so low, he said.

Part of the reason for the lack of interest, he said, is because voters feel the primary isn't meaningful since Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the general election.

The Democratic and Republican parties run the primaries and caucuses, and they allow U.S. territories, such as the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, to take part in the process.

But only the 50 states and the District of Columbia vote in the general election.

El Nuevo Día reports the Board of Elections expected to have 600.000 voters. The Clinton campaign bargained on a million and more. Less than 400.000 people woke up this morning with the primaries in their minds.

As I said, when it comes to that "popular vote" tomfoolery, my people are not stupid. Puerto Ricans know their vote doesn't count.

Unfortunately, too many US voters have no idea about the political realities of Puerto Rico. And that's what's so indecent about the Clintonistas using the Puerto Rican turnout to solidify their claims of entitlement to the nomination.

NARAL Pro-Choice Endorses Obama
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on May 14, 2008 at 3:57 PM.

This has made my friggin' day :

NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC Endorses Senator Barack Obama for President

Washington, D.C. – NARAL Pro-Choice America, the political leader of the pro-choice movement with more than one million member activists in all 50 states, today announced that its political action committee is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president.

"There are few more tireless defenders of women's rights in this country than NARAL Pro-Choice America and I'm proud to accept their support," Sen. Obama said. "For decades, they have worked in the courthouse, in the legislature, and in the streets to make sure that women have the right to choose. This is a fundamental civil right that I've fought to protect in Illinois and in Washington, that's being threatened by Senator McCain, and that I'll be fighting in the months ahead to make secure today, tomorrow, and always."

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, praised both Sen. Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton for their leadership in standing up for women's reproductive rights throughout this campaign, but only one of these dynamic candidates can advance to the general election.

"Pro-choice Americans have been fortunate to have two strong pro-choice candidates in Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton, both of whom have inspired millions of new voters to participate in this historic presidential race," Keenan said. "Today, we are proud to put our organization's grassroots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election. That candidate is Sen. Obama."

Keenan said the stark contrast between Sen. Obama's pro-choice record and John McCain's 25 years of anti-choice votes in Washington will be a major reason many voters, especially pro-choice Independent and Republican women, will cross party lines to support Sen. Obama in the fall.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

What Does a Car Bomb Look Like?
Posted by Liza Sabater, Awearness on April 10, 2008 at 12:18 PM.

It's hard to believe that back in 2004 and right after the horrors of Abu Ghraib were exposed, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had restricted the use of cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders, computers and had restricted soldiers from having any access the internet, especially if the destination was YouTube and MySpace (which are nowadays blocked by the Pentagon).

Yet even though the Pentagon tries to stifle soldiers access to the internet, many still find ways to get the word out back home to family and friends and onto the pages of blogs or YouTube.

I have scoured YouTube looking for soldier-produced video clips. Some of them are harrowing and not appropriate for this blog. Others, like this car bomb clip, are almost in the category of surreal.

For one, this clip is like hundreds of others I've seen so far: A soldier filming a drive down a road or highway for like what seems like an eternity and then, boom!, it literally happens. Second, I loved the description on the video clip's page: "just got emailed this." Third, at the time of this writing, less than 20,000 people have seen this clip. It's not too shabby for a clip that was "just emailed", but it's telling that it's not looking to "shock and awe" people with any production quality and thus it remains in YouTube a rather obscure find.

There is nothing gory about the clip—that's why I spent almost 100 hours looking at clip after clip. Notice the ambient noise of the clip, including the music in the background. Most of the "home made" videos I have seen are over-produced with either hard rock or gangsta rap blaring over the footage. In this one, though, you can barely make out which heavy metal band the soldiers are listening while driving down a road in Iraq.

Then the unthinkable happens a few cars up.

It wasn't just the suddenness of the catastrophe. It's the calm that really got to me, all the while debris keeps hitting their truck.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?
Posted by Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen on April 7, 2008 at 5:41 AM.

I have been waiting for this documentary since I saw Morgan Spurlock at SXSW last year, when he was there presenting What Would Jesus Buy?, a documentary about Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping's crusade against conspicuous consumption.

This from Apple.com's trailer park :

If Morgan Spurlock has learned anything from over 30 years of movie-watching, it's that if the world needs saving, it's best done by one lone man willing to face danger head on to take it down, action hero style. So, with no military experience, knowledge or expertise, he sets off to do what the CIA, FBI and countless bounty hunters have failed to do: find the world's most wanted man. Why take on such a seemingly impossible mission? Simple-he wants to make the world safe for his soon to be born child. But before he finds Osama bin Laden, he first needs to learn where he came from, what makes him tick, and most importantly, what exactly created bin Laden to begin with.

Go to the site and check out the nod to Indiana Jones, Mad Magazine, Where's Waldo? and "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?"

OMG ... My pop-culture epithalamus just exploded.