Foreign Dispatches

Indians Really are Color-Struck

That's the only thing I can gather from watching this travesty of an advertisement. This is obviously a spot with high production values, shot for use with a mainstream audience, so the fact that its message is thought acceptable says a great deal about how Indians see the world. Reminds me of the (far from) good ol' days in America: "if you're white, you're all right, if you're brown, stick around, if you're dark, stay back!" Except Indians would seem to be even more restrictive than that, going by this advert: Michael Jackson would probably have been seen as a hero for his (allegedly) vitiligo-inspired transformation ...

Sarah Palin Supporters are Uninformed

And that is putting it mildly.

Seeing as this video was put out by an outfit calling itself "New Left Media", it is natural to harbor suspicions about the objectivity of what one is seeing: for all one knows, these guys could have thrown out all of the material showing Palin backers in a more favorable light, leaving only the clips portraying "Sarah Barracuda" fans as ignorant, paranoid, xenophobic dopes parroting ridiculous right-wing propaganda.

Still, given what we know of Sarah Palin's intellectual abilities (marginal) and ideological coherence (non-existent), there is every reason to believe that this video isn't far off the mark. If anything, the video seems to suggest that Sarah Palin has a lot more female support than she actually does, as if her primary support consisted of women engaging in the shallowest form of identity politics; most of the former governor's support actually comes from conservative males, and when one takes this odd gender skew into consideration, I think its pretty clear that neither policy considerations nor a perception of fitness for office have much to do with Palin's appeal. Let's just say Palin wouldn't have any "base" to speak of were there not so many sexually frustrated men out there ...

The Ultimate Site for (Straight) Men

What do you get when you combine two of the things straight guys love to look at most? A site like this.  Doesn't Michael Bay have a patent on this already?

PS: While we're at it, let me take this opportunity to say that I love Michael Bay's movies, and I do mean that in an entirely un-ironic way. Sometimes one wants to take a break from thinking about Malliavin calculus, the narrative structure of "The Guermantes Way", mereological essentialism or some other such bit of intellectual heavy lifting, and on such occasions there are few things quite as diverting as watching mammarily well-endowed women running in slow motion from huge explosions. Pseudo-intellectual film critics and  pretentious wannabe "auteurs" may not like Michael Bay's stuff, but they're precisely the sorts of people for whom the likes of Lars "von" [sic] Trier make unwatchable tripe; car chases, fireballs and scantily-clad women do a fine job for the remaining 99.9% of humanity (or its straight male portion, at any rate). Michael Bay is no hack!

The Glorious United Nations in Action

I don't have much patience or respect for the United Nations as an organization, nor am I able to take seriously those who insist on giving it primacy in international affairs. The shameful episode below gives one illustration of why I think the way I do.

Where the Beautiful People (Are)n't

If you keep your ear out for weird news, you may have heard a thing or two about a dating site meant exclusively for the "beautiful people", and called, naturally enough, BeautifulPeople. Well, the site does indeed seem to take its exclusivity seriously, at least if judged by the number of rejections handed out to date: 1.8 million of them, as opposed to 360,000 new approvals, and this in an already self-selected pool of applicants. 

Prudish Brazilians?

I know it sounds oxymoronic to associate the land of the samba and the Brazilian wax with prudery, but that's exactly what this strange story suggests.

A Brazilian university has publicly expelled a woman who was heckled by hundreds of fellow students for wearing a short, pink skirt to class, taking out newspaper ads today to publicly accuse her of immorality.

The private Bandeirante University in São Bernardo do Campo, outside of São Paulo, said 20-year-old Geisy Arruda disrespected "ethical principles and academic dignity and morality".

Arruda made headlines last month when she had to be escorted away by police after she tried to go to class wearing the mini-dress. She put on a professor's white coat and left amid a hail of insults and curses.

Video footage of the incident, which occurred last month, was posted on YouTube and picked up by Brazilian networks.

Something isn't right here: one would have thought most young Brazilian adults incapable of batting an eye to something as mundane as a miniskirt, so ordinary a sight it would be for them. There must be another angle to this story that has yet to be told, e.g. is this university some sort of religiously motivated establishment, a Catholic Bob Jones University or something along those lines?

When in Germany, Speak German

I've just discovered on Der Spiegel's English-language pages that there's currently some sort of controversy taking place due to the insistence of Guido Westerwelle, Germany's new Foreign Minister, on answering a press conference question in German. Below is the video of said incident.

Supposedly the events shown above have unleashed a wave of sarcasm and derision at Mr. Westerwelle's expense, but I really can't see what is problematic about his statements: on the contrary, I think the opposite is true, and it is the British journalist who ought to be ashamed for arrogantly expecting Germany's Foreign Minister, speaking in Germany, to cater to the journalist's linguistic ignorance, as if Westerwelle were a local tribal chief reporting to a colonial overlord. Furthermore, there are genuine reasons of statecraft which justify Westerwelle's position; international politics is a field in which even small misunderstandings can lead to severe consequences, and however skilled in English a German politicians or diplomats may be, they will almost always be more fluent in their own language. As such, to conduct any dealings of state in a foreign language is usually a mistake, unless one happens to be an ambassador or a statesman uttering a few words just for rhetorical effect (e.g. "Ich bin ein Berliner").

I can understand to a certain extent why so many Germans should think there's something odd about what Westerwelle said: part of it has to do with the pride many Germans take in their English-language abilities, and another aspect is that semi-instinctive opposition to any form of national self-assertion stemming from Germany's 20th century history. Still, historical issues notwithstanding, I imagine that most Germans would like their Foreign Minister to conduct his duties to Germany's benefit in as far as possible, and that is best done by speaking the language he knows best, not by pandering to a dumb foreign journalist (and on the journalistic side, one has to wonder who was dumb enough to send to such an important country a representative without the linguistic skills or basic modicum of sensitivity to do his job in the native language). Deutsche! Dr. Westerwelle war völlig korrekt!

Going by the evidence of the following clip, Westerwelle's English seems perfectly fine. He does pause quite a bit to think, but then again, he's no worse in this respect than a certain recent former US President, and unlike said (supposedly native English-speaking) President, Westerwelle's response actually makes complete sense.

Women Should be Heard, Not Seen

That seem to be the position of certain broadcasters in Saudi Arabia, at any rate.

JEDDAH: A new TV show that discusses issues concerning teenage girls and female university students was recently broadcast with Saudi presenters dressed in black from head to toe. The show — named Asrar Al-Banat (The Secrets of Girls) — is broadcast on Awtan TV, a Saudi religious channel that was first aired in August 2008 and has women broadcasters who are covered in the all-enveloping abaya and niqab

No doubt the sight of figures shrouded in amorphous black outfits makes for compelling television ... 

Audiophile Madness

How far are you willing to go in the search for the perfect listening experience? Not anywhere near as far as these folks, I'll bet.

Shocker: Foreign Douchebags Provoke Xenophobic Reaction

When I wrote a while back about certain Westerners taking Japanese niceness for granted, one (of many) incidents I had in mind at the time was the notorious Yamanote Halloween Train Party, on the annual occasion of which certain foreign residents of the Tokyo region took it upon themselves to test the patience of their Japanese hosts to the limit by getting drunk and behaving obnoxiously on the Yamanote subway line, acting on the presumption that the "gaijin pass" Westerners tend to get in Japan were actually a licence to behave like assholes.

Fantastic Pictures of Japan

Having taken a fair number of decent pictures myself, it takes a lot to get me excited by the work of someone else, so when I say that the work of Alain Davreux is extremely good, you should take that as an indicator of just how highly I regard his images. This guy combines extreme technical proficiency with a keen eye for composition, and best of all is that - unlike many less accomplished shooters on sites like Flickr - he's actually willing to provide his pictures in sizes large enough for them to be properly appreciated. Treat yourself this Sunday and take a leisurely virtual stroll through Alain Davreux's online galleries.

A Hard Lesson in Respect

There's something about traveling abroad that seems to turn many a Briton into a complete asshole; whether one can attribute this to a mental hangover from the days of Empire or to some other cause is unclear to me, but nevertheless, a great many British people seem to go out of their way to annoy the locals they encounter. Sometimes this attitude can lead to rather ... unfortunate consequences, take the charming gentleman in this video, for example.

English Man Brutally Knocked Out In Bangkok Bar

Lesson of the day: just because the locals you're dealing with tend to be soft-spoken doesn't mean you get to run your mouth off at whomever, wherever. Not all the people of the world are like the conflict-avoidant Japanese, who tend to give far too much leeway to Western morons with no respect for others.

[Via Digg].

Google Wave: Pulp Fiction Edition

Have you heard about Google Wave and wondered what exactly it might be for? Here comes enlightenment, courtesy of the following video.

So, now you know!

The Daily Mail and the the Not So Subtle Art of Gay-Baiting

The Daily Mail has never been a periodical to resist a dig at a disliked individual or group whenever the slightest opportunity has presented itself to do so, and as such it should come as no surprise that the death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately has been seized upon to rant and rave about the wickedness and depravity of those evil homosexuals:

Euphemism of the Day

Being taken up the Oxo Tower. Compounding the hilarity of this one is that the Oxo Tower actually does exist, and it also has a restaurant at its top, so one can find examples of people using this phrase and being utterly unaware of the other connotations ...

Obama's Undeserved Nobel Peace Prize

No one who's been reading this blog for any decent length of time will ever mistake me for some sort of Obama-hater: on the contrary,  despite the fact that Obama's politics and mine differ considerably, I have repeatedly made clear on here how much I despise many of those who oppose him for supposed reasons which are merely thinly veiled covers for racist animosity.

Ditte Arnth, Translated

A few days ago I put up a video of a Danish TV show appearance by Ditte Arnth Jørgensen, the actress who played "Karen26" in the notorious hoax. At the time I mentioned that my grasp of spoken Danish was just too poor for me to provide a translation, and expressed my hope that someone would eventually volunteer one, but in all honesty I was far from optimistic that this would happen any time soon. As it turns out, my pessimism was unfounded: thanks to the efforts of Jonas Kirkegaard, we now have a full English translation of the contents of the interview. Following is the full text:

Not Everything Has to be about Race

While browsing Metafilter, I ran into this rather "interesting" article:

MySpace is no longer cool. As a matter of fact, its number of users is now one-half the size of rival Facebook. Is this because MySpace is too black for the rest of America? Teenage Internet users may hold the answer. High-schoolers report their use of the social-networking giants along racial lines—MySpace is seen as “black,” while Facebook is “white.”

Ditte Arnth, aka "Karen26", Speaks

You may recall that I recently posted about the infamous "Danish Mother Seeking" video hoax which went round the world. The woman who played the role of "Karen26" in the video is an actress who goes by the name Ditte Arnth Jorgensen, and she recently made an appearance on a Danish talk show to discuss her part in the whole affair. Here's the video from her appearance:

Click through to Youtube to view the HD version. Unfortunately my command of spoken Danish is very poor, and I only understood ~30% of what was said, so we'll have to wait until some charitable Dane with free time to spare volunteers to translate the whole thing.

Say what you will about the message sent by the hoax "viral" video's contents, but this much certainly can't be denied: Ms. Jorgensen is very pretty, and with her statuesque height, her long legs and her (clearly natural) light blonde hair, she is also very Danish looking. Whoever cast her in the role certainly did an excellent job of finding a representative Dane; sit outside a coffee shop in Copenhagen's Strøget and you'll be astonished just how many young women you see who have the same physical characteristics (and even the same fashion taste as she displays in this talk show appearance).

OMG! Michael Jackson Loved Hitler!!!

Or so you'd think, going by the Daily Mail headline: in fact, there is no evidence for anything of the sort. Here is what Michael Jackson is supposed to have said to Rabbi Smuley Boteach,  according to the Daily Heil's own writers:

The singer, who died of heart failure in June, said: 'Hitler was a genius orator. To make that many people turn and change and hate, he had to be a showman and he was.'

Notting Hill Carnival 2009

So, another year, another carnival:  what's new here and why should you care? Well, apart from the fact that it means you get to see some nice pictures, I also happened to have the good fortune to cover this year's event using a Nikon D700, which means that this year's pictures should make for interesting comparisons with both the pictures from 2008 (shot mostly with a D300), and those from 2007 (shot almost entirely with a D80). In short, this post can essentially be considered as a field report on the last 3 years' advances in Nikon technology.

Putting the "Ram" in "Rammstein"

The band Rammstein is no stranger to controversy, having flirted openly in the past with Nazi imagery, so to hear that they're back with a new music video intended to shock and outrage is not in itself surprising. What is surprising in this instance is the content of said video: scenes of the band playing interlaced with hardcore pornography (warning: do not open this link at work unless you wish to get fired). Naturally, the song the video is for is called, well, "Pussy", and the lyrics of the song are just as lacking in subtlety - perfectly calculated to get a rise out of American "Moral Majority" or British "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" types.

Ekstrabladet has an article (in Danish) on the video here, while Bild also has a (German language, NSFW) writeup of its own. If I have the time I'll try and translate one of the two tomorrow, but in the meantime the curious are welcome to use Google's language tools to do the job for themselves.

A Strange Way to Advertise Denmark

Have you heard about Youtube's "Karen26", a young Danish woman who decided to teach a foreign visitor just what "hygge" means, only to land with a bun in the oven for her efforts? Would you be willing to help her find the father of the child resulting from this one-night stand, a man of whom she remembers neither his nationality nor even his name? What if I then told you that this charming little video was actually cooked up by an ad agency, and paid for by VisitDenmark, the country's official tourist board, in the name of "viral marketing"?

0xKaren26 - Karen in Denmark seeking August's father - (2009) (Denmark)

Personally I think it's a little strange to sell one's country to the world by advertising that its full of promiscuous blondes, but what do I know? Then again, the Danes themselves don't seem to be too keen on this sort of branding (related article in Swedish here).

I can't vouch for the "promiscuous" part myself (not yet having the chance to find out), but I can verify that the streets of Copenhagen are impossibly full of tall, slender, gorgeous blonde women, the average Western heterosexual male's fantasies brought to life, in fact: hopefully they're a bit keener on contraception than the fictional "Karen26" supposedly was though ...

PS: I've just discovered Politiken's English-language article on the controversy.

Megan Fox is a Class Act [Not]

As I've mentioned before, I really don't get what's so special about this particular "actress", whose every word to the press only makes her seem both dumb as a rock and incredibly self-absorbed, and who, while pretty in a trashy way, is simply not in the "take your breath away" gorgeous category that the overheated lad magazines seek to imply. As far as I was concerned, it was simply a matter of time before this foul-mouthed, narcissistic ingrate crossed that line which would render her toxic to large portions of Hollywood, and when I heard her tastelessly compare Michael Bay to Hitler, I thought that moment had finally arrived; I may well be wrong on that score, but I do think it's telling how many people are no longer willing to put up with this bimbo's attention-seeking b.s. when members of the Transformers crew are now actually trashing her in front of the public.

Hollywood may be full of arrogant, high-handed assholes with big mouths, but by and large these individuals tend to have actual accomplishments to back up the bluster; a publicity-hungry airhead with no box office track record and no discernable acting talent shouldn't be putting on the airs of an A-lister when she's just another glorified mannequin who'll be resorting to surgery to stay "relevant" in a decade. My advice to Ms. Fox: shut the f**k up and stick to the pre-arranged "accidental" encounters with the paparazzi, the faux-lesbianism and the imaginary breakups with Brian Austin Green you've used to keep the stupid frat-boy readers of Maxim interested in you till date.

Perelman's Poincaré Conjecture Proof for Dummies

Where by "dummies", I mean "readers with a background of at least 1 year of mathematics graduate school" (so I exaggerate slightly). Terence Tao has created an interesting, relatively brief document providing an outline of what Grigori Perelman's proof of Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture (which implies the Poincaré Conjecture) is all about, in terms that readers with a basic understanding of algebraic topology and differential geometry can understand (not that those outside this relatively small set of individuals are likely to care anyway).