- From trying to right a societal injustice to being forbidden by the judicial system, a popular song from South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle has been declared hate speech by a South African court. The song, which includes the words “Dubula ibhuni” - which translate loosely to English as “Kill the Boer" - is often sung by Julius Malema, controversial head of the African National Congress Youth League, but today’s court ruling makes the song hate speech and also makes it illegal to sing the song in both public and private settings. Boer can mean farmer or it can mean white Afrikaners - particularly those who esteem themselves as the keepers of the nation’s language and history. The song was once sung frequently by those oppressed under the country’s apartheid system of discrimination, which Nelson Mandela fought so famously against and prevailed. However, the tune has taken on a decidedly different stigma of late and Justice Collin Lamont has ruled that the song qualifies as hate speech even though to black South Africans the lyric "ibhuni" does not necessarily mean Boer, the offensive term in question. Those who continue to sing it cite its use in referring to the apartheid government, and currently it is used to define whites who cling to the past. Judge Lamont rejected those arguments, saying that in order to determine whether the song is hate speech, it is the view of those who see it as such that must be used. “If the words have different meanings then each meaning must be considered and be accepted as a meaning," said Lamont. "The search is not to discover an exclusive meaning but to find the meaning the target group would reasonably attribute to the words.” Opponents of the song typically are white South Africans who believe Malema sings the song to incite hatred. Harsher critics have alleged the song itself leads to murder, particularly of white farmers and their families.
Malema insists he sings the 70-year-old song solely for its anti-apartheid struggle meaning. Lamont questioned that stance and noted that Malema often makes shooting hand gestures when singing and uses anti-white slogans in his songs and speeches. Free speech activists were quick to decry the court’s ruling, which will undoubtedly be appealed. Until then, Malema and his supporters must find a new hate song, er, theme song to sing…………
- On a weekend that marked the start of an NFL season wherein kickoff returns were supposed to comprise a much smaller, less-significant part of the game, that message didn’t make its way to San Francisco 49ers speedster Ted Ginn Jr. A new rule mandating that kickoffs take place from the kicking team’s 35-yard-line instead of the 30 precipitated a groundswell of complaints from players, coaches and analysts who worried that giving kickers an additional five yards would mean more touchbacks and less of the exciting kickoff returns that make games thrilling. Of course, that’s part of the reason the NFL made the change, to eliminate the injuries that happen frequently on kickoffs. Yet after seeing counterparts Randall “Corn” Cobb of the Green Bay Packers and Percy Harvin of the Minnesota Vikings each return a kickoff more than 100 yards for a touchdown in their respective openings games, Ginn kicked things up a notch late in his team’s matchup with Seattle. After the Seahawks scored to close to within two at 19-17 late in the game, Ginn took the ensuing kickoff two yards into the end zone, brought it out and tore through the entire Seattle coverage team and went 102 yards for a return TD of his own. To add some icing to his kick return cake, Ginn then returned a punt 55 yards for a score and became the first player to have kickoff-return and punt-return touchdowns in the same game on opening weekend of the NFL season. Making his big game all the more remarkable, it came in the same week he agreed to a reduced contract that means a $1.2 million pay cut. Ginn was asked to restructure his contract by the team, which is typically code for “Either agree to this and give back some money or we’ll release you.” As something of a chronic underachiever to this point in his career, Ginn wasn’t in a position to play hardball on the deal. Instead, he accepted the pay cut that came with incentives based on his punt return average, receptions, and playing time ($400,000 each). Asked about his impressive opening week effort after the face, Ginn wasn’t boastful. "I got an opportunity to go out and show what I had," he said. "It's great. You do it on the video game a lot, but you don't see it a lot in real life." More games like that and Ginn will soon have the 49ers reworking his contract again, except this time to give him more money instead of taking it from him…………
- Hey, congrats to IBM for finding something for its most famous supercomputer to do once it finished kicking Ken Jennings’ lily-white ass on Jeopardy. Watson, the supercomputer that dominated former Jeopardy, had to find something to fill its cyber-schedule now that it has conquered the world of game shows and that something has turned out to be helping fix the world’s broken healthcare system - in a way. IBM and health insurer WellPoint are teaming up to use Watson in assisting medical professionals in diagnosing and treating patients. It will be the first commercial application for the computer and a means of IBM recouping some of the immense R&D dollars it spent on Watson along the way (although Watson would probably need to work in its new capacity for a few decades to really begin making a dent in that total). "Watson is expected to serve as a powerful tool in the physician's decision making process," the companies said in a joint statement. “We will develop and launch Watson-based solutions to help improve patient care through the delivery of up-to-date, evidence-based health care for millions of Americans." Can Watson be as successful at diagnosing patients as it was playing a televised trivia game that tests a player's knowledge in a range of categories, from geography to politics to history to sports and entertainment? Well, the supercomputer does understand spoken language and has advanced reasoning skills, so maybe. "Watson's ability to analyze the meaning and context of human language, and quickly process vast amounts of information to suggest options targeted to a patient's circumstances, can assist decision makers, such as physicians and nurses, in identifying the most likely diagnosis and treatment options for their patients," IBM and WellPoint said. What is the medical world about if not loads and loads of information that is largely indecipherable to the average person? With Watson’s ability to quickly scan as much as 200 million pages of data and provide precise responses in just seconds, the fit seems natural. "Using this extraordinary capability WellPoint is expected to enable Watson to allow physicians to easily coordinate medical data programmed into Watson with specified patient factors, to help identify the most likely diagnosis and treatment options in complex cases," IBM and WellPoint declared. WellPoint hopes to begin employing Watson technology in early 2012 in clinical pilots with selected physician groups and go from there. As for how humans will feel about being diagnosed by a supercomputer that curb-stomped one of their own on the most famous television game show in modern history………….
- Anderson Cooper, Godspeed. Maybe Cooper can succeed where so many other big names have failed in the world of television, but probably not. Scores (a slight exaggeration possibly) of other famous faces have hosted their own daytime (or occasionally late-night) talk shows and seen those shows canceled before viewers even had a chance to slot them in their TiVo. Cooper’s own daytime show begins this week and CNN has promoted it relentlessly, with widespread media hype and comparisons to journalism greats of the past along with speculation that Cooper might snatch up some of the market share suddenly vacant due to Oprah Winfrey’s recent departure from the world of daytime talk. Cooper definitely has plenty working in his favor and is widely considered a trusted and respected voice in the news world, but that won't necessarily be enough to make the show successful. The personality characteristics and qualities needed to host an entertaining and highly rated daytime talk show are not the same ones needed to anchor a news program, such as Cooper’s CNN show AC 360. His new show has been coined Anderson and he has been promoting it as having a focus on “real stories.” His first show, which aired Monday, featured a real interview with the family of late pop singer Amy Winehouse. The studio audience for the first broadcast was largely female, perhaps drawn in by Cooper’s hunky news anchor charisma and good looks. Considering AC 360’s inconsistent ratings, the mere fact that CNN gave Cooper a second show indicates the networks’ immense faith in him. Perhaps his experience filling in for the soon-to-retire Regis Philbin aside Kelly Ripa on ABC’s national morning show will help, but is Cooper really the same sort of character as a Maury Povich, Dr. Phil, Oprah or Ricki Lake? Should Anderson get off to a slow start, maybe it can draw on a solid Mo-Po ratings grabber like bringing in the mother of a young child who doesn’t know the identity of the baby’s father and conducting DNA testing on potential fathers before announcing the results on the show. It truly does not get any more real than that…………
- Flying is typically such a pain in the ass that the average traveler doesn’t find anything or anything good or pleasant in the process. But there are a few good souls involved in the air travel experience, even if those people are far enough behind the scenes that they are seldom seen or heard from. The behind-the-scenes players at the Sea-Tac (Seattle-Tacoma) Airport are making a point of being both seen and heard and not surprisingly, it’s over demands they have for benefits and respect. Airport employees and their supporters staged a protest at the airport on Saturday, rallying for union benefits for hundreds of passenger service workers at the facility. Among them were many sky caps and others low on the airport’s hierarchy, people who work most directly with passengers and many of whom depend upon tips for their salary. Several sky caps at the protest said nearly 80 percent of their income is derived from tips and even those who earn a salary claim they too are struggling. Like any (supposedly) exploited, underpaid group of workers, they are demanding better pay, health benefits and job security. Their campaign includes more than 600 employees at the airport, many of whom attended the protest and were joined by local union supporters. This motley crew of angry misanthropes chanted "What kind of power? Union power," and hoisted signs and placards. Their concerns are not unique within the service industry and workers at every airport in the world could probably voice similar complaints, but it is nonetheless inspiring to see the common man (or woman) rise up and demand what they believe to be rightfully theirs. So protest on, Sea-Tac employees, protest on…………
No comments:
Post a Comment