Media Television

Dubai Superheroes: Little Old Grannies Who Wear Veils

From the NYT: “Freej,” which swiftly became one of the most popular shows in the United Arab Emirates when it had its premiere here three years ago, is on a hiatus this Ramadan season, a result of the declining economy and, Mr. Harib says, his exhaustion after three grueling production cycles. In its place a new series of three-minute episodes starring the characters is being shown on local television. Mr. Harib’s animated aspirations took shape a decade ago when he studied at Northeastern University in Boston, where his peers downloaded “South Park” episodes in their dormitories. He recognized that his…

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Television

Television Documentaries and the #IranElection

Recently PBS ran a Frontline documentary from 2002 on Iran. While I applaud the effort to give some necessary background to the situation in Iran, there were some problems. Jordan Robinson wrote a letter offering some critique to the piece. I quote it below with permission: Subject: Rebroadcast of 2002 “A Clash That’s Centuries Old” a disservice to US public Dear Frontline Senior Editorial Team, I just finished watching your 2002 broadcast of “A Clash That’s Centuries Old,” part of your “Terror and Tehran” series. While I appreciate your effort to inform the American public life about life in Iran…

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Politics Television

ACTION ALERT: Support CBS

Recently CBS aired a piece on peace options in the Israeli-Palestinian debacle. I thought the segment was fair and universally irritating, doing the job our press is supposed to do: tell the stories, based on reality, that make-up conflict, not make-up stories, based on a desired reality, to tell a conflict. J Street is telling me that they are getting slammed for doing their job. You can see clips of the show and sign a petition supporting CBS on their site. I altered the language of their form letter, and have pasted my version below, for others to use. The…

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Politics Television

The Party of Yesterday

I was watching a West Wing Marathon and it was funny to see the issues they were dealing with in the series four years ago, and what’s being leveled against Obama. Bartlett is accused of being a socialist for wanting more kids to go to school. Racists are coming out in full-force because the president’s body man is black. Cold War is over, we won, but we are still worried about socialists. Hilarious. Then I read this Op-Ed. Nice way to keep looking back. Election 2008

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Current Affairs Television

Cool TV

From tonight’s Law and Order: Criminal Intent website: Season 4 Episode E5416 STRESS POSITION 9/8pm 02/13/05 PRISON GUARD’S SLAYING RIPS LID OFF CORRUPT PRISON; GUEST STAR CHRISTOPHER NOTH REPRISES ‘LAW & ORDER’ ROLE — The murder of a corrections officer points the Major Case squad toward a corrupt Brooklyn prison where unaccounted-for prisoners are secretly abused by guards — and the key to exposing the ring lies with a prison nurse whose boyfriend is the maverick Detective Mike Logan (Christopher Noth, NBC’s “Law & Order”). As Logan warily aids Detectives Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Eames (Kathryn Erbe) in their probe,…

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Current Affairs Television

Action Alert

Following email was sent to me by Taal (who has yet to do a direct post here, hint). Don’t have enough bandwidth right now to view the trailer directly, but thought this was interesting enough to share. ——– Dear Friends, We hope that you’re doing well. We’ve never really been the type to forward or sign online petitions or write mass emails. But we felt compelled to tell you about something that has deeply concerned us. Recently, we sat in a theater to watch Spiderman 2 and were shocked to see a trailer for an upcoming TNT program called ‘The…

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