Culture

It was nice of the city of Berlin to organize a U2 concert as part of the celebrations for 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall, but putting up 2-meter wall to keep people out was an unfortunate decision:  

True, there were no minefields or watchtowers, but the new temporary wall erected before the performance certainly sent the wrong signals.

Only 10,000 fans in possession of previously allocated free tickets were allowed to pass through the checkpoints — yes, checkpoints — to listen to the Irish band.

There is going to be a Muhammad biopic. Yes, that Muhammad. Many readers may wonder: How is that possible, with the whole he-shall-not-be-depicted rule? Well, it's pretty simple; the movie will never show him.

Due to start shooting in 2011, producer Barrie Osborne of Matrix and Lord Of The Rings fame will throw $150 million into a movie that he said is, "an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam."

Osborne has enlisted Egyptian cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi to help guide the film's positive portrayal of Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance, though it should be noted that Qaradaw is also barred from entering the U.K. because he defended suicide attacks on Israelis as "martyrdom in the name of God."

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It seems that even socialists are getting sick of Michael Moore.

Moore recently went on Jimmy Kimmel Live and made a joke about getting drunk with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and helping him write his speeches to the United Nations. Well the Chavistas were having none of that.

Take this paragraph from Eva Golinger, one of Chavez's most prominent defenders:

Moore is exceptionally full of himself towards the end of the interview with Jimmy Kimmel. He says Chávez asked him for advice about his upcoming United Nations speech. Moore sternly told the South American president to "say sorry for calling Bush the devil, "el diablo"" during his last UN intervention. And to say this time around it's all about the "hope"! Way to defend Bush, Michael! Wait, didn't you write, direct and film Fahrenheit 9/11? Right, but when someone "non-US" tells it like it is, you get way patriotic. I get it.

Other outrage followed suit. They lambasted Moore for saying that Chavez drinks, even worse that he drinks tequila. They also got unusually offended at the idea that Chavez would use speechwriters, or for that matter, Teleprompters. The exclamation-point-happy Golinger said, "We know that nobody writes his speeches, not even him! He speaks from his heart, and not from a teleprompter!"

Michael Moore has been called many things in his career, but a supporter of George W. Bush? This has to be a first.

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The Lebanese sure showed Israel this weekend. For years, the two held the same thing sacred, while only one could hold the title. That title, of course, is who could make the largest batch of hummus.

Israel used to hold the record for making the largest plate of the dip, but no longer after Lebanese chefs served up over two tons of chickpea-y goodness on Saturday. The entire affair is comical in the sense that too often it seems like neither side is actually talking about hummus.

The slogan for the event was, "Come and fight for your bite, you know you're right," illustrating the growing frustration. Several Lebanese businessmen also used the belligerent rhetoric.

"Lebanon is trying to win a battle against Israel," Fady Jreissati, the events promoter said. "Hummus is a Lebanese product and part of our traditions."

This isn't the first time the two counties have clashed over the dish, last year the Association of Lebanese Industrialists sued Israel in an effort to stop them from marketing hummus as Israeli. Saturday, the head of that group said, "If we don't tell Israel that enough is enough, and we don't remind the world that it's not true that hummus is an Israeli traditional dish, they will keep on marketing it as their own."

However the food wars don't end with hummus. Yesterday the Lebanese also made the world's largest batch of tabbouleh, a salad which Lebanon claims the Zionists are trying to take as their own.

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A large contingent of American bands have joined the Close Gitmo Now campaign in direct protest of the use of their music during torture practices at Guantanamo Bay. The new campaign is led by two retired generals: Lieutenant General Robert Gard and Brigadier General John Johns. Robert Gard has spoken out in defense of the musicians, stating:

"The musicians' music 'was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration's misguided policies'."

Popular artists such as REM, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Morello, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, Jackson Browne, and The Roots have signed an open letter to Congress requesting the declassification of government records concerning how music was utilized during "futility" interrogation tactics - making the prisoner feel hopeless while exploiting his psychological, moral, and sociological weaknesses.

Tom Morellon of Rage Against the Machine fame has expressed his peronsal rage against Dick Cheney:

"Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured - from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts - playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums. Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney's idea of America, but it's not mine.  The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me - we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now."

But don't except every rock band to jump on board, some view the use of their music at Gitmo as an honor.

Above, Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against The Machine performs during the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Target Center September 3, 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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The world has seen a red revolution, a green revolution and an orange revolution, but Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may have sparked a turquoise revolution.

Italian judge Raimondo Mesiano ruled that Silvio Berlusconi's company Fininvest was liable in a bribery case and ordered it to pay over a billion dollars in lost revenue to rival company the CIR Group. Within days of this ruling, Berlusconi's television station Canale 5 began secretly taping the judge.  The footage aired and commentators called Mesiano extravagant and eccentric. They focused on the number of cigarettes he smoked and his turquoise socks. The commentators called his choice in socks, "strange."

This in turn inspired Democratic Party Leader Dario Franceschini to call on all Italians to start wearing turquoise socks to show solidarity with the judge. He said, "Mesiano was simply guilty of doing his job as a judge."

Naturally, judges in Italy are furious about the privacy, but surprisingly, even Berlusconi's political allies and employees of his Mediaset find the act disgraceful and pathetic.

However Mediaset's head of news lashed out at critics justifying the footage as objective and necessary given Mesiano's rise to prominence in Italy. He also said, "We don't accept lectures from those who have routinely used spying as a journalistic method." That statement was in reference to those outlets that reported on Berlusconi's multiple sex scandals.

The sure-to-be prominence of turquoise-socked protesters in Italy will only further add to the woes of the most persecuted man in history.  

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The star of Godfather III star has apparently been enlisted to play the Georgian President in an upcoming film depiction of the August war:

Television pictures showed Garcia holding court in a suit, red tie and a lapel pin bearing the red-and-white Georgian flag in Saakashvili's office in the presidential palace. [See above.]

The plot revolves around an American reporter who gets caught in the crossfire as war engulfs the country, testing his impartiality as a journalist. Papuna Davitaia, a parliament deputy from Saakashvili's ruling United National Movement, is one of the producers on the project.

"Our main concern was to show war as a bad thing," executive producer Michael Flannigan told Georgian television. "We had an opportunity to make a really anti-war film."

Garcia's actually not a bad choice for Saakashvili, though it's pretty doubtful that a film backed by Saakashvili himself and helmed by  the director of "Deep Blue Sea" and "Cliffhanger" is going to accurately capture complexity and moral ambiguity of the August war.

On the other hand, all will be forgiven if they can get Daniel Craig to play Putin. 

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Dutch MP Geert Wilders won an appeal lifting his travel ban to the United Kingdom. He was barred from entering the country after British officials deemed him a risk to the public order. Wilders, who wants to ban the Koran, called the reversal a victory for free speech.

Depending on who you ask, Wilders is either a hateful Islamophobe who wants to incite violence against Muslims or a  a common sense leader who doesn't want his government's tax money going toward unemployment checks for al-Qaeda bloggers, like it is in Belgium. Either way, he still faces trial in his native Holland for inciting hatred.

After being turned back at Heathrow Airport in February, Wilders appealed the ban, won, and plans to return to the UK next week at the request of Lord Pearson and his conservative UK Independence Party. There he will screen Fitna for the House of Lords. After Wilders was banned from the UK, Pearson said the government was appeasing militant Islam.

British authorities said of the reversal of the ban, "We are disappointed by the court's decision. The government opposes extremism in all of its forms."

Wilders claimed he isn't an extremist.

"I'm not doing anything wrong," he said. "I'm not protesting or running through the streets of London."

Passport reported on Wilders' visit to Washington in February. 

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