Censored by News Corp

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp subsidiary, STAR–an Asian TV satellite company which reaches more than 300 million viewers in 53 countries–deleted the words "gay" and "lesbian" from the Academy Award speeches of Dustin Lance Black and Sean Penn during the evening’s edited re-broadcast of the program. The live broadcast which aired earlier in the day included the words later deemed offensive.

STAR spokesperson Jennie Poon said the company did not intend to upset viewers with the edited version, but did have:

a responsibility to take the sensitivities and guidelines of all our markets into consideration. 

Astro–the largest pay-tv satellite service for Malaysia and Indonesia which buys content from STAR–also edited out the the words "gay" and "lesbian" from the speeches.

Pang Khee Teik, a prominent Malaysian arts commentator, wrote in a letter sent out to several media organizations

Censored by News Corp

and printed in full on the Boston Globe’s  Movie Nation website:

For me, this act of censorship defeated the very victory won by these two men. The two moments of silence rang out like the gun shots that killed Harvey Milk.

We live in a time when understanding is needed, when artists need to be bold in addressing the manifold injustices of the world. Hence, such a movie had to be made, such acceptance speeches to be uttered. But by its act of censorship, Astro has sent a message to all Malaysians that gays and lesbians are still shameful things to be censored from the public’s ears. As a gay man, I am truly offended. After all these years of contributing to the country through my work, of helping people regardless of their orientation, being proud of who I am and helping others be proud of who they are, I can assure you that the only thing wrong is how much hate gays have to endure simply for the way we love.

[H/T GLAADblog]

Jim Young/REUTERS

Stevie Wonder was presented the Library of Congress’ second annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at the White House last night. Along with being honored by a concert–featuring guests and performers at the concert soul singer India Arie, country artist Martina McBride, hip hop artist will.i.am and gospel duo Mary Mary–Wonder received words of praise from Michelle and Barack Obama. Said the First Lady:

We honor a man whose music and lyrics I fell in love with when I was a litte girl. The first album I ever bought was Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book Years later when I discovered what Stevie meant when he sang about love, Barack and I chose the song ‘You and I’ as our wedding song.

The President also cited Wonder’s impact on his life and the world at large:

I think it’s fair to say that had I not been a Stevie Wonder fan, Michelle might not have dated me. And I’m not alone. Millions of people around the world have found similar comfort and joy in Stevie’s music and its unique capacity to find hope in struggle and humanity in our common hardships. He’s created a style that is at once uniquely American, uniquely his own and yet somehow universal.

Wonder– who became blind shortly after birth but learned to play the harmonica, piano and drums by age 9 and went on to deliver 32 No. 1 R&B and pop singles, garner 25 Grammy Awards and sell more than 100 million records–was named the prize’s recipient in September, 2008. I wonder what the show would have been like if McCain had been elected president?

Gov GILF will reimburse Alaska $6,800 for her children’s travel including flying her daughter Piper to the start of the Iron Dog snow mobile machine race in 2008 and for meals and airfare when Bristol accompanied her to a New York for a women’s leadership conference in 2007.

The agreement between Palin and the state, announced today, settles an ethics complaint filed in October.

Palin began to include notification that the kids were invited guests, but Tim Petumenos, who was hired by the state Personnel Board to investigate the complaints found

for nine trips, the personal benefit outweighed the public benefit…an invite isn’t the key issue.

Yesterday it was announced Palin will stop using a state Chevy Surburban and also would have to pay taxes on expense money she received while living in her Wasilla home. Her spokeshole Bill McAllister told the Anchorage Daily News that

Palin’s decision on the vehicle related to a recent determination that she owed income taxes on the value of any personal use of it

Fresh off his Milk win, Best Actor Sean Penn is in talks to play Ambassador Joseph Wilson opposite Naomi Watts’ Valerie Plame Wilson in the Doug Liman-directed political drama Fair Game, to be produced by William Pohlad’s River Road. Daily Variety says:

Penn is negotiating, but no deal has closed.Pohlad has a strong relationship with Penn: he was a producer on the Terrence Malick-directed "Tree of Life," which stars Penn and Brad Pitt, and Pohlad also was a producer and financier for "Into the Wild," which Penn directed. 

Wilson wrote a series of op-ed articles critical of the Bush administration, accusing them of manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. That Wilson’s wife was a covert  CIA operative was leaked to journalists.  After she left the CIA in 2005 Wilson and Plame Wilson filed civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Cheney’s ex-chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby for instigating the leaks. Libby was ultimately convicted of lying to a federal grand jury about his role in compromising Plame Wilson’s covert status. While President Bush commuted Libby’s 30 month sentence, he was not granted a presidential pardon.

White House photo

George Clooney skipped skipped the glitz of Hollywood’s biggest night to meet with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden early Monday morning about the crisis in Darfur.

Clooney had just returned from visiting refugee camps in Chad on a privately arranged trip and doing some exploring on his own with New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof and NBC’s Ann Curry. The actor/activist had been denied a visa by the Sudanese government, so he stayed in Chad, though traveled close to border.

I was with journalists who wanted to go into some areas that weren’t particularly safe. And we decided that we would go. And that wasn’t necessarily part of what the U.N. was looking to do.

Clooney, who spoke with Larry King from the lawn of the White House, described the separate meetings he took Monday with Obama and Biden. He had previously discussed Darfur with Obama during a news conference on the issue when Obama was a U.S. senator. The actor is a longtime Darfur activist and a Messenger of Peace for the United Nations.

I actually met with the president in the Oval Office for about 15 minutes…They’ve been very involved…Basically, we were just talking about coming back from Chad and right on the border of Darfur. And we were talking about there’s a moment coming up relatively soon — probably by the middle of next week — where the International Criminal Court is going to indict the president of Sudan for war crimes, which has never happened before — a sitting president.

Clooney feels diplomacy–including persuading China, which is heavily invested in Darfur to push for peace; and urging Egypt, the African Union and Europe to strengthen diplomatic efforts in the region–is the way to go:

This isn’t about needing American dollars. I understand that it’s a very difficult time. It’s not about needing American troops. It’s about needing what we do best — what we have done best since the start of this country — which is good, robust diplomacy all across the world…Diplomacy has to start and it has to be aggressive and it has to start soon. We have an opportunity here.

He also brought public pressure to bear, delivering

250,000 postcards signed by people all across the country who wanted to help give some political capital to and remind this administration of how important this issue is. It was from the Save Darfur people. But it’s from all across the country. And we’re probably going to have another 700,000 by the end of the week.

Clooney has hopes the Administration will listen–and hopes they will act:

Vice President Biden has been incredibly vocal on the issue. We had a long talk about the idea of, first and foremost, appointing a high level, full-time envoy that reports directly to the White House so that it’s not just temporary. We need somebody working on this, you know, every day — getting up every morning with their sole job to find peace in the area.

According to the United Nations an estimated 300,000 people have been killed through direct combat, disease or malnutrition since the conflict began six years ago. An additional 2.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes because of fighting among rebels, government forces and the allied Janjaweed militias.

Forty-eight child prostitutes, some as young as 13, were taken into custody and 571 adults–including 50 pimps–arrested in a nationwide sting called Operation Cross Country III.  The sweep which took place in 29 cities was part of the FBI’s "Innocence Lost" initiative, which set up task forces of police, federal agents and prosecutors to target child prostitution.

Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago, Denver and Phoenix were among the cities targeted. Some adults were charged with prostitution, others as clients, and still others as pimps, with some charges including the domestic trafficking of children for sex. 

FBI Special Agent Tarna Derby-McCurtain of the bureau’s Tacoma office explained that teens  lured into prostitution from Washington State wind up on the "West Coast track," traveling on a sex circuit that ranges from Vancouver, B.C. to Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

In Phoenix, 50 arrests were made, and police in a separate investigation arrested two 16 year-old girls who recruited and managed other teen girls as young as 14 as part of a prostitution ring which operated out of an apartment the "managers" rented. Their recruits came from five area campuses.  Patrol officers gave detectives information on child prostitutes working the area of 27th Avenue and Van Buren Street and Phoenix Police Vice Unit investigators began the five month investigation.

Carol Lease, executive director of the Empowerment Program, a nonprofit in east Denver that works with women and girls in trouble, including teen prostitutes, explained that the teen sex workers rarely have high school diplomas, are addicted to drugs and think they’re stuck in the life, the only job that would pay more than minimum wage, if they could find a straight job. Many were the victims of sexual abuse before becoming prostitutes.

Meantime,  as in many states, the money Colorado has available to pay for what the teens need–a combination of mental health treatment, addiction recovery and counseling–is drying up. Lease said:

We’re just pathetic how we deal with mental health and substance abuse…Until our legislature has a change of heart, which means until the citizens of this state have a change of heart, that’s not going to change.

Currently the funds that do come in for the Colorado teens’ care are from the federal government and non-profit foundations.

The children arrested in the cross-country sting, many of them runaways, were put into safe housing with relatives or Child Protective Services, and could go into social services system or face time in juvenile prison.

Sean Penn’s accepetance speech for Milk. Drink deeply of his awesomeness, bravery, boldness. And then go see the movie again.

 "We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone!"

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has agreed to a three-book deal with Crown Publishers worth about $2.5 million total in advances, per anonymous, in-the-know-insiders. According to a statement issued Sunday by Crown, a division of Random House Inc.:

 Rice will combine candid narrative and acute analysis to tell the story of her time in the White House and as America’s top diplomat, and her role in protecting American security and shaping foreign policy during the extraordinary period from 2001-2009.

Condi will also write a memoir about her family and a young adult of version of the same, telling of her

upbringing in the context of the extraordinary efforts made by her parents and other people in the community to raise children against a backdrop of fading Jim Crow laws and emergent civil rights initiatives.

Rice is supposedly the most likeable member of Bush’s administration. 

Because we have a lot to say and still the party rages on…

Nominees, winners and liveblogging after the jump, not all categories represented..In the interest of space I sacrificed costume design and make-up along with sound editing, special effects, short animation and art direction:

(more…)

Okay…are you ready? The opening number is about to start…OMFG

Nominees, winners and liveblogging after the jump: (more…)