Darfur

Last night, at the "Rock to Save Darfur Concert-Benefit," City Councilman Eric Gioia told Talib Kweli that he'd like to replace Mos Def as the other half of Blackstar. Kweli laughed and shook his head.

Gioia was at B.B. King's Blues Club in Times Square, along with a handful of hip-hop artists and human rights activists, as one of the sponsors of a City Council resolution asking the New York City pension fund to divest from Sudan.

“I’ve been working on this for about two years, and its kind of a lonely fight,” Gioia told me backstage before he addressed the crowd.  read more »

Fall Out Boy, Maroon 5, the Academy Is ..., Cartel, Coheed and Cambria, Colbie Caillat, Hot Hot Heat and the Decemberists will all be participating in MySpace's Rock for Darfur concert on November 10, MTVNews.com reports. A total of 32 concerts will take place on four continents to raise awareness about the Darfur conflict (kinda like Live Earth?).

A portion of the proceeds from the bands' previously scheduled shows will be donated to Oxfam International and the Save Darfur Coalition.

In New York, Gabby Glaser of Luscious Jackson will perform at The Annex and Victory Records' Streetlight Manifesto will play ska at The Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center.

I just got off a media conference call with Barack Obama in which he addressed the subject of his burgeoning foreign policy debate with Hillary Clinton.

Asked whether his personal life experience gives him an advantage over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards when it comes to formulating foreign policy, he said, “At this point it is not just about life experience, though that informs my perspective.” The important thing, he said, is how that perspective informs “how the United States should present its interests and ideals around the world.”

Obama also went back to the original argument which started during this week’s YouTube/CNN debate, in which he was criticized by Hillary Clinton for saying that he would be willing to talk to international dictators.

“I think it is a debate over the same conventional thinking that led people to authorize the vote over Iraq without asking questions,” he said. He compared this with a different line of thinking that “asks questions and is not informed by a lot of received wisdom.”

(Shades of Howard Dean's argument in 2004 about John Kerry's vast Senate experience and Kerry's vote, later lamented, to authorize the war.)

Obama did say that he agreed with Clinton’s position on whether America should commit ground troops to Darfur.  “It is absolutely true that given what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is difficult for us to mount the kind of troop strength that would be necessary,” he said. “But more important, it would be disastrous for even our policy in Darfur to send U.S. troops unilaterally into another Muslim country. It’s very important for the sake of our success there that it’s done as part of an international effort.”

It was after midnight last Saturday, and Bungalow 8 was filling up.  read more »

Correction to items written today by Dylan Stableford on Mediabistro's 'Fishbowlny', an oddly named New York media blog.

1. Is Page A2 of the New York Times really that funny?, Dylan asked of the Times' advertisement of a chuckling fellow holding open the paper. Caption: "Darfur? BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Actually, A2 carries the News Summary, corrections, editors notes, and "for the records," not news about international genocide.

2. Dylan takes note of a publicity email he received from the New York Daily News about the escalation of Ben Widdicombe's gossip column to 5 days a week. "We like to think of Widdicome as the Owen Wilson to our Luke, at least on the media party circuit. This well-meaning Daily News flack apparently agrees," he writes, and then reprints an email from said flack, in which Dylan is asked to consider "booking" Ben Widdicombe on his "show."

Actually, Ben Widdicombe is the Owen Wilson to Dylan's Carnie Wilson.

Fishbowlny regrets the errors.

Manhattan state Senate candidate Flip Pidot has a campaign kick-off pizza party.

Sudanese refugee, Rep. Anthony Weiner and others talk about the genocide in Darfur at the Forest Hills Jewish Center (106-06 Queens Blvd) at 8 p.m.

And C-SPAN 2 shows ads, then a rerun of the debate, between Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and challenger Bob Casey, at 8 p.m.

-- Azi Paybarah

There’s an enigmatic new celeb on the cultural radar. Can you guess his name?  read more »

There’s an enigmatic new celeb on the cultural radar. Can you guess his name?  read more »

Death in war is rarely even dramatic in its circumstances.  read more »

When last I visited the subject, my wife had dismissed my criticisms of George Clooney's political movies, saying I was being mean-spirited. Then fate rallied to my cause. My wife went to the hairdresser and told him about her soft spot for Clooney—and he took my side, and changed her mind. You might say that he did a number on her head inside and out. She was good enough to tell me about it, and I called Kenny Parrella.

"He's like a non-person. If you took away the actor, what's left? He's just that character all the time. A goodlooking guy. George Clooney is always playing George Clooney. He's going to learn the lines, but it's the same character."

"Did you ever find him appealing?"

"Yes. I started off liking him, but I learned not to. All the way back to The Facts of Life [on television]. He's goodlooking, he's got that grin. It's the same guy."

"Aren't a lot of actors that way?"

"Not the good ones. Compare him to Jack Nicholson. The guy has a lot of other stuff going on under the performance, and he is able to draw on that as an actor. Jude Law. He's a person. He's very goodlooking but his characters from one movie to another are different. Watch 'Closer.' Or 'I Heart Huckabees.' He can play pathetic, and well. I don't think George Clooney can go there."

"What about the great work he has done on Darfur?"

"You caught me. I don't know about that."

Thank youuuu Kenny. For the record: George Clooney has shown tremendous initiative in visiting the Sudan and urging active American intervention to end the genocide and starvation. Bravo.

There’s a growing genre of nonfiction that could be called “lefty paranoia about the evil brilli  read more »

There’s a growing genre of nonfiction that could be called “lefty paranoia about the evi  read more »

Two unexpected inquiries prompted this column.  read more »

Send a pol to the occupied territories with Dov Hikind, and you never know what he'll say.

Here's Brooklyn State Senator John Sampson, making an election-year play for Hikind's support with on field trip to Gaza:

"It's wrong to tell these farmers they have to be uprooted from their lives' work," Sampson said, according to WorldNetDaily, the conservative Web journal that seems to have sent a reporter along with Hikind's troupe.

The story continues:  read more »

"Sampson compared the Gaza evacuation to previous human-rights violations against America's black community: 'This in certain ways is like slavery. Like Darfur. It's the same general concept. Completely violating these Gaza residents civil rights and kicking them out of their homes.... I will spread the word in America when I return.'"

Same general concept.