Juju, an 8 year old Saudi Arabian girl, shares her thoughts on Egypt’s President Mubarak and the current protests going on in Cairo. We particularly like it when she leans in conspiratorially to tell him that “by the way,” some of his police officers are deserting their posts and joining the people. You go, girl. Video after the jump!
The stylish bloggers behind Put This On took historic original audio of a call from President Lyndon Johnson to the Haggar clothing company and gave it to animator Tawd Dorenfeld, who created a clip that is guaranteed to be the most entertaining thing you watch all day. A sample quote from the slightly disturbing — and anatomically specific — conversation: “And another thing, the crotch, down where the nuts hang, is always a little too tight. So when you make them up, give me an inch that I can let out there, because they cut me. It’s just like riding a wire fence… When I gain a little weight, they cut me under there… [belch]” Ahem. And to think, President Obama recently got put through the wringer for wearing flip-flops on vacation in Hawaii.
Seattle’s alt-weekly, The Stranger, has previewed their upcoming sure-to-be-controversial cover created by Dan Savage (of Savage Love) and Aaron Huffman. Their take on history’s most well-known assassination attempts — both fatal and near-fatal — is a stark and startling image mirroring that of Sarah Palin’s now infamous “crosshair map.” As Michael Moore tweeted yesterday: “If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now?” Click through for a closer look at the cover, and let us know what you think of Savage’s work in the comments.
Thanks in part to his unique facial hair and awesome party name, New York gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan (a former postal worker who also goes by “Papa Smurf”) has become a pop culture icon over the past few weeks. He was parodied by Keenan Thompson on last week’s Saturday Night Live. He’s dropping an album (provisionally entitled The Rent Is Too Damn High) on Election Day. He’s getting his own overpriced action figure. And now, in a stroke of genius, our friends at ANIMAL have turned him into an adorable paper doll that comes with four different Halloween costumes! Snooki, Antoine Dodson, Justin Bieber, and Christine O’Donnell. Click through to see Jimmy all dressed up, and visit ANIMAL to download the various ensembles.
On Sunday The New York Times Magazine ran a detailed story about this country’s most polarizing political nut job/hero-to-the-right, Glenn Beck. Whatever you feel about the guy personally (and we assume, somehow, perhaps naively, that most Flavorwire readers are HUGE fans), you have to acknowledge that he’s got a huge portion of the country tucked into his pocket, hanging on to his every word. It seemed a good opportunity to point out some things we learned about Mr. Beck from the profile. The top ten factoids after the jump.
Happy election day to our British readers! While we admit that we could be a bit better versed in UK politics than we are (yes, all the ugly American rumors you hear are true), we are very excited about an election-related public art project that’s been lighting up the streets of London for the past week. Billbored, which describes itself as “a viral art initiative aiming to empower people” has solicited politically oriented billboard designs from artists, designers, and other cultural figures — including M.I.A. For those of us who won’t get to see the images projected on the Tate Modern, St. Paul’s Cathedral, or the Saatchi Gallery, Billbored has kindly posted them at its website. Check out M.I.A.’s designs and five more of our favorites after the jump.
View a larger image and play around with the zoom function over at the New York Times. (Side note: We’re trying to figure out how this map might relate to the “Fire Pelosi” one over on GOP.com. We’d love to see a flaming mash-up.)
So this is both terrifying and funny: It has been reported by the Washington Independent that employees of Blackwater, a private military and security corporation with a not-so-spotless record, has “diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen.” Those weapons were acquired by Blackwater subsidy Paravent, who trained the Afghan army. Paravent says it was using the stolen weapons for its employees’ personal use. Like that’s supposed to be comforting.
OK, now onto the funny part. The person who signed for the diverted weapons shipments used the name “Eric Cartman” on at least one occasion. Hippies, consider yourselves warned. [via Current]
The National Archives knows how to build suspense, releasing juicy tidbits from Richard Nixon’s papers morsel by juicy morsel. The latest batch of missives from the 37th president reveals an aesthetic side to the famously gruff politician, who despised news media and had a “personality problem with the public.” Something of a traditionalist, Nixon railed against the progressive art and architecture promoted by the Kennedy set.
Talking Heads alum David Byrne and dance beat guru Fatboy Slim are finally releasing Here Lies Love, their disco-influenced concept album based on the life of ex-Philippine first lady/shoe-hoarding diva Imelda Marcos and her life-long servant, Estrella Cumpas. If your first reaction is to rub your eyeballs and re-read that last sentence, we felt the same way.
Though, after some thought, we realized that this is just what we’ve come to expect from the awesomely eccentric Byrne. The new-wave hero played a rough draft of the project in a New York City showcase at Carnegie Hall in 2007, receiving decent reviews (it was a rough draft, after all). The original goal was to stage the songs as a musical, and while there have been a couple of theatrical performances with a few different ladies at the helm, the official album release features vocals by 23 artists.
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