The Guardian: Democrats Target Black Vote as Tea Party Collects Converts

MacAskill, Ewen. "Democrats Target Black Vote as Tea Party Collects Converts | World News | The Guardian." Latest News, Comment and Reviews from the Guardian | Guardian.co.uk. The Guardian Media Group, 20 Oct. 2010. Web. 21 Oct. 2010. .

Click HERE for the article!

The majority of African-Americans still back Obama, which could be crucial in midterms, but in Kentucky some are switching sides. The Democrats will face an enormously difficult and important election. Reverend Jerry Stephenson, is a registered Democrat but he will vote for the Tea Party favorite, Rand Paul. He was prideful of Obama, but still feels like Obama isn't quite perfect for the job. Stephenson is a minority though among African-Americans likely to back the republicans, little more than 10% of African Americans traditionally back the democrats, and Obama won 95% of their vote. The question for Obama is whether they will turn out again for him. The Democrats have spent over $3 million dollars to target the black community. Rand Paul, the Tea Party candidate, receives support even though he opposed the civil rights legislation of the 60s. Stephenson says in response that the country needs independent thinkers, and later went to say, quoting one of Obama's campaign slogan, "There has to be change that we can not only believe in, but that we can see."

Twist!

1) The villain is another archetype, analyze the character of Lucius as a villain archetype, what does he represent?

Lucius represents everything that is viewed as evil in the world. While Angela his sister, represents an angel, he represents the devil. I think he is an original character seeing that he isn't stereotypically fat, or necessarily mean, he is just a seemingly ordinary person. The only bad part to him is the devil inside him. The one that lets him kill his sisters lover, and join the KKK. A totally "Angelic" sister, with the totally awful brother. Everything that she is, looking past the color, good, truthful, able, honest, he is not. An opposite to the perfection.

2) Why do you think the author of the musical chose to set the story in New Orleans. How does the history of New Orleans reflect the racial history of the United States?

I think that the author chose New Orleans because of its racial history. It started out being Native American territory until the French started a colony there. After Napoleon sold the territory to the Americans, many different races and ethnicities flowed into the city. These included French, Creole, Irish, German, Haitians, African Americans and other white Americans. New Orleans has always been a diverse city. New Orleans story is very similar to the Story of the United States. Especially in New York City, many races and ethnicities came to have a better life. I think the author chose New Orleans because in doing so, they chose the whole United States.

3)What worked about the production? What needed to be improved? If a producer hired you to get the production ready for Broadway, what changes would you make?

For me at least, I felt like many of the songs where too similar. When they are too similar then most aren't memorable. Songs like the "Death" song that are unique leave one remembering and playing back the song in their head. More memorable songs would make a world of difference. The dancing I felt like could have been better. At the beginning the tap dancing was amazing, but you never saw anything that good later on. I also thought that the ghost dance was great, but that style would be hard to apply anywhere else. I know that they where trying to have all different dances through African American history, but I felt that like the songs, only few where memorable and most remained generic. Other than those to things, the only other problem I thought was the length, some songs where unnecessary and made it so much longer, I think that if I actually was hired I would somehow address the length. Other than that, It was amazing, I loved almost every minute of it!

The Guardian: Ground Zero Mosque

For me it was very interesting to hear the British side to this issue. We always hear the American version, clouded by our typical views of hate. The British however, look at it just like an observer, not a player. They actually try to find the truth. That's what we should hear; Although, the Guardian may be slightly too "left" for some.

Pilkington, Ed. "Park51 Drawings Prove How Far 'Ground Zero Mosque' Claims Are from Truth | World News | The Guardian." The Guardian. Web. 08 Oct. 2010. .

Click Here for the Article

Summary:

The proposed scheme for the "Ground Zero Mosque" is neither a mosque nor at ground zero. It is, though, a Multi faith Community Center with an Islamic prayer area. The design is actually quite modern and has "Cutting edge design." It has a lattice pattern on the front which creates multiple geometric figures, these figures are often found in the Muslim faith, but you can clearly see the Star Of David in the lattice work also. Sharif el-Gamal, the developer of the $120 million dollar building told the Associated Press that nearly a quarter of the buildings space will be devoted to a sports and fitness center, and also childcare, a restaurant, exhibition space, a memorial, and a spa. Gamal apologizes about the way things had been done. He states that, "I would have done things a lot differently during this process if I understood what we were up against." He also stated, "Our identity has been stolen from us (Muslims). It has been stolen by extremists."

The Guardian Summary

The Guardian is located in the center of London in the United Kingdom. It is one of the largest newspapers in the United Kingdom. It is unique among many papers seeing that it is owned by a foundation, the Scott Trust. The website, guardian.co.uk, is one of the highest-traffic English-language news websites. According to its editor, The Guardian has the second largest online readership of any English-language newspaper in the world, after the New York Times.

Guardian Media Group (often called GMG) owns The Guardian. GMG is based in London. Guardian Media Group owns many different media functions in the UK, making it one of the leading multimedia businesses in the UK. For newspapers, GMG owns The Guardian (the most important thing it owns) and its sister paper The Observer, a paper only published on Sundays. The Observer is the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world. GMG also owns many radio stations throughout the UK and is the third largest radio group in the UK (measured by hours its listeners have listened to the group’s stations). GMG also has divisions that make software for real estate, publish an auto magazine and website in the UK called Auto Trader, and deal with different business-to-business functions for businesses. GMG is owned by a trust called the Scott Trust.

The Guardian covers many different topics. For news, it covers news in the both UK and around the world. The Guardian also covers smaller topics like sports, culture, business, money, life and style, travel, environment, and TV. The Guardian has a strong left wing approach to most issues. Left wing meaning liberal, they generally talk about riots, environment, and other typically liberal topics. They remain one of the most "Left" papers in the UK.