Sri Lanka Chica, Soon to be Mom, Gets Grammy Nom.

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m.i.a. round cheeks.jpg

It seems a little anti-climactic to say it, but given how long we’ve been arguing talking about M.I.A. here, it probably needs to be addressed: M.I.A’s “Paper Planes” has been nominated for “Best Record of the Year.”

She’s up against Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, on a groundbreaking country music collaboration, and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.” So she has no chance of winning (the Grammy’s usually favor established artists and veteran rock stars over rappers, even innovative rappers). Still, chica has come a very long way since she started out a few years ago.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to wish her and her fiancé the best for the child they’re expecting. There’s something profoundly humanizing and clarifying about becoming a parent, though it also changes how most people approach their work and career. (Whatever happens, I do hope that M.I.A. will show up on Noggin and do a song for Yo Gabba Gabba! like The Ting Tings recently did. Perhaps a child-friendly version of “Galang Galang”?)

Speaking of raising children, and on a somewhat more serious note, it seems worth saying that the story that moved me most this (terrible) past week was the story of the Indian ayah, Sandra Samuel, who risked getting shot by cocaine-snorting, steroids-injecting, Islamofascist psychos, to rescue little Moshe Holtzberg at Chabad House in Mumbai:

sandra samuel moshe holtzberg.jpg

I was pleased to see that the Israeli government has given her a high honor for what she did. She deserves it.

259 thoughts on “Sri Lanka Chica, Soon to be Mom, Gets Grammy Nom.”

  1. 250 脗路 Rahul S said

    You’re an idiot.

    pithy. and wrong. i’ll just wait for your excuse about how your girlfriend chewing you out about not using the discount coupons while buying the dollar meat at the corner grocery store, or how you stayed awake for 50 hours writing a thesis on the complex interrelationships between borgs and klingons that have reshaped the geopolitics of the kuiper belt, or how your brain was on autopilot because you were masturbating while watching ultimate bowling on espn.

  2. You’re an idiot.

    what you’ve shown this thread is that you excel in third-grade namecalling. first, camille. then, me. good job. i think you’re getting cranky. maybe it’s nap-time?

    meanwhile, when your IQ shoots up to a 100, read this to begin with.

    Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski stated “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise.” Brzezinski himself played a fundamental role in crafting U.S. policy, which, unbeknownst even to the mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy “to induce a Soviet military intervention.” In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski recalled: We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would…That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap…The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War.

  3. 252 脗路 label whore said

    Zbigniew Brzezinski

    Wait, your quoting Brzezinski? Have you ever heard of when this advisor kicked the Shah out of Iran. This was a debacle!!!!!!!!!!!! They (Brzezinski & Carter) didn’t understand the principle of lesser evils, & that brought in Khomeini. They kicked out the Shah (who was corrupt, but was the better of the two) & brought in the radical shiites to power. Did you know that Khomeini radicalized Iran, & Iran is currently the largest sponsor of terror. The genius Brzezinski. Yep. 馃檪 Brzezinski hasn’t apologized about this. Brzezinski & Carter were disasters for US foreign policy, & we’re paying for it today.

  4. 251 脗路 and you’re charming said

    250 脗路 Rahul S said
    You’re an idiot.
    pithy. and wrong. i’ll just wait for your excuse about how your girlfriend chewing you out about not using the discount coupons while buying the dollar meat at the corner grocery store, or how you stayed awake for 50 hours writing a thesis on the complex interrelationships between borgs and klingons that have reshaped the geopolitics of the kuiper belt, or how your brain was on autopilot because you were masturbating while watching ultimate bowling on espn.

    haha 馃檪

  5. 247 脗路 portmanteau said

    <

    blockquote>240 脗路 bess said

    Well if it isn’t love it must be hate/anger

    There’s no option for dementia, masochism, and unnecessary wrath? What kind of Old testament story is this?

  7. or how your brain was on autopilot because you were masturbating while watching ultimate bowling on espn.

    Ultimate Bowling is only on Espn2.

  8. 237 脗路 Ponniyin Selvan said

    Why is it wrong to have an anti-Pakistan bias ?. Did you read the resignation letter of Mr. Mandal, the first Dalit Bengali Hindu law minister of Pakistan? http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal

    One can be against the actions of a particular government or a certain section of a society without being biased against an entire nation. If I don’t agree with the Bush Administration on certain issues, that doesn’t make me anti-USA. If I protest certain actions of the Isreaeli government against Palestinians, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the right of Isreal to exist. Thus, one can protest against certain actions of the government of Pakistan without being “anti-Pakistani”.

    People are certainly entitled to hold whatever biases they want, but assuming that your view is the absolute truth and everyone else is wrong does tend to make rational, objective, discussion pretty difficult.

    Anyway, thanks for linking to this resignation letter. I did read it and it was very interesting. Bad decisions were taken and outrages were committed, but once again I wouldn’t extrapolate from certain actions taken under Liaqut Ali Khan to the history of Pakistan as a whole. For the record, Pakistan today is not exactly what Jinnah had in mind (see particularly his speech to the constituant assembly on Aug. 11 1947 where he argues that religion is no business of the state). If it were up to me, I’d love to go back towards that ideal. But whatever the case, one doesn’t need to be against a whole country/people just because of particular events or actions.

  9. 253 脗路 Rahul S said

    Wait, your quoting Brzezinski?

    so then you agree that a US government official (whether repub or democrat) was involved in radicalizing muslims? but doesn’t that contradict the claim you made in comment # 232? ( it doesn’t matter that chopra is into psychobabble, what matters is the claim that the US played a huge rule in radicalizing some muslims during the cold war. no informed, sane person denies that.)

    Chopra was blaming the U.S. for radicalizing muslims. That’s a crazy statement.

    but i think the time has come, to tell you that reagan is not the tooth fairy. please don’t cry.

    Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union’s predominantly Muslim southern republics. The Pakistanis agreed, and the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans, as well as books on Soviet atrocities in Uzbekistan and tracts on historical heroes of Uzbek nationalism, according to Pakistani and Western officials. Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers. Casey saw it as a prime opportunity to strike at an overextended, potentially vulnerable Soviet empire. Eight years after Casey’s visit to Pakistan, the Soviet Union is no more. Afghanistan has fallen to the heavily armed, fraticidal mujaheddin rebels. The Afghans themselves did the fighting and dying — and ultimately won their war against the Soviets — and not all of them laud the CIA’s role in their victory. But even some sharp critics of the CIA agree that in military terms, its secret 1985 escalation of covert support to the mujaheddin made a major difference in Afghanistan, the last battlefield of the long Cold War.