DNSI links to an article that says that the Jersey Guys’ advertisers are starting to pull out:

The Star-Ledger (NJ) is reporting that Cingular Wireless and Hyundai Motor America have pulled advertising from WKXW-FM. The station has been embroiled in controversy almost immediately after hosts of the station’s “The Jersey Guys” program, Craig Carton and Ray Rossi, offered racist and offensive commentary aimed at Asians and Indians.

Blogger Lester Gesteland is also keeping up with the minute by minute. Continue reading →

35-year old Nusrat Parsa died in Canada, a few hours after being involved in a fight which lead to a deadly fall down the stairs.

Parsa was approached by fans outside his hotel after the performance at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre and scuffles broke out, police said.

The singer is reported to have fallen downstairs after being punched.

He sustained head injuries and died in hospital a few hours later. A man has been arrested in connection with the incident late on Sunday.

…Mr Parsa’s brother, Najib, told the BBC the attack followed trouble at the concert, when some in the audience called for faster, livelier songs.

A singer from childhood on, Parsa recorded a total of ten albums; he had studied music in India. Continue reading →

Wow, the folks at WaPo must love sharing my city with a stellar pub like the The Moonie Times…

Parliament in Pakistan is urging the government to seek an apology from The Washington Times newspaper over a cartoon that depicts Pakistan as a dog.

The cartoon shows a US soldier patting a dog holding Libyan al-Qaeda suspect Abu Faraj al-Libbi who was recently arrested in Pakistan.

“Good boy… now go find Bin Laden,” the soldier urges the dog.

Cartoonist Bill Garner says he meant no offence and the misunderstanding was caused by a “cultural gap.”

…”We are disgusted with the insensitivity of the editors of the Washington Times,” Pakistan’s charge de affaires in Washington, Mohammed Sadiq said on May 6, the day the cartoon appeared.

via the Beeb. Continue reading →

Photos of the Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee three-part TV series are now up (thanks, Sapna). The first part will be broadcast in the UK tonight, lucky sods.

Here’s a roundup of the characters: the author’s voice Sunita, played by… the author. (Nobody said Meera Syal was big on subtlety.) Her husband Akaash, played by… her husband Sanjeev Bhaskar. The bad girl Tania, played by Moroccan-Indian actress Laila Rouass. The naïf Chila, played by Queen of Naboo Ayesha Dharker. And the playa from the Himalaya Deepak, played by Ace Bhatti. That cast reads like the Bombay Dreams unemployment list.

Watch the clip of Tania getting hassled by clucking aunties. It’s pretty choppy — can’t the Beeb afford bandwidth these days?

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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My favorite radio show, This American Life, had a riveting and humorous, true story this past weekend. It involved a twenty-something Afghani American who only wanted to impress his girlfriend by spray-painting some “frogmen” on the sidewalk outside of her apartment. By the end of it all he was in jail and on several terrorist watch-lists. The story even personally involves Donald Rumsfeld. It sounds dire but it all turns out well in the end. The many twists and turns in the story make it worth every second of its 40 minute recording time. Continue reading →

The magnate behind Kingfisher beer is launching an airline today which uses part-time models as flight attendants (thanks, Sapna):

Models work as flight attendants on the airline while its planes have seat-back entertainment systems… “We have a brand new fleet of aircraft. We have individual entertainment systems where every single seat has video screen…” India’s newest budget airline operates its first flight on Monday from Mumbai (Bombay) to hi-tech hub Bangalore.

Kingfisher Airlines is following the lead of Hooters Air. I suppose models will be able to shoot a beer commercial, then hop on a plane and get straight to work. They’re saving money, really. I think Van Halen did a video about this once.

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The New York Times reports that Jack Abramoff, the same lobbyist whose shady dealings with Congressman Tom Delay have been all over the news recently, has been brokering shady deals for many years:

Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a federal corruption investigation, led a Congressional delegation to Pakistan in 1997 but failed to tell the group’s sponsor or the lawmakers that he was a registered lobbyist for the Pakistani government, according to the sponsor and the two House members on the trip.

Lobbyists for foreign governments are required to register with the Justice Department. Disclosure statements filed by Mr. Abramoff and his former firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, show that the firm was retained by Pakistan in May 1995 to lobby to overturn sanctions barring delivery of American weapons to Pakistan if its government continued to pursue a nuclear weapons program. The initial six-month lobbying contract paid the firm a retainer of $165,000, plus expenses. A spokesman for Preston Gates had no comment.

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