What is “it”? Honest reflection. Meditation. The potentially uncomfortable exercise of asking difficult questions…questions like…”Is Neel Kashkari a CHUMP?“
Elijah Cummings, breakin’ it down Bodymore-style. A friend of mine whom I had forwarded that clip to told me that Cummings is a genuinely nice guy, which makes it all the more hilarious for him to be the one questioning our boy Neel. Find a previous SM post about the sacrificial lamb Kashkari by our Vinod, here.
(Hmm. I thought the name of the author of that ThinkProgress piece sounded familiar…then I realized it was erstwhile WLPer/reader Satyam, whom I was introduced to by mutineer Harin at the Kal Penn event held in support of our President-elect. 🙂 I love how accomplished and brainy you smurfs mutineers are.) Continue reading →
Are you in a battleground state? Still undecided on how to vote? Do you really like boy bands, but were always turned off because none of the boy bands had a token brown man? … Then this video is for you.
Battleground for Your Heart was a Boybama brain child of the folks at Portal A Interactive. And the desi actor is Lavrenti Lopes (with the best headshot ever on his site). Why did the production team create this video?
When we saw Sarah Palin desperately trying to win over our hockey moms and Joanna Sixpacks, we knew that we couldn’t just stand idly by. So we decided to make this parody music video in support of the Obama campaign and to show women everywhere that we can shamelessly pander with the best of them.[Aportal]
It’s hump day so I thought a syrupy video to make your work day cheesier is just what you needed. We only have six days until Election Day. Don’t forget to drop off your absentee ballot in the mail by this Friday – ballots need to be received (not postmarked) by your Registrar of Voter by Nov 4th!Continue reading →
Australian-based Boymongoose is back with another video gem from their 2006 album Christmas in Asia Minor. You may remember the 12 Days of Christmas song we posted back then. Here is the video to Single Girls set to the music of Jingle Bells. Make sure to play this at your desi Holiday party. It will definitely be spinning here at our North Dakota headquarters come December.
…well, that’s what my Father would have said, had he been around to witness the smarmy perviness (thanks for submitting this to the news tab, KXB!):
For those who (like me) can’t see wideo at work, here’s what went down:
Sarah Palin and the foreign leaders she has met with in New York have said very little to reporters over the last two days, but the press happened to be in the room on Wednesday for one eyebrow-raising exchange, as the new president of Pakistan lavished praise on Palin’s looks. [CNN]
But first, his wing-woman conveniently buttered her up:
On entering a room filled with several Pakistani officials this afternoon, Palin was immediately greeted by Sherry Rehman, the country’s Information Minister.
“And how does one keep looking that good when one is that busy?,” Rehman asked, drawing friendly laughter from the room when she complimented Palin.
As the comments section of Ennis’ post on the GOP’s efforts to reach out to minorities indicates, many of us saw the video below on ABC News last night. I know I wasn’t the only one who immediately hit rewind, out of a combination of incredulity and astonishment.
Natural disasters are awful and over-worked, frazzled law enforcement officials are under much strain, but that still doesn’t justify ignorant reactions like the one captured above. I wonder if that same cop instructed other drivers who annoyed him or “talked back” to perhaps return to Africa or England? I’m thinking not.
Reader Suede wrote in to the tip line, with this update:
3:40am PST.
World News Now on ABC 7
Vinita Nair and her co-host are covering a story about the devastation in Texas, and they show a clip about how cops are turning people back and not letting them return.
The clip begins with a guy (desi) in a car arguing with the cop who is not letting him go through. The cop finally tells him “go back to India”. After the clip, Vinita didn’t just shove the comment under the rug, but instead, she was shocked and raised her concern about the trooper’s comments.
Go Vinita! As a massive insomniac (who grew up in a home with no cable), I have always loved WNN— I even list it under my favorite TV shows, on my facebook profile ;). Now that the beautiful and brainy Ms. Nair is co-anchoring it, consider me a rabid fan. Yay for calling out stupidity and not glossing over the truth. Continue reading →
Last night, I unexpectedly ended up at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, where I watched Andy Roddick struggle early on and then barely defeat Argentina’s Eduardo Schwank (my tennis-obsessed date dismissively characterized it as “outlasting him”). I wasn’t that interested in watching Mandy Moore’s ex- swing, but the next match had me sitting up straight and paying rapt attention– and not just because I was suddenly court-side.
UVA’s beloved Somdev Devvarman, the reigning NCAA men’s champ (two years running!), played someone else and he did it so well, I don’t even remember who his opponent was. He was fierce, unrelenting…just a gritty player. It was mesmerizing to watch (and quite a thrill to out-shout the punk behind us, who was hating on our boy). Suddenly, for the first time in over a decade, I was interested in tennis again.
Behold, shady background info from wikipedia (I’m late for the match!):
Somdev Devvarman (also known as Somdev Dev Varman) is the reigning and two-time NCAA Men’s Singles Champion. As a recent graduate out of the University of Virginia who hails from India, Somdev is best known for having captured the 2007 NCAA Singles Championship by defeating Georgia Bulldogs senior John Isner in the final. In one of the most dramatic finals in the 123-year history of the tournament, Devvarman scored a 7–6 (7), 4–6, 7–6 (2) win over the tournament’s No. 1 seed. A year later, he defeated Tennessee’s J.P. Smith 6-3, 6-2 to take home his second consecutive NCAA Singles National Championship. It was his historic third consecutive appearance in the NCAA singles final.
Devvarman, the son of Ranjana and Pravanjan Dev Varman, was born February 13, 1985 in Assam, India. He has an older sister, Paulami, and older brother, Aratrik. The Dev Varmans originally hail from the north-eastern Indian state of Tripura. Devvarman picked up the racquet as a nine-year-old in Chennai in 1994 and after learning the basics he made it to the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy in 2000. [viki]
The video I embedded above will fill you in quickly– cheesy shots of him moving around like it’s a Sesame Street stop-animation-skit aside– about Somdev. He’s humble, cheerful and adorable. We likey. In fact, we likey so much, we may be live-micro-blogging it, via Twitter. If we can tear our eyes away from watching him play, that is… Continue reading →
Everyone knows by now that I love bringing news of “freakish” (in a good way) little Indian kids to SM (see here and here as examples). SM reader Taara tipped us off to this little linguist via our tip line:
It looks like the Videographer returned a few years later to find a “grown-up” Ravi who has added even more languages into his arsenal:
Seriously, this little kid should be doing something other than selling Peacock feathers near the Hanging Gardens!
Mindy Kaling, who writes for and acts on the NBC show The Office, recently revealed to David Letterman a secret that many Indian Americans guard very closely. Not all of us are good at imitating an Indian accent just because our parents are Indian [via Defamer]:
That’s right, we may not do Indian accents well…but no other ethnic group should be able to point that out without an indignant tongue-lashing back
If you want to skip the rest of the interview then start at 1:30 min mark. I can really sympathize with Mindy. When I try to do an Indian accent I sound slightly Scottish. Its just sad.
I was catching up on news at Huffington Post this afternoon when I came across this really disturbing (yet oddly compelling) music video by Devendra Banhart featuring his hottie girlfriend, actress Natalie Portman. I like that the video (to his song “Carmensita”) even starts out like an authentic Bollywood movie. Even though I don’t see what she sees in this disheveled mess of a Venezuelan “folk rocker,” I thank him for the new images of Portman he’s now put forever into my mind. The rest of the video (except for Natalie) is a mess of religion, mythology, and camp (Nina Paley did it better) and I can’t wait to see if the fundamentalists start rioting somewhere in the world.
In the following adorable clip, Stephen Colbert worries about Democratic nominee Bharath Obama being church-less and offers some divine guidance regarding salvation and religious affiliation; the segment is apparently the first of many in a series where Colbert thoughtfully helps Obama try on various faiths…I’m guessing Islam won’t be included. (Thanks for the tip, Maisnon and Kalyan!)
I share Maisnon’s skepticism about Auntie’s “no guilt!!”-claim, how about you? I also love the “spoiler” about how Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan will be paying his karmic debt. Finally, isn’t Colbert a little late with this fantastic suggestion? Bharath seems rather fond of Hinduism already. Continue reading →
