Drive Safe for Yourself

'Road safety' I feel has become an issue to take up on education. Most of us are driven around by drivers who are either not told to refrain from it, or are encouraged to drive with risks, going at high speeds and dangerously overtaking others oftentimes quite indecently. Kids and grown ups alike enjoy that (grown ups - sometimes, or some of the grown ups) thrill and for kids it must be akin the Need for Speed games they play at home. The cost of an accident are the last things on our minds, and its usual to face situations where the offender will blame you for the accident to get out of it.

I think the TV channels and sponsors could create public service announcements around this issue to raise awareness. If we can't control our drivers, be it for how they are parking or the way they are driving, we are constantly creating risk and nuisance, both of which should be things avoided in a 'civil society'.

The bus drivers are harder to get to, who probably get away with the most serious offenses. Apart from ensuring great penalties on the owners of bus services for these offenses - from damaging public property (road dividers, pavements, etc.), to minor assaults (bumping into other cars, buses and people), to killing; we should take steps to have them view some sort of mandatory educational material as part of their license test. Those should clearly outline the damage they can cause when someone dies or loses a limb due to their callous driving.

I have found a few public announcement videos that have been created in New Zealand to caution drivers. The first uses animation to show the effect of selfish driving and how being social can help you have a better day. The second and third are graver, and shows how split second decisions can lead to an unwanted situation.

Drive Social


Mistakes


Flying Objects


Related:
No More Road Accidents
www.wedemandsaferoadbd.org

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Chowdhury Shaheb's Bangladesh

The father tells his daughter about his 'status' in society, and his expensive possessions, and implies that she should look for in a future beau exactly those qualities. Enter the cocky (beyadob) boyfriend, who tells the father that his 'status' is clear on Facebook. What a view of society and growth we have here!

From that ad to a drama seen during the eid programming, a similar scene. Father asks the daughter who his boyfriend of hers is. To that she starts, he's Arif, from a 'rich family', son of so-and-so businessman, owner of a car sales showroom. The father here is at least unmoved, but we still have to chalk it up to some parental glitch somewhere.

Of course, our beloved Ananta comes to mind next, who has many people rallying behind him since he is 'investing' money in cinema (not one yet which didn't star him, and didn't become an 'accidental comedy'). Over an online interview he states that he bought a Bulgari (bvlgari?) watch for his wife, and he doesn't forget to tell us how much it had cost - 22,000 USD.

?

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State of the Arts: Music

That's Joe Satriani on the left. Bless him! He is a great guitarist and entertainer, and has always said loudly how big an inspiration Jimi Hendrix is to him. Its also known to us how largely he has also inspired and taught a generation of guitarists (Remember Ayub Bacchu's tak? Yup, its a Joe thing)

Here, though our TV won't generally show Joe's videos or concerts, you can still hear a lot of his music, as background scores of our TV dramas!

This is however something that bothers me, since there are so many instances of this. It shows a large flaw about or entertainment industry. The lack of flow of money. These drama show producers  could've easily hired a musician to produce some original music, but when even the makers are in fear of if and when they'd be paid, there's little motivation to do so (unless freebied). Also, with international copyrights laws absent from the scenario, its easier to use something available to us from someone like Joe or Bach or Britney. Since laws are so slack, there is also the chance to use material from any local artist without citing credit or paying a paisa.

The local label owners scream and shout about copyrights and sometimes even manage to get some artists to join in the chorus, but the gist of that whole deal is that the artists are not in any part of that chain - receiving maybe as little as parts of the recording costs, to nothing. Especially, someone new. And then there's the visible lack of distribution of the music and promotions. One would wonder why they release the CD's in the first place! They must have figured out how to make some profit with the least bit of effort possible, since otherwise it wouldn't have happened.

There is also the type factor, behind the kind of attention an artist will receive. Watch Channel 16's Top Ten to see what that might mean. You'll hear 10 songs that almost sound the same. Habib, Hridoy Khan, and a few others started a trend in pop music and their slower numbers seemed to have influenced multiple acts into being and they are churning out some pretty bland lovey dovey pieces of crap that is available on TV and radio.

I am taking a liberty here claiming I know good music from bad, and businessmen don't, or don't care. They wouldn't have cared to support a certain kind of music if they didn't think it had a market and I guess I could hang up my gloves on that point. I have to come back with a 'But' jab, and say, they are not giving some musicians who are more creative, more unique, and more entertaining a chance by not promoting them after their CDs come out. Its just a lack of foresight. The lacking that stops labels from promoting a CD after having put it on the shelf of a store.

If the drama directors had a formidable budget, they could use local musician's work giving them their rightful dues and helping promote their music. I remember one drama starred members of the band Black, and featured them lip syncing the very famous song "Shay Je Boshe Achhey" from Arnob. That level of fame that song and Arnob reached was helped along by that spot on TV, and its still possible to find someone today who mistakes that as a song by Black.

Till we learn to cultivate and appreciate artists, its no use just putting their CDs on the shelves where the masses are unaware of what they sound like or what they represent.

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Art of Talking (or Spaking*)

From watching this program to that during this eid holiday, a noticeable thing was the way people on TV are talking. Being able to describe someone as 'articulate' is tough these days, unless you have someone like Abdullah Abu Sayeed as a guest or presenter. There are not just problems with phrasing and vocabulary, but also with pronunciations. A regional dialect is hardly meant for a national TV channel anywhere in the world, but even from our news reporters, we hear such speech.

During a better part of the morning, we were mesmerized by the stories told by Saadi Mohammad on '71 - Ekattor TV's Facebook Page (a channel), on a live music show hosted by Alif Alauddin. The show was very entertaining where the songs were being presented on the self-narrated timeline of Saadi Mohammad's life (though prompted by the host), starting with his childhood, to first growing a liking to Tagore music after hearing Hemanta Mukherjee on the radio, to his time at Santiniketon as a student and so on. He also mentioned how pronunciation was an issue with some of his students. People may tell me off for criticizing someone for having a dialect on the news, but what happens when people are trying to sing a song? It makes for temporary comedy, but on a larger scheme of things, its sad. Saadi Mohammad himself mentioned at that point of the show, that its nice to hear someone articulating thoughts and emotions properly, especially for singers and people on television, but really, for everyone (even a prime minister, he proceeded to mention).

Having seen that, when later at night, we see an interview of Ananta Jalil by Munni Shaha, its frustrating.

Ananta Jalil, with all his money and stunts, thinks he has found the formula for good movies, and is out there to claim that he is a properly educated inidividual who has passed O' and A' Levels, and has a bachelors in business (BBA) from the UK (though its commonly known that they provide BComm and not BBA). These claims are meant to throw off everyone who says he has pronunciation poblems (he is often heard with a silent 'r' when it should appear after a 'p') in both Bangla and English.

On the other side of the ring was Munni Shaha, who is a senior reporter for ATN News, and conducts a lot of interviews. Ignoring her annoying nasal voice and frequent 'ehhh's when shes browsing her vocabulary mid-sentence, she (like a few others) has a habit of trying to put words into the mouths of her guests. All in all, it was a pretty bad show of where we are, and who gets to be on our 'media'.

Thats another thing, I see a lot of so-called celebrities, refer to themselves as 'people of the media'. I don't get that! Its like they are trying to elevate themselves to somewhere or something, their own little planet. It just sounds weird to me.

Related:

* Ananto Jalil @ Radio Foorti 88.0 - with English Subtitle

Lawmakers should talk and behave with dignity says Prof Abdullah Abu Sayeed

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Political Secrets

Diplomacy. The recipe for diplomacy has secrecy, disguised statements, or sweet nothings. As politics have evolved throughout the world, we've seen how dear they hold their right to secrecy.

In highly educated societies who have a certain level of consciousness and enlightenment, the population has been ascertained certain levels of access or guarantee of openness with regard to public or international policies the state establishes.  At least thats how I perceive how things are, in contrast to living here in Bangladesh, where the politicians word, not matter how far away from reality, is seemingly final and 'true'.

The contrast to everything as it stood came in the form of the Wikileaks/Assange affair. Before that we were able to get government documents out of the USA every 5 or 10 years, a provision by which let us know that the Nixon/Kissinger regime was against granting independence from Pakistan. That seemed like quite a gesture from the biggest or loudest proponent of democracy. Wikileaks however has taken off the tablecloth off of it and now we can see who are rubbing legs or kicking under there.

We saw the website and the founder Julian Assange come under fire not long after major news vendors started peddling articles with information from the leaks. The sites were being taken down and Assange charged with rape! Assange is now eagerly waiting for a way out of his stay at the Ecuador embassy in UK, but being careful still. The man has every reason to be careful, with fear that he might disappear and no one would leak that story.

Seeing these events turn out on my TV screen, I am pressed to believe once more, that politicians are just all alike. I wish I was a psychology major, because I would like nothing better than to study the psyche of these guys in whose hands we put our tax money and all the resources of our lands.

Related:
Assange Is A True Democrat: Chomsky
Assange Extradition Fact Sheet
UK 'withdraws threat' to Ecuador embassy

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News!

Back when i was in school, we first started getting CNN. Cable tv was not there at the time and we used to get free broadcast of CNN for some portion of the morning in the same stream where our national tv would start broadcast at around 5 pm everyday.

Now, with cable tv everywhere, CNN can be seen in a new light. I have to say first of all, that I am not sure, whether programming is different in other parts of Asia or what, but I start comparing CNN now, mainly because I have Al Jazeera to compare with! BBC could be compared in the same light, they were once a good source of news, still not too bad.

Now, the channel of choice when it comes to news is Al Jazeera, and while watching I always get this in my head "Hmmmm, I wonder what CNN is showing!". This is how I found out 2 mornings ago, that Michael Jackson had died. Sad news, but also, the ONLY news almost for the whole day on CNN on that day! I guess I also don't compare BBC that much in these scenarios, coz of the way my tv is programmed... Al Jaz and CNN are next to each other, a click away.

CNN feels the need to be able to entertain with their shows, more than really covering what is happening in the world. They bring what is happening in the USA to the world, and nothing to take back I guess.

Al Jazeera has news of every country's elections, and sometimes has people with conflicting views on a single program that really help to show the two sides of the coin. Their music shows, go all over the world, and bring you really interesting views of all kinds of music scenes from around the globe, their philosophies and struggles and does not only focus on the best selling music category. Their show about movies is the same and has really great interviews.

CNN's news has lost all appeal to me, and the time I watch CNN is to catch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who is really funny, and his show is brought to CNN courtesy of Comedy Central!

For Some Other Viewpoints:
Is It Al-Jazeera Or CNN International?
CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths?
CNN's Anderson Cooper: What’s up with Al-Jazeera’s phone?

Jon Stewart:

(Thanks to Rajiv bhai for the lead on this. Apparently, the show Crossfire shut down after Jon Stewart's appearance and critique!)

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I realize...

I have a predilection for crime and punishment on tv.

Firstly, I don't mean a show by the name of Crime and Punishment. Just the theme of Crime and Punishment. Shows like CSI, Law and Order and all that. But recently I have also been tiring of them, mostly because of the USA bravado on display in these shows. What was interesting about CSI to begin with, however, was their simulated show of events happening. Like any crime novel character, they also describe what they think happened, but thanks to the cgi available today, they dont have to settle for showing the detective walking up and down describing his theory, let the animation do the talking. Having watched that for a long time, I developed a condition whereby I also ran simulations in my head when for example I would hit my knee on the corner of a table ... I would imagine in my head the corner of the table creating a dent on the surface of my knee cap in slow motion. I actually stopped watching CSI once to get rid of this condition!

Anyway, last night I was watching a show about law, and the lawyers and the cases they fight. A neighboring woman of one family stole their son and put him in her car's behind (where the spare tire stays, I can't recall what this part of a car is called!) where he died. Now, lawyers are fighting for each party.. the grieving family, and the accused woman. But what is amazing about these kind of shows is how they show the lawyers fighting the cases. It has all gotten refined to strategies. You do a serious crime, then you "go for the insanity defense", and da da da.. some jargon I can't remember. Or, you "go to the press" with your case, in an attempt to fight the case "outside the courtroom" by manipulating public opinion or something of the sort. Guess, its kind of a game (only in the tv as people might correct me).

A Strategy is an important thing I suppose. I guess everybody wants to win, or be on the winning side. On "60 Minutes" a news-kind-of show was showing how terrorists (need i say islamic/muslim/fundamentalist) are using the power of the internet to further their cause of (here comes the rhetoric for me westerners) Jihad and fighting the USA, trying to get more people in on it. To discuss it all they had a loud mouth, eager-as-a-buffy-workout-guy trying to sell gym machines on tv, general of the usa army. He was totally excited (seemed to me in the wrong way) about the websites and their methods. But what really made me say "ummm?" was his closing statement "Its a war of perceptions, they understand it, and USA needs to understand it". Really?!


On a similar note, here is Tool with Vicarious:
Eye on the TV
Cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavor
It happens to be

Like:
"Killed by the husband"
"Drowned by the ocean"
"Shot by his own son"
"She used a poison and in his tea
and kissed him goodbye"
That's my kind of story.
It's no fun 'til someone dies

Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother holds her child,
Watches him [dying;]

Hands to the sky crying,
"Why, oh why?!"

Cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all need it too - don't lie.

Why can't we just admit it?
Why can't we just admit,
We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'
Neither the brave nor bold
Will write as the stories told

We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'

Blood like rain, come down
Drawn on grave and ground

Part vampire
Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Stare at the transmitter
Synched to the death rattle...

La, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie (x4)

Credulous at best
Your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men.
Pull your head on out
Your head please and give a listen,
Shouldn't have to say it all again.

The universe is hostile
So impersonal
Devour to survive
So it is, so it's always been ...

We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire

Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I.

[ Lyrics found on http://www.metrolyrics.com ]

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Pimp My Ride

Ittadi showcased Mr. Leepu's handiwork a long time ago, which I can remember I saw as a schoolkid! He made a car for himself, in the shape of something close to a Lamborghini! how sweet is that?! Well, opening the Daily Star website today I came across a story featuring him, and how he was asked to make two different looking cars in 8 weeks by the Discovery Channel! Well, good to see him getting some exposure abroad! Too bad our govt. is too slow to pick up on anything (news news news huh?).


The Story

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Triggered Creativity

Seems like chain reaction is how we were bound/doomed to operate! Anything India or someone else does, we follow, when there are enough brains or brawns to have been the originator.

Recently, Close-up has started a campaign to look for talented singers. But just after the wave of 'The Indian Idol' has swept over us. The 'The xxxx Idol' is a licensed show belonging... i donno probably to Simon Fuller or his company... or whoever. Even though India had similar contests running on some of its channels, the 'idol' proved a bigger hit. The difference probably was the mass voting that was allowed on the 'idol' show, and its marketing. Anyways, that show was a massive hit here too, and i know people just wished they could vote for 'Rahul' or 'Abhijeet' or 'Sana'. And now that an end has been brought to that, Close-Up has launched its own show. Its own ...verrrry similar ...show. Why now? Whatever they may say in self defence, i'd like to say that i would have very much liked to have seen this hunt on tv before I saw the 'idol' show.

Benson and Hedges had a hunt like this. It was called Benson and Hedges Star Search. Consider that, and add proper tv coverage (I mention 'proper' becuase they did air lil half songs from the contest after it was over)* and you would have had something like the '' show 2/3 years back! But this search has over the past years lost all its credibility with reports of nepotism and other corruption.

Another thing that bothers me, are the music production houses that do not bother making music videos! And when they do make it they sell it on CD or distribute it with their sold audio CDs! ARE THEY $%*#$$Q%!$% kidding me?! They missed the whole point of making videos to promote songs and artists. A video should be made and aired before the actual CD hits the market or when it just has! While they ignore this fact, they are releasing the CDs (I frankly don see the point of releasing such products if they aren't going to market it!) and no body other than friends and family know about it. Word gets spread by word of mouth. And you have ads on print! BUT, I also do hope that one day if we do figure out why to make videos and why to make music, good music, we dont get sexed up like the indian media. I watch the paki music channel The Music and it gives me a lot of peace... i hope we can retain sanity at the end of the day.


*Sometimes i get the feeling that our tv channels operate just for airing adverts.

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I realize...

- that the question I ask most in a day is "whats the date?" or "what day is it?"

- that the 'Star World' channel's worst programming is that for saturday!

- that the songs I dislike are the ones I am likely to be humming later! (current is Britney Oops Spears' 'Why don't you do something?')

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Misc.

VOA radio is now playing on 97.6 FM every morning (from what i heard between 9 am and 12). Its pretty nice since i got a phone now with a radio. This helps out sometimes during those long bus rides from one place in Dhaka to another and beyond.

Rubaiyath and I are pretty concerned about the lives we are leading. We slave away in our offices through long hours and the whole thing is now somehow engrained to our selves. I know for certain that now even if I do get a chance to get out at 5 pm, I feel weird about it! I just don't want to go out there, like a vampire scared of daylight. But sometimes, in the morning, I do feel like skipping work. I know once I am in, I will be right at home, and maybe thats the whole point of not wanting to go.

Meanwhile Rubaiyath, Mosha and their venture called Muzaq is now handling a marketing campaign of Advanced Development Technologies. He showed me two of the 10 second videos they produced. The concepts were very good... Nothing less would be expected from these friends of mine... such talent and genuis! so proud of you guys. But I must admit when Mosha first told me his ideas, i visualized it a bit differently. The animations were done by a 2nd year student of IBA! They are out there hunting out all the talent they can do meet their ends.

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