Sunday, July 3rd, 2005

Time	Event
9:15a	Contemporary animation worth watching Here's a rundown of some solid animated fare you can catch on television these days: Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends The premise: Madam Foster runs a home for imaginary friends whose kids don't want them anymore. Created by Craig McCracken, creator of the Powerpuff Girls, Foster's is well-written, quite funny, and animated with a much more delicate line than Powerpuff. At turns endearing and hilarious, Foster's tops my current animated recommended list. Example lines from the episode we're watching now: "How do I find my own brand of coolness?" "We watch TV -- and pay particular attention to the commercials." Avatar: the Last Airbender The premise: The world has four nations -- fire, earth, air, water -- and an avatar, who rises from each nation in turn. One hundred years ago, Ang, who was meant to be the next Avatar, was trapped in ice. In the interim, the fire nation took over. Now Ang is back and has to regain his proper place. With really solid animation and a continuity-oriented storyline, Avatar is a compelling show that I actually want to keep up with (ah, the power of TiVo). The creators have made an Asian-esque setting, using what they want but not tying themselves down to any particular culture -- as evidenced by their using the four western elements. The "airbender" of the title is Ang -- a "bender" is someone who can manipulate the element in question. Kim Possible The premise: High-school kid Kim Possible regularly saves the world with the assistance of her friend Ron Stoppable and her "technical support genius" Wade. In the top-tier of DIsney television animation, Kim Possible stands out by not being written down to a juvenile audience. Though it is more of a straight humor show than the other two mentioned above, it's still quite good, and it features some possibly familiar voice talent -- Patrick Warburton and Nicole Sullivan make regular appearances. (1 Comment | Comment on this)
8:22p	Egyptian ambassador seized in Iraq Ihab al-Sherif, Egypt's ambassador to Iraq, was kidnapped yesterday. He's been in Iraq for five weeks, and is the first and only ambassador from an Arab nation -- this makes him a target, as he represents Arab legitimization of the Iraqi invasion, to some. The BBC story Al Jazeera indicates that while Egypt had upgraded its contacts in Iraq to embassy status, it was not explicitly clear that al-Sherif was the ambassador. More from The Al Jazeera story: Egypt has been training Iraqi security forces and civil servants under a US-backed international programme and on Friday about 140 Iraqi civil servants arrived in Cairo. Al-Sherif had served as charge d' affairs in Syria and Israel before being transferred to Iraq and is the second Egyptian diplomat to have been captured in Iraq. Muhammad Mamdouh Helmi Qutb, then Egypt's third-ranking diplomat, was briefly detained in July 2004 by a group of fighters who claimed they wanted to deter Egypt from deploying troops in Iraq. The top CNN story is about a missing blond in Aruba. (Comment on this)
8:27p	Missing people and news coverage As I just noted in the previous post, the top CNN story is about an American student missing in Aruba. This is not national news -- not unless her abduction is an act of war or terrorism. For reference, here are some figures from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children on how many kids go missing in the United States: According to NISMART-2 research, which studied the year 1999, an estimated 797,500 children were reported missing; 58,200 children were abducted by nonfamily members; 115 children were the victims of the most serious, long-term nonfamily abductions called "stereotypical kidnappings"; and 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions. These are just figures for minors, of course, so the total load of missing people will be higher. What makes any one of these more worthy of national news coverage than the others? (2 Comments | Comment on this)

<< Previous Day

2005/07/03 [Calendar]

Next Day >>