A walk around the web... October 5, 2012

October 5, 2012 at 4:59 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: barack obama, big bird, miners, mitt romney, pbs, south africa, wuthering heights

Editor: Valerie Linson

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The Real Economics of Big Bird
Matthew Yglesias, Slate (Moneybox), October 4, 2012
Mitt Romney’s decision to use Sesame Street’s Big Bird character as a synecdoche for cutting funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which, in turn, served as the only example of a program whose spending he’d cut to balance the budget has prompted a lot of discussion but little really serious analysis of the situation. For starters, cutting federal CPB subsidies actually isn’t the main policy threat to PBS—it’s base broadening tax reform.
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It’s Jim Lehrer’s Turn To Respond To The Debate
Paul Farhi, The Washington Post, October 5, 2012
Jim Lehrer has a few words in response to those who thought he let President Obama and Mitt Romney ramble on and roll over him in Wednesday’s presidential debate:

“So what?”

The veteran PBS newsman, who was persuaded by the Presidential Debate Commission to moderate his 12th debate — the last one he’ll do, he vows — says the event wasn’t about “control” or the strict enforcement of rules. It was about producing a sharp discussion and substantive contrast between the candidates. Besides, he says, few people seemed to understand that the new format, which divided the discussion into 15 minute segments, was supposed to encourage such exchanges.
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South African Company Fires 12,000 Miners
CNN Wire Staff, October 5, 2012
South African mining giant Anglo-American Platinum said Friday that it has fired about 12,000 striking workers who declined to attend disciplinary hearings.

Workers at the company’s Rustenburg, South Africa, mine have been on strike for three weeks.

The company called for disciplinary hearings for the strikers, and those who attended were informed of the outcomes Friday. Those who did not attend were fired, the company said.
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Get To Know “Africa Straight Up”
Stacy-Ann Ellis, TheRoot.com, October 5, 2012
Africa.com plans to school the masses on the continent’s rapidly expanding society in terms of business, politics and technology with its forthcoming documentary, Africa Straight Up.

The website, one of the continent’s leading sources of news and information, will debut the 30-minute film on Oct. 8. Teresa Clarke, the CEO of Africa.com as well as the film’s writer and executive producer, hopes Africa Straight Up will change the way the world sees the region.
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An Earthy, Sexy, New “Wuthering Heights” (Heathcliff is black ya’ll!)
Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com, October 4, 2012
In most descriptions of “Wuthering Heights,” Heathcliff (that’s his one and only name) is described as a dark-skinned Gypsy or Roma child, who is found wandering the streets of Liverpool and taken in as a foster child by the sternly religious Mr. Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights (Paul Hilton in the film). But his actual origins are never made clear, and one neighbor even speculates that he might be “a little Lascar or American castaway.” In other words, nobody has the slightest idea who he really is or where he came from, but to use obnoxious contemporary language, he’s clearly a racial “other.”
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