Eye on the Press

January 23, 2002

Shrinking globe
More inane studies
Man continues to try to prove he is man, as a new study reported by the New York Post reveals. This particular investigation involved women wearing smelly tee-shirts in a an attempt to discover what odors they are attracted to. The results pointed overwhelmingly to a conclusion common sense could have far more easily revealed, if anyone were to notice. The women were attracted to smells that reminded them of their dads.




Ad watch
Osama as model
A vacation resort community in New Zealand is using Osama bin laden as its ad spokesperson. Bin Laden appears on huge billboards lounging at a New Zealand beach next to a slogan that says "There's no better place to escape". The story says the billboards "mark bin Laden's debut as true sales image rather than reviled parody, at least in Western culture." The most interesting thing, however, about the whole situation, is that the town has a history of promoting itself as a hideaway for criminals. Three criminals were
actually arrested there in 1998 after hiding from police in a beach house for a week. That incident also inspired an "escape here"-style ad campaign.




Egyptomania
Puff-Ankh-Amun
"Milanese" Egyptologists are quoted by a story in the US supermarket tabloid The Weekly World News, according to the BBC's Planet Tabloid, as saying that the ancient Egyptians invented rap. That may be so, but this particular story is clearly pure fantasy, as if that wasn't already clear from the obscure
nationality of the quoted Egyptologists, who, the paper claims, have discovered hieroglyphics for a rap entitled "Gonna Mummify Your Butt".




Eye on the press
A different mirror
American conservatives like Bill O'Reilly find themselves facing much the same battles their Egyptian conservative counterparts sometimes face -- ideological compartmentalizing from the mostly-liberal secular establishment. Having to wear the conservative label enrages O'Reilly, who complains of the phenomenon in this column. It should be noted, though, that O'Reilly -- who hosts an inflammatory talk show on the Fox News Channel called The No-Spin Zone -- is just as quick to label conservatives of the Eastern kind "terrorists" even as his movement seems to be going through the same labeling problem at home. (See "Media way off the mark", below...)



Politics/headline news
Sinai again?
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is quoted in this untimely LA Times piece as saying, "I do not believe that we still need our forces in the Sinai. I just plain don't." Critics of Rumsfeld's leanings towards reducing US MFO presence in Sinai are particularly concerned about the timing of Rumsfeld's latest remarks. A former National Security Council official, Geoffrey Kemp,  tells the paper "In the long run it's fair to ask, 'How much longer should we keep them in the Sinai?' But to bring it up now? It surprises me."

previous links...

When common sense seems radical....
Lone cartoonist critical of War on Terror
The comic strip The Boondocks and its lead character Huey Freeman are nationally syndicated in the US, reaching readers of some 250 papers, including The Washington Post. And yet, as opposed to most of the content in those many papers, this comic strip has been highly critical of the US's war on terror.
"In early October the cartoonist had Huey call the FBI's antiterrorist hotline to report that he had the names of Americans who trained and financed Osama bin Laden. When the FBI agent said that, yes, he wanted the names, Huey began, "All right, let's see, the first one is Reagan. That's R-E-A-G..."
Huey and the Boondocks are the cover story in the latest issue of The Nation, providing an interesting look at media complacency, and a national mood where "common sense seems radical," in the words of the cartoonist himself. 

Learning from history...
How the multiplexes took over
This story in US News and World Report tells the sad tale of America's grand old movie palaces -- the larger cinemas with just one screen that used to be the standard before the matchbox size  multi-screen multiplexes took over. It is a tale that we may soon be seeing more of in Egypt. Already, two of Cairo's downtown cinemas have been converted into multiplexes -- the Odeon (now 2 screens), and Cosmos (5 screens)... Are Metro, Diana, and all the rest next... Find out how it happens...

No big deal?
Questions surround the Buddhas of Bamiyan
This article in Slate indicates that the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban pre-911 were not really of that much historic or artistic value. So why the hullabaloo... and why the current drive to reconstruct the statues now that the Taliban are gone?
It turns out that destroying art for publicity and then rebuilding it again has its precedents...

Media way off the mark...
But agenda-setting nonetheless
Salon.com places most of the blame for the firing of a Florida university professor on the media. Sami El-Erian was basically pursued for 7 years by journalists and alleged terror experts who were determined to bring him down for his pro-Palestinian viewpoints. The entire saga came to a head when El-Arian appeared on Fox's O'Reilly Factor post-911 then found himself being fired by the university at which he had tenure. A long story, but worth a read to see just how off the mark media, big and small, can be -- and the effects that can have.





corrected!
Powell -- World  wants my MTV?
US Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to appear on an MTV Town Hall meeting featuring calls from MTV branches around the world. Will Showtime's MTV Mashaweer be involved? Plus, Charlotte Beers, the State Department's PR guru, is on her way into town with plenty of pro-US ad cash for the press big boys, though this article says they may end up playing hard to get...

The hunt for bin Laden, part 2?
In this article the CIA admits that bin Laden probably escaped Afghanistan, thus setting the scene for the next stage in the "pursue the terrorist mastermind" plot . Don't miss the incredible quote  -- "To fool U.S. forces in the area, the CIA believes, bin Laden left behind a tape-recorded message that was transmitted only after he was long gone."

updated!
Hegazy set free, staying in US, says he can't blame the FBI
Egyptians in trouble...
Suddenly the papers are filled with details of some of the post-911 detainees in the United States. Here are strange new clues to the Egyptian in NY with the pilot radio, and another Egyptian with a fake pilot's license…

...and on the other side of justice
Egyptians amongst complainants in law suit against Bayer

A difference of shade
Arab foreign students in US concerned, Europeans not so much so, about stricter watch over them...

Freedom of the press, US-style.
Making fun of Bush's fall, and taking a poke at greedy WTC insurance claimants...

Browse our complete coverage of the attacks on the US and the war on Afghanistan

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