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Next Scheduled Update: 6 January, 2005
NOW PLAYING: G21 AFRICA: AAMENA JIWAJI explains why fear toward Muslims makes travel difficult for the most innocent of people and how the Kenyan bureaucracy fails to work. "When It Rains" MY GLASS HOUSE: ROD AMIS has another of his Holiday funks. Humbug! "Nothing Christmas." NEW YORK STATE: BRAD BALFOUR fetes us for the Holidays with a chat with the star of Scorsese's "The Aviator". "G21 Interviews: Leonardo DiCaprio." GLOBAL*BEAT: ROD AMIS reviews MediaChannel.org's Media Dissector Danny Schecter's latest effort. "Weapons of Mass Deception" NEW YORK STATE: It's a twofer! BRAD BALFOUR looks at "House of Flying Daggers" with acclaimed its acclaimed director. "G21 Interviews: Yimou Zhang." G21 Person of the Year 2004: Wangari Maathai: MEMBERS OF THE 21 MAILING LIST answer our annual Top Ten list and give us our first ever. G21 AFRICA: NGOZI RAZAK-SOYEBI details why she believes Nigeria has reached the "Boiling Point." RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENTS: OpEd contributor RON DIENER has a suggestion that the so-called Blue Staters might like: "Elections: Let's Outsource!" COMING ATTRACTIONS! BACK ISSUES? CLICK & PLAY! Issue 402: FOR YOUR LOVE Issue 403: NONESUCH Issue 404: LIFE IN HELL Issue 406: BEGINNING G21 TODAY! RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT ARCHIVES. MEMOIRS OF THE INFORMATION AGE ARCHIVES 
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AAMENA JIWAJI SPINS MAGIC FROM KENYA-- BUT SHE NEEDS TO BE IN SOUTH AFRICA:"The year winds down and suddenly everything in my life is working at deadline pace: super fast, all a blur.
Deadline: January 25 2005
I need to travel to South Africa for my Masters [degree] but South Africa has intensified their permit processes. A friend of mine in South Africa, when I whined to him over email, said that it was probably an attempt to limit the number of 2 bedroom flats in Hillbrow being filled with 25 to 30 illegal immigrants.
That made me feel better, for just a second, while I laughed, -- but no longer.
The South African High Commission in Nairobi had a long list of requirements, most of which would only take a week or so of dedicated preparation and organization. But then there was one item, the Certificate of Good Conduct, which is issued by one place in Nairobi, the CID headquarters, and promised to take at least 2 weeks.
Let me start by telling you about the line I encountered when I went to make enquiries at the CID Headquarters. It seems that Certificates of Good Conduct are now demanded by all employers, companies, High Commissions/ Embassies ... in short everyone in Nairobi who needed a certificate was in the line, and I was at the end of the line! ..." READ MORE
ROD AMIS'S HUMBUG:
"15 December, 2004: As we approach a holiday in my country which is the veritable Shrine of Commodities, a season where the entire focus of advertising and retail sales is on conspicuous and unashamed consumption, it strikes me that my own life is very much an exercise of letting things go. I have been in a near-constant process of letting things go, places, people, apartments, CDs, clothing, dishes, furniture -- you name it, for years. I am the Master of Disposal. It's only natural that the American Christmas and I are like oil and water to each other.
This Christmas, I am contemplating letting the mirage in the desert that was my promised job and new life in Phoenix go. It was based, after all, on the word of a completely unreliable and untrustworthy person. I saw the red flags from my past association with the man but ignored them, believing in the redemptive dream of time's healing and assurances that " ... everything is in order." Such an assurances from the disordered should never be taken without the compulsory grain of salt.
On the positive side, I have had the chance to visit America. I have found it as toxic as I remembered it, perhaps even more than I might have imagined it to have become, if that is possible. The there that is there is wholly a thing of commodification and hubris, wrapped in jingoism and prejudice thinly-veiled with homily and false piety, tied with a bow of rock-n'-roll ignorance. As long as the music is pumpin', everything must be awright! Let's go shopping!
Into its third generation that's lived by malling, its fourth of television, its second of cell phones, PlayStation and the monitor-centered life, its first of iPod insulation and Hummers driving the steak into the dream of sustainability, America rolls on as the world burns. ... " READ MORE
BRAD BALFOUR WITH LEO DICAPRIO:
"Now that the 30-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio has become a superstar -- having enjoyed the spotlight by starring in the best-selling film of all time, "Titanic" -- he can have the luxury of obsessively pursuing his own dreams. One of those dreams was to make a bio-pic about millionaire eccentric Howard Hughes, which he has now done. [The film] titled "The Aviator," helmed by legendary director Martin Scorsese and starring a bevy of beauties from Gwen Stefani to Cate Blanchett is in theaters this holiday. Being around such beauties is something that the late Hughes and this former teen idol are both known for. But while the late aviation innovator and indie movie mogul descended into madness, DiCaprio has expanded his career into producing and developing unique properties such as this film.
G21: This is the second time you've worked with Scorsese, so you two have a rapport?
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: What I'm going to say sounds like a cliché but I can't tell a lie. He is every actor's dream to work with. He's the man in the business that you can unanimously ask any actor of any age range, and they want to work with him because he's not only one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but he's like a film historian. He's a professor of film. The man has seen almost every film ever made up until 1980. You get an education while working with him every single day. He screens movies for you to talk about specific scenes and what he's trying to convey on the screen.
You can ask him a question about a character or the way a scene should go and he can show you 20 examples of filmmakers who have done it that way in the past, the way it's been done right, the way it's been done wrong. It's an incredible learning experience, but -- in having this huge generational gap -- we actually found that we fundamentally share the same tastes in a lot of things, not just film but music and art. And we dislike a lot of the same things as well. We have a great work ethic together. We get along. We've had marathon rehearsal sessions and sometimes those can be arduous if people don't enjoy that process -- but his whole criteria, the thing that he does so well -- is he's so persistent on making everything he does as authentic as possible. So, he loves to have actors come to the table with an array of different information and different new ideas and challenging things. He welcomes that more than anyone else I've ever worked with. For this movie, and all the research I did, we certainly did a lot of that. ... " READ MORE
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RADIO RAHEEM asks "What G21 Christmas?" in his long-running RADIOACTIVE column; Australian author Peter Verinder talks to us in GLOBAL*BEAT; and much more!
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