Category Archives: Politically Incorrect

The 19th Edition of the Monte-Carlo Film Festival de la Comdie, directed by Ezio Greggio, from the 25 to the 30th of April in Monaco came to the end.

The Jury, Paul Haggis (Presidente),Tom Leeb, Clara Ponsot, and Pierpaolo Spollon have finally decided the Prizes.

The Canadian Film Babysitter gets 2 prizes for Best Film and Best Actor to Steve Laplante.

The Spanish Director Dani De la Orden is the Best Director for Mam o pap, a film that also gets the Best Actress prize to Miren Ibarguren.

The Danish film Miss Viborg gets the Special Jury Award for an outstanding first feature film.

Also, The Monte Carlo Film Festival Jury wanted to give a prize to Odd-Magnus Williamson per Best Screenwriting with Nothing to Laugh About.

The Italian comedy Una Boccata daria directed by Alessio Lauria gets the Premio del Pubblico (Popular Jury Prize).

Finally, the Short Comedy Award prize goes to A guide to dining out in Nairobi (Kenya).

Following the motivation of the 19 Monte-Carlo Film Festival de la Comdie.

Best Film: BABYSITTER

The award for the Best Comedy of the 19th edition of the Monte Carlo CFF goes to Babysitter for its originality, for having obtained it through raw and politically incorrect irony, extraordinary staging and incredible dialogues. For the courage with which the director has chosen to tell the misogyny and the power with which she manages to reach the viewer.

Best Director: DANI DE LA ORDEN (Mam o pap)

Dani De la Orden has been able to build an extraordinary storytelling through images, managing to tell with a fast pace and perfect shots a story capable of making people laugh and excite.

Best Actor: STEVE LAPLANTE (Babysitters journalist brother)

In an extremely difficult role to play, Steve Laplante was able to control his performance perfectly without ever falling into exaggeration. An actor who accompanies the emotional change of his character throughout the film, who takes a position before and the opposite one after, to finally return to the starting point, thus narrating the stereotype of the male gender in an excellent way.

Best Actress: MIREN IBARGUREN (Mam o Pap)

Miren Ibarguren is magnetic, true and intense to the point of making you fall in love. In the role of a mother in the moment of separation, she was able to convey anger and desire for revenge, she told the joy and tenderness, mood changes and everyday life in a sublime way. A fun, spontaneous, extraordinary performance.

Best Screenwriting: ODD-MAGNUS WILLIAMSON (Nothing to Laugh About)

This special award, wanted by the Monte Carlo Jury for the first time, goes to the writing of Nothing to Laugh About for having been able to tell hope through a surprising development of a story that, despite the sadness of the facts narrated, manages to convey joy and offer a new point of view on the meaning of life.

Special Jury Award for an outstanding first feature film: MISS VIBORG

An amazing movie, we were blown away by this movie. A work that is a masterpiece.

Ezio Greggio, together with Cristina Marino (Il talento del Calabrone, Vacanze ai Caraibi), will host the Gala award ceremony where international talents will be attending, winners of this edition of the Festival. Stefania Sandrelli (Divorzio allItaliana, Ceravamo tanto amati, Prosciutto, prosciutto) confirmed her presence as special guest, being honored of the Movie Legend Award, while also Luca Argentero (Doc-nelle tue mani, Le fate Ignoranti -la serie, Come un gatto in tangenziale- ritorno a Coccia de Morto) will receive a lifetime achievement award. The talented actress Ludovica Martino, known for the famous tv series Skam, together with the teenidol Lorenzo Zurzolo (Baby, Summertime, Eo) will receive the Next Generation Award as Best Under30 Performer. Plus, Giancarlo Commare ( Skam, Ancora pi bello, Sempre pi bello, Maschile Singolare) will be awarded as Monte Carlo Film Festival-Next Generation Comedy Award winner for his performance in the film Ancora pi bello. Chairman of the Jury Paul Haggis (Crash-contatto fisico, Million Dollar Baby) will receive the prestigious Movie Legend Award. Among the stars attending the gala, the showman Piero Chiambretti, the famous journalist Cesara Buonamici, the former Juventus footbal player Andrea Barzagli, the histrionic anchorman Alessandro Cattelan and the charming Turkish actor Can Yaman, who we will watch soon on tv in Sandokan.

During the evening the member of the Jury Tom Leeb sang the song Sun.

The event, in collaboration with EFG Bank ( Monaco), has always been held under the High Patronage of S.A.S. Prince Albert II de Monaco and of the Italian Embassy

Read the original:
The Winners of the 19th Monte-Carlo Comedy Film Festival - Hello Monaco!

The word woke used to have a positive connotation. It originated in Black culture and took on a more common, mainstream usage following the killing of Black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. To be woke meant to be socially progressive, with an acute awareness of social injustices.

Then, in the United States, Canada and elsewhere, the word woke was co-opted, hijacked by the political right and turned into a broad-sweep putdown of anyone with politically correct liberal values. Woke was newly reserved for lefty intellectuals and tree huggers, sushi eaters and faculty lounge highbrows, New York Times readers and the like.

Its a strong weapon for the right, all the more so because progressives have ceded ownership of the term. You dont hear Im woke and proud of it much. They dont have a retaliatory catch-all smear for reactionaries or their backwardness. Hillary Clinton tried deplorables. We know how well that went.

Re-engineering political language to discredit progressives hasnt just been limited to woke. The language pirates put liberals on the defensive by weaponizing the term elites as well, which used to signify success, having reached a high level. Now its shorthand for ruling class condescension and snobbery.

It also used to be that the wealthy elites were primarily conservative. But the right smartly politicized the term, slotting elites on the left side of the spectrum part and parcel of the woke crowd.

In the U.S. and Canada, the manipulation of vocabulary has aided in marketing the right as the domain of populists. Heaven help you in politics if you happen to be an intellectual that term was debased long ago and still is. While it may equate with being erudite, in these more philistine times that simply wont do.

The mainstream media has felt the effects of language manipulators as well. During his administration, Donald Trump greatly popularized the term fake news. Everyone knows that Mr. Trump, not to mention his friends at Fox, put out far more fake news than anyone else. But they still managed to convince a whole host of voters that the establishment liberal media are big purveyors of falsehoods.

This week, with Elon Musks takeover of Twitter, the right has more to celebrate in terms of its power over the public discourse. With the company going private, it appears that deregulation is in the works. There will be no more banning the Donald Trumps of the world. Its a victory for the politically incorrect.

Over time, the language pirates in the U.S. have even turned the word liberal into a derogatory term. That hasnt happened in Canada, but conservatives here have been no slouches in picking up on some of the trends.

Pierre Poilievres leadership campaign strongly appeals to anti-woke sentiment. Stand up to woke culture, he tweets. Stand up for freedom. Its not the hard right that divides Canada, insists the demagogic MP who was one of the foremost defenders of the truckers occupation of the countrys capital. Its the woke mob. We know what this woke culture is about, he recently told supporters at a rally. What its about is dividing people. Dividing them by race, gender, vaccination status.

Mr. Poilievre is joined by Mr. Trump in impugning Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for being in the grip of woke culture. The radical left is trying to replace American democracy with woke tyranny, the former president said in February. Referencing Ottawas handling of the truckers protest, Mr. Trump ludicrously posturing as the foremost defender of democracy said the Democrats want to do the same thing that Trudeau has been doing to Canada.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, who like Mr. Poilievre is seen to have a promising candidacy as a national conservative leader, recently backed a bill called the Stop WOKE Act that puts limits on what can be taught in schools about racism and the history of slavery.

Liberals in Canada and Democrats south of the border have moved their agendas leftward, making them easier anti-woke targets. Long-time Democrat strategist James Carville has noted how the topic of defunding the police has played right into Republican hands. Its lunacy, he said. Some of these people need to go to a woke detox centre or something.

Though there are cases, such as the one he mentions, of the progressives going overboard, woke Democrats in the U.S. and woke Liberals in Canada did win their most recent national elections.

But orchestrating terminology provides a big advantage for conservatives. It helps them masquerade as the real tribunes of the people. The unwoke for the great unwashed.

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Excerpt from:
Opinion: The left is losing the language war - The Globe and Mail

A person familiar with the courts deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.

The three Democratic-appointed justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are working on one or more dissents, according to the person. How Chief Justice John Roberts will ultimately vote, and whether he will join an already written opinion or draft his own, is unclear.

The document, labeled as a first draft of the majority opinion, includes a notation that it was circulated among the justices on Feb. 10. If the Alito draft is adopted, it would rule in favor of Mississippi in the closely watched case over that states attempt to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the draft opinion and said he was ordering an investigation into the disclosure.

To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way, Roberts pledged in a written statement. This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.

Roberts also stressed that the draft opinion does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case. The court spokesperson had declined comment pre-publication.

POLITICO received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the courts proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document. The draft opinion runs 98 pages, including a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws. The document is replete with citations to previous court decisions, books and other authorities, and includes 118 footnotes. The appearances and timing of this draft are consistent with court practice.

The disclosure of Alitos draft majority opinion a rare breach of Supreme Court secrecy and tradition around its deliberations comes as all sides in the abortion debate are girding for the ruling. Speculation about the looming decision has been intense since the December oral arguments indicated a majority was inclined to support the Mississippi law.

Under long-standing court procedures, justices hold preliminary votes on cases shortly after argument and assign a member of the majority to write a draft of the courts opinion. The draft is often amended in consultation with other justices, and in some cases the justices change their votes altogether, creating the possibility that the current alignment on Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization could change.

The chief justice typically assigns majority opinions when he is in the majority. When he is not, that decision is typically made by the most senior justice in the majority.

A George W. Bush appointee who joined the court in 2006, Alito argues that the 1973 abortion rights ruling was an ill-conceived and deeply flawed decision that invented a right mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and unwisely sought to wrench the contentious issue away from the political branches of government.

Alitos draft ruling would overturn a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Mississippi law ran afoul of Supreme Court precedent by seeking to effectively ban abortions before viability.

Roes survey of history ranged from the constitutionally irrelevant to the plainly incorrect, Alito continues, adding that its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and that the original decision has had damaging consequences.

The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nations history and traditions, Alito writes.

Alito approvingly quotes a broad range of critics of the Roe decision. He also points to liberal icons such as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, who at certain points in their careers took issue with the reasoning in Roe or its impact on the political process.

Alitos skewering of Roe and the endorsement of at least four other justices for that unsparing critique is also a measure of the courts rightward turn in recent decades. Roe was decided 7-2 in 1973, with five Republican appointees joining two justices nominated by Democratic presidents.

The overturning of Roe would almost immediately lead to stricter limits on abortion access in large swaths of the South and Midwest, with about half of the states set to immediately impose broad abortion bans. Any state could still legally allow the procedure.

The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion, the draft concludes. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.

The draft contains the type of caustic rhetorical flourishes Alito is known for and that has caused Roberts, his fellow Bush appointee, some discomfort in the past.

At times, Alitos draft opinion takes an almost mocking tone as it skewers the majority opinion in Roe, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, a Richard Nixon appointee who died in 1999.

Roe expressed the feel[ing] that the Fourteenth Amendment was the provision that did the work, but its message seemed to be that the abortion right could be found somewhere in the Constitution and that specifying its exact location was not of paramount importance, Alito writes.

Alito declares that one of the central tenets of Roe, the viability distinction between fetuses not capable of living outside the womb and those which can, makes no sense.

In several passages, he describes doctors and nurses who terminate pregnancies as abortionists.

When Roberts voted with liberal jurists in 2020 to block a Louisiana law imposing heavier regulations on abortion clinics, his solo concurrence used the more neutral term abortion providers. In contrast, Justice Clarence Thomas used the word abortionist 25 times in a solo dissent in the same case.

Alitos use of the phrase egregiously wrong to describe Roe echoes language Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart used in December in defending his states ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The phrase was also contained in an opinion Kavanaugh wrote as part of a 2020 ruling that jury convictions in criminal cases must be unanimous.

In that opinion, Kavanaugh labeled two well-known Supreme Court decisions egregiously wrong when decided: the 1944 ruling upholding the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II, Korematsu v. United States, and the 1896 decision that blessed racial segregation under the rubric of separate but equal, Plessy v. Ferguson.

The high court has never formally overturned Korematsu, but did repudiate the decision in a 2018 ruling by Roberts that upheld then-President Donald Trumps travel ban policy.

Plessy remained the law of the land for nearly six decades until the court overturned it with the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling in 1954.

Quoting Kavanaugh, Alito writes of Plessy: It was egregiously wrong, on the day it was decided.

Alitos draft opinion includes, in small type, a list of about two pages worth of decisions in which the justices overruled prior precedents in many instances reaching results praised by liberals.

The implication that allowing states to outlaw abortion is on par with ending legal racial segregation has been hotly disputed. But the comparison underscores the conservative justices belief that Roe is so flawed that the justices should disregard their usual hesitations about overturning precedent and wholeheartedly renounce it.

Alitos draft opinion ventures even further into this racially sensitive territory by observing in a footnote that some early proponents of abortion rights also had unsavory views in favor of eugenics.

Some such supporters have been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the African American population, Alito writes. It is beyond dispute that Roe has had that demographic effect. A highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are black.

Alito writes that by raising the point he isnt casting aspersions on anyone. For our part, we do not question the motives of either those who have supported and those who have opposed laws restricting abortion, he writes.

Alito also addresses concern about the impact the decision could have on public discourse. We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the publics reaction to our work, Alito writes. We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to todays decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.

In the main opinion in the 1992 Casey decision, Justices Sandra Day OConnor, Anthony Kennedy and Davis Souter warned that the court would pay a terrible price for overruling Roe, despite criticism of the decision from some in the public and the legal community.

While it has engendered disapproval, it has not been unworkable, the three justices wrote then. An entire generation has come of age free to assume Roes concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions; no erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roes central holding a doctrinal remnant.

When Dobbs was argued in December, Roberts seemed out of sync with the other conservative justices, as he has been in a number of cases including one challenging the Affordable Care Act.

At the argument session last fall, Roberts seemed to be searching for a way to uphold Mississippis 15-week ban without completely abandoning the Roe framework.

Viability, it seems to me, doesnt have anything to do with choice. But, if it really is an issue about choice, why is 15 weeks not enough time? Roberts asked during the arguments. The thing that is at issue before us today is 15 weeks.

While Alitos draft opinion doesnt cater much to Roberts views, portions of it seem intended to address the specific interests of other justices. One passage argues that social attitudes toward out-of-wedlock pregnancies have changed drastically since the 1970s and that increased demand for adoption makes abortion less necessary.

Those points dovetail with issues that Barrett a Trump appointee and the courts newest member raised at the December arguments. She suggested laws allowing people to surrender newborn babies on a no-questions-asked basis mean carrying a pregnancy to term doesnt oblige one to engage in child rearing.

Why dont the safe haven laws take care of that problem? asked Barrett, who adopted two of her seven children.

Much of Alitos draft is devoted to arguing that widespread criminalization of abortion during the 19th and early 20th century belies the notion that a right to abortion is implied in the Constitution.

The conservative justice attached to his draft a 31-page appendix listing laws passed to criminalize abortion during that period. Alito claims an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishmentfrom the earliest days of the common law until 1973.

Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None. No state constitutional provision had recognized such a right, Alito adds.

Alitos draft argues that rights protected by the Constitution but not explicitly mentioned in it so-called unenumerated rights must be strongly rooted in U.S. history and tradition. That form of analysis seems at odds with several of the courts recent decisions, including many of its rulings backing gay rights.

Go here to read the rest:
Exclusive: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows - POLITICO

Imran Khan has asked his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf followers to assemble in the capital for yet another rally when he gives the call.

Comparing himself to Mohammad Mosaddegh, the Iranian prime minister who was ousted in a Western conspiracy in the 1950s, he again claimed of having been a victim of a US-led plot.

By provoking his supporters to march to the Pakistani capital, several critics say, he is trying to take Pakistan down a very dangerous path.

Sample his quotes: "I want two million people to come to Islamabad when I give the call. I want all of you to go to the people and preach to them about our movement for true freedom."

This is a translation, as reported by Dawn newspaper. One cant help but note the religious undertones of his words. His tone has moved to the extremes in the days following his unceremonious ouster, which had made him the first Pakistani PM to be removed through a no-confidence vote.

Also read | 'Im the dim': How Pakistan PM Imran Khan turned out to be a terrible caricature of the champion cricketer

In the desperate days before the trust vote, he vaxed and waned on TV, and tried to dilute the spirit of the Pakistani Constitution. He attempted his best to even circumvent the Supreme Courts order to convene the parliament and conduct the trust vote, after failing to do so in the first instance.

He used state media machinery to essentially start an election campaign even before the trust vote. On the eve of the confidence motion, he appeared via PTV, and asked Pakistanis to take to the streets on that Sunday, a move unbecoming of a prime minister.

Watch | Gravitas Plus: The many shades of Imran Khan

Then, after much drama, PTI activists went to the streets indeed, having lost the trust vote on 10th April.

But there was one thing really remarkable about the whole drama: The lack of any significant political violence.

Bloodshed during political movements and protests is part of Pakistan's tortuous tryst with democracy.

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated during an election campaign rally in December, 2007. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was tried for murdering a political opponent and hanged by the regime led by dictator Zia-ul-Haq who had deposed him in a coup at the height of violence caused by the then oppositions allegations of election rigging. Most recently, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) protests of 2021 led to nearly 30 deaths.

But earlier this month, at one of the most dramatic upheavals in the country's political history, there was an almost 'peaceful' transition of power.

In spite of fears, the Pakistani Army did not intervene, or make any provocative statements. May be the transition was what the army-intelligence establishment wanted and got.

May be the Pakistani people are more intelligent than the world gives them credit for.

May be they are just tired. Three years of Covid pandemic, inflation, financial crisis, unemployment and corruption may have left them numb.

But Imran Khan appears to want to change that. He wants some kind of ruckus. From the rambling, televised national addresses in the run-up to the no-trust vote, to the fiery speeches at PTI rallies, he is trying to rouse passions.

His calls are taking a sinister turn even abroad, with expatriate supporters taking out marches in the West. There was a noisy protest in front of exiled former PM Nawaz Sharif's residence in London. And another in front of the house of Jemima Goldsmith, the former wife of Khan, who said it felt as if she was back in Lahore of the 1990s.

Shehbaz Sharif, the new PM, is no saint, lets face it. Nor is his brother, Nawaz Sharif, who also lost his post as a consequence of Supreme Court orders in corruption cases including those linked to the Panama Papers leaks.

But the dangerous game that Imran Khan is playing now, can potentially cause far-reaching damage to the body politic.

Because he is continuously attacking key institutions of democracy: the courts, the legislative process, and now, the election commission. His supporters have been holding protests outside the election commissions offices across the country.

His issue is with the fact that the poll body may have played a role in putting a spanner on his maneuvers to dissolve parliament and assemblies and call a fresh election before the no-trust vote was taken up. The election commission submitted to the SC that it would take at least six months to hold elections due to delimitation exercise and other logistical issues. Basically it meant there wouldnt be a new National Assembly as soon as Khan had expected.

Now, he has gone all guns blazing against the election commission. It is an irony of history that this was the same poll body that was on his side and blamed by those who lost the election to PTI in 2018.

There were widespread allegations that the elections were rigged. It was incredulous for many that Khan would emerge as a national leader, let alone a prime minister, in a matter of less than a decade. While the cricketer-turned-politician did have support in some pockets thanks largely to his anti-corruption movement, his party had languished for years since its founding in 1996.

Therefore, the election of 2018 was seen as stage-managed by the army-intelligence complex to oust the Sharifs from power.

But since he took over, Khan made several missteps, and made damaging public remarks and quixotic stances on international affairs. These embarrassed the army, alienated several allies and eventually made his position as Pakistan PM untenable even as the country wallowed in a never-ending economic crisis.

Sample some of his ill-timed remarks and unbecoming actions: He showed disrespect to several Gulf monarchs and dignitaries in both actions and words, that breached protocol and caused outcry. He appeared to endorse cross-border terrorism in India and Afghanistan, calling Pakistan a victim of it and referring to terrorists as martyrs almost in the same breath. He antagonised the West with adverse comments on Pakistans post-9/11 support to the US-led war in Afghanistan and war on terrorism. He couldn't dispel the notion that Pakistan intelligence and military had constantly supported Taliban terrorists. (it's a different matter that suddenly, calling Taliban terrorists is politically incorrect as they now rule Afghanistan).

His government schooled Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Kashmir issue, seeking a foreign ministers meeting on it and threatening to convene one in Pakistan if OIC didnt.

He complicated relations with key Gulf allies by first endorsing, and later pulling out of an Islamic nations summit organised by Malaysia in 2019, which had unnerved Saudi Arabia and UAE, the real patriarchs of the Islamic political world, who are also the very hands that feeds Pakistan (yes literally, because at the time Khan was also desperately pleading for aid from them).

His remarks on French President Emmanuel Macrons defence of freedom of expression in the context of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons fanned the fires of radicals like TLP. They held protests wanting to get the French ambassador removed. For long an ardent critic of Islamophobia, Khan appeared to cave in to such extremist groups who bayed for blood of the French envoy.

His continued support of China, even publicly dismissing the alleged persecution of Uyghur Muslims by Pakistans iron friend, caused much unease in the US and the West.

And what probably became the nail on the metaphorical coffin was his visit to Russia and meeting with President Vladimir Putin, bang in the middle of the first days of Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The problem is, he thinks he is very popular. He thinks he is still the cricketer loved everywhere in the world.

And when he saw the ground beneath him crumbling, he suddenly raised the bogey of a foreign conspiracy to remove him.

It may or may not wash with the public. But that's for them to decide, come election time.

Till then, Imran Khan needs to tone down his messiah complex.

He will have to give the megalomaniac in him a break.

Otherwise, that megalomaniac will provoke some sections of his party to violence.

And there will be blood.

And if Pakistan burns, Imran Khan will have blood on his hands.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer)

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See the article here:
Imran Khan, if Pakistan burns, you will have blood on your hands - WION

Steve Coogan has revealed which current broadcaster he believes to be most similar to Alan Partridge.

The actor is known for his portrayal of the socially inept and politically incorrect media personality, whom he has played in several TV shows, as well as the 2013 film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.

During an appearance on BBC Breakfast, Coogan opened up about his beloved role.

Almost every presenter has had a Partridge moment and I sort of galvanise all that and chuck it into this big bucket marked Partridge and then regurgitate it, Coogan told host Naga Munchetty about his inspiration behind the character.

Asked which current broadcaster he thinks bears the closest resemblance to Partridge, the actor took a moment to think.

I suppose if you fused Richard Madeley with Piers Morgan you might get close to who Partridge is at the moment, said Coogan.

The actor went on to provide reasons for his answer, adding: I think Alan likes to think of himself as cutting edge, and edgy, and relevant.

Responding to host Charlie Stayts comment that to be called the inspiration for Partridge has become a badge of honour, Coogan agreed that viewers have come to rather like the character.

Yeah, I think although he started out as a buffoon, now people actually rather like him they have a bit of an affection for him. Although hes misguided and misinformed, hes not nasty or wicked. He tries to do right, said Coogan.

I think people when they laugh at Partridge, they see an inept uncle or their parents generation getting things slightly wrong.

The rest is here:
Steve Coogan reveals which broadcaster he thinks is a modern-day Alan Partridge - The Independent

Last week, on April 21, Scott Ritterwhom older readers might remember as a former U.N. weapons inspector turned ferocious foe of American and Western foreign policyposted an angry screed on RT.com (the web version of whats left of the propaganda outlet Russia Today) ringing the alarm about the disappearance of Gonzalo Lira, a Chilean-American pro-Russia social media influencer and video blogger based in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Lira had not been heard from since April 15 and had even missed a scheduled appearance on a show hosted by George Galloway, the far-left former British member of Parliament and fellow RT personality who has never met an anti-Western tyrant he didnt like. Ritter dramatically revealed that Gonzo Lira had expressed concern that the authorities in Kyiv were looking for him and noted that Volodymyr Zelensky had recently promised consequences for collaborators. And now, Ritter continued ominously, Gonzo Lira had gone missingpresumably a victim of kidnapping, torture, and likely murder by the Ukrainian Nazis.

Ritter went on to blast the Wests double standards. Look at all the outrage when Belarus detains a blogger! Look at the indignation at the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and dissident! And yet in this case, nothing:

To remain silent in the murder of Gonzo Lira is to be complicit in his possible death, and the deaths of all journalists who pursue the truth, even if it runs counter to the mainstream narrative. Critical thinking should not be a death sentence. Unfortunately for Gonzo Lira, it seems it was.

Ritter did hedge a bit on the murder, noting that he had cautioned on Telegram one day earlier that he had no direct evidence that Gonzalo has been killed and that he simply wanted to raise awareness about his disappearance. However, he added that Gonzo said any disappearance of more than 12 hours should be treated as if something bad had happened to him.

Meanwhile, also on April 21, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted an opinion by ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova that referred to Lira as a famous film director, praised his reports on the Nazis atrocities, deplored his disappearance, and took a swipe at liberal queers and honest Western journalists who were joining the neo-Nazis in supposedly celebrating Liras murder. (That was a reference to transgender journalist Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, who had tweeted a couple of days earlier that Lira had been captured by Ukrainian security services on charges of being a Russian spy and saboteur posing as a journalist.) Screenshots of Zakharovas text were boosted on Twitter by trollish Columbia University academic and ultra-isolationist Richard Hanania, who commented gleefully on the current Nazi-transgender alliance in favor of disappearing journalists.

But the very next day, Gonzalo Lira resurfaced, looking hale and hearty, saying that he had been detained by the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, and was okay physically but a little rattled.

So much for his martyrdom.

Liras output is pretty much what youd expect:

His writings also include other things that arent particularly surprising on the pro-Russian side of the culture wars. For instance, Lira is a rabid anti-vaxxer and COVID denier who thinks that the vaccine is an experimental bioweapon; that modern-day Western democracies are the real tyrannies (after all, its not as if Qaddafi, Hussein, and Assad forced all their people to take experimental vaccines to make Big Pharma obscene profits!); and that if you got vaccinated you now have AIDS confirmed because the vaccine causes immune erosion.

But there is still more: for instance, the day before he was apparently grabbed by the SBU, Lira made a post to his Telegram account sharing some deep thoughts from the infamous /pol/ (politically incorrect) board of the 4Chan websitea cesspool of anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny that makes Gab look pleasantand adding an appreciative LMAO.

The anti-Semitism is far from an isolated instance. Another /pol/ repost last November, shared with Liras comment, Something I came acrosswhat do you all think, argues that if the Holocaust was real and the Allies really did save the Jews from the Nazis, Jews should be eternally grateful to white men; but since they constantly revile white people and openly encourage non-Whites and non-gentiles to destroy their society and culture, this means that either Jews are odiously ungrateful to their liberators and Hitler was right, or the Holocaust is just propaganda and lies. (Not surprisingly, Liras YouTube videos tend to draw a certain kind of person: the chat sections of his YouTube livestreams are full of such comments as, Ukraine had a Jew coup, Oligarch = Jew, and (((Victoria Nuland))) or Victoria Kikeland in reference to the Obama and Biden administration official who supposedly helped engineer the 2014 revolution in Ukraine.)

The misogyny is not incidental, either. A March 21 Daily Beast feature reveals that before 54-year-old, California-born Lira was an intrepid journalist reporting from the Ukrainian war zone, he was a dating and life skills guru known as Coach Red Pill. (Before that, he had tried his hand at fiction writing and indie filmmaking, then got into the alternative media via Zero Hedge, the controversial financial blog that doubles as a far-right, pro-Kremlin conspiracy theory site.)

Red Pill is, of course, a popular term in anti-establishment Internet circles, based on The Matrix, that refers to opening ones eyes to supposed hidden truths the powers that be dont want us to know. Perhaps its most common usage refers to an ultra-reactionary and frankly misogynistic perspective on gender based on a very crude version of pop evolutionary psychology, which holds that sexual equality is a delusion and female liberation is a product of modern Western degeneracy. While Lira has scrubbed his dating-coach material from his YouTube channel after turning to war reporting, the Daily Beast has the receipts, which include a 2020 video advising men to never date a woman in her thirties since a single, childless woman past 30 is a degenerate slut who is about to succumb to baby rabies and will do anything to trick a man into marriage.

Liras redpill views still surface in his Telegram posts, as in this comment from February about how to deal with a COVID-vaccinated girlfriend: Shes sterile, so why bother with her. A woman whos been vaxed is useless except as a cum dumpster.

Obviously, Liras repugnant beliefs dont mean that he should be tortured or killedwhich, obviously, he wasnt. Some have even suggested that he faked his own disappearance as an attention-seeking ploy.

But assuming that Lira really was picked up and held for questioning by the SBU, is there much of a cause for outrage? When youre a foreigner living in a country battling a foreign invasion and youre basically churning out full-time propaganda for the invader, I would say youre fair game not only for arrest but for deportation as well. Amusingly, a solid and scathing debunking of the Lira victimhood narrative is offered in a video by Conor Clyne, a fellow dating and seduction guru with red pill leaningsbut with a strongly pro-Ukraine outlook.

The chorus of lamentations over Liras disappearance (which included not only Ritter and Zakharova but compulsive West-hater Max Blumenthal) turned out to be wasted. The good part about the attention he got, though, was that it offers a useful glimpse of the kind of Westerner who ends up in the pro-Kremlin camp: a conspiracy theorist who hates Western liberalism for empowering women and thinks white men are oppressed and exploited by sluts and Jews.

Link:
The Redpill Grifter Who Became an Anti-Ukraine Propagandist - The Bulwark

Memories that shape us

By Saba Karim Khan

Published: Thu 28 Apr 2022, 8:43 PM

In my recent book talks, a question that inevitably came up was about childhood and the imagery early memories evoke. Each time, I found myself offering the same reply: I grew up in a home filled with hand-written letters, books, ghazals and dreams; where a lot would be traded for a creative or spiritually uplifting experience. So, in a strange way, we were misfits because we never really learnt how material things can buy happiness.

Its true, I did grow up in a sort of secular-Sufi home, if there is such a thing, and Saturday afternoons were spent at the British Council Library in Karachi. The library, of course, was about books, stacked in white shelves rolling on wheels, overlooking a verdant lawn with vintage trees, where we would buy samosas afterwards and watch our first Charlie Chaplin performance. But the library was so much more: it was about experiencing the first whiffs of freedom, of unleashing the imagination, about ideas and escape, about entertainment and socialising, too. It was where I fan-girled around the world of Enid Blyton at six (long before her stories were labelled politically incorrect by some), immersing in fairytales that refused to leave me; it was a safe space where one could belong, without breaking the bank. In many ways, much like reading, the library was an equaliser.

They say, Everything changes when we read, perhaps because reading is a ladder, or a window, to other abilities and occasions. As you climb each rung of the reading ladder, you inch towards literacy, but also towards imagination, picturing what might have been; and therein lies the true potential of stories. Enid Blyton did precisely that to me and once I discovered her world, the imagination was unstoppable: sitting in Karachis library, wed visualise the midnight feast at Malory Towers or the slippery slope and night markets in the Faraway Tree, the leaves rustling in the Enchanted Wood and what the Five Find-Outers might be up to. I was no longer satisfied; I wanted to know more, imagine more, do things differently.

I remember getting flak for reading just about anywhere at the dining table, in the car, at home time in school; but it was in the library that it struck me what it meant to read stories just for pleasure. In a space surrounded by books and like-minded children and adults, which granted me the freedom to choose what I wanted to read, in the absence of grades and competition and at that time mobile phones, I stumbled upon the power of books. I now realise that was the only way to fall in love with reading; to be allowed to do it without the fear of failure and judgment and the library enabled just that.

Going to the library turned reading into a social activity for us forging friendships with librarians, read-alouds which turned books into performances and co-creation, but also a kind of escape. We often think of escapism in derogatory, confused, cowardly terms; it doesnt have to be. The library, as a place of escapism, offered solace, a slowing down of the mind, body, soul, with wings to transport us elsewhere, even amidst Karachis frenzied city life.

But our girls today inhabit a markedly different world from the one I grew up in, and as a parent, I worry about some of these changes. I worry about the speed at which libraries are disappearing and the dearth of reading cafs to take them to. I worry about the first sight that hits you at a bookshop more toys than books. I worry that our girls may be part of a generation that finds libraries and reading cafs, uncool and wearisome. I worry because I know no matter how avidly they cram phonics or spellings at school, or how much we consolidate learning at home, occupying physical space in a reading room or library opens up different experiences and possibilities.

Around the world, budgetary constraints or simply labeling libraries extinct, are becoming grounds to get rid of them and to stop creating new ones. By doing so, we are shutting down portals that are vital for our children, for their future and well-being. Without places that enable them to meditate and imagine, which offer bandwidth in their over-flowing schedules, we run the risk of producing atomised beings, rather than curious, stimulated children, those who are physically, emotionally, imaginatively alive and equipped to participate in the act of creation.

When Albert Einstein was asked about ways to make children smarter, he unequivocally trusted the value of reading: If you want your children to be intelligent, he responded, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales. To his mind, the vision of creativity and the power of books was crystalised. For us, however, libraries, reading and reading spaces, whilst attractive in theory, appear incompatible with our brisk, explosive online lives, where if youre not constantly busy, you arent seen as productive enough. Who has time to while away in a reading caf; whats there to show for it at the end of the hour spent?

With our children, I hope this fashion of jam-packed minds and routines comes to a halt; I hope, instead, that they allow themselves to pause and reflect, sometimes be bored, other times listen and tell stories, to know what it means to speak softly in a reading space, to daydream and for some of those fantasies to eventually take flight. For far too long, we have convinced ourselves that society, its problems, are too sprawling and in our singular capacity, we cant change much. I hope we can raise a generation where individuals believe they can imagine things differently and that no difference is too small, where they arent reduced to products off an assembly line or statistics on a report card. For us to get there, having places to read, to imagine and feel free, is a non-negotiable starting point.

My reading recommendation for children is The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com

Saba Karim Khan is the author of Skyfall, released by Bloomsbury and works at NYU Abu Dhabi

Link:
How physical reading spaces are vital for keeping childrens imagination alive - wknd.

America is broken, but Bill Maher intends to put it back together again. Its an ancient liberal proverb now. Maher was there in 1999 when the national obsession with Bill Clintons sexual improprieties drove a solid year of nightly news coverage, insisting that it isnt a big deal if the commander-in-chief gets domed in the Oval Office. He was there in 2000 when Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, poking fun at those contested Florida tallies. He was there in the mid-aughts calling people prudish tattletales for blackballing Janet Jackson after the gaffe at the Super Bowl, and documenting the ineptitude of the cowboy president and conservative caucus of that era whose faith based political initiatives reserved a special spite for gay and lesbian couples looking for the same protections as heterosexual couples.

A card-carrying liberal who donated a million dollars to Barack Obamas presidential campaign in 2012 and another to the Senate Majority PAC to help Democrats to flip the House during the crucial 2018 midterms, Maher has made it his lifes work to foster an open discourse about the failings of American democracy and the foibles on both ends of the political spectrum that get in the way of progress. It hasnt always gone so smoothly: Mahers first late-night talk show, Politically Incorrect, a place where you could see John Waters debating electoral politics alongside Patty Hearst, was canceled in 2002 amid backlash stemming from an episode a few days after 9/11 where the comic and political commentator called Americans cowards for lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away and commended the courage of terrorists staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Maher is a textbook equal-opportunity offender, always apprising us of the faults of the clowns to the left of him and the jokers to the right. Hes been singing that tune since the 80s. In his 1989 debut HBO special a half-hour for the networks stand-up series One-Night Stand, home to early sets by future icons like Norm Macdonald and Gilbert Gottfried Maher contrasted Reagan-era college revelers and 60s youth activists: When I went to school, at least there were causes, and people cared, and there were issues. The biggest protest song Ive heard in the 1980s is the Beastie Boys singing Youve got to fight for your right to party.

In the 21st century, as host of HBOs Real Time With Bill Maher, the comic increasingly approaches the quirks of the left with the same zeal that made his jabs at Christian conservatives sting in the Bush years. This has earned respect from right-wing personalities, and it has frustrated people on the left who lurk him begrudgingly, characterizing the shift in Mahers commentary as your typical case of getting old and losing your edge. To see his name in the news is to brace yourself for a moment of weapons-grade bothsidesism as he couches complaints about one party with criticisms of the other, the better to secure the reasonable median position. This puts him at odds with a left that sees a greater threat in authoritarianism taking root in government and public discourse. So Maher finds himself at a crossroads: Hes unwilling to go where progressives are going, yet sincere in the belief that he can help the left, for whom he is just another contrarian whose need to go against the grain has now set him at odds with his own convictions. And as the left piles on, calling Maher a centrist crank anytime a bit of Real Time goes viral, he points to the backlash as proof people cant take a joke anymore. The left has gotten goofier, he explained in his recent Joe Rogan interview, so I seem more conservative, maybe, but its not me who changed.

Mahers new special, #Adulting, his 12th with HBO, tries to make sense of a divided landscape in the same manner he always has: He examines lurid current events under a microscope, darting in and out of the kind of invective you hear on his panel shows, balancing smirking humor and sincere concern. But somethings different about the recipe this time. Hes never been quite so defensive and bitter about where he stands in relation to the next generation. I guess every generation thinks the kids are crazy, he mused on the cusp of turning 40 in his 1995 special, Stuff That Struck Me Funny, pivoting from jokes about his parents misconceptions about drug culture to talking about the inability of his peers to acclimate to internet culture. That balanced self-awareness is sorely missed throughout #Adulting, an hour devoted in large part to the notion that politics is being co-opted by a lot of kooks who have been empowered by social media to try to bend the law to accommodate personal preferences to the detriment of the left-wing causes they support. Liberalism is lifting up those who have been forgotten and forsaken, Maher explains. He feels Democrats could win every election so easily if they would just stick to the meat and potatoes. Just stick to minimum wage, health care, education, environment. Stay out of the bullshit that gets on social media. He doesnt see the contradiction in asking the party of the forsaken to take on fewer causes. Thats just business: Gender is not binary, he declares in the special, but politics is.

#Adulting is very sure of itself, but its not so sure what makes its subjects tick. The specials core fallacy is the idea that woke leftists picking complicated fights about gender and reassessing the sins of complex figures in American history pose as much of a threat to the future of democracy as people who supported overturning the election in 2020. The right has problems, Maher concedes, but the drip, drip, drip on your news feed of crazy shit petty, judgey cancel-culture shit does seem to hang more on the left, and people are just tired of this. Theyre tired of fearing that if they make one mistake in their life, including in their past, itll never be forgiven. Its a loopy assessment of a time where conservative personalities and politicians pick fights over Potato Head toys, Dr. Seuss books, and Lil Nas X videos to hang the culture wars entirely on the left. Maher admits hes talking to the only side thatll listen: The Republicans do not believe in the emergency of climate change, and they apparently no longer believe in American democracy. But Democrats are savable if the party divests from policy that sounds like a headline in the Onion. But his examples all seem pretty sensible to the much stranger current events #Adulting blows past, leaving ample comedic real estate untouched.

In response to criticisms of the founding fathers, Maher posits that we would all own slaves if we lived in the 1800s: Stop flattering yourself that youre Nostradamus, and you wouldve known things were wrong at a time where nobody else thought that. He calls Bernie Sanders out for saying the Boston marathon bomber deserves the right to vote but doesnt say that the senator was responding to an oddball town-hall question about his view that the state shouldnt dictate who gets to have a say in politics. Maher isolates a 2019 debate take where Julin Castro said he supported reproductive rights for trans women, leaving out Castros clarification that he misspoke. #Adulting uses the removal of former A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor to criticize the MeToo movement, saying Keillor was fired for sharing a risqu poem at work: Oh, were getting people for limericks, now? Minnesota Public Radios CEO got a 12-page letter from the accusers attorney outlining dozens of sexually inappropriate incidents over a period of years. MPR also said Keillors limerick was about a co-worker who aroused him sexually. Maher mentions people trying to remove gender from birth certificates; really, the American Medical Administration recommended it. But the truth doesnt support Mahers thesis that crazies have hijacked politics: Maybe we shouldnt let kids make big life decisions while we still have to make choo-choo noises to get the food in their mouth. Pretending it hurts anyone if some people let their kids pick gender roles is the same kind of governance via belief Maher hated in 2005s Im Swiss: I dont ask that my opinion be made into the law. Sharing stories without proper context and clamoring for respect for the founding fathers These are Fox News plays. #Adulting says Democrats messaging is fractured and confusing but doesnt interest itself in clarity.

#Adulting doesnt try enough in the joke department, either. Maher calls Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene a star of Real Housewives of Karen County. Criticizing Donald Trump for going after John McCains war credentials, Maher rehashes a dig weve heard a hundred times by now, adding that McCains widow, Lindsey Graham, said nothing. The crowd goes wild when the comic reflects on the toll the last president took on us: Have you noticed that Trump, unlike any other president, did not age in office? We did. It was also a hit when Wanda Sykes said it in 2019s Not Normal. Its fascinating watching Maher feel out his audience to find a line that gives them pause. (When a line about abortion draws a nervous laugh, he smiles, saying, Youre okay, youre okay. But when the crowd applauds a messy line about people of color owning slaves in the past and howls when he says R. Kellys music didnt rape anyone, he looks taken aback by what they find to be the funniest parts of his stories.) But its old hat hearing him fuss about progressives getting too progressive five years into the hellish, protracted cancel-culture discourse. On a recent episode of his new podcast, Club Random, Maher got stoned with model and actor Bella Thorne, and the talk grew testy when he joked about an unwanted genital exchange for trans people. Thorne said she didnt like that kind of humor, to which Maher responded, I dont know if youre really offended or just worried that youre going to look offended.

Youd think Maher, who famously bombed at the 1995 White House Correspondents Dinner trying to crack wise about the Democrats and their donors in the room, and whose show was removed from ABC for a joke in the 2000s but who did not appear to face material consequences for dropping a racial slur on his show in 2017, would have a sense of scope about outrage over time and how it dips and dives more like a sine wave than the exponential curve a lot of grizzled comedy veterans paint it out to be nowadays. Youd think Maher, whose ceaseless support for the legalization of marijuana comes up in a majority of his specials, particularly in times when decriminalization was a pipe dream, would appreciate dreamers trying to shift the temperature of the discourse to lay the groundwork for real change. #Adulting doesnt go out of its way to explain that equal rights being relitigated through a lot of fast moves in the red states and elsewhere in government is the specific bee in everyones bonnet, or that social media, perilous as it can be, helps these people find community. Mahers advice for marginalized groups of this era is to simply log off, cool down, and get more Democrats elected, but that already happened in 2020, and #Adulting is short on ideas for what to do when you rein it in to get the blue team elected but rights continue to retract. In Mahers old stand-up, he made proclamations filled with the arrogance of a guy who felt hed thought of angles you hadnt. In #Adulting, hes not just detached from the prickly daily realities of navigating gender-identity struggles and rethinking American power dynamics, he wants you to join him. If you can afford to, have at it.

Read the rest here:
Analyzing Bill Maher's #Adulting HBO Stand-up Comedy Special - Vulture

The late, great Roddy Piper would have turned 68 on Sunday. As wrestlers and wrestling promotions remembered the WWE Hall of Famer, a fan on social media posted a video clip of Pipers appearance on Bill Mahers Politically Incorrect in 1999.

Representing WCW at the time, Piper was joined on Mahers panel by fellow WWE Hall of Famers Sting, Bobby Heenan and Madusa. At one point during the interview, Maher contended that wrestling fans were in on the joke and knew they were watching a fake sport. This prompted Sting to argue that chair shots were real, and that wrestlers do suffer a physical toll during matches.

In response to Stings comments, Maher argued, but theres never a bruise on any of you.

An irate Piper then stood up, lowered his trousers, and showed off his metal hip.

Piper then pointed to his wrist and yelled, Broken wrist. See that wrist? Seven years its been broken. Owen Hart [is] dead. Why dont you go tell Mrs. Hart what a joke it is, huh?

The video has since gone viral, prompting responses from the likes of WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry and Karrion Kross. Roddy Piper passed away on July 31, 2015 at the age of 61.

Have a news tip or correction? Send it to [emailprotected]

See original here:
Old Bill Maher Video Goes Viral On Roddy Piper Birthday, WWE Hall Of Famer And Others React - Wrestling Inc.

Dalziel and Pascoe is a popular British Crime drama starring Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan as the leading characters. The series is set in a fictional town Wetherton in Yorkshire. Two detectives Dalziel and Pascoe who are like chalk and cheese and cant be more different from each other are the central characters. Dalziel is politically incorrect in almost every situation and has Pascoe on his side every step of the way for perfect balance. They are absolute opposite of each other with different styles of working and get on each others nerves at times. Pascoe does have the patience of a Saint with Dalziel. Just when you think Dalziel has gone way out and you expect him to continue, he manages to do the right thing in the situation. They are a well-suited team, and their differences make them the perfect combo.

Still from Dalziel and Pascoe

In this episode, Detective Dalziel goes to the popular pub British Grenadiers to console Stella, the owner of the pub as she had gotten into a massive fight with her husband. The husband is highly suspicious and think Stella is cheating on him. He takes his wife, Dalziel and the other members of the public at the pub hostage at gunpoint.

Watch this episode of Dalziel and Pascoe, the exciting British Crime Drama, airing on Drama Channel on FilmOn TV at 20:00pm GMT. It can be watched live or recorded and viewed later.

For similar articles read here.

Catch live news and all the latest updates of the recent events happening all over the world with FilmOn TV. FilmOn TV provides access to the top channels from all over the world.

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FilmOn TV provides one of the finest online television viewing experiences alongside being a social television. Be social while watching your favourite TV shows or live matches, discuss with your friends or just share your point of view with the rest of the viewers, bringing everyone closer and starting the discussion. Watch Live TV on FilmOn on web or on an android or iOS App. FilmOn provides access to more than 600 Live TV channels from across the globe and has an intensive library of movies and videos to choose from. Live TV channels from UK, Europe, Africa, Asia, and rest of the world are available on FilmOn TV.

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Husband Suspecting Wife of Infidelity, holds her and Patrons at the Bar Hostage at Gunpoint - Shockya.com