Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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RE: virus: Take That, Borat: Kazakhstan Runs 4-Page Ad Section in 'N.Y. Times'
« on: 2005-12-28 08:53:12 » |
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[Blunderov] Hi all. Childe Blunderov has almost managed to come away from
the dark tower of Xmas. Time to lick the wounds and plot a better way to
avoid it next time. Maybe I could invent a malady? Spontaneous hibernation
syndrome has a ring to it that I think I like.
I see people driving around with wrinkled brows, poring over badly drawn
maps intent on visiting relatives with whom they have obviously not recently
conversed. Why now, one has to wonder, do they wish to renew old
acquaintance? Wouldn't it be more graceful and less existentially
inconvenient, to just simply let it all go?
But enough of these trifles. This is a world in which there are mighty
issues to contend with. Kazakhstan, you will be amazed to learn, has its own
demons and one of them is named Borat.
Best Regards.
http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=
1001571317&imw=Y
Take That, Borat: Kazakhstan Runs 4-Page Ad Section in 'N.Y. Times'
By E&P Staff
Published: November 28, 2005 12:05 PM ET
NEW YORK As if responding to the escalating battle with famed TV personality
Borat Sagdiyev, a character on HBO's "Da Ali G Show," the Kazakhstan
government today published a four-page advertising section in The New York
Times. The section, titled, "Kazakhstan in the 21st Century," carried
testimonials to its oil production, its democracy, education system, and
purported "power and influence" of women.
The feud has been simmering for the past year, after Borat and his frank
depictions of life in his homeland (where, he claims, gypsies are still
hunted for sport and women rank somewhere below farm animals in the pecking
order) gained wide popularity in both the U.S. and the U.K. He also wrote
the popular folk song, "Throw the Jew Down the Well." A feature length film,
"Borat: The Movie," is currently in production.
Many, for some reason, suspect Borat is actually comic Sacha Baron Cohen,
who plays Ali G.
The latest round of charges began this month when Borat appeared on an MTV
awards show in Europe accompanied by a drunken, one-eyed Kazakh pilot and
mentioned the joys of shooting dogs. (He also suggested that Madonna was a
transvestite.) He signed off with: "To the world, I love you, apart from
Uzbekistan, a--holes."
A Kazakh foreign ministry official responded: "We view Mr. Cohen's behavior
at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction
of bad taste and ill manners, which is completely incompatible with ethics
and civilized behavior." He added: "We do not rule out [the possibility] Mr
Baron-Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present
Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way." A lawsuit was mentioned.
Borat fired back at his Web site, http://www.borat.kz/, with this statement:
"I like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my
government's decision to sue this Jew.
"Since the 2003 reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in
the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have
to wear blue hats and age of consent has been raised to 8 years old.
"Please, I invite you to come to Kazakhstan, where we have incredible
natural resources, hard-working labor and some of the cleanest prostitutes
in all of central Asia. Goodbye."
In its New York Times ad today, Kazakhstan claims that it is a "model" for
gender equality, at least in terms of women in "senior government
positions."
Meanwhile, the daily newspaper, The Independent, in London has taken this
all seriously enough to carry, earlier this month, a list of 50 things about
Kazakhstan "you won't learn from Borat." Among them: It is almost as big as
western Europe, four times the size of Texas, and is "the ninth-largest
country in the world."
Also: "Despite Borat's suggestions that, in Kazakhstan, people hunt bears
'for fun,' hunting is no longer a popular pastime."
A British web site observed in a headline that his homeland "Kannotstand"
Borat.
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