Why was the cover for the DVD of the Australian film The Sapphires so dramatically redesigned for its US release?



Sapphires protest 'racist' cover

The original Sapphires have reached across the globe to call on race rights advocates to boycott the US DVD version of the movie made about their lives.

The DVD, due for release in the US on Tuesday, carries a cover relegating the four star Aboriginal characters to the background, while Irish actor Chris O'Dowd - who plays their manager - is featured in the foreground.

The four women - Naomi Mayers, Beverly Briggs, Lois Peeler and Laurel Robinson - who inspired the award-winning film about battling racism and sexism in 1960s and '70s Australia have launched an angry broadside against the US distributor.

They have written to the powerful lobby group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, asking for support.

''As I'm sure you can appreciate, the treatment of people of colour in Australia mirrored much of the trauma to which people in the United States were subjected, the letter, written by the chairman of the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service on their behalf, reads.

''That trauma - and much of that treatment - remains alive and well in Australia today, as I know it does in the United States.

''The US cover of the DVD completely misses this point, and in fact reinforces precisely the sort of bigotry that Naomi, Beverly, Lois and Laurel fought so hard against,'' Sol Bellear wrote. ''We're hopeful that the NAACP - with its long and proud history of advocating strongly for the interests of people of colour - will add its significant voice to calls for the DVD cover to be changed.''

Naomi Mayers, who is the chief executive of the Redfern AMS, where Ms Briggs and Ms Robinson also work, said the DVD cover was disrespectful.

''What has upset us is that the DVD cover appears to miss that point [of the film] entirely,'' she said. ''It's disrespectful to the very talented young Aboriginal actors in the film, and it's disrespectful to us as a group.

''But in particular, it's disrespectful to women of colour everywhere who have stood up against this sort of thing all their lives,'' she said.

''We are very proud of our work with the Sapphires and we are proud of the film. We hope that the US distributors of the DVD stop and think about how their depiction of that work might be received, and that it motivates them to reconsider the cover artwork before the DVD is distributed.''

The US cover image has already prompted outcry on social media and commentators have labelled it racist. O'Dowd called it ''vile''.

The Sapphires, which won 11 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts awards, follows the story of four indigenous women - played by Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell - who form a music group and take their show to Vietnam to entertain the troops.

http://www.klix.ba/vijesti/svijet/policija-ubila-14-godisnjeg-djecaka-na-ulicama-new-yorka/130805092



Moraću stati na docovu stranu, crna ovna postaju sve i veci problem.

Na većini stranica vijest počinje sa "Policija ubila 14-godišnjeg dječaka" što je velika manipulacija.

PayPal billionaire Elon Musk's new project seeks to throw transport for a loop



It is called the Hyperloop and, according to its designer, it will be a revolutionary ''fifth mode'' of transport, eclipsing trains, planes, boats and automobiles.

The ''cross between Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table'' could deliver passengers between US cities faster than sound.

The history of transport is replete with dreamers with similar schemes. But the latest futuristic project, which has had the technology world buzzing for months, has one crucial difference. Its backer is a Silicon Valley wonder boy with a proven track record of turning science fiction into reality.

Billionaire Elon Musk's CV is impressive, to say the least. He made his initial fortune from PayPal before going on to launch spaceships. He also founded Tesla, which has made electric sports cars viable and profitable. He has been compared to the fictional character of Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey jnr , in the Iron Man series of films.
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So when Mr Musk, 42, announced that he would be publishing plans for the Hyperloop on Monday, scientists were sent into a tailspin. They will have to wait for Mr Musk to post his ''alpha design'' on the internet but he has dropped several hints about its features, including that the system will be powered by solar panels.

Mr Musk will not be patenting the design and it will be ''open source'', meaning anyone can modify it, or try to build it.

Mr Musk has quashed speculation that it will be a so-called ''vactrain'', a concept that is already being pursued by a company in Colorado. His idea ''does involve a tube, but not a vacuum tube'', he said, adding: ''Not frictionless, but very low friction.''

In recent weeks a large part of the mystery appeared to have been solved. A technology enthusiast in Canada, John Gardi, published a diagram of how the Hyperloop might work. He went on to ask Mr Musk on Twitter: ''Can you give me some basic clues? What diameter of tube so I can start designing stations and throughways?''

Mr Musk replied, saying: ''Your guess is the closest I've seen anyone guess so far. Pod diameter probably around 2m.''



Mr Gardi, who describes himself modestly as a ''tinkerer'', came up with a tunnel about 2.7 metres in diameter, raised above the ground on pylons. It would form a continuous loop between two destination points. Giant turbines would blast a stream of air into the tube. The two-metre-wide pods, carrying people, would be moved by a rail gun: a tube that uses magnets to accelerate material passing along it.

Mr Musk's intended location for the first Hyperloop is California, between Los Angeles and San Francisco. His motivation for the project came from disillusionment with the Golden State's high-speed rail project, which has been dubbed the ''bullet train to nowhere'' after a series of setbacks. He believes the Hyperloop could deliver passengers between the two cities in just 30 minutes, compared with three hours for the bullet train.

'Oprah je lažljivica!'



Poznata voditeljica Oprah Winfrey medijima je ispričala sve o neugodnom iskustvu u Zurichu. Oprah kaže kako joj prodavačica nije htjela prodati torbicu jer je mislila da si to ne može priuštiti. No sada se oglasila i prodavačica iz dućana u Švicarskoj koja tvrdi da je Oprah lažljivica.

Talijanka je u razgovoru s novinarima Sonntags Blicka izjavila da su optužbe za rasizam apsurdne i da joj nije odbila prodati 40 tisuća dolara vrijednu torbicu 'samo zato što je crnkinja'. 'Ne znam zašto to govori. Ona je utjecajna, a ja sam samo prodavačica. Nikog nisam povrijedila. Ne znam zašto me netko poput nje mora ocrnjivati na televiziji', rekla je prodavačica.

'Objasnila sam joj da torbice dolaze u različitim veličinama, kao što uvijek činim. Pogledala je na policu iza mene i pokazala na torbicu, a ja sam joj objasnila da se radi o istoj, ali skupljoj verziji torbice koju sam u tom trenutku držala u ruci. Nije istina da sam joj odbila prodati torbicu zbog, kako ona tvrdi, rasizma. To jednostavno nije istina. Apsurdno je. Nikada to ne bih učinila mušteriji', poručila je prodavačica.

I Oprah se oglasila nakon cijele strke oko incidenta u Švicarskoj. 'Mislim da je to bio samo incident u Švicarskoj. Žao mi je što se sve toliko napuhalo. Namjerno nisam rekla ime dućana, žao mi je što sam rekla da je to bilo u Švicarskoj. Samo sam pokazala primjer kada si na mjestu gdje ljudi ne očekuju da budete', rekla je Oprah prenosi Associated Press.

http://dnevnik.hr/showbuzz/celebrity/og ... 98436.html

Ne znam zašto me netko poput nje mora ocrnjivati na televiziji

Ovo isto zvuči rasistički...