“A Cairo court on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit filed by an Islamist lawyer demanding that a popular Egyptian satirist’s TV show be banned for allegedly insulting the president and containing excessive sexual innuendo.” The judge found that the complainant had no standing to bring a case against Bassem Youssef’s show, El-Bernameg (“The Program”).
Author: Matthew Westphal
But There’s A New Case Against Satirist Bassen Youssef
“A new investigation has been launched against satirist Bassem Youssef for allegedly insulting Islam, spreading atheism and insulting Pakistan. Youssef, who still faces a recent investigation for insulting President Mohamed Morsi and Islam, recently had a court case against his show overturned.”
These Are The Jokes That Got Bassem Youssef Arrested
“Youssef is charged with insulting Morsi and showing contempt toward Islam, but he didn’t tell [CNN] which lines caused the biggest stir. So we went through and offer translations and explanations of 10 of his more provocative clips.”
Why Satire In Today’s Egypt Is Not (Just) A Laughing Matter
“At a friend’s birthday party in Cairo recently, one of the most popular songs the DJ in the downtown bar played that night was one consisting entirely of a speech Mohamed Morsi made soon after becoming president of Egypt, to a dance beat. Everyone on the dance floor knew the words, which they would yell in between giggles of derision.”
What We Experience When We Experience Camp (If We Get It)
“Let’s put on our close-reading glasses for just a moment (the ones with the rhinestone frames and the beaded chain) … [to] break down the three stages of the camp experience: the rush, the delight, and the savor.”
Camp And Innocence
“An individual baby – yours, your co-worker’s, etc. – is a truly innocent thing, right? … But the abstract idea of ‘babies,’ on the other hand, is a very different story. Though you would be hard-pressed to find camp pleasure in a real-life baby perambulating down the sidewalk, when that same baby is featured in a toilet paper commercial flying about with wings and a hard-hat, all bets are off.”
Can Camp Help Us Deal With A Tragedy Like AIDS?
Of course it can. Exhibit A: Angels in America
The 18th-Century Moralist Who Tried To Raise His Own Stepford Wife
“There’s no shortage of historical figures whose private actions failed to live up to their public moralizing. (Thomas Jefferson, anyone?) But few embraced that hypocrisy as jaw-droppingly as Thomas Day.”
TV Networks Threaten To Go Cable-Only If Aereo Isn’t Shut Down
Aereo “scoops up the free signals of local television stations and streams them to the phones and computers of paying subscribers. Because Aereo cuts off the stations from the retransmission fees that they have grown to depend on, they are determined to shut down the service – even, the station owners say, if they have to take their signals off the airwaves to do so.”
Is San Francisco Symphony Strike Not Settled After All?
“When is an agreement not an agreement? The short answer: if it’s not ratified. The long story, of course, is more complicated.”