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The Black Comedy Experiment Festival

Posted: February 27, 2008, 12:39 am by Beve

This is cool. Some of my favorite comedians (who happen to be black), have put together a collective called The Black Comedy Experiment. They will be showcasing their talent in New York during the 3 Day Festival from Feb 28th - March 1st. Those of you in Brooklyn, New York should go and check them out. If any of the other performers are as funny as Jordan Carlos (who was considered to play Obama on Saturday Night Live) and Baron Vaughn, you'll be in stitches. Wish I could make it...

The same people are also involved in an ongoing discussion of the state of black comedy on
The Black Comedy Project
Blogging for Human Rights

Posted: February 27, 2008, 5:34 pm by Beve
Just added the ubiquitous "I blog for human rights " e-sticker. So, I thought to back up that claim, I'd start advocating some of the issues on the Amnesty International blog. They explicitly encourage bloggers to help them campaign.

So this brings me to the case of 23 year old Karim Amer. Around the same age as me, blogger, African and voices dissent against the government (which I do on and off line). Seems pretty normal, right, his crime? "Criticizing religious authorities, President Husni Mubarak and Islam." (amnesty international)

Yikes. Specifically, these accusations turned into these charges:
1. "spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country's reputation"
2. "incitement to hate Islam"
3. "defaming the President of the Republic".
Karim Amer is the first Egyptian blogger to be tried for pretty much speaking out via his blog. His sentence is 4 years and he just finished a year on Friday. This is scary stuff and it lets me know that we in the "free world" so to speak, take a lot of our freedoms for granted. If Amnesty is doing a letter writing campaign on his behalf. There's more about his story and his treatment in prison here.