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The
Hits
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| “The
West Wing” misses in its message about Muslims. |
The
Silk Road Project: Yo Yo Ma is one of the world’s best known
classical musicians. His work on the cello has been celebrated over
the years with Ma being featured with any number of top flight
orchestras and conductors. With his fame and success has come a
degree of artistic freedom. With that freedom, Ma has branched out
to embrace various other types of music. Most recent on his list of
new genres is the music of Central Asia. Through the Silk Road
Project, Ma is exploring the traditional music of that region in
ways never done before and bringing the region’s music a broad,
world-wide audience.
Founded
in 1998, the project delves into the many cultural influences that
have traveled the ancient Silk Road. Ma examines instruments and
their origins, musical composition and folklore. Joining with
musicians such as Zakir Hussain, Hasan Ucarsu, Alim Qasimov,
Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and many others, Ma travels with the Silk Road
Project ensemble, thrilling audiences with this classical and
deeply spiritual and cultural music. For more information on the Silk
Road Project, visit the project’s website at www.silkroadproject.com.
The
Miss:
The
West Wing: Will the onslaught ever stop? For those old enough to
have lived through the Cold War, we remember how entertainment media
was replete with “evil empire” themes and imagery. It was
unstoppable. If it wasn’t James Bond squaring off in cloak and
dagger storylines with Russian secret and double agents, then it was
some other American hero staring Communism straight in the eye and
rising victorious from the encounter.
Islam, the new boogeyman on the block, has begun to draw increasing
attention from entertainment media. At first it was hoped that maybe
interest in Islam as a storyline would wane after a few episodes of
JAG or the West Wing. But they keep coming.
In the latest episode of the West Wing, it was an official of
a Muslim nation who was apparently in cahoots with a band of
terrorists. President Bartlett is then faced with the decision of
whether to pick the guy up. However, when presented with a dearth
true pretext for an arrest, the president suggests that even if the
U.S. has plant drugs on the suspect, they will find a way to arrest
him. That’s just the wrong message to be sending; fictional or
otherwise.
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