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'I Will Survive' the Muslim Brotherhood

Juan Cole: Not an endorsement, but this cover by secular leftists of Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 “I will Survive,” with satirical Arabic lyrics (translated in subtitles) about the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis in Egypt since the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak gives a window into the grievances and disappointments of the youth who made the January 25, 2011 revolution.

Polio's Moving Target

In 2012 Ewen Callaway travelled to Northern Nigeria to learn more about the global polio eradication effort. Nature Video joins him on the search to find one of the virus' last remaining strongholds in remote nomadic communities that the vaccines couldn't reach.

Music Flashmob: Verdi, La Traviata

Flash mob in Amsterdam department store De Bijenkorf. The music is from Giuseppe Verdi's (1813 - 1901) opera La Traviata. From Dutch TV program NTR Podium (2-10-2011).

Movie: Twelve Years a Slave

British director Steve McQueen adapts Solomon Northup's remarkable account of being kidnapped and sold into slavery for a dozen years in the middle of the 19th century. The material is inherently suspenseful and harrowing, since Northup provides a detailed account of slavery's brutal nature in the Deep South. But it's Fassbender's penchant for creating disquieting atmosphere that's well positioned to make this spectacular survival tale come to life and possibly provide one of the more accurate recreations of slavery life in America. (Take that, "Django Unchained." [Eric Kohn, indiewire.com]

Friday Nite Videos -- May 24, 2013

Portside
'Beginning of End' of War on Terror. 'I Will Surive' Muslim Brotherhood. Flashmob: Verdi. Movie: Twelve Years a Slave. Polio's Moving Target.

Bittorrent's Direct to Fan Collaboration

bittorrent.com
We used to buy music at independent record shops downtown. We shopped the chain mega-stores that took their place. When these moved online, in the form of iTunes or Amazon, we were there, wallets out. For fifty years, the path to purchase has essentially been the same. Go to the physical/digital record store, buy an album. But what if the record store was inside the album instead? Bittorrent Bundle lets people connect directly with their audience, on their terms.

Boy Scouts: You Can Be Gay Until You Turn 18

Dana Liebelson Mother Jones
The Boy Scouts of America has adopted a new policy, which kicks in January 1, that makes it so that member troops can no longer discriminate against gay youth. But anyone who is gay and over 18 years old still won't be allowed to be a Scout leader or volunteer.