Welcome to the first FAM of 2011, as we pick up after the Bacchanalia that saw us sputtering and wheezing like an overweight asthmatic through the last few weeks of the previous year. In celebration of its (not so) triumphant return we offer you the greatest gift a FAM can give its reader. I speak, of course, of Frontline. You may say that last bit is a matter of opinion, but as a Frontline junkie I would counter that, no, you are wrong. Then I might, perhaps, throw in a dig about your mother. But seeing as we are in polite company I will allow you your obviously wrongheaded perceptions and get onto the video linked above.

“The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan”, a report filed by Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi and originally broadcast on April 20, 2010, examines the re-emergence of an ancient Afghan custom known as “bacha bazi” — literally “boy play” or “playing with boys”— in which boys as young as 11, mostly from the poorest segments of Afghan society, are purchased from families or taken off the street by their “masters” who dress them in women’s clothing and train them to sing and dance for the entertainment of wealthy and powerful men. According to experts, they are also used as sexual slaves.

Quraishi does an amazing job in this piece, gaining an impressive level of access to some of the people involved in this illicit trade, uncovering a world mired in corruption and abject poverty. It makes for a fascinating but horrific documentary. Most importantly, and most uplifting, is Quraishi’s valiant attempts to save a young boy purchased by his contact Dastager. It may very well represent a breach in separation of reporter and subject but it is impossible to fault him for doing something so noble and represents, at least, a modicum of justice.

As mentioned, the practice had died out for many years, or at least dug itself further underground, but has re-emerged. The reason for this remains unexplained but the practice does relate to one, recent event. On December 2, 2010 the Guardian published an article related to a US Embassy cable from June 24, 2009, made public by Wikileaks. The cable details a meeting between Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli and Minister of Interior Hanif Atmar regarding an incident that took place in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan in April of that year. The event, as it is referred to in the document, led to the arrests of two Afghan National Police and nine other Afghans, including an undisclosed number of DynCorp language assistants. DynCorp is a private, US contractor tasked with training Afghan police. Atmar was hoping to charge them with “purchasing a service from a child,” but was also concerned that the release of video of the incident would become public, urging US officials to “quash” the story.

Interestingly, as the Houston Press’s John Nova Lomax pointed out on December 7th, DynCorp has a bit of a history with this kind of thing:

As we mentioned, this isn’t DynCorp’s first brush with the sex-slavery game. Back in Bosnia in 1999, US policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac was fired from DynCorp after blowing the whistle on a sex-slave ring operating on one of our bases there. DynCorp’s employees were accused of raping and peddling girls as young as 12 from countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. The company was forced to settle lawsuits against Bolkovac (whose story was recently told in the feature film The Whistleblower) and another man who informed authorities about DynCorp’s sex ring.

It is a terrible practice to be sure, one that, overall, Afghan authorities seem to be unwilling to acknowledge, let alone stamp out. Thankfully, the issue has been given some media coverage since Quraishi’s Frontline episode. Hopefully with increased scrutiny comes a change to that indifference.

Having trouble getting in the holiday spirit? Burnt a batch of Christmas cookies for the fourth time in a row? Can’t find that perfect gift for great-aunt Mildred in the throng-flooded mall? Lamenting the tragic lack of traditional French Yuletide songs in your life? Fear not, cialis sale because Siouxsie and her cheerful band of merry-makers are here with a little ditty to remind you of the true meaning of the season: drinking so much that you can’t even manage to clash cymbals properly.

Whaa…

Via Melissa Gira Grant.

Does anyone who watched Twin Peaks while it was airing on ABC remember this weird-ass stop motion bumper? So random.

…and now I’m craving pie and coffee (black as midnight on a moonless night). Good morning!

…over brute force and cynicism.”

Slim just linked to this (apparently unaired) Craig Ferguson/Dr. Who clip with the comment “my new manifesto!” WORD.

WHITEPRIDETV.COM has a varied lineup of video content for the modern white supremacist to educate themselves and keep up on the latest in good old American racism. From This Is The Klan to The White Woman’s Perspective Thomas Robb and his group of camera wielding bigots cover the entire gamut of life as an ignorant douchebag. They also, thankfully, have some children’s programing to help Confederate flag waving parents educate their offspring in the proper manner.

The programming in question is The Andrew Show which is, in case you had not already figured it out, “A Show for White Kids” (Finally!). Plopping the blond-haired youth in front of a green-screened bookcase, WHITEPRIDETV.COM lets the little tyke go at it, tackling the issues that face white kids today. This particular episode deals with the film Marmaduke, an unremarkable film in nearly every way except for the fact that it is a metaphor for racial tension; specifically the denial of land to white people by people of other various and sundry races. So goes Andrew’s thesis, a thesis he does not expound upon his, presumably because his point is so self-evident even a child can see it.

It is an unfortunate reality that even the worst among the human race can procreate, taking an otherwise unfettered mind and twist it with their own, poisonous worldview. It is, perhaps, worse when they give them their own television show to parrot that moronic bile.

Via Videogum : The Daily What

It was many years ago when I first discovered the awesomeness that is Vagina Power, an Atlanta-based public access show hosted by the inimitable Alexyss K. Tylor and her often shocked and bewildered mother. Few have done more to empower women than Tylor, a woman whose unique voice shines through in the heated battle betwixt the genitals.

In this particular episode, she uses the holiday of Halloween to focus on a woman’s duty to police her vagina, a valiant call to arms, meant to tame the lawless land below the waists of the Second Sex. In doing so she also explores the wedding ring’s role in binding both the Penis and the Nuts. It is not quite as stupendous as when she explained that “dick’ll make you slap somebody”, but it is classic Alexyss K. Tylor nonetheless.

You might be wondering what Justin Timberlake, health Jimmy Fallon, and a hip-hop medley are doing here. After all, we live in a world where hip-hop very nearly is the mainstream, right? Two reasons. One: it was not always so. Two: the clip is guaranteed to make you grin, and we care about your grin quota.

[Three: Justin Timberlake is pretty great, in general]

Watch below as JT, together with JF and The Roots, delivers a mini-lesson in the history of American rap, starting with the Sugarhill Gang and ending with Jay-Z. I dare you to watch it just once. Dare!

Well, here’s something you don’t see every week:

The Simpsons team has celebrated a long history of poking fun at themselves for outsourcing to South Korea. Even so, it’s surprising to see the famed street artist, Banksy, taking this sweatshop couch gag to such darkly humorous depths.

Didn’t get enough of the heebie jeebies after viewing Ross’s Gimme Pizza post? It’s OK, evil scrambled Fox News is here to help. The mysteriously-titled clip, “auspice,” presents a ghostly double-exposure view of slowed-down Fox personalities, set to an unholy-sounding chorus. The music is not credited, and any help identifying the artist would be appreciated. “I hear a little bit of Diamanda in there at the halfway point,” notes Wobbly, who sent this in.

It’s the perfect companion to this CNN piece, also submitted by Wobbly sometime ago. “Listen to me. I want to tell you something. Come closer. Don’t be upset and don’t get emotional.” Which is scarier, that CNN clip (embed-disabled high-res version posted here for your viewing displeasure), or this FOX clip?

It should be pointed out that this is, perhaps, not the best video to be watching first thing in the morning or, conversely, right before bed. The above is a clip from late 80s maudlin sitcom Full House, jumping off point for the careers of The Olsen Twins and the show partially responsible for convincing America that Bob Saget was not a perverted lunatic. Were that all it would not be here, of course (Zo’s obsession with the program and her unbridled lust for Dave Coulier notwithstanding).

What pushes this into true bizarro territory — and, hence, this post — is the fact that it has been slowed down by an unspecified number of degrees, an effect that one could be argued is overdone, but one that nevertheless is almost guaranteed to produce pure nightmare fuel. This point is made plain when the aforementioned clip turns to some of the program’s musical numbers at about 3:40, turning what appeared at first to be a bad acid trip into twisted, lecherous dreamscape. It’s really quite astonishing. And horrible. Mostly horrible.

Correction: It seems this clip is not from late 80s maudlin sitcom Full House and is, apparently, from some other, Olsen related venture. Apologies to Zo and all the other Full House aficionados amongst our readership.