Moroccan road film subverts Hollywood stereotypes

DUBAI (Reuters) – When director John Slattery first visited Morocco, the familiarity was jarring – and as removed from the images of an exotic Orient conjured up by Hollywood as possible.

That dichotomy between the representation and the reality of Morocco drives Slattery‘s charming paean to a country he clearly loves and makes “Casablanca, Mon Amour” a thoughtful rejoinder to U.S. popular culture.

Two young Moroccans spend three weeks travelling their native country, filming what they see on a digital camera while passing by studios and locations that have formed the backdrop for many Hollywood blockbusters, an industry Morocco has cultivated.

The film is spliced with shots of endearingly bemused or nervous ordinary people giving their thoughts to the camera about Hollywood and its global stars, as well as clips from classics such as “Casablanca” featuring off-the-cuff anti-Arab slurs like “you can’t trust them” and “they all look alike”.

“We had the idea of going on this trip and to be this stupid American film crew going to make this traditional movie using Morocco, but we wanted to subvert that,” Slattery said after a screening at the Dubai international film festival this week.

“There was not really a script but the trip was their trip and so wherever they went we followed them. So that way they were really directing the film.”

Shot by Hassan, who narrates the road trip in French, the images shift from scenes of daily life caught on camera, to his comically testy relationship with his travelling companion Abdel, to a troupe they stumble upon in Meknes that plays traditional Moroccan “malhoun” music.

Hassan, a real-life film school student at the time, is using the road trip for a class project, while Abdel wants to visit a dying uncle on the other side of the country.

Slattery includes footage from Moroccan television from the Marrakech film festival in which comic actor Bashar Skeirej declares that “a country without its own art will never have a history”.

It’s a subtle suggestion that the government should do more to promote domestic film rather than just rent out landscapes for Hollywood misrepresentation.

Morocco has formed the backdrop for a fictionalized Orient in “Ishtar”, doubled as Abu Dhabi in the “Sex in the City 2″ and been various distant planets in Star Wars films.

“National cinemas in many countries are being destroyed or have been destroyed because of this massive power of marketing that is Hollywood,” said Slattery, a California-based American of Irish origin. “They destroy little films, they destroy the possibility for little stories.”

The film, a labor of love that took Slattery seven years to complete, borrows from the book “Reel Bad Arabs”, author Jack Shaheen’s study of Hollywood’s anti-Arab stereotypes. Its title references Alain Resnais’s 1959 French New Wave classic “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”.

“(When) I would say ‘Morocco’, people would say ‘were you scared’, or a polite ‘what was that like?’,” Slattery said, recounting reactions in the United States when he would talk about his first experiences as a peace corps volunteer.

“There was that whole category of fear in the responses, or ‘Morocco, you must have seen Lawrence of Arabia’, or ‘Blackhawk Down’! – all these film titles. That stuck with me, this fear and movies were the two references for Morocco.”

Yet Slattery‘s first day in the North African country could not have been more mundane, he said.

A colleague whisked him off to a rural home near Rabat where he met farmers who reminded him of Ireland.

“This guy opens (his door) in a tweed jacket that was all torn up. This is how these old farmers dress in Ireland, and his hands were all calloused and dirty. It just felt very familiar to me,” Slattery said.

“His grandmother had a television hooked up to a car battery for electricity. I spent the weekend there, hanging out with these people, cutting hay and stuff, and I just thought ‘this is Ireland’.”

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Op-Ed Contributor: Labs, Washed Away

BEDPAN ALLEY is the affectionate name given to a stretch of First Avenue in Manhattan that is packed with more hospitals than many cities possess. This stretch also happened to be right in the flood zone during Hurricane Sandy. Water damage and power failures closed down all three of the New York University teaching hospitals — Bellevue Hospital, Tisch Hospital and the Manhattan V.A. Two months later, they are still not admitting patients, though two are on schedule to begin doing so shortly.

The harrowing evacuation of hundreds of patients made headlines nationwide. The disruption of regular medical care for tens of thousands of outpatients was a clinical nightmare that is finally easing. And the education of hundreds of medical students and residents is being patched back together.

All academic medical centers, however, rest on a tripod — patient care, education and research. The effect of the hurricane on the third leg of that tripod — research — has gotten the least attention, partly because rescuing cell cultures just isn’t as dramatic as carrying an I.C.U. patient on a ventilator down flights of stairs in the dark.

But, of course, there is an incontrovertible link between those cell cultures and that patient. For every medication that a patient takes, someone researched the basic chemistry of the drug, someone designed the clinical trial to test its efficacy, and of course a volunteer stepped forward to be the first to take the pill. Scientific research has engineered the impressive advancements of medical treatment, and every patient is a beneficiary.

When the hospitals were hit by Hurricane Sandy, hundreds of experiments were obliterated by the loss of power. Precious biological samples carefully frozen over years were destroyed. Temperature-sensitive reagents and equipment were ruined. Medications and records for patients in clinical trials were rendered inaccessible. And sadly, many laboratory mice and rats perished (though 600 cages of animals were rescued during the night by staff members who used crowbars on inaccessible doors and carried the cages out through holes cut in the ceiling).

On a slushy, rainy day earlier this month, I sat in on a meeting of N.Y.U.’s research community. Hundreds of scientists packed the chilly lecture hall to discuss what the future might hold. It was clear that the damage to laboratories and samples would not be amenable to easy repair. Some 400 researchers were being relocated to a patchwork of temporary sites so that they could restart their work.

But scientists can’t just walk in to a new space with a lab coat and a notebook; they need centrifuges, deep-freezes, lab animals, electron microscopes, incubators, autoclaves, gamma counters, PET scanners. They come with graduate students, lab techs, post-docs and collaborating investigators. For clinical researchers, there are also the patients enrolled in their clinical trials, with their medications and voluminous records.

Even beyond their eagerness to get back to work, researchers felt a sense of loss, not just in time, money, momentum, samples and grants, but of a part of their lives. Some senior scientists lost decades of archived samples. Others lost irreplaceable mice with genetic mutations for studying how coronary plaques resolve, the role of inflammation in lymphoma and the development of neural networks. At the other end of the spectrum were post-docs whose nascent careers were suddenly up in the air. Some were in tears.

Walking down First Avenue after the meeting, I passed a young researcher pushing a cart laden with cages, transporting lab rats to their new home. There was a blanket over the cages to protect them from the rain, but it kept slipping. She slogged up the wet avenue, one hand pushing the cart, the other struggling to keep the cover over her charges.

The logistical efforts to relocate and reignite such a vast research enterprise are staggeringly complicated. But the administration has cataloged each person’s research needs to match them with available space elsewhere, and hundreds of researchers have successfully rekindled their investigations despite the prodigious challenges.

Bellevue and Tisch are returning to their clinical operations and will be able to admit patients shortly. But even after the hospital wards and clinics are bustling at full capacity, the ribbon won’t feel ready to snip until the researchers are restored to their homes as well. For many patients, the thrum of research within a medical center is invisible. But it is an integral — and very human — part of a hospital. When a hurricane disrupts research, it is a loss that resonates well beyond the laboratories.

Danielle Ofri, an associate professor at New York University School of Medicine, is the editor of the Bellevue Literary Review and the author, most recently, of “Medicine in Translation: Journeys With My Patients.”

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Fearful 'end of world' calls, emails flood NASA as Dec. 21 nears

If there's one government agency really looking forward to Dec. 22, it's NASA.

The space agency said it has been flooded with calls and emails from people asking about the purported end of the world — which, as the doomsday myth goes, is apparently set to take place Friday, Dec. 21.

The myth might have originated with the Maya calendar, but in the age of the Internet and social media, it proliferated online, raising questions and concerns among hundreds of people around the world who have turned to NASA for answers.

Dwayne Brown, an agency spokesman, said NASA typically receives about 90 calls or emails per week containing questions from people. In recent weeks, he said, that number has skyrocketed — from 200 to 300 people are contacting NASA per day to ask about the end of the world.

"Who's the first agency you would call?" he said. "You're going to call NASA."

The questions range from myth (Will a rogue planet crash into Earth? Is the sun going to explode? Will there be three days of darkness?) to the macabre (Brown said some people have "embraced it so much" they want to hurt themselves). So, he said, NASA decided to do "everything in our power" to set the facts straight.

That effort included interviews with scientists posted online and a Web page that Brown said has drawn more than 4.6 million views.

It also involved a video titled "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday." Though the title of the video implies a Dec. 22 release date, Brown said NASA posted the four-minute clip last week to help spread its message.

The website addresses several scenarios — the possibility of planetary alignments, total blackouts, polar shifts and "a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction" — but comes to the same conclusion.

In short, NASA says, "the world will not end in 2012."

"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," the website says.

The Griffith Observatory will also be trying to debunk doomsday predictions. It announced plans to stay open late Friday evening — until one minute past midnight — to "demonstrate that claims regarding the Maya calendar, planetary alignments, rogue planets, galactic beams, and other related phenomena have no basis in fact."

A few years ago, NASA suspected that it might have to create such a campaign when the idea of the world ending began "festering," Brown said. The apocalyptic action movie "2012," released in 2009, didn't help, he said.

"We kind of look ahead — we're a look-ahead agency — and we said, 'You know what? People are going to probably want to come to us' " for answers, Brown explained. "We're doing all that we can do to let the world know that as far as NASA and science goes, Dec. 21 will be another day."

As for Saturday, when the questions — not the world — end: "I wish it was tomorrow."

kate.mather@latimes.com

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Facebook predicted to overtake Google in mobile display ad revenue this year

Shares of Facebook (FB) have begun to rebound since the company’s disastrous initial public offering this past May. After opening at $ 38 per share the company’s stock plummeted into the mid-20s over the summer months and eventually fell to a low of $ 17.55 in early September. Since then, however, Facebook shares have begun to bounce back after the company posted better-than-expected results in the third quarter. While Facebook stock is still down more than 25% on the year, it is rising steadily as analysts and investors become increasingly bullish about the company’s future as a leading advertising platform.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

According to a new report from eMarketer, Facebook is predicted to surpass Google (GOOG) in mobile display advertising in 2012. Google is expected to generate $ 339 million in mobile ad revenue this year, a significant increase from previous estimates of between $ 45 and $ 100 million. The research firm notes that Facebook is expected to capture an 18.4% share of the mobile display ad market in the U.S. this year, compared to Google’s 17% share, which is down from 23% in 2011.

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“Major ad publishers are strengthening their offerings much faster than previously expected,” said Clark Fredricksen, vice president of communications at eMarketer. “I don’t think anybody thought after the second quarter that Google and Facebook would be in position that they are now in the mobile ad marketplace.”

The company’s mobile ad revenue is expected to more than triple by 2014 when it will reach an estimated $ 1.2 billion. The firm predicts that Facebook and Google will continue to battle for the No.1 spot in the mobile ad market over the next few years. Facebook is expected to increase its lead to 25.2% in 2013, compared to Google’s 19.6% share. Google is estimated to bounce back in 2014, however, with a market leading 23.1% share, ahead of Facebook’s 22.7% share.

Despite the impressive numbers, eMarketer notes that mobile still represents a small slice of the total advertising market. In 2012, only 2.4% of total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to go towards mobile ads, but the market is expected to reach an 11% share by 2016 when it surpasses both radio and print spending.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Thousands mourn U.S.-Mexican singer Jenni Rivera

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Thousands of mourners on Wednesday packed a Los Angeles theater to pay their final respects to Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera more than a week after her death in a plane crash.

Rivera, 43, best known for her work in the Mexican folk Nortena and Banda genres, died after the small jet she was traveling in crashed in northern Mexico on December 9.

Rivera’s family, dressed in white, led the memorial service eulogizing the singer. A bank of white roses was displayed in front of Rivera’s bright red coffin and a brass band performed musical interludes.

More than 6,000 people crowded into the theater about 30 miles north of her childhood home in Long Beach, California. Tickets for the service at the Gibson Amphitheatre sold out within minutes, organizers said.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Rivera was called the “Diva de la Banda.” She sold about 15 million albums and earned a slew of Latin Grammy nominations during her 17-year career.

“Jenni made it OK for women to be who they are,” her manager Pete Salgado said at the service. “Jenni also made it OK to be from nothing, with the hopes of being something.”

Rivera had five children, the first at age 15, and was married three times. Her third husband was baseball pitcher Esteban Loaiza. Rivera’s private life influenced her songs, which often referenced living through hardship.

“She’s a fighter and she knows it’s in all of us,” Rivera’s son Michael said between video tributes.

In recent years, Rivera branched out into television, appearing on a reality television show and serving as a judge on the Mexican version of the singing competition “The Voice.” Television broadcaster ABC was reported to be developing a comedy pilot for the singer.

Rivera’s plane crashed in mountains south of Monterrey killing all seven on board.

The singer was to perform in the city of Toluca, 40 miles southwest of Mexico City, in central Mexico after a concert in Monterrey. It is not clear what caused the crash.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Female Vaccination Workers, Essential in Pakistan, Become Prey

LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.

Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis. A ninth victim died on Thursday, a day after being shot in the northwestern city of Peshawar, The Associated Press reported.

The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets, while government officials reported that some polio volunteers — especially women — were afraid to show up for work.

At the ground level, it is those female health workers who are essential, allowed privileged entrance into private homes to meet and help children in situations denied to men because of conservative rural culture. “They are on the front line; they are the backbone,” said Imtiaz Ali Shah, a polio coordinator in Peshawar.

The killings started in the port city of Karachi on Monday, the first day of a vaccination drive aimed at the worst affected areas, with the shooting of a male health worker. On Tuesday four female polio workers were killed, all gunned down by men on motorcycles in what appeared to be closely coordinated attacks.

The hit jobs then moved to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which, along with the adjoining tribal belt, constitutes Pakistan’s main reservoir of new polio infections. The first victim there was one of two sisters who had volunteered as polio vaccinators. Men on motorcycles shadowed them as they walked from house to house. Once the sisters entered a quiet street, the gunmen opened fire. One of the sisters, Farzana, died instantly; the other was uninjured.

On Wednesday, a man working on the polio campaign was shot dead as he made a chalk mark on the door of a house in a suburb of Peshawar. Later, a female health supervisor in Charsadda, 15 miles to the north, was shot dead in a car she shared with her cousin.

Yet again, Pakistani militants are making a point of attacking women who stand for something larger. In October, it was Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl advocate for education who was gunned down by a Pakistani Taliban attacker in the Swat Valley. She was grievously wounded, and the militants vowed they would try again until they had killed her. The result was a tidal wave of public anger that clearly unsettled the Pakistani Taliban.

In singling out the core workers in one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health initiatives, militants seem to have resolved to harden their stance against immunization drives, and declared anew that they consider women to be legitimate targets. Until this week, vaccinators had never been targeted with such violence in such numbers.

Government officials in Peshawar said that they believe a Taliban faction in Mohmand, a tribal area near Peshawar, was behind at least some of the shootings. Still, the Pakistani Taliban have been uncharacteristically silent about the attacks, with no official claims of responsibility. In staying quiet, the militants may be trying to blunt any public backlash like the huge demonstrations over the attack on Ms. Yousafzai.

Female polio workers here are easy targets. They wear no uniforms but are readily recognizable, with clipboards and refrigerated vaccine boxes, walking door to door. They work in pairs — including at least one woman — and are paid just over $2.50 a day. Most days one team can vaccinate 150 to 200 children.

Faced with suspicious or recalcitrant parents, their only weapon is reassurance: a gentle pat on the hand, a shared cup of tea, an offer to seek religious assurances from a pro-vaccine cleric. “The whole program is dependent on them,” said Mr. Shah, in Peshawar. “If they do good work, and talk well to the parents, then they will vaccinate the children.”

That has happened with increasing frequency in Pakistan over the past year. A concerted immunization drive, involving up to 225,000 vaccination workers, drove the number of newly infected polio victims down to 52. Several high-profile groups shouldered the program forward — at the global level, donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations and Rotary International; and at the national level, President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa, who have made polio eradication a “personal mission.”

On a global scale, setbacks are not unusual in polio vaccination campaigns, which, by dint of their massive scale and need to reach deep inside conservative societies, end up grappling with more than just medical challenges. In other campaigns in Africa and South Asia, vaccinators have grappled with natural disaster, virulent opposition from conservative clerics and sudden outbreaks of mysterious strains of the disease.

Declan Walsh reported from Lahore, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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F.T.C. Pushes Antitrust Inquiry Against Google Into January

WASHINGTON — Google was prepared to start the holidays early this week, by settling its antitrust dispute with federal regulators without a harsh punishment.

But in shelving its inquiry until January, the Federal Trade Commission has put stronger penalties back on the bargaining table, people briefed on the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly about it said Wednesday.

For two years, the F.T.C. has been looking into whether Google abuses its market power by favoring its own services over rivals in search results. Google and the agency had been planning to sign a settlement this week that would have said Google would change some of its behavior but that would not have been subject to court action.

The agency may now demand a consent decree — a formal order detailing anticompetitive behavior and an agreement that if the company does the same thing again, it could be fined and subject to court sanctions. Google has instead offered voluntary concessions.

But the people briefed, and others close to the negotiations, said the agency was unlikely to take a second look at one of the major issues — Google’s dominance in specialized search, like travel and local reviews — because the legal hurdles remain high.

Google has long said that it does not believe it has broken antitrust laws and that the agency’s case against it is weak. Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, said that it continued to cooperate with the F.T.C. but declined to comment further.

Cecelia Prewett, an F.T.C. spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Competitors of Google called for the agency to use the additional time to take harsher legal action against Google. Failing to do so would hurt consumers in many ways, including by allowing Google too much control over private data, said Pamela Jones Harbour, a former F.T.C. commissioner and a lawyer representing Microsoft.

Supporters of Google said its case had already been made.

“If in 19 months they did not offer the kind of evidence and facts to support a case or conclude the behavior was such that it was posing legal difficulties, then frankly another couple weeks isn’t going to make a difference,” said Ed Black, chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, of which Google is a member.

Regulators’ decision to delay resolution of the case offered a glimpse of the tense negotiations and a series of missteps that have bedeviled the negotiations.

As details of a possible settlement appeared in news reports over the last week, Google’s competitors began arguing that a settlement without court-enforced sanctions was meaningless.

At the F.T.C., people close to the agency said, commissioners grew irked that they were being portrayed as spineless. In a parallel investigation, European regulators were said to be wringing a more stringent agreement from Google.

But it was unclear that Jon D. Leibowitz, the F.T.C. chairman, could get the two votes necessary to approve a tougher case against Google.

The five commissioners had yet to vote on possible sanctions. Julie Brill, a Democrat commissioner, supported strong antitrust action, while Edith Ramirez, the commission’s other Democrat, has resisted the strictest sanctions, said the people who have been briefed on the inquiry.

J. Thomas Rosch, a Republican, questioned whether the agency had the evidence to bring a case on search manipulation, but also expressed skepticism at a settlement that did not involve a consent decree, the people briefed said. Maureen K. Ohlhausen, the other Republican commissioner, opposed the government’s interference in private enterprise, they said.

Each of the commissioners and an F.T.C. spokeswoman declined to respond to queries about their views on the settlement.

Throughout the deliberations, both sides have complained about leaks to the news media of details of private meetings and settlement terms.

Edward Wyatt reported from Washington and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 20, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled the surname of the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission as Liebowitz, rather than Leibowitz.

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Robert Bork, failed Supreme Court nominee, dies at age 85

Robert H. Bork, whose failed Supreme Court nomination in 1987 infuriated conservatives and politicized the confirmation process for the ensuing decades, died Wednesday at the age of 85. 

The former Yale law professor and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had a history of heart problems and had been in poor health for some time.

But Bork was a towering figure for an early generation of conservatives. In the 1960s and '70s, he argued that a liberal-dominated Supreme Court was abusing its power and remaking American life by ending prayers in public schools, by extending new rights to criminals, by ordering cross-town busing and by voiding the laws against abortion.

He was an influential legal advisor in the Nixon administration and served as a footnote to history in the Watergate scandal. When the embattled president ordered the firing of special counsel Archibald Cox, the attorney general and his deputy resigned in protest. Bork, who was in the No. 3 post as U.S. solicitor general, then carried out Nixon’s order.

But Bork’s biggest moment came during the Reagan administration in the 1980s. He left Yale and came to Washington when Reagan appointed him to the U.S. court of appeals in the District of Columbia. The job was seen as a steppingstone to the high court.

In 1986, Bork was passed over for a younger colleague when Reagan named Judge Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court. A year later, Bork’s turn came when Justice Lewis Powell, the swing vote on the closely divided court, announced his retirement.

Democrats, led by Sen. Edward Kennedy, launched an all-out attack on Bork’s nomination, saying he would set back the cause of civil rights, women’s rights and civil liberties.

The summer of 1987 saw campaign-style attacks on Bork’s reputation.  In televised hearings, the bearded, heavy-set professor tried to explain his views, but he won few converts. The Senate defeated his nomination by a 58-42 vote.

In his place, Reagan eventually chose Judge Anthony Kennedy, who was confirmed unanimously. The switch proved to have lasting consequences. Kennedy cast decisive votes to uphold Roe vs. Wade and to preserve the ban on school-sponsored prayers.

Bork stepped down from the bench a year after his defeat, but wrote several books renewing his criticism of liberalism. In the past year, he served as a chairman of Mitt Romney’s advisory committee on the judiciary and the courts.

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david.savage@latimes.com

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Facebook CEO Zuckerberg donating $500M in stock

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is donating nearly $ 500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.

Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $ 498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.

This is Zuckerberg’s largest donation to date. He pledged $ 100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, N.J., public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he’s “proud of the work” done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.

With the latest contribution, he added, “we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next.” He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.

“Mark’s generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place,” said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

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“Best Funeral Ever” premiere delayed after Newtown school shootings

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Fans of death-centric reality TV will have to wait a little longer to dig into TLC‘s “Best Funeral Ever.”

TLC has pushed back the premiere of the special to January 6 at 10/9c in light of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn. last week.

“Best Funeral Ever” was initially scheduled to premiere on December 26 at 8/7c.

“Best Funeral Ever” centers around the Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas, which specializes in elaborate specialty funerals catering to the deceased’s interest. In the special, a doo-wop singer famous for his rib-sauce jingle receives a barbecue-themed sendoff, while a disabled man who was unable to ride roller coasters in mortal life receives a State Fair-themed funeral.

Since last Friday’s horrific shootings, a number of programs and other entertainment-related events have been moved out of sensitivity. Syfy, for one, decided not to air its scheduled episode of “Haven” on Friday night, because it contained elements of fictionalized school violence.

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