"Sofia Vergara’s meta joke unmasks a real issue | August 27, 2014
Sofia Vergara’s role in an odd sketch at the Emmys Monday invited many interpretations — the most charitable of which is that the TV industry understands how much it still relies on stereotypes and sexist jokes. During the awards show, the “Modern Family” star came onstage with Television Academy chairman Bruce Rosenblum, who guided her to a pedestal as he launched into a boilerplate speech. “Our academy is more diverse than ever before,” he intoned, “both in front of and behind the camera, resulting in a greater diversity of storytelling.” All the while, the pedestal rotated with Vergara’s curvy body, in form-fitting gown, on full display. The message that viewers might draw — what entertainment executives say about diversity is not what they do — was all the more striking because of who Vergara is: a Colombian-born actress portraying a saucy, proudly voluptuous Latina second wife on TV. But many viewers took the skit as straight-up misogyny, and questioned whether Vergara was cluelessly letting herself be used. At the very least, the fierce reaction showed that laughing about a problem isn’t the same as solving it. Making layered, self-referential jokes about an issue is easy — especially for TV writers. Presenting the country’s diversity in a humanizing way is a lot harder.
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"Colombian kingpin’s former hit man leaves prison" by Joshua Goodman | Associated Press August 28, 2014
BOGOTA — A man who confessed to hundreds of murders as head of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s army of assassins has been freed from a maximum security prison under heavy police guard.
John Jairo Velásquez, better known as ‘‘Popeye,’’ was paroled Tuesday evening despite protests from relatives of his many alleged victims.
He had spent 22 years behind bars for plotting the murder of a former presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galán, during the campaign for the 1990 presidential election.
In interviews anticipating his early release, Velásquez figured he has about an 80 percent chance of being killed by former rivals after being released. With the threat of a revenge killing lurking, he said, he was considering relocating abroad. He said he wants to sell to Hollywood the rights to an autobiography he wrote about his life alongside Escobar.
Galán, a cartel-fighting politician, had been favored to win Colombia’s highest office during the apex of drug violence two decades ago.
In a bid to fight extradition to the United States, Escobar ordered scores of assassinations — of judges, Cabinet ministers, and journalists. He even downed a commercial jetliner because he believed Galan’s political heir, President César Gaviria, was aboard.
Velásquez, 52, was one of Escobar’s most-trusted lieutenants during the campaign of terror, joining the capo’s Medellin cocaine cartel before he turned 18.
As Colombia’s bloody cocaine turf wars faded from memory, Velásquez liked to boast in frequent interviews from prison that he had killed 300 people with his own hands, including his wife, and helped plan another 3,000 hits.
But the only murder for which he was convicted was Galán’s. Family members of his many other alleged victims, as well as legal specialists, grasped for an explanation when a judge determined last week that he was eligible for parole.
‘‘It’s really sad that an assassin who committed so many homicides was sentenced for a single murder,’’ said General Carlos Mena, the head of Colombia’s highway police who as a young officer helped US authorities hunt down Escobar, who was killed by police in 1993.
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