Mozart Cilik dari Korea

Ratusan penonton berlinang air mata saat seorang bocah perempuan tampil memainkan piano. Saat itu jemari mungilnya memainkan Fur Elise, komposisi karya Beethoven. Yang membuat penonton terharu bukan karena lirik lagu itu, melainkan karena penampilan pianisnya, Yoo Ye-eun. Warga Korea yang baru berumur lima tahun itu ternyata buta sejak lahir.

Yoo memang bocah ajaib. Dalam usia balita dia telah menggegerkan dunia musik. Yoo bisa memainkan karya-karya komponis besar seperti Mozart, Chopin, dan Beethoven, ditambah lagu-lagu pop masa kini. Yang lebih mengagumkan, Yoo tak perlu lama mempelajari lagu-lagu klasik yang terbilang sulit. Sekali dengar, dia bisa membawakan lagu itu dengan sempurna.

“Bagaimana mungkin?” tanya seorang pembawa acara Star King, sebuah acara adu bakat terkenal di Korea. “Benar-benar mengagumkan, ” tambahnya.

Barack Obama

Date of Birth: 4 August 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Birth Name: Barack Hussein Obama Jr.

Nickname: Barry , Bama, Rock

Height: 6′ 1½” (1.87 m)

Mini Biography

Barack Obama was born to a white American mother, Ann Dunham, and a black Kenyan father, Barack Obama, Sr., who were both young college students at the University of Hawaii. When his father left for Harvard, she and Barack stayed behind, and his father ultimately returned alone to Kenya, where he worked as a government economist. Barack’s mother remarried an Indonesian oil manager and moved to Jakarta when Barack was six. He later recounted Indonesia as simultaneously lush and a harrowing exposure to tropical poverty. He returned to Hawaii, where he was brought up largely by his grandparents. The family lived in a small apartment – his grandfather was a furniture salesman and an unsuccessful insurance agent and his grandmother worked in a bank – but Barack managed to get into Punahou School, Hawaii’s top prep academy. His father wrote to him regularly but, though he traveled around the world on official business for Kenya, he visited only once, when Barack was ten.

Obama attended Columbia University, but found New York’s racial tension inescapable. He became a community organizer for a small Chicago church-based group for three years, helping poor South Side residents cope with a wave of plant closings. He then attended Harvard Law School, and in 1990 became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. He turned down a prestigious judicial clerkship, choosing instead to practice civil-rights law back in Chicago, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination and working on voting-rights legislation. He also began teaching at the University of Chicago Law School. Eventually he ran as a Democrat for the state senate seat from his district, which included both Hyde Park and some of the poorest ghettos on the South Side, and won.

Aris Sang Pengamen Jalanan Akhirnya Meraih Gelar Indonesian Idol

Sabtu malam, 3/08/08, arena PRJ disesaki lautan manusia yang ingin menjadi saksi siapa idola Indonesia tahun ini. Indonesian Idol 2008 menggelar result show dan reunion idol terbesar dari gelaran yang pernah diadakan sebelumnya.

Dalam malam Grand Final Indonesian Idol tersebut hadir banyak bintang untuk membuai telinga penonton. Pengisi acara malam tadi, antara lain; Andra and The Backbone, RAN, peserta Indonesian Idol periode 1-5, Idol Diva, Idol Divo dan Afgan.

Gisel yang malam tadi tampil anggun menunjukkan kualitas prima dalam penampilannya. Dia mendapat pujian dari Titi DJ atas penampilannya yang terus meningkat selama spektakuler show. Sementara Aris, pengamen jalanan, yang mempunyai warna suara khas rocker menuai pujian dari Indra Lesmana dan Anang Hermansyah.

Akhirnya setelah melewati belasan spektakuler show, Aris terpilih menjadi Indonesian Idol 2008. Dengan terpilihnya Aris, Indonesia Idol dapat mengambil keuntungan karena kesan yang tidak membeda-bedakan peserta berdasarkan latar belakang. Semua orang ternyata masih mempunyai kesempatan menjadi idola.

`Dark Knight’ grabs $43.8M more, nears $400M total

Even an army of the undead could not dislodge Batman from his box-office perch.

The Batman blockbuster “The Dark Knight” hauled in $43.8 million to rank as Hollywood’s top movie for the third-straight weekend, fending off “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” which opened a close second with $42.5 million.

“The Dark Knight” has soared to a $394.9 million haul in just 17 days, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Warner Bros. release should sail past the $400 million mark by Monday or Tuesday, said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner.

That would be on the film’s 18th or 19th day of release, another record for “The Dark Knight,” which had an all-time high opening weekend of $158.4 million. The previous $400 million record-holder was “Shrek 2,” which hit that mark in 43 days.