I have seen Jon Stewart riff with the best, and it seems he always has a snappy comeback.
But not this time, this time he knew that he was in the presence of a very special human being.
Just in case this video gets pulled, you can still find the interview here.
I've seen this young woman's speeches and saw this interview on TDS; quite a remarkable and lovely, strong being. John seemed truly touched by her.
ReplyDeleteNot just Stewart, the entire audience.
ReplyDeleteMy 6 yr old daughter has just discovered Malala. We had to buy a headscarf yesterday at the thrift store so she could look like Malala.
ReplyDeleteWe were listening to NPR the other day (as always, my poor daughter will never know another radio station...she'll be in therapy at 25 perhaps...) and a story about Malala came on. She shushed me so she could listen and then peppered me with questions about Malala's story.
We did a bit more research and printed out some photos for her.
I would echo Mr. Stewart's words "Malala, we think you are swell."
And this is exactly the type of young woman who should be role models for our girls.
Thanks for this link. I can't wait to share it.
"And this is exactly the type of young woman who should be role models for our girls. "
DeleteI yearn for the day when Malala gets more media attention than Miley.
I couldn't watch this. I think Malala is remarkable. very remarkable. the planet is lucky to have her. But I don't like the way she is encouraged, nudged, supported, whatever into being a spokeperson for a political agenda as a child. Her personality is still developing. She's speaking with all the wisdom of someone who hasn't had time to develop a lot of wisdom. yes I agree with her. Yes she is very wise for her age. But being pushed into a spotlight before her personality has developed can be very damaging. She quits being normal. and has pressures most kids don't have once she becomes a spokeperson. pressures to do and be what others want.
ReplyDeleteThis is not to say she is not remarkable. She is. But she's still a child, doing the adult's work.
her childhood ended when she got shot by the Taliban
DeleteActually---I think she quit being a "child" when someone shot her in the face because she wanted to be educated and she was forced to leave her country. In a perfectly not insane world--she would be giggling with her friends--which she had to leave behind and could have an education in her homeland even though she is female. Unfortunately--she was shot in the face and does not want that to happen to anyone anymore. She is normal---again--for a person who was shot in the face because she wanted to learn. She is not a coddled American teen.
DeleteOur children may face adversary but the American Talibangecals have not, at least for now, banned girls from learning. I believe she is who she needs to be.
Take a break from being a "concern troll". Where she's from, girls are long married (and sometimes abused) years before they turn 16. If you're looking for a cause, look at Bristol's self-exploitation as an "abstinence spokesperson" and push for Trig's cause as a thoroughly exploited grandchild of the griffter queen.
DeleteWild Tortoise
Totally agree with you. I have a lot of sympathy for Bristol. She has been exploited and neglected, and those two aren't unrelated. I do cringe at some of the meanness directed her way, but not noticing the hypocrisy and disagreement with the message.
DeleteBrave women abound, but I’d compare this one to Joan of Arc.
DeleteSpreading her story on the world stage is making Malala bigger and stronger.
DeleteOne day Malala Yousafzai will be more powerful than the Taliban.
She was born stronger than you.
She is now stronger than me.
This is a good thing.
What "political agenda" would she be "pushed into"? The "agenda" that it's not right to shoot little girls in the head simply for wanting to go to school? She knows all about that when some religious nut shot her in the face for wanting to go to school; nobody had to tell her anything about it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not getting the connectiong between being shot, publicly, for political reasons with denying her the time and space we give children to grow.
ReplyDeleteYes, the agenda that it's not right to shoot little girls, and yes the agenda for education for children. She does know all about that.
What she doesn't know, and shouldn't have to learn, is the costs of growing up as the leader of a political agenda. And there are costs to her growth and development by putting her on an international stage as a political advocate - even ignoring that his agenda is will anger a bunch of very nasty people.
I'm not even saying she could never speak about it. Perhaps as part of a panel. Maybe. She does seem quite bright and articulate. But the adults should be carrying the water, not a child. And there's a reason. It's hard to carry the water. It can hurt you and break you. And sometimes it's what has to be done. But I don't think we should choosing to sacrifice Malala's childhood.
Some of us are born to lead.
DeleteSome of us are born to follow.
I know a leader when I see one.
So does her father.
When it comes from the heart nothing can stop it.
Not even a bullet in the face.
There is a reason why Malala has the world's attention.
She stared the Taliban in the eye and did not blink.
The international stage is child's play in comparison.
Get a clue....
I disagree that her childhood ended when she was shot, and I think it's a travesty that people think she doesn't have a childhood left to live.
ReplyDeleteMany adults are still in their childhood.
DeleteWhat is childhood? Playing with dolls?
Some children are born "grown up"...
Old souls, who are here to tell us to wake up.
NOTHING about hte shoot did anything to accelerate the physiological process that are going on in her. She can't be that far into living with hormones, and that is an adjustment. Her brain isn't fully developed. Last I hear, 25 years old was when they said the brain had matured (and I think after that it's then downhill for the brain, but that's an aside). The process of starting to leave the family, for independence, and look more to her peers (not more than her family, just more than previously) is greatly impacted by become a spokesperson, and interferes with the natural process.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 7:04, have you lived outside the US? If not, you may not realize how early the female of the species is losing her childhood in many cultures. If her father had not had the will to permit her to be educated, to extricate her from the common customs of the region, she could very well have been married to an old man as soon or prior to her first mensis.
ReplyDeleteThis young woman has been through the proverbial Valley of Death. None who have come out on the side of those living are unchanged by that experience.
Some will be cowed into submission and fear, while others will become consumed by hatred of those who brought them to this point of survival.
Malala decided to continue fighting those regressive elements who would rather kill her than see her succeed in any way, because they know her example will encourage others to resist their brutal oppression of girls and women.
I urge you would watch her speeches and interviews, so you may understand that this young woman is highly intelligent, very articulate and extremely motivated in her quest. It is clear from her extensive, well thought out replies to various interviewers' queries that she is quite capable to answer from the depth of her own knowledge.
Yes, she has those who will urge her on, otherwise she would not have succeeded in having become a Spokesperson of this magnitude, but she is a heroic figure in this, the second decade of the 21st Century, and may she live long and teach legions to craw courage from her experiences.
You are right about children in other countries having adult roles much earlier than we do, and I had forgotten about that. However, she is now living in a western culture and hopefluly hanging around with peers. I don't disagree with much of anything you say, including the ability to answr from her own experience and that she is a heroic figure. It's the being a heroic figure, at a young age, that concerns me. Perhaps I am overly concerned about hte pressures it puts on one, particularly someone so young. I would love to hear why this is good for her own personal development and growth rather than good for the world at her expense.
Delete..."to draw courage..."
ReplyDeleteShe is a high school girl that was shot in the head; and she speaks a second language (English) better than Sarah, Todd, Bristol, Willow or Track.
ReplyDeleteand as Bristol would say .. that's AWESOME!
7:48 and 7;51,
ReplyDeleteWhat's the matter? Is it that dead at C4P?
Good point; when Track and Bristol were 16, they were drinking, drugging, cutting school bus brake lines, and getting drunk in tents. Bristol got pregnant at 16. Malala spoke out for the right of girls to be educated, was shot in the head, and now speaks to a world-wide audience about the importance of educating girls and standing up to bullies. Unlike any of the Palins, she speaks more than one language with admirable fluency--no word salad from the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head.
DeleteAlso, too, Malala appears in public dressed appropriately and displaying good grooming and manners, something the Wasilla Wendigo and her too-many spawn haven't yet managed without hundreds of thousands of other people's dollars for professions to dress them.
DeleteShe is a grand and glorious being who found her way through an unspeakable event and not just survived, but garnered the attention of the world.
ReplyDeleteI am in awe of her wisdom and insight, well beyond her years.
What happens to someone in their life is sometimes unavoidable, and certainly unpredictable. What that person DOES with that/those experience(s) is what paints the real picture of that person's soul. This young lady is Light incarnate. She surrendered her childhood, so that she could make a difference to ALL women...NOW.
Females around the world suffer brutal and horrific treatment by the hands of men (and sometimes women) just for the fact that they are female. They 'lose' their childhoods at the direction of those who should be protecting them, their aunts, their mothers, their sisters...all in the perpetuation of rigid and patriarchal control. It seems that she is willingly speaking out. That she is still a child should have no bearing on what she is saying. It needs to be said. Perhaps that she IS a child is what makes people listen, what makes people outraged.
Not all of us can claim idyllic childhoods, not by a long shot. Those that are fussing about her loss of childhood, are simply projecting their expectations on her reality, but they have no basis in reality for her, nor for MILLIONS of girls and women around the globe. They live under the iron hand of ancient beliefs and ingrained servitude.
She has been given a purpose. She clearly has the maturity to recognize that and to follow her heart in her quest to expose and educate those of us who will never face the kind of horror she has faced and to carry on with such grace and dignity. I am deeply moved by her courage. Could any of us have stood up to the Taliban as she has? I think not.
----
Now, on another subject, but nevertheless a pertinent one, THIS is the guy that our Tundra Twat will be revving up the crowds for? What a colossal, arrogant dick. Listen to this:
Republican New Jersey Senate candidate Steve Lonegan said Thursday he has a way to singlehandedly stop Obamacare and help the GOP emerge victorious in its shutdown standoff.
Lonegan's campaign issued a statement encouraging Republicans in Washington "not to capitulate to the president's unreasonable demands" until after Wednesday's special U.S. Senate election in New Jersey. According to Lonegan, he will win that race against Democratic Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker. That in turn will cause Obama to give in to the Republican demands to stop the health care law.
"When I win, Obama will fold," Lonegan said in the statement.
Lonegan has been gaining in recent polls, though Booker still has a double-digit lead. However, his statement said Lonegan believes "his internal polling shows a neck-and-neck race in the U.S. Senate contest and that all the momentum is in his favor."
"My victory in this election on Wednesday will send a message to Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi that the American people want an end to Obamacare and the rest of the President's radical agenda," said Lonegan. "Republicans need to hold firm because seven days from today when Bob Menendez escorts me down the Senate aisle for my swearing in, the message about what our party should do will be clear for all,"
Read the Lonegan campaign's full statement below:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jersey-s-gop-senate-candidate-says-obama-will-cave-on-shutdown-when-he-wins-next-week
Lonegan has been the State Director of the Koch's American's for Prosperity for the past six years. Palin is being paid by the Koch's to stump for this cretin. Same old crap, she is bought and paid for without a care in the world for what is good for "we the people" as she loves to spout.
DeleteCripes, I was crying during the interview. Malala is a special gift to this troubled planet: "a child shall lead them." If one listened to the interview, one would know that her life and village were idyllic before the Taliban came in. Schools were destroyed in the Taliban effort to keep people ignorant and under control.
ReplyDeleteDoes this not sound familiar? The American Taliban is working to destroy public education. They want people to remain ignorant and easily controlled.
Get it?
What an amazing young woman! She may only be 16, but she has the wisdom of ages. Stunning.
ReplyDeleteShe's amazingly mature, very well spoken considering English is her second language, and her future is bright beyond compare. I'm buying this book for myself and all the girls/women on my holiday list.
ReplyDeleteAfter all she's been through, she laughs, smiles, and she thinks of bettering the lives of others. And some teens in America are thrilled to download the candy crush app on their I phone!
I loved Jon's reply about paradise. "Hey, I'm from New Jersey..."
She is a remarkable young woman, with an understanding beyond her years. Unfortunately, she did not win the Nobel Peace Prize THIS YEAR, but since she's only 16, I suspect that we will be hearing from her often in the future. Because she is the future - thankfully!
ReplyDelete