Word: idea
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Initially, this involved showcasing traditional African music. But very quickly, Beldjoudi and his partners latched onto another idea: holding an annual blues festival to demonstrate how the uniquely American art form shares the same African roots as the types of music popular with Aulnay immigrants and their French-born children. After its maiden edition in 2007, the Aulnay All Blues festival became a major event, attracting some of the biggest American names in blues. Last year's event proved to be so popular, Aulnay decided to team up with blues producer Larry Skoller's France-based label Raisin' Music...
When Finnish filmmaker Timo Vuorensola came up with the idea for his movie Star Wreck, a parody of Star Trek, he knew that looking for conventional distribution would be futile. An amateur, science-fiction comedy with a miniscule budget - and in Finnish, to boot - would hardly be attractive to mainstream studios. So Vuorensola took matters into his own hands: he used a Finnish social networking site to build up an online fan base who contributed to the storyline, made props and even offered their acting skills. In return for the help, Vuorensola released Star Wreck in 2005 online for free...
...Taliban - officially called Boko Haram - killing its leader and scores of his followers. Boko Haram had begun life in 2001 as a peaceful group focused on the study of the Koran, according to Abdulmumin Sa'ad, a Muslim scholar and professor of sociology at the University of Maiduguri. "The idea was that there is a lot of sin in the larger society, and their parents had amassed a lot of ill-gotten wealth," says Sa'ad, who taught some of the militants. Boko Haram may have been quelled, but the sentiments that gave it impetus remain very active in Nigeria...
...higher level of grumbling about gay marriage. Provoking the most objections is the question of gay couples adopting children. A discussion bulletin on the website of the city's best-selling newspaper El Universal rapidly accumulated more than 1,000 comments, the majority negative to the idea. Similar objections can be heard on the capital's streets. "If two men want to be together, that is their decision. But adopting children is a different story," says taxi driver Isaac Villa, 35. "The couple may seem okay, but they could always have that seed of badness." Engineer Hector Cruz, 59, said...
...because the government keeps a tight rein on information about religious holidays from entering the country, and in part because Christians can be arrested for celebrating it. Though the country's constitution does grant freedom of religion to all citizens, North Korean authorities don't seem to pay the idea much heed. The government also monitors other religions - such as Buddhism and Cheondoism, a popular Korean belief system that combines elements of several faiths - but underground churches are particularly feared by authorities because they're estimated to have helped some 20,000 North Koreans defect to China. As a result...