Last night, at the "Rock to Save Darfur Concert-Benefit," City Councilman Eric Gioia told Talib Kweli that he'd like to replace Mos Def as the other half of Blackstar. Kweli laughed and shook his head.

Gioia was at B.B. King's Blues Club in Times Square, along with a handful of hip-hop artists and human rights activists, as one of the sponsors of a City Council resolution asking the New York City pension fund to divest from Sudan.

“I’ve been working on this for about two years, and its kind of a lonely fight,” Gioia told me backstage before he addressed the crowd.  read more »

Fall Out Boy, Maroon 5, the Academy Is ..., Cartel, Coheed and Cambria, Colbie Caillat, Hot Hot Heat and the Decemberists will all be participating in MySpace's Rock for Darfur concert on November 10, MTVNews.com reports. A total of 32 concerts will take place on four continents to raise awareness about the Darfur conflict (kinda like Live Earth?).

A portion of the proceeds from the bands' previously scheduled shows will be donated to Oxfam International and the Save Darfur Coalition.

In New York, Gabby Glaser of Luscious Jackson will perform at The Annex and Victory Records' Streetlight Manifesto will play ska at The Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center.

I just got off a media conference call with Barack Obama in which he addressed the subject of his burgeoning foreign policy debate with Hillary Clinton.

Asked whether his personal life experience gives him an advantage over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards when it comes to formulating foreign policy, he said, “At this point it is not just about life experience, though that informs my perspective.” The important thing, he said, is how that perspective informs “how the United States should present its interests and ideals around the world.”

Obama also went back to the original argument which started during this week’s YouTube/CNN debate, in which he was criticized by Hillary Clinton for saying that he would be willing to talk to international dictators.

“I think it is a debate over the same conventional thinking that led people to authorize the vote over Iraq without asking questions,” he said. He compared this with a different line of thinking that “asks questions and is not informed by a lot of received wisdom.”

(Shades of Howard Dean's argument in 2004 about John Kerry's vast Senate experience and Kerry's vote, later lamented, to authorize the war.)

Obama did say that he agreed with Clinton’s position on whether America should commit ground troops to Darfur.  “It is absolutely true that given what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is difficult for us to mount the kind of troop strength that would be necessary,” he said. “But more important, it would be disastrous for even our policy in Darfur to send U.S. troops unilaterally into another Muslim country. It’s very important for the sake of our success there that it’s done as part of an international effort.”  read more »

1. Is Page A2 of the New York Times really that funny?, Dylan asked of the Times' advertisement of a chuckling fellow holding open the paper. Caption: "Darfur? BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

2. Dylan takes note of a publicity email he received from the New York Daily News about the escalation of Ben Widdicombe's gossip column to 5 days a week. "We like to think of Widdicome as the Owen Wilson to our Luke, at least on the media party circuit. This well-meaning Daily News flack apparently agrees," he writes, and then reprints an email from said flack, in which Dylan is asked to consider "booking" Ben Widdicombe on his "show."

Fishbowlny regrets the errors.

Sudanese refugee, Rep. Anthony Weiner and others talk about the genocide in Darfur at the Forest Hills Jewish Center (106-06 Queens Blvd) at 8 p.m.

"He's like a non-person. If you took away the actor, what's left? He's just that character all the time. A goodlooking guy. George Clooney is always playing George Clooney. He's going to learn the lines, but it's the same character."

"Yes. I started off liking him, but I learned not to. All the way back to The Facts of Life [on television]. He's goodlooking, he's got that grin. It's the same guy."

"Not the good ones. Compare him to Jack Nicholson. The guy has a lot of other stuff going on under the performance, and he is able to draw on that as an actor. Jude Law. He's a person. He's very goodlooking but his characters from one movie to another are different. Watch 'Closer.' Or 'I Heart Huckabees.' He can play pathetic, and well. I don't think George Clooney can go there."

"You caught me. I don't know about that."