As has been noted multiple times in the comments over the past few days, Shakira has landed herself a civil service job:

President Obama has appointed Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll — the Colombian singer better known around the world as Shakira — to a presidential commission on education for Hispanics.

If you are wondering why, it turns out that the multiple Grammy-winning Shakira has been involved in promoting early childhood education in Latin America for years, and, not incidentally, she endorsed Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign.

For more info on Shakira’s work in educating poor children in South America, go here:

In private or public, Shakira often uses the sound bites of the expert social entrepreneur. “I grew up in the developing world, I grew up seeing injustice,” she told me. “I grew up in the middle of a severe social crisis, left and right wings fighting with each other, people in the middle caught in the crossfire. I’ve seen millions of people displaced in Colombia. But I’ve also seen that, in countries like mine, when a child is born poor, he will die poor, unless he receives an opportunity. That opportunity is education. It’s that helping hand that they’re looking for. Latin America is a young continent, it’s malleable, it’s flexible. We still can change.”

ALAS may seek to change Latin America, but it also represents something very traditional — the power of concentrated wealth. Its president, Alejandro Santo Domingo, is the 32-year-old scion of Colombia’s formidable Santo Domingo family. The vice presidents are Shakira’s boyfriend, de la Rua, who is a son of a former president of Argentina, and Alejandro Soberón, a very successful Mexican entertainment promoter and developer. He is a business associate of Carlos Slim, one of the world’s richest men (and a prominent stakeholder in The New York Times). Slim is on ALAS’s board, as are Joseph Safra (Brazilian banker and investor), Alejandro Bulgheroni (Argentina; oil and gas), Emilio Azcárraga (Mexico; broadcasting) and Stanley Motta (Panama; airlines). Latin America is run by families, and together the ALAS board accounts for a significant portion of the region’s economy. Could Latin America’s richest philanthropists succeed in reducing its crushing levels of inequality when generations of strongmen, technocrats, guerrillas and reformers have failed?

Okay. Let’s get random:

Hitchcock Railway – Joe Cocker
Stupid Jerk – The Muffs
Redemption Songs – Cassandra Wilson
What Your Soul Sings – Massive Attack
V. Thirteen – Big Audio Dynamite
Night Falls On Hoboken – Yo La Tengo
Calling – Tiger Army
This Is Why We Fight – The Decemberists
Untitled – I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
Fools Gold - The Stone Roses (from the greatest album of all time)
and number eleven because Steve Jobs would have wanted it that way and without him we wouldn’t even be doing this:
Bang On! – The Propellerheads