Sketchy Notes I Made While Listening to NPR Today, Movie, Dirty Sexy Money
The Second Hour of the Diane Rhem Show:
So, I’m listening to Fresh Voices on NPR and a lawyer who is representing people at Guantanamo is being interviewed.
Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side by Clyde Stafford Smith.
According to Smith, we offered a bounty for people to turn their friends and neighbors in. A bounty that amounted to huge sums of money. We rounded up everyone who was turned in on this flimsy testimony, tortured used “enhanced interrogation techniques” on them to get a confession and shipped them off to Guantanamo. And continued using “enhanced interrogation techniques.
We even torture the prisoner by force feeding them.
We’ve let several Taliban members go, but keep people who have no connection to any terrorist organization.
95% were turned in by Pakistanis and other Northern Alliance citizens in order to receive the cash bounty.
Next, There’s the government’s lead counsel (Captain Pat McCarthy) on trying to rebut all of this. Apparently there is a West Point study that contradicts the Denver (?) Denbo (?) Study. He claims only a small number of rewards were paid. But he’s saying “um” more than anything else.
2 hours of outside recreation a day? The ability to talk to their fellow detainees? Robust social interaction? 3 meals a day totaling “up to” 5,000 calories. Prayer beads, prayer rugs, Korans, uninterrupted prayer time?
He claims he doesn’t have a clue what the United Nations is calling torture.
Claims there have been 1100 lawyers visits this year and 900 the year before. Over 500 media visits this year and around 1,000 last year. Then he rambles on about court cases.
I’m not sure I believe him, but I think there must be some documentable truth to what he’s saying.
++++++
Think: Interview with Jim Lehrer.
Jim Lehrer wrote Viva Max. I didn’t realize that. I haven’t read the book but the movie is hilarious. His new book is called Eureka. Interesting conversation regarding closed-endedness of finished novel vs. open-endedness of news stories. He says he never worries about the way his novels might affect the way people think of him as a journalist/anchor person. He seems to be really able to compartmentalize his writing.
Day to Day has an interview with Ashley Gilbertson, whose latest book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War sounds like something everyone should have a look at. He his time in Iraq, the problems he had with actually getting involved in the fighting rather than just photographing it and his post traumatic stress disorder. His current work sounds very poignant - he is photographing the bedrooms of young soldiers who have been sent to the war in Iraq.
+++++
Movies:
Last night’s scary movie was
An American Haunting
The first 125 minutes were okay. Not great, but okay. There’s lots of good creepiness, especially in the scene where they’re trying to leave and I think Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek did the best they could with a less than stellar script. The real problem, though, is that they essentially changed the story by providing a resolution and underlying cause for the events. It wasn’t necessary to do this, and the movie would have been scarier if there was no reason given for the haunting. But the change is most problematic because there is no evidence for the existence of this underlying cause, yet the movie is billed as a true story, as is the novel it’s based on. If any of these people were still alive, they’d have a pretty good case for libel and defamation.
As a result, it was rather hard for me to rate. It was fun to watch on Halloween, but untrue “true” stories always annoy me. Plus there was way too much screeching and way too many repetitions of the same phenomena. But I liked the first two thirds of it, and I really appreciated it being a for real, actual horror film rather than the pornographic gorefests that have been miscategorized as horror and basically overrun the genre. It may have been annoying, but at least it was watchable, unlike drek such as the Hostel series.
Speaking of, there was a ridiculous whiney interview with Eli Roth on G4 last night. I couldn’t help laughing at his attempts to characterize himself as a serious artist and his complaints about others correctly characterizing him as the worst sort of pornographer. I think the interview was supposed to make him look sympathetic, but he actually came off as childish and pathetic. And delusional.
Also on last’s night’s agenda -
Dirty Sexy Money
God, I love this show! The best parts - the Darling boys bonding over a videogame, Brian and Brian, Jr. bonding, Tish and Karen’s talk, and best of all, Nick and Tripp working together to get the NTSB report. I figured there had to be more to that conversation and I’m so glad we got it in flashback. Oh, also - Jeremy! So adorable! He can wreck and replace my car any time.
So, I’m listening to Fresh Voices on NPR and a lawyer who is representing people at Guantanamo is being interviewed.
Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side by Clyde Stafford Smith.
According to Smith, we offered a bounty for people to turn their friends and neighbors in. A bounty that amounted to huge sums of money. We rounded up everyone who was turned in on this flimsy testimony, tortured used “enhanced interrogation techniques” on them to get a confession and shipped them off to Guantanamo. And continued using “enhanced interrogation techniques.
We even torture the prisoner by force feeding them.
We’ve let several Taliban members go, but keep people who have no connection to any terrorist organization.
95% were turned in by Pakistanis and other Northern Alliance citizens in order to receive the cash bounty.
Next, There’s the government’s lead counsel (Captain Pat McCarthy) on trying to rebut all of this. Apparently there is a West Point study that contradicts the Denver (?) Denbo (?) Study. He claims only a small number of rewards were paid. But he’s saying “um” more than anything else.
2 hours of outside recreation a day? The ability to talk to their fellow detainees? Robust social interaction? 3 meals a day totaling “up to” 5,000 calories. Prayer beads, prayer rugs, Korans, uninterrupted prayer time?
He claims he doesn’t have a clue what the United Nations is calling torture.
Claims there have been 1100 lawyers visits this year and 900 the year before. Over 500 media visits this year and around 1,000 last year. Then he rambles on about court cases.
I’m not sure I believe him, but I think there must be some documentable truth to what he’s saying.
++++++
Think: Interview with Jim Lehrer.
Jim Lehrer wrote Viva Max. I didn’t realize that. I haven’t read the book but the movie is hilarious. His new book is called Eureka. Interesting conversation regarding closed-endedness of finished novel vs. open-endedness of news stories. He says he never worries about the way his novels might affect the way people think of him as a journalist/anchor person. He seems to be really able to compartmentalize his writing.
Day to Day has an interview with Ashley Gilbertson, whose latest book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War sounds like something everyone should have a look at. He his time in Iraq, the problems he had with actually getting involved in the fighting rather than just photographing it and his post traumatic stress disorder. His current work sounds very poignant - he is photographing the bedrooms of young soldiers who have been sent to the war in Iraq.
+++++
Movies:
Last night’s scary movie was
An American Haunting
The first 125 minutes were okay. Not great, but okay. There’s lots of good creepiness, especially in the scene where they’re trying to leave and I think Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek did the best they could with a less than stellar script. The real problem, though, is that they essentially changed the story by providing a resolution and underlying cause for the events. It wasn’t necessary to do this, and the movie would have been scarier if there was no reason given for the haunting. But the change is most problematic because there is no evidence for the existence of this underlying cause, yet the movie is billed as a true story, as is the novel it’s based on. If any of these people were still alive, they’d have a pretty good case for libel and defamation.
As a result, it was rather hard for me to rate. It was fun to watch on Halloween, but untrue “true” stories always annoy me. Plus there was way too much screeching and way too many repetitions of the same phenomena. But I liked the first two thirds of it, and I really appreciated it being a for real, actual horror film rather than the pornographic gorefests that have been miscategorized as horror and basically overrun the genre. It may have been annoying, but at least it was watchable, unlike drek such as the Hostel series.
Speaking of, there was a ridiculous whiney interview with Eli Roth on G4 last night. I couldn’t help laughing at his attempts to characterize himself as a serious artist and his complaints about others correctly characterizing him as the worst sort of pornographer. I think the interview was supposed to make him look sympathetic, but he actually came off as childish and pathetic. And delusional.
Also on last’s night’s agenda -
Dirty Sexy Money
God, I love this show! The best parts - the Darling boys bonding over a videogame, Brian and Brian, Jr. bonding, Tish and Karen’s talk, and best of all, Nick and Tripp working together to get the NTSB report. I figured there had to be more to that conversation and I’m so glad we got it in flashback. Oh, also - Jeremy! So adorable! He can wreck and replace my car any time.