Saturday Shorts

I'm not sure if many of you actually visited the old "Saturday Shorts" website. It doesn't matter now since it's been dead for a while.

We've revived it, though, and it lives and breathes on Myspace. So, for those of you out there that read this, please visit us Saturday Shorts guys over at Myspace.

We're putting all of the old shorts on there and we're making new ones too.

So.

Come see us over there.

Digital Projection

I went to see Superman Returns again this evening, this time I took my children and I went to the local Carmike Cinemas. Carmike has switched half of their screens over to digital and I figured the best test would be to see a movie I just watch on film projected digitally. Only then I could truly test the difference.

You've heard me talk about digital projection at Carmikes before.

(By the way, I liked Superman just as much the second time. I was worried my kids wouldn't sit for it, but after a minor amount of restlessness in the middle, they were fine. Elias had some problems with it, but I'll let him tell you about those.)

But, I have to say the projection was gorgeous. There were no dark spots on the screen, no annoying flicker, no streaks where a timing belt might be off, no scratches, no blemishes, no nothing.

It was gorgeous.

My only problem with the digital projection was purely nit-picky:

I missed the reel markers.

Since I've been screenwriting, I pay so much attention to pacing and length it gets to be a habit when you watch a movie. Having been a projectionist for almost ten years, I've been trained to spot reel markers (or "cigarette burns") and I count them. Since I've assembled hundreds of movies, I've become very familiar with the average running time of a reel. So, I was interested to note that Superman doesn't appear in Superman Returns until the fourth reel, which is generally 30-50 minutes into the film.

With the digital projector, there are no reel markers. I've been watching for them for so long to judge pacing and length, it felt like something was missing from the movie.

Like I said, it was nit-picky. That was the only thing wrong with the projection so far as I could tell. And I know what film projection is like. I live at the goddamn movies.

So, head to a Carmike theatre and check it out for yourself.

(On a sidenote, I have the display on my DVD player so I can watch the running time of movies. You can place what page something appeared in the script and it helps the pacing of screenwriting become something more of an instinct. Anyhow, you should watch the DVD of Return of the Jedi with the timer on. I guarantee, that movie bends time and space. It's paced so efficiently, fifteen minute portions of the movie feel like forty-five minutes and forty-five minute portions of the movie feel like fifteen. Seriously, it will mess with you.)

The Young Lions

I found a copy of a film called "The Young Lions" on sale for $5 and decided I would get it. Well, the cast listed across the top sort of decided that for me. Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin. Maybe I'm an idiot but I'd never heard of this movie before.

It was an amazing motion picture.

It was filmed in 1958 and movies like this are why they made movies.

It almost makes me want to not watch new movies with new actors in them. Marlon Brando was so good as a Nazi officer that I don't think anyone could ever act as well in a movie. I know there are performers out there who do good jobs, but you need to see Brando in this picture.

Montgomery Clift also does a swell job, playing one-hundred percent against type. Dean Martin plays Dean Martin, but I like Dean Martin, so nyeh.

Anyhow, it follows two Americans and a German through the course of the war and none of them want to fight.

In fact, Brando's Nazi officer is pretty much a pacifist. By the end of the movie, you're shocked and teary-eyed to see him go.

I don't know, I've been watching a lot of movies from the forties and fifties and they just seem to beat the pants off of everything that is coming out these days. Maybe it's because I'm at the movies every week and most everything sucks, but when I find something fromt he forties or fifties, someone thought it was good enough to warrant a transfer to DVD. I guess no one wants to blow money on shitty movies.

Anyway, to make a long story short, if you can get a hold of "The Young Lions" do so. The acting is amazing and the story is heartbreaking.

The Fleapit Three

Here's the first teaser trailer to the movie. Let me know what you thought.

Superman Returns

Superman Returns.

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

In fact, I may have loved it.

Not because it's Superman. In fact, I think Superman is generally a bitch. I'm more of a Batman nerd. But the first Superman movie, the one Donner directed is one of my favorite superhero movies and Bryan Singer matched it in look and tone and character in ways that made me want to piss my pants they were so good.

Brandon Routh actually frightened me, he pulled the part off so well. There were moments when I thought I was watching Christopher Reeve. He channeled that man's spirit and put it on the screen and I will tell you this: He deserves to wear the blue tights.

Frank Langella's Perry White was also a stroke of genius. I really loved him in Polanski's Ninth Gate and was hoping he'd get some more work, and maybe after this he will. The kid who played Jimmy Olsen was fantastic.

I enjoyed the hell out of watching Clark Kent drink a beer.

I don't know. This movie just worked for me. It had the pace of an older film and a lot of people with me bitched about that, but I love it when a director realizes he can take his time with a character. I wish Brett Ratner would have realized he could take some time with the X-Men.

I don't know. There isn't anything about this film I didn't like. I thought it was charming, romantic, action-filled, well-paced, well-acted.... The whole list.

Actually, there was one thing. I wanted an Otis character. Not just an Otis character. I wanted Otis. And maybe, Kitty could have been a "reformed" Miss Tessmocker. I would have killed to hear Kevin Spacey shout "Otis" and "Miss Tessmocker!"

I thought there might have been a better choice for Lois Lane, but I'm not going to complain about Kate Bosworth.

A couple of criticisms my brother had irked me a little and after thinking about them, I think there are logical explanations for them. I'm not calling him an idiot or anything, I'm just saying I can buy them. He thinks I want to explain them away because I think Singer is infallible, but that is certainly not the case.

Spoilers ahead:

1) Superman killed Luthor's henchman: My little brother thought that it was completely out of character for Superman to kill anyone, even by an omission of action, even Luthor or his henchmen. My argument is that Superman has let plenty of people die as collateral damage. Also, the rocks were still growing, there was still lives at risk in Metropolis, which outweighed the plight of Luthor and his henchmen. Next, Superman couldn't have saved them, they would just kick his ass again. Lastly, he knew they had a helicopter.

2) Lois Lane wasn't strong enough. I think to a degree this is true, but my argument is that five years is a long time and people change. She seemed pretty strong to me when she jumped into the water to save Kal-El.

3) Superboy was lame. My argument is that shit like this happens in comics all the time. Why can't the movie set a precedent in continuity once in a while? And besides, the movie universe is obviously different than the comic one. I was fine with Jason being Kal's. It didn't bother me at all.

Basically, I think this was an amazing chick-flick wrapped up in Superman's cape and it works.

I'm going to go see it at least a few more times, and this is one of the few movies this year that has compelled me to want to do so.

So, go see it, and let me know what you thought.

Click this link

Trust me.

Critical Mass

Well, the stupidity and misinformed malcontent of my Conservative sister-in-law, whom I've written so much about (Here, here, here, here, here, here and here) has finally reached a critical mass of stupidity. Her low ethics and morals in the conservative political realm has become too much to contain inside the arena of politics.

I don't want to elaborate about her war on truth, but suffice to say it has leaked into the realm of "the real world" and "family life" and I spent some of yesterday, all of today and probably a little bit of each day in the coming week, mending the rips in relationships and spreading the truth where her lies have been believed.

I don't know if this self-destructive behaviour is common among conservatives, or if it's a non-partisan thing, but it seems to me if you don't like people in politics, you won't like them in real life.

Anyhow, the point I'm trying to make is that my posting might be slow, although I'll be certain to check in for a Superman review.

An Inconvenient Truth

I wanted to see this movie. Now, after seeing this, I HAVE to see this movie.

Review

Here's another review of the film I found by a Canadian political science professor.

It's not the most favourable of reviews, but there seemed to be an interesting debate about it starting in the comments section. Feel free to join in.

Beyond Good News

I read this article that was linked up at aintitcool.com. This made my heart race with excitement.

Comedy Central has ordered 13 NEW episodes of Futurama.

My god. It's beautiful.

A plague on Fox for cancelling shows before their time was up (Firefly, Futurama. I've heard Arrested Development was worth something although I don't know personally.)

I'M A GIGANTIC NERD

Oh my God. I've watched the 3rd trailer for SUPERMAN RETURNS probably 63 times in the past 2 days. I can't wait. It looks absolutely amazing. And Rottentomatoes has some really good reviews so far. I don't think I've been this excited about a film release since STAR WARS EPISODE III. Which makes me an even bigger nerd.

Watch the 3rd Trailer HERE.

BRYAN ADDS A NOTE: Bryan here. I also am a gigantic nerd. In case anyone wants to see it with me, I'm seeing the 10:00 pm showing on Tuesday the 27th at the Cinemark in American Fork.

Republicans Vs. The Poor: Round 1

Well, in the biggest match of the season, the Republicans dealt a severe blow to the poor working class today when it defeated a measure to increase the minimum wage by $2 over the course of two years.

Their reasoning? People who have minimum wage jobs now will be fired.

Does that make sense to anyone? Employers have employees because they need them. The minimum wage hasn't been raised in NINE years yet these same employers have raised prices of goods significantly in that time. Gas prices have gone up. Food prices have gone up. Housing costs have increased dramatically. Utilities have gone up in price ten-fold in some places. And the most important thing that should be rising to match these costs are the minimum wage.

And where are the Republicans? Asleep at the switch.

If you have a minimum wage job, it is now your duty to vote not-Republican in the next election.

This is just disgusting that people can't be paid better. If you pay people more, they spend more money. It would do what Bush said his tax cuts were going to do, but do it for real.

Production Photos

There is Joel and I taking a break to discuss a shot.

This is Elias and I in the editing room.

This is my little brother, Jason, who plays Mike in the film, adjusting his bowtie.

This is John, he plays John in the movie.

This is me directing Florence.

This is Florence.

Joel is setting up a shot, while I bark direction at actors through the window.

Here is Jason in his preposterous stakeout makeup.

A Weekend at the Movies

Well, I had such a busy weekend that I forgot to update the blog in a couple of days. I'm sorry. It happens.

Anyhow: I worked on Saturday and then took the night off to go see Hard Candy up at Brewvies. (I invited Steve, but it wasn't on MySpace, so I don't know if he got the message). It was a good movie for such an obviously limited screenplay. It was two actors in a small, enclosed environment and you should all know I have a soft spot for films of that nature. It was well acted and well shot, but it was too long for the type of movie it was. It was also too expensive. The reason you write a screenplay with that type of focus on a situation is because you need to do it cheaply. They clearly had the money to show things they didn't, so that was quite annoying.

Then on Sunday, we shot our last day of principal photography on the theatre movie. We got a hell of a lot of it done. We still have a small round of pickups scheduled but the brunt of the movie is completed. We already have 81 minutes on the running time and I think, as soon as I finish editing, it'll run an even 90 minutes.

We also came up with an idea for a title I wanted to run by everyone:

The Fleapit Three

I think it sounds really cool and I have promotional material and pictures that would go perfectly with it. A couple of people have expressed concern about it, but at the moment, I really like it.

So, let me know what you think.

Also, the unrelated photo above is of my cat, General Grievous.

New Short Story

There's a new short story posted over at the Short Story blog.

Read and enjoy.

MY TOP SONGS RIGHT NOW ON iTUNES

(CLICK ON PICTURE)

People seem to be doing this now a days. So, take a look.

Woody Allen

I just want everyone to pay attention to Woody Allen again.

Match Point was an amazing movie that I would tell everyone who reads this to rent. I've watched Match Point a few times since it came out on DVD and it gets better and better every time.

My brother and I, in this renewed enthusiasm for Woody Allen, rented Crimes and Misdemeanors and Annie Hall last night. It was the first time I had seen either film.

I think I liked Crimes and Misdemeanors much more than Annie Hall, although both were excellent. I was also surprised to see such strikingly similar themes and moral quandarys in Crimes and Misdemeanors as in Match Point.

At the end of the day though, Woody Allen knows how to make a movie where people behave in a very interesting way. Even the long, drawn out, single-shot takes are terribly interesting because of the care that has gone into crafting the characters, story and shots. The man knows how to make a movie and it seems as though until Match Point had come out people had deemed him irrelevant.

And I don't need to add that Annie Hall wasn't the Best Picture from 1977. The Academy was wrong. Best Picture '77 was Star Wars.

BUSH MAKES FUN OF A BLIND MAN

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars for the link. (CLICK)


Today, at a presser, this exchange happened with Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times:


Bush: You gonna ask your question with shades on?

Wallsten: Yes...

Bush: But there's no sun out here.

Wallsten: It depends on your perspective.

Bush: Touché.


Wallsten is legally blind...

BYU HAS JESUS BY THE BALLS

So, I read Bryan's post about Breed 'Em Young University firing some poor sap because he had inappropiately used his brain. Well, surprise, surprise everyone. This isn't the first time BYU has exercised it's control over free speech and over free thought and over free expression and over freedom in general, so why get pissed off now? Bottom line is that, if you're a strict Mormon and you want to go to BYU, but you believe in some sort of free thought process, you're fucked.



Here are some example's of YBU's control over freedom:

EXPRESSION:

** In 1997, BYU banned a Rodin exhibit from campus. Speaking specifically of the famous "THE THINKER" sculpture:

"'The Thinker' does not represent the sort of activity that we believe is appropriate for the BYU setting," said BYU official Alan Wilkins. In contrasting "The Thinker" to Rodin's sculpture "The Kiss," which was withdrawn earlier this week, Wilkins said, "Nudity is not the issue here. Admitedly, nudity has its place in private and personal surroundings. But" he continued, "the administration has decided that this sculpture is inappropriate under any and all circumstances."

Even with the new ban, many parents, including Layton, have expressed doubts about allowing their children to attend the exhibit along with their school classes. "This so-called Art -- how is it any different from a Las Vegas peep show, that's what I'd like to know," said parent organizer Cynthia Rosyska. "It's just not the sort of thing I want my children exposed to. Utah valley is ripe for pornography, and I don't think we need to encourage it."




WOMEN:

**In 1993 the university terminated Professor Cecilia Konchar Farr after her third-year review. Konchar Farr is a feminist activist who worked to educate people about violence against women, who helped establish the feminist activist student club Voice on campus, and who took a public pro-Choice position, although she also said in her speech that she did not favor abortion and fully supported the LDS First Presidency's position on abortion. She also had the full support of her local ecclesiastical leaders as a faithful Mormon, worthy to participate in all Church ordinances. At first the university tried to represent Konchar Farr as an inadequate scholar and teacher, but after the appeal hearing, an agreement was reached by which both sides were to say only that there were "irreconcilable differences" between the administration and Konchar Farr. Again, a woman professor's career was damaged, and the university gave no satisfactory reason for that action.

**For several years women candidates for faculty employment at Brigham Young University have been asked this question by the academic vice president: "If a general authority [general leader of the Mormon Church] asked you not to publish your research, what would you do?" It has been suggested to the candidates that they must agree not to publish in such a case. This condition of employment undermines the position of new women faculty members at Brigham Young University. To be hired, they apparently must agree to let male ecclesiastical leaders who are not trained in their disciplines have final authority over the publication of their scholarship. They are offered no review process to determine the fairness or accuracy of the authority's request. Again, women are instructed that they must suppress their own perspectives on their own experience or research if a male authority so directs them.

**In its entire seventy-five year history, a woman faculty member has never been chosen to present BYU's distinguished faculty lecture.

GAY RIGHTS:

** Affirmation has a good little Top Ten List here.

** Electro-Shock (Aversion) Therapy Used on Gay Students

Rocky, one of the participants, said that he spent ten years negotiating his way “through the Mormon church’s torturous program for reorienting or "curing" homosexuals — trying to turn us into heterosexuals.”

His bishop told Rocky, at the age of fifteen, that he needed to take this therapy at BYU, and that it would help him into becoming a heterosexual. This is how Rocky explained the procedure: “They explained to me that they would place a heparin lock in my wrist and hook an I.V. up to that, and I would be put in a room alone with a phlethesmograph on my penis that would measure my physical arousal so that when I got an erection they would know.” At this point they would show him gay pornography while they would introduce a drug into the I.V. that produced vomiting. Next, they would show him heterosexual pornography and a euphoric drug was injected. In this manner they hoped to have him prefer women to men. It did not work. In the video the interviewer asked Rocky, since he was only fifteen at the time, if he had ever seen pornography of any kind before his session at BYU — Rocky admitted, “No.”

** Gay Students Kicked Out Of BYU:

"Ricky Escoto and Matthew Grierson, both 21, were told to withdraw from Brigham Young University or face two-semester suspensions for violating the school's honor code, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. The code forbids -- but doesn't clearly define -- homosexual conduct.

"I figured as long as I remained chaste the church would welcome me," Escoto told the Tribune. He was charged last month with the infractions of receiving gifts from other men, visiting gay chat rooms on his personal computer, making out with another man in his apartment and dating at least three different men.

In mid-March Grierson was charged with kissing a man on the BYU campus and holding hands with a man IN A LOCAL MALL."



-OTHER LINKS:

http://lds-mormon.com/aaup.shtml

http://www.affirmation.org/learning/byu.shtml

http://www.lds-mormon.com/byu.shtml

http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2006/03/stupid-is-as-stupid-does-elder-jarhead.html

http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2006/04/byu-cancels-free-speech-forum-so-we.html

http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2006/04/byu-hypocrisy.html

BYU = Out of Control

Well, they've done it again. One of the articles I linked to in a post not too long ago (you can find that here) is the source of a serious debate in the community.

It seems as though BYU has fired the professor that wrote an op-ed piece that said he believed that opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral. (Here's the link to the article he said that in.)

This is preposterous. Has anyone heard of academic freedom? or what about the freedom of speech? Why should someone be fired for voicing an opinion? Doesn't that go against the values of our nation? Why should someone be at risk of losing his job for making a moral statement in the face of outrageous immorality? This is perhaps one of the most frustrating stories I've read all year.

All this proves is that BYU is probably one of the worst schools you can go to.

Also: I was hoping for some type of lively debate or conversation on my last post about Same Sex Marriage, in fact I even asked for it. Was everyone asleep at the switch or just completely apathetic about the Anti-Marriage debate?

Pirate Club Vol. 2

I just got the word from Derek that the second volume of Pirate Club in Graphic Novel form is coming out in September. For those of you who don't know, Elias and I helped script this. Slave Labor Graphics puts it out.

Here is the cover:



You can order it from Amazon right here.

So, do it.

Untitled Movie

Well, I've been cutting a lot on the film, trying to get a rough cut done before this weekend so I know what pickups and reshoots I want. Aside from one small and modest sequence, that's all that's left on the movie: pickups and reshoots.

I'm going to be working on a trailer as soon as I have a rough cut as well...

But, this has taken up a lot more time in the last few weeks than it had in the preceding fourteen weeks put together, so that is why I've been posting about virtually nothing but this. And Steve has been busy putting Minority Records together, so that's why he's been a bit absent.

It's been fun shooting a movie on the weekends to pass the time, but it's no way to shoot a movie.

Video of the 5-0

So.

Without further ado, here is the video of us getting stopped by the cops. It's nothing spectacular, but certainly funny.

The 5-0!

I almost got the entire production arrested last night because of my forgetful memory. We were shooting the "Fantasy Robbery" sequence which entails a motorcyclist pulling a guy out of a car at shotgun-point and some passerby called the cops. They failed to mention to the dispatcher the crowd of twenty people, the lights, the camera, the guy dressed as a ninja or the Luchador. just the man with the shotgun. I forgot to call the cops beforehand and tell them we were doing it. It was my fault completely.

People can be dumb.

Anyhow. We have video of the entire production standing in a line, hands above their heads.

I'll post it later.

A Prairie Home Companion

Well, I took a break from editing and saw Prairie Home Companion with my brother yesterday.

I have to say I was quite impressed with it. I mean, it's not hard to be impressed by Robert Altman. I saw Short Cuts for the first time a couple of months ago and there's just no two ways about it: The man knows how to handle a kickass ensemble.

But Prairie Home Companion felt as though it embodied a more innocent time and it was fun. It had a squeaky clean sort of tone that you haven't seen in the movies in a long time.

And the character work is amazing. Meryl Streep in this movie is mind-blowing with her character work. John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson stand up well (their bits are some of the funniest) and Lindsay Lohan and Tommy Lee Jones manage not to suck.

I would suggest seeing it. It's one of those movies that's thin on plot (who cares about the plot?) because all it is is a showcase for amazingly talented actors to do their thing.

And they all do it well.

(on a sidenote, I watched "The Third Man" again last night. Rent it, buy it, do whatever you have to to see it but, for God's sakes, see it.)

Al-Zarqawi

The headlines of all the papers today read "Al-Zarqawi killed" or something similar. Sadly, this is a hollow victory in Iraq and to be honest, I have my doubts that Zarqawi was responsible for a tenth of what was attributed to him. And the timing is also questionable. I mean, think about it, how can they confirm that he was killed by a bomb?

Wouldn't sense dictate trying to aprehend him? If they knew the building he was in, why didn't they send in a Seal Team or something? Wouldn't the intelligence that could be provided by Zarqawi, if he were as important as we are led to believe, be more valuable than his body incinerated in an explosion?

In Bush's speech today, even he admitted that this would do little or nothing to stop the overwhelming violence that has torn the country apart. In fact, it could make things worse. Terrorists are like the Hydra. Cut off one head, three grow in its place.

An interesting point that Donald Rumsfeld made (according to the above-linked Post article) was this:

"I think arguably over the last several years no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands than Zarqawi."

I think this claim is silly. It's easy to prove that he himself, along with Bush and co., have more innocent blood on their hands than Zarqawi in recent years. Here's an October 2004 article attributing at least 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq to the US-led invasion. You can read more about that here and here and here. (the last one is a segment from NPRs "This American Life" that is truly amazing to listen to.)

The propaganda ministers in the administration will try getting you to believe that this is the first step to ending bloodshed and civil war in Iraq. That might be true. What they won't tell you is that a better first step would be removing the entire Bush Administration from a position of power in our government.

Free Speech TV

I wasn't aware of it, but I stumbled over Free Speech TV's schedule and "This Divided State" is all over the place on it.

Apparently. Click here to see what I mean.

49-48?

I was glad to hear that the Republican Anti-Marriage Ammendment failed in the Senate yesterday. The ammendment was against the morals our country was founded on and would have soiled the dignity and inherently damaged the credibility of our nation's most sacred document, The Constitution.

It felt good to know that there was some small shred of sanity and respect for civil rights in the Halls of the Senate. What was startling, however, were the raw numbers. It was a 49-48 vote. That means that almost half of those responsible for writing the laws in our country support legislation to limit the inherent rights of individuals and insert that poisonous dogma into our country's founding document.

These people are insane.

In the article, Ted Kennedy said the Republican leadership "is asking us to spend time writing bigotry into the Constitution. A vote for it is a vote against civil unions, against domestic partnership, against all other efforts for states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law."

The Senator from Utah, the stupendous Orrin Hatch responded, most childishly, by wondering, "Does he really want to suggest that over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots?"

My answer to Senator Hatch is this: YES. Over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots, you being chief among them. I do not say things like this lightly (Steve might, but I won't.) How else can you rationalize limiting the rights of your fellow Americans? Especially rights that, whether granted or taken away, will not affect you whatsoever.

And for those of you who are of the LDS persuasion, I would make time to read the following article: LDS Authority and Gay Marriage.

It's an excellent, well-written piece arguing against the LDS Church's decision to ask their members to help attack the institute of marriage. It was written by a Mormon who is also a philosophy professor at BYU. It is worth everyone's time though.

Also, here is Pete Ashdown's take on it. It's also a good read.

I want someone who is anti-marriage (read: against "gay" marriage) to explain to me how they would be affected by same-sex marriages. I would like to talk about this in a civil way in the comments below. I know I'm not Steve and my posts recieve much less attention, but I would very much like to understand this issue a little better from both sides.

U.S TELLS AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS TO "FUCK OFF"

America the Pimp got some lip from of it's Hoes this week, Vietnam. And America responded by choking a bitch. For those of you not familiar, America did some serious pimping with Vietnam during the 60's and 70's.

Anyways, America's King Pimp, Donald Rumsfeld, was doing some head-patting and doggie-bone giving in South Asia when the topic of Agent Orange came up. Vietnam was all like "Hey, remember how you dumped Agent Orange all over our country and now millions of people get born all fucked up? Yeah, well could you maybe help pay for that?" And America, being the pimp that it is, responded by saying, "Ho, you ain't by bitch anymore! I ain't gotta do a god damn thang fo yo stankin ass!"

Ok, maybe it didn't quite go down like that. Read the linked article above for the full text.

And here are some pictures of what the Godly, Holy, Christified, Pure, Innocent, United States of America sometimes does to perfectly innocent people:

New Short Story

I've written and posted a new shortstory. If you have a minute, it's worth a read. I think they're all worth a read, but what do I know?

Anyhow: Here's the link.

FUCK THIS WAR

Newsweek has released an in depth investigation into the horrors of the bloodbath at Haditha. For those of you not familiar with this recent controversy, do yourself a favor and read the article linked above. Here's an excerpt I found particulary revolting:

In December, NEWSWEEK interviewed some Army soldiers going home as conscientious objectors. To fight boredom and disgust, said Clif Hicks, who had left a tank squadron at Camp Slayer in Baghdad, soldiers popped Benzhexol, five pills at time. Normally used to treat Parkinson's disease, the drug is a strong hallucinogenic when abused. "People were taking steroids, Valium, hooked on painkillers, drinking. They'd go on raids and patrols totally stoned." Hicks, who volunteered at the age of 17, said, "We're killing the wrong people all the time, and mostly by accident. One guy in my squadron ran over a family with his tank."

Hicks's own revulsion peaked while he was on patrol in January 2004. He came upon a bloody scene in a Baghdad housing project, where some soldiers had mistaken celebratory shots fired at a wedding for an attack, returning heavy fire and killing a young girl. "I looked in the door and she was dead, shot through the neck, Mom there, Grandma there, all losing it. Then I started thinking, this is really f---ed up, this is horribly wrong." Hicks stopped taking his malaria pills, hoping he'd get sick and shipped out. He says that infantry soldiers sometimes stick their legs out of the Humvee under sniper fire, hoping to get a nonlethal wound.

Hicks claims that "there's a lot of guys who steal from the Iraqis. Money, family heirlooms, and then they brag about it. Guys would crap into MRE bags and throw them to old men begging for food.



AND THIS EXCERPT JUST PISSES ME OFF:

The saddest and ugliest story was told to a NEWSWEEK reporter by a 12-year-old girl named Safa Younis. When the Marines entered her house that morning, she fled with her mother into a bathroom. A soldier followed them, shooting, she says. When the soldiers left, Safa tried to talk to her mother, but she was covered with blood. "Mama, Mama," cried the girl, until she realized that her mother was dead. So was her father, whom she found lying near the kitchen door. And her aunt, and her five siblings—all shot to death. "I was sorry for staying in the bathroom. I should have died like them," recalls Safa, who now lives with a cousin. "The Americans are murderers, criminals. They have no mercy."

I think everyone should check out this editorial that appeared in today’s Washington Post.

It outlines a convincing and reasonable argument in defense of keeping the Estate Tax. Repealing a Tax in this time of severe deficit is both reckless and stupid. This Tax helps level the playing field, keeps the middle and upper class gap just a little bit closer, and provides valuable economic resources to our cash-strapped government.

To repeal this Tax would be foolish and indefensible.

“For most of the past century, the case for the estate tax was regarded as self-evident. People understood that government has to be paid for, and that it makes sense to raise part of the money from a tax on "fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits," as Theodore Roosevelt put it. The United States is supposed to be a country that values individuals for their inherent worth, not for their inherited worth. The estate tax, like a cigarette tax or a carbon tax, is a tool for reducing a socially damaging phenomenon -- the emergence of a hereditary upper class -- as well as a way of raising money.”

I would encourage all of you to write your Senators, who will vote on this sometime this week, and explain to them the madness behind eliminating the estate tax. If the Republicans want to run our country into the ground economically (even further than they have) then they should at least be forced to leave the means to pay for the clean-up of their mess.

Here's a link to send something about this to Orrin Hatch.

Out of Town

I was out of town. I'm back now. I was sick, now I'm well again, there's work to do.

I wasn't sick, but that was what Kilgore Trout told everyone to revive their free will after the timequake ended...

Anyhow, I'm shooting today and normal posting will resume tomorrow.

EMAIL FROM ROMANIA

Hello,

Just finished watching the movie and I must say that it is definitely
one of the best documentary I ever saw. I felt I have to congratulate
you all for the great work and also I'd like to congratulate all those
students from the UVSC who stood up for the freedom of speech.

Keep up the good work.

Puiu from Romania

Read this article

I found this editorial in today's Washington Post.

Hijacking Harry Truman

Bush has been comparing himself to Harry S. Truman quite a bit and this editorial capably illustrates why this is preposterous.

Maybe Bush should take a real cue from guys like Truman instead of doing what he wants and trying to liken it to something else. And what about a Marshall Plan for the Third World?

What a lot of people don't get about the differences between Iraq and Korea is that there was an initial military threat and there was consensus in bodies like the UN... I wish George Bush would read his histroy books a little more closely.