"Militainment, Inc." Goes Live

I just got word from Sut Jhally that the Media Education Foundation will be distributing "Militainment, Inc." beginning in the spring of '07. I'm quite pleased as I think MEF is the perfect venue for such a film.

Sadly, I'm going to be taking the free version offline soon. I'm confident that by the time MEF gets through mastering the video, though, it will be much more pleasing to the eye. So those of you looking to get a copy on your library shelves, look this spring.

Woohoo! In celebration, I'm offering this printable Topps trading card featuring Condi Rice. Collect them all!

650,000

Recently, a Johns Hopkins U. team did another cluster sample in Iraq that determined that 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the 2003 invasion. In 2004, they determined this number to be 100,000. Of course, the administration sees these numbers as "inflated" and "absurd." Pajamas Media actually sat down with Professor Gilbert Burnham, the principle investigator on the studies. Burnham answered the most common objections to his study.

Colorless Green Ideas

In 1957, linguist Noam Chomsky invented a famous sentence that he claimed was grammatically incorrect but nonsensical: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." In 1985 Stanford University hosted a competition to make the sentence sensible via fewer than 100 words and 14 lines of verse. Here are some heroic entries, quite beautiful, furious, verdant, and somnolent.

It can only be the thought of verdure to come,
which prompts us in the autumn
to buy these dormant white lumps of vegetable
matter covered by a brown
papery skin, and lovingly to plant
them and care for them. It is a marvel
to me that under this cover they are
labouring unseen at such a rate
within to give us the sudden awesome beauty
of spring flowering bulbs.
While winter reigns the earth reposes but these
colourless green ideas
sleep furiously.
C. M. Street

Behold the pent-up power of the winter tree;
Leafless it stands, in lifeless slumber.
Yet its very resting is revival and renewal:
Inside the dark gnarled world of trunk and roots,
Cradled in the chemistry of cell and sap,
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
In deep and dedicated doormancy,
Concentrating, conserving, constructing:
Knowing, by some ancient quantum law
Of chlorophyll and sun
That come the sudden surge of spring,
Dreams become reality, and ideas action.
Bryan O. Wright

Let us think on them, the Twelve Makers
Of myths, trailblazing quakers
Scourging earthshakers
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
Before their chrysalides open curiously
Anarchy burgeons spuriously
Order raises new seedlings in the world
By word and gun upheld
The scarlet banner is unfurled
The New Country appears
Man loosens his fears
The New Dawn nears
Recollect our first fathers
The good society in momentum gathers.
("recently discovered sonnet by Alexander Blok")
translated by Edward Black


The Winner:

Thus Adam's Eden-plot in far-off time:
Colour-rampant flowers, trees a myriad green;
Helped by God-bless'd wind and temp'rate clime.
The path to primate knowledge unforseen,
He sleeps in peace at eve with Eve.
One apple later, he looks curiously
At the gardens of dichromates, in whom
colourless green ideas sleep furiously
then rage for birth each morning, until doom
Brings rainbows they at last perceive.
D. A. H. Byatt

Sanctuary

A friend directed me to this project. It's an online flash film based on the book Without Sanctuary, a collection of lynching postcards from the reconstruction era and beyond. The book arrived in 2000 amid much publicity. The website was posted early this year, as far as I can tell. It has obvious teaching value.

The "forum" section of the website is most interesting. The first thing to strike me was that it had been spammed with phentermine and porn ads. This was striking given that I had just watched the slideshow with James Allen's narration. "In America," he says referring to the grisly memorabilia of the lynchings, "everything is for sale." The whole machinic aspect of the scene really got to me. A continuation of the sale by other means. The weekend lynchings - the 'barbecue,' as one participant scrawled on the back of a card - and the pack mentality of the lynching culture, the automaticity of it all...seemed as ruthlessly banal and mechanical as the roving spambot that seized on the site. Allen's remarks during the slideshow - that these are pictures of the "steel trigger" in every heart - captured this sense for me. I'm sorry that the site's creators must continue with that undignified task of shoveling the spam.

The comments from real "people" were interesting too. They range from the racist to the reflective. Though condemnation is the easy route, it is much more difficult to ask how we are pulling that trigger today. After all, it only takes a couple of people to do the dirty work. The rest are spectators. Even today, we are comfortable spectators. As Susan Sontag wrote, no matter what the subject, the camera aestheticizes, distances, gives sanctuary. I was inspired by those who, in their comments, broke through the lens of this bias, those who could look beyond the past and see the everpresent.

9/11 Questions

I tend to think that 9/11 conspiracy theories have gotten a little out of control, though it is still a mystery why WTC building #7 went down when it wasn't struck by anything. In any case, there's a new film you can watch online that thankfully steers clear of much of that juvenile stuff and asks some very interesting questions about the investigation of 9/11. Of particular interest are the failure to capture Bin Laden or any of his cronies as well as the much documented Pakistani connection to funding and ordering of the attacks. If any country ought to be considered suspect in 9/11, it is Pakistan - not Afghanistan or Iraq - a number of luminaries including Sy Hersh assert. Instead, Pakistan is a close ally in the 'WoT.' In the film, the story is mainly told through the eyes of the survivors of those lost in the attack. It's quite good.

A little exposure

"Militainment, Inc." featured on MediaChannel. Thanks for the big uptick, Mr. Danny Schechter.

West Wingers

I don't much go for George Bush impressions because it's just too easy. But a comedy troop at Shoutboy.com has got a series of sketches called West Wingers, which is just spot on. They are apparently associated with the Upright Citizens Brigade, which had a very funny sketch show on Comedy Central a couple years back. Anyway, watch this sketch on YouTube first. The impression of the prez really gets at the nuances, the gutteral speech, the misplacedness of GWB. And the writing is smart, too - especially the bit about "the enemy who kills theirself." I won't give away the final punchline, but it's worth seeing the whole thing through to the end.