29
Apr
Letters and Sightings
Paul Kneevers writes to his local newspaper:
“Subject: area income growth numbers show true story is not reported
Wisconsin area income growth increase is $5,112,652 or 3.1%
Milwaukee area income growth increase is 545,670 or 1.9%
Waukesha area income growth increase is $427,961 or2.8%“This clearly ranks the Milwaukee county income growth at a much worse ranking than your article states.
“The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinels’ use of Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, rather than Milwaukee county alone as a statistical basis for its’ article is deliberately meant to hide the real story here, that Milwaukee residents are losing purchasing power at a rate of 6-8% a year as their cost of living has gone up a whole lot more than 1.9% The Journals’ use of deliberately tainted statistics shows its’ continued desire to minimize the current catastrophic situation our economy is truly in.
“This is sad because in order to fix a problem it must be correctly identified. Failure to provide relevant reporting of data that shows honestly the affect these numbers have on Milwaukee area residents is basically LYING to Milwaukee county readers about the status of heir economy, as if the inclusion of Waukesha, with it’s much wealthier residents somehow helps to identify Milwaukee’s economic problems.
“I find this atypical of Journal/Sentinel reporting, as the Journal slants economic numbers to paint a rosier economic picture than actually exists in real life. The wealth of Waukesha county residents does not in practice help Milwaukee county statistical analysis in any way. In fact use of these numbers in this way is subterfuge and is TOTALLY UNETHICAL for a journalist
“I am disgusted.”
ECONOMY IN TROUBLE
Bob Walters, PhD, writes from Scottsdale, Arizona:
“Dave Hallock’s letter re: the U.S. “bully” is right on! Although I’m not a fan of the “arcane ’science’” of economics, assuming as it does (among a number of logical fallacies), that people act rationally in making market choices, I’ve paid a bit more attention recently to the U.S. economic situation…declining dollar, budget & trade deficits and all that. Seems to me that wreaking economic havoc and ruin on the majority population of our nation is an implicit policy of the thugs now in control of our government, as a way of consolidating their power and crushing dissent, especially from those most harmed by their aims at world domination and control. How better enslave people than to deprive them of a decent living??
“Anyway, the point of Hallock’s observation is that new (and sometimes strange) alliances are forming around the world to counter the belligerent hegemon, and well may reach the point of telling the U.S. “No more!” Europe, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia/OPEC could put an immediate stop to BushCo imperial ambitions and naked aggression: all they have to do is 1) stop financing (buying) U.S. debt; and 2) stop using dollars as their reserve currencies. Within 3 months, we’d see onset of the worst economic crisis of this nation’s history; within 6 months, BushCo would be thrown out of office and many of their principals would be on their way to prison. Of course, we’d all be in a “world of hurt”, but that may be the only decent, non-armed revolutionary way to rein in this vast criminal fascist enterprise!
“Keep up your great work! Thanks for all that you do!”
CHINA/JAPAN CONFLICT
Anne Winn writes:
“I found the two letters regarding the recent demonstrations in China against the Japanese revisionist history book interesting. The perspectives were revealing. However, I would like to offer yet another suggestion concerning the meaning of these events. It was noted that the Chinese monitor closely communication on the internet. They can also subtly control that communication as well. I doubt seriously that since Tiananmen Square demonstrations actually even start let continue that do not serve some purpose for the government. It is quite easy to play upon old animosities toward the Japanese dating back not just to WWII but centuries. However, one should look a little more closely at the contested area of offshore oil and gas exploration going on right now in the waters that separate these two modern nations, both aggressively seeking new energy resources wherever they can be found and exploited. Now think again about the oh so subtle Chinese.”
GET HIM OFF THE TUBE
I.W.M. Rieger, Isabella Rieger and Tony Rieger write from Portland, Maine:
“I might regret exposing my fleshy underside to you and your readers but thought you might be amused with my family’s feelings tonight at 8 p.m.
“To: president@whitehouse.gov
“Subject: prime time“Mr. President,
“Please get off prime time TV. We didn’t appreciate your Social Security pitch a year ago, and we certainly won’t now that you’ve interrupted one of the only TV shows that we watch every week. If you need better ratings, why don’t you air it on FOX only?
“Most irritated with you & your entire administration.”
Well, that’s one way of putting it. Here’s another: A first rap from my main man Polar’s (a/k/a Polarity l) most def young elementary-school musician son Nile Levine:
“It’s me, Nile the Administrator, I’m a traitor
And I beat up Ralph Nader
Big news Bush, see ya later
Time for ya to go home and moan
Ha ha, ya gotta pay that stupid bank loan
You’re in the sucky zone
And you’re all alone
Oh yeah, Cheney
Trip, skip, hic
You really are a dick
Look at all that stupidness
Yup, well I’ve gotta
tend to some bus-i-ness”
MAY DAY PEACE RALLY AND MARCH IN NEW YORK
What: March by the United Nations — 11:00 AM (assemble); Noon (march begins)
Details: In the lead contingent will be an international group of mayors including the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a delegation of 60 survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings, prominent figures of the anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements, military veterans and family members, youth and students, elected officials, and people of faith.
Assembly and route: Demonstrators assemble on First Ave. north of 50th St. beginning at 11 AM. The march will kick off at noon from 50th St. and Firs Ave., move south on First Ave., turn west onto 47th St. (at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza), then south on Second Ave. to 42nd St., west on 42nd St. to Sixth Ave., north on Sixth Ave. to 59th St. (Central Park South), then west and enter Central Park at 59th St. and 7th Ave for a rally. A detailed map of march route is available at:
http://unitedforpeace.org/img/original/May1-Large1.jpg.
What: Rally in Central Park 2:00pm-6:00pm
Where: Heckscher Ballfields (north of Columbus Circle, enter at Central Park West & 64th St.)
Rally Speakers include:
Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima and Mayor Itoh of Nagasaki
Survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Japan
Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense Department official and anti-nuclear activist
EVENTS
Yesterday, I dropped into a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival. Great discussion.
Highlights:
Filmmaker Fenton Baily, whose investigation of the movie “Deep Throat” is playing at the festival, coined the term “glow job” to talk about the need for ego fulfillment that many filmmakers have. He also told me of his problems in getting stronger content on the air. He has made a film about Abu Ghraib prison but no one will run it in the U.S., he says. Many in the audience resonated with my comments from the floor on censorship on TV.
Billy Campbell, the head of Discovery Networks, announced a new commitment to documentaries. He also revealed what I didn’t know — that Discovery had changed its motto from “Explore Your World” to “Entertain Your Brain.”
Last night, I heard political philosopher Ben Barber give an eloquent call for support for the arts in our market-driven world. This was at a fundraiser for Casey Mead’s multi-media, multi-arts organization, Projectile Arts, at a hot new restaurant/bar called Moon in Williamsburg. Schmoozed with the great John Barlow and ran into Jeremiah Hosea Landess, a most talented artist who gave me his CD by Earthdriver called “no one’s slave.”
Will listen this weekend as we remember Vietnam, march by the UN, and get ready for another week, which will end with a trip to Minneapolis to show “WMD.”
Whew. I am outta here.
Comments: dissector@mediachannel.org
Tuesday 26Apr05 WSJ media critic Paul Friedman wrote about CBS’ inadequacies, with suggestions as to how to improve network news stories and news hours (minutes, seconds, mostly). Would have written you immediately but on this day and Wednesday 27 I was working with WAPT-ABC photographer on promos for the special they said they were scheduling about my movie, Safer in Baghdad, now running 2ce weekly on Channel 18. I assumed that a special meant an hour, that it would include clips from the movie, and that a reporter would come and do the interview.
Wed 27 the two brought a just-home 23 year old army vet who was in Baghdad Narch-April 03 and longer than I. Handsome 23-year-old manager of a blackhawk helicopter’s numerous crew captivated me as we compared notes as to the void in our lives when we left Baghdad.
Then he reminded me that he could have been that gunner in the Apache chopper I faced in the desert l9 March except that he was the manager of a Blackhawk crew and you don’t take time to know who you shoot. He identified completely with the gunner, not with me. That was a bit scary for me, sitting in a rocker next to him.
“Its either them or you, sorry, but that’s the way it is, he said,” and when I asked him how he summoned up enough hate to shoot civilians and anyone he didn’t know, he parroted the “mass graves and “murdered his own family” quotes which have been worn out by millions of repetitions by those who have only learned those two worn out clauses.
The very clever reporter skirted the living room I had cleaned up for the interview and preferred the “media room,” stacked up with back packs, old Sony Hi-8s, Bolexes, and shelves of twelve years of Mississippi Artist Visits 3/4 analog video cassettes, khaki clothing, and 48 inch TV, my one luxury. He played the very pointed scene in Safer in Baghdad where French, Brit, Belgian and Australian peaceworkers verbally attacked a beautiful young ebony captain from California enthroned with latest Rolex and Nikon upon his tank. The reporter wanted to know whether he was confronted in this way himself, and he related some similar scenarios. When the news-man played the hospital scene with farm families at Hillah near Babylon he gave the stock replies.
The two were enroute to another shoot. He got time to rebut me, but there was no time for me to rebut; however when it was over he didn’t have a kick comin Did this mean ole witch enlighten this pretty young un?” I will never know. I tried to be kind….as the reporter ended the session, he summoned up all his screen skills and asked whether we could be friends and especially if I could forgive and forget and welcome these young men coming home. I was ready for it, and I replied: Sure, I’m so glad to see them coming home because they can no longer stir up trouble in Iraq!”
The special, I was told, is to run four minutes. My only hope, after performing for the camera for a documentary about my movie and standing by for over 2 weeks reminded me: those also serve who only stand and wait. The photographer’s best shot of me: a mother thrush flew into my camera lens and then thumped me on the head in the bamboo brake as he was leaving and getting a last shot for a second documentary to air the day after the debate I just told about. Another cameraman had found the nest, the week before and I rarely peeped at a nestful of charcoal/brown blobs of fur. Next day very sad. No news crew at all there when I was confronted by two mourning parents, the two identical thrushes now hopping about and quizzing me with their sharp chirps. During the night something had happened to their babies. The father had faithfully guarded the nest all along while his wife went on hunting scours. The tiny blobs of charcoal/gray fur looked like a level bowl of continuous fuzz. I thought I had counted a dozen, but really didn’t dare to stop long enough to upset the mother. There were probably less. I had got to be friends with the ebony dark mix photographer and asked him to relay the clip from the Wall Street Journal which recommended that each news session should include at least one in-depth l0 minute interview. I hope it reaches the news director and programmer. I am applying to Woods Hole, Globians in Potsdam, New Orleans, and Hot Springs Film Festivals. I have not been able to send pdf files and so send snail mail my own designed posters, bios, etc. by Somtimes overnighted, that is getting to be costly. After all, four minutes on the nightly news is like an hour compared to the seconds some stories get. The reporter began to interview by announcing: there is a huge split among people of the US now over the war in Iraq. Now, let’s… He was very forthcoming with everything and also said to me that he really liked my movie and agreed heartily with everything. At the end he took the young man aside to talk to him. I would’ve liked some minutes with him too. He said he watched all 60 minutes of it. I surely do grab the news on Viet-Nam. While I was working on the Longview TX News/Journal 1960 I met a family man just back from special force duty in Korea. He was on day leave from the Veterans Hospital in Gulfport daily, being treated for a mental problem connected with his desire to crush his baby daughter’s head with his two hands. He said that he was trained to swim under bridges in Korea and cut throats, and crush skulls, very efficiently and as taught. I I would have never known he had this disability had he not spoke at length of it. Jogging my memory of this I suppose was the young vet I debated with Wed.
Sweet and pink cheeked, polite, deferring to a lady, apologetic and airing the demeanor of West Point MAN, he is a real estate salesman and I was struck by his friendliness. He reminded me that he had also looked down on women wearing scarves just as Idescribed my encounter in the desert with an Apache gunner not 20 feet over my head.
I replied that I was not wearing a muslim scarf, but a Moroccan scarf, made in Paris of light gray silk. He reminded me that he could shoot, whenever he was told, anybody, anywhere. Then I realized that he could kill with no emotions except those stirred up in him by the helicopter commander.
April 30th, 2005 at 3:51 pm