ATTACKS?

From Eugene Duran:

Any idea where the attacks are coming from? Difficulty in tracing implies sound funding and technical know-how.

Frank Meagher in Paris says, ‘Words Mean Dignity:’

About your site being sabotaged…

They have taken notice of you and now they want to squat, disrupt, and annoy?
Sounds like you may be an agi-tater.
Drawing the attack of Virtual invaders.
The real weapon is in the word.
There’s a lot of us reading. We’re armed.

Keep dissecting Danny.
I think the worm has turned
“Fuck ‘em”
(that’s a quote from Joshua of Nazareth, of LAMB by Christopher Moore).

Via Veronica Raymond:

Government Cracks Down on Spyware Operation - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051005/ap_on_hi_te/ftc_spyware

‘PLEASE EXPLAIN’

Sarah Meyer in England writes to FOX News:

Subject: “glorifying terrorism”

On the October 3 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly called for the assassination of Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, if Assad does not help promote stability in the Middle East by maintaining Iraq’s borders. O’Reilly claimed that “we could take his life, and we should take his life if he doesn’t help us out.” O’Reilly was responding to Fox News contributor Gen. Wesley Clark’s suggestion that the United States use diplomacy to bolster regional support for the Iraq war among uncooperative neighbors.

In the United Kingdom, and I believe also in the U.S., people are being arrested for wearing T shirts with slogans objecting to the “War on Terrorism.”

Now. We have before us a pending law for “glorifying terrorism.” I am not sure why people who are innocently trying to express their feelings about this awful, illegal “war on terrorism” are more guilty than Mr. O’Reilly calling for an assassination.

Perhaps someone at Fox news would be kind enough to explain this to me?

For more on Mr. Bill:

http://www.blogrevolt.com/archives/2005/10/oreillys_sneak.htm
O’Reilly’s Sneak Attack on Bloggers!

HOLLYWOOD: IT’S OVER

My most recent fave “news” from the satirical ONION:

Citing Slow Summer Box Office, Hollywood Calls It Quits

BURBANK, CA– Universal Studios joined DreamWorks SKG, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Fox Monday, when CEO Ron Meyer announced that the company is shutting down operations and ceasing all film production…

http://click.theonion.com/c.html?s=6jy,fner,7kb,gldv,77rz,3i2z,9jqm

HOLLYWEIRD

Last night I went to a movie preview of a new comedy at a neighborhood theater. The movie company had six well-dressed goons there for “security,” searching everyone and wanding all of us. Security overkill, anyone?

EXPLORING AFGHANISTAN

MediaChannel and the South Asia Journalists Association are co-sponsoring a series of forums on Himalayan Hot Spots at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

This past week’s session, moderated by MediaChannel’s Rory O’Connor, focused on Afghanistan. Erica Rosenberg, a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, was there to cover it for school project. She shares her report with us:

From rotten sutures to untrained doctors, health care for women living in Afghanistan today is a nightmare, one described in vivid detail in a new documentary film previewed in Manhattan.

“It’s all a big band-aid,” said Sedika Mojadidi, an American from Afghanistan who returned to her country two years ago to film Dangerous Journey, her father’s experience as a gynecologist practicing in central Afghanistan. “There isn’t an infrastructure in place for women’s health. There isn’t an infrastructure for anything.”

Her film, which will be completed in April and aired on PBS in the fall of 2006, exposes the medical realities for women in a country with the highest maternal death rate in the world outside Africa. One in six women die from complications from pregnancy or childbirth, setting a pace of approximately one woman every 30 minutes, Mojadidi said.

Clips from Dangerous Journey were aired at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea for a diverse audience wanting to see an inside view of current Afghanistan. The event included a discussion with Mojadidi and Parvina Nadjibulla, an Afghanistan-American who is the United Nations representative of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.

“The situation of women has not improved,” Nadjibulla said. “You can’t build peace when there’s no minimum security on the ground.” The rate of women attempting suicide or self-mutilation by setting themselves on fire has risen since the Taliban era, Nadjibulla said.

“Women are trying to escape the reality of their lives so badly that they will endure the extreme pain of being burned,” Nadjibulla said.

The film showed graphic scenes of women either handicapped or near-death from maladies treatable with basic healthcare. One woman’s uterus nearly ruptured after an unsuccessful 24-hour attempt at delivery; another woman was crippled from a badly healed ear in her vagina during a past delivery. Doctors scrambled to find suitable medical equipment.

The hospital wasn’t at all what Mojadidi expected, she said. “There wasn’t regular power in the hospital,” Mojadidi said. “There weren’t functioning bathrooms, there was no operating room equipment, no life support and no basic sanitation.”

Such images are uncommon in the mainstream media that has lessened its coverage of Afghanistan in exchange for Iraq and Katrina coverage, despite last month’s election in Afghanistan, Nadjibulla said.

Members of the media who attended the event talked about the need to increase visibility, to alert the public about the importance of the problem Viewers were shocked and horrified by the film.

“It was difficult,” said Manizha Naderi, director for Women for Afghan Women, a human rights group based in Queens. “Whenever I see things like that I can’t stop crying.” Others were inspired to make changes. “It empowers me to go there,” said Nadia Hamid, 22, who works a the Rubin Museum of Art. “I have the will, I have the strength, and these Afghan women need help.”

Mojadidi has an insider’s perspective of Afghan women’s health issues, due to her Afghanistan-American background, in addition to her ability to film inside the hospital where her father worked. Her family left Afghanistan when she was young and was not able to return until the Taliban reign ended. She grew up in Florida and started making films of Afghanistan life in 1996, which no one paid much attention to until after Sept. 11, 2001. She started the film out of a desire to do something different that would bridge Afghanistan and American culture. Mojadidi said there is still very little U.S. presence in the hospital to help with the severe lack of health care.

Erica’s report is great, but it leaves out one fact. This hospital was named for Laura Bush after her high-profile photo-op there, and is used for propaganda purposes. Attempts by Mohadidi’s father to get the problems in the hospital fixed were frustrated. His letters and e-mails to the Department of Health and Human Services went unanswered.

That’s our report for today. Back tomorrow with more.

Your comments always welcome. Write: Dissector@mediachannel.org

MY SCHEDULE

I will be screening WMD at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, NY, on Sunday, October 9, at 1 PM. The next weekend, I will be in London for a screening at the Everyman Theater in Hampstead on Sunday, October 16, at 3 PM, and the next evening at 6:45 PM at the Ritzy in Brixton. The following weekend, I’m off to the Frankfurt Book Fair to take part on a human rights panel.

The News Dissector Blog is published every weekday. It is written by News Dissector Danny Schechter, edited by Jody Kolodzey, and offered as a public service of MediaChannel. If you find this report valuable, please pass it on to friends and urge them to sign up for it and the Media Savvy newsletter.

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