Film/Video: WinterSoldier (1971, re-release 2005, 95 min)

I saw a fascinating and disturbing documentary, called
Winter Soldier (Winterfilm Collective including Barbara Koppel, Robert Fiore, Rhetta Barron, Michael Lesser, USA, 1971, 16mm to BetaSP, 95 min.) .

Chronicling the extraordinary Winter Soldier Investigation conducted by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Detroit during the winter of 1971, Winterfilm Collective (18 filmmakers) shot footage of more than 125 Vietnam veterans (including a very young John Kerry) that gave eyewitness testimony to war crimes and atrocities they either participated in or witnessed.

The testimony given was occuring about one month after the US Media started covering the charges against Lt. Calley and others for the My Lai massacre, and a critical question was "Is this a rare exception, or more widespread throughout our troops?".

Virtually unreported by the media, WINTER SOLDIER is the only record of this historic gathering, a turning point in American history. Shown at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals and lauded throughout Europe, it only opened briefly in Manhattan, and was broadcast for a single showing on New York's WNET Television.

Then it was not seen anywhere else in North America after 1972. It was too painful for the American public to see how a combination of bad army policy (centered on body counts) and fear were causing some of our field troops in Vietnam to become callous to the point of criminality. At the same time, since 85% of American troops were not out in the field, but doing support work at supply depots, communication hubs, helicopter repair sites, many of the troops did not know or experience what was going on.

Thirty-five years later, the veterans' courage in testifying and their desire to prevent further atrocities and regain their own humanity makes WINTER SOLDIER an unforgettable experience.

The recent abuses of prisoners of Abu Ghraib, and in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo have sometimes been reported as unprecedented. The voices of the veterans in Winter Soldier attest that they were not. The difficulties of Americans in distinguishing between Viet Cong undercover militants and simply distrustful Vietnamese villagers, and the disasterous consequences, is beginning to repeat in Iraq, where Improvised Explosive Devices have scarred enough of our troops that they also struggle to distinguish, in a second or two, undercover insurgents from simply distrustful Iraqi civilians, and sometimes make the wrong choice.

If you can see this film, which is playing sporadically around the US, please do. Otherwise, I believe a DVD version will become available in January.

National Public Radio did a story about the plans to re-release the film which includes some audio excerpts - View/Listen (reported by John Kalish, 7 min).

Vice President Cheney should resign

This is a letter to the Editor I wrote today.
When a private-sector executive, or a not-for-profit executive, or a university or hospital executive hires and retains a chief-of-staff who violates the law, the Board of Trustees usually expects the Executive to tender his/her resignation; because they are responsible for supervising the people who work for them.

Vice President Dick Cheney is the person that hired and supervised Scotter Libby. In my analogy, the people of America are the Board of Trustees. I expect Vice President Cheney to resign.

This is not a hair-splitting issue. The US Senate impeached President Clinton for his sexual improprietaries with an intern, a matter of no great historical consequence. If Vice President Cheney does not resign, then Senators Schumer and Clinton must begin the process of impeaching the Vice President. He clearly played an active role in deceiving the American people as to the true reasons the US chose to invade Iraq. Trying to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson's report was one of these actions.

This deception of the American people, to me, is close to treason. Over 2000 American service men and women and tens of thousands of Iraqis perished; and resources were diverted from the true effort against Jihadist Terrorism around the globe.

Its time for a new, honest, Vice President -- one who can be straight with the American people.

Sincerely,
Robert J Schloss

Winning the Oil Endgame (Rocky Mountain Institute)

The United States could eliminate the need to import oil and natural gas from unstable overseas suppliers AT A PROFIT, with about 20 years of change that would create jobs and strengthen our agriculture sector. The change would primarily be to the transportation sector. This book explains how, and a 4-page executive summary is available online.

Film: Good Night, And Good Luck (George Clooney & Grant Heslov, Warner Independent, 2005)

Good Night, And Good Luck is a brilliantly filmed, acted, and written story of 5 years in the life of CBS Television News Reporter Edward R. Morrow and his team. Based on actual events, and including some archival footage, this is one of the best films of 2005 and possibly of the last 5 years. Not to be missed!

Science of the Earth: Sea Ice Decline Accelerates

Scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Washington reported on September 28th that four the 4th year in a row, Arctic Ice mass declined, and in an accelerating trend. See their Web Press Release.

Documentary: Paperclips (2004)

Paperclips (directed by Joe Fab and Elliot Berlin, Johnson/Ergo/Miramax) is a sweet film about a middle school in Tennessee, in a poor town mostly full of white protestant families, which has an after-school club to learn about the Holocaust. Following 3 staff members, a handful of 8th graders, and some reporters who learn about their project to collect 6 million paperclips, one for each Jewish victim murdered by the Nazi's, the 4-year window into this project which was is in the film contains many twists and turns, and shows what happens when adults and youth begin to confront the uglier side of history. Highly recommended.

Gulf Coast Hurricane Relief - Donating Beyond the American Red Cross

Despite the billions of dollars that the US Federal Government will distribute for mitigation of the suffering and destruction caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, private moneys are needed throughout September and October. You can channel this through many organizations, especially the American Red Cross, or through these channels.

Mazon

In the Metro-NY area,
UJA-Federation Katrina Relief.

Cartoonists Imagine Republican Strategies for Disaster Assistance

Ted Rall's Bushist Disaster Relief is one of my favorites.

Jen Sorensen's Slowpoke cartoon "The Bush Administration Responds to Katrina" is also insightful. See Slowpoke Comics Cartoon Achives

Garrison Keillor on College Majors and Cultural Chatter, including Blogs

When I was in college, the smart people were going into engineering, which had solid long-term prospects, and only we dweezils majored in English, and look what happened: Engineers are being laid off, America is losing its capacity to manufacture things, but every day we out trillians of words about ourselves, bloggers blogging, floods of memoir, day-dreaming, carpet-chewing, and when the Chinese repo men eventually come to collect on our debt, they will find a nation of highly articulate self-aware people who can't change an oil filter but maintain wonderful websites. A nation of English majors.

(Garrison Keillor)

Reinhold Neiburh Quote: Saved by hope, faith, love, forgiveness

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,

Therefore, we are saved by hope.

Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;

Therefore, we are saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.

Therefore, we are saved by love.

No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;

Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

                  Reinhold Niebuhr

How Lousiana spent its FEMA grant to plan for evacuation of New Orelans

From John Tierney's NY Times column "From FEMA to WEMA" of September 20th:

In 1997, Congress gave FEMA $500,000 and ordered it to develop a comprehensive plan to evacuate New Orleans. The agency passed on the money to Louisiana, which used it instead to study building a new bridge. As Rita Beamish of The Associated Press reported on Sunday, FEMA didn't bother making sure a plan was drawn up - an aide to James Lee Witt (FEMA director under President Clinton) said its job had just been to pass on the money.

Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Doubled In the Last 35 Years

Scientists at Georgia Tech and the National Center for Atmospheric Research reported in the journal Science that, while Sea temperatures rose between 1970-2004, the number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Doubled In the Last 35 Years. Details are in a National Science Foundation Press Release.

Film: Innocent Voices by Luis Mandoki (2004, US Release 10/14/05, Europe Release Jan 06)

Innocent Voices realistically tells the true story of an eleven-year-old boy caught in the middle of the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s. The bravery of this child and the valiant struggle of his mother to prevent him from being recruited into the Salvadoran Army is a testament to the courage of parents and children who are victims of armed conflicts globally.

        Very highly recommended!

The Hobart Shakespeareans - A Documentary by Mel Stuart (P.O.V.)

PBS's program P.O.V. (Point of View) is currently showing the fabulous documentary
The Hobart Shakespeareans. It follows one year in the life of a Los Angeles 4th grade class, taught by Master Teacher, and Shakespeare enthusiast, Rafe Esquith. The film showcases how one teacher's uncommon commitment and resourcefulness have opened up worlds of opportunity for his "disadvantaged" students — and perhaps have demonstrated a way forward for America's beleaguered public education system. Very highly recommended.

Double Super-Secret Background by Mark Fiore

Double Super-Secret Background is a 3-minute animated political cartoon. Unfortunately, it's true.

Paul Krugman in NYTimes: A Can't Do Government

New York Times op-ed page columnist Paul Krugman writes A Can't Do Government which reinforces what everyone knows... State and Federal Governments did not use all the resources they had immediately before and immediately after Hurricane Katrina. Some people (mostly poor, mostly African-American) will die because of this. There must be a political price to be paid for this by the Republican party....

Experts: New Orleans disaster was predicted (Reuters)

I highly recommend the Reuters report of September 2nd.

"Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared".

See News.com for the story.

Film: Campfire / Medurat Hashet by Joseph Cedar (Israel, 2004)

At the center of the film 'Campfire' is the Gerlik family of Jerusalem in 1981: mother Rachel, an attractive 42-year old widow, drawn to Religious Zionism; and her two daughters, rebellious 18-year-old Esti and innocent but awakening 15-year-old Tami who participates in the Bnai Akiva religious youth movement. The acting by Michaela Eshet (Rachel), Maya Maron (Esti) and Hani Furstenberg (Tami) is superb, and supported by Moshe Igvy (playing Yossi) and an ensemble of excellent actors, these are real characters who are all trying to grow while recovering from the death of their husband/father.






Very highly recommended.

Katrina Hits New Orleans: Bush has some responsibility for loss of life, in two ways

We are all horrified to see the loss of life, and extensive property damage, in Louisiana, Mississipi and nearby states from Hurricaine Katrina.

What escapes me is why the media is not pointing out that Global Climate Change models have been predicting that the build up of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere was certain to cause more frequent and more severe storms, and that President Bush has opposed any mandatory actions by US industry to reduce emissions.

At the same time, unfortunately, some people who could have been rescued will perish, because the National Guard has too many of their folks in Iraq. This point is documented in Norman Solomon's article The National Guard Belongs in New Orleans and Biloxi. Not Baghdad..

It is good that the American Red Cross, UJA-Federation and many others will be trying to get critical assistance to those people whose homes have been ruined or damaged. But rigid and foolish thinking in Washington DC means that there are far more such citizens than there might have been.

Katrina won't be the last severe storm. Will Washington, and the American people, wake up in time to prepare for, and maybe avert, future disasters?

Medical Researcher who survived the Holocaust makes huge donation to Medical Research

A press release - Remicade Co-Inventor And NYU Professor Of Microbiology Jan Vilcek, M.D., Ph.D. Pledges $105 Million To NYU School Of Medicine - announcing one the single largest gifts ever to academic medical research, is also insight into how fortunate we all are that some European Jews survived the Nazi Holocaust and had the courage to leave stagnant Communist economies and come to the West.

According to a profile
in the New York Times by Richard Perez-Pena published on August 12th:

His Jewish family survived the long German occupation of Czechoslovakia and the Holocaust. Though they were forced from their comfortable apartment in Bratislava, and into a succession of smaller ones, they were, at first, passed over when many of Czechoslovakia's Jews were deported to concentration camps. When the campaign to round up and exterminate Jews intensified, they fled the city for the countryside.

"I spent the last year of the war with my mother in hiding, and my father somehow made his way through the front lines to the Russian Army," he said. "I was 11 at the time, and it still seemed like an exciting game of some sort. I was aware of the seriousness of the situation, but not completely."

The people who hid him were strangers in a village. "They were among those exceptional people who took great risks for others," he said. It was an experience, he added, that left a powerful impression about the value of helping people.

Years later, when Czechoslovakia was under Communist rule, his parents - his mother was an ophthalmologist and his father worked for a coal mining company - wanted him to become a doctor.

"I resisted it at first," he said. "I would have preferred another profession, but in a Communist country, the law was out of the question and economics was out of the question, because they were both too politicized."

After becoming a doctor and a research scientist, in 1964, when he was 31, Dr. Vilcek and his wife decided to escape.

"In those days you could not really leave, legally, so my wife and I received permission to visit Vienna for a weekend," he said. "We were able to get out that way, and we did not go back." In 1965, they settled in Manhattan, where they have lived ever since, and he went to work at N.Y.U.

Thank you, Dr. Vilcek!