[Originally run May 2009.] Earlier today, Deeks and I were talking about how much the film version of Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's sucks, with its lightened Golighty, yellowfaced Rooney, and Wherefore the Mo, as our aspiring writer/gigolo/narrator is replaced by (per Deeks) "not just a hetero, but a super-hetero, one that is so manly and hetero that women actually pay him to sleep with them, that's how hetero he is. He's hetero!" Add tacked-on cheesy romantic ending and voila!—total crap.
What film adaptation whose source material you enjoy do you consider to be utterly unwatchable?
(By source material, I'm excluding screenplays and previous motion picture iterations, so we're not talking remakes or TV shows made into movies, but a novel, novella, short story, graphic novel, comic book, poem, song, etc.)
Question of the Day
War Criminals
[Trigger warning for murder; violent imagery.]
Earlier today, Der Spiegel published images [trigger warning for graphic violence] of US military personnel posing with Afghan civilians they killed, basically treating the bodies as though they were hunting trophies. These are the same soldiers about whom I wrote last year in "When You Have a War, There Will Be War Crimes." There was, at that time, virtually no national discussion or outrage about fact that twelve soldiers were facing serious charges, five of them murder charges, "in what military authorities believe was a conspiracy to murder Afghan civilians and cover it up, along with charges they used hashish, mutilated corpses and kept grisly souvenirs."
Now, according to the Guardian, "Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of 'trophy' photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed."
Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.As David Dayen points out, this incident differs from Abu Ghraib in that "the photos were part of evidence being used in those court-martial cases, and were kept by the judge under a protective order until the Der Spiegel publication. ... But that difference is fairly subtle given the depictions involved. This brutality adds to the long list of actions that can be used to inflame passions in the Muslim world. It makes any talk by the United States of a humanitarian mission to protect civilians ring extremely hollow. And it is a natural consequence of a long and confusing war, with untold pressures put on soldiers that often manifest in despicable ways."
They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.
Some of the activities of the self-styled "kill team" are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.
Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.
Other charges include the mutilation of corpses, the possession of images of human casualties and drug abuse.
Bush started this war, but Obama doubled down on it. He owns this war now as much as Bush does, and we need more than some trite murmured deflection about bad apples. This ain't about bad apples. This is about an unwinnable war being fought with outdated strategies by soldiers given impossible directives during extended tours in dreadful conditions with insufficient resources and no end in sight, many of whom are only in the military because of relaxed standards on former disqualifiers like white supremacy.
We can keep shrugging at that institutional mayhem and pretending like this shit doesn't happen in a void, or we can get our shit together and start holding ourselves accountable as a nation, on which the president needs to lead the way.
But probably won't.
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UPDATE: "We apologize for the distress these photos cause."—Colonel Thomas Collins in a statement on behalf of the United States Army. Missing the Fucking Point Award.
Sweet
I haven't barfed about some lingering fuckery care of the Bush administration in at least six seconds, so this news is RIGHT ON TIME!
Though The Kennedys had terrible luck finding a cable home, HBO is developing a new political mini-series that may be better received — and why wouldn't it, since it's about friendly, sympathetic former Vice-President Dick Cheney. The project — to be written by The West Wing's Rick Cleveland — will be based on Barton Gellman's book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency and the Frontline documentary The Dark Side, and will chart the "single-minded pursuit of enhanced power for the Presidency [that] was unprecedented in the nation's history," say producers. Start your fantasy casting!Obviously I hope Dick Cheney will agree to play himself, because I just can't picture anyone else shooting an old man in the face in the middle of a canned hunt that's essentially skeet shooting with the added benefit of actually murdering living things. It's like trying to remake Troll 2; sometimes you just can't improve on an original, you know?
But, failing Dick Cheney agreeing to star in this Dick Cheney masterpiece, I hope they cast Megatron.
lolsob
Digby: "If you liked how the health care negotiations went down...you're going to love the budget talks."
Remember when I was constantly accused of bad faith for suggesting that then-candidate Barack Obama wasn't a progressive...? LULZ GOOD TIMES.
Rights Fight, State
[Trigger warning for LGBT*Q phobia]
It would appear the fight over states' rights (as opposed to, say, human rights) cuts both ways.
Take the Montana Legislature (please).
Last year, elected officials in Missoula passed an inclusive anti-discrimination law. If you recall, Missoula residents engaged in a [TW] spirited discussion of the proposed ordinance.
Because of their distaste for personal and municipal autonomy (and yet...), Montana legislators have formulated a witty rejoinder: a state law banning the banning of discrimination. House Bill 516 would prohibit Montana cities (and towns!) from extending anti-discrimination ordinances to people whom the state legislature has not already graced with the honor of being anointed members of a protected class (for example, LGB and/or trans* people).
The Montana state Assembly has passed the bill, and it has already passed a Senate committee. It will come up on the Senate floor as soon as tomorrow.
I can't say it better than folks at the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (their letter to state Senators is [pdf] here.), so I'll merely offer a hardly handshake and "go to hell" to supporters of H. B. 516. My patience, it wears thin.
The GOP War on Uteri
[Trigger warning for hostility to agency and bodily autonomy.]
Here's some more bullshit: Nebraska and Ohio Latest States to Try to Pass Parental Consent Laws.
Also: Missouri House Backs Late-Term Abortion Restrictions.
And, as already mentioned in today's blogaround: Indiana Woman Who Attempted Suicide Charged with Feticide.
I am literally out of ways to say that this campaign against choice is just straight-up misogynist fuckery, so I'm just going to say again the thing that I will keep saying as long as the GOP continues its attack on people with uteri: This is nothing more than state-sponsored terrorism, in defense of an inherently violent ideology.
Related Reading: The Only Kind of Labor the Republicans Care About, by Echidne.
Assvertising, Part 134 in an Ongoing Series
Last night, I saw this Terminix commercial for termite control services and all I could do was laugh in abject horror:
Video Description: An ominous male narrator says in voiceover, over images of a monster destroying a basement, "If something hit one in thirty homes, causing up to $8,600 in damage, you'd expect it to look like this, not this." Video pans to images of unassuming termites. "Get to them before they get to you, with the Terminix Ultimate Protection Guarantee. Call or click today. Terminix."
The monstrous horror one would supposedly expect to be causing the damage caused by termites is a fleshy monster with a multi-tiered mouth that I can only describe as a Russian nesting doll of vagina dentatas.
(If you can't view the video, I've got a screen capture of it here.)
I'm sure Terminix's intent was to communicate to me that I should be terrified of termites, but the only message I got is that Terminix's advertising department appears to be run by an MRA who gets all his best ideas from his own nightmares.
Oh, CNN.
Actual CNN Headine: What in the World? Al Qaeda launches their version of Cosmo
This makes total sense, because magazine for ladies = Cosmo, amirite?
Also, can anyone spot the disconnect here:
But make no mistake, this magazine is still aimed at pointing women in the direction of supporting al Qaeda's terrorist agenda. The underlying theme of the publication is that women should be supporting the cause of the martyr and making it their main goal in life.
It now seems al Qaeda wants to make sure women look fashionable while doing it.
Lady terrorists: adorable!
Christ.
Question Austerity
Via Stellaa, this is a video of Mark Blyth, professor of International Political Economy at Brown University and faculty fellow at its Watson Institute for International Studies, explaining why austerity doesn't work as an economic policy, why it is not common sense, but nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that: "Austerity confuses virtue with vice."
[Transcript below.]
Transcript as made available by the Watson Institute: Austerity: It's big in Europe, and it's getting big here. Everybody and their prime minister has been talking about it. But what is it? Its' the "common sense" on how to pay for the massive increase in public debt caused by the financial crisis, mostly through the slashing of government services. First you take on debt, then you pay it off. Sounds simple right? Unfortunately, it's never that simple because Austerity confuses virtue with vice. Let me explain why.
Now that, supposedly, the worst of the crisis is over, there's debt everywhere – credit cards, mortgages, government debt. This is the part you know. But we need to remember how we got here. Two years ago the world's financial system exploded. The crisis blew a two trillion dollar hole in financial space-time. And collectively, the rich governments of the world spent, lent or guaranteed between five and fifty percent of their countries' annual product saving the banks. Given this, you might think that a period of Austerity is a good idea. But to see why it's not, you have to think about the world as a series of balance sheets – I know – stay with me. Whether you are a person, a household, a firm, or a state, you have assets and liabilities – a balance sheet.
Before the crisis in 2008, everyone took on a lot of debt. Back then it made sense for many of us to take on debt. For example, the bottom 40 percent of the US income distribution hasn't had a real wage increase since 1979. Really – that's true. Corporates, especially banks, did the same, but they did so to make money rather than to pay the bills. It's called leverage – which is pretty much debt seen from a different perspective. "Levering up" is a little like going "double or nothing" in blackjack. If you've taken on debt from a mortgage, you hope your house will increase in value. If you think there's a high chance the value will increase, you might go double or nothing and take on a bigger mortgage. But like black jack, there is always the risk of losing. So the banks created mountains of debt. They levered up — twenty, thirty times. It was like they had pushed in all their black jack chips, but each chip was just an IOU. So when it all went wrong governments felt they had to step in and bail them out because they had become 'too big to fail.'
This is where the balance sheet problem comes in and why the common sense of Austerity is not so simple. If you are levered-up – in debt – and your assets lose value - your house or your housing derivatives portfolio, if you're a bank - your balance sheet, as a whole, is now 'underwater.' When this happens, whether you are a corporate treasurer or a single mom, if you've got cash coming in you'll want to pay down the debt to bring your balance sheet 'above water' rather than spend money, which means no one is spending. And that's when the government comes in.
If the whole private sector is 'deleveraging'—paying back debt — then government automatically 'levers up' to compensate. Tax revenue falls so the deficit increases, unemployment benefits kick in, and public consumption takes the place of private consumption. Now make no mistake - the problem is debt – there is too much of it across the board – and we need to clean those public and those private balance sheets. But all these pieces are connected – if the public sector cleans its balance sheet at the same time as the private sector, then the whole economy craters.
It's called a fallacy of composition - what's good for any one household or firm or even state is a disaster if all try it at once. So why then have most of the governments of the world decided to do exactly this, and all at the same time?
Remember that two trillion dollar hole in space-time? The answer is that someone has to pay for it and no one, especially the banks, wants to. So governments either have to increase taxes – difficult – or slash services – easier – especially when the policy has the common sense ring of virtue about it - 'Austerity' – the pain after the party.
But here's the kicker – "the hangover" of Austerity is not going to be felt same across the income distribution. Earlier this year, the forum for the governments of the world's most economically developed states, the Group of 20, called for "growth friendly fiscal consolidation" – which, like a unicorn with bag of magic salt, is a nice idea but is pretty much bullshit, precisely because this 'consolidation' doesn't hit everyone in the same way.
Remember those folks in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution that didn't really benefit from the financial boom – all they got was debt and the illusion of prosperity? They're the ones that actually use government services, those services that about to be so 'virtuously' consolidated. Those at the top end of the income distribution, those who made the mess in the first place, don't.
So where does this "common sense virtue" of Austerity leave us? It leaves us in a cycle where those at the bottom end of the income distribution pay for those at the top with the same stagnant and skewed incomes that now buy less, in a more unequal and unstable economy. There's a term for this – class politics – and it usually ends badly. This 'common sense' of Austerity - of reducing public debt all at once through slashing services—involves a question of equity — of who pays and who doesn't. Those who made this mess won't, while those who already paid for it through the bailout will pay again through Austerity. This is why Austerity is not common sense, it's a nonsense – and a dangerous one at that.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the upcoming memoir My Overton Hangover, by Deeky W. Gashlycrumb.
Recommended Reading:
Monica: [TW for transphobia] Post Op Transpeople Denied Entry Into Egypt
Resistance: [TW for racism] 15 Minutes Almost Up
Loryn: Race and Happiness: Black Women Need Each Other to Thrive
Robin: [TW for misogyny; self-harm] Woman Who Tried to Commit Suicide Now Charged With Feticide
Fannie: [TW for misogyny] On Men Opting Out Of Competition
Andy: [TW for homophobia] Petitioners Demanding Apple Remove 'Ex-Gay' App Near 100,000 as Scientist Cited in App Cries 'Foul'
Deeky: Nothin' But Dengars
Leave your links in comments...
Quote of the Day
"Truly, in the best sense of the word, what we're doing is progressive. ... We're doing something that's truly progressive and innovative."—Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R-Eally?!), explaining that his union-busting is actually totes progressive. Sure.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Did Maclean’s Fire All of Its Editors?
[Trigger warning for misogyny; "joking" about the perils of female sex work.]
If only a lack of editors, as opposed to a lack of decency, was the actual explanation for the incredible publication of a "humorous" piece by Scott Feschuk titled "Escort v. Hooker: How do they compare?" which was nothing but a side-by-side list "humorously" framing escorts as glamorous and hookers as garbage. (Example: An escort has a "Heart of gold," while a hooker has "Cirrhosis of liver.")
It was also one of the most-read pieces on the site, according to Maclean's front page, before the article was taken down a few moments ago:
Now the link just leads to a page saying "Page Not Found; Try These," with links to other articles, but no explanation or apology for what was once there.
You can view my screencap of the piece here. My favorite part is the advertising for their subscription at the end: "Get our thought-provoking opinions delivered." LOL sure.
I hope that Maclean's will do more than simply redact the piece and pretend like it never existed. Some accountability would be welcome.
Contact Maclean's.[H/T to Eastsidekate, who got it from @emmamwoolley.]
Pawlenty 4 Prez
Former Minnesota Governor and Professional Misogynist, Racist, Homophobe, and Transphobe, i.e. Republican, Tim Pawlenty is reportedly going to announce the formation of an exploratory committee blah blah presidency blah blah 2012 blah blah later today. He's a relatively young and reasonably decent-looking straight white Christian man with a "red-hot smoking wife," who hates everyone who isn't exactly like him and has a pair of bootstraps tattooed on his ass or whatever, and he's got a big "it's his turn" momentum behind him, which is an important element of GOP king-making, so he's got a pretty good chance of securing the Republican nomination.
He joins Newt Gingrich, Professor of Hypocrisy at Moral Values University, as the second Republican to throw his hat in the ring.
FUN FACT! Former Minnesota Lt. Governor and Traffic Commissioner Carol Molnau was long regarded as Pawlenty's heir apparent until the horrible bridge collapse that happened on their watch. (Pawlenty, like all good Republicans, is very loyal: He continued to support Molnau and say she was "doing a good job" even after she admitted she hadn't been reading bridge reports: "Do I look at the bridge inspection reports? No. I really believe we have professionals trained to do that.") After Molnau's disgrace, Pawlenty's former staff supported virulently anti-gay Tom Emmer in the last election, a donation to whose candidacy created a shitstorm for Target.
[Recommended reading on Pawlenty: My Neighbor Is Kinda a Bigot; Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Tim Pawlenty, But Were Too Bored to Ask.]
Open Thread & News Round-Up: Libya
Here's some of what I've been reading this morning. Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave additional links in comments. Also: As we discuss our newest warventure, let's bear in mind that it's possible to support humanitarian intervention, while simultaneously being critical of the way this went down, and/or while simultaneously being cynical about whether this is ultimately a humanitarian intervention, etc. To avoid flamewars, let's be careful not to build strawmen against each other to simplify complex arguments. Thanks in advance for careful and respectful commenting.
Guardian—Gaddafi may become target of air strikes, Liam Fox admits: "America, France and Britain—the leaders of the coalition's air attacks on Libya—were struggling to maintain international support for their actions, as they faced stinging criticism about mission creep from the leader of the Arab League, as well as from China and Russia. Critics claimed that the coalition of the willing may have been acting disproportionately and had come perilously close to making Gaddafi's departure an explicit goal of UN policy."
CNN—Coalition targets Gadhafi compound: "Airstrikes Sunday in the heart of Moammar Gadhafi's Tripoli compound had a military objective but also no doubt brought a message of allied resolve to the Libyan leader's doorstep. A coalition military official confirmed to CNN that the compound was targeted because it contains capabilities to exercise command and control over Libyan forces. The coalition's goal is to degrade Gadhafi's military capabilities."
New York Times—Allies Target Qaddafi’s Ground Forces as Libyan Rebels Regroup: "American and European militaries intensified their barrage of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces by air and sea on Sunday, as the mission moved beyond taking away his ability to use Libyan airspace, to obliterating his hold on the ground as well, allied officials said. Rebel forces, battered and routed by loyalist fighters just the day before, began to regroup in the east as allied warplanes destroyed dozens of government armored vehicles near the rebel capital, Benghazi, leaving a field of burned wreckage along the coastal road to the city. By nightfall, the rebels had pressed almost 40 miles back west toward the strategic crossroads city of Ajdabiya, witnesses and rebel forces said. And they seemed to consolidate control of Benghazi despite heavy fighting there against loyalist forces on Saturday."
Washington Post—Arab League condemns broad Western bombing campaign in Libya: "The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, deplored the broad scope of the U.S.-European bombing campaign in Libya and said Sunday that he would call a league meeting to reconsider Arab approval of the Western military intervention. Moussa said the Arab League’s approval of a no-fly zone on March 12 was based on a desire to prevent Moammar Gaddafi’s air force from attacking civilians and was not designed to endorse the intense bombing and missile attacks — including on Tripoli, the capital, and on Libyan ground forces — whose images have filled Arab television screens for two days."
Josh Marshall at TPM—Just a Bad, Bad Idea: "A week ago a relatively limited intervention probably could have sealed the rebels' victory, preventing a reeling Qaddafi from fully mobilizing his heavy armaments. But where do we expect to get from this now? It's not clear to me how the best case scenario can be anything more than our maintaining a safe haven in Benghazi for the people who were about to be crushed because they'd participated in a failed rebellion. So Qaddafi reclaims his rule over all of Libya except this one city which has no government or apparent hope of anything better than permanent limbo. Where do we go with that?"
James Fallows at The Atlantic—On Libya: 'What Happens Then?':
The most predictable failure in modern American military policy has been the reluctance to ask, And what happens then? We invade Iraq to push Saddam Hussein from power. Good. What happens then? Obama increases our commitment in Afghanistan and says that "success" depends on the formation of a legitimate, honest Afghan government on a certain timetable. The deadline passes. What happens then?Justin Elliot at Salon—The "coalition" has no clothes:
...Launching air strikes is the easiest, most exciting, and most dependably successful stage of a modern war, from the US / Western perspective. TV coverage is wall-to-wall and awestruck. The tech advantages are all on our side. Few Americans, or none at all, are hurt. It takes a while to see who is hurt on the ground.
But after this spectacular first stage of air war, what happens then? If the airstrikes persuade Qaddafi and his forces just to quit, great! But what if they don't? What happens when a bomb lands in the "wrong" place? As one inevitably will. When Arab League supporters of the effort see emerging "flaws" and "abuses" in its execution? As they will. When the fighting goes on and the casualties mount up and a commitment meant to be "days, not weeks" cannot "decently" be abandoned, after mere days, with so many lives newly at stake? When the French, the Brits, and other allies reach the end of their military resources -- or their domestic support -- and more of the work naturally shifts to the country with more weapons than the rest of the world combined?
An emphatic part of the White House messaging about the bombing in Libya is that the operation is truly international in character.Oh dear.
But it's quickly becoming clear that the bombing campaign -- at least so far -- is almost entirely an American operation, albeit one that has been packaged to give it an international look. It's a dissonance that brings back memories of George W. Bush's much-mocked "coalition of the willing."
...NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski today knocked down the talk that what is going on militarily is a "huge coalition effort." Here's what he said in a remarkable segment this morning:
"Despite the White House attempts to make this look like it's a huge coalition effort -- obviously it required coalition political support -- but for now the U.S. military is not only in the lead but conducting almost all military operations, with only minor participation from the French, as you mentioned, even British fighters over night. There's a U.S. commander. And even this morning I talked to senior military officials, when I asked them how soon will the U.S. turn over the command to the coalition -- and the indication is the U.S. military is in no hurry to do that."
Open Thread: Operation Odyssey Dawn
I'm watching the Pentagon presser on the "coalition" attack on Libyan targets, and I am, quite frankly, stunned at how this all went down. President Obama seemed totally detached for so long while other people (ahem) threw rocks at his windows, and then, without any meaningful national debate, we're leading a military coalition and bombing Libya.
I agree with the person who once said: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
Too bad Barack Obama doesn't agree with himself anymore.
