In the shadow of Pfc. Lynch

Pfc. Jessica Lynch has had a tough year, but why does she deserve to be fawned over by major news organizations and hailed a hero for simply surviving? Three people involved with the same events in Iraq arguably have had a much rougher 2003:

Sok Khak Ung, a Lance Cpl. who participated in a diversion while Special Forces rescued Pfc. Lynch, was gunned down at a family party on October 19. The shooter apparently took the 22 year-old combat engineer from San Francisco for a rival gang member while he was freestyle rapping with friends at a barbecue celebrating his return from Iraq. Ung had less than two weeks left of his four-year millitary service commitment.

Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson, a member of Pfc. Lynch’s 507th Maintenance Company and fellow P.O.W., was shot in both ankles by Iraqi captors and wasn’t rescued until 11 days after Lynch. The Army offered the 30-year-old Johnson, who is black and has a 3-year-old daughter, a 30% disability benefit after discharge, but gave Lynch, who suffered a broken leg but no gunshot wounds, 80% of her pay after discharge. Johnson and Lynch became good friends during their captivity, and Lynch publicly supported Johnson’s right to be equally compensated. The Johnsons have enlisted Jesse L. Jackson to help Shoshana get the equal disbursement she deserves.

Mohammed al-Rehaief, the Iraqi who led U.S. Marines to rescue Pfc. Jessica Lynch, came to her hometown for a visit, but Lynch was too busy to see him. Al-Rahaief was given asylum in the U.S. to avoid harm from Iraqis upset he gave aid to the American soldier. He and Lynch are marketing competing books about the experience, but her family’s lawyer denied that as a reason she did not meet with him.

New 2nd Column

I added a second column to Dragonize today. This will be a permanent new feature, adding a space for media reviews separate from the blog column. It is tentatively called “Complete Subjectivity,” which has long been a sort of mantra for this site.

The O’Reilly Fiasco

Terry Gross has been accused by some NPR listeners and its own ombudsman of unfairly going after Bill O’Reilly in her interview with the Fox News Channel host that aired October 9, 2003. I sent this letter to NPR’s ombudsman today:

Terry Gross knows her audience, and she knows what we want to know about her guests. Fresh Air was the perfect forum for calling Bill O’Reilly out on his own biases and bullying tactics. Gross is not a pure journalist, but an interviewer of *personalities* (which is what Bill O’Reilly is). She asks questions that seek out how they became personalities and what endears them to the public. The reasons for O’Reilly’s (a conservative propagandist) popularity are different from those for Al Franken’s popularity (a liberal satirist) and it was appropriate for her to approach each interview differently. (I know that O’Reilly would object to my parenthetical labels, but I think they stand up when scrutinized with a dictionary.) O’Reilly broadcasted to millions of people that he knew what he was getting into by facing off with Gross, and that alone should disqualify his huffy attitude as poor sportsmanship. It proved he couldn’t take even a miniscule dose of his own medicine, and if Gross hadn’t brought that kind of game, there would have been little for them to talk about. At that point Gross deftly veered away from subjects likely to enrage O’Reilly, and actually gave him a great deal of airtime to discuss his book, personal history and ideological origins. During that portion of the show she was the perfect image of the neutral and curious journalist. His macho loudmouth personality naturally sprang forth without her prompting. She returned to the interview abruptly to his disputed political party affiliation, at which point he resorted to ad hominem as he often dooes when up against more articulate opponents. When I listen to Fresh Air I don’t expect pure journalism, nor do I expect pure entertainment. Terry Gross asks all her guests interesting questions that are not always comfortable, but always right on the money.

Thanks,
-Jeff Stein

Electronic Voting

Electronic voting got a little ink as a fly in the California gubernatorial recall’s ointment. According to the Mercury News, 1.42 million Californians voted electronically. Opponents of the recall demanded that the vote shouldn’t take place until all 15.3 million registered voters could vote that way, to avoid the possible recurrence of what happened in Florida in 2000. But electronic voting has its own flaws. Security researchers at Johns Hopkins and Rice Universities revealed problems with Diebold Inc.’s electronic voting system. Internal memos documenting the flaws were made public by the Independent Media Center and online privacy advocates Online Policy Group. Diebold threatened them (through their ISPs) with legal action, hiding behind a thinly stretched DMCA. EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer has these words on the issue:

“What topic could be more important to our democracy than discussions about the mechanics and legitimacy of electronic voting systems now being introduced nationwide? EFF won’t stand by as corporations like Diebold chill important online debate by churning out legal notices to ISPs that usually just take down legitimate content rather than face the legal risk.”

Racial Gray Area

Wayne Joseph (linked article has an upcoming movie spoiler) grew up black, married a black woman and has black kids, but was shocked when a DNA test failed to find any African blood in his own veins. His ancestors’ light-brown skin and association with blacks led the Jim Crow South to lump them in with people of African descent. Now that he knows the truth, should he embrace his genetic heritage and shun the cultural identity he’s known all his life?

Bullier sues former bullee, Eminem

From Launch.com:

In addition to the ruling, the judge included a 10-stanza rhyme as a footnote which read in part, “It is therefore this court’s ultimate position, that Eminem is entitled to summary disposition.”

Return to Returner

I just realized that my indictment of Japan’s Returner as a B-movie implies that Hollywood blockbusters (including some source materials for Returner) are the global standard for A-movies. Hollywood, as a movie-making money machine, is unmatched on this planet and it would be unfair to hold foreign features to the same production standards. Ideologically speaking a B-movie is one that knocks off concepts from previous films. The obvious references to Hollywood sci-fi flicks visible in the trailer for Returner compell me to group it in the “B” category, regardless of the possibility that it may be an “A” movie by production and casting standards.

“Beat” Zatoichi

Takeshi Kitano (aka “Beat” Takeshi) is the Japanese cohost of Takeshi’s Castle (which lives in America as the hilariously dubbed MXC). He’s also a prolific director of philosophical yakuza flicks, unique in their emotional detachment to the extreme violence they depict. They often explore the stereotypical Japanese honor system of severed pinky fingers and seppuku, with Kitano himself playing the man to challenge that system of patronage through self-immolation with the barrel of a gun and a few hapless acolytes. It is only fitting then, that he take up the role of the ultimate Japanese outsider, Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. Zatoichi roams the feudal countryside as a masseur, a common occupation for the blind. The seeing invariably challenge him to fatal tests of skill when he catches up to his fearsome but unlikely reputation. The role of Zatoichi was made famous throughout the 1960s by Shintarô Katsu whose latest turn at the role was in 1989. Kitano’s Zatoichi will be distributed in the US by Miramax.

Returner

The classic sci-fi B-movie has flying saucers on strings, robots with vacuum tube heads, and foam rock throwing beasts that are slaves to hypercephalic aliens. This genre’s present has unfortanately been dominated by the SciFi channel and it’s unwatchable, made-for-cable rehashes of animal swarm and cyber-commando films. Returner promises to finally blow the door wide open to a new kind of sci-fi B-movie: the bastard child of expensive CG effects and Hong Kong-style action. It has obvious elements of John Woo’s work, the Terminator, the Transformers, and Independence Day. Don’t miss it!!!

Double Plus Ungood

…anyone who has spent any time in this city recognized the situation for what it was: painfully perfect. After the game, Alou, Randall Simon and others urged Cubs fans to go easy on the guy, and they were right. He didn’t give up the eight runs…He gave the Marlins another out, a little more life, and the Cubs fell apart.

Rick Morrisey is right. It was 1984 all over again for the Cubs last night. Moises Alou might have caught that foul fly ball if a fan had not interfered, precursing doom, but Steve Bartman can’t take all the blame. With five outs until the World Series, things were looking good. In the periphery hovered the spectre of how badly things could turn so quickly. Moises’ fury at the hapless fan crept under the entire team’s skin, flaring tempers, eroding confidence. The rest is a blur, one of many television moments that suggest seeing requires another element to become believing.