According to the AP, Brian De Palma's new film dramatizes the "real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family."

De Palma, of course, directed another movie about war crimes committed by U.S. soldiers, the 1989 film "Casualties of War." Apparently, De Palma's got a soft spot for such work.

Here's what De Palma told the AP about "Redacted":

The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people.

But, the Haditha incident is not representative of what's happening in Iraq.

The soldiers implicated in the Haditha incident are currently undergoing an Article 32 hearing (similar to a grand jury) and will face trial for their crimes, if warranted. With more 160,000 troops in Iraq, only a handful of cases like this have arisen. In short, most U.S. troops are not behaving like war criminals.

De Palma's not interested in "the reality of what's happening in Iraq." He's interested in creating his own "reality of what's happening in Iraq."

|

Here are the first six graphs of Roger Ebert's review of "Death Sentence":

When he was asked by Johnny Carson how a magazine could quote him saying he really would murder to avenge his family, Charles Bronson looked Carson in the eye and said, "Because the quote is accurate. I really could, and I would." There was a little silence then, because Bronson was totally convincing.

He was publicizing "Death Wish" (1974), his film about a man whose wife is killed and daughter raped. He gets a gun and starts posing as bait for muggers, a middle-aged guy with a bag of groceries. Then he shoots them dead. I think he kills about 11 victims (17 in the book) and is nicknamed "The New York Vigilante," but the homicide rate drops 50 percent in New York, and so a cop cuts him a deal: Get out of town. As the film ends, he's drawing a bead on a guy in Chicago.

Funny thing. When Bronson made "Death Wish II" (1982), it was set in Los Angeles, even though Brian Garfield, the author of the novel Death Wish, had written a 1975 sequel, Death Sentence, set in Chicago. Ah, yes, here's my copy right here, dedicated to "Jay Robert Nash, John McHugh, Roger Ebert and Bill Granger, Chicago front-pagers all, with thanks."

He was thanking us because he'd come to Chicago to research the city (in two days, as I recall), and we agreed to meet him at the Billy Goat to feed him the real dope. The Goat ("no fries, cheeps") is a hamburger-and-booze emporium tucked away on the lower level of Michigan Avenue, responsible for the enticing aroma of frying onions that pedestrians enjoy in front of the Wrigley Building. You will recognize the tavern on the book's Page 27, "a block from Tribune Tower and equidistant from the Sun-Times and Daily News press rooms." His hero figures police reporters who hang out there "might be the best source of information about the unfamiliar city." He carries his beer to the back of the bar, where "there were nine or 10 men and women roughed up by alcohol and cigarettes and the cynicism of insider's experience." He got the Billy Goat right.

Bronson went on to make "Death Wish 3" (1985), "Death Wish 4" (1987) and "Death Wish V" (1994), by which date he was 73 and didn't need the bag of groceries as bait. They were set variously in Los Angeles and New York, largely filmed in Toronto, and never did get back to Chicago, reportedly because Garfield hated the first movie and its sequels so much he would never sell the rights to Death Sentence. But now here at last, in 2007, is "Death Sentence," and it is filmed in, that's right, South Carolina. It doesn't follow the book, either.

Kevin Bacon steps into the Bronson role, although curiously, even with the real sequel to work with, his name is changed from Paul Benjamin to Nick Hume. In the movie's first press releases, he was John Hume. In the Bronson movies, he was Paul Kersey. There is always a legal reason for these things. I favor John Paul. Probably another bad idea. You may have no interest in the information I've shared so far, but I'll bet you don't read it anywhere else. Probably a reason for that, too.

Nope, I was interested. Ebert's a great writer -- won a Pulitzer Prize for film reviews. I read another review of the film in my morning paper and it pales in comparison.

|

Quick note: I hadn't seen "The Departed" until last night. Not sure why I waited so long. The best movie I've seen in years. Put it at the top of your cue.

Those who have seen it might not be aware how much is based on true Boston history. Jack Nicholson's character is based on Whitey Bulger, who is still on the lam. He really did have a mole in the FBI, John Connolly, currently serving time in federal prison.

And for the only-in-Boston side to the story: Whitey's brother, William Bulger, served as president of the Massachusetts State Senate and as president of UMASS-Amherst. Scorsese left that part out of the film, probably because no one would believe it.

|

Wow. The Knoxville News is asking bloggers to help report on its trial against the local government:

The newspaper's lawsuit against Knox County Commission over alleged private meetings is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 11. The newspaper will be continuing to cover that issue but it clearly has a conflict of interest. So Editor Jack McElroy asked me if I'd post something seeking bloggers to follow, or monitor, our coverage of that trial.

I believe that's a first.

|

Just discovered this clip in which a Howard Stern fan represents himself as a general in Iraq to CNN:



Apparently, YouTube is littered with videos like this one. They've fooled everyone -- CNN, Fox, CNBC.

Despite all the talk about "getting the facts straight," television journalists don't appear to be trying very hard to verify their sources.

My brother told me last night about this incredible example, Peter Jennings interviewing a Stern fan during the O.J. Simpson incident.

|

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution chose to put the obit for Richard Jewell, the maligned Olympic Park bombing hero, on the front page -- of the metro section. Questionable stories that were deemed more important than Jewell included an article about British attitudes toward royals following Princess Diana's death.

Apparently, the AJC's long libel battle with Jewel affected their news judgment. In the end, Jewell was a hero. As a security guard at Olympic Park, he first spotted Eric Rudolph's suspicious bag. His alertness saved countless lives, a fact that Gov. Perdue noted last year:

"The bottom line is this: His actions saved lives that day," said Perdue. "Mr. Jewell, on behalf of Georgia, we want to thank you for keeping Georgians safe and doing your job during the course of those Games."

It's a shame that the AJC couldn't overlook the libel lawsuit and put Jewell's death in its proper place -- on the front page.

|

Richard Jewell, the security guard hero-turned-suspect in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing case, is dead. He was 44:

Richard Jewell, the Centennial Olympic Park security guard once suspected — but later cleared — in the bombing of the park during the 1996 Summer Games, was found dead Wednesday in his home in Meriwether County.

... Jewell was initially lauded as a hero after a bomb went off at the July 27, 1996, Olympic celebration. He called attention to the suspicious knapsack that held a bomb and helped evacuate the area.

But days later he became the FBI's chief suspect, as The [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] and other media outlets reported.

The FBI later cleared Jewell of any wrongdoing. He was never charged with a crime.

Eric Robert Rudolph pleaded guilty to the bombing in 2005 and is serving life in prison for it and other attacks.

After he was cleared, Jewell sued the Journal-Constitution and other media outlets for libel, arguing that their reports defamed him. Several news organizations settled, including NBC and CNN.

The Journal-Constitution did not settle. The newspaper has contended that at the time it published its reports, Jewell was a suspect, so the articles were accurate. The newspaper also has asserted that it was not reckless or malicious in its reports regarding Jewell. Much of Jewell's case was dismissed last year. One claim, based on reports about a 911 call, is pending trial.

I guess that makes the AJC the winner. Congratulations.

|

I'm going to the Dragon-Con parade this weekend in Atlanta. I hear it's quite a spectacle. I'm a bit of a sci-fi nerd myself, but luckily I don't own a Jedi costume.

Whenever I think of over-the-top sci-fi geeks, I think of this Insult the Comedy Dog bit:



Still very funny.

|

Just read Ebert's review of "Balls of Fury." Never knew that Ping Pong is a registered trademark of the Hasbro Corporation.

But, as noted earlier, I don't let The Man tell me what to do.

Ping Pong.

|

Great post on the Seuss' "The Lorax" and its true environmental message -- the tragedy of the commons:

Viewing the tale of the Lorax through an institutional lens, ruin is not the result of corporate greed, but a lack of institutions. The truffula trees grow in an unowned commons. (The Lorax may speak for the trees, but he does not own them.) The Once-ler has no incentive to conserve the truffula trees for, as he notes to himself, if he doesn't cut them down someone else will. He's responding to the incentives created by a lack of property rights in the trees, and the inevitable tragedy results.

|

Journalists with backbone are increasingly rare:

A popular comic strip that poked fun at the Rev. Jerry Falwell without incident one week ago was deemed too controversial to run over the weekend because this time it took a humorous swipe at Muslim fundamentalists.

The Washington Post and several other newspapers around the country did not run Sunday's installment of Berkeley Breathed's "Opus," in which the spiritual fad-seeking character Lola Granola appears in a headscarf and explains to her boyfriend, Steve, why she wants to become a radical Islamist.

Here's the cartoon:
The always astute law prof Eugene Volokh adds:

As those who like to stress the importance of accommodating world Islam in various ways point out, there are a billion Muslims out there. But that cuts both ways: A faith that is this important in the world is an important subject of discussion, both in traditional academic and political debate and in that part of social debate that happens through humor and even the comics.

I stress that I'm not speaking about legal rules; as I've argued before, cartoons that depict Mohammed should be as constitutionally protected as other cartoons, and newspaper decisions to reject whatever cartoons they want to reject should be constitutionally protected, too. But if I'm right in my analysis above, then it looks like certain media outlets are establishing or reinforcing a social norm that immunizes Islam and Muslims from a certain kind of commentary. And we as readers and writers should try to fight such a social norm, by criticizing those who are acting on it.

|

Fantastic essay on the joys of teaching. Good writing -- starts slow then builds to a crescendo.

|

Great column from the PBS Ombudsman on the latest from Bill Moyers, who had some unkind words for Karl Rove last week:

When I asked PBS whether there are any other regular programs in which the host provides editorial opinion or informed analysis analogous to what Moyers does, the officials said, "There is no other program or host precisely analogous to Bill Moyers Journal/Bill Moyers but the hosts of other PBS talk and public affairs programs certainly express their opinions on occasion.

Well, not quite like Moyers.

Look, I've got no problem with Moyers being outspoken about his left-wing political views. But, if it's truly "public" broadcasting, then a right-winger should have his own show too.

|

Kids today:

A 17-year-old hacker has broken the lock that ties Apple's iPhone to AT&T's wireless network, freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones...

The hack, which Hotz posted Thursday to his blog, is complicated and requires skill with both soldering and software. It takes him about two hours to perform. Since the details are public, it seems likely that a small industry may spring up to buy U.S. iPhones, unlock them and send them overseas.

Back when I was kid, this was the only hack I'd ever heard of.

|

My new Mass Media class. One day, they'll be in a video.

|

This is the big elephant in the room:

More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don't care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.

And poll respondents who use the Internet as their main source of news -- roughly one quarter of all Americans -- were even harsher with their criticism, the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center said.

More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don't care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased.

I started work on my PhD in Public Communication this week. In addition to getting a full-time position teaching journalism, I'm also hoping to address how we teach journalism. Most of the academics I've encountered and the journalism textbooks that I read shrug off criticism of biased news coverage. I hope to change that.

|

From a NY Times article on questionable edits made to Wikipedia entries:

And The New York Times Company is among those whose employees have made, among hundreds of innocuous changes, a handful of questionable edits. A change to the page on President Bush, for instance, repeated the word “jerk” 12 times. And in the entry for Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, the word “pianist” was changed to “penis.”

“It’s impossible to determine who did any of these things,” said Craig R. Whitney, the standards editor of The Times. “But you can only shake your head when you see what was done to the George Bush and Condoleezza Rice entries.”

Ah, the New York Times. The pinnacle of journalism.

|

Saw my hero, Julio Franco, yesterday. He's going to turn 49 next week but hasn't let his age keep him from his passion -- baseball. I wrote about him last year when he became the oldest baseball player to hit a home run.

Franco's playing for the Atlanta Braves' Single-A, minor league affiliate in Rome, Georgia. He'll likely rejoin the major league Braves on Sept. 1 when the rosters expand to 40-man teams.

In yesterday's game, Franco hit an RBI single for the first run of a four-run inning. Not bad for 48 years old. I hope he helps the Braves get to the World Series this fall. Of course, Franco says this won't be his last year -- he dreams of playing at age 50. I'm sure he'll do it.

|

Here's the list of the Top 10 newspaper Web sites, according to the Bivings Group:

1.) The New York Times
2.) The Washington Post
3.) USA Today
4.) Houston Chronicle
5.) The Denver Post
6.) The Knoxville News Sentinel
7.) The Fresno Bee
8.) Austin American-Statesman
9.) The (Nashville) Tennessean
10.) San Jose Mercury News

Not sure who the Bivings Group is -- but they make great Top 10 lists.

The name reminds me of the Bivans Brothers, a guitar duo that played Greenville, N.C., back in the early 90s. Ahh, good times.

|

Back in the U.S.A.

In L.A. right now, 4 p.m. P.S.T. But, it feels like 7 a.m. Beijing time -- and I've been up all night. Going through my second Friday, thanks to the International Date Line. Will get back to ATL at 1 a.m. Plan on sleeping for a while.

Here's a picture of me fighting the power at Tiananmen Square. Note that the presence of "the man" didn't deter me.

|

Saw the most incredible acrobatics show in history last night. Seriously. It was at the Tianqiao Acrobatic Theatre, a small venue near the Temple of Heaven south of Tiananmen Square. The cab drivers weren't even sure where it was. Incredible experience.

|

 

Yep, it's a Great Wall.

|

Interesting post from James Fallows on censorship in China. He observes:

In a few obvious ways, life in China is very tightly and unforgivingly controlled. The three tightest areas, by anyone's reckoning, would be: media; political organization or criticism; and public gatherings or demonstrations. What these have in common is that they represent potential challenges to the authority and legitimacy of the Communist Party. On that issue there is no sense of humor and practically no leeway...

Do average Chinese people feel apprehensive about dealing with foreigners? Many did, when I was here in the mid-1980s. These days, I have absolutely zero sense of people tensing up or looking over their shoulder to see who might be hearing what they say. Their main question seems to be: how will we communicate with this foreigner? On the whole they're more flexible than many other people in working out a way to get the meaning across. (In part this is because the Chinese themselves speak mutually-incomprehensible languages, another subject for another day.) Is their attitude to Americans colored by the worldwide unpopularity of current US foreign policy? Not that I have experienced. Indeed, this is the least anti-American country I have been in for years.

Yes, this is my impression from Beijing as well. Someone asked our Chinese tour guide (a recent college grad) yesterday if everyone supported the Communisty Party. He actually laughed at the question and then said, "Of course not." He was very open about the lack of freedom in the country and didn't seem concerned about telling a group of foreigners his true feelings.

As for the pro-Americanism, some of the leftist members of my tour tried to get our guide to offer his feelings on President Bush. He deftly responded that a lot of Americans clearly didn't like him. But, our tour guide noted that he remembered Iraqis cheering when the Americans first entered Baghdad, so he would not condemn the president. Interesting perspective from someone who doesn't live in a free country.

While speaking of censorship, I've already mentioned that the Wikipedia and Blogger sites are blocked in Beijing. Apparently HBO is censored as well. I was watching the 1983 film "Deathtrap" in my room this morning (in English with Mandarin subtitles.) At the point at which I remembered Christopher Reeve kissing Michael Caine, the film abrubtly jumped to the next scene. Apparently a gay kiss is still taboo in China. I wonder who did the censoring -- the Chinese or HBO?

|

Here's video of communal dancing in the Beijing park:

|

Walked from my hotel to the Black Bamboo Park couple of days ago. Here are some photos:


Lots of bicycles in Beijing.


Special lane for bicycles on many roads. Don't get me wrong, plenty of cars and busses too -- just with 13 million people, some people need to ride bikes to get around.


The park was fantastic. Here's a picture from a movie I took. (I'll post the movie below.) These women were dancing in the park to recorded music. Nice form of exercise and community involvement.



Plenty of stuff for the kids. There was even a little amusement park with rides.

I'm running out of time. I'll post some more photos without any text.

|

|

|

As long as the Wall Street Journal's editorial content doesn't decline, I think I'll be a fan of the Murdoch's ownership:

News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch has said he might make the Wall Street Journal's Web site free, a shift that could compel Pearson to do the same with the online version of its Financial Times ...

Wsj.com is one of the Web's most successful subscription businesses with a $99 annual charge and making it free would be aimed at lifting online ads from an anticipated jump in readers.

Hopefully the change won't accompany the addition of a Page 3 Girl.

|

Two days ago, we were taken to a tourist trap called the "Minority Restaurant." We were supposed to see examples of Chinese Minority cultural performances. Here's a sample:



That's high culture.

Decided to break with the tour group yesterday and walked about five miles through the Northwest part of Beijing. Incredible. Will post pictures of that trip later.

By the way, I can't read my blog here. Nor can I read Wikipedia. Apparently the Chinese government feels threatened by both.

|

Here's a video of some racquet ball dancing outside the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

That's me picking up their ball at the end of the performance. She said "Hseigh Hseigh" which means "Thank You." I should've said "Buyong Hseigh" as a "You're Welcome." But, I was too flustered and could only mutter a "Hseigh Hseigh" of my own.

English Translation:

Chinese woman: Thank You.

Me: Thank You.

Oh yes, I'm cosmopolitan.

I'm finding that it can be better to avoid pretensions of using Chinese. I've learned about five Mandarin words and try to use them to avoid judgment as a total Yankee imperialist. However, after throwing around a few words last night, a woman engaged me with a long Chinese sentence.

Now, I haven't bothered to learn how to say, "No. I can't really speak your language. I'm just faking it," so instead I muttered in English: "Pardon me?" She responded by saying something else in Chinese and giggling. I giggled as well and we both offered large smiles as we awkwardly departed each other's company. Although I'm sure we both knew the translation for "Good Bye" neither of us had the nerve to say it.

|

Temple of Heaven, Beijing.

|

Large tricycle carrying one-half ton of used cardboard, Beijing.

|

Going to China for two weeks. Unsure how much I'll be able to blog. Plan on buying a lot of stuff to bring back because I feel I'm paying too much for my Chinese merchandise at the Dollar Tree.

Anybody need any of those battery-powered, stick-up lights for their closets?

|

My check engine light pretty much stays on all the time now. Need to fix it ... with a piece of black tape.

|

Via boat in N.C.

|