howard zinn at tiff tonight

Movie fans lucky enough to be attending the Toronto International Film Festival tonight have an opportunity to see someone more important than any film being shown there.

Radical historian Howard Zinn will attend the opening of "The People Speak".

Howard Zinn taught us to look at history with fresh eyes. His landmark book A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, has sold one and a half million copies around the world and inspired innumerable fresh approaches to reflecting on the past.

Now comes a unique documentary collaboration between Zinn and others. They have enlisted an extraordinary lineup of actors, including Viggo Mortensen, Danny Glover, Marisa Tomei and Kerry Washington, who contribute live stage performances of historical testimonies. The actors portray labour leaders, civil rights demonstrators and other activists, whose stories are drawn from Voices of a People's History of the United States, an anthology edited by Zinn and Anthony Arnove that was published in 2004.

In their introduction to the book, they wrote, "Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks and Native Americans given their due, it has been because 'unimportant' people spoke up, organized, protested and brought democracy alive."

Zinn and Arnove are bringing this work to film with the support of Matt Damon and Chris Moore, who previously collaborated as producers on the television series Project Greenlight, and whose formidable powers as producers enabled them to greenlight such a unique project.

In this special Mavericks presentation, the audience will be treated to a sneak preview of clips from the documentary The People Speak, along with a discussion on stage between Zinn, Damon, Moore and actor Josh Brolin (who performs in the project) about the process and their motivations. This continues a Mavericks tradition of giving Festival audiences a sneak peak at works-in-progress. In 2006, Michael Moore tried out early clips of Sicko, and in 2007, Larry Charles and Bill Maher showed samples of Religulous, which premieres at this year's Festival.

The People Speak combines archival footage with new performances, the actors embodying voices full of courage and passion. For anyone who found school-book history dull, this version is an invigorating change.

If you haven't read A People's History of the United States, I hope you will. It's history told from the point of view of Native Americans, slaves, workers, women, war resisters, gay people - everyone who has struggled for freedom and equality, and whose struggles have advanced democracy. It's also a history of people's movements, and a primer on how people, united, can - and do - change the world.

I often recommend reading this book a bit at a time. Read a chapter, put it down, read other things, live your life, go back and read another chapter, put it down, and so on. The beginning chapters are very heavy. Painful. But it's tremendous. It's also an indispensable reference work; Allan and I both take it off the shelf periodically when we need facts and evidence.

I also highly recommend Zinn's memoir, You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train. I feel a personal indebtedness to Mr. Zinn from this book, which I shared with him. After the 2004 US "election", I fell into a real funk. Although we had already gotten the thumbs-up from the CIC, and we knew we were leaving no matter what the outcome of that farce, it still depressed me. Another stolen election. Fascism staring us in the face.

Luckily I was already reading Zinn's memoirs. He reminded me of what is most important - not who is in power, but how we challenge that power. The book brought me back to myself. I posted about it here, here, here and here.

I look forward to being similarly inspired by this film.

Howard Zinn's wife and life partner, the artist Rosyln Zinn, died in May. They were married 64 years. My condolences to Mr. Zinn and his children. I know that while Ms Zinn was ill, Zinn wasn't traveling or speaking. I'm glad to know he's back.

sir! no sir!

Last night we finally watched "Sir! No Sir!". We've owned it for a long time, but never got around to watching it. Red Sox night off + rain = movie, so its turn finally came up.

This is an excellent film. Talk about an untold story! "Sir! No Sir!" reveals the massive military resistance to the Vietnam War - the peace movement within the military. It's an excellently made film - gripping, powerful and revelatory. Don't miss it.

I want to highlight a few bits that were particularly striking to me.

Military resistance to the war in Vietnam was spread and fed through an underground press. What was once called pamphlets, later called 'zines, and are now called blogs, were written, mimeographed and distributed by and among enlisted men. GIs who had already been to Vietnam told the truth about what they witnessed (and participated in) there, and encouraged resistance.

Googling, I found a book on the subject, Protest and Survive: Underground GI Newspapers during the Vietnam War, out of print, but perhaps I can find it used.

Writing or distributing these newspapers was a court-martial offence, and people served serious prison time for it.

It was brilliant to see people making connections between the civil rights movement at home and what was going on in Vietnam. To see African-Americans realizing that they were being turned into tools of oppression - the same oppression that their ancestors had experienced - was very powerful. White soldiers realized it, too, and stood in solidarity with them.

The Army was used to violently put down riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and to attack peaceful protestors at the Pentagon. African-American soldiers rebelled and organized against this. When troops were called in to bash heads at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Black troops were held back.

A generation earlier, African-American soldiers' experience in World War II gave rise to the civil rights movement, as returning men questioned why they fought for something in Europe that they didn't enjoy at home. Now their sons and daughters were advancing that fight.

It was beautiful to see Jane Fonda's personal contribution to the peace movement celebrated. Fonda's appearances in Vietnam have been so distorted and mocked that wingnuts fling her name at us as an epithet. But she was part of a movement that brought peace-loving, subversive entertainment to GIs hungry for that affirmation. Tens of thousands of US soldiers came out for these "anti-Bob Hope" shows. Rita Martinson sang "Soldier, We Love You." They felt that love, and they wanted peace.

It was similarly thrilling to see and remember that powerful symbol of defiance and solidarity: the raised fist.

At one point during the Vietnam War, more than 500,000 soldiers were AWOL. This number does not include draft resisters. There were half a million deserters.

I've blogged about my own memories of the 1969 Moratorium against the Vietnam War; it's one of my earliest memories of political awareness. I never knew that 1,400 active duty soldiers signed a petition in support of the Moratorium and the March on Washington, and wore black armbands to show their support - in Vietnam.

As the war escalated, military resistance became more widespread, more intense, and more desperate. Spies and translators made false statements, attempting to thwart US plans to bomb civilian targets. Enlisted men conspired to attack their officers, so companies couldn't move into "battles" that were really just suicide missions.

Right around this time, the US started to bomb Cambodia. One former soldier says, "Many of us were convinced that Nixon had to go to an air war because he couldn't trust us on the ground. And for good reason - we were shooting his officers and refusing to go into direct combat whenever we could."

When the US war against Vietnam changed from primarily a ground campaign to primarily an air campaign, military resistance surfaced in the air force and navy.

Finally, there's another connection for me. Ron Kovic - who you probably know as the author of the autobiography Born On The Fourth Of July, and the subject of that movie - is one of the fathers of the disability-rights movement.

Paralyzed Vietnam Veterans have been at the forefront of the independent living movement (and the wheelchair sports movement) for decades. Many of those veterans, however, cling to their beliefs about why they are paralyzed: they were serving their country, they were fighting for freedom, the US are the good guys. Kovic and many other paralyzed veterans knew that their sacrifice was unnecessary, and completely preventable, as were the deaths of 58,000 Americans and probably 1,000,000 Vietnamese.

Kovic is still active in the peace movement. He is a living connection between military resistance to war and a movement which demands equality and justice for all living people.

* * * *

"Sir! No Sir!" stirred all my intensely negative feelings about the nation of my birth and the many evils it has perpetrated. But I wept in admiration and awe of people's courage and strength and determination to do the right thing.

We haven't watched all the DVD extras yet - which total a longer running time than the film! - but we did see one. There is a short piece on Camilo Mejia, an Iraq War resister who was court-martialed, sent to prison, and given a dishonourable discharge. Standing next to Mejia was his lawyer, who we recognized from "Sir! No Sir!" as Louis Font. Font graduated from West Point Military Academy; the Army was sending him to the Harvard School of Government when he himself became a military resister.

The fight continues.

freaky coincidence, humour edition

Two days ago, I had never heard of Eddie Pepitone and never seen a single minute of "Flight of the Conchords". I had heard of the show, but didn't know what it was and never bothered to find out.

Last week we hung out with our friends M@ and S, and they lent us the first season of FOTC on DVD. They thought we would really like it; if nothing else, we'd appreciate the New York City locations.

Yesterday morning I see a clip of comedian Eddie Pepitone on Joy of Sox. I'm not into stand-up, and very little of what many people find oh-so-hilarious doesn't even make me smile. But I really liked this. Big loud laughs. Very enjoyable. (Clip to follow, keep reading for now, ok?)

Then last night, Red Sox night off, we pop Flight of the Conchords into the DVD player. We love it. LOVE IT. It's brilliant and hilarious. The music video parodies are amazing. We laugh so hard, we are crying and gasping for breath. And I did indeed love seeing New York City.

And there he is: Eddie Pepitone. We can't believe our eyes. He plays the boss of the sign-holding company, where Bret and Coko meet.

I love weird coincidences like that.

The show is brilliant. We watched four episodes straight through. Amazing stuff.

* * * *

Yesterday's planned outing to Elora Gorge and vicinity was postponed due to uncooperative weather. But spring is back today and I'm in dire need of a day off, so here we go.

I was wondering why, with all the gorgeous weather we've been having, I didn't plan a day out earlier this month. What was I doing with my days off all these weeks? Allan reminded me: day games. I love day baseball, but I can only take so much time off. The Red Sox need to play at night so I can go walk in the woods.

* * * *

And now, Eddie Pepitone. (Totally not safe for work!) It looks like we would also know Pepitone from The Sarah Silverman Program if we had continued watching that.

shine a light

The Rolling Stones + Martin Scorsese + New York City = Allan and Laura go to the movies. In a movie theatre! For the first time in almost four years!

Yes, it's true, before this afternoon we had not seen a movie in a movie theatre in almost four years. We really don't care for the movie theatre experience: the ads, the people talking, the lack of pause and replay. We much prefer watching movies at home.

But some things must be experienced on a big screen. Martin Scorsese's new film of a Rolling Stones concert is playing in IMAX (Canadian!) five minutes from our home. And we can go to a weekday afternoon show, when there are only five other people in the theatre. This is what is called a no-brainer.

"Shine A Light" was filmed at New York City's Beacon Theatre, where I have seen dozens of concerts over the years. It's an old, restored theatre of the kind found in most North American cities, seats about 2,500 people. The Toronto equivalent is Massey Hall.

In 2006, the Stones performed there for two nights, part of Bill Clinton's 60th birthday celebration and a fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation. The Rolling Stones at The Beacon?! All I can say is thank goodness I didn't live in New York anymore, because even at this distance, the envy is killing me.

Shine A Light is a very good movie. It captures the controlled power and frenetic restraint of a Rolling Stones show. For Stones fans, it's an absolute must. But if you never really "got" the Stones, and you don't understand what all the fuss is about, you might want to see this movie. If you do and you still don't get it, check your pulse, because you're probably dead.

I could write an enormous blog post about The Stones, especially on Jagger and what makes him so great, and especially on Keith and what makes him Keith. These are subjects I've given a lot of thought and which Allan and I have talked about since literally - and I do mean literally - the night we met. But I won't do that. Instead I will say that the things that make The Stones, The Stones, are on brilliant display in Shine A Light.

It's not a perfect movie, I had a few criticisms, but they are very minor in comparison with the fun I had. And the envy. Did I mention envy?

winter soldier, and how you can prevent war crimes

After our Winter Soldier event this week, Allan and I borrowed the movie of the first Winter Soldier - the original event from 1971 - and watched it last night, on a Red Sox night off. I didn't realize it was available on DVD, and I think I'll buy it now.

It's not easy an easy film to watch. The testimony is brutal, and unceasing, and graphic. There is some actual footage from Vietnam, but mercifully not much. Most of it is the veterans' words and your own imagination, and that is bad enough.

It reminded me of when I was a child in Hebrew school, which, like most American Jewish kids, I attended after school a couple of days a week. One week they showed us films on the Holocaust. I already knew what the Holocaust was, but two hours of graphic pictures and testimony was a different story. I was maybe 9 years old. I came home and threw up, then had nightmares for weeks.

Winter Soldier has the same effect.

It's like listening to what the Nazis did, what Stalin did, what the Khmer Rouge did, what Saddam Hussein did - Argentina, Bosnia, Japan, China - wherever, whoever. The US has plenty of company in the war crimes department, but its mighty global reach gives it a special advantage when it comes to this destruction, and its cover up.

Most Americans - not all, by any means - don't know, don't believe, don't want to believe their country has perpetrated these kinds of atrocities. But a mere 35 years ago, the US government put its citizens to work indiscriminately torturing, maiming, raping, and killing innocent people, along with the total destruction of their homes and everything they owned.

And of course it is happening again, right now.

Winter Soldier is not easy to watch and listen to. Murder, torture, poison gas, chemical weapons, people thrown alive from helicopters, mass rape, dismemberment, disembowelment, the burning of village after village after village.

No distinction made between civilian and combatants.

Competitions to see who could kill the most. Gang rapes as "standard operating procedure". Rewards, such as a three-day-pass, for killing.

"I killed three VC." "How did you know they were Viet Cong?" "Because they were dead."

Don't count the people who board the helicopters. Count the ones who get off, because the numbers won't match.

* * * *

I thought the men who testified were unbelievably brave for doing so. I hope speaking out helped ease their own pain, if only a little, and perhaps set their course for healing. Truth-telling is the only path to healing. Only by facing the horrors of the past, whatever they are, can we liberate ourselves from its grip.

I wondered how Winter Soldier was born. How did these men come together and decide to do this? That's something I'd like to learn more about. Was there any precedent? Were they guided by any psychological insights, or only their good instincts and wounded consciences, compelling them to come forward? How, in all the centuries and millennia of war and war crimes, did these men, in this time and place, break the silence, tell the truth, find their humanity?

I think the counterculture of those times must have helped them find the strength to do it. It could never have happened in, say, the 1950s after World War II, and not just because of the perceived difference between the two wars. The counterculture - insisting on challenging authority, questioning conformity, seeking love instead of hate - gave them the safe space to begin.

I wondered if the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in South Africa - which also fascinated - used Winter Soldier as a partial model.

One soldier compares his tour in Vietnam to a hunting trip with no limits. Whoever kills the most wins.

One soldier speaks of "the horror of the every day", as he recalls how his unit stoned to death a small child. Only weeks later did he remember the incident. He says, "I never thought my mind would hide things from me." So I learn that the minds of perpetrators repress memories, too, just like the minds of victims. It shows how both victim and perpetrator are damaged, how every perpetrator is also victimizing himself.

One soldier says, "My commanding officer told me the long-haired hippies would condemn me and hate me. But while I was over there, I got a letter from a girl. She told me about a place called Woodstock, where 500,000 people came together in love. I think it was the only time I truly smiled the whole time I was in Nam."

It's easy to caricature the '60s and '70s counter-culture. But it's easier to be sympathetic when you remember what people were reacting against. Like Elvis Costello says, what's so funny about...

One soldier says, "I'm ashamed. Don't let them do this to you. Don't ever let your government do this to you."

* * * *

I know there is individual responsibility, and I know how important it is. And yet... I'm not comfortable blaming individual soldiers for war crimes. I can't demonize these men, or even hold them, at bottom, responsible. Everyone had been brainwashed, dehumanized, turned into a killing machine. Everyone was motivated by fear. Everyone believed that every "gook" was out to get them and kill them, so they had to kill them first.

I'm not exonerating the soldiers, but real responsibility has to roll up. Up the chain of command, all the way to the top. Hitler had his willing executioners, but it's Hitler we remember. As we should remember Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et al, in the same way.

* * * *

Looking at history, it's clear that most humans succumb to the mass insanity that overtakes aggressors in wartime. Defying its raw power is nearly impossible, maybe too much to ask of any mortal. Perhaps the only thing you can do is refuse to be in the situation in the first place.

You would have to refuse to fight. Which many did.

Do you see, Canada, why you must take in the Iraq War resisters? These are people who have refused to let their government do this to them. By accepting the war resisters, you are standing up for peace. You are preventing war crimes.

So, one more time folks: if you haven't contacted your MP about this, now is the time. Details here, or here, or here, or please feel free to email me for details. Right now we need letters to Stéphane Dion, and to your own MP, especially if he or she is a Liberal.

we movie to canada

Welcome to the first wmtc movie awards!

I'm going to rate the movies I have seen this Movie Season (late October to April), and while I'm at it, last Movie Season, too. Instead of a star rating (5 stars, 4 stars...), I'll assign each movie a Famous Canadian. 2007-08 will be rated by musicians; 2006-07 will be rated with comedians. My rating system is bound to get me in more trouble than my opinions on movies.

I'm very discriminating about what movies I see. I only see movies that I think will interest me, I never see movies just to see them or because they're popular or because I'm bored. So if the list is top-heavy, it's not because I'm an easy critic.

Also, I'm trying to rate each movie on its own terms. So if, say, "The Simpsons Movie" gets a higher rating than "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen", it's not that I think The Simpsons movie is a more important than the Inuit film. But the filmmakers behind those movies have totally different intentions and goals. How well did they succeed on their own terms? That's how I want to judge the results.

As always, there were dozens more movies I wanted to see, but I ran out of time - and occasionally Zip left me stranded. But we did see many on my top list, and many others, and now I'm happy Baseball Season is here.

[I'm not providing links to all these movies, but you can look them all up on IMDB, Zip or Netflix.]

2007-08 Movie Season

The Joni. This is five stars, the highest rating, the greatest excellence, the must-sees.

In the Valley of Elah
This is England
Away From Her
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)
Volver
The Son (Le Fils)
Superbad

The Band. These are very good movies that I highly recommend. They didn't rise quite to the level of A Joni, but four stars is pretty damn good.

Into The Wild
Rendition
Michael Clayton
Tsotsi
Hot Fuzz
The Simpsons Movie
Shaun of the Dead
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Notes on a Scandal

The Tragically Hip. Three stars. Not outstanding, but a very decent effort. Worth seeing.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (somewhere between The Hip and The Band)
The Hoax (same)
The History Boys (same)
Amazing Grace (now we're back to solid Hips)
Futurama: Bender's Big Score
Half Nelson
Shattered Glass
Silver City
Kinky Boots
Little Miss Sunshine
Lila Says
The Queen

The Lightfoot. Two stars, below average. These movies don't completely suck, but, like Gordon Lightfoot, they were wildly over-rated. Nothing special.

Year of the Dog (borderline Lightfoot/Hip)
The Darjeeling Limited
James Bond 21: Casino Royale
Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family
Paris, J'taime (worth seeing only for Paris)

The Celine. Hated it!

Redacted
The Squid and the Whale
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen
Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing
Severance
Brick


2006-07 Movie Season

Kids In The Hall. My pinnacle of Canadian comedy.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
An Inconvenient Truth
Why We Fight

The Short. Honestly, it was a toss-up for who would be five stars and who would be four, The Short or The Kids. The man is hilarious, and tremendously talented. In the end, a four-star rating is nothing to sneeze at.

Keeping Mum
The U.S. vs. John Lennon
The Departed
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson
Inside Man
Transamerica
Owning Mahoney
Syriana
Mysterious Skin
Nine Queens

The Catherine O'Hara. A solidly good movie. She's even in one of these.

City Of God (halfway to a Short)
Highway 61 (same)
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
For Your Consideration
Thank You for Smoking
Scoop
Wordplay
Gaz Bar Blues
Whole New Thing
Munich
Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story
Seducing Doctor Lewis (La grande seduction)

The Rick Mercer. Why do so many people love this man? I'll never know. I didn't make him last place, because there is someone I like even less.

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Hard Candy
Neil Young: Heart of Gold
How To Irritate People
Eight Below (and only because the dogs are so cute, other than that, it's even lower)

The Howie Mandel. Do us all a favour and go away!

Rent
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (which we only saw because I knew someone in it)

And Special Bonus Awards...

The Pierre Berton for the best historical movie:
Why We Fight
[Runner up: The Wind That Shakes The Barley]

The Tommy Douglas for the most inspiring:
An Inconvenient Truth

Rick Mercer gets his own award, for most over-rated:
Redacted
[Runner up: Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing]

The Corner Gas for biggest surprise:
This Is England

The Neil Young "Living With War" Award for best intentions with a poor execution:
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
[Runner up: Redacted]

redacted

The two Iraq-related movies I most wanted to see this Movie Season were "In The Valley of Elah" and "Redacted". "Elah" was excellent, and appropriately disturbing. We saw "Redacted" last night. I was also interested in this because, as I mentioned here, I used to know Brian De Palma, sometimes hung out with him, so I keep an eye on his work.

Redacted was the most disappointing, over-rated movie I have seen in long, long time.

I was actually scared to see this movie. It's based on a true story: when some American soldiers gang-raped and murdered a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and murdered several of her family members in an attempt to cover their crime. Brian De Palma plus rape plus Iraq? I thought it might be too violent for me, too graphic, too brutal.

I needn't have worried. Either De Palma purposely kept his penchant for graphic on-screen violence under wraps or he's lost his touch. Although the incident it portrays is horrendous, the movie itself is not particularly disturbing.

It's also not well written, well acted or compelling to watched. I was shocked at how juvenile and stilted the dialogue sounds. Everyone is either a stock character or a billboard for ideas De Palma wanted to work in. Some of it was downright silly.

I was also very bothered by De Palma's attempts at "balance", portraying the violence from all sides as equally wrong.

If another country invaded New York City or Los Angeles, set up bases and checkpoints, held Americans under constant guard, harassed them with random humiliations and violence, and a few enterprising New Yorkers or Angelenos managed to pick off a few of the invaders with guns or bombs, would those Americans be terrorists, too? No. They would be hailed as heroes. Their violence would, to most people, be justified.

Whatever violence the Iraqi so-called insurgents do to Americans, it's terrible for the soldiers and their families, but it's the US' fault for being in Iraq in the first place.

There's no balance here. There was an invasion, now there's an occupation. The people trying to expel the invaders are not the moral equivalents of the invaders themselves.

Apparently, for De Palma, this balance extends even to the peace movement. A fictional anti-war website in which a peace protester rants about wanting to torture American soldiers is disgusting and offensive to me. If there are people in the peace movement like that, I've never met one.

Redacted made a huge buzz at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, as its producers (Canadians Jennifer Weiss and Simone Urdl) had some trouble getting certain images past their distributor. The subject matter and De Palma's name fed the hype.

But I was disappointed to find it was only hype, and not much else.

Movie Season - that stretch of time between the World Series and Opening Day - is coming to a close. This year I'm going to post a wrap-up of all the movies we saw, using my own personal rating system. It's sure to offend some people, and hopefully we'll have some fun with it, too.

why i won't watch the beijing olympics

I've been meaning to post about China and the Olympics for a long time. Now China's current military crackdown in Tibet has given me an excuse to focus on it.

I clearly remember learning that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics, how stunned, and disgusted, and betrayed I felt. With that, any lingering illusions I had about the International Olympics Committee were stripped away. Giving the Olympics to China was the final admission of how political, corrupt, and morally bankrupt the IOC is.

In 1980, the United States and Canada boycotted the Moscow Olympics because of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Japan, West Germany, China, and a few other countries joined the boycott; other countries made protests statements but didn't boycott.

A boycott of the Olympics because of an invasion. Seems kind of quaint now, doesn't it?

No one wants to piss off China. No wants to risk losing that powerful trading partner and access to all those cheap goods. Doing business with China means "staying competitive" - that is, ignoring the labour, safety, consumer and environmental standards your own country has built. And buying "Made In China" lets us all extend our standard of living. We buy artificially cheap products, and never count the true costs.

It's easy to sell cheap when you run sweatshops, dump untreated contaminants into the environment, have zero safety or health standards, and zero quality control.

So the western world, with its massive corporate and consumer power, doesn't just stay out of China's way. We reward China with the Olympics.

* * * *

No one blog post can detail China's many abuses. But although I can't do justice to the subject, I should at least give it a shot. So here, in no particular order, is why I won't be watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Tibet: China's continuing occupation of this sovereign, peaceful nation.

Darfur: China is Sudan's largest trading partner and the main foreign investor in its oil industry. Most Western oil companies, under pressure from human rights organizations, have withdrawn from Sudan. And although we know that economic isolation and divestment can have a very powerful, positive effect (think South Africa), China continues to do business with Sudan, enabling slavery and genocide.

China: The list of China's abuses of its own people is a long and shameful one.

-- China executes more of its citizens than the rest of the capital-punishment countries combined and doubled. While China has a much larger population than those other countries, its rate of execution is still disproportionate. China has more capital crimes, and is believed to have more hidden executions and political executions, than any other country in the world.

-- China jails (and also executes) thousands of activists, political dissidents, journalists, and ordinary citizens who attempt free expression. Reporters Without Borders is a good source for civil liberty and human rights abuses in China, as is Human Rights Watch.

-- China's labour laws are a sad joke. Factory conditions sound like something out of Dickens or Upton Sinclair.

-- China pollutes water, air and soil with impunity, poisoning and sickening its citizens for generations to come.

This is the country that has been rewarded with the 2008 Olympic Games.

Some people believe that the international attention brought by the Olympics can be used to leverage change. Do they really believe that? Or they don't care, and only use this as lip service?

In the entire history of the universe, has change ever been made, anywhere, by giving a reward before anything has changed?

If you want to teach your child, or your dog, or your partner, that they must change their behaviour, do you hand them a huge reward, then ask them to change?

It's pretty basic. It's Psychology 101. If the IOC wanted to use the Olympics to effect change, it would have told China: clean up your act, and we'll consider you for future games. Here's a list of specific changes we want to see. You might have gotten the Olympics, but we won't reward you as long as you continue these crimes.

* * * *

An effective consumer boycott of Chinese products is virtually impossible. What's more - as we learned in the pet food scandal - many products labelled Fabriqué au Canada and Made In USA only get their final assembly or processing in those countries, with parts and materials that originate in China. Unless China is forced to deal humanely and fairly with workers, the environment and consumers - or unless North American businesses are forced into a trade embargo - or both - Chinese products will always undersell those made in North America. And we want to buy everything as cheaply as possible, so we can buy, buy, buy, more, more, more.

There are scattered calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics but they don't get any traction. Not because it's too late. Because no one wants to piss off China.

I'm just having my own boycott. I usually glue myself to the Olympics. This year my TV will stay off.




Photo from Reporters Without Borders, thanks to James.

in the valley of elah

If you haven't seen "In The Valley of Elah," I highly recommend it.

This movie, by Canadian writer and director Paul Haggis, is about the violence that war brings home. You could say it's about post-traumatic stress disorder, but only in the way "Boys Don't Cry" is about rape. It's something of a "Coming Home" or "The Deer Hunter" for our current Vietnam.

I find it interesting that the great Vietnam War movies were made several years after that war ended; "Deer Hunter" and "Coming Home" were 1978, "Apocalypse Now" was 1979. There were a slew of lesser Vietnam movies in the mid-1980s, too.

But movies about the war in Iraq are coming out while the war is still going on. People are somehow able to process it and comment on it as art while it is being lived.

I think this must be a function of, among other things, the Iraq War being less present in our daily lives. The US - and Canada, too, I think - were rocked by the Vietnam War. It was so divisive, and so massive, as were the demonstrations against it. The war was on TV every night, flag-draped coffins and all. The country was in a constant fever. Perhaps people couldn't get enough distance from it to create art that commented on it.

Now the war goes on, out of sight. It's been left to writers, filmmakers, playwrights and bloggers to try to keep it in front of us.

"In The Valley of Elah" and "Redacted" were the non-documentary Iraq War movies I most wanted to see before baseball season begins. One down, and we'll see if Zip sends me the other in time.

* * * *

I feel unspeakably sad and frightened when I think of the long-term effects of the US-caused violence in Iraq. Not only is the US devastating the country it invaded, it is further devastating itself.

So many veterans returning home from that horror will inevitably turn to violence, or addiction, or both. And they will not get the help they need and deserve. Their response will compound the violence in an already extremely violent society. People will die, their families will suffer, they themselves will continue to suffer. And for what? For what?

Bear witness to what they have seen. Help them end the war.

two cool obits, music-related

You may not know Leonard Rosenman's name, but if you're into film, chances are you've been hearing his music all your life.

Leonard Rosenman, an Oscar-winning film composer who helped introduce avant-garde music to Hollywood movie scores, died on Tuesday in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles. He was 83 and a former Hollywood resident. . . .

Mr. Rosenman, who could also write lushly traditional film scores, composed the original music for dozens of well-known pictures. Among them were "East of Eden" (`1955), "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" (1960), "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (1970) and the 1978 version of "The Lord of the Rings."

He earned two Oscars for musical adaptation: for "Barry Lyndon" (1975), which drew on music by Handel, Schubert and others; and "Bound for Glory" (1976), based on Woody Guthrie songs.

With the composers Bernard Herrmann and Alex North, Mr. Rosenman was widely credited with bringing film music — long awash in Tchaikovsky-inflected Romanticism — squarely into the 20th century. For "The Cobweb" (1955), Mr. Rosenman wrote what is believed to be the first major Hollywood score to draw heavily on 12-tone techniques. (Most closely associated with the composer Arnold Schoenberg, 12-tone composition is an atonal method that involves using all 12 notes of the musical scale in equal proportion. The result is rarely considered hummable.)

For "Fantastic Voyage" (1966), one of Mr. Rosenman's most highly regarded scores, he wrote urgent, atonal music that some listeners compared favorably to the work of Alban Berg.

Besides his film work, Mr. Rosenman composed extensively for television. He won two Emmy awards: for "Sybil" (1976; with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) and for "Friendly Fire" (1979). He wrote music for "The Defenders," "Combat!" "Marcus Welby, M.D." and many other shows.

More about Mr. Rosenman's life and work here in his New York Times obit. It's an interesting story. He made an invaluable contribution to the worlds of both music and film, and to our culture.

The second obit is just a cool story. You may have already seen it, but not being a Beatles fan, I'm a few weeks behind the curve.

Paul Cole was in one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century, and yet he wasn't famous.

Cole, a longtime Barefoot Bay resident, died Wednesday in Pensacola at age 96. He is clearly seen in the famous shot of the Beatles walking across London's Abbey Road, used as the front cover of the group's classic 1969 album, "Abbey Road." Over the years, the picture has been reproduced in books, on posters, coffee mugs, T-shirts and hundreds of other places.

The retired salesman is standing on the sidewalk, just behind the Beatles. Gawking at them.

In a 2004 interview with Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, Cole explained how he came to be there at that precise moment.

On a London vacation with his wife, Cole — then a resident of Deerfield Beach — declined to enter a museum on the north London thoroughfare.

"I told her, 'I've seen enough museums. You go on in, take your time and look around and so on, and I'll just stay out here and see what's going on outside,'" he recalled.

Parked just outside was a black police van. "I like to just start talking with people," Cole said. "I walked out, and that cop was sitting there in that police car. I just started carrying on a conversation with him. I was asking him about all kinds of things, about the city of London and the traffic control, things like that. Passing the time of day."

In the picture, Cole is standing next to the police van.

It was 10 a.m., Aug. 8, 1969. Photographer Iain McMillan was on a stepladder in the middle of the street, photographing the four Beatles as they walked, single-file, across Abbey Road, John Lennon in his famous white suit, Paul McCartney without shoes. The entire shoot lasted 10 minutes.

"I just happened to look up, and I saw those guys walking across the street like a line of ducks," Cole remembered. "A bunch of kooks, I called them, because they were rather radical-looking at that time. You didn't walk around in London barefoot."

About a year later, Cole first noticed the "Abbey Road" album on top of the family record player (his wife was learning to play George Harrison's love song "Something" on the organ). He did a double-take when he eyeballed McMillan's photo.

"I had a new sportcoat on, and I had just gotten new shell-rimmed glasses before I left," he says. "I had to convince the kids that that was me for a while. I told them, 'Get the magnifying glass out, kids, and you'll see it's me.'"

If you don't own "Abbey Road" (even non-Beatle-fans like me do!), you can see the photo here.

"I told her, 'I've seen enough museums. You go on in, take your time and look around and so on, and I'll just stay out here and see what's going on outside".

This is what my grandfather did, all over the world (and I do mean all over the world), while my grandmother visited museums. I wonder if Max is on the cover of any albums.

Other dumb personal notes on this post. "East of Eden" is one of my favourite books and also one of my favourite movies of that era. I used to watch "Marcus Welby, M.D." with my mother, almost daily. And my father watched "Combat!", a show I had completely forgotten about. He also watched another war show called "Rat Patrol". This is odd, because he was a peace activist and generally anti-military.

So I appreciated that Leonard Rosenman obit on many levels.

this is england

Have you seen the movie "This Is England"? We saw it last night; it's excellent.

This movie came to me at a good time, as I'm finishing up Chris Hedges' War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, and thinking a lot about the dangers of nationalism. "This is England" illustrates the similarities among nationalism, racism and bullying, and how those three forces are inextricably bound.

The movie is also a painful coming-of-age story. If you saw the excellent film "Thirteen" (one of my favourite movies about teenagers), "This Is England" can be seen as a male version of it. The specifics are completely different. But both movies illuminate how the deep desire for belongingness informs so much of what we do as we stumble towards adulthood - how the craving for community can sweep over a young person like a fever, a fog through which no other perspective, no matter how rational, can penetrate.

christian group claims credit for film tax change

If this is true, it's very bad news.

A well-known evangelical crusader is claiming credit for the federal government's move to deny tax credits to TV and film productions that contain graphic sex and violence or other offensive content.

Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, said his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and "numerous" meetings with officials in the Prime Minister's Office.

"We're thankful that someone's finally listening," he said yesterday. "It's fitting with conservative values, and I think that's why Canadians voted for a Conservative government."

Mr. McVety said films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.

"There are a number of Conservative backbench members that do a lot of this work behind the scenes," he said.

Mr. Day and Mr. Nicholson said through officials yesterday they did not recall discussing the issue with Mr. McVety.

Canadian Heritage officials confirmed yesterday they will be "expanding slightly" the criteria used for denying tax credits to include grounds such as gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group. More details are promised next week.

Arts groups say they will fight the change. Director David Cronenberg and other big industry names warned that the edgy, low-budget films that have garnered Canadians international acclaim will be at risk.

Conservatives deny that the changes are driven by politics or Mr. McVety, noting the previous Liberal government pledged to review the guidelines as far back as 2003.

In September 2006, The Walrus ran a long feature purporting to expose the strong links between the Harper government and the religious right. The story is here, and wmtc's discussion of the issue is here.

If I recall correctly, Canadian readers mostly felt the writer was exaggerating the Christian influence on the Conservatives. Americans in Canada tended to be more worried. That's understandable, since we watched our country taken over by those narrow-minded zealots, and came here partly to escape them.

Changing the film tax credit guidelines to exclude films that a small group of people consider offensive is clearly bad for the film industry, both economically and artistically. But it's bad news for all of us, if we don't want the government meddling in personal morality, or especially, pandering to the warped values of the religious right.

I notice, too, that the story about McVety specifically mentions homosexuality as an exclusion:

Mr. McVety said films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.

As we know, to those people, "films promoting homosexuality" means anything with a queer theme. I haven't seen this in any other story about the tax credit change. If Heritage Canada tries to exclude gay-themed films solely on that basis, they'll have a huge human rights and Charter issue on their hands.

Members of the film industry are already speaking out against the change.

An impending change to federal government guidelines on tax credits for movies and TV shows is a threat to artistic freedom and financial stability, critics say.

A tax bill amendment – now before the Senate and poised to become law – revises criteria to exclude tax breaks for shows that bureaucrats regard as offensive or not in the public interest.

Tax credits – approved by the heritage and justice departments after a film is completed – are a vital part of the production process. They're part of the budget plan producers take to lending institutions for up-front financing before filming begins.

Martin Gero, director of the provocatively titled Young People Fucking, which opens April 18, said virtually every film produced in the country relies on bridge financing from banks – and banks do not like uncertainty.

If Heritage Canada toughens the criteria for tax credits – as a senior official acknowledged yesterday is its intent – Gero said the film industry is in big trouble.

"If it starts to get to where the banks are like, 'Well, that tax credit money isn't for sure,' then they're not going to lend you money. I don't know a production anywhere (in Canada) that would be able to go on without their tax credit money."

Entertainment lawyer Michael Levine, a founding director of the Canadian Film Centre, agreed that film financing is in jeopardy.

"Bankers like predictable and measurable risk. So there is obviously a financial angle," Levine said.

"But there's also the obvious question of who's making the decisions and who's defining the standards. It's quite clear to me that we are getting into the dangerous territory of freedom of expression," Levine said, calling the legislation "very dangerous ... very ill-advised."

Annette Gibbons, a senior official with Heritage Canada, insisted yesterday that "only slight modifications" are being made to existing guidelines to explicitly deny tax credits to films promoting hate, excessive violence and pornography. At present, only pornography is excluded.

Heritage Canada officials will make final decisions, but a "transition" period will be in place, during which filmmakers will be consulted, Gibbons said.

But NDP MP Bill Siksay, the party's heritage critic, said the bill could have "a huge chilling effect" on Canadian film production.

"There hasn't been a problem with the appropriateness of film and video production in Canada. There's been controversy, but controversy isn't necessarily bad when it comes to the cultural life of a country as diverse as ours," he said. [Emphasis mine.]

Stephen Waddell, national executive director of ACTRA, the actors' union, said the bill will add "a layer of instability and uncertainty to financing, which this industry can ill afford at this time.

"We're concerned about the censorship that would be involved. Clearly, that offends us and offends – I would hope – the Canadian public."

The guild representing Canadian directors also issued a statement yesterday opposing the changes.

I don't like this, but I'm more concerned with what's driving it. With the Liberals handing the Conservatives a de facto majority government, a religious right influence in government is a very dangerous thing.

my friend charles dickens comes to town

The day after those award ceremonies I pay no attention to seems like a good time to highlight a dead medium's presentation of a dead genre: "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", David Edgar's stage adaptation of Charles Dickens's comic novel.

I was very fortunate to see the original Royal Shakespeare Production of "Nicholas Nickleby," an eight-hour marathon presented in two parts, when I was in university.

I was an English major specializing in Victorian literature, a complete Dickens-head, and a huge lover of theatre (as I always have been). I went to school in Philadelphia. A friend and I took the bus up to New York - without telling our families, who would have wanted to see us - and got discount tickets, which still cost more than our food budgets for the month. That remains one of the greatest theatre experiences of my life.

Two years later, the production was recreated for BBC and PBS television - not a film adaptation, but a filming of the actual play. Eight glorious hours. I would have watched it for sixteen.

Last night "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" opened in Toronto. The new adaptation shaves off two hours from the original (sell outs!), but features 27 actors playing more than 150 characters.

I am dying to see this. We are saving money for our trip to Newfoundland in June - and a large tax bill. I know I shouldn't spend the money. Whether I will or not remains to be seen.

another excellent movie

It's now a race between Zip and Baseball Season, and I fear baseball will win. I don't think I'll finish my Most Wanted Movies list before baseball begins. But on the bright side, we did see many of them, and many were very good.

Last night we finally saw "Away From Her". It's a beautiful movie, excruciatingly sad, beautifully written and masterfully acted throughout. It's also thoroughly Canadian, and I am extremely impressed at Sarah Polley's multiple talents. Before this, I knew her work as an actor, mostly from "The Sweet Hereafter" and "My Life Without Me". (I know fans of "Slings and Arrows" know Polley, too, but I haven't followed that show.) Polley wrote and directed "Away From Her," and she deserves any and all accolades she receives.

If you haven't seen the movie, it deals with a older couple, very much in love, when one of them develops Alzheimer's disease. My own grandmother had Alzheimer's for 10 years before her death, and her mother might have had, as well. (We thought of her as senile at the time.) Although these diagnoses were not confirmed after death, most (though not all) people in my family believe it was Alzheimer's. My mother lives in fear of it, and in some respect, so do my siblings and I, as we watch for signs of how our mother is doing.

This movie is heartbreaking, but it's not bleak or depressing. It's about loss, but it's also about love, and hope, and what true love and commitment can give us, and what we can give each other.

My guess is most people reading this post have already seen this movie, but you haven't, I hope you will.

the lives of others

As Movie Season winds down and Baseball Season approaches (yay!), Zip is behaving badly and not sending me enough movies, especially not enough of the movies I most want to see. I'm done fighting with them, though. I've complained multiple times, I've tried to game their system every which way in an effort to make it work for me. And now I'm resigned: this is as good as it's going to get.

Last night we saw an excellent film: "The Lives Of Others", "Das Leben der Anderen" in the original German. Set in East Germany in the 1980s, it's a chilling glimpse into what it might be like to live in a police state - where a chance remark to a friend could lead to interrogation and imprisonment, where all public discourse is controlled by the government, where trust and cohesion is impossible, because anyone may be an informant. It's also a story of finding humanity in inhumane situations, of one person's quietly heroic act that gives another person freedom.

"The Lives Of Others" was some of the best writing and acting we've seen this Movie Season. The DVD has an interesting interview with the writer and director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, including some detailed insights into the film's production design and score. I am amazed to learn this was his feature debut. It hardly seems possible.

I highly recommend seeing this movie without knowing any plot spoilers. Although it's not a conventional spy thriller by any means, it is suspenseful, and I wasn't sure how it was going to play out.

what i'm watching

I saw a very good movie last night: "Half Nelson", written by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and directed by Fleck. Ryan Gosling plays a teacher in a low-income neighbourhood in Brooklyn, and Shareeka Epps makes a stunning feature debut as a student who befriends him.

"Half Nelson" is not cut from the generic teacher-inspires-students template. Although the teacher is unconventional - he teaches history from a decidedly Howard Zinn point of view - he is also a drug addict.

Epps' character has two possible father-figures in her life. One is an African-American man from her neighbourhood, who treats her with respect, but who is a drug dealer. Her brother is already in prison for being part of this man's operation. The other is white, seemingly respectable - her teacher and her basketball coach. But he's an addict, who treats her badly, as addicts do.

Both performances are very understated, and the whole movie is small and restrained. There are no giant epiphanies. No students catapult from their impoverished classroom to Harvard, and the addicted teacher doesn't finally get clean. But there's hope, or the possibility of hope. And some stellar acting.

We also recently saw "Shattered Glass," about Stephen Glass, the former writer for The New Republic (and many other prestigious publications) who turned out to be a con-man of sorts. More than half his articles, published over a three-year period, were either partially or completely fabricated.

This isn't a great movie; the acting is mediocre and there's a clunky back-story device that doesn't work at all. But it touches on several fascinations of mine: con artists, gamblers and especially compulsive liars - what motivates them, how they get away with it, how they flirt with exposure.

After seeing "Half Nelson," I realized these movies had something in common - both are about addiction.

Stephen Glass was addicted to the approval and admiration he won when his colleagues read his vivid, crackling stories. Like any other person with a gambling addiction, the more he got away with, the further he pushed. Being revealed as a fraud was inevitable, but he had painted himself into a corner; there was no place to go but forward, to ever more dangerous cons.

teenage movies, teenaged mothers

We saw "Superbad" last night, perhaps the last people in Canada to see the movie. The writers are Canadians, and famously began writing a script together when they were 13, which eventually turned into Superbad.

As the movie was hyped out of all proportion here, and I was prepared to be disappointed - but I loved it. (We both did.) It was hilarious, sweet, and very well written and well acted. Superbad is created from a classic mold - our heroes go out into the big scary world to have adventures, and find their way home safely, lessons learned. The characters are believable and appealing; even when they're acting horribly, you only cringe for their innocence and naivete, you never dislike them.

I love good teenage movies, and I find so few that really work for me, and this did.

Now the teenage movie that everyone in Canada is talking about is "Juno". Ellen Page, the young star who was just nominated for an Academy Award, grew up in Halifax, and Michael Cera, of Superbad fame, is also Canadian.

I keep hearing and reading how sweet this movie is. Too bad I won't see it.

I can't bring myself to see a movie celebrating teenage pregnancy, and assuming - in typical Hollywood fashion - that abortion is not an option.

I've been pleased to see this phenomenon documented everywhere I turn. In the Globe and Mail, Judith Timson asks "When did abortion become a dirty word again?" (Answer: In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected.) Macleans asks "Suddenly teen pregnancy is cool?"

Antonia Zerbisias, writing in the Toronto Star, notes that

But, just when the hit movie Juno debuted last month, the news about the climbing teen birth rate hit the headlines. Everybody began drawing connections to celeb baby mania and the recent spate of other flicks about unplanned pregnancies (Knocked Up, Waitress, Bella, Quinceañera) that end so cute you want to have morning sickness in your popcorn bag.

That's because, in Hollywoodland, the pregnancies bring all sorts of wonderful things to the pregnant characters – career boosts, huge inheritances, pie shops, toad-fathers-turned-into-Prince Charmings.

Not so much in real life. Which isn't surprising. That's show biz.

But is the entertainment industry so cowed by the religious hordes – or incapable of conceiving a strong woman who chooses not to go to term – that it can't come up with a script that doesn't end with a crib?

Maybe not: Not only does the U.S. have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world – more than double that of Canada's – it also makes it harder for women to get abortions.

Not surprisingly, the best of the lot comes from my great hero (and former Haven Coalition colleague) Katha Pollitt, in her column in The Nation.

Maternity Fashions, Junior Size

Teens getting pregnant: bad. Teens having babies: good. If this makes no sense to you, wake up and smell the Enfamil. It's 2008! The hot movie is Juno, a funnyquirkybittersweet indie about a pregnant high school hipster who gives her baby up for adoption. The hot celebrity is Jamie Lynn Spears, 16-year-old sister of Britney and star of Nickelodeon's Zoey 101, who's pregnant and having the baby because she wants to "do what's right." The teen birthrate, after falling for fourteen years, is up 3 percent, a phenomenon perhaps not unrelated to the fact that abstinence-only sex ed, although demonstrably ineffective at preventing sexual activity and linked to higher rates of unprotected sex, is the only sex ed taught in 35 percent of our schools. (Although maybe teens are having babies for the same reasons grown women are--the birthrate for adults is up, too.)

. . .

Juno is sensible enough to realize she's just a kid and makes the choice that not long ago was forced on middle-class white girls. These days, 29 percent of pregnant teens have abortions; 14 percent miscarry; of the 57 percent who carry to term, less than 1 percent give up the baby. Paradoxically, the women's movement destigmatized single motherhood and thus helped make a world in which some of the old justifications for abortion no longer seem so forceful. Now it's abortion that is a badge of shame and "irresponsibility."

But feminists aren't the only ones over a barrel here. It has been amusing watching the anti-choicers squirm as they laud Jamie Lynn Spears's "life-affirming decision" to add a new member to pop culture's most notoriously dysfunctional family. Even Mike Huckabee--the candidate who protested that he was too busy to keep up with the NIE report on Iran's nuclear program--called it a "tragedy" before adding, "Apparently, she's going to have the child, and I think that is the right decision, a good decision, and I respect that and appreciate it." Off the campaign trail, Jamie Lynn has been getting a royal slut-shaming: a football player could probably have killed someone and gotten less criticism--as long as he didn't kill a baby, that is. Especially a really cute one. Or a dog. Even the New York Times ran a front-page story about how "disappointed" are the parents of the young girls who adore Zoey 101. As if it's unusual for 16-year-olds to have sex. Maybe if so many parents didn't have the idiotic idea that "perfect" girls like Zoey actually exist, they would talk to their daughters about birth control instead of assuming, as Jamie Lynn's mother did, that Jamie was "conscientious" because she always met her curfew. Mama Spears's parenting book has been put on hold, reportedly replaced by a million-dollar baby-photo deal made by Jamie Lynn.

Just to bring the whole reproductive carnival full circle, Florida's "Choose Life" license plates, of which more than 40,000 have been sold, have raised more than $4 million for low-income single moms. But there's a catch: only women who choose adoption qualify. A woman who wants to keep her baby can just go starve in hell. Since only a handful of women want to give away their babies--even among pregnant women who plan on adoption, 35 percent change their mind once the baby is born--the money is just sitting there. Maybe someone, someday will make a movie about that.

Pollitt praises the movie very highly, especially the title character, who she describes as "prickly, winsome, complex and original person: she wears work shirts, plays the guitar and has a luminous intelligence and a pixielike nonsexy beauty, and that is a way young girls are almost never portrayed in films." She likes that the girl initiates all of the decisions (including the sex) and controls her fate the entire time. That was great to read.

But although the two female friends that Pollitt saw "Juno" with both cried, she writes,

Still, and maybe this is why I remained dry-eyed, I couldn't get over my sense that, hard as the movie worked to be a story about particular individuals, not a sermon, it was basically saying that for a high school junior to go through pregnancy and childbirth to give a baby to an infertile couple is both noble and cool, of a piece with loving indie rock and scorning cheerleaders; it's fetal fingernails versus boysenberry condoms. To its credit, the film doesn't demonize teen sex; still, a teen who saw this movie would definitely feel like a moral failure for choosing abortion. Do we really want young girls to feel like they have to play babysanta? The mother in me winced at Juno, that wisp of a child-woman, going through the ordeal of pregnancy and childbirth.

At this point, at least one reader is contractually obligated to tell me to lighten up. Juno is not meant to be political, it's just meant to be fun. Why can't I just enjoy it?

I can only sigh. I've been hearing that question in varying contexts all my life. No matter how I answer it, I've learned that people who are not political generally will not understand.

When you are a political person, your worldview informs everything you do: everything you see, everything you read and as many of your actions as you can manage. Perhaps it's the same for people who are deeply religious: their faith informs their entire lives. For me, as an atheist, my political worldview functions as my religion: it's the lens through which I see the entire world.

That's the general context. But there's a specific context, too.

I write for kids and teens, I used to work with teenagers (and loved it - and miss it), and I'm passionate about girls' issues. I've been involved in the reproductive rights movement for more than 25 years. And I've chosen to be child-free.

These are all very basic and important parts of my life and of my self. So how could I, for the sake of two hours' entertainment, watch this movie with no context? How could I switch off my thoughts and feelings about girls, teenagers, pregnancy, abortion? Even if I wanted to compartmentalize my life so thoroughly, I don't think it's possible to do.

That's what it is to be political.

Sometimes you have to see the movie so you can write about it. If I were Katha Pollitt and writing one of the most widely read progressive columns in the US, I would. But sometimes you can just skip the movie, and the anger and disappointment you'll inevitably feel afterwards. And since I'm me, writing this blog, that's what I'll do.

dylan moran will soon be everywhere

About six years ago, flipping channels late one night, Allan and I stumbled on "Black Books" on Comedy Central, the US comedy channel. This British comedy, starring and co-written by Irish comedian Dylan Moran, was one of the funniest shows we had ever seen. The Comedy Network never promoted it, and they never re-ran it. It disappeared.

Allan found some episodes online and downloaded them, and kept a look-out for a possible DVD set. Meanwhile, the show became a legend in our world: something glimpsed once, then cruelly snatched from our grasp.

That was the state of Black Books in our world for the past six years.

Then, last December, Allan learned Black Books was out on DVD: a boxed set of three seasons. I didn't even know there was a third season! He ordered a set, and we waited.

Then we saw "Shaun of the Dead" [corrected: previously said "Hot Fuzz", my mistake], and were amazed to see Dylan Moran in a small role. We had never seen him in anything but Black Books.

Then our DVDs arrived. Let the Black Books Festival begin.

Then my blog-friend Nigel Patel mentioned he bought the Black Books boxed set with some birthday-gift money.

Then last night we saw "Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story," and who has a small role in it? Of course. Dylan Moran.

Any minute now he'll become the world's most famous comic actor.

Very funny movie, this Tristam Shandy. It features British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, among others, including Stephen Fry playing two small roles.

But if you rent DVDs and can find Black Books, you're in for a real treat. I recommend starting from the beginning.

tsotsi

We saw "Totsi" last night. I'm very partial to redemption stories, and this one is very well done - not sugar-coated, not overly predictable, and not too heavy-handed.

I don't put any stock in the Academy Awards, but if you do, Tsoti won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

start them early and train them right

We started watched "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen" the other night, the second movie by Aboriginal director Zacharias Kunuk.

We both really liked his first film, "Atanarjuat the Fast Runner". "Atanarjuat" is the first feature film made in Inuktitut, the language spoken by the the Inuit people. It's based on an ancient Inuit legend, and is a gripping, compelling story. It's also a chance to visualize how early hunter-gatherers lived, what their daily lives might have been like. That was fascinating.

With that in mind, we expected to enjoy Kunuk's "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen". But no. To say we didn't enjoy this movie is being kind. We couldn't sit through it. It was just plain boring. You know I'm not a shoot-em-up, car-chase, armies-on-the-plains kind of movie watcher. But geez, something has to happen. Anything!

Because we didn't like this movie, I ended up watching "Futurama," and because I was watching "Futurama," I ended up seeing an ad... And this ad that drove me crazy.

I didn't write down the name of the "toy" being sold, but Googling, I found this: Rose Petal Cottage, part of the Dream Town collection by Hasbro.

It's a playhouse. In the ad, two happy, long-haired, white girls are opening and setting up the playhouse, which is filled with "accessories" - which, of course, are sold separately.

And what are these accessories?

A toy washing machine.

A toy kitchen sink.

A toy muffin-making set.

And of course, a toy nursery, complete with crib and baby.

To which I can only say: AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

I can barely articulate my disgust. I am reduced to rhetorical questions.

Do you see how early the indoctrination begins?

Are these toys playhouses ever marketed to boys? Or are girls the only people who need to practice laundry, baking and child care? (Does anyone really need to practice doing laundry?)

Why is work marketed as play? Of all the infinite varieties of play these girls might want to try - all the building, creating, climbing, colouring, running, pretending, experimenting - why do they need to play at doing the fucking laundry??

I'm not suggesting that baking and child care are drudgery on the order of laundry (although for me they would be much worse!). Baking - real baking, of real food - can be fun for any child. All children can enjoy playing with dolls. But link baking, laundry and baby in a "dream house" marketed exclusively to girls, and you've created a very specific kind of monster.

Of course there's nothing wrong with "playing house," and when kids invent a "let's pretend" game on their own, it can be a fun exercise of their imaginations.

But that's not what Rose Petal Cottage is about. This is gender-role indoctrination and insatiable consumerism all wrapped up in one neat, expensive, made-in-China package.

And my final rhetorical question: What century is this?

On the toy's website, there's a link to watch the commercial.