18
March
2007
Interesting article by a college president questioning the usefulness of the US News and World report College Rankings.
There are a few threads to follow: Sarah Lawrence decides to stop using SAT scores, without affects on the students applying. However US News will calculate an arbitrary average SAT score for that school without regards to reality. So the school decides to consider dropping out, i.e. supplying even fewer statistics to US News which will then fill in again for them. So if they decide not to participate, they will be participated by a news organization highly dependent on the success of those rankings.
So lies are being uses as statistics. A national ranking system turns out to be anything but. A national news magazine ends up losing all integrity. And a college is being under the gun to stand up to principle, or to be broadly misrepresented by those with the power. Who ends up good coming out of this?
Thank you for writing this article. I hope that we get some sort of retraction from US News & World Report, but if there isn’t - shame on you.
Too bad we’re all so dependent on lists - that we need rankings to make informed choices.
(Original article posted here.)
The Cost of Bucking College Rankings
By Michele Tolela Myers
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Like most college presidents, I have seen many prospective students and their parents show up on campus in recent months, clutching their well-worn copies of U.S. News & World Report’s rankings issue. U.S. News has smartly tapped into students’ need to sort out colleges and universities in a rational way. Parents, who face increasing college costs, understandably want to know where best to make that expensive investment.
U.S. News benefits from our appetite for shortcuts, sound bites and top-10 lists. The magazine has parlayed the appearance of unbiased measurements into a profitable bottom line.
The problem is that the U.S. News college rankings are far from reliable.
Turns out that some of their numbers are made up. I know that firsthand. Two years ago, we at Sarah Lawrence College decided to stop using SAT scores in our admission process. We didn’t make them optional, as some schools do. We simply told our prospective students not to bother sending them. We determined that the best predictors of success at Sarah Lawrence are high school grades in rigorous college-prep courses, teachers’ recommendations and extensive writing samples. We are a writing-intensive school, and the information produced by SAT scores added little to our ability to predict how a student would do at our college; it did, however, do much to bias admission in favor of those who could afford expensive coaching sessions.
Since we dropped the SAT altogether, we no longer provide SAT information to U.S. News & World Report. Our two years’ experience with this practice has been very good. Faculty members report that our students continue to be terrific. Their average high school grades, high school ranks and grades in Advanced Placement courses have not changed.
But this principled decision has put us in jeopardy. I was recently informed by the director of data research at U.S. News, the person at the magazine who has a lot to say about how the rankings are computed, that absent students’ SAT scores, the magazine will calculate the college’s ranking by assuming an arbitrary average SAT score of one standard deviation (roughly 200 points) below the average score of our peer group.
In other words, in the absence of real data, they will make up a number. He made clear to me that he believes that schools that do not use SAT scores in their admission process are admitting less capable students and therefore should lose points on their selectivity index. Our experience, of course, tells us otherwise.
But the story does not stop here. When I reported this conversation at Sarah Lawrence, several faculty members and deans suggested that perhaps it was time to stop playing ranking roulette and opt out of the survey. A few colleges explore this option each year, but most don’t follow through (Reed College is one of the few exceptions I know of), because, like unilateral disarmament, unilateral withdrawal from the U.S. News ranking system is dangerous.
We discovered how dangerous it can be through a presentation U.S. News made at the 2006 meeting of the North East Association for Institutional Research. There, the magazine indicated that if a school stops sending data, the default assumption will be that it performs one standard deviation below the mean on numerous factors for which U.S. News can’t find published data. Again, making up the numbers it can’t get.
The message is clear. Unless we are willing to be badly misrepresented, we had better send the information the magazine wants. We haven’t yet decided what we will do. But if we don’t go along, we understand we will be harmed because many students will assume that Sarah Lawrence is much less selective than it actually is.
The reality is that the magazine’s rankings issue has a large circulation and that parents and students rely on these rankings to make a college choice that has enormous educational and financial implications. This gives the magazine the power to keep colleges playing the game it sets and controls.
Why should we care if we lose our place in their rankings? Because ultimately, so many people take these rankings seriously. I would at least like to let them know how misleading the whole affair is.
The writer is president of Sarah Lawrence College.
Posted: media, science, education
18
March
2007
The voices are getting louder, yet we still don’t get the full story. Here is a letter submitted by a local resident about the Iraqi Government signing away its fortune to US oil interests. Why would they do this? Why would they be the only country in the Middle East signing up for this? Why is the press not reporting this?
I’ve read about the PSAs for the oil production in the former Soviet Republics, but they’re right, this sounds rather aggressive and tragic.
Since the beginning all foreign media and foreign countries that suggested that this war could be about oil, were ridiculed. Ah well. Guess who has pie in their face now?
(Original found here.)
Iraq legislation
The war was all about oil
For those who may have wondered whether oil was the reason we invaded Iraq, a new oil law just passed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi Council of Ministers, and probably soon to be passed by the Iraqi Parliament, should answer that question.
This law, which was planned in the U.S. before the invasion and has since been promoted by J. Paul Bremer and his successors, will legalize Production Service Agreements (PSAs) with oil companies from outside of Iraq, such as Exxon Mobil, BP, and Shell.
These contracts will provide these companies with lengthy contracts (up to 30 years) to extract Iraqi oil and reap up to 75 percent of the profits. It also allows for oil company representatives to sit on the Iraqi Oil Council which determines Iraqi oil policy.
No other Middle Eastern country currently uses PSAs and where they have been used in the past (e.g. for technological expertise); they have been written for much shorter periods, like five years.
This privatization of its oil industry will deprive Iraq of much-needed revenue to rebuild and sustain its country which has been severely damaged as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation and will transfer that money to the pockets of outside interests.
So, at last, we know what George Bush means when he speaks of “victory” in Iraq and why Dick Cheney can say, “Things are going well in Iraq.”
Among the beneficiaries of the invasion will be the big oil companies who will now be able to continue supplying us with gasoline at exorbitant prices.
One might only mention also the contracting firms (like Halliburton) and arms merchants for whom the Iraq invasion is a bonanza.
On the other side of the ledger are the American military and their families, countless Iraqi children, women, and men, dead, wounded and fled, and the American taxpayers of today and years to come.
In addition, a plundered U.S. treasury that cannot provide for education, health care, Katrina recovery, development of alternative energy sources and the basic infrastructure here at home. These are the casualties of this disastrous war for oil, all for an agenda of the few.
Tragic.
See more details at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece
T.B., Waimea
Posted: politics, media
25
February
2007
In our paper this article proposing that the government should not be in the business of censorship of violent news, was titled “Is C-SPAN too violent?”
Information is just too readily available. Instead of blocking the flow of information (which you cannot), you should be focusing on education so that people now how to read, interpret and process that information. Perhaps young children would be too naive to understand this information, but that’s where the guardians come in.
The State should not be the guardian, perhaps not even for those guardians that neglect their responsibilities, because the state cannot be an effective guardian.
(Original found here.)
Would C-SPAN count?
Once again, Congress is flirting with the idea of censoring violence on TV. Once again, its efforts are misguided.
February 19, 2007
Just what, exactly, constitutes a program that’s too violent for kids to watch on TV? How about the story of a gun-blasting bounty hunter destroying a neighborhood as he tries to kill or capture his nihilistic offspring? That, after all, is what one sees in Walt Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch,” a hit movie for … kids, and a perfect illustration of the fundamental problems posed by Congress’ flirtation with regulating violent TV programming.
Responding to a request from lawmakers, the Federal Communications Commission has drafted a report outlining what Congress might do to curb excessively violent programs. Objectionably violent shows, it says, could be banned during the hours that children are most likely to be watching TV (6 a.m. to 10 p.m.), just as indecent programming is. Congress could force cable operators to sell channels on an a la carte basis, rather than bundling them into packages that can’t be customized. And the difficult task of defining excessive violence could be done by the federal government without violating the 1st Amendment.
There’s plenty of evidence that television shows are more graphically violent than ever, both on cable networks and on free over-the-air TV. Simply noting this problem, however, doesn’t prove that government censorship can solve it.
Requiring programs such as “24″ to be aired after 10 p.m. wouldn’t stop kids from watching a recorded version the next afternoon. Nor would it have much effect on the Internet, where networks are posting a growing number of reruns for viewers to watch on demand. And it’s hard to imagine Congress barring news programs before 10 p.m., and there’s no shortage of violence on the news.
A similar problem underlies the proposal to mandate a la carte cable pricing. It would be a boon to consumers if cable and satellite TV operators did business this way. But even in an a la carte regime, the channels with programming that distresses anti-violence activists are likely to be among the most frequently bought, simply because their programs are in high demand.
What censorship would do is deter networks from airing valuable but bloody shows that don’t quite qualify as news, while generating lawsuits over what inevitably will be inconsistent standards for judging violence on TV. Would cartoons be treated the same way as live action? How about realistic historical fare? Would “Saving Private Ryan” get a pass? Then how about “The Passion of the Christ”? What about psychological violence?
The government shouldn’t be making these calls; parents should. Online, there’s plenty of help for parents trying to identify inappropriate shows for their kids, and there’s technology in every TV set, cable converter box and satellite receiver to help screen out violent programming. If they still don’t like how much violence their TV is bringing into their home, they should just turn it off.
Posted: social/culture, politics, media
25
December
2006
Talk is cheap. And as a result there is a lot of it. Whether at home, at work, or in the public sphere, people like to talk. It makes you feel involved, and somewhat in control of this uncontrollable life. But a lot of it is just chatter going nowhere.
Our politic discussions on global issues are going nowhere, so the easiest is to call for more talk, for a national debate. But the writer below, Martin Kaplan, makes some good points about why a national debate may be rather useless to assist with anything except getting things out there. It’s like letters to the editor, or a blog like this. As mentioned, the information is already out there. What is missing is a synthesis of the available information into a specific viewpoint, and then to proceed taking action, right or wrong, based on that viewpoint. Most people do not take action. Our administration does take action, but lacks a bit on the synthesis part and that’s not good either.
So what would you need a National Debate on Iraq for? To embarrass people later on when things don’t work out as expected?
(Original found here.)
Does Iraq need more debate?
We’ve had plenty of shouting matches on the war; what we need are better leaders and more capable media.
By Martin Kaplan
MARTIN KAPLAN is associate dean of the USC Annenberg School, where he directs the Norman Lear Center (learcenter.org).
December 19, 2006
EVERYONE SAYS WE need a national debate on Iraq. Left, right, politicos, pundits, editorial writers, academics. If ever there was a universally held position, it’s the belief that holding a national debate on Iraq is just the thing for what ails us in the Middle East.
Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), who coined the term “freedom fries,” has called for it. So has Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), repeatedly. Conservative columnist William Rusher believes “the stage is set for a national debate.” Liberal evangelical Jim Wallis thinks that what we really need is a “new national debate on Iraq.” The only one not joining the parade seems to be President Bush, but that may just be because his Iraq “listening tour” has caused a scheduling conflict.
It’s not just Iraq. From healthcare to education, immigration to entitlements, there’s hardly an issue on the national radar screen that hasn’t been nominated for a cleansing and clarifying national debate.
But what would a national debate on anything really look like? How would it be any different from what we’re already doing now? Imagine the elements of a national debate on Iraq, and then ask whether what’s going on today fits the bill.
Analysts offering opposing views on television shows? Check. Dueling Op-Ed pieces? Check. Senators and representatives making floor speeches? Check. Presidential candidates staking out positions, and critics taking them on? Check. Magazines and journals offering thoughtful, conflicting takes? Check. A take-no-prisoners brawl in the blogosphere? Check. Public opinion polls? You can’t go to the restroom without tripping over a new one. Thousands of people in the streets? Well, it’s not like the Vietnam era - without a draft, it won’t ever be - but plenty of cities have seen plenty of passionate marchers.
So why, despite all appearances of actually having a national debate right now, do people keep insisting that we mount one?
Perhaps it’s because the mainstream media are too timid to declare the difference between right and wrong. Imagine if journalism consisted of more than a collage of conflicting talking points. Imagine the difference it would make if more brand-name reporters broke from the bizarre straitjacket of “balance,” which equates fairness with putting all disputants on equal epistemological footing, no matter how deceitful or moronic they may be.
There’s a market for news that weighs counterclaims and assesses truth value. It just hasn’t kept up with demand. No wonder Jon Stewart has such a loyal audience: He has a point of view, and it’s rooted in the reality-based - not the ideology-based - world.
Anyone who’s watched a presidential debate knows how useless they are for deciding our country’s direction. The coming presidential primary season, which will stretch for more than a year, will be the scene of multi-candidate cattle calls in which entrants will moo canned messages, spring scripted attacks, ignore interlocutors’ questions and declare inevitable victories.
The debates are also useless for finding common ground. There are no points to be scored with nuance. We’re a nation of 300 million, which means there’s one political party for every 150 million points of view. Politicians behave the way they do for a reason: Wedge issues work. Bipartisan consensus is a mug’s game. The base is what counts. Swing votes win elections. Food fights win ratings.
Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has been calling for a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates across the nation. I’d like that. I’d also like a pony, an end to racism, a cure for cancer and a date with Scarlett Johansson. The actual Lincoln-Douglas debates drew huge crowds and galvanized public attention; Newt’s would make C-SPAN, and maybe Fox, but most people would get them in 12-second snippets. Besides, it’s tough to imagine Newt and his opponent (John McCain?) actually coming up with anything that they haven’t broadcast in the news-and-gasbag venues to which they already enjoy full access.
Maybe we don’t need a national debate. Maybe what we really need are leaders with more character, followers with more discrimination, deciders who hear as well as listen and media that know the difference between the public interest and what the public is interested in. National debates nicely fulfill the circus part of the bread-and-circuses formula of modern public life. Like psychoanalysis, national debates are basically interminable. And in our postmodern era, they do a nice job substituting for the hard work of actually figuring out what’s true and what’s good.
Posted: social/culture, politics, media
25
December
2006
Some things the government should definitely have its fingers on. But perhaps not in setting a cultural standard. Profanities may be rather subjective, their impact exists as much in the head of the receiver as of the sender, and if they don’t then the impact is zero. People define indecencies as “I know it when I see it.” But I don’t know when you see it, and I don’t see it that way. So the FCC says that
the “F-word” in any context “inherently has a sexual connotation” and can be subject to enforcement action.”
You have to love these absolutes on something so subjective. But you better just hope that there will never ben an FCC commissioner getting busted using an F-word.
Of course, indecency is acceptable between 10 pm and 6 am.
(Original found here.)
Judges quiz lawyer on FCC indecency rule
LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Federal appeals judges Wednesday challenged a government lawyer over the Federal Communications Commission’s tough new policy against accidental use of profanities in broadcasts.
Amid legal arguments that sometimes included the F-word itself, a three-judge appeals court panel took a skeptical attitude toward what Fox Television Stations Inc. said was the FCC’s radical expansion of its authority to severely punish what it cites as indecent speech.
The judges did not immediately issue a ruling.
At a minimum, at stake was the FCC’s finding of indecency in two broadcasts of the Billboard Music Awards: the 2002 show in which Cher used a profanity, and the 2003 show in which reality TV star Nicole Richie did the same while telling a story about a Prada purse.
Also discussed during Wednesday’s arguments was NBC’s 2003 broadcast of the Golden Globes awards show when singer Bono uttered an obscenity.
Broadcasters are fighting the FCC conclusion that the broadcasts were indecent, even though no fines were issued. The FCC said the “F-word” in any context “inherently has a sexual connotation” and can be subject to enforcement action.
The government lawyer defending the FCC policy, Eric D. Miller, surprised some broadcasters when he said news programs covering the hearing could disseminate quotations with the F-word, even the stars’ comments themselves, without FCC penalty.
Use of the otherwise indecent words in a news program, he said, would not meet the legal standard for barring them, which requires they be used to pander, to titillate or for shock value.
Later, Judge Peter W. Hall suggested that some people might find that awards shows themselves had news value as well.
And Judge Rosemary S. Pooler told Miller that broadcasters were troubled because they believe the FCC is subjective about what it believes is indecent.
“This seems to be a scheme that depends on what you think, instead of having an objective criteria broadcasters can use,” she said.
The arguments were colorful as lawyers and judges alike found themselves uttering profanities. At one point, Judge Pierre N. Leval, suggesting that context matters, sparked some laughter when he asked Miller: “Would you be shocked to hear that a judge on the federal bench said `f—?’”
In written arguments submitted to the appeals court, Carter G. Phillips, a lawyer for Fox Television Stations, said for 30 years, the FCC had “never deemed fleeting, isolated or inadvertent expletives to be indecent.”
The changes in rules, he said, mean “the end of truly live television and a gross expansion of the FCC’s intrusion into the creative and editorial process.”
Posted: social/culture, media
1
December
2006
Last night we watched “Reel Paradise” about Independent Movie Producer John Pierson leaving behind his successful life in the US to live for a year on an outer island in Fiji bringing modern movies to the locals.
It sounds like they started this as a joke, as part of his independent movie show, “what if we showed movies in the most remote cinema in the world.” So then you take Mr. Highstrung and pop him into a culture he really doesn’t fit in to and see what happens.
The predictable happens. He doesn’t fit, he doesn’t try to fit, he becomes annoying. He has a major freak attack because the police is unwilling to apply crime lab tactics (e.g. fingerprint the whole population) to figure out who stole his laptop. His wife tries to be nice, makes friends, but is having trouble raising their children. Both kids are the only whites in school and it’s not clear whether they’re fitting in, or whether both have one local friend. The older, the daughter rebels, seems to have a girlfriend (they’re seen holding hands), and impresses the locals because she’s freely disrespecting her parents. The younger seems to be wise enough to understand local entertainment (like “Jackass” will be a hit) and thinking.
The real stories seem to evolve around it. Why does the father dress in long sleeved shirts and make no effort to adjust? It’s like a lot of mainlanders that escape the mainland, come to Hawaii, but then proceed to exist as before. Why is the daughter such a hoochie. At some point we see her, for 5 seconds, with hickeys and a black eye. What happened? What happened to her friend who is mysteriously shipped off to her abusive boyfriend on a neighbor island when the girls are accused of spending nighttime hanging out with too many boys. How remote is this island, when you see Suva, the capital with megaplexes? Why are there four haoles in the audience during the Apocalyse Now Redux movie, but not in any other movie? Why is the movie distributor, the one ally, mentioning that the father is difficult to deal with. And what is the story with the conflict between Indians and locals, and the fact that the Indians, who are the traders have the money to pay for movies in the movie house, but the locals don’t have the money, so never got to watch any movies.
And what was the point of the whole exercise? They know they weren’t going to do this permanently, so why go in there, do this for a year, serve something free, then pull out. No wonder the local grown-ups are suspicious. There’s a side bit on the church (well, on missionary activity in the tropics). And why does nobody seem to mind being filmed for this disaster. Even the girls applying graffiti to the top of the church tower is ok. They act like the camera is not there (or perhaps they do).
At the end we have the typical American moment “we are so happy for everything you did for us. We will have you in our hearts.” I don’t remember the exact dialog, it just came across as really insincere. It’s time for them to go.
Now in other reviews the movie gets savaged. It is a train wreck, but it’s not a bad movie. He makes the point of the fictional Mosquito Coast and there’s some of that there. He’s the wrong guy in the wrong place. He’s not willing to change or adapt. Fine, he’s a tragic character. They say the family is whiny, but not more than anybody other family. They say they’re condescending to the locals, but I didn’t get that at all. They live within their framework, their environment, with what’s been given to them. They function, they think differently. Different things are important to them, like family, like their community. Just because jackass is a hit (and gets banned by Fuji censors), but student film festival with woman’s boobs growing into a hand that ends up scratching her own ass eventually isn’t (and leads to an empty cinema) does not mean Fijians are stupid simpletons. The distributor mentions how some humor doesn’t translate. Us believing that it always will, makes us the stupid guys.
So there are some lessons here. Having the resources to pursue your dream may not lead to the dream being completed as expected. Adjust your expectations. Be flexible. Be humble. And Smile. Don’t expect to impose your will on others. Things may be that way for a reason. Common sense may not always be.
Scary that this was a real family going through this. But it was their choice. I’m glad they went through it, so we don’t need to. And I’m glad I got to see it.
Posted: social/culture, media, local
1
December
2006
As I’m scribbling some notes to the blog I’m finally watching the “Polar Express.” That’s one creepy movie. The character realization is somewhat awkward, people move jerky. Most characters have a black hole in their mouth, instead of a tongue. The conduction is constructed well, but the kids just look unreal. And what’s the story all about: kid doesn’t believe in Christmas, a magic train arrives. He gets on. Most of the time is spent taking a rollercoaster ride to the North Pole (which is visible just as you cross the Arctic Circle). They get there, they see Santa Claus, they believe, they go home. And back home we find out it’s not a dream. Wow.
Why did we need computer graphics to creepify this? Couldn’t this have been told with real actors? It’s not a particularly inspiring story, besides the train ride everything happens in 15 minutes. And the trainride is nothing special - 10 identical waiters dancing and somersaulting serving hot chocolate and taking it away in 30 seconds. Bam, bam, bam, it’s hip we’re gone. There are other forgettable characters, and what about all the other kids on the train. Are they believers or non-believers too?
Yikes. They’re really plugging the movie annually to make it become a holiday classic. I’m glad it’s over, it didn’t leave me with a good feeling.
Posted: media
26
November
2006
The other day I watched “Inside Man,” Spike Lee’s movie about “a bank robbery that wasn’t”, advertised as a “smart, and taut thriller.” Smart movies are brain food. This one is a puzzle, a game of cat and mouse between the police and the bank robber. It’s basically a good movie, though if you throw out a smart movie, expect people to poke at the holes in the story. I wouldn’t bother to do that with a stupid movie, there it would be a waste of time.
This movie had me wondering about a couple of things:
- you have bank robbers shopping for paint at Home Depot?
- they mysteriously bring steel framing into a bank to reframe a room. How did that get in, in those small bags they were carrying?
- they make a room smaller, but the store keeper/supply specialist doesn’t notice
- the bank employees don’t notice the paint fumes that would have been in that storage room (no ventilation anywhere)
- the thieves spend a lot of time stalling to dig a hole into a concrete floor. They bring steel framing, they don’t bring a concrete drill. The hole they dig stops at a pipe. Is it a sewer pipe? Are they connecting the toilet for the guy in hiding straight to sewer main?
- since the partners say that the main robber, Dalton, must have stunk after a week in that hole, how come nobody smells him in the wall? Where does he poop and pee? What does he eat (a week’s worth of food is quite a bit, there’s no trash anywhere)? Why don’t they leave some water with him, so he can wash?
- what would have happened if the police had provided a bus? Who would have driven, the partners that spent so much time in the movie creating an alibi?
And there are other “little” things that just make you wonder.
- Jodie Foster is introduced as a magnificent c**t, and she comes across as so superior. But basically she walks into the bank, meets the robber, he tells her he already has what she wants to protect, she walks out, and disappears for the rest of the movie. Huh? Brilliant character indeed. Well, at the end she wants to sell an apartment to Bin-Laden’s cousin - how edgy. She’s a realtor with an attitude.
- The main bad guy, Christopher Plummer, Mr. Case was a Nazi sympathiser, 50 years ago. He got stinking rich doing some questionable work. He started a bank and for 50 years was very successful, generous, a good person. Now he’s close to dying and is concerned that his secret may come out. My question: why hang on to an incriminating diamond and a Nazi document that may destroy you. Do you want to give it to your children? Why not burn the paper, throw away the diamond and stop living on that timebomb. No, instead you hide it in a security deposit box, whose number is mysterious not showing up in the sequence of bank boxes?
- Who does the main bad-good guy work for? Why go to all this trouble to hijack a bank, take hostages, stake elaborate fake assasinations, build fake rooms, to potentially later hijack a guy who’s close to dying? OK, you get some diamonds, but this guy takes, initially, only the document, and then later decides to take the little bags of diamonds, but to leave the big Cartier one, to start the trace research into war crimes.
There were a couple of good starting points
- The police using rubber bullets to shoot the escaping hostages, instead of just shooting them with real bullets.
- The bank employee losing his turban due to police handling, not wanting to not talk until he gets his turban back. And no, he’s not Arab, he’s a Sikh (duh).
- The “good” bad guy gets away.
But the biggest problem I had with the movie was the level of violence. The main policeman, after the crisis is over, mentions that nothing happened, nothing got stolen, nobody got killed. So all is well. But, what about the people that were the hostages. They had their cellphones taken. They had to strip to their underwear. Some were unruly and had to be tied up. Do they think nothing happened?
What about the bank manager that “forgot” about his cell phone. You can tell from the post rescue interviews that he got beaten up pretty well. Perhaps he needed hospital, or at least medical, attention. Does he think nothing happened?
And what about the bank robber. He goes through all this trouble to not hurt people. He uses toy guys, fake blood, but when it comes to establishing authority, it’s a step into a side room, and and punch the guy’s face in. He says “anybody else here thinks they’re smarter than me?” Basically he capitulates, and from his reaction that’s ok. I’m against the death penalty, he may say, I’m to smart for it, but if you don’t listen to me, I’ll smash your freaking face in.
It leaves a sour taste in your mouth. As does the guy with the supposed heart condition that’s perfectly ok once outside. He’s lying. Mr. Turban capitulates to the police and talks without getting his turban back. Police wins.
Somebody else watching was turned off after about 20 minutes, i.e. before the whole Jodie Foster conflict starts, accusing me of being attracted to senseless violence. I’m not sure it was senseless, but it didn’t fit the spirit of the genre.
Or perhaps it does. In the last few weeks I watched three “smart” movies: Infernal Affairs, Brick, and now Inside Man. The both feature people working with their wits, and it’s amazing to watch the puzzles fall into place. But they all feature a good amount of bloody violence, people getting tortured, beaten up, shot, killed, dropped off buildings, whatever.
Is that necessary?
I’ll throw out a couple more things. “Schindler’s List” and “Silence of the Lambs” are good movies. I don’t want to watch them again.
Is physical torture much worse than mental torture? This same weekend I’ve watched Jim Jarmusch “Coffee and Cigarettes” which is a nice minimalist piece that involves a bunch of conversations, duets you may say, between rather different characters. It’s honest, and mentally aggravating at points, because that’s how people act. They’re not always nice and truthful, and life isn’t always fair. I enjoyed it, but wondered is this mental torture any different?
I remember an old movie from 1972 “Sleuth” with Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine that is also about a game of cat and mouse, which impressed me back then, but now is just a sense of nastiness in my conscience (I haven’t watched it in 15 years).
I don’t know what to think. Cleverness is one thing, but it’s just a different level of power. That’s ok. Some stories are physically brutal. But this movie was advertised as not playing that kind of game. What it left me with though, was the poor schlob of a character that ended up experiencing what happens when mental authority meets physical authority.
Posted: social/culture, media
24
November
2006
(Original found here).
Citizen Journalism? The below happens when private citizens film video and post them online. The police complains that they don’t show the whole story. But how is that different from regular media?
It’s also interesting that regarding the incident where UCLA campus police tasered a student in the library, police has to say:
the student refussed to comply with rules that he show a college identification card or leave the library
Nice. So the fact that the student was of middle-eastern descent is not worth mentioning. And the fact that somebody who doesn’t show a library card has to be electrocuted because he doesn’t follow the rules is ok too. And if police didn’t have a taser, they would have felt free to shoot the guy?
Hmmm. Don’t know what to make of that. Yes, every story has multiple sides to it. So now it’s not “authority” who says what happened, but “video” who does is a little worrisome to the people who are supposed to be in control.
Police: Amateur videos don’t tell story
By ANDREW GLAZER,
Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 23, 1:44 PM ET
LOS ANGELES - Arlin Pacheco turned her video camera from the kittens on her porch to the police officers she saw chasing and tackling a neighbor. The camera was rolling as one officer pressed his knee on the man’s neck and punched his face. That arrest of suspected gang member William Cardenas didn’t draw much attention until last week, when Pacheco’s video appeared on the YouTube Web site.
Footage of two other arrests quickly followed, and the images fueled an uproar and accusations of police brutality in a city already infamous for the 1991 Rodney King beating.
Amateur videos of police using force on suspects have sparked varying degrees of outrage from California to Philadelphia and Europe after onlookers captured incidents on cheap cameras or video cell phones and posted footage on the Internet.
Some law enforcement officials worry about the effect, arguing that showing only a tiny part of an event can’t tell the whole story. They also fear widespread exposure of such video clips might give officers pause in the future, even when force is justified, and that could put people in danger.
“You know, policing is oftentimes not pretty,” Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said. “The video, as we’ve seen from time to time, particularly if you’re looking at a slice of it, makes it look even less pretty.”
Recent images of an Iranian-American student at the University of California, Los Angeles who was repeatedly shocked with a Taser by campus police have been viewed nearly a million times on YouTube and led to protests and an independent investigation.
Police say the footage was notable for what it left out: The student refused to comply with rules that he show a college identification card or leave the library.
Another amateur video shows an LAPD officer using pepper spray on a handcuffed homeless man who was then left in a closed patrol car.
“A video speaks for itself,” said Sherman Austin, 23, who trains a network of amateur videographers who film arrests and post footage on the Web site CopwatchLA. “The camera doesn’t lie.”
But in the 2005 case of the homeless man, Benjamin Barker, a district attorney’s investigation cleared the police officers of wrongdoing.
In the Cardenas case, a court commissioner also found that the officers did nothing wrong because Cardenas was resisting arrest on a felony warrant claiming receipt of stolen property.
Civil rights attorney Connie Rice acknowledges the images may “polarize and politicize police investigations,” but she they also force the LAPD to look inward.
“Without them, there is no pressure at all for police to examine use of force, and they are not policing themselves,” said Rice, who was appointed by the Police Commission to examine the LAPD’s response to allegations of officer abuse.
Bob Baker, president of the department’s 9,000-member union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said police have nothing to hide.
The union applauded a plan announced this week to install digital cameras in some cruisers starting this year. Uncut footage of arrests — even those requiring force — will insulate police from undue accusations of brutality, Baker said.
“Putting cameras in cars will give people a full story of what took place,” he said.
Chris Biller, a retired LAPD veteran, said the feeling of being constantly watched could put officers and civilians in danger.
“It will cause policemen to hesitate, to look around,” said Biller, 68. “In action, this eventually may cause death or serious injury.”
Attorney John Barnett, who represented one of the officers in the King beating, said in-car cameras would encourage suspects and police to behave appropriately. Unedited images will usually show police meticulously follow guidelines, he said.
“If everyone knew they were being videotaped, if they knew the public would see what they see, I don’t think having a video camera would make them hesitate,” he said. “Every department should welcome as much video and audio evidence as is available to explain what they see on a day-to-day basis.”
Still, Pacheco and other citizens intend to keep their cameras close.
“Nothing happens until it is shown in public,” Pacheco said. “Putting a spotlight on the LAPD is the only way we can weed out the bad apples.”
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On the Net:
http://copwatchla.org/
Posted: social/culture, media
18
September
2006
On Thursday boingboing talked about somebody having taped the Spike Lee documentary “When the Levees Broke” off HBS, split it into 26 bits, and posted it onto YouTube. Too good to be true, right? On Friday I was watching it, and it was a fascinating piece of work. I got to section 7 when all the links disappeared all at once and there was a message that HBO disapproved of the copyrighted material being shown and basically pulled all the videos.
I guess I’ll have to rent it.
But I was thinking - here is the future of television. I don’t get HBO, I won’t get HBO. I don’t get a lot of channels because it’s just not worth it. But the Internet is a great distribution medium for shows on TV you may not see otherwise. Now I’m not planning on giving Apple $2 for watching a primetime show. But this was almost like a PSA that could be on public broadcasting, as it talked about what happened during the Katrina disaster. It’s like the Al Gore movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” Sure, you have to make your money back, but can’t you get it back through donations? Show it for free to anybody who wants to see it.
And to HBO - ah well. You could have gained a customer. But then you’re just a business and you treat us like you want to be treated. Amazon also tries the downloading of movies, but it’s expensive and supposedly the EULA is a terrible one (i.e. don’t even think of oking it), so I won’t go near it.
I wonder what Spike thinks.
This was the link to the movie: link.
Here is an HBO opinion on the link site:
So HBO has taken down When the Levees Broke on Youtube. If someone at HBO is reading this post, hear me out for one second.
I am a filmmaker myself so I understand your need to protect your assets. However, I urge you to reconsider and doing one of two things: 1) get the DVD out now because people need to see it NOW! 2) if you cannot do that for whatever reason, then let it live in the public domain or at least ignore it living in the public domain.
But whatever you do, please don’t let this film sit on a bookshelf or behind premium cable membership. New Orleans is still a mess, the people who fucked up are still in power and they need a kick in the butt. This film can make a difference but it needs a large audience to achieve its purpose which is to pressure governement on all levels to act better, NOW!
I am afraid each day this film is not seen, the less it will change this country for the better. Overlook the film business, do a service to your people, your viewers, your non-viewers. Be more than just a business.
Posted: social/culture, media
