The Cuban-American Michael Moore

"Covering Cuba 3: Elian," banned by the American Film Institute (see earlier postings), got its first national exposure on Fox News Channel Sunday afternoon. Host Gregg Jarrett interviewed director Agustin Blazquez and associate producer Jaums Sutton about the possible impact of their film on the 2004 election. Jarrett seemed to treat Agustin Blazquez as the Cuban-American Michael Moore. Although the Fox network gave Moore a TV series in 1995, "TV Nation, " and hasn't offered anything to Blazquez, at least not yet.

Here's the transcript:

Gregg Jarrett (host): That is a clip from a documentary about little Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban refugee who was fished from the ocean off the Florida coastline and the custody battle that arose over little Elian ended up actually playing a role in the 2000 election and now nearly 4 years later there is a documentary out. It is being released in the U.S. It attacks the way the Clinton Administration handled the case so here is a question for you: “Could the film be as favorable to President Bush in this year’s election as it was in 2000?” Well, lets put that question to a couple of folks. We are talking to Agustin Blazquez, producer and creator of Covering Cuba 3 and Jaums Sutton, interviewer for the documentary. Gentlemen, thanks for being with us and we will get to that question in a moment, but first, Agustin, it move you to the press release because your press release states the following and I’m quoting: “The film offers the opportunity to tell the American people what the Clinton Administration and the U.S. media censored! The media manipulated information to fool the American people.” Now, Agustin, that’s a pretty serious charge and I’m no apologist for the Clinton Administration, but I’m a member of the media. I covered the case. What did we in the media censor and manipulate?

Agustin Blazquez: But, wait a moment. Your station got very good ratings in my documentary and also Diane Sawyer got very good ratings in the documentary. It’s other networks like CNN, Lucia Newman and also. . . .

GJ: What did we manipulate and censor?

AB: Well, there was a lot of information that actually existed that wasn’t released at that time, like for example that the Cuban Constitution actually gives all the custody of the children to the parents—I mean to the state, not the parents.

GJ: We don’t recognize in a court of law the Cuban Constitution. We recognize American law. American law was very clear; both family and immigration law, the biological father, absence of any evidence of abuse, dictates the course of a child.

AB: Absolutely. The problem is that what the American people did not understand is that when that child was returned to Cuba that it was going to be in the custody of the state. That’s why the Cuban Americans were trying to protect that child from going back to Cuba . . ..

GJ: We knew that and we reported that, Agustin. Jaums, let me turn to you. Most of the Cuban American People you interviewed for this documentary were actually born in the U.S., as I understand it, thus they have little or know personal knowledge of Cuba. So, in fairness, what do they really know about the realities of life in Cuba?

Jaums Sutton: They grew up with this from their families. Their parents lived it and have discussed it. It became part of their soul because of their families.

GJ: Agustin, let me move back to you again. You accused the U.S. government of violating the law, that’s in your press release. Now look, I am a lawyer, as I mentioned. I covered it. It was litigated in both state and federal courts, which denied Elian Gonzalez political asylum. Even the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the father and refused to intervene. All those judges were wrong and you’re right?

AB: No I don’t mean that I am right. It seems to be that the justice was violated. You just have to see the documentary in order to understand what the people are talking about and what happened. I think the people in my documentary are very eloquent and speak clearly about the whole thing.

GJ: Yeah. Jaums, back to you. Your documentary clearly tells what is a heart-wrenching story from the Cuban American point of view, so you’d admit that it’s not objective, correct?

JS: Right. The whole point was to get across a side that is—we felt was lacking in the media of the U.S. That Americans needed more information from the Cuban Americans who were closer to it.

GJ: And, Jaums, still with you. Elian spent the last 4 years with those who love him, I mean his father, his, Elian’s brother, extended family in Cuba. He just celebrated his 10th birthday. I mean, we hate communism, we loath it, but whose to say this little boy is not better off with his immediately family in that environment?

JS: Well, he’s physically, we understand from family in the U.S., that he is physically with his family there, but there is also a guard at the front door and a guard at the back door that’s not there to protect him from the outside. It’s to make sure that they can’t get away and can’t do anything, that Elian and his father can’t do anything that the government wouldn’t like. He is the government poster child there. He is not—doesn’t have—a normal life of a child there.

GJ: No easy answers here. Again a heart-wrenching story. Thank you both for being here—Agustin Blazquez and Jaums Sutton. We appreciate it.

An American Tragedy (continued)

Angus Crook writes to tell us that Josef von Sternberg also made a version of Dreiser's classic novel, in 1931, starring Sylvia Sidney, among others.

Jamaat Ansar Al-Jihad Claims Credit for Paris Jewish Center Fire

From The Jerusalem Post ] [link thanks to Little Green Footballs]:

"The group, Jamaat Ansar Al-Jihad, issued a claim of responsibility Sunday evening on the Islamic Web site known for militant Islamic comment. The message said the attack was 'in response to racist acts by Jews in France against Islam and the Muslims and the desecration of Muslim cemeteries by Jews'. It is also meant ... as a simple response to the racist and savage acts by Jews in Muslim countries like Palestine and other Muslim and Arab countries,' it said...

"...Minister-without-Portfolio Natan Sharansky said, "In France the radical Left and the intelligentsia demonize and deligitimize the very existence of Israel... There is a very close connection between that and the existence of anti-Semitism. The government of France doesn't want to acknowledge that and even denies it. Until they see the connection between the demonization of Israel and the deligitimization of Israel, the anti-Semitism will continue, even though they are truly, honestly doing more to combat anti-Semitism than any other government in Europe."

John Kerry's Nuclear Option

John LeBoutillier says the Swift Boat ads controversy is a mere bump in the road, because John Kerry will stop at nothing to become President:

"Knowing Kerry, here is what he is contemplating: he is signaling GW Bush that everything is on the table now. That means that Kerry will take Bush - who he believes is directly involved in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign - right into the gutter as payback. Past allegations not only about Bush’s Texas Air National Guard problems will suddenly re-surface soon. But - ominously - so, too, may past rumors of Bush’s use of cocaine in his “young and irresponsible years” and rumors of Bush girlfriends having abortions. These have been raised in the past. Look for Kerry to have carefully researched them and prepared some type of attack based on them. In other words, Kerry is ready to go nuclear to win this election.

"All along Kerry has tried to have it both ways on his Vietnam service: he saw himself as a war hero-turned anti-war leader. Anything that gets in the way of that picture infuriates him. And the Swift Boat Vets have gummed things up for him. But, in his pathological brain, he sees the Bush Attack Machine behind this and he is determined to destroy the Bushes once and for all. [emphasis added]

"Look for a MoveOn. org ad - or some other pro-Kerry 527 group - to air devastating negative commercials against Bush. And know that they are operating on direct orders from John Kerry.

"Kerry has been telling people since high school - I know this because my brother was one year ahead of Kerry - that he was going to be President. And Kerry knows this is his one shot; if he loses, he is toast as the Democrats move to Hillary in 2008. So Kerry has to do everything he can to win this election. And he will do whatever it takes."

10 States Will Decide

Charlie Cook says the other 40 states don't matter very much by now:

"At this point, there remains 10 states that are too close to call: Florida with 27 electoral votes, Iowa (7), Minnesota (10), Missouri (11), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21) and Wisconsin (10). While too close to call, these states are not necessarily dead even. In Pennsylvania, President Bush, after holding a consistent lead over Kerry, finally slipped behind last month, but not far enough to warrant moving it into the 'Lean Kerry' column. The same case exists in Florida, where a recent poll by a Republican firm for a private client put Kerry up by four points, but no one believes that the state is anything but a toss up. In Minnesota, New Hampshire and New Mexico, Kerry seems to be up by a bit, but again not quite enough to move those into the Kerry column. Bush is ahead in Missouri, but it's a close call as to whether the lead is big enough to justify moving it into the 'Lean Bush' column. In adding up all the electoral votes that are in the safe and lean columns for each candidate, President Bush has a tight 211 to 207 lead in the Electoral College. Bush also has 120 votes in the toss up column. However, if you pushed each of the 10 toss up states to Kerry -- who seems to be ahead by a slight margin -- he would come out on top."

Taxonomy of Road Rage

Yesterday, I was the victim of an aggressive driver suffering from road rage. Driving down a quiet road for a Sunday drive in the country, the other driver pulled behind me honking his horn. So I slowed down. At a stop sign, he pulled up next to my car and began screaming insults at the top of his voice, before driving off. What the heck was he thinking? Afterwards, I found this interesting Taxonomy of Road Rage by Drs. Leon James and Diane Nahl:

"My cumulative research using the self-witnessing reports of hundreds of drivers, reveals an agitated inner world of driving that is replete with extreme emotions and impulses seemingly triggered by little acts. Ordinary drivers can display maniacal thoughts, violent feelings, virulent speech, and physiological signs of high stress.

'Right now I feel scared, anxious, fearful, panic stricken, agitated, bothered, irritated, annoyed, angry, mad. I feel like yelling and hitting. I'm thinking, Oh, no what's he doing. What's happening. How could he do that. and I hear myself saying out loud, @#$% Stupid guy! I'm breathing fast, gripping the wheel, perspiring, sitting up straight and slightly forward, my eyes are open and watching straight ahead.'

This incident involved a car cutting into the lane and forcing the driver to slam on the brakes causing a chain reaction; however, no collision occurred. The self-witnessing reports of drivers routinely contain scary incidents of this sort in which near misses occur. Hence it has become normal and usual for drivers to experience stress and panic under everyday traffic conditions. The following is a summary of the variety of negative reactions routinely mentioned in driver self-witnessing reports.

Extreme Physiological Reactions: heart pounding, momentary stopping of breathing, muscle spasms, stomach cramps, wet hands, pallor, faintness, trembling, nausea, discoordination, inhibition, visual fixation, facial distortion, back pain, neck cramp.

Extreme Emotional Reactions:outbursts of anger, yelling, aggressive gestures, looking mean and glaring, threatening with dangerous vehicle manipulation, fantasies of violence and revenge, panic, incapacitation, distortion, regressive rigid pattern of behavior, fear, anxiety, delusional talk against non-present drivers and objects.

Extreme Irrational Thought Sequences:paranoic thinking that one is being followed or inspected, addressing other drivers who are not within ear shot, script writing scenarios involving vengeance and cruelty against 'guilty' drivers, denial of reality and defensiveness when a passenger complains of a driver's error, psychopathic interactions as when two drivers alternately tailgate each other dangerously at high speed.

These findings raise an important public issue: What is the mental health of the nearly two hundred million licensed drivers in North America? Demographic sampling research with the self-witnessing method is needed to assess the generality of my early findings. We need to create behavioral maps of drivers under varying social and psychological conditions in order to construct a comprehensive theory of driving behavior within the language of drivers, not the language of scientists. Managing the future of driving in our society requires a knowledge of driving psychology because it provides the content needed by instructors, safety officials, law enforcement, and all regulatory agencies in society that administer roads, cars, and drivers. I use the phrase 'driving informatics' (Nahl, 1999) to cover the entirety of information sources society now needs to manage its expanding driving and automotive environment."

How "The Scream" Was Stolen

According to The Guardian :

"The first anyone heard was a crash as the two armed robbers, masked in balaclavas, careered into plate glass doors at the front of the Munch Museum. In their adrenalin-psyched eagerness to snatch one of the most renowned and valuable of modern paintings, the gang reportedly misjudged the gallery's sequence of automatic sliding doors. But the blundering entrance - which startled Sunday morning tourists drifting through the gallery and alerted security guards - was followed by a rapidly executed theft."

Who is Killing Iraq's WMD Experts?

The Washington Times says America is failing to protect those who know most about Iraq's WMD program--even when they are kept in US custody:

"Anti-coalition forces have killed a prominent Iraqi chemical-weapons scientist whom U.S. investigators were questioning at Abu Ghraib prison, in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of Saddam Hussein's arsenal. The scientist's death is not the first such killing, and it has some U.S. analysts wondering whether there is a pattern and also whether the Iraqi insurgents had incredibly good intelligence and a deadly aim "

Arsonists Burn Parisian Jewish Center

From The Washington Times: AP:

"Authorities immediately suspected the fire was set deliberately. Inside the building, investigators found anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas scrawled in red marker. One message read, 'Without the Jews, the world is happy.'"

Watch Europe Carefully

Historian Victor Davis Hanson favors American troop reductions in Europe, but warily:

"Anyone old enough to have known the Wehrmacht in the past and the intra-European hounding that goes on in the present does not believe that we are at the end of history — at least not until the nature of man changes and national character is revealed as a mere construct. Germany is united again, but an economic colossus stalled, as its politicians silently gnash about "unfairness" in the EU, and as German Euros go east and south to subsidize "others." Germany, in fact, is in flux, a period of shake-out not seen since the late 1920s, in which the reaction to a failed socialist-pacifist agenda will one day either bring pro-American reform or unpredictable fury, in any direction"

Tolstoy on War

The Kerry medals controversy brings Tolstoy's descriptions of battle in War and Peace to mind. His point then, as it seems clear now, is that battle is complicated and confusing, and that historians are frequently wrong:

"The whole battle consisted in what Orlov-Denisov's Cossacks had done: the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.

In consequence of this battle Kutuzov received a diamond decoration, and Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades, and following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff.

'That's how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!' said the Russian officers and generals after the Tarutino battle, letting it be understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that we ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle- Tarutino, Borodino, or Austerlitz- takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an essential condition.

A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and never coincides with the direction of any one force.

If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those forces, but will always be a mean- what in mechanics is represented by the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.

If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions are false."

An American Tragedy

A call from a Hollywood screenwriter friend yesterday reminded us that Upstate New York has at least one more literary association, in addition to James Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain. Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy was based on a real-life murder case in Cortland, NY, which we also drove through on our recent pilgrimage to New York's cultural meccas. The book became George Stevens' film A Place in the Sun, starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. Interestingly, legendary Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein prepared a screenplay of Dreiser's novel, but it was never filmed.

Evidence of Coordination?

Is there more to come on this item from The Washington Post?

"CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 21 -- The Bush campaign said late Saturday that it dismissed an adviser on veterans issues after learning that he is part of an independent group that has been running anti-Kerry ads."

The Washington Post Investigates the Kerry War Record Controversy

And finds all sides are hiding something, according to Michael Dobbs:

"In his book, Brinkley writes that a skipper who remains friendly to Kerry, Skip Barker, took part in the March 13 raid. But there is no documentary evidence of Barker's participation. Barker could not be reached for comment.

"Brinkley, who is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, did not reply to messages left with his office, publisher and cell phone. The Kerry campaign has refused to make available Kerry's journals and other writings to The Post, saying the senator remains bound by an exclusivity agreement with Brinkley. A Kerry spokesman, Michael Meehan, said he did not know when Kerry wrote down his reminiscences."

Kerry's Comrade-in-Arms Tells His Story

William Rood writes in Chicago Tribune:

"Known over radio circuits by the call sign 'Latch,' then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force commander, fired off a message congratulating the three swift boats, saying at one point that the tactic of charging the ambushes was a 'shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy' and that it 'may be the most efficacious method of dealing with small numbers of ambushers.'

"Hoffmann has become a leading critic of Kerry's and now says that what the boats did on that day demonstrated Kerry's inclination to be impulsive to a fault.

"Our decision to use that tactic under the right circumstances was not impulsive but was the result of discussions well beforehand and a mutual agreement of all three boat officers.

"It was also well within the aggressive tradition that was embraced by the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam. Months before that day in February, a fellow boat officer, Michael Bernique, was summoned to Saigon to explain to top Navy commanders why he had made an unauthorized run up the Giang Thanh River, which runs along the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Bernique, who speaks French fluently, had been told by a source in Ha Tien at the mouth of the river that a VC tax collector was operating upstream.

"Ignoring the prohibition against it, Bernique and his crew went upstream and routed the VC, pursuing and killing several.

"Instead of facing disciplinary action as he had expected, Bernique was given the Silver Star, and Zumwalt ordered other swifts, which had largely patrolled coastal waters, into the rivers.

"The decision sent a clear message, underscored repeatedly by Hoffmann's congratulatory messages, that aggressive patrolling was expected and that well-timed, if unconventional, tactics like Bernique's were encouraged.

"What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set by our top commanders."

I, Robot

Just saw Will Smith I, Robot. It really was good, entertaining, moving, gripping, thought provoking, allegorical, operating on a lot of different levels, about everything from Microsoft, to racism, to "contracting out" jobs, to science, love, humanity, identity, freedom, you name it. Lots of exploding fireballs, too many perhaps, car chases, special effects. Afterwards, googled Isaac Asimov (the name is an Uzbek name, I learned in Tashkent, though Asimov was born to a Jewish family near Smolensk, Russia). And there was an interesting link on Wikipedia to the first commercial robot, made by Honda.

Is is called the ASIMO, after Isaac Asimov. So, as Oscar Wilde noted, life imitates art.

AFI's Banned Elian Film Director To Appear on Fox News

This just in from Agustin Blazquez, the producer director of COVERING CUBA 3: Elian, which was banned by the American Film Institute. He will be interviewed tomorrow, Sunday, August 22, 2004 at 3:15 p.m. [all U.S. time zones] by Gregg Jarrett on Fox News Live on the Fox News Channel.

Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, here's where you can buy a copy ofUnfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, which asks the question: "'Why do an overwhelming majority of those who commanded or served with John Kerry oppose him?'"

How Can Kerry Prove Bush Coordination?

From MSNBC :

"What does it take to prove coordination under the FEC rules? To prove, for example, that an outside group’s ad was coordinated with a candidate’s campaign, any one of the following is required, according to FEC spokesman Bob Biersack:

* The ad being aired by the group was broadcast at the request or suggestion of the candidate, his campaign or an agent of the campaign.
* The group suggested the ad and the candidate or his agent assented to the ad, for example, by saying something such as, “That sounds like a good idea to me.”
* The candidate or his agent was materially involved in decisions about the content of the ad, the times and places where it would air, the medium used, etc.
* The ad was aired after what the FEC calls “substantial discussion” between the person or outside group paying for the ad and the campaign. If, for example, a campaign manager said to the head of a 527 group, “Over the next two weeks, our campaign’s ads will focus on the loss of textile jobs in this state,” and the outside group then ran its own ads buttressing that message, it would be coordination.

'It's very difficult' to prove coordination, said former FEC general counsel Larry Noble, who is now head of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. A case 'is very much reliant on showing that certain types of discussions took place and the only way to get that (evidence) is from the people involved.'"

Mark Steyn on Politics and Show Business

From the Sun-Times:

"But it's not healthy for political parties to embrace the mental state of the Michaels Jackson and Moore. Celebrity supporters are not naturally inclined to supporting roles. That's the trouble with the Streisand-Goldberg-Affleck Hollywood-heavy Democratic Party: Barbra, Whoopi and Ben are the stars, and the party looks more and more like just a slightly bigger than usual entourage."