My Trip to the Sundance Film Festival...

...was very short. Last weekend, I drove my rent-a-car from Salt Lake City airport into downtown Park City, saw a parking lot, read the sign saying "All Parking $20 Flat Rate"--and drove on up the mountain to Deer Valley Ski Resort, where someone I know and I hiked up a snowy closed mountain road, saw paw prints from deer and mountain lions, and watched skiiers schuss down slopes carefully designed for the 2002 Winter Olympics. We followed that experience with the famous "Chili Fries" at the Deer Valley Resort cafeteria, and then sunned ourselves in deck chairs planted in the snow. Then we went to visit relatives of someone I know, and enjoyed a view of the mountains at sunset from their home on what the locals called "Polygamy Hill." A very relaxing and enjoyable experience--with free parking...

Ken Livingstone Debates Daniel Pipes on The Clash of Civilizations

Daniel Pipes sent out an email calling attention to the YouTube upload of a debate that apparently has been censored by mainstream media outlets. You can watch the whole thing on Willy at YouTube.

And you can read Pipes' account on his blog, Daniel Pipes.org.

Kudos to Ken Livingstone's call for debate--and to Daniel Pipes for taking part...

The Long Tail

A friend of mine recommended this website.

Start the Week

Ever since someone I know got an iPod, we've been listening to downloads of BBC Radio Four's Start the Week. Today's program was outstanding: Hermione Lee on Edith Wharton, Nick Cohen on the failure of the left to confront Islamist extremism, John Kampfner on the paradox of Britain in Europe, and Claire Fox on the crisis of the universities. I wish we had such lively and intelligent debates on American radio programs. Here's the official blurb:

For many, Edith Wharton is one of the great chroniclers of ‘Gilded Age’ New York. Her classic works such as The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth conjure an image of social delicacy and moneyed snobbery from which Wharton herself is rarely divorced. But renowned biographer HERMIONE LEE has produced a comprehensive new take on this remarkable author which shatters the enduring stereotype. Edith Wharton emerges in full colour as a bold, passionate and determined woman, a keen social observer with a sharp eye and much to say on the follies of American society and custom. Edith Wharton is published by Chatto & Windus.

‘To be good, you had to be on the Left.’ These are the words of journalist and political commentator NICK COHEN, brought up in a strictly Leftist family. But in the aftermath of the Iraq war, the liberal-Left, once defined by its rigid anti-fascism, seems to have turned on its head, adopting many of the arguments and attitudes of the ultra-Right. In a world where the Left are now far more likely to excuse the behaviour of totalitarian tyrants than the Right, Nick Cohen asks not only what, but who, the Left are fighting for? What's Left?: How Liberals Lost their Way is published by Fourth Estate.

Tony Blair proclaimed a more positive European policy to be one of his premiership goals; he wanted Britain to be at the heart of Europe. JOHN KAMPFNER, Editor of the New Statesman, questions what has happened to that European dream and looks ahead to a Europe post Blair. Dangerous Liaisons will be published next year.

The Government wants more young people to go to university. Critics argue that this expansion has led to a decline in standards. Are too many people going to university? This is the subject of the latest Intelligence Squared debate and CLAIRE FOX, Director of the Institute of Ideas, is for the motion, arguing that universities have lost sight of their purpose. Academics have lost confidence in their role as intellectual leaders, the centre of academic life has moved from expertise and subject knowledge to students themselves and, as a result, the status of universities as centres of excellence has been eroded. Too Many People Go to University is at the Royal Geographical Society in London tomorrow.

Now, if the BBC would only put downloads of Radio Four's Stop the Week online, as well...

On Travel

Will be travelling for the next week or so, so blogging may be lighter than usual...

A Bride Without a Dowry

The other night we watched A Cruel Romance. Based on Ostrovsky's play, The Bride Without a Dowry, Eldar Ryazanov's film adaptation was about as sad a story as one could imagine, sadder somehow than Anna Karenina. The cast was just great, the scenery beautiful, and the story compelling. An American film might have had a happier ending, but this is a Russian film of a Russian play with a Russian cast, filmed in Russia. It's a real tragedy. And well worth watching. You can order the DVD from Amazon.com here:

Apalachee Hills Landscapes

An old family friend has started a landscaping business in Florida, and just put up a website with some pretty pictures of his flowers, plants, and trees. I thought they looked nice. So here's a link to Apalachee Hills Landscapes...

Zev Chafets on the Israeli-Evangelical Christian Relationship

I usually don't like Terry Gross's NPR interview program, but today I listened to the whole thing--it was just fascinating, you could feel the emotion in her voice, as Gross interviewed Zev Chafets, author of a new book about Israeli-Evangelical relationships. I couldn't figure out how he got on NPR (Chafets let us know it has been ten years since he last appeared on Gross's program), until Gross started grilling Chafets about Jimmy Carter's personal update of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Then I figured out that probably NPR may have heard some protests, as well as demands to put on someone not dedicated to the demonization of the Jewish state, after Carter appeared with Gross to plug his book...

Result: Chafets plugging his book.

And you know what? The system worked. After listening to Gross v. Chafets, I'm interested in Chafets' book (Barbara Tuchman wrote about the 19th Century version of this relationship in Bible and Sword). Chafets sounds like a smart guy, who knows what he's talking about. You can listen for yourself here at NPR's Fresh Air website. Or buy A Match Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists, and One Man's Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance
from Amazon here:

Igor Rotar on Religious Conflict in Central Asia

I've just posted an account of journalist Igor Rotar's recent visit to Washington to report on Islamist activity in Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan for Registan.net.

Small Town, USA

It's Washington, DC, our nation's capital, according to this article in today's Washington Post:

To see how small a town Washington really is, drop in on jury selection at the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, where so far nearly every juror candidate seems to have a connection to the players or events surrounding the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

There is the software database manager whose wife works as a prosecutor for the Justice Department, and who counts the local U.S. attorney and a top official in Justice's criminal division as neighbors and friends. A housecleaner who works at the Watergate and knows Condoleezza Rice, not by her title of secretary of state, but as the "lady who lives up on the fifth floor." And a former Washington Post reporter whose editor was now-Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward; he went to barbecues at the house of NBC's Tim Russert, a neighbor, and just published a book on the CIA and spying.

Art Buchwald Dies At Home

In Washington, DC, aged 81. From the AP story on Breitbart.com:

Among his more famous witticisms: "If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it."

Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan...

From Joshua Foust's weblog, The Conjecturer:

Troops aren’t the only reason Afghanistan is falling. It is also governance. Since at least 2003, the use of unrestrained foreign aid, which is a significant percentage of the country’s GDP, moving outside the bounds, controls, and supervision of Kabul has been systematically undermining confidence in the national government. This ignores the very real problems of corruption spurred by the drug trade; from a fundamental policy level, the system of governance in Afghanistan denied President Karzai any say in how his country was to be administered. Doing something as simple as channeling all foreign aid through official government channels would go a long way toward establishing Kabul as the actual center of political and government life in Afghanistan.

That’s why I was pleased to see Karzai make a move to establish more control over PRTs, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (like that USAID dam project). Doing so, despite their severe limitations in manpower and resources, will help to stabilize the central government. That being said, they have to have more Afghanis, and a far more visible connection to Kabul; otherwise, they’ll remain as untrustworthy foreigners telling the locals how to run themselves.

Here’s the trick: these PRTs are supposedly going to be tasked with eliminating opium production—a strategy that is doomed to strengthen the Taliban. Fighting poppy, which is another way of strangling the only real way Afghanis have of making any money, will not curtail the influence of the drug runners. A more realistic policy would be partial legitimation, coopting the drug lords and their Taliban allies out of the trade entirely. If a farmer gets the same price for his opium, but one buyer is legal and affords him police/NATO protection, while another buyer is not legal and affords him nothing but their vague promises of security and retributions, it is likely the influence of the drug lords, and their corrupting influence on the outlying provinces, will be deeply curtailed.

Furthermore, why is it taking them until 2007 to realize they need to train their PRTs, and be sensitive to local concerns? Robert Perrito, of the US Institute for Peace, actually wrote in a 2005 report that a learning process resulted in the fairly common sense conclusion that local language and cultural training, and a deep regard for local concerns, is the most effective way to rebuild an area. Why this was a revelation escapes me, though it does point to a darker conclusion: no one had any idea what they were doing, and didn’t think to find out for years.

More on James Traub's Jewish Problem

*From James Kirkick's "The Plank" in The New Republic:

HONEST ABE:
James Traub has a profile in this week's New York Times Magazine of Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Traub had a great time making fun of a man he views as an old-fashioned chicken little obsessed with Jews. He sullies Foxman as "the hanging judge of anti-Semitism" who is a "one-man Sanhedrin doling out opprobrium or absolution for those who speak ill of Israel or the Jews." Foxman's demands for an investigation into the murder of a young French Jew last year was an example of his proclivity to "stage public rituals of accusation." The piece amounts to little more than a hit job.

Traub accuses Foxman of frequently (and presumably erroneously) smearing individuals as anti-Semites. Other than Professors John Mearsheimer and Stepehn Walt (who have written of their belief in a Jewish conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of the press and the government), Traub does not once name a supposed victim of Foxman's descriptive wrath other than Jimmy Carter, whom Foxman never labeled anti-Semitic--just "bigoted."

Another prominent victim of Foxman's Inquisition is the oft-persecuted Tony Judt, whom Foxman allegedly prevented from speaking at the Polish Embassy last year. Yet Traub ends up exonerating the one-man Sanhedrin and shows that it was the Poles themselves who eventually realized that, given their own history with Jews, hosting a man who has called for the end of Israel might not be the greatest idea for a diplomatic mission.

Traub writes that it is "tempting to compare Abe Foxman with Al Sharpton, another portly, bellicose, melodramatizing defender of ethnic ramparts." Has Foxman ever instigated race riots, used bigoted language to describe blacks, or libeled police officers?

Yes, Foxman can be shrill. But even Traub confesses that his heart is in the right place. And at least Foxman errs on the side of vigilance. At one point in the piece Traub writes tiredly of Foxman's "shouting about Auschwitz and six million." How obnoxious!

What's more telling is that the paper of record - which ignored the first Holocaust - decided to devote 5,000 words to maligning and mocking a man who has made it his life's work to avert a second.

*From Soccer Dad:

James traub has a semite problem
(h/t Judeopundit, My Right Word)

James Traub profiled Abe Foxman in this week's NY Times magazine in piece titled Does Abe Foxman Have an Anti-Anti-Semite Problem?.

Assuming a mocking and dismmissive tone toward his subject, Traub paints Foxman as a petty autocrat who's looking for antisemites under every bed. If one sentence sums up Traub's opinion of Foxman it's:

The A.D.L., for all its myriad activities, is a one-man Sanhedrin doling out opprobrium or absolution for those who speak ill of Israel or the Jews.

In contrast, Foxman's critics and opponents are described in complimentary terms. Tony Judt is "highly regarded"; J. J. Goldberg, is the editor of a "leading" American Jewish weekly; Mearsheimer and Walt are "distinguished figures."

Aside from the snide tone pervading the article, it's filled with mistakes and omissions.

One of Traub's themes is that antisemitism is no longer problem. The need for the ADL is therefore diminished if not gone therefore:

The A.D.L.’s world became increasingly binary — “good for the Jews,” “bad for the Jews.”
with Foxman becoming sole arbiter and - shock of shocks - moving to the right.

To dispove the notion that antisemitism is a problem Traub writes:

And yet a Pew Global Attitudes Poll in 2004 found that anti-Semitism had declined in much of the West and was lowest in the United States. A Pew poll last year found American support for Israel as strong now as at any time in the last 13 years.

According to the FBI's uniform crimes statistics for 2005 there were 900 hate crimes classified as anti-Jewish and 3200 hate crimes classified as anti-Black. Given that there are roughly 7 times as many Blacks as Jews, that means that Jews suffer hate crimes at nearly twice the rate as Blacks in the United States according to the most recent statistics.

And while anti-semitism has clearly not disappeared in the United States, it is mild compared to the rest of the world. Three years ago a survey in Europe chose Israel as the biggest threat to world peace. And let's not forget the Durban conference on racism. There is plenty of antisemitism still around and citing two Pew polls doesn't refute that.

Traub like any good liberal finds fault with Foxman for making common cause with evangelical Christians while being cool to Black leaders and ignoring the great alliance between Jews and Blacks.

While it is true that at one point Foxman did foster evangelical support for Israel, that seemed to come to an end in 2005.

And as far as the black-Jewish alliance it's folly to blame it on Foxman for moving right and away from civil rights. In recent years, the civil rights movement has made common cause with the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan. All have shown varying degrees of antipathy to Jews.

(In a particular inapt comparison, Traub equates Foxman with Sharpton. Yes, I remember when Foxman led a threatening protest outside a Black owned business in Flatbush that ended in a massacre.)

But what's really bothering Traub isn't Foxman. It's Walt and Mearsheimer. It's not that Walt and Mearsheimer were antisemitic, but that they were right and no one seems to realize that except for objective observers like Tony Judt and Jimmy Carter.

Traub describes the effect of the publication of the Israel Lobby like this:

“The Israel Lobby” slammed into the opinion-making world with a Category 5 force. The article loosed a flood of fevered editorials, labored rebuttals and bare-knuckle debates.

In truth it came in like a whimper. Yes the New York Sun and New York Post weighed in right away. But the NY Times and Washington Post were very circumspect. The Times for its part published an article buried on page B8 about "The Israel Lobby." It followed with an essay defending Walt and Mearsheimer by Tony Judt and then about 8 letters.

(One letter, by a Chad Levinson put it brilliantly:


Taboos are things people avoid out of fear of ostracism. Here, it seems to me, people proudly proclaim their intention to criticize Israel, noting the dangers they face in shattering this supposed taboo, reminding everyone that it's not necessarily anti-Semitic to do so.

Quite the opposite of being a taboo, criticizing Israel resembles a kind of intellectual ritual, with its distinct pattern and style.


And then they congratulate themselves for their self-proclaimed courage.)

Traub overstated the impact that "The Israel Lobby" had. I suspect that even the editors of the NY Times and Washington Post realized how indefensible the paper was and so avoided it. The Post eventually did an in-depth article on The Israel Lobby in the middle of the summer and it was quite unsatisfying.

He also neglected to mention that David Duke gave an enthusiastic review to the Israel Lobby. It would have been a lot harder for Traub to argue that the paper wasn't antisemitic if Duke's inconvenient endorsement was taken into account.

Traub spends a lot of time arguing that Foxman more or less proved the point of Walt and Mearsheimer by getting the Polish consulate to cancel a talk to be given by Tony Judt. He never mentions that Foxman claims that he never demanded that the talk be canceled.

Though Foxman is not above criticism, the viciousness with which Traub goes after Foxman is astounding. . Given the sloppiness of his reporting, it's fair to ask whether it is Traub who has a problem. With semites.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Here's a link to Dr. Martin Luther King's biography, from the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize website. And here's a link to his Nobel Prize Lecture.

Agustin Blazquez on Why He Is "Unbalanced"

Our favorite Cuban-American filmmaker has sent us this "manifesto":

From Revista GUARACABUYA, January 12, 2007
http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagaq128.phpuya

WHY I AM ‘UNBALANCED’
by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

My forty years of life in the U.S. have given me reasons galore to dissent from establishment conventions. Specially now days when the despicable “political correctness” has been forced down the throats of Americans depriving them of their old-time, sacred, freedom of speech given by the Constitution.

When you have to stop, think very carefully and spin what you are going to say in order to open your mouth, that isn’t freedom. You are auto-censoring yourself, just like the obedient citizens of North Korea, China, Vietnam or that little, forgotten, fiefdom of the decrepit, now sickly, Fidel Castro and his alcoholic brother.

I don’t mean that people should be impolite and give Miss Manners vapors causing her to faint in her boudoir. No!

Let’s be civil but truthful and sincere and not feel oppressed to speak freely. After all, the U.S., supposedly, is a free country. Or, is it? Please let me know, so I can plan my escape on time, because I don’t like tyrannies from the right or left.

Increasingly, as a writer and as a filmmaker, I have been feeling oppressed in my own country. I have been a naturalized American citizen for over 30 years, but I had the misfortune – literally – of being born in Cuba, which was converted into the hellhole-Jurassic park of the Caribbean by Castro’s Communist Fascist Reich.

My biggest crime was to escape that “paradise” like the million and a half Cuban exiles that now live in the U.S. Clearly, we have become the most openly hated minority in this country even though we have been the most productive, prosperous and law-abiding minority in recent history. The Cuban exiles have not organized gangs like some other minorities.

The hatred toward us came from the vindictive Castro – a trait he displayed since his school years. With his supposed charisma, he conquered the intellectuals, artists, reporters and fools from all over the world.

Castro placed himself as a demigod, a hero of all the leftists, progressives, socialists and useful fools everywhere, magically without generating the panic of a bygone era in which communism was feared for the aberration that it actually was and still is.

Note that “progressive” is a key word that used to mean “advancing” that now can be used to identify hidden communists and sympathizers since Castro and his ilk claim that their suppression of freedom, etc., is “progressive.”

The cold war is not really over. Snap out of that stupid, implanted thought! Wake up to take a look at what is going on in Latin America! Has China, Vietnam, North Korea or Castroland changed? No, they are still very dangerous communist countries. And China is not a friend but an adversary of the U.S. Snap out of that stupor if you want to continue singing “God Bless America!”

Continuously, the anti-U.S. left, and the “progressive” elements that are in control of most of our learning institutions, print and television media, are censoring information.

They were the first to adopt “political correctness” – which is a communist technique (read my article at: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/4/121115.shtml) in order to manipulate, change and brainwash the masses.

Their goal is to eventually “socialize” this country according to obsolete Marxist postulates that have been a dismal failure in all communist countries and put themselves in charge.

Before I make the statements that follow, I must clarify that I am not a Democrat or a Republican since I believe that neither party represents me as a Cuban American and as a victim of Castro’s version of tropical communism-fascism.

I am an Independent and a real Liberal in the true sense of the word: which means that I am for real liberty. I don’t have anything in common with the American Liberals, which I believe have degenerated much too close to socialist ideology.

The hypocrisy of the U.S. media is such that it doesn’t inform the American people that many members of the Democratic Party are also members on an International Socialist Organization. Isn’t that revealing?

And now my statement, which in no way, shape or form is an endorsement of the Republican Party, but based on my observations and experiences in Cuba and the U.S., the Democratic Party has been sliding too far to the far-left and anti-U.S. side of the spectrum. I am very concerned about them and what that party will end up in the not so distant future.

Orestes Lorenzo, (the Cuban pilot who rescued his wife and children by landing a small plane on a Cuban road) referring to the ideas of the liberal and academic crowd in the U.S., wrote that they are “not only dishonest but being supported by pure intellectual shit.” I think that is an accurate description of those repulsive, despicable people and I congratulated Orestes for exercising his freedom of speech.

So, why am I “unbalanced?”

Well, that’s what the reigning paranoid left in control of the information media said about my documentary work. They of course reject my work and don’t allow what my documentaries expose to reach the American people.

The American Film Institute (AFI) in Silver Spring, Maryland, said that my documentary about 5-year old Elian Gonzalez – the child that miraculously reached the south Florida shores while his mother gave her life for him to have freedom in America – was “too controversial.” However, they immediately choose to show Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911” over and over. I guess an anti-U.S., anti-war and anti-President movie was not controversial in their twisted minds full of “pure intellectual shit.”

The AFI’s bozo, made the mistake to make that statement to my face thinking that I would take it lightly, which was not the case. I gave him hell in his very own little office and told him how Cuban American filmmakers feel about it. Later, he lied and denied what he said. I am “unbalanced” but not crazy.

Film festivals and other venues systematically reject my documentaries about Cuban issues. And I am not alone. I am just one more Cuban American reject. This is part of our history in this “land of freedom.”

That’s why I don’t even bother to send submissions to film festivals, because they take my money up front and then they reject me. To hell with them! I only show my films in festivals and other venues where I am invited because of the merits of my work. If anyone wants to take up that battle for my documentaries, let me know.

Cuban Americans can do and say whatever we want, but the censors of the left don’t let us play and don’t let us offer a different viewpoint to the American people to insignificantly try to “balance” the barrage of pro-Castro propaganda present in the U.S. media and academia.

On PBS, of course, we cannot even try. They are a lost cause and a bastion of the left.

Ed Koch, three-time elected Mayor of New York City who, like me, isn’t “politically correct”, said in his published New Year’s Resolutions, “I will no longer lend financial support to New York’s Channel Thirteen public television station. That station recently showed a documentary that was blatantly biased against Israel and has refused to acknowledge the bias to try to correct it.”

Cuban Americans are constantly subject to that and no one of any importance complains about it.

On November 28, 2006, I received a very decent letter (I say so because the person was really very nice and I appreciate the answer) of rejection of my documentary “The Rats Below” from a well-known television channel.

Among other things, the letter said, "The subject is intriguing, however, and includes some great sound bites from seemingly very knowledgeable sources. What might be problematic for most broadcast and cable networks is that the film includes no one representing the side of the company, or Elian's family. Without that, there may be some issues of fairness.”

About "Elian's family" I have Delfin Gonzalez, Elian's great uncle in the U.S.

About "includes no one representing the side of the company" and the issue of "fairness," I've yet to see a documentary or film about the Holocaust, the Nazis, Hitler or about apartheid in South Africa or about Chile's Augusto Pinochet (and the list goes on) that shows the other side.

But even if I make in my lifetime 1,000 documentaries of our point of view it will not even begin to balance the eschewed coverage of the U.S. media in relation to the Cuban tragedy. My goal is to try to balance the unbalanced coverage about Cuba, the country of my birth, which I happen to know about and they obviously don’t.

And that is my final answer as to why I am “unbalanced.”

I make my documentaries without any grant or financial help from any U.S. institution (they don’t give grants to projects that expose the nature of Castro’s regime) or Cuban American organization. I made my productions with my own money, effort and heart. I dedicate uncounted hours working alone on my projects.

Always with the frustration that there are not enough hours in a day to complete my goal. Knowing that so far, after 12 years of dedicated labor, I am not reaching my intended audience, Americans, not Cubans – we all know and understand the Cuban tragedy very well.

The Americans are the ones left in the boonies by the disservice of the media and the learning centers in the U.S. who are not telling the truth about what has been going on there for decades.

I get to put in my documentaries whatever I want. I am certainly not going to capitulate and interview the same types of American “Cuban experts”, who are not, and who have been lying and distorting information constantly in newspapers, television and pro-Castro documentaries 99.99% of the time.

I, the “unbalanced” one, continue to try to bring some balance to the story where there isn’t any.

Did I answer the question?


Agustin Blazquez, producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, premiered at the American Film Institute in 1995, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation, premiered in 2001 at the U.S. Capitol in and at the 2001 Miami International Book Fair COVERING CUBA 3: Elian presented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival, the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival, COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below, premiered at the Tower Theaters in Miami on January 2006 and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival and the 2006 Barcelona International Film Festival for Human Rights and Peace, Dan Rather "60 Minutes," an inside view , RUMBERAS CUBANAS, Vol. 1 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS and COVERING CUBA 5: Act Of Repudiation premiered at the Tower Theater in Miami, January 2007.


ALL AVAILABLE AT: www.CubaCollectibles.com
For previews visit: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Agustin+Blazquez
Author of more that 300 published articles and author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra.

2007 ABIP

This and other excellents articles by the same AUTHOR appears in the electronic magazine REVISTA GUARACABUYA at:
Este y otros excelentes artículos del mismo AUTOR aparecen en la REVISTA GUARACABUYA con dirección electrónica de:
www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org

Tucker Carlson v. Freelance Genius

This story from the Washington Post caught my eye, because it featured my favorite video store:

Clerk's Blog Spells Trouble

It all started with a simple video rental. Who knows where it will end?

Potomac Video store clerk Charles Williamson, 28, posted a message on his blog, Freelance Genius, Dec. 23 that described how he set up a movie rental account for MSNBC host Tucker Carlson at the MacArthur Boulevard store the day before.

"I could tell you what he and his ridiculously wasped-out female companion (wife?) rented if you really want to know," he wrote. "I won't tell you where he lives, though. That would be wrong and stupid." Williamson also joked that he wouldn't send 10,000 copies of Jon Stewart's best-selling political satire, "America (The Book)," to Carlson's home; Stewart ridiculed Carlson on "Crossfire" before the 2004 election.

A week later, Williamson had forgotten all about it, he told us yesterday. That is, until Carlson, 37, reappeared at the video store and, said Williamson, "got pretty aggressive." According to Williamson, Carlson confronted him about the blog and said he viewed the post as a threat to him and his wife. "He said, 'If you keep this [expletive] up, I will [expletive] destroy you,' " Williamson recalled.

Williamson said he agreed to remove the blog post and did so later that night: "All I remember thinking was I was worried about what this guy was going to do." He consulted a lawyer friend and was told he had probably not broken any laws. "What I said was pretty juvenile, I'll admit," he said.

In a phone interview Thursday, Carlson acknowledged that he approached Williamson in the store and said he was "very aggressive" because he wanted the post removed: "I don't like to call the police or call his boss. . . . I'm a libertarian. I'm not into that."

On Monday, Williamson said, his Potomac Video manager called and fired him. Williamson said he was told the company was threatened with legal action "and the owner doesn't like that." He re-posted the original Carlson item later that day. Williamson said he later learned that a man who identified himself as a lawyer for Carlson had been in the store and asked Potomac Video employees questions about him.

Carlson told us that he was concerned for the safety of his family, but did not threaten legal action against the company or push to have Williamson, who still has his office-manager day job, fired.

"He implied he was going to come and do something to my house," Carlson said. "I've got four kids at home and I've had serious problems with stalkers twice. . . . This guy is threatening to come to my house and I'm on the road all the time. What would you do? This guy is threatening my family."

Carlson said he took no further action and said he couldn't have called his lawyer because he doesn't have one.

"He's trying to make it sound like I'm this big, bad guy trying to hurt the video store clerk," he said. "I don't understand why he's hassling me. I just wanted to rent a Woody Allen movie."

A manager at Potomac Video told us the situation was "absurd" but refused to answer questions. The company's lawyer, Steven Kramer, said he is investigating the matter, but would not comment further.

Williamson told us Thursday that before the incident his blog usually received a handful of hits a day from friends and a few other bloggers. Wonkette.com linked to the post on Tuesday and, as of yesterday, over 6,700 readers had checked in.

"I'm just a guy with a blog," he said. "I live over MacArthur Boulevard and I go to work and sometimes I see famous people. . . . I blogged about seeing Karl Rove, and the Secret Service didn't knock down my door."

You can read Williamson's minute-by-minute account of the story on his personal blog, Freelance Genius:

I have been asked to write a timeline of all the interactions and incidents surrounding the Tucker situation. I am worried that too much more on this is going to turn my ego space into a one trick pony, but I do take requests on occasion. The real problem with ponies is that I don't know how to ride ponies and they are enemies of the state.

Between 8 and 9:30 pm on Friday, December 22, 2006: Tucker comes to store, opens account and rents unspecified movie.

Approximately 12:15 am Saturday, December 23, 2006: Chuckles publishes blog about encounter.

Between 6:30 and 8 pm on Friday, January 5, 2007: Tucker enters store, threatens Chuckles, leaves. Chuckles resumes working and tries not to let shit get to him.

Approximately 11:15 pm on Friday, January 5, 2007: Chuckles takes post down from site in order to be a basically nice guy, even though he doesn't like being threatened in his place of business.

Between 12:30 and 1:30 pm on Monday, January 8, 2007: Chuckles receives call that his employment at the unnamed video store has been terminated due to threats of legal action against the store.

Approximately 2:31 pm Monday, January 8, 2007: Chuckles reposts the original offending post, updates it, updates the explanation post, then posts his statement of the entire affair.

Between 7:00 pm and 8:15 pm Monday, January 8, 2007: A man identifying himself as a lawyer for Tucker Carlson enters the video store and asks questions of employee (whom we shall call EmpAlpha) about Chuckles such as Chuckles' full name, blog address, home address, current employer, whether the post was removed, whether the blog was deleted, etc. Chuckles arrives at video store shortly after this person has left.

10:40 pm Monday, January 8, 2007: Chuckles updates the post about the whole thing.

Sometime after 5 pm Wednesday, January 10, 2007: A person enters the store asking an employee (now called EmpBeta) questions about EmpAlpha. It is currently not known whether the questing person on Wednesday was the same as the person on Monday. The questing person on Wednesday did not identify himself as a lawyer for Tucker Carlson so far as Chuckles knows. Chuckles receives word of this incident from EmpAlpha, not EmpBeta. EmpBeta has not read Chuckles' blog, apparently.

Between 2:00 and 2:30 pm Thursday, January 11, 2007: Chuckles gives interview to Washington Post Reliable Source column.

3:14 pm, Thursday, January 11, 2007: Chuckles receives word that Tucker Carlson is denying having a lawyer and Tucker also states that he is not pursuing any action against The Genius.

You all may make your own conclusions from the facts of the situation. Personally, I doubt the person that had been asking questions about me will ever show up again. The simplest answer is that Tucker called the lawyer off as soon as he received a phone call from the Post. It is almost too bad that moron of a lawyer couldn't figure out how to either find me or contact me, even after I posted an email address on this blog. I doubt that guy is worth the money, but what do I know? I am just a member of the peasant class.

I wonder if he's going to sue? If so, we'll follow the story here...

Is James Traub a Jew-Hater?

Reading today's New York Times Magazine profile of ADL chief Abe Foxman by James Traub, I couldn't help wonder if Traub is a Jew-Hater. He repeated anti-Semitic stereotypes about rich and powerful Jews, he mocked Foxman's experience as a Holocaust survivor hidden by a Polish nanny, he suggested that the US could have avoided 9/11 by dropping support for Israel, and he appeared to give credence to the "Jewish Lobby" arguments of Walt and Mearshimer, while defending the views of Minister Farrkhan and Jimmy Carter. OK, if it appeared in an American Nazi publication it would make sense--or even in the Nation. But the New York Times Magazine? Do they really want to lose the rest of their subscribers?

I'm no fan of the ADL, I've criticized Foxman for Koshering Borat, but Traub's article a real slime job, a crude and ugly smear that reeked of was so over-the-line, so ugly, so cruel, and so dishonest, that it may be the most disgraceful thing I've seen in print yet at the Times, which might perhaps think about changing its motto to: "All the News NOT Fit to Print."

As for James Traub, if he's not a Jew-Hater, unless the piece was some sort of Borat-like parody designed to fight anti-Semitism, I'd say Traub does a remarkable literary imitation of presenting the very tendencies the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith was established to combat.

Senator Jim Webb: Bush Should Fly to Iran

On the Democratic side, Sen. Jim Webb also had an idea, expressed at a hearing on C=Span, that President Bush fly to Tehran to confront the Mullahs personally.:

And I personally think it would be a bold act for George W. Bush to get on an airplane and go to Tehran in the same manner that President Nixon did, take a gamble, and not give up one thing that we believe in, in terms of its moving toward weapons of mass destruction, our belief that Israel needs to be recognized and interests need to be protected, but to maybe start changing the formula here.

Again, I don't know whether it would work (Neville Chamberlain's 1938 meeting with Hitler in Munich sprang to mind), any more than Giuliani and Gingrich's proposal, but again, at least it is an idea. Webb's cracked open the taboo on discussing Iraq policy options. One good thing about crisis, the famous Chinese "danger plus opportunity," is that it opens things up for ideas, which makes life more interesting.

Bush's failiures may not be due to a lack of will--but to a failure of imagination.

Giuliani & Gingrich: Stop Using Contractors in Iraq

Hizzoner Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich published a plan in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, calling for an Iraqi CCC to rebuild Iraq. I don't know whether it might work, or if is too late. But at least it is an idea.

In any case, I think the main point of the op-ed was buried towards the end--so I'm highlighting it here. The two Republican leaders want to drop private contractors like Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root, BearingPoint, Booz Allen Hamilton as well as NGOs--in favor of the military and Iraqi government:

One word of caution: The program should be overseen by the U.S. military, not private contractors, to avoid unnecessary delays in deployment or accusations of cronyism in the bidding process. Our military will still be devoted to its primary role of hunting down terrorists and patrolling the streets, but administering a jobs program would be a direct extension of their effort to secure law and order. After the program has been started and becomes successful, it can be transferred to a civilian authority within the Iraqi government.

I'd go even further--and ask that private for-profit and non-profit contractors return to US taxpayers the money Congress and the President gave them in order to rebuild Iraq. It might go towards paying for the 20,000 troops President Bush has asked for...

How to Eavesdrop on Bill Moyers' Phone Calls

I was amazed to hear a 1966 telephone call between Bill Moyers and President Lyndon Johnson, while driving in my car the other night. If I only had heard them when I wrote the "Rev. Moyers" chapter in my book, PBS: Behind the Screen, I could have quoted from them. In any case, Moyers sounded just like the kind of guy people said he was. No wonder Johnson stopped talking to him...

You can listen to Moyers talk with LBJ, for yourself at C-SPAN's LBJ White House Tapes Archive.