Obit: John Barry, R.I.P.

John Barry, the acclaimed film composer who was probably best known for his scores to Born Free, The Ipcress Files, Body Heat, Midnight Cowboy, and the majority of James Bond films between 1963's From Russia With Love and 1987's The Living Daylights, passed away Sunday at age 77.

Among his many memorable musical scores were the themes to Space: 1970 favorites Starcrash (1978):

And The Black Hole (1979):

Barry was a versatile and influential composer, and will be greatly missed.

Obit: John Barry, R.I.P.

John Barry, the acclaimed film composer who was probably best known for his scores to Born Free, The Ipcress Files, Body Heat, Midnight Cowboy, and the majority of James Bond films between 1963's From Russia With Love and 1987's The Living Daylights, passed away Sunday at age 77.

Among his many memorable musical scores were the themes to Space: 1970 favorites Starcrash (1978):

And The Black Hole (1979):

Barry was a versatile and influential composer, and will be greatly missed.

FILMOGRAPHY: Joel and Ethan Coen

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my two months dissecting the entire Coen Brothers filmography, it’s that even when you know to expect the unexpected, you can never quite prepare yourself for what these two minds will throw at you. From the daring unfussiness of Blood Simple, to the epic absurdity of The Big Lebowski, to the zany bleakness of A Serious Man, their films are out there, and they rarely do anything twice.

Two trademarks persist over the course of 15 films. One is the impeccable way the brothers capture the time and place in which their film exists. Just look at Fargo. From the grating accents to the simple-mindedness of even the most cunning individuals, that film IS North Dakota. But that’s not the only example. Each of their films is of a very specific moment and from a very specific place. These places and times present themselves in many different ways—from the characters, as I mentioned above, to the sets, costumes, and scores of all 15 films. But in each and every case, including the less successful efforts, these touches envelop us in a world unlike our own. They help us connect to the story because we feel like we can understand the different worlds.

The other noticeable trademark in the Coens’ work is a major theme—consequence. Almost all of their films deal with it in one way or another. Many of them begin with characters doing things they shouldn’t, and the progress as these characters deal with the consequences of their actions. Sometimes, those consequences are bad. Sometimes, their consequences ironically end up being rewards.

When I covered David Fincher’s filmography back in October, I actually found ranking his films relatively easy. Not the case here, as I dislike very few of these pictures and find many of them so different that comparing them is quite hard. Alas, I’m doing it anyway. Here’s the list, presented in reverse order:

15.) Barton Fink
The only film on the list that just didn’t work for me. I didn’t quite understand what the point of it all was, and as good as John Turturro is, I don’t have much of a desire to ever revisit this one again.

14.) Miller’s Crossing
This one takes itself so seriously that it’s just not much fun. It’s a solid entry in the prohibition/gangster subgenre, but it doesn’t really stand out among such a terrific group of films.

13.) Raising Arizona
Their first attempt at pure ridiculousness. I think the only thing holding this film back is the John Goodman/William Forsythe stuff. They’re a little too wacky for my taste. Still, a fun ride from start to finish.

12.) The Ladykillers
Tom Hanks and the Coens might not sound like a good fit on paper, but he surprisingly turns out quite a good—and funny—leading performance here. Yet, the star is Irma P. Hall, who is just a laugh riot as a strong Southern lady who doesn’t take any nonsense from anyone, whether they’re notorious thieves or not.

11.) O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The soundtrack, as I think most of America would agree, is terrific. The film, I think, gets a bit of a bad rap. Is it perfect? No. Is it smart and surprising? I think so. Is it entertaining? Hell yes.

10.) Blood Simple
Their first film is a lot less polished than the rest. It’s also tighter than most and one of their more serious efforts (though it is still packed with wit and bursts of dark irony). It’s not their best film—their talent, I think, was still a little raw—but it was a perfect gauge of their potential.

9.) The Hudsucker Proxy
I wish the entire film had maintained the energy of the first 30 minutes because it might be one of the Coens’ best. Things tend to lag as the film goes on (though the conclusion is inspired), but I can’t rank it any lower than this based on the strength of those brilliant introductory scenes.

8.) True Grit
Their latest film might be their most conventional. Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld are brilliant and have deservedly earned Oscar nominations.

7.) Intolerable Cruelty
I can just imagine Joel and Ethan Coen sitting down to talk about doing a love story. It would have to been something twisted like this. The dialogue in this film is perhaps the Coens’ best. It’s so fast and so smart that you might actually miss some of the jokes the first time through.

6.) Burn After Reading
Stupid people doing insanely stupid things. This film is almost incomprehensible in how dumb these people are, but their misadventures make for two really fun hours of film.

5.) The Man Who Wasn’t There
Of all the films on this list, I think this one has the most potential to move up the list. It’s just a nifty little noir that somehow manages confounds your expectations at every turn.

4.) A Serious Man
Another Coen effort that’s just so bizarre, but it grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go as its main character (played wonderfully by Michael Stuhlbarg) spirals out of control.

3.) The Big Lebowski
The Coens strangest effort by a mile. It’s a cult classic that earns its status by being one of the funniest films I’ve seen in years.

2.) No Country for Old Men
Perhaps their most successful film in terms of critical acclaim, awards success, and box office, No Country for Old Men also happens to be one of the Coens’ more obtuse films, though there’s no arguing the brilliance of Tommy Lee Jones’ and Javier Bardem’s performances.

1.) Fargo
What else is there to say. It’s my favorite Coen film. I named it as my favorite film of the 1990s. And it’s in my all-time top 10. A nearly perfect film from top to bottom.

They painted themselves into a corner

Way to miss the mark. I thought that as I read the nonsense Richard Stallman has posted on Huffington Post. He wants you to be very afraid for Julian Assange because Bradley Manning might break.

It is this kind of nonsense that destroys the left over and over. They have turned Julian Assange into a hero when he is, in fact, an attention seeking, creepy guy (at the very least) and, having painted themselves into the corner on that, refuse to allow that they were wrong. So each day, they up the ante and try to make you fear for Assange.

Reality: Only Bradley Manning is in US custody.

Reality: Julian Assange is currently staying on a British manor (and asking Australia to guarantee his safe return home) while Bradley has been looked away in a military prison for months and months in isolation.

The concern should not be -- should never have been -- Julian Assange.

Way to be distracted from reality.

I was reading Bill Keller's piece and thinking, "What a rejection of the hype and drama Naomi Wolf has been screaming about of late." If you missed Keller's piece, please read it. Pay attention to the US government aspect of it and contrast that with Naomi's Chicken Little warnings that "They'll go after the Times next!"

All of this melodrama in order to continue to hold onto their beliefs that Julian Assange is their hero. Even if it means trashing Bradley Manning (who is accused of being a leaker to WikiLeaks).

It's really something. David Swanson writes a bad article defending Assange from 60 Minutes but forgets that 60 Minutes aired what they promised and that Assange agreed to it.

If there's anything more pathetic, it's Greg Mitchell convinced he 'wrote' a book. He did a glorified clip job and spoke to none of the participants but such passes for book writing at The Nation these days. That magazine seems determined to trash whatever's left of its reputation.

Let's change topics . . .

"TV: Just not funny" (Ava and C.I., The Third Estate Sunday Review):
A one time cutting edge show became flaccid, long, long ago. But it could still, from time to time, provide a sharp jab of comedic humor. That all ended with the ascension of Seth Myers to head writer. Now the long running show is nothing but a never-ending embarrassment.

Barack Obama gave a State of the Union address. In times past, regardless of who was president -- Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush -- it would have been comic gold. But back then, head writers were interested in comedy. Myers, who donated to Barack's presidential campaign, is interested not in getting laughs but in protecting his candidate.

It may help Barack's 2012 rollout but it doesn't do humor any favors.

Instead of addressing the speech, SNL used the opening skit (their most watched spot every episode) to present Kristen Wiig doing her Suzy Orman routine but in a longer wig and supposedly portraying Michelle Bachman as she stammered and fumbled through the, again, most watched skit of the program.

Michelle Bachman, for those who don't know, delivered a response to the State of the Union Address last week on behalf of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party and CNN carried it live (on TV, only CNN carried it live). The speech quickly became a media joke with many laughing about how US Rep. Bachman didn't know which camera to face and delivered the entire speech to the wrong camera.

Actually the joke was on CNN because anyone who is at all familiar with live TV knows you immediately switch to the other camera when someone is being carried by the wrong one. "Go to camera two! Go to camera three! Get me something!" should have been the cry from the CNN control room. The fact that it wasn't has two obvious meanings, CNN can't do its job or CNN found the attempt to turn Bachman into a joke too tempting to pass up. Neither meaning speaks well of CNN.

And certainly a live show like Saturday Night Live is well aware of camera mix ups and who is responsible and how they are fixed. But they chose to play dumb and pretend that the joke was Bachman.

Michelle Bachman wasn't even delivering the Republican response. That was done by It Boy Paul Ryan. To be clear, Saturday Night Live hiding behind Paul Ryan for state of the union humor would have been very sad as well. Lucky for them, they were able to work out all their Mommy issues using Bachman.

Neither Ryan or Bachman leads in the House. But aiming low, at soft and easy topics, allows SNL to be meaningless as well as unfunny.


That really says it all and works as much more than just a criticism of Saturday Night Live.


"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):

Monday, January 31, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, the death toll in Iraq for January is double what it was in December, Nouri al-Maliki attempts to defend his power grab, some rush to again defend Julian Assange while ignoring attacks on Bradley Manning, a new US report finds things are very shaky in Iraq, and more. We'll start with Julian Assange just because I'm sick of the nonsense. We've said for sometime that Assange is not a journalist and he's not. He might, many months back, have been comparable to a book publisher and qualified as a journalist by that route. But he's not and has never been a journalist. Apologies to Jim because we toyed with writing about this subject at Third but couldn't pull it together. I'm grabbing it now. David Swanson (War Is A Crime) is outraged by a CBS profile on Julian Assange which aired Sunday. Among David's many complaints, "The CBS program 60 Minutes has just published video of an interview with Wikileaks' Julian Assange -- with the video focused, of course, on Assange himself, with almost no substantive content related to the massive crimes and abuses that have made news around the globe." For the record, 60 Minutes is a TV show; therefore, it "airs" reports, it does not "publish" them. The report aired Sunday night. First off, the profile on Julian Assange was billed as just that. Drop back to Friday's snapshot where we noted the upcoming broadcast and included their description of the segment: "Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks, speaks to Steve Kroft about the U.S. attempt to indict him on criminal charges and the torrent of criticism aimed at him for publishing classified documents. (This is a double-length segment.)" Expressing shock today over what aired *Sunday* is a bit like going to one of Bruce Willis' shoot-em-up-bang-bang movies and leaving the theater complaining that you had no idea there would be violence in the film. The segment was as advertised. David's also unhappy with Steve Kroft's style. That's fine, call it out. But to read David's long piece is to get that it's not really about Kroft. Take the criticism about Kroft not providing "substantive coverage" of WikiLeaks' 'exposures.' David never wrote the same about Amy Goodman. But Goody spent an hour (she called it an hour -- more like 45 minutes) with Assange on July 28th and she dealt far less with WikiLeaks' exposures. She wasted time, for example, asking Assange about the damage that might come from the Congress passing a law -- she asked Australian citizen Julian Assange about the US Congress passing a law. A topic he was clearly not qualified to speak on and no one should be surprised by that fact. It takes a real idiot (or maybe a xenophobe who assumes the whole world knows and follows the US Congress and how it makes a law and how . . .). She provided a lot of gossip. Steve Kroft -- we can cover this at Third where we can lay it out all side by side -- covered more of the exposures than did Goodman and where was David's angry article about Amy Goodman putting the BS in Panhandle Media? No where to be found. The problem isn't 60 Minutes and it's not Steve Kroft. That's not to say either is above criticism. That is to say, Julian Assange agreed to a celebrity profile and that's what he got. It can be argued that at any point with Kroft (or with Goodman), Assange could have been raising exposures but didn't do that. The problem is Julian Assange is emerging and he's not conforming with his fan base. Here, we called out the CNN 'reporter' who blew an interview with Assange. We called it out because the segment was supposed to be about the exposures but she made it instead about Assange. I have never had as much pressure from CNN friends to correct something. We haven't corrected it, that entry's still up. But as they argued for their reporter, they repeatedly told stories about Assange. He is not the man his fan boy base thinks he is. That's why we began to note immediately after that Julian Assange is the public face of WikiLeaks but he is not WikiLeaks. At this point, that may no longer be true due to the fact that so many have now jumped ship. CNN refused to go into business with Assange for a reason. Other outlets were happy to go along with the source. Those include Der Spiegel, the Guardian and the New York Times. And fan boys like David Swanson never called that out. That went against WikiLeaks entire reason for being. WikiLeaks was where the people would find information, information that others tried to hide. Suddenly, the information was being filtered. A filter was completely against WikiLeak's reason for being. (Some have attacked WikiLeaks over not censoring names in an early document release. We didn't attack them for that and I defended them here over that noting that they are not supposed to be altering the documents in any way, they are supposed to be providing sunlight.) As the releases continued to be coordinated with the press, WikiLeaks stopped putting it online. Oh, they'd do so in a week or a few weeks or maybe a month . . . No, that's not the mission statement or purpose of WikiLeaks. That's when people start leaving. Not because they're jealous of Julian Assange but because WikiLeaks is not living it up to its stated purpose. Julian Assange doesn't believe in the power of the internet. That's why he went to old media. He could have cut in a website -- The Huffington Post, for example. He didn't. He spat on new media and it's so amazing to watch as those spat upon rush to defend repeatedly. Julian Assange is not a journalist. What he has done is be a source. And outlets have been far too kind to his whims. And maybe if John F. Burns (and his co-writer, but to the world, it is now John F. Burns' article) had been honest enough about what was going on, he could have written an honest article instead of one that read like an attack because it was an attack. Julian Assange isn't a journalist. He chases celebrity. That's why he agreed to the CBS interview to begin with. Assange has no plans to come to the US. So why is he granting an interview to CBS? To promote WikiLeaks? If so, look at his own answers because Kroft's bringing up more specifics on revelations that Julian Assange does. In Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark's "An Inside Look at Difficult Negotiaions with Julian Assange," portrays the source's ego mania in a lengthy article and the most disturbing paragraph for Assange (and his groupies) would probably be this one where, having decided the Der SpiegelNew York Times is no longer 'in the loop,' Assange is confronting the Guardian and Der Spiegel in a meeting to find out if the Times has copies of the latest cables and how they got hold of them: The mood was tense. "Does the New York Times have a copy?" Assange wanted to know. He repeated the question, and it sliced through the room, which by now was very still. "And if so, where did it get a copy?" Assange mentioned the written agreement he had signed with the Guardian in the summer, which stipulated that WikiLeaks was merely providing the Guardian with the embassy cables for its review, and that publication or duplication was only permissible with the consent of WikiLeaks. Assange felt that a breach of contract had taken place, which is why he had brought along his attorneys. Check out the ego mania of Assange and how ridiculous he sounds insisting that the US government cables (which deserved to see the light of day, no question) must not be shared witout his consent and if they were shared with another paper this would be a violation of the written agreement? There's not a big difference between Assange's attacks and postures and those of the US State Dept. And, as the paragraph demonstrates, WikiLeaks was no longer WikiLeaks. It was about making Julian Assange a celebrity. That's what's destroyed the organization and why a number of people have left it and are setting up a new version which will adhere to the beliefs WikiLeaks once espoused. Note this paragraph and, Mascolo is Georg Mascolo, editor-in-chief of the Guardian. Assange was using terms like "theft" and "criminal activities," against which he said he would take legal action, because the copy was, as he claimed, "illegal." At that moment, he was apparently unaware of the dual meaning of what he had just said. Mascolo replied: "There are nothing but illegal copies of this material." Assange sounds like an idiot, granted. But grasp that someone risked their job (at the very least) to provide WikiLeaks with the material and instead of releasing it -- the WikiLeaks motto be damned, apparently -- Assange is having a freak-fest over the fact that it may get released. None of these documents should have ever gone through the MSM to begin with. The Collateral Murder video got substantial attention and coverage after WikiLeaks published it online. And that's not just my argument, that's also the argument that took place inside WikiLeaks. The question was why, with no announcement (let alone discussion), WikiLeaks was transforming from a conduit of information directly to the people to one now using a filter (the MSM) and refusing to post the documents online? Bill Keller had a lengthy article (like the Der Spiegel article, Keller's is actually part of a new book) in the New York Times' Sunday Magazine recounting the paper's interactions with Julian Assange: Three months later, with the French daily Le Monde added to the group, we published Round 2, the Iraq War Logs, including articles on how the United States turned a blind eye to the torture of prisoners by Iraqi forces working with the U.S., how Iraq spawned an extraordinary American military reliance on private contractors and how extensively Iran had meddled in the conflict. By this time, The Times's relationship with our source had gone from wary to hostile. I talked to Assange by phone a few times and heard out his complaints. He was angry that we declined to link our online coverage of the War Logs to the WikiLeaks Web site, a decision we made because we feared -- rightly, as it turned out -- that its trove would contain the names of low-level informants and make them Taliban targets. "Where's the respect?" he demanded. "Where's the respect?" Another time he called to tell me how much he disliked our profile of Bradley Manning, the Army private suspected of being the source of WikiLeaks's most startling revelations. The article traced Manning's childhood as an outsider and his distress as a gay man in the military. Assange complained that we "psychologicalized" Manning and gave short shrift to his "political awakening." The final straw was a front-page profile of Assange by John Burns and Ravi Somaiya, published Oct. 24, that revealed fractures within WikiLeaks, attributed by Assange's critics to his imperious management style. Assange denounced the article to me, and in various public forums, as "a smear." Assange was transformed by his outlaw celebrity. The derelict with the backpack and the sagging socks now wore his hair dyed and styled, and he favored fashionably skinny suits and ties. He became a kind of cult figure for the European young and leftish and was evidently a magnet for women. Two Swedish women filed police complaints claiming that Assange insisted on having sex without a condom; Sweden's strict laws on nonconsensual sex categorize such behavior as rape, and a prosecutor issued a warrant to question Assange, who initially described it as a plot concocted to silence or discredit WikiLeaks. I came to think of Julian Assange as a character from a Stieg Larsson thriller -- a man who could figure either as hero or villain in one of the megaselling Swedish novels that mix hacker counterculture, high-level conspiracy and sex as both recreation and violation. Bill Keller has not attacked Assange. But complexities escape the fan boys. (Doyle McManus has a commentary I haven't read yet but a friend at the Los Angeles Times asked for a link to it. Doyle's generally making several astute points and I'm sure someone in the community will end up quoting from it at their site tonight.) At the end of the day, has Assange been good or bad for WikiLeaks? They have had revelations make big splashes in MSM and that's a plus. Would they have had big splashes if they'd continued to follow the model they preached? No one knows but the fact that they morphed into something in complete opposition to what they preached is a minus. Assange became the story because Assange wanted to be the story. That's why he agreed to the celebrity profile. He is not and never has been Daniel Ellsberg. He is not a whistle blower. That would be the people who supplied WikiLeaks with information. Information which Julian Assange now sits on -- grasp that -- and claims he will release if there are any deaths. Uhm, I kind of think people who risked (at the very least) their jobs to provide WikiLeaks with information did so because they wanted the information to be out there in the public, not because they wanted to provide Julian Assange with a bargaining chip he could use to whip up even more press attention. Greg Palast has warned about Julian Assange but the fan boy base wanted to ignore Palast. That's very strange considering I can't think of another time when the fan boy base has shut Palast out. But what Palast saw was an ever increasing gulf between what WikiLeaks stated it was doing and what it actually did. And by that measure, the current WikiLeaks is a failure. Hopefully, those who have left the organization to start OpenLeaks will fair better with the failure of WikiLeaks as an example. Jim, Dona, Ava and I came up with an outline a few weeks back on what we'd cover if we wrote a piece on WikiLeaks. I have deliberately ignored some of the points Jim and Dona raised so those aspects can be picked up at Third if they want. But David Swanson has written a lengthy piece about Julian Assange today and about how poor Julian has been mistreated and yet again we're not focusing on real issues as a result. It's really past time that the fan boys stop rushing to defend their hero. He has clay feet, he's far from perfect and they need to let go of the illusions they hold of him and grow up. They have confused the best of WikiLeaks with Julian Assange and have taken to attacking facts because facts don't fit into their scheme. Here's a fact for you, the late and great Jaqueline Susann did more interviews than Julian Assange could ever dream of and, once she became a novelist, in every one of them, she ensured her books would be mentioned by mentioning her books. She plugged her books relentlessly. If she couldn't get on the program -- Johnny Carson had banned her from NBC's Tonight Show, for example -- she'd find another way to get her book mentioned (guest Bette Davis in Johnny's case). If Julian Assange wanted the revelations talked about in the interview with CBS, he would have ensured that they were talked about. Or are his fan boys admitting that Jacqueline Susann was far smarter than he is? David Swanson picked Steve Kroft to go after and the real question there is why he's yet to defend Bradley Manning from the hatchet job Nancy A. Youssef did on him -- excuse me, the most recent hatchet job she's done on him. Who is Bradley Manning? Monday April 5th, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7th, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." Manning has been convicted in the public square despite the fact that he's been convicted in no state and has made no public statements -- despite any claims otherwise, he has made no public statements. Manning is now at Quantico in Virginia, under military lock and key and still not allowed to speak to the press. Paul Courson (CNN) notes Bradley is a suspect and, "He has not admitted guilt in either incident, his supporters say." If the accusations are true, he's the hero everyone should be worrying about (not Julian Assange). If the accusations ar false (and they're false until proven in court), then an innocent person is being railroaded. In either case, Nancy A. Youssef did a hatchet job in print last week. Maybe people can be forgiven for missing all of her attacks on Bradley when she's been a guest on The Diane Rehm Show. However, when she attacks in print and many other outlets pick up on her smears and attacks, maybe David Swanson should set Julian Assange aside long enough to try defending Bradley? For those late to the party, we spent four paragraphs in Friday's snapshot calling out Youssef's attack on Bradley: It means we don't link to Nancy A. Youssef's article for McClatchy Newspapers. Why not? Go through our archives, do a search of this site with "The Diane Rehm Show" and "Nancy A. Youssef" and "Bradley Manning" as key terms. Nancy has been on a one-woman witch hunt with regards to Bradley. She has repeatedly convicted him on air on The Diane Rehm Show -- not just once, not just twice, not just three times. She has done this over and over and over. (Though a guest on today's show, she didn't discuss Bradley -- they were obsessed with Egypt -- which had already been an hour long topic on Thursday's Diane Rehm Show but still became the thrust of today's international hour.) Nancy is also very close to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. A number of outlets are putting the claims in Nancy's bad article out there and treating them as fact. Let's review it. (If you must read it, the title is "Probe: Army ignored warnings over soldier" and you can Google that.) Nancy knows about an Army report -- how? Her friends she leaves unnamed. (But I can name them.) This report is the result of an investigation, she says, and it found unflattering things about Bradley. She says. And she can say so, she says, because she has "two military officials familiar with investigation" (but not the report?) who talked to her. Once upon a time, you had to have three sources. Always wonder about unsourced claims with two sources. Though she hasn't seen the report, Nancy yacks on and on about the report -- when not -- FOR NO NATURAL REASON -- bringing in Major Nidal Hasan. That's your clue that Nancy's gone skinny dipping in a cesspool she wants to pass off as journalism. Hasan shot dead many at Fort Hood. So Nance just wants to bring him into the article for . . . local color? Extra seasoning? She knows what she's doing and she knows it's not journalism. You've been repeatedly warned about McClatchy of late and about Nancy in particular who is sending off alarms at McClatchy. What she's done is write a smear-job, she has not reported. For her friends in the Defense Dept, she has attacked Bradley in an unsourced article that doesn't pass the smell test. There is a term for it, "yellow journalism." She should be ashamed of herself and everyone running with the claims she's making in this article needs to ask how they think they're helping Bradley? They also should note that Nancy made no effort to get a comment from Bradley's attorney. While painting Bradley in an unflattering light throughout her article, she never tries for a quote, she only repeats what her Defense 'chums' and . . . tell her. She's becoming the new Judith Miller and that's her fault but also the fault of a lot of people who should have been calling her out months ago but let her slide and slide. Innocent or guilty of leaking, Bradley needs defenders. He's not traipsing around an English manor. Today the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction issued a 156-page [PDF format warning] "Quarterly Reports To Congress." Walter Pincus (Washington Post) notes, "In recent months, the Interior Ministry has reported the assassinations of 'nearly 240' Iraqi Security Forces and intelligence personnel and about 120 civilian government employees, according to the report." It's these attacks as well as economic issues that lead to conclusions that the government set up in Iraq is not very sturdy. AP's lede on this story is: "Without more help -- and quickly -- Iraqi security forces may not be able to protect the fragile nation from insurgents and invaders after American troops leave at the end of the year, according to a U.S. report released Sunday." And that's offering the sunny side of a report -- ignoring the institutions that are so lacking in Iraq. The UK's Morning Star is much more upfront about the report than AP, "US fears that a popular uprising will overwhelm Iraq's shaky security forces were exposed today in a report by the occupation's special inspector general for reconstruction. It warned that legal systems were still unstable and access to basic services such as water, sewage disposal and electricity could be flashpoints for mass unrest among ordinary people - "more so than political or sectarian disagreements." The people. The Iraqi people who have had this government imposed upon them by outsiders. Basic services result in protests all the time in Iraq, the vast majority of them go unreported -- even when they take place in Baghdad. Yesterday, Ayas Hossam Acommock (Al Mada) reported on a Sunday demonstration held in Firdous Square with "intellectuals and the media" participating to show their solidarity with Arab people in Egypt. In addition, the participants called for the elimination of restrictions on freedoms in Iraq and called for basic services to be provided. Speakers spoke of "the long revolution" as Arabs have fought against dictatorships. Again, these protests are nothing new. And the lack of reliable public services are among the reasons that Kirkuk's brief decision to cut off electricity to Baghdad was so popular throughout the country. Staying with the issue of the press, Josh Halliday (Guardian) reported in the middle of this month that the Guardian had, on appeal, won in the libel case brought against them by Nouri al-Maliki's Iraqi National Intelligence Service over this article. Meanwhile al Furat reports that Kata Rikabi, secretary to Nouri al-Maliki, is suing the Euphrates newspaper and the paper's editor Hussein Khoshnaw over articles al Furat published. Established a month after the start of the Iraq War, Al-Furat was previously (2007) targeted with a bomb threat at their Sydney offices. Meanwhile Ayad Allawi appears to have lost any remaining bits of trust in Nouri al-Maliki. Al Rafidayn reports that he has requested Massoud Barzani, President of the KRG, be present for a mediation between Allawi and al-Maliki. Despite promising Allawi he would head the National [Security] Council, it has still not been created. Earlier this month, a meeting was held with Ibrahim al-Jaafari attending and that moved no mountain. Al Mada reports that Iraqiya is accusing Nouri of working against the agreements formed to allow him to continue as prime minister and they accuse him of preventing the formation of the National Council. An unnamed source with the Iraqi National Alliance tells Al Mada that no National Council issues will be resolved until Nouri has named the security posts that remain empty in his Cabinet and the source expects that will take at least two weeks. Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya slate was the winner in the March 7th elections. After nearly nine months of no progress, he entered into an arrangement with Nouri al-Maliki to allow al-Maliki to be prime minister. The trade-off for Nouri being prime minister included clearing the names of several Sunni politicians and making Allawi head of the National Council -- a new body that would be created. Allawi objected in the first meeting of Parliament after the arrangment had been made because the aspects of the deal involving Iraqiya were being set aside for a later date. He walked out of the session. He was right to worry because it's over a month later and there's still no creation of the National Council. Nouri got what he wanted and may or may not live up to the bargain he made. In the past, Nouri has rarely lived up to the deals he brokered. Had the Parliament and political parties known, when the arrangement was made, that Nouri had gone to the Supreme Court (December 18th) to have powers pulled from independent outsiders and placed under the prime minister, it is doubtful he would have become Prime Minister December 25th (the thirty days prior to that he was prime minister-designate). The power-grab only became known last week. AFP reports that Nouri al-Maliki defended his power-grab Sunday insisting that his appeal to the Supreme Court to have the central bank, the electoral commission, the human rights commmission and the anti-corruption body placed under his control was forthe good of Iraq. AFP notes: Several of the agencies affected have themselves criticised the supreme court ruling, saying it harmed their non-partisan reputation, while opponents of the decision have called it a move by Maliki to consolidate power. Maliki, who formed his cabinet last December after political bickering that left Iraq without a government for more than nine months, also said there was still was no agreement on the four key defence, intelligence, security and interior ministry portfolios, which remain vacant. Fadi al-Issa (Zawya) reports Nouri was not the only one addressing his power-grab yesterday: The adviser of the Iraqi Central BankIraqi Central Bank (ICB) warned on Sunday of the repercussions of the Federal Court's recent ruling that links the bank directly to the council of ministers in exposing Iraqi funds to risks. Muzher Mohammed Saleh told AKnews today that the international financial environment is risky and instead of referring the Central Bank to a judicial power, there is need to make diversity in the management of foreign financial reserves in the countries to escape any legal proceedings affecting the debt of the Iraqi government that are protected under resolution 1483 of the international security council. Saif Tawfeeq (Reuters) reports that Nouri insisted today that the bodies would continue to be autonomous ones despite his control of them. Alsumaria TV adds, "Iraq's Parliament is due to host on Tuesday heads of the independent commissions to discuss the ruling of placing certain institutions under ministerial control. The Parliament is expected to receive head of the Integrity Commission Rahim Al Ukaili, the High Electoral Commission Chairman Faraj Al Haidair and Central Bank Chief Sanan Al Shabibi, a source from the Parliament speaking on condition of anonymity told Alsumaria News." In news of violence, Saad Abdul-Kadir (AP) reports four Baghdad bombings have left seven people wounded and that 1 employee of the Ministry of Electricity was shot dead. Reuters reports eight were wounded including police Brig Gen Adday Mahmoud and they note 1 security contractor was shot dead in Baghdad yesterday and a Baghdad sticky bombing yesterday injured a cleric. That's 2 people dead and nine wounded and there was no violence reporting on Sunday (even Reuters was obsessed with other stories in other countries). Excuse me, today IBC reports that 4 security forces were killed in Baghdad and 1 PUK in Kirkuk on Sunday. That's 7 dead and nine wounded. So let's add the numbers. From The Third Estate Sunday Review's "Editorial: The silences on Iraq:" Let's review. January 1st, 1 person was reported dead and nine injured. January 2nd, 9 people were reported dead and six wounded. January 3rd, 5 were reported dead and twenty-eight wounded. January 4th, 3 were reported dead and five wounded. January 5th, 2 were reported dead and eleven injured. January 6th, one person was reported injured. January 7th, 5 were reported dead. January 8th, 9 were reported dead and eight injured. January 9th, 1 person was reported dead and another reported wounded. January 10th, 4 were reported dead and sixteen injured. January 11th, 4 were reported dead and nineteen injured. January 12th, 4 were reported dead and four were injured. January 13th, 3 were reported dead and fourteen injured. January 14th, 2 people were reported dead. January 15th, six people were reported injured. January 16th, six people were reported wounded. January 17th, 1 person was reported dead and nine injured. January 18th, 60 people were reported dead and one hundred and sixty four injured. January 19th, 25 people were reported dead and forty-two injured. January 20th, 68 were reported dead and one hundred and sixty injured. January 21st, no reports of deaths or injured. January 22nd, no reports of deaths or wounded. January 23rd, 8 people were reported dead and thirty-seven wounded. January 24th, 34 people were reported dead and one hundred and fifty-six people were reported wounded. January 25th, seven people were reported wounded. January 26th, 6 were reported dead and one injured. January 27th, sixty-three people were reported dead and one hundred and four injured. January 28th, 2 were reported dead and eight injured. January 29th, five were reported dead. Through Saturday, at least 320 people have been reported dead and eight hundred and three injured. In addition, 6 US service members have died in Iraq so far this month. Today reports of 7 dead and nine wounded. At least 327 people were reported dead in January with at least 805 reported wounded. (As always, check that math.) The always laughable Iraq Coalition Casualty Count lists 210 dead (that's 11 ISF with 199 "Civ" -- deaths are deaths and I believe after the SIGR report people should pay a lot more attention to 'security' deaths than they have been). Last week, Ammar Karim (AFP) noted December's death toll was 151. It's a dramatic increase. Especially when you consider that just last week, US President Barack Obama stood before the American people, delivering his State of the Union address, and claiming 'progress' in Iraq. Historians Against the War offer this reply to the State of the Union Address: The peace movement is critical of Mr. Obama's desire to maintain a significant military presence in Iraq, despite his earlier advocacy of complete withdrawal of our fighting forces from that country. We need to bring a complete end to our unjust intervention in Iraq. Although 60 percent of the U.S. public now believes that the war in Afghanistan is "not worth fighting," the administration's December 2010 review of Afghanistan policy led to dubious claims of successes, which the president repeated in his State of the Union address, and to a decision to continue the war for four more years. The choice to continue a policy which the government's own National Intelligence Estimate makes clear is failing is a grave error. How many more people must die before the forces in conflict sit around a table to negotiate an end to an unwinnable war? With the government making use of private corporations to carry out its military enterprise and warfare, military expenditures have continued to grow under Mr. Obama, reaching over one trillion dollars in 2010 alone. How can the government meet the needs of the people of the United States when military expenditures are at such a level? Peace forces are also troubled by the administration's human rights record, by its failure to close the Guantánamo prison as promised, by the opening of military trials of detainees in defiance of international human rights standards, by the many deaths of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan in attacks that amount to war crimes, by continuing interventions against left-wing governments in Latin America, by the recent FBI raids against peace activists, and by the U.S.'s failure to pressure Israel to end its denial of Palestinian rights. Although peace and justice activists support the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," we do not agree that democratic reform should be used to promote further militarization of our society as Mr. Obama did with his call to universities to open their doors to the ROTC and military recruiters. Our university graduates are needed in fields that meet people's needs and that develop the country's infrastructure rather than in staffing an overextended empire. The human cost to the civilians in societies where we are intervening and to our own and other combatants is tragic and unsustainable. Continuing down the path of spending almost as much on the military as all other countries put together is bankrupting the country, failing to achieve the control our government seeks, and making us less safe. iraq david swanson the associated press the washington post walter pincus 60 minutes cbs news al mada ayas hossam acommok the guardian josh halliday al furat al rafidayn historians against the war

JO MARCH & THE HEROINE LOVE

Who's your favourite heroine? Have you got one? The first I've ever admired was Jo March from Little Women. I admired her greatly when I was only 9. No other has ever taken her special place,  though I've had other favourites later on.

The main character of Little Women, Jo is an outspoken tomboy with a passion for writing. Her character is based in large part on Louisa May Alcott herself. Jo refuses Laurie’s offer of marriage, despite the fact that everyone assumes they will end up together. In the end, Jo gives up her writing and marries Professor Bhaer, which can be seen either as a domestic triumph or as a professional loss, since Jo loses her headstrong independence.

Because she displays good and bad traits in equal measure, Jo is a very unusual character for nineteenth-century fiction. Jo’s bad traits—her rebelliousness, anger, and outspoken ways—do not make her unappealing; rather, they suggest her humanity.
I've spent my  childhood reading about her (my favourite one was Little Men, 1871,  in which she's a teacher and runs Plumfield School with her husband , Professor Bhaer) and  I dreamt of being  like her. I was a tomboy too loving reading and writing very much. Dreaming of writing and publishing the story of my large family during the war (grandparents, great-uncles and great-ants). 
I've learnt much from Jo, as I learnt from any  great woman I met in the pages of a great book. But  you can't become Jo March, you must be born Jo March. You must be smart, independent, strong-willed, you must love what you do and do it thoroughly, you must be ready to love others till the sacrifice of your own beautiful long hair, of your lifelong dream even. You may think Jo is someone who tends to be unambitious and rather conventional in her final choice, someone who is contented with little, a bit of a quitter. But I'm convinced she's a very successful woman because she understood something I truly believe in and learnt from her as a child: happiness is not in getting what you dream of, happiness is to be happy with what you have and especially to love everything you do.

Celebrate your love of literature’s greatest heroines along with Erin Blakemore and 12 incredible bloggers as they write love letters to the women who changed their reading lives.

 Join The Heroine’s Bookshelf for Heroine Love Feb 1-18
Celebrate literary heroines with guest posts from 12 amazing book bloggers
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bubbles

I am a bit overwhelmed with everything at the moment – I will be doing some catching up soon. In the mean time, cats and bubbles might help. No? Well, they are fun to look at. So, here are more photos of Bebe with bubbles than strictly necessary...

Random unimportant fact: Babycat's first name, just after she was born, was Bubbles. Yep, Babycat is the we've-had-time-to-think-about-it name... oh dear.

The Man Who Wasn't There

Ed (Billy Bob Thornton) cuts Creighton's (Jon Polito)

hair in The Man Who Wasn't There.

3.5 Stars

The Man Who Wasn’t There is a deliciously offbeat, darkly comic noir that could only come from the minds of Joel and Ethan Coen. The story’s twists are painfully clever, and its performances are nearly perfect. It’s a little long-winded, which prevents it from being among Fargo and No Country for Old Men as the directors’ best films. But it’s certainly one of their most unique projects, and it contains its fair share of small delights.

Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is about as unhappy a man as we’ve encountered in a Coen film. In late-1940s California, Ed is a barber who hates his life. He doesn’t like cutting hair, and he can’t stand his talky co-worker/brother-in-law. And his wife, Doris (Frances McDormand), cares much more for her boss, Big Dave (James Gandolfini), than Ed. When a slimy businessman (Jon Polito) offers him the chance to make some big bucks—and possibly escape his down-and-out life—he gets excited. But he needs $10,000, and fast. So he blackmails Big Dave, whom he suspects is sleeping with his wife. The blackmail leads Ed, Big Dave, Doris, and Creighton Tolliver (Polito) down a path of lies, betrayals, trials, vehicular fellatio, and death.

The ultimate arc of the narrative is so smart and unpredictable that it took a while for its brilliance to set in. I really enjoyed the film as I was watching it, but mulling it over afterward actually made me love it even more. The film is steeped in irony at every turn (including one of the most twisted ways ever to get a job promotion), and while it plays very seriously in the moment, you realize the humor of it all once the credits start rolling. Even if it’s not my all-time favorite Coen film, I think the narrative itself might be their strongest.

The film’s other principle strength is Roger Deakins gorgeous black-and-white photography. It’s a visually stunning motion picture, and its style helps reinforce the film’s old-fashioned noir sensibilities. The story doesn’t quite fit that old noir prototype, but it’s impossible not to think of films like Double Indemnity and The Asphalt Jungle while watching The Man Who Wasn’t There, even if they don’t share much narratively.

Billy Bob Thornton gives his first Coen performance, and it’s an atypical one for many reasons. First, the character doesn’t quite fit the mold of your average Coen lead—who would usually be more charming and optimistic than Ed Crane. He also is the film’s narrator—something the brothers have used in the past with film’s like The Big Lebowski and The Hudsucker Proxy, but those films’ narrators were not major characters. It’s an interesting technique in this case because it gives us some insight into who this typically silent man really is and what he’s thinking. Overall, I thought Thornton’s performance was good. Not spectacular, but solid. He does just what’s needed of him to sell us this mysterious man named Ed Crane.

Frances McDormand is fine, as always. Doris, too, is a bit of a mystery to us, as she is to her husband. James Gandolfini leaves Tony Soprano at home to present us a vulnerable, kindly guy who’s made a couple of big mistakes. The best-in-show award, however, goes to Tony Shalhoub, as a fast-talking lawyer who doesn’t much care for facts, but rather what the facts imply.

The film really is an interesting one because it’s just impossible to figure it all out in one shot. Credit that to, among other things, the odd subplots of a dirty, piano-playing teen (Scarlett Johannson) and an alien abduction. We already knew these brother could do noir (see Blood Simple for evidence), but I for one had no idea they had a film like this up their sleeves. As good as many of their previous efforts had been, this is a one-of-a-kind effort that deserves more acclaim than it has received.

Burn After Reading

Chad (Brad Pitt) finds some secret CIA shit in Burn After Reading.

3.5 Stars

There are two types of Coen Brothers films—ones that examine human nature and consequence and others that are just utterly absurd. Burn After Reading, like The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona, falls squarely into the latter category. It’s a film about incomprehensibly dumb people doing incomprehensibly dumb things. None of it makes any sense to a remotely intelligent human being, but it’s a blast watching it unfold.

Unlike most Coen films, this one takes place in the present—Washington D.C. to be precise. There, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) has been given his walking papers by his superiors at the CIA. Discouraged, he decided to take some time off to find himself and write his memoir. His wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), is driven up a wall by this news, but she takes solace in the fact that she intends to divorce her husband and shack up with ex-secret service agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). Harry, however, is a womanizer, and prowls the Internet looking for dates. His latest catch is Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), an employee at Hard Bodies gym, who happens to be very insecure about her own body. She can’t afford the plastic surgeries she so desperately wants, but one day, she comes across an opportunity. When her co-worker, Chad (Brad Pitt), finds some “secret CIA shit,” aka Osbourne’s unfinished memoir, they blackmail him.

What happens from there is just too ridiculous for words. Most of these characters think they’re involved in a James Bond-style situation, yet no one really seems to care about the so-called sensitive material. Two scenes in particular illustrate these characters’ thickness and self-centeredness: When Linda brings the disk to the Russians, and when Osbourne’s former boss (played brilliantly by J.K. Simmons) gets updated on the situation. No one in the know has any idea what these people are doing, why they’re doing it, and why they should care. But for Linda, Chad, Harry, and Osbourne, this is all a matter of life and death (and for some of them, it will mean death).

I also love the way the movie plays with your expectations. Just because these people are imbeciles, doesn’t mean we don’t expect something of substance to happen. And the Coens pounce on that. When we see Harry repeatedly in his basement building some contraption—and the intense spy music kicks up a notch—we expect it to be something of vital importance, not a—well, I’ll let you find out what it is for yourself…

It’s pretty clear that everyone in the cast is having a lot of fun. Brad Pitt, especially, appears to be in his element with friend George Clooney and a part that allows him to just ham it up as much as possible. Frances McDormand makes Linda especially stupid but oddly likeable. Clooney is his usual charming self. But the best of the cast is John Malkovich, whose profanity-laden tirades are some of the most enjoyable in recent memory.

I see why it’s easy to write Burn After Reading off, and I can also totally understand why people would not care for its out-there sensibilities. It’s a film that doesn’t take itself seriously one iota, yet its characters take every moment so seriously. That contradiction gives the film a very odd and unique style of humor. It took me multiple viewings to appreciate that, but now it holds a special place in my heart as one of my favorite Coen comedies.

long floral dress

"... maxi dresses are back this summer..." I think I have heard this at the beginning of every summer for at least the past four years. I couldn't care less whether they are back or not; I just didn't think they were for me, and for a number of reasons. I'm short, so won't they swamp me? So much fabric; will I look like a mobile tent?

Over the past few months I have seen some stunning 1930s floor length dresses in beautiful cottons and rayons, with lovely colourful prints, and with cuts that definitely do not make you look like a curtain on the prowl. I liked them a lot more than any of the modern offerings out there... but I didn't want to be making such an investment (they don't come cheap!) on something I wasn't sure about.



And then the most recent Kate Moss for Topshop was released. It had some lovely looking vintage-esque long dresses – and, of course, gorgeously styled photos to match. And as they were so vintage-y styled, perhaps I could find an actual vintage one? I'll take good cotton over polyester where I can, thanks ;) (And let's not start on mass produced and so on, not now, not today, hehe...) I found this 1970s one on etsy. I think it was the colours and the print that really got me, and it had a defined waist and bodice – and those shoulder ruffles! And, I have to say, I love it.

1970s floor length floral dress >> etsy.com
possibly the best shoes I've ever owned, in ivory >> remixvintageshoes.com (the Ritas)

Well, this is turning into a long post..! I am getting into some fairly heavy duty decorating at the moment – I can't wait to have it all finished and to be able to take photos of the end result, and photos on me in it, too! Thanks for the patience with my squashy pictures for now, I'm doing my best :)