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February 24, 2008

Update on the Mohammed cartoons

Good news from Belarus (though not as good as one would like): just hoping Lukashenko is not chastising the judges for admitting the appeal against the sentence which included a punishment of three years of forced labor. Anyway, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westengaard continues to increase his list of people who want to murder him fans: in Pakistan, last Friday (again) there were people shouting "Death to the cartoonist". By the way, recent riots in Denmark were not caused in the beginning by the cartoons, but by the detention of some drug trafficking thugs in Copenhague. That was they insisted that... ... more

Posted at 7:37 PM

September 3, 2007

Brian de Palma's new film

Brian DePalma... may have resurrected his career, seemingly scoring a hit at the Venice Film Festival with his new film "Redacted." The subject is a particularly gruesome real-life rape case, concerning a 14-year old Iraqi girl raped by US servicemen who also murdered her family. Now I don't know the details of this case. (Some of the servicemen involved have been given long sentences and it sounds truly hideous.) Yet, according to Reuters, the film is halfway between documentary and fiction. This to me is a highly suspect form, especially when based on recent events (2006), which are more verifiable... ... more

Posted at 8:39 AM | Comments (1)