I wasn't sure who had seen this yet, so feel free to delete this if someone else has more/better info, I just figured I'd share in case folks really didn't know what had happend.

Via Komo 4 news:


http://www.komotv.com/stories/45802.htm

It seems that we are continuingly reaching for new lows in re: Iraq and in re: Bush administration.

William Rivers Pitt has this to say:

...

Seventeen American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Saturday. Dozens of civilians have died in the last few days as the sectarian civil war in Baghdad reaches new and horrific levels of violence. The bombers have gotten clever, it seems; they detonate one device to bring in rescue workers, police and onlookers. When the post-blast crowd is thick enough, they detonate another device.

Condoleezza Rice has been exposed once again as a bad liar. Several new reports confirm that CIA Director Tenet and CIA Counterterrorism Director Black did, in fact, deliver a stern warning to her regarding an impending terror attack two months before 9/11. That same warning was given one week later to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Ashcroft, in a briefing described as a "10 out of 10" on the Take-This-Seriously-o-Meter by the official who prepared it.

Rice, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft all received frightening warnings before the attacks, with Bush getting the August 6th PDB warning to cap it off, and nothing came of it. This moves matters well beyond simple negligence. It is abundantly clear that there was a policy in place to whistle past any and all terror warnings in the months before 9/11. It wasn't about incompetence. It was policy.

link: http://www.truthout.org...

Ignorant Movie Review:  The Shadow Army

Response to title:  Sweet, a horror movie!

Response to curbside poster:  Um...this looks particularly old/cheesy.

Response post-credits:  From beginning to end this movie stunned me.  I didn't realize I was going to be watching le cinéma français.  I thought it was going to be a horror movie...it's not.  It is one of the best movies I've ever seen.  I'm going to type that again.  This movie is one of the best movies I've ever seen.  Set in occupied France during WWII the movie is fictionally based on members of la Résistance.  The primary characters are well developed people (as opposed to just characters); the moral dilemmas are comprehensible, real & difficult to swallow; and the fact that I couldn't stop thinking about the resistors' mindsets in Iraq & Afghanistan after watching the movie made the subject matter extremely relevant.  The only people I would refrain recommending this movie to are francophobes and/or people who dislike foreign films with subtitles.  Otherwise, I urge every single person who can spare the money and time to go see this movie at the Olympia Film Society.

Rating:  4.99999etc. out of 5 Oly Stubbies

Film Haiku:  From the other side
            all we can see are shadows,

Ignorant Movie Review:  The Shadow Army

Response to title:  Sweet, a horror movie!

Response to curbside poster:  Um...this looks particularly old/cheesy.

Response post-credits:  From beginning to end this movie stunned me.  I didn't realize I was going to be watching le cinéma français.  I thought it was going to be a horror movie...it's not.  It is one of the best movies I've ever seen.  I'm going to type that again.  This movie is one of the best movies I've ever seen.  Set in occupied France during WWII the movie is fictionally based on members of la Résistance.  The primary characters are well developed people (as opposed to just characters); the moral dilemmas are comprehensible, real & difficult to swallow; and the fact that I couldn't stop thinking about the resistors' mindsets in Iraq & Afghanistan after watching the movie made the subject matter extremely relevant.  The only people I would refrain recommending this movie to are francophobes and/or people who dislike foreign films with subtitles.  Otherwise, I urge every single person who can spare the money and time to go see this movie at the Olympia Film Society.

Rating:  4.99999etc. out of 5 Oly Stubbies

Film Haiku:  From the other side
            all we can see are shadows,

Read more.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a web project Teaching Tolerance, they currently are running a helpful article Girls as Targets: Recent School Shootings.

Good info for all of us.

Ignorant Movie Review:  Half Nelson

Response to title:  I really hope this is a play on words and not a Wrestlementary.

Response to curbside poster:  It looks like some sort of movie about a teacher.  Maybe the teacher's name is Nelson?  There's a person staring through the window, so...some sort of metaphor about being on the outside looking in (like a theater audience)?

Response post-credits:  This movie strikes me as addressing the theme of duality through examining oppositions, balances and the ground in between.  The teacher is a Gen X white male History teacher working in (I assume) an inner city public school whose students are predominately people of color.   A classic (and I would argue racist) white teacher & person of color student Hollywood representation can be found in Finding Forrester; Half Nelson is not the classic Hollywood representation.  The movie regularly reverses the Finding Forrester archetypes (the teacher has the drug problem, the teacher doesn't appear to work very hard, the teacher is often at a loss, etc.) and explicity (as well as aesthetically) addresses the Taoist principle:  inclusive = different.  The acting all around hovers somewhere between damn good and great with absolutely excellent performances coming from the two main characters (student & teacher).  I've heard that kids are notoriously difficult to get high quality performances out of, but this movie certainly leads one to believe otherwise.

Ignorant Movie Review:  Half Nelson

Response to title:  I really hope this is a play on words and not a Wrestlementary.

Response to curbside poster:  It looks like some sort of movie about a teacher.  Maybe the teacher's name is Nelson?  There's a person staring through the window, so...some sort of metaphor about being on the outside looking in (like a theater audience)?

Response post-credits:  This movie strikes me as addressing the theme of duality through examining oppositions, balances and the ground in between.  The teacher is a Gen X white male History teacher working in (I assume) an inner city public school whose students are predominately people of color.   A classic (and I would argue racist) white teacher & person of color student Hollywood representation can be found in Finding Forrester; Half Nelson is not the classic Hollywood representation.  The movie regularly reverses the Finding Forrester archetypes (the teacher has the drug problem, the teacher doesn't appear to work very hard, the teacher is often at a loss, etc.) and explicity (as well as aesthetically) addresses the Taoist principle:  inclusive = different.  The acting all around hovers somewhere between damn good and great with absolutely excellent performances coming from the two main characters (student & teacher).  I've heard that kids are notoriously difficult to get high quality performances out of, but this movie certainly leads one to believe otherwise.

Longview Parks Department employee Dean Hammond uses a high power pressure washer to clean racist graffiti off a bench at the Longview skate park Monday morning.

 
Photo by Roger Werth

Full story: Hate crime spurs Longview into action, by Barbara LaBoe

Excellent article and the comments are very worth reading also.