The Telltale Inky Finger

Once again, several years after the fact, I've seen an interesting documentary about "current" events. My Country, My Country by Laura Poitras is part biopic about Dr. Riyadh, an Iraqi doctor turned political candidate, and part silent condemnation of American and UN policies.

The film follows Doctor Riyadh (a Sunni) and others over the course of the eight months during which the 2005 Iraqi elections were organized. I was at first struck by the obvious fact that there were no Iraqis present at these planning meetings or involved in the distribution of the ballots. This seemed to be a concern for the Americans, French, and Australians in charge of the process as their planning revolved around making the elections seem credible.

This is what people had to say about it:

“We are an occupied country with a puppet government. What do you expect?”

“This is a sham. The war has been over since last May.”

“George Bush can say what he likes, but he cannot control the situation.”

“The question is, the constitution will be drafted by this so-called democratically elected government. But what if this constitution opposes America's interests by, let’s say, 60%. What will America do?”

“They want the elections to look as Iraqi as possible.”

This last quote was in reference to the fact that mercenaries were used to secure the polling places as it was not seen as wise to have American uniforms visible in news broadcasts about the event.

Another major theme in the film was the condescension dripping from the tongues of leaders in uniform. One such professional was training a group of men for the Iraqi police force and his speech included the words, "“Your country is filled with history, and I want you to remember that.” Another officer briefed a room full of interpretor soldiers with a slide show that included a shot of the words "Fake you, USA" graffitied on a wall. He seemed to feel that what was most important to emphasize about this was that they had spelled it wrong, that they had meant to write "Fuck you, USA." However, in the same speech he cried over two of his interpretors that had been killed while on duty and I realized he was just as ill-equipped to deal with the situation as those he had just been mocking.

The voting method used was to dip the voter's finger into a cup of ink, after which they would mark the ballot with it. This resulted in voters being physically tagged for several days as having voted. 44 people were killed at polling sites. Dr. Riyadh's wife and children feared doubly as being the family of a Sunni candidate and for having voted. His wife said after returning home from the polling place, “I hid my finger on the way back. I was afraid people would know I voted.”

The immediate result of the election was that over 7 million Iraqis voted, 58% of the elligible voters. Dr. Riyadh's party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, received 21,000 votes. Only 2% of elligible Sunni's voted. You can read about the long-term results here.

Other aspects of the film are Kurdish feelings about Arabs, Sunni feelings about Shias, moderate's feelings about extremists and eveyone's feelings about the occupation.

Lola Does Crime

Photo by Urban Data.

Jack brought to my attention this morning the subject of urban crime, based on his regular hearing of gunshots late at night. As you may know, the city provides a "crime map" for those interested in learning about crime in our city. What they don't clearly state is that homicides do not appear on that map.

The SF Crime Blog has been keeping an eye on such trends since August 2007 and in November 2007 noticed a strange discrepancy. The official crime maps were no longer showing homicides. Visiting the aforementioned site, I found it was true. The crime map allows you to search for forcible rape, arson, vehicle theft, robbery, burglary, vandalism, aggravated assault, larceny, and drug offenses. But not homicide.

The SFPD website has this to say about it:

Why don’t Homicides appear correctly on CrimeMaps? A homicide may not appear correctly on the map because:

1. The incident was initially reported as an assault and the victim died some time later from the injuries.
2. The incident was reported as an arson, and the body was not found until a later time.
3. A body was found and the cause of death was not obvious to the officer making the incident report.

Jack has this to say about it:

That's, like, a full dodge.

Right Wing Attempts Confusion, Causes Understanding

"Israel in a Time of Terror." Better late than never. This documentary was filmed in 2002 and I have just now seen it. With the emotional climate in Israel being different now, the propaganda aspect of the film has lost some power, but the basic message is still there.

The movie was created by conservative radio show host Dennis Prager (friend of Ann Coulter and enemy of environmentalists everywhere) and of course, I knew nothing about his background or motivations before watching the film. Two things tipped me off to the propaganda nature of the film, though. First, the title. Israel in a Time of Terror? Could this be designed to elicit a certain response? Hmmm. Second, the first two and a half minutes of the film is footage of people being put in ambulances, blood-spattered sidewalks, and shattered windows. The next scene eased us into interviews at a hospital with victims of suicide bombers.

It was clear at this point what kind of picture Prager intended to paint of the situation in Israel at the time. He wanted to elicit sympathy for Israel and contempt for Arabs. But I stuck it out and watched the rest anyway, finding that his plan was not likely to incite contempt for anyone. The film was a series of questions asked to random Israelis on the street, with 3 or 4 answers included in the final product. Either he or his producers had the good sense to use an accurate sampling of citizen comments and the result was something I doubt Hezbollah or Hamas would want leaked into the Palestinian school system.

A few picks for your perusing pleasure:

Woman at hospital: My daughter was killed in a bombing attack when she was just going to have a coke with friends.

Prager: And now you're taking care of Palestinian children in the hospital?

I've always been taking care of Palestinian children in the hospital, and I imagine I will carry on taking care of Palestinian children in the hospital.

Prager: Do you hate Arabs?

Shop Owner: No, I don't hate anybody. I think they mistaking.

Cab Driver: I don't hate the Arabs. I can't understand, but I respect them. They are my neighbors. It doesn't matter to me to share with them in this nice city.

Prager: What is the strongest feeling you have toward the Arabs?

Young woman:...............Compassion.

Prager: Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

Old Man: Listen, this bad time is going to change.

Prager: What would you like to say to America?

Soldier in hospital: I want to say that what you see on TV is a lie. We don't go after innocent people. We only go after those who murder us. If we really wanted to hurt people, we would drop some missiles on them and end the whole problem...but we don't. So please come and visit Israel. We hope to see you here.

Shop Owner: Come to visit us. Everybody's welcome...to join us.

As Lola likes to save the final note for dissent, I will say that the bulk of responses differing from the above were from American Jews living in Israel. It's no secret that our culture here breeds fear and alarm with ferocity, and that was reflected in the words of anyone wearing a yarmulke (there were no native Israelis wearing one in this film).

The Iraq Sitch, Continued

This is from Mohammed's blog, who I have found to be generally bitter and jaded about his country's situation and future. Let it be known that other Iraqis feel hopeful and content about their situation, but those Iraqis are being quoted namelessly by Reuters and not writing their own blogs.

They accused AlQaeda for this explosion in addition to the one in Adhamiya…but I strongly believe it was either Badir Brigade or the Iranian intelligence because AlQaeda is almost defeated in Baghdad and even if they are not I believe they are not able to carry such operations anymore…they don't have any stronghold now…in addition to that Ahmedi Najad visited Karada and I'm sure he didn't like seeing the people shopping and walking safely in the streets because the last thing Iran wants is peace in Iraq for one simple reason because this will mean that USA have won and USA will be free to take care of Iran in addition to that they will gradually loose control over Iraq and the unlimited benefits they get from Iraq….at least that's what I'm thinking…Iran is one of the biggest beneficial of the situation in Iraq.

My favorite part was, "I'm sure he didn't like seeing the people shopping and walking safely in the streets because the last thing Iran wants is peace in Iraq for one simple reason: because this will mean that USA have won and USA will be free to take care of Iran."

Note: I added punctuation in this quote. Sometimes Mohammed kills me with his lack of punctuation.

SNL: Real News

I really feel like watching parodies of political news are a great way to keep abreast of political issues. The creators of these parodies are paying attention to the details of political interaction and candidate characteristics and they translate it into an entertaining format. You get the meat of the issue and your brain absorbs it even more because you're entertained.

For example:

Fake Hillary: It seems that, a: I'm getting the tougher questions and, b: with me, the overall tone is more hostile.

Fake Tim Russert: Senator Obama, do you think the American people will vote for you?
Fake Obama: well, I certainly hope so, and that's all I can do.

Basically, Hillary was portrayed as intelligent, capable, boring, and annoying and Obama was portrayed as likeable, optimistic, dumb, and simple.

Accurate? You decide.

F Market Tours: the way to see San Francisco

Riding the F Market, past the shopping hoards, past the junkies, past the gays. San Francisco laid out in all its varied splendor. Our personal F Market driver for the day was very serious about her job.

My first sight of her was when she insisted on helping an elderly couple off the train, even though the husband was perfectly capable of helping the wife.
"Let me help you!" she yelled.

Next, she stopped to lower the wheelchair lift back down to street level, then remarked to all her passengers, "Some people have nothing better to do, so they mess with that."

Ringing her bell at every car or person that got in her way, we continued up Market Street. Typical for 6th street, two riff-raffs got on the back door entrance but our driver was quick to spot them, "Hey you. You get on front. All passenger get on front!" They ambled up to the front, mumbling, "How much is it?" They found that between the two of them, they didn't have enough, so they got off. "Better to walk, you lazy ass!" yelled our driver.

Two more stops with indistinguishable names later, a homeless man with a cart full of cans got on. He stopped at the front of the train to get his money ready and the driver snapped, "After you're done, please move to the back." He got his transfer and did so, but as he made his way back, some of his cans fell out of his cart. Again, our driver was quick to handle the situation, "You better get your stuff together!"

At the end of the line, Castro and Market, Cru and I got off and I asked our lady driver if we could take a picture. She reluctantly posed at first, but after a couple outtakes, she was happy. After we showed her the final picture, she framed her face with her thumb and forefinger and said, "But it's TOO ROUND!" Then chuckled gaily.