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Mar. 29th, 2003 01:16 amSpoke to my father today - an unusual occurrence in general. I feel embarassed, now that I think about it, that we got into a conversation - a rambling thing about the war and politics - and I never got around to thanking him for the money he sent. Hell. Oh well. Reason #1 to give him a call at one point in the near future. Oop.
In any case, one of the things he mentioned, from the viewpoint of a non-cloistered American with TV, Radio, the Whole Works, working on the Berkeley Campus of all places, is how close to home this war is as portrayed by the media. Images of captured Iraqis, horror-of-war, painful images of how real it is.
Now I don't know what news sources he's been running into, but I applaud them heartily for reminding the popular culture that War Sucks, Dumbass. Right. But among his salient comments, one of the things he mentioned was wondering about the perspective of people, actually being there, or in the vicinity, what people thought of us gung-ho goddamn Americans and our war. Now I've been doing a bit of digging, lightly, really, and came across very few rabid flames about Americans in general from the world populace who was willing to write in English (unfortunate that I can only vaguely pick apart French anymore, if I ever could...) and got mostly this: "Bush is a moron. What the hell is _he_ up to?" Which is good, because it means as usual that the President is playing lightning rod for what all his flunkies do. (This is a perspective on the whole Presidency thing instilled upon me not only by polisci classes, but watching it actually work in the Polyverse 2.0 game, where Zac became a figurehead for people to rant at while the rest of the group controlled the world)
In any case. My actual point was around the whole 'getting the people's perspective' bit. Being there, how it'd be more real, or something. I don't disagree. Feeling the rumble, or seeing the overflying planes, or having troops wander past is definitely real. but here's the thought from an indie journalist in the area:
That's the difference. If it's close up, you can't see the whole damn thing. you get tunnel vision and you only get a small part of the picture. Now everyone's got a bias, it's true. But I prefer to see everyone's bias if I can, rather than being neck deep and trying not to make waves.
So yeah.
In other news, I saw Dreamcatcher this evening with jynx, Candace, Brian, and Amanda (though to be honest I didn't realize Brian and Amanda were there till the lights came back up. I got my money's worth. The movie was not _bad_, per se, but not great either. Stephen King genre fiction.
The real reason I went was worth it. The Final Flight of the Osiris started with a _beautiful_ fanservice combat, lots of nice subtext and showing off two impressive body models. Nice bodies in any case, really. It also gave a really vividly disturbing view of what's to come in the next two films. I'm looking forward to this all sooo much.
In any case, one of the things he mentioned, from the viewpoint of a non-cloistered American with TV, Radio, the Whole Works, working on the Berkeley Campus of all places, is how close to home this war is as portrayed by the media. Images of captured Iraqis, horror-of-war, painful images of how real it is.
Now I don't know what news sources he's been running into, but I applaud them heartily for reminding the popular culture that War Sucks, Dumbass. Right. But among his salient comments, one of the things he mentioned was wondering about the perspective of people, actually being there, or in the vicinity, what people thought of us gung-ho goddamn Americans and our war. Now I've been doing a bit of digging, lightly, really, and came across very few rabid flames about Americans in general from the world populace who was willing to write in English (unfortunate that I can only vaguely pick apart French anymore, if I ever could...) and got mostly this: "Bush is a moron. What the hell is _he_ up to?" Which is good, because it means as usual that the President is playing lightning rod for what all his flunkies do. (This is a perspective on the whole Presidency thing instilled upon me not only by polisci classes, but watching it actually work in the Polyverse 2.0 game, where Zac became a figurehead for people to rant at while the rest of the group controlled the world)
In any case. My actual point was around the whole 'getting the people's perspective' bit. Being there, how it'd be more real, or something. I don't disagree. Feeling the rumble, or seeing the overflying planes, or having troops wander past is definitely real. but here's the thought from an indie journalist in the area:
One of the problems of this endeavor is that I’ve lost that bird’s-eye view of what’s going on. I watch BBC in my hotel room and check the Web at the Internet cafe, but with limited access, I feel like I’m missing some major context. Beth told me that a Yemeni arrested in Somalia was briefly thought to be Osama bin Laden, but that turned out to be false. (This was why she was now looking to get into northern Iraq; she needed a new story.) I’d heard nothing about this at all! Turns out this broke yesterday, she said, while I was traveling. Very frustrating. My view has shrunk from a wide-angle lens to something resembling looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
That's the difference. If it's close up, you can't see the whole damn thing. you get tunnel vision and you only get a small part of the picture. Now everyone's got a bias, it's true. But I prefer to see everyone's bias if I can, rather than being neck deep and trying not to make waves.
So yeah.
In other news, I saw Dreamcatcher this evening with jynx, Candace, Brian, and Amanda (though to be honest I didn't realize Brian and Amanda were there till the lights came back up. I got my money's worth. The movie was not _bad_, per se, but not great either. Stephen King genre fiction.
The real reason I went was worth it. The Final Flight of the Osiris started with a _beautiful_ fanservice combat, lots of nice subtext and showing off two impressive body models. Nice bodies in any case, really. It also gave a really vividly disturbing view of what's to come in the next two films. I'm looking forward to this all sooo much.
