[happy to get the Wikileaks video off the top of the page, that thing upsets me some]
Last night went with the KnifeMan to see Talib and Jean Grae at the San Fran Bathhouse. It was the goofiest gig I’ve seen in a long time. Jean was a crack-up, losing her composure completely based on one girl’s wild dance moves and delivering some home truths about the danger of a weak-looking fist-in-the-air. Her set felt way too short, but then Kweli joined her on stage. Took him a couple of songs to get right, I felt, but the rest of the show was just fantastic. It was getting close to a three hour show by the time they called it, and the crowd stayed into it the whole time.
Some great hiphop through here these last few months. Keep it up Wellington!
Just over a week ago, a post I made about Wikileaks (lifted directly from Dylan Horrocks’ twitter feed) went ballistic and garnered nearly 100,000 sets of eyeballs in a day. The events in question mentioned an upcoming video release about murder in Iraq and a Pentagon cover-up.
The video has now been released. It’s circulating all over the place, and Scoop has a good overview, with the short-form (17-minute) video embedded.
Basic story: a U.S. military helicopter identifies a group of men in a street as targets, and shoots them down. When others arrive to evacuate the wounded, they too are shot down. I don’t recommend watching the video lightly – it’s intense and emotional, and the video-game chatter of the U.S. soldiers is hard to listen to. But I do think it’s important, and if you intend to form an opinion on this, you should try to get through it. Warning: children are injured in the attack.
There’s lots of discussion happening all over the ‘net about what the video shows, and whether the U.S. military personnel involved were right or wrong to designate the men as targets and shoot them, and whether they were right or wrong to do the same thing when more people arrived to help the wounded. A lot of this discussion concerns the rules of engagement in play at the time, and whether the men in question were reasonably seen as carrying weapons.
The weapons are, to me, of greatest interest. You can hear in the spotter’s (gunner’s?) commentary as he sees the men and sees guns that he believes this is a legitimate military target. Look again at how exactly this happens:
At 3 mins into the video, the leaked footage begins as the spotters identify a group of people standing together.
At 3 mins 20 seconds, Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen is in the centre of the frame, hoisting his camera. The spotter says “That’s a weapon.” (With those words, Namir and companions were condemned to death.)
At 3’37, the spotter reports: “Have individuals with weapons.” Note the plural – one weapon has become several, without obvious cause.
At 3’40, two other men come into frame, and they both are carrying weapons, AK-47s apparently. (These are, again, legal to carry here.) Spotter, on seeing the first of this pair: “He’s got a weapon too.” Then, after seeing the other: “Have five to six individuals with AK-47s.” Three identified weapons (one erroneously) have become five to six. They’ve seen enough. At 3’50, permission to fire is sought, and soon after is received.
At 4’10, a long camera piece is identified as an RPG. Note, permission to fire has already been received at this point.
There’s a well-known perceptual/cognitive phenomenon called confirmation bias. This says that we interpret what we are seeing in terms of what we expect to see. This video captures confirmation bias in action. A camera became a gun, then two others with guns became proof of an attack squad, then the camera again became an immediate threat. The pattern is clear: there is no way for the spotters in the helicopter to step out of this chain of perceptions.
This is not a trivial matter. I’m not trying to diminish these events by pointing at a cognitive bias as an excuse or rationale. No, to me this is exactly where the scandal is. Fire orders are being made on interpretations that do not correct for this extremely common and well-understood bias. Lives are being taken and the system that authorizes this fails to account for decades-old research (and anecdotal understanding that goes back hundreds of years.) Instead, the whole apparatus operates in precisely the opposite direction; once the action is taken, it must be justified. The evidence is massaged and re-interpreted to support the initial confirmation bias. A perceptual error becomes truth.
Now, the target identification issue isn’t the only troubling thing here, and it isn’t the focus of Wikileaks’ interest. The assault on unarmed men (and children!) attempting to evacuate the wounded is horrific. The Pentagon’s stonewalling of Reuters trying to get this tape is appalling. The disengaged chatter of the U.S. military is disturbing, if completely understandable.
Regardless of those issues, the confirmation bias explanation for what happens is all I can think about right now. I probably won’t come back to the rest. I don’t think I want to watch that video ever again.
This weekend had so much packed into it, but it all came out pretty well.
Went to Armageddon Pop Culture Expo with Eric. Every year I say I won’t go back next year, but they keep bringing over people who played the Doctor, and occasionally cool comics guests. This year, 1996 Doctor Paul McGann (Eric describes that) and comics team Mike & Laura Allred. I was wearing my only comic-book t-shirt, which features the meditative and romantic Concrete character by Paul Chadwick, and Mike & Laura complimented the shirt and we talked about what Paul was up to these days (answer: commercial work, mostly, though I see from his blog he’s started on a new Concrete piece). They signed my Wolverine of Fame, and I walked Mike over to the NZ comics table where Dylan Horrocks was lurking so they could meet.
Saw more of Dylan at my real highlight of the weekend, the NZ Comics Weekend, which was absolutely buzzing with creative energy. I think I’ll talk about that in a different post, even.
Apart from that, caught up with a bunch of people who all chose this weekend to come back to Wellington for a visit, got stuck into some packing, lined up some more work, watched the new Doctor Who, and did a few quiet things for my birthday. Really nice, overall.
Happy April Fools Holy Thursday linky. I was all keen to do an April Fools Pantheon of Plastic entry, following DavidR’s suggestion, but after far too long clicking through action figure custom galleries and flipping the pages of Tomart’s Encyclopedia & Price Guide to Action Figure Collectibles, I still hadn’t found any photos that felt like they could play. No doubt I’ll have a great idea as soon as I post this, but oh well.
Flatlander pointed at this interview and response with a young right-wing politico on the subject of Earth hour. It is hilarious, and we should all seize the rhetorical flourishes on display for future use. Everyone likes “I think my argument is so powerful that it’s not necessary to talk about it” but I am fond of “it fails on three fun-loving levels”, which must be an actual talking point for him because he repeats it in both interviews. Outstanding.
The Large Hadron Collider hasn’t destroyed the universe yet, but it did give us a Tweet that will be remembered long after Twitter has faded away.
Elyssa a.k.a. The Moon Whispers, late of Wgtn and now home in Italy, has released a bunch of free music, including a new track Tutto Intorno e Ombra. (You have to subscribe to her email list to get the download link.) From the site: “Elyssa writes enchanting dark ballads with evocative vocals and a storytelling slant. ”
From Rodger: Polka Face! Wunnerful.
Seen the Scarface School Play yet? As a hoax it was never gonna last more than five minutes, but as a piece of wacko guerilla pop-art, it’s something amazing.
Weird, the Weird Al biopic. Am I the only one who genuinely would love to see a Weird Al biopic? A doco would beeven better.
And a round-up of linky about Dylan, interviews at BoingBoing, newsarama and more. Tomorrow I’ll be going to the NZ Comics Weekend opening, and hopefully on Saturday too to see the Wgtn launch of the first NZ edition of Dylan’s classic work, Hicksville. Bookman Beattie writes about Hicksville here. Dylan is a lovely chap and a great creator, and is currently serializing new work free on his blog: hicksvillecomics.com
Sitting next to my computer for the last few months has been an issue of Cerebus, the long-running nearly indescribably series by Dave Sim. I picked up a stack of them in a ten-cent sale a decade ago and have finally been working through them. Sim was a champion of the comics form and provided a showcase for plenty of up-and-coming creators, and a back-up in this issue (#177) is by a woman named Nina Paley. She, I remembered instantly, had written and drawn some great funny strips for Dark Horse Presents back in the 90s (and indeed, Sim’s intro mentions Diana Schutz, editor at Dark Horse). What, I wondered, had become of her? Well, it turns out she made a movie: a full-length animated feature called Sita Sings the Blues. Roger Ebert gives it an extensive and glowing review here. Ebert:
“By this point, I’m hooked. I can’t stop now. I put on the DVD and start watching. I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. It brings together four entirely separate elements and combines them into a great whimsical chord. You might think my attention would flag while watching An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920’s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. Quite the opposite. It quickens.”
It’s back in the circuit because it’s just been made available, free, under a Copyleft license. An interview with Paley at CBR tells the fascinating story. And you can watch the film here. I haven’t, yet, but I will, because it looks AMAZING. And now I can put that Cerebus issue away!
There were a lot of people there. The house monkey spotted me and my Cal in this crowd photo from Scoop’s coverage (and I found him in this one). Ran into china_shop, who pointed out how weird it was that the speakers kept citing The Economist (thanks to this article that rips into this nation’s environmental credentials).
I was talking to Dale yesterday about this and we shared our confusion at this whole situation. As Dale said, how can they not see this as a big vote-loser? Where are the gains to balance that out? Claire expresses similar feelings down in the comments, with the post title above being one of her explanations for the behaviour on display. I am no wiser. I’ve heard some conspiracy theories that it’s about controlling the media while other changes get pushed through, or about putting this or that MP over, and the govt will pull back and say “sorry folks we listen love us!” but I don’t have any faith in the present govt’s ability to run that kind of disciplined strategy, and Brownlee has totally nailed his credibility to this endeavour so I don’t think an elegant backdown is possible any more.
Watched some of the “hard-hitting” “political news” show Q+A yesterday morning, in which Minister Paula Bennett defended the changes to the welfare system that were announced out of Cabinet last week. (Full transcription of interview on Scoop.)
Part of these changes were introducing work tests to those on a sickness benefit to get them into part-time work. Although this policy was opposed by that renowned left-wing champion of dole-bludgers, the Treasury [Er, is that right? – ed] , Bennett was keen to give it a spirited defense. The spin she was instructed to deploy was plain to see:
“Let’s also deal with the fact which says that people, with low level depression and low level illness are often better off in work, and it’s actually a road to recovery for them, it actually helps them get better. So it’s not actually all penalties, this is actually what I believe is helping people get well and actually work is a big part of that.”
“Look I think that actually those on the sickness benefit will be better off in work…”
“Yeah and many of them won’t be [on the minimum wage]. You’re actually I think underselling them, and I think they’ve got something to contribute, both for themselves and for the economy, and I’m going to back them to do it.”
“I believe there’s people that could be getting well faster and we could be helping them to get back into work quicker.”
I find it hard to imagine a more shameless and contrived policy defense: welfare cuts as therapeutic technique.
Related: Keith Ng’s advice on setting policy, with reference to the mining of conservation areas. “4) If the person gives you a report with NEW ZEALAND MINERAL INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION written on the front, BEWARE! Although they both have “New Zealand” in their names, the New Zealand Minerals Industry Association is not the same thing as the NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT.”
So that Wikileaks post yesterday was picked up by Reddit and traffic on this blog went into the stratosphere yesterday. On Weds I had 283 unique visitors, pretty typical; on Thursday that number jumped to 92,487. Whoa. What’s especially odd is that the post in question contained nothing at all new – it just copied and pasted some tweets from the Wikileaks twitter feed. Purely a right place/right time kinda deal.
This one has been everywhere this week, and it is far weirder than I expected: Alien vs Pooh. Also related to the incompatibility of the Alien films with childhood, this from io9: Old Alien toy ads will ruin your childhood all over again. Check out the Predator who attacks with his dreadlocks!
Trace Hodgson’s legendary 80s political/social satire Shafts of Strife. I can remember being astonished that this weird comic strip was running in the staid old Listener! (via Stephen Judd; Shafts of Strife presented online by the lovely Roger Langridge, whose Muppets comics still aren’t available in NZ.)
Scott Pilgrim trailer!
Watch some B-movies on AMC’s site. Streamed without region-lock; I am afraid of how much of my time this could eat. Worth a look just to see the titles of all the movies.
Minuit’s Aotearoa, a great track with lots of images from NZ’s past, has become something of an expat classic. It was mentioned in the DomPost yesterday which reminded me I had it sitting in my Linky folder. Lovely, but beware if you are a NewZillinderAbroad, it may give you a case of the homesicks.
Also NZ-specific is this great post from Reading the Maps last September, looking at whether we NZers are right to feel so distant from the appalling acts of genocide that have occurred elsewhere in the world. Shoulda linky to this ages back but still a great read.
“When the New Zealander comes“, some post-apocalyptic fiction from 1911, complete with illustrations. (Published in the Strand magazine, what published the Sherlock Holmes stories.)
Sounds like the people behind Wikileaks are under some pressure. Since this is unlikely to turn up in your newspapers, I post it here to spread awareness.
Wikileaks has a mission of bringing hidden information to light, when it’s in the public interest. Wikipedia outlines their greatest hits, including Gauntanamo Bay procedure documents, scientology secrets, and net censorship lists. They come under fire sometimes for hosting material that probably isn’t much in the public interest, but overall they have contributed some compelling information to some fractious global arguments.
WikiLeaks to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am; contact press-club@sunshinepress.org
WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation. Following/photographing/filming/detaining
If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.
Two under State Dep diplomatic cover followed our editor from Iceland to http://skup.no on Thursday.
One related person was detained for 22 hours. Computer’s seized.That’s http://www.skup.no
We know our possession of the decrypted airstrike video is now being discussed at the highest levels of US command.
We have been shown secret photos of our production meetings and been asked specific questions during detention related to the airstrike.
We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks.
All those came out in a rush, then silence for hours. Might just be a timezone thing, with people sleeping, or maybe there’s been no news, or maybe everyone with access to the Twitter feed has been detained. I await more information.
UPDATE: Just noticed that the first tweet quoted, “WikiLeaks to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup” is gone from the feed. Now I wish I’d linked to all of them individually. Anyway, it was definitely there, and I think Linda is right that it is this previously-referred-to video
UPDATE: commenter eru found the missing tweet. It isn’t visible in the ordinary feed for some reason.
He was the son of TV actors, and a TV actor he became, but he achieved much more than his parents. He missed out on the role of Luke Skywalker, but he became a hero who is much better-loved than that whiny teenager – and the smiling face behind the most sing-alonga theme tune of all time. Ladeez and gennulmens, I give you the fourth inductee to the Pantheon of Plastic, also inducted in 1982, it is William Katt!
Sundance Kid, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days
(Movie, 1979; figure released 1979 by Kenner)
William Katt is Robert Redford is the Sundance Kid, back when he was kid. These figures were made by Kenner in support of the film, hoping to repeat the success of the Star Wars phenomenon. They tried some technical innovations: these were Kenner’s first figures with knee joints, because this was the Old West and the characters needed to be able to line dance ride horses.
And heck, that ol’ “Western Cafe” playset that was good enough for Butch and Sundance would do just fine when it was reissued as Mos Eisley Cantina for Star Wars.
Also, here’s the trailer for the film. And here’s a review from 1979 that gives the film credit for the word “prequel”. There’s another Star Wars connection – the first Star Wars film was only called Episode IV in 1981, after Empire Strikes Back had been released as Episode V. So the idea of a prequel may have only hatched in Lucas’ brain after he sat through Willaim Katt as the Sundance Kid. Thus, we have the true legacy of Katt in this role: Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Ralph, The Greatest American Hero
(TV show, 1982; figure released 1982 by Mego)
The first episode of G.A.H. is quite surprising. It’s almost gritty – there are villains murdering people, and William Katt’s lead character Ralph is going all Dangerous Minds inspirational on a classroom of troubled yoof. There is no hint that he’s going to end up being one of the great clown characters of American TV, complete with a hilariously cowardly FBI sidekick.
Ralph Hinkley had a name-change soon after the Greatest American Hero debuted, on account of some other Hinkley trying to assassinate the U.S. President. The crew went through and overdubbed mentions of the name with “Mr H” or disguised it with sound effects, including on one occasion the sound of jet engines. They changed his name in unfilmed scripts to the less-offensive Hanley, and made a new nameplate for the character’s office door so when the camera lingered, everyone could see that his name was not at all like that of the would-be Reagan-killer. A great disaster was avoided and Americans could watch the bumbling curly-blond hero without being reminded of the assassin!
Until season 2, when they changed his name back to Hinkley.
