Well today's news has once again brought war photos from Iraq of significant impact. CBS's flagship 60 Minutes II postponed a report about abuses of Iraqi prisoners by US miliary because of pressure from the Pentagon. "The Pentagon was really very concerned about broadcasting the pictures, and I
think they had good reason," said 60 Minute executive producer Jeff Fager. But last night they aired these shocking photos. This hooded, naked prisoner standing on a box had wires attached
to his genitals and was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Other photos show naked prisoners being forced to simulate sex acts. A female soldier, with a cigarette in her mouth, simulating a gun in her hand and pointing at a naked Iraqi's genitals. Two soldiers triumphantly atop a pile of naked Iraqi bodies. It is significant that these events happened at Abu Gharib prison, west of Baghdad, a prison that carries with it a reputation of torture since the Saddam era. What has changed Iraqis muist ask themselves?

17 soldiers have been suspended over the allegations of abuse of prisoners. Six of them are facing court martial. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, responsible for 4 jails in Iraq, is among seven officers facing charges that soldiers under their command mistreated detainees. These soldeirs must be severly reprimanded, as a question of justice, and to avoid the further spread of violent action by soldiers whose tour of duty has been stretched. And a reprimand should not limit itself to a written reprimand, a possibility suggested in a report by Al Jezeera. Bush and Blair have already made PR statements of disgust, while emphasizing these acts were not representative of the 'Coalition' military. Amnesty International claim this is not an isolated event, and demand an investigation.

I've been paying close attention to bumper stickers and car art in general, and noticed the phrase 'Never Forget, Never Again' on number of cars, with reference, and justly so, to Sept. 11th, 2001. In thinking of things to paint on my own car, I tried to think of other events that one should never forget. I never found a way of transposing the idea onto the car, but instead started compiling photos along that theme. The Holocaust, slavery, use of nuclear weapons, and also 9/11 are some themes that I started developing. In doing so, I found myself not shying away, and quite actively seeking, shocking photos. It is in my nature to acknowledge both the evil and good in human nature, both the joy and darkness of life. And therefore, I don't avoid movies with non-Hollywood endings, or brush aside a friend who is depressed and not in the most uplifting of moods. Likewise, I feel a need to read, see, and learn about the tragic, horrible, and despicable acts humans are capable of, without turning away. Some themes I have a great interest in, the Holocaust being the one that first comes to mind, for the depths of the horrible seem to have no end. [It always amazes me how some people prefer not to see yet another documentary on the Holocaust, with the excuse they know about it already. There are too many details worth knowing for that to be close to the truth. Most importantly, no single book or movie, or anything short of having gone through it, will allow you to 'know about it'. Well, if that's true then what's the point? To get as close as you can, to understand, to not allow yourself to forget.] No pleasure-seeker would sit through a viewing of the Shoah, or read Primo Levi. It is not a morbid interest that draws me to it. But a refusal to look away, and the truth of George Santayana's words "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The theme of which photos to see and make public has been recently in the headlines in two events surrounding the US occupation of Iraq. One, the publication of the horrific photos of US Americans burnt, shred apart and hung in Falluja. That the photos were even shown was concievable for press editors because they were not Iraqi civilians, nor US soldiers, but rather US civilians working for Blackwater Security Consulting. The other, the photo of flag drapped coffins of US soldiers being shipped back home.

The photo was taken by Tami Silicio, a contract employee from the Seattle area who works the night shift at the cargo terminal, and was published in the Seatle Times on April 21st. As a result, Silicio was fired for violating US government regulations that prohibit photos of coffins of US soldiers, supposedly to protect the privacy of the families. Ed Lowe, a Newsday journalist, recalled in an commentary (April 28th) how he would scan the wire services for names of soldiers Killed in Action in Vietnam, figure out where their families lived and visit them to get comments. He observed how "without fail, each time, the stricken family would graciously invite me into their home, eager to share the biography of the child they had lost, proud of his service and nonored by the suggestion that his sacrifice would not go unoticed, nor unnoted." Its pretty obvious that the government policy is not to protect the families, but the public image of the government and manage public opinion on the costs of war.

There was an interesting piece by Jim Lewis Front Page Horror: Should newspapers show us violent images from Iraq?, which came out on April 5th, in slate.msn.com. Lewis is a photojournalist who has been sitting on photos he took in Ituri, Congo in 2003, for he finds the horror in the pictures seem to get in the way of conveying what is actually happening in that civil war. Curiously, in Feb 2003, Lewis engaged in an online discussion with Luc Sante, another photojournalist, a propos of Susan Sontag's book Regarding the Pain of Others. In that discussion, which one can follow on salon.com, Lewis defended publishing photos of atrocities. But as he himself explains, having taken such photos changed his mind.

I cannot argue this issue without opening a back door and stating that never having witnessed an atrocity I cannot state categorically that I would never change my mind on this issue, as Lewis did. However, his perspective is that of a photojournalist. His preocupation is whether horrific photos are the best purveyors of information, or whether they are distractions. "History, context, and culture all make the events in Fallujah very different, but history, context, and culture are precisely what a picture can't show, at least not one picture alone." He's right, but it remains that such photos reflect not only a specific context (e.g., civil war in Congo), but also the ability of humans to perform horror on other humans. From that perspective, that of a citizen, such photos are I think always informative. I can read about cutting a person's scalp, but I can't even begin to understand its horror without a visual reference. Not to say that text does not have its strengths. And it is from good journalistic writing that we get most our context and information, and even to some degree our link to empathy with victims. And years from now, when we look upon those pictures of Falluja, we won't learn the whole story, but for those that know the context, they will work as a good reminder of the extent of resistance against US occupation.

I think emotion has muddled the issue for Lewis, for many of the problems he raises are not specific to photographs. Later in his slate piece, he states "pictures of extreme violence are always a kind of pornography: There is an outrageous event. There is the fact that someone was present with a camera to record it." That is an interesting sidepoint, which reminds me of the 1994 Pulitzer-prize winning photographer Kevin Carter, who took the photo of the dieing Sudanese girl and was haunted by having not intervened, became depressed, and committed suicide.
But then is it not pornography for the media to camp outside of people's houses for a comment. To flip flop from sports to war to weather. To bait us with suspenseful comments before a commercial break. Newspapers are not exempt. I find it incredible that the New York Times has a narrow horizontal news piece on a massacre with the rest of the page and the facing page containing advertising for Tiffany's and Macy's.

I am concerned about the media using photos for their shock value. But that is something they already do. Barry Glassner, in Culture of Fear, notes how as crime was decreasing in the US the news coverage of murders and other crimes soared. That is an issue of media ethics, they have an obligation to provide context. Does their failure in doing so, mean that they should also not show the photos in question?

We should also be concerned with emotional saturation and numbing. But that is something that happens also with textual news. After years of hearing news about a conflict, someone paying half-attention to events will meld them together, loose the train of events, context, become somewhat indifferent to an additional dead civilian, an additional bombing. And who can follow so many conflicts worldwide? Who can stay fine-tuned to events in Colombia and Honduras and Congo and Ache and Haiti and Sudan and Iraq and Chiapas and Chetchnya so on and so on. Again, this is not something specific to photos. In a way, they allow us to capture more events, and somehow try to find a common thread.

Lewis again, "shocking photographs become horror-porn very quickly and very easily, more quickly and easily than language does. A picture can do many things that a paragraph can't, but enlightening us about the horrors of war isn't one of them." In an interview on NPR, the interviewer recalls reading how a shopping card was found among a victims personal effects, and how reading that gave him a deep connection, humanized the victim. To return to the context of the Holocaust, I read a number of personal accounts of survivors. Reading these, particularly in book form, gives you the element of time, of continual suffering that seeing a photo cannot offer. But how could I really attempt to recreate the experience in my mind without having seen any images, the experience is so beyond my own. Clearly, text and image are complementary. In what they have to offer and in the dangers their over-exploitation entail.

Viva 0 25 de Abril

Today is 30 years since the democratic revolution in Portugal. On the dawn of the 25th of Abril, 1974, a group of military started to occupy key sites in Lisbon. Despite not being sure what was going on at first, and annoucements that should stay at home, civilians flooded the streets. Finding that the military were overthrowing a 48 year old fascist regime - the longest in history - they brought the soldiers flowers (red carnations become iconic) and supported them as they released political prisoners and occupied the political police building and other government buildings. The colonial war was ended, and a number of African countries (including Angola and Moçambique) and East Timor became independent. It was a remarkable revolution in that the transition was quite nonviolent, even though it was driven by the military. It need be noted that this was a military composed of a broad sample of society, a result of the draft during many years of colonial war. Turbulent months followed, were the multiple forces fought for power or simply to keep the democratic nature of the new regime. There were counter-revolutionary attempts that the military in alliance with civilians held back. History was molting lava.

30 years after democracy is still in place, although many of the conquests of the revolution, the nacionalizations and agrarian reform, have l been reversed. The accelerated decolonization is criticized. More gravely, the freshness of democracy has evaporated, the importance of popular participation in the democratic process muddled, cynicism about politicians in place. Thirty years is a generation. I was two when it all happened, but it left deep emotional marks on me. I cannot hear descriptions of the oceans of people who came out on the streets on the 1st of May 1974, without having shivers run through me.

Many feel this is history long past and feel no attachment to it. Yet the fascist past and the transition process to democracy still marks our present. And we have yet to face this history head on. Much was written and sung during the transition to democracy, in a burst of liberty. But then, as if to allow the nation to look move on, or because of a shift in political beliefs, we looked forward, in search of stability. Post-war Germany too only reflected upon its nazi past, a generation after the war. The time has come for Portugal too to look back. We had a vicious political police (PIDE/DGS) that simply dissolved into civilian society. What happened to these people? There were never any trials, compensations, or attempt of reconciliation with victims of torture and unjust imprisonment. Many draftees were against the colonial war, yet complied with their 'call to duty'. What of their inner struggles, fighting and killing under the uniform of a fascist regime? What of the foreign influence in the domestic political struggles, namely the role of Frank Carlucci and the CIA in finanacing political parties of their preference.

I suppose reflecting upon the decolonization process is part of this process. It is often commented it should have been slower, we should have helped the African countries more. But those cold hind-sight criticisms fail to recognize two important issues: portugal was still resolving its democratic process as was in a poor position to hold anyone's hand in their transition, and most importantly it was not simply our choice - the former colonies wanted independence. Regardless of whether it was the best long-term option, their new sovereignty gave them the right to make their own mistakes. Decades of civil war followed in Angola and Moçambique, que help again from foreign influence. Millions died and the countries never developed the potential that their natural resources might afford - a destiny not uncommon in Africa, unfortunetly. But I hardly blame Portugal decolonization process for this turnout. Case in point, the history of East Timor was not determined by Portugal having 'abandoned' the region. But rather to the action of Suharto's Indonesia with US support. If Portugal has any responsibility it is in not exerting diplomatic pressure earlier and with greater vigor and consistency, not with having given sovereignty to the Maubere people. This is what they wanted. And kept wanting during the Indonesian occupation. Even during this period, it was questioned if such a small region should be given independence, whether it would be a viable economy. And after decades of struggle, they have gained it once again. There are striking parallels in the riveting periods of 25 de Abril de 1974, and the independence of East Timor, or the election in South Africa. A people after years of repression gains a voice. Let it be heard.

Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes is a marvelous book. Its a first person journal maintained by Charley Gordon, a mentally retarded 32 year old that undergoes a surgical procedure and becomes smarter. As he becomes smarter, his writing improves, he begins to read voraciously and worlds of emotion open to him, including love and disapointment and pain, as he realizes people he thought were his friends used to make fun of him and remembers his family and why he was forced to leave home. As he rebels against the scientists that are studying him, and runs again with a test mouse, Algernon, he becomes aware he may start to loose his abilities. The final touching moments of the book follow Charley's decline.

On March 29th, Theatre Three offered a magnificent evening of scenes from their production of Flowers for Algernon, followed by Daniel Keyes, the author of the book, reading from his autobiography and recollecting about the writing process and the history of Flowers. He remembers how he used to 'second act': dress up, mix with the audience during the first intermission, enter the theatre and try to find a seat. This way he say many 2nd and 3rd acts, but never 1st acts, which he would have to reconstruct.

The first germ of the story came to him when he was 17 and premed at NYU and waiting for the subway from Brooklyn to Washington Sq., and it struck him that education was building a wedge between him and his family, and then together with that realization came a 'what if' idea, 'what if you could increase a person's intelligence'. He later gave up pursueing medicine, and choose psychology as his major, and to become a writer and write about the human mind and its conflicts with itself. He had many false starts with writing the story, but could not find the right character.

Many years later, he got a request for a story from a sci-fi mag, flipping through notes he found an idea that said "boy in a modified english class". He was teaching at Jefferson at the time, and was teaching some classes of slow learners and some of gifted kids who wanted to become writers. In the latter class, there were those that thought success should be a handed over to them. Keyes:" There are those who want to write, and those who want to be writers." In one of the other classes, in the first day one of the boys that had sat in the back, came to him and said he knew he was in "a dummy class", but wanted to know if he worked and hard and did well, whether he could be put in a regular class. The thought that a developmentally challenged kid could want the same as he, knowledge, hit Daniel Keyes in the gut. He now had a character, but no story yet.

The third germ of Charley Gordon, a recollection that is not in his autobiography, is af another student in that class. This student was always silent and didn't know how to read. Keyes taught him afterhours to read using phonics. He learned to read, started reading books and became involved in class. His family had to take him out of school for a while, for family reasons, and when he returned he had lost it, forgotten everything he had learned. This process of learning and then decline gave him the plot.

From that point on, the story wrote itself. Keyes would find out what Charley would do by writing. Daniel Keyes had to defend his story many times from changes suggested by editors. But resisted changing his story at every turn, particularly the end, many times criticized for being downbeat. Interestingly, Cliff Robertson, who took on the tv and then movie adaptation, tried to change the story, but was never able to make a changed version work. The movie, for instance, kept the downbeat ending because they couldn't find a mouse that could wiggle its whiskers for a cute upbeat ending. So they kept the original ending.

An interesting factoid. When Flowers was being made into a musical, Charles Strauss, who worte the music, had to swap the song 'Tomorrow' originally written for Charley, to another show that was having problems, 'Annie'.

Daniel Keyes is asked frequently whether Charlie wouldn't have been better off not having had the operation. To which he has come to respond, paraphrasing St. Augustine, better to have learned and lost, than never to have learned at all.

I have a lot to catch up, so I'll start off by going through some theatre I've seen recently, from most recent into the past. Last Wednesday (4/21), I saw the Roundabout Theatre's Twentieth Century, on 42nd St, with Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche. It was a cute little situation comedy, with mixed identities and
trickery. The cast was fine, and the set very elaborate: its was all inside a train, and the compartments moved side-to-side on the stage giving greater focus to different sections. It was fun, but nothing more.

The day before, Tuesday (4/20) I went with a couple of friends to see Embedded, by Tim Robbins, at The Public Theater. He got some pretty harsh criticism and some rave reviews, and the run had been extended twice, so I was curious. I wasn't blown away, but it was a great night of theater, of using the theatrical medium and devices to really lay bare some of the things the other media don't allow us to experience as well. Perhaps the best example, was a very short scene, in which a soldier in Iraq faces the audience, where a suspect might be, and opens fire with his machine gun in our direction. While a movie might provide us that experience, only the theatre can provide an actual human in front of us, his eyes a mixture of fear, surprise and hatred, and the lights burning our eyes as he sprays us with bullets. The play follows several storylines, those of several soldiers, including Jen-Jen Ryan (a stand in for Jessica Lynch), several embedded reporters with different postures towards the process, and the pyramid of power, "The Office of Special Plans" composed of Dick (Cheney), Woof (Paul Wolfowitz), Pearly White (Richard Pearle), Cove (Karl Rove), Gondola (Condi Rice), and Rum-Rum (Don Rumsfeld). Noticeably, and purposefully absent, is W. Tim Robbins said "Satire should make you laugh and scare the hell out of you." And it certainly did both. The power-mongers in masks make us laugh because they're silly, venerating Leo Strauss and suggesting Bush get a crown, but also because despite their silliness they are believable, as when they tell the French to go fuck themselves or conspire to manipulate public opinion. We're in Jen-Jen's room when she tries to get her story straight, in face of the made-for-movie story the military tried to cast. The Sargent who trains the embedded journalists and keeps them in-line, also has a passion for muscial theatre.
Colonel Hardchannel says it won't be hard to manipulate elections in Gomorra, after all it was easy enough in the Sunshine State. But otherwise, the military are protrayed by the soldiers, their camaradery, their fear, their relations with their family, and their desire to go home. The play made me laugh and re-mobilized me to beat Bush. At the end, I stood up, to thank a good performance and to pay respect to actors who put on a politically charged play in a time when dissent is becoming more acceptable again, but is still only tolerated in moderation.

Lastly, I have to refer the production of Flowers for Algernon I saw at Theatre Three, some two weeks ago. It was one of the best productions I've seen at Theatre Three. The staging, lighting, and the music by Jennifer Testa, were all outstanding. But my attention was drawn to the stage and the acting. Having read the book, I knew how Charley Gordon's process depended so much on the change in language as was curious to see that translated on stage. Heath Cohen did an outstanding job, from the fidgetty dim-witted Charley to the furiously intellectual later on. So perfect is his contrast that one cannot help but me moved by his loss towards the end of the play. We are beside him every step of his development and self-discovery, and later with his pan at he begins to know how people really feel towards him (the bakers as something to laugh at, the doctors as an object of research) and then the pain as he realizes he will loose what he has gained. But he is not afraid to die or to live, only to not have lived.

I was also fortunate to have seen Daniel Keyes at Theatre Three. But those comments are for another time.

I'm back, and with a higher degree! My defense went very well, and I'm quite happy. I still need to work on my dissertation, polishing some chapters, and writing the 'binding' chapters (intro and conclusion), but the main hurdle is passed. So now, I'll have time to blog away on so many things that I left aside and so much that is happening. Hope you'll find it interesting.

I'm in the last two-week stretch before my doctoral defense, and most of my time and energy is going to writing an already overdue chapter and preparing my prublic presentation. I'll probably only have time to post something after that date (April19th). If I do post anything before then (like this post), I'm probably procrastinating. Shame on me! Its not for lack of things to write about either. So, I invite you to check back in a few weeks.