SwimFinsSF

Dictum ac Factum

Kevin and I went and saw “Dogville” last night. It was REALLY good…. A little long (ok a LOT long – 3 hours and 10 minutes or so) and it feels at least that long but well worth it. The production was really interesting – they staged the whole thing more like a play than a movie. The plot was set in a small town in the rockies however the set was essentially a large sound stage with the outlines of houses painted on the floor and minimal furniture and other things. The whole goal seemed to be to make you focus on the characters, the narrator, and the human interactions without being distracted by other things.

However the more important part was the plot and the message. The movie centers around a small town who adopts a woman who is a fugitive and the interactions surrounding them agreeing to protect her from her pursuers. I don’t want to go into too much detail at the risk of blowing it for others. But I HIGHLY recommend the movie and would be interested to hear what other people’s perceptions of the message were.

Summary from IMDB:

The beautiful fugitive, Grace (Nicole Kidman), arrives in the isolated township of Dogville on the run from a team of gangsters. With some encouragement from Tom (Paul Bettany), the self-appointed town spokesman, the little community agrees to hide her and in return, Grace agrees to work for them. However, when a search sets in, the people of Dogville demand a better deal in exchange for the risk of harbouring poor Grace and she learns the hard way that in this town, goodness is relative. But Grace has a secret and it is a dangerous one. Dogville may regret it ever began to bare its teeth…

Stuff and things

Readers Digest of the week:

• Swimming this morning with Matt. Still my favorite way to get my cardio in though MAN I wish my stamina was better. My form is still pretty damn good but wearin me down! ;)… Need to go more I guess..
• Work is crazy busy with meetings and planning. Ship one product and for some strange reason people actually want us to start right off on the next.. Whats up with THAT? :):) Its a good thing though.. This is the fun part of the product cycle.
• Design Within Reach store opening tonight over on Fillmore at Bush. Cool store. Found a few things Kevin and I could agree on (granted none we can afford right now.. but still).
• Workin on Condo Conversion tasks for the house… makin me crazy as usual but I gotta get this shit done..
• Avoiding the news – what I”m seeing is makin it hard to sleep so i’m gonna avoid it for a bit. I’ll stick to Charmed and Will and Grace. (Shows about Magic that have hot guys in ’em are right up my alley.. And will and grace is just an old favorite! 😉 ).

I’m sure there is more but hell.. not like this is gonna be my last post… more later…

Prisoner Abuse

Just found this thanks to Josh Marshall via Toddo.

ICRC report on prisoner abuse

This is well worth the read. The report includes information on initial apprehension of prisoners, documentation and reporting of detention to families (or lack there of), methods of ill-treatment after initial capture, specifics of behavior at individual prisons, as well as other information relating to attempts made by the IIRC to correct the situation before issuing the report.

Sadly, none of this really surprises me and is consistent with what we’ve been seeing on the news of late. What it DOES tell me is that the administration’s (and particularly Secretary Rumsfeld’s) assertion that the images we’ve seen lately are isolated incidents by a few individuals is a blatant lie. Clearly the administration has done an unacceptable job of educating our forces on what acceptable behavior is even in times of war. Someone needs to start giving crash courses on the requirements of the Geneva convention as well as reminding them that the Nuremberg trials proved that they can’t use ‘I was given an order’ argument to absolve them of illegal and reprehensible actions. There is clearly something broken at a very high level for this kind of behavior to be going on.

Update: To be fair, there are definitely some sections in the document that, while definitely unfortunate, are potentially reasonable responses from the guards (shots fired during prison uprisings, etc). There are also portions of the requirments of the Geneva convention that, while definitely a goal that should be worked toward, would be difficult to implement (for example, how do you quickly get prisoners from their cells to air raid shelters in the event of shelling while maintaining order… not sure how you would do that).

Infuriating

I just heard this speech that Dubbya gave today from the pentagon

BUSH: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror. You are doing a superb job. You are a strong secretary of defense. And our nation owes you a debt of gratitude.

I have to say that I find this absoultely infuriating. Granted I’m not surprised at all but it still makes my blood boil.. I can think of a few things this nation owes Rhumsfeld but gratitude isn’t really on the list.

Foreign Policy for a Democratic President

I just read this article in ‘Foreign Affairs‘ and was very impressed:

Foreign Policy for a Democratic President
Samuel R. Berger
From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004

I’m not sure I agreed with all of his conclusions but regardless he makes a LOT of very good points. Its a little lengthy (OK.. A LOT) but its definitely well worth the read.

New look for couch potatoes

Just heard about this on NPR and it made me giggle

Todd Oldham designing for La-Z-Boy

Have to see if he can come up with a recliner that kevin would like. (highly unlikely but worth a shot!)

BTW – The actual collection is here