From Russia With Love?

Paul Krugman offered up this comparison and it struck me as such a great match that I stole it from him, right down to the screen shot from the Bond flick.

You be the judge, is Vladimir Putin really SPECTRE's Number 5?


























Apparently our President doesn't watch movies either.

Foto Friday - The Return

Not quite back with a blast because the image that I want to bring you today is actually a flash doohickey on the NY Times website.

So follow the link for an awesome view from atop the 10 meter (highest) platform at the Beijing Water Cube. Once again the NYT web team has provided an excellent interactive experience online they're definitely leaps and bounds ahead of any other newspaper website in terms of utilizing the opportunities provided by the web.

I got there via Kottke.

Next week real pictures, I promise.

Back with a Bang

Yes I have returned to civilization, no I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. While I get caught up with the world at large I'd like to bring Trouble the Water to your attention.

Trouble the Water is a documentary from the film makers who worked with Micheal Moore to bring us Fahrenheit 9/11, only they didn't shoot most of the footage. Kimberly Rivers Roberts shot it on her newly street purchased camcorder as Katrina came ashore and the water rose in the lower ninth ward.

Andrew O'Heir has a great write up on the movie and America over at Salon, seriously folks go read it. A few snippets because I don't trust you to follow the link without prompting...

In many ways, I think Kim Roberts' authorship, not just of her amazing storm footage or her music but of her life, is the true subject of "Trouble the Water." We can have a "national conversation about race" until we all turn blue and keel over from boredom -- Did we have it already? If so, what did we say? -- but people like Kim and Scott Roberts don't generally have their own voices, or any other kind of autonomy. A former drug dealer and drug addict, raised in dire poverty by a mother who died young of AIDS, may be understood by way of abstract categories: She's a symptom of criminal pathology or a symptom of racism, a victim or a perpetrator. She is hardly ever going to be seen as a complicated individual utterly free of self-pity, who believes herself fully in charge of her own destiny...

To me it is Katrina that puts the lie to any fantasy of a race-neutral America. And it's Katrina, not 9/11, that displays the nation's potentially fatal 21st century weakness. While countless billions have been spent converting our society into a police state to prevent another unpreventable attack by a handful of neo-medieval wackos, the story of the ongoing destruction of a historic, majority-black American city -- before, during and after that storm -- has been briskly swept under the carpet or, more accurately, abandoned to investigative journalists, documentary filmmakers, NGO social workers, corrupt or incompetent bureaucrats and other irrelevant social debris...

Now like I said go read the rest, oh ok you can watch the trailer below first. Trouble the Water will open tomorrow (August 22) in New York and LA, be shown adjacent to both conventions, and come to Landmark's E Street here in DC on September 26th.

Wait, you didn't think Katrina was over did you?

On the Road

These days hotels are where the internet is, and at the lovely little public library in the town I'm near. It is so lovely that the internet works outside on the grass in the beautiful weather.

But the hotels win in the end because they also have outlets, and alas I have a weak battery (am I jealous of my girlfriend's Mac you ask? More and more so).

A quick summer reading update, two things from The New Yorker. One is a little older and I just read it and the other I haven't read yet but heard about on NPR (hooray for radio!).

The older piece is George Packer from a few weeks back on the death of conservatism, if you haven't read it yet do yourself a favor and check it out.

The newer piece is Seymour Hersch's latest scoop, it has to do with Bush getting funding for covert ops in Iran, yeah that sounds like a great idea.

Have fun in the sun, and don't forget sunscreen if you're reading while laying out.

Fleeing Town

So its July and that means summer is descending upon DC and the time to head for the hills has come. Continuing a long standing family tradition I'm out of here for the next 5 weeks, so expect sporadic posts at best.

I've also missed a lot of action in the past couple of weeks, in my defense all I can offer is that I was mired in a terrible internet connection at a house sitting gig (man the house and dog were great though, totally worth it) and I was ramping up for the GRE last week, which went quite well thank you.

So here are a few brief tid-bits on my way out the door:

EJ Dionne Jr. sums up my take on SCOTUS and the DC gun ruling and then takes another hefty swing at the Court to boot.

Telecom Immunity is terrible, and it is even worse that Obama is getting behind it. (check out Glenn Greenwald for more)

Obama is pissing me off with that stance and with recording ads for wolf in sheep's clothing conservative democrats when they have strong legitimate progressive primary opposition. I'm gonna vote for the guy, I'll get a sticker for the car, I might even sport a t-shirt at some point but I'm not giving money and I'm not gonna do any work for him. Don't get me wrong I think that Obama will make a good President and do a good job, but I'm the angry left and he isn't really in my corner is he? (Matt Stoller is beating the war drums on this one)

Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films have been doing great work in regards to McCain and his surrogates as well.

I've gotta run so I'll leave you with a little bit of fun, smile it'll feel good...

Vacation Time - and Shameless Promotions to Boot

Ok kids, I'm out of town for the next 5 weeks so don't expect much from me.

Feel free to check out the efforts of some of my longtime friends and compadres...

Eric Hutchinson (he's almost sort of famous a little bit)

And

Good Not Great

or if you need some photos taken

Moment In Action

Late night food

In DC, when you want a bite to eat at 3 in the morning, you grab a Jumbo Slice on 18th street, or get a grilled cheese at an all night diner. In Italy, you go in the back door of a bakery selling sandwiches and cream filled brioches on the sly. In Madrid you can get a falafel or a kebab. But in Istanbul when you make your weary way out of the disco, you eat steamed mussels stuffed with delicious rice and plenty of fresh lemon juice from the guys selling them on every street corner. I don't even like shell fish all that much, but this was an unforgettable experience; so good that even the vegetarians I'm traveling with ate a couple. Fantastic. And even if Rough Guide says not to eat them under any circumstances, I think I'll risk it again next time I pass through.