Wikileaks

In defense of tabloid journalism

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Okay, I’ll admit it — I’m sad that Rupert Murdoch shut down News of the World. A lot of journalists are now out of work in the U.K. — and why? Because Murdoch hoped to buy a satellite network, which he didn’t get anyway. And now the authorities in both London and Washington are launching investigations, and there will be more calls for press regulation (harder to do in this country, but still — they’ll try).


I can’t defend what the Murdoch crew did, and I’m not going to try. But I like the piece in Gawker, which notes:


So what do you “regulate”? Voicemail hacking? It’s already illegal. Snooping into bank accounts? Likewise. A clue for the sort of restrictions Coogan has in mind could be found in his exasperated response to McMullan’s specious attempt to justify the phone snooping: “This guy sat outside my house! It’s just a risible, deplorable profession.” Well, yes: Listening in your voicemails is indeed risible and deplorable. But sitting outside your house? That doesn’t quite cry out for regulation.


And Phil Bronstein (in another somewhat convoluted column) notes:


“A criminal enterprise inside a newsroom!” Foreman teased on CNN. The spicier newsrooms always felt a little that way. I remember when the best bookies in San Francisco were Chronicle/Examiner back shop page-layout people, and we loved them for it (and placed our bets).


Fuller said on CNN last week that, for tabs, there is a limit, and it is that they ought to “obey the law.” But even the best reporters potentially break laws all the time. How many journalists have gone to jail for doing their job?


But let’s put aside the finger-wagging and somber intonations about decaying morals and taste, which can be hypocritical. Rupert Murdoch’s most luridly effervescent news property actually played an important role in our rollercoaster, adrenal-fatigue culture as a barometer of just how far we were willing to push the envelope.


Let’s remember: Some of the biggest, most important stories of the last half-century have come from some sort of lawbreaking. The Pentagon Papers were stolen property, received by the New York Times. Wikileaks puts out illegally obtained information all the time. And in this electronic era, secrets don’t last very well anyway.


I’m not for hacking into phones and most of us in this biz don’t pay sources for information. (Buy them drinks, maybe, but I suppose that doesn’t count. Or does it?) I’m not going to defend any of those tactics. Nor am I going to defend Murdoch’s politics (or his scathing attacks on politicians who disagreed with him). But until recently, most of his targets were public figures — wealthy and powerful ones.  


And the crazy tabs have a place in this world. I love the New York Post (who else would come up with the headline “PREMATURE EVACUATION” when Rep. Weiner resigned)? I guess I’m biased by the fact that I’ve never believed a lot of what I read, so I don’t take this stuff too seriously — and I worry about the people who do. But the world of journalism is a little smaller and a little less colorful after the death of News of the World.


Alerts

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WEDNESDAY 16

Anarchist salon and potluck

Get together with other anticapitalist and establishment-challenging folk at this month’s anarchist salon, a monthly gathering and conversation followed by a potluck social. This month’s focus is on radical mental health and wellness.

7–-9:30 p.m., $2–$5 suggested donation

Station 40

3030B 16th St., SF

 

Screening plus potluck

Enjoy a special screening of A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, an alarming documentary about the pervasiveness of crude oil in our everyday lives — from the products we buy to the food we eat.

7:30–9:30 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Humanist Hall

390 27th St., Berk.

www.humanisthall.org

 

THURSDAY 17

International media conference opener

The UC Berkeley two-day conference “Crossing Boundaries” looks at new media and the shape of international news in this age of Internet and cell phone reporting. Speakers include Alan McClain of WikiLeaks, Joaquin Alvarado of American Public Media, and many more. Conference continues on March 18. Check the website for schedule.

9 a.m.–7 p.m., $150–$250

Sutardja Hall

UC Campus, Berk.

www.crossongboundaries2011.org

 

FRIDAY 18

Amnesty International conference opener

Celebrate 50 years of high-impact activism by Amnesty International with an all-weekend event featuring an array of notable guests including Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Christy Turlington Burns, Jahi, and many more — and that’s just day one. Conference continues March 19 and 20. Check the website for schedule.

8 a.m.–5 p.m., $40–$125

Fairmont Hotel

950 Mason, SF

(202) 509-8194

www.amnestyusa.org

 

SATURDAY 19

Girls rock!

Join Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls through music, and its after-school program participants for a rockin’ recital spotlighting the culmination of 10 weeks’ worth of hard work. Fifty-five gals in 12 bands showcase their original songs written at the camp. Enter the drawing for an extra $5 for a chance to win sweet new ax — a cherry red Gretsch Electromatic guitar. Proceeds go to ensure that the after school program continues to rock on.

1–3 p.m., $10 suggested donation

Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts

1428 Alice, Oakl.

www.bayareagirlsrockcamp.org

 

Antiwar demonstration

Protest the war in Iraq on the eighth anniversary of the occupation. Gather at the U.N. Plaza with your signs and radical spirit, then march to two boycotted hotels and demand an end to the “war” on working people.

Noon– 4 p.m., free

UN Plaza

Seventh and Market, SF

www.answersf.org

Facebook: National Day of Action Against the Wars

 

MONDAY 21

World Water Day

Wise up, get down, and take action — learn more about local and global water issues with live music, live painting, dance performances, spoken word, and more. Proceeds benefit water projects in the Bay Area and Kenya.

6:30–9:30 p.m., $10–$15

The New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

www.baylaurelproductions.com

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

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THURSDAY 24

Benefit for Bradley Manning

Raise funds to support U.S. Army soldier and accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning at this events, which features discussions, updates, and special guests, including Daniel Ellsberg and former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska.

7–9 p.m., $5–10 donation

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists

1924 Cedar, Berk.

www.couragetoresist.org

 

Eyewitness to Egyptian revolt

Ahmed Shawki, editor of the International Socialist Review and a Cairo native, shares his eyewitness account of the revolution that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

7:30–9 p.m., free

The Women’s Building Auditorium

3543 18th St., SF

Facebook: Eye-Witness to the Egyptian Revolution in SF

 

FRIDAY 25

Progressive senator in town

Vermont Sen. Bernie Saunders, an independent and arguably the most progressive U.S. senator, will give an overview of his work, from his historic filibuster against the continuation of George H. Bush-era tax cuts for the rich to his fight against big money interests in Washington.

7–9:30 p.m., $15

First Unitarian Universalist Church

1187 Franklin., SF

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/156941

 

SATURDAY 26

Iraqi solidarity

Stand in peaceful solidarity with the people of Iraq, including the many who are protesting the Maliki regime, and call for an end the U.S. occupation and demand that our troops come home.

2:30–3:30 p.m., free

Ferry Building

Embarcadero and Market, SF

www.codepinkalert.com

 

Coffee Party meeting

The progressive answer to the widely publicized Tea Party, this nonpartisan grassroots movement calls for more accountability from our corporate-sponsored, conflict-based political system. This meeting will focus on organizing outreach strategies and the proposed landfill in the San Francisco Bay. But anything goes, so come and exchange ideas over coffee and help take back the democratic process.

11 a.m.–12:30 p.m., free with drink purchase

Cafe La Tartine

830 Middlefield, Redwood City

www.coffeepartyusa.com

 

Panel discussion on censorship

This public forum titled “Censorship in the Arts: A Trend or Just a Passing Fad” is about exploring the current rise in censorship and the renewed threats to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Join the panelists and learn about the recent efforts toward censorship in the arts.

2:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m., free

Performance Art Institute

575 Sutter, SF

www.theperformanceartinstitute.org

 

SUNDAY 27

Who inspires you?

Attend the fourth round of the Bay Area Inside the Activists’ Studio, where you will surely be inspired by the many change-makers and leaders of local Jewish social organizations on the panel. Celebrate the many ways change that can be brought about through skill-building workshops, panel discussions, and more. A catered lunch will be provided.

10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., $8–$18 sliding scale

Contemporary Jewish Museum

736 Mission, SF

www.pursueaction.org

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

“My girlfriend is a hacker”: Inside the EFF party

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On our way to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s 21st Birthday party, my programmer friend explained to me why, if it weren’t for the work of the good folks over at EFF, neither eBay nor WikiLeaks could do their thing.

See, it’s all about encryption, a topic my friend is slightly obsessed with. It used to be illegal for anyone but the government to send encrypted information through electronic channels, he explained, using technology that’s now commonplace and used in any website that requires a log in. In the 1990s, the EFF came along with a lawsuit to open up the ability to offer a secure transfer of information to the masses. The tech law firm prevailed, and soon it became possible to securely log in to a website and enter your credit card information without fear that it would be intercepted. Hence, the trail was blazed for online shopping.

From minds far more subversive than that of Meg Whitman sprang a very different use of the technology. Utilizing encryption software, WikiLeaks designed a way for whistleblowers to securely submit classified documents to an online repository.

That’s just one of many accomplishments that EFF could point to at its Feb. 16 celebration. A nonprofit, EFF “fights for freedom primarily in the courts,” according to its website, taking on the US government and major corporations on issues that threaten Internet freedom and digital rights. EFF boasts more than 61,000 contacts through its Action Center, which it uses to beat back bad legislation and raise awareness.

Just in the last few weeks, EFF has taken on the FBI over its plan to expand federal surveillance laws, weighed in on net neutrality, fended off against attacks from Congress over its aggressive protection of online privacy, and spearheaded a program that allows web users to surf secure all the time.

The EFF staged its 21st bash at Bricks and Mortar Media (BAMM.tv), a “content creation factory” in SoMa.

The place was adorned with festive, futuristic hacker art, from a flat-screen monitor displaying a word cloud, to a stage setup featuring an aerial array of computer bits and video game controllers.

One room featured a live video feed projected onto the wall with a strobe-light effect, and partygoers delighted in throwing kung-fu kicks in front of it and watching themselves flicker on screen like action figures seconds later.

In true tech-pioneer fashion, the night featured live nerdcore performances. What’s nerdcore? Let me put it this way. When the star of Dual Core shouts into the mic, “Throw your hands in the air if you’ve got mad skills,” the people he’s addressing really do have mad skills – like programming, web design, developing apps for mobile devices, managing vast databases, creating video games, and yes, even hacking. One of Dual Core’s raps included the line, “My girlfriend is a hacker.” He’s clearly smitten.

Several chiptune artists also performed, including Crashfaster  — “a chip musician, retro remixer, and low-bit concert promoter whose outreach has galvanized the Bay Area’s vibrant chiptune community,” according to EFF – and Trash80, “the eminent chip musician behind ArduinoBoy — software that helps integrate the Nintendo Game Boy into any existing electronic music arsenal.”

I had the honor of chatting with Doctor Popular, described on EFF’s site as a “professional yo-yoer, nerdcore artist, and innovator.” The good doctor makes music using only an iPhone, iPad, and some wires. He told me he writes songs using a handful of apps while riding CalTrain from San Francisco to San Mateo for his day job at a company that makes video games.

And oh, the nerdy crowd! The knowing glint in their eyes, those people who really understand how to manipulate technology. They program software, develop apps, eat, sleep and breathe online communication, whip out iPhones and Droid phones and talk about video games, latest versions of browsers and operating systems, and other matters that this reporter could not quite comprehend, because they were using acronyms.

They were gracious. “Sorry,” some one said to me after launching into a paragraph of alphabet-soup gibberish to my programmer friend. “Sometimes I forget, and then I notice people’s eyes glazing over.”

And yet, when you hang out with hardcore nerdcore fans, you learn the most fascinating things. For example, how when you begin typing “Torrent” into a Google search engine, the word “torrent” will not show up in the automatic feed that suggests search terms. Why? Well, there are theories.

Not forgotten

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arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL Around 500 people a day pass through the long corridor that bisects San Francisco City Hall’s lower level: supervisors dashing to the café for a quick lunch; tour groups of elementary school children; aides making a post office run; the occasional member of a wedding party looking for the bathroom.

It is also one of the last places where you’d expect to find a politically vital art installation, which is what makes San Francisco Art Commission gallery director Meg Shiffler’s decision to hang its current exhibit, “Afghanistan in 4 Frames,” in such a public and heavily-trafficked area so gutsy. Though the SFAC regularly puts on three to four art shows a year in the City Hall space, none in recent memory have resonated so powerfully with the dynamics of the venue itself.

The “4 Frames” exhibit presents a ground-level (no pun intended) portrait of the country through the lenses of four photojournalists who, over the past five years, have embedded themselves with various military forces and units stationed there. Though each photographer varies in style and background, their work — presented as photo-essays — shares a focus on the day-to-day, intersecting lives of civilians and soldiers off the battlefield.

James Lee, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and current San Francisco State University graduate student whose move to photography from writing was a recent one, captures in crisp color the downtime faced by young Afghan National Security Force soldiers stationed near the Pakistan border.

In contrast to the all-male environment Lee documents, Lynsey Addario’s series “Women at War” focuses on the experience of female U.S. troops and their engagement with female civilians. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer has a knack for taking a picture at the moment her subjects are at their most unguarded, whether sharing a laugh with each other or shaving their legs in the barracks.

Addario’s photos are pointedly hung on a wall across from Bay Area photographer Eros Hoagland’s slightly more testosterone-driven series, “Siege Perilous.” The high contrast black and white photos depicting British military forces in the Korengal Valley and Helmand Province practically crackle with tension.

Another veteran photographer, Teru Kuwayama, is the only one who works with actual film, and his grainy, black and white Holga and Leica portraits of rural clans and armed mercenaries feel as if they are from another era. Kuwayama’s most timely work on Afghanistan actually resides offsite and online: his Web reporting initiative, Basetrack, links deployed Marines with life at home through images and video created by embedded journalists (although just last week military brass asked the embeds to leave).

Afghanistan made front pages again last summer after WikiLeaks uncovered 90,000 pages of classified materials chronicling a five-year window in the U.S. military’s long slog there. But “4 Frames” reminds those who encounter it — as well as those who seek it out — that regardless of the headlines, there will always be an ongoing, human side to what has been so often dubbed “the forgotten war.” And forgetting is not a luxury we can afford.

 

THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION

Although a vastly different beast from “Afghanistan in Four Frames,” SFMOMA’s current juggernaut of a thematic survey “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870” offers a pointed study in contrast, demonstrating how not to curate a photography show with clarity of vision or regard to what could be called an ethics of representation.

As proclaimed by its title, “Exposed,” which was organized by SFMOMA and the Tate Modern in London, where it originally premiered, attempts to track — across various eras, technologies, and milieu — what the introductory wall text calls the “voyeuristic impulse” in modern and contemporary photography: “an eagerness to see a subject commonly considered taboo.”

With such an open-ended criteria, the curators have essentially given themselves carte blanche to include everything from early 20th-century “detective cameras,” Walker Evans’ portraits of unknowing New York City subway passengers, Ron Galella’s paparazzi snaps of Jackie O., Nick Ut’s iconic image of a crying Kim Phuc in Vietnam (as well as his 2007 picture of a crying Paris Hilton), Robert Mapplethorpe’s BDSM pictures, surreptitious documentation of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, and Trevor Paglen’s near-abstract renderings of distant military sites.

The 200 or so pieces are arranged in thematically-grouped galleries (“Celebrity and the Public Gaze,” “Witnessing Violence”) that wind through half of the museum’s fifth floor. By the time you’ve made it through the lengthy, final “Surveillance” section of the show, “Exposed” feels more like a photography catalog that become the genesis for an exhibit, and not the other way around.

Such tidy categorization has the negative effect of creating closed systems rather than allowing different pieces to speak to each other. For example, two harrowing, anonymously-attributed lynching photos belong next to one of the most moving selections in “Exposed,” Oliver Lutz’s Lynching of Leo Frank, which hangs in another gallery. At the same time, the very proximity of death images and paparazzi shots cheapens both.

When presenting highly-charged, difficult images, many of which document humankind at its most brutal and unsavory, the context they are displayed in becomes as crucial as the images themselves. “Exposed,” which feels like the result of several unseemly Google image searches rather than a decade of curatorial sweat, disappoints in this regard.

Atrocity. Murder. Fame. Kinky sex. It’s all here! The question no one seemed to ask is: does it need to be? “Exposed” is simply too much. *

AFGHANISTAN IN 4 FRAMES

Through May 13, free

City Hall

1 Dr Carlton B. Goodlett Place (ground floor), SF

(415) 554-6080

www.sfartscommission.org/gallery

EXPOSED: VOYEURISM, SURVEILLANCE, AND THE CAMERA SINCE 1870

Through April 17; free–<\d>$18

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

Alerts

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alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 12

 

Bradley Manning rally

Take the streets to protest the Berkeley City Council for backing down on plans to demand the freedom of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier imprisoned for exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq by allegedly leaking documents to WikiLeaks. Legendary whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg speaks.

11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m., free

Berkeley Old City Hall

2134 MLK Jr. Way, Berk.

THURSDAY, JAN. 13

 

Free the Hikers benefit

Lia Rose, a former classmate of one of the hikers still held hostage in Iran, chose to make her album release show a benefit to help free Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer. Joining her on stage will be Tim Marcus and Andrew Macguire, among others.

9:30 p.m., $12 (proceeds benefit Free the Hikers)

Roxie

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com

 

Fiery Feminists of Color

Join Radical Women and the editors of Shout out! Women of Color Respond to Violence, as they discuss and analyze the violence against Native American, South Asian, and Afghan women. A winter buffet with a vegetarian option will be served.

6:15 p.m., $7.50 suggested donation

New Valencia Hall

625 Larkin, Suite. 202, SF

www.radicalwomen.org

 

Protesters fundraiser

Help JR Valrey and Holly Works, the last two of the Oakland 100 (those arrested during the protests following the murder of Oscar Grant last year) raise legal defense funds for their upcoming trials.

7 p.m., $10–$1,000 suggested donation

Black Dot Café

1195 Pine, Oakl.

SUNDAY, JAN. 16

 

Arrested protestors hearing

Show support for the dozens of protesters arrested at the recent rallies demanding justice for Oscar Grant as they attend their hearings.

9 a.m, free

Wiley M. Manuel Courthouse, Dept. 112

661 Washington, Oakl.

 

Capitalism doc

Richard Wolff explains in his documentary, Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It, how deep economic structures contributed to the global financial crisis and several depressions and recessions over the last 75 years.

7:30 p.m., $12 advance ($15 at the door)

Berkeley Hillside Club

2286 Cedar St, Berk.

www.hillsideclub.org

MONDAY, JAN. 17

 

Protest SFPD actions

Protest the San Francisco Police Department’s treatment of the disabled and people with mental health issues. Meet outside the SF Behavioral Health Center — where SFPD recently shot and killed a mentally disabled man in a wheelchair — and march to City Hall where a rally with speakers will be held by the Polk Street entrance.

12–3 p.m., free

Meet at 10th and Howard streets, SF

djasik87.9@gmail.com

TUESDAY, JAN. 18

 

Reigniting the Climate Justice Movement

Join environmentally focused nonprofits from around the Bay Area as they discuss climate change and what to expect in terms of U.S. legislation after the recent international climate negotiations in Cancun.

7 p.m., free

David Brower Center, Tamalpais Room

2150 Allston Way, Berk.

(510) 486-0286 

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

San Francisco activists denounce WikiLeaks crackdown

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A small group of protesters gathered outside the British Consulate in San Francisco’s financial district Dec. 16 to speak out against the recent crackdown on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is out on bail after being imprisoned for nine days by British authorities.

Assange, whose organization recently created an international stir with the release of secret diplomatic cables, could be extradited to Sweden to be tried on sex crimes charges following a hearing in January.

According to a recent New York Times article, U.S. government officials are trying to build a case against Assange for conspiracy. In the wake of the leak, Sen. Joe Lieberman was calling for the New York Times to be investigated for espionage for publishing information provided by WikiLeaks, and last week, a Fox news pundit even said he thought Assange should be assasinated.

Among the small crowd that gathered before twilight were representatives from Veterans for Peace, Courage to Resist, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Rainey Reitman, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation — a legal firm and nonprofit that defended WikiLeaks against a 2008 lawsuit from Swiss bank Julius Baer — called the recent backlash a threat to Internet freedom and freedom of speech.

“Let me be clear. Here in the United States of America, WikiLeaks has a fundamental right to publish truthful political information. And equally important, Internet users have a fundamental right to read that information and voice their opinions about it. We live in a society that values freedom of expression and shuns censorship. Unfortunately, those values are only as strong as the will to support them — a will that seems to be dwindling now in an alarming way,” Reitman said.

Reitman said the case touched on broader issues. “This isn’t just about WikiLeaks. It never was. It’s about the future of the Internet and the future of free speech.”

Among several other speakers, Reitman was joined by Jeff Patterson of Courage to Resist, which has mounted a support campaign for U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning. Manning has been accused of acting as WikiLeaks’ source for 250,000 secret government documents and classified military footage, which has now been made available to the general public.

Patterson noted that the Bradley Manning Support Network had raised $100,000 for Manning’s legal defense. Although many activists have sent letters of support to Manning, who is being held in solitary confinement in a prison outside of Washington, D.C., “the military is rejecting letters pretty much arbitrarily,” Patterson claimed.

To read more about the WikiLeaks saga, check out the blog of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Our weekly Picks: December 15-21, 2010

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WEDNESDAY 15

MUSIC

Buzzov*en

Legendary sludge metal band Buzzov?en has been wandering the wilderness since the early ’90s, its members ping-ponging between different down-tuned, drugged-out projects. Sludge, an ugly-sounding offshoot of stoner metal, can be traced back to the Melvins, and it was relatively big business in 1994 when Buzzov?en’s second album, Sore, was picked up by Roadrunner Records. That honeymoon was over quickly, and the band’s career has been peripatetic since. Famous for the violence of its live shows and squalling, pummeling riffs, the band is likely to incite a frenzy wherever its brand-new tour may take them. (Ben Richardson)

With Brainoil, Neurotoxicity, No Statik, K. Lloyd

8:30 p.m., $16

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

 

MUSIC

John Grant

After the decade he spent fronting dreamy indie-pop group the Czars, John Grant has since gone on record saying he never really felt all that satisfied with the band’s albums. As crazy as that might sound to Czars fans, Queen of Denmark, his new solo album backed by Texas folk-rockers Midlake, is indeed a markedly personal album — and perhaps the type he wanted to make all along. Grant’s 1970s soft rock-inspired arrangements and rich baritone vocals are excellent; but it’s the emotional vulnerability and snarky humor of his lyrics that really define him as a songwriter who is very much deserving of some more attention. (Landon Moblad)

With Jessica Pratt

8 p.m., $15

Swedish American Hall

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

MUSIC

Del the Funky Homosapien

The Bay Area’s ambassador of hip-hop, not to the planet but the galaxy and beyond, Del the Funky Homosapien came out of Oakland’s Hieroglyphics crew before lending his unmistakable voice to projects of a stranger variety. A fetish for ginormous words and out-of-this-world concepts culminated in the future blap of 2000’s space jamming album Deltron 3030. A follow-up is supposedly in the can, reportedly ready for release in 2010. At this intimate event, fans will have the opportunity to remind Del that it is mid-December. (Ryan Prendiville)

 With Simple Citizens

Wed/15–Thurs/16, 8 p.m., $30

Yoshi’s San Francisco

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

 

THURSDAY 16

DANCE

“DANCEfirst! Modernity/Humanity: The Nzoto Installation

Often the very act of preserving an artifact distances it from its daily meanings. The “Art/Object: Recontextualizing African Art” exhibit now gracing the halls of the Museum of the African Diaspora seeks to right this wrong, inserting ancient costumes, tools, and accessories back into the flourishes of life they once accentuated. The integration of ritual and modernity is also the theme of an upcoming MoAD dance performance, The Nzoto Installation, presented by dance-community bridge-building organization see.think.dance, and featuring international performance artist Byb Chanel Bibene using the nzoto (“the body” in Bantu) of dancer groups to meld abstract thought and tradition with motion and emotion you can feel, now. (Caitlin Donohue)

6–9 p.m., free with admission ($5–>$15)

Museum of the African Diaspora

685 Mission, SF

(415) 358-7200

www.moadsf.org MUSIC

 

MUSIC

Om

The demise of Sleep marked a sad day for metal fans, but from the resin-soaked ashes of that vaunted South Bay trio emerged two bands that have done much to cheer them up. The success of Matt Pike and High on Fire is a topic to be considered elsewhere; Om is the order of the day. Founded by Sleep’s bassist and drummer, Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus, the meditative metal outfit has taken advantage of the former’s mellifluous playing to craft songs that are at once crushingly heavy and fuzzily embracing. Cisneros is now paired with new drummer Emil Amos, and they’re prepared to rock you into reverie. (Richardson)

With Lichens, Barn Owl, DJ Britt Govea

8 p.m., $16

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1422

www.independentsf.com.

 

FRIDAY 17

THEATER

Mr. Yoowho’s Holiday

In conjunction with Noh Space, Moshe Cohen presents Mr. Yoowho’s Holiday, a story fusing the spirit of adventure with the warmth of the season. Mr. Yoowho embarks on an international journey across geographical borders as well as the borders of the imagination. He meets Taro-kaja, the prototypical spirited trickster hero of Japanese Kyogen Theater, as well as encountering elements of the European circus and Yiddish absurdism. Drawing on aspects of traditional Japanese Noh Theater and Kyogen Theater, Cohen returns to SF after touring extensively through Europe to meld humor, poetry, and absurdity in this heartwarming tale. (Emmaly Wiederholt)

Through Jan. 2, 2011

Preview tonight, 8 p.m., $10

Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 3 p.m., $10–$18

Theatre of Yugen

2840 Mariposa, SF

1-800-838-3006

www.theatreofyugen.org

 

EVENT

“Hubba Hubba Revue’s Christmas Hanukkah Spectacular”

Who will be the next mayor? What will the new year bring? Which corporate Death Star will the WikiLeaks cabal take down next? The Guardian doesn’t have all the answers to these quandaries of the abyss yet — but we sure as sugar have the inside skinny on who will be taking off their clothes at Hubba Hubba Revue’s holiday burlesque spectacular (you’re welcome). To wit: the winner of “best variety act” at Las Vegas’ Burlesque Hall of Fame, Chicago’s Amazing Bendable Poseable Dolls of Doom, and boylesque troupe the Stage-Door Johnnies. Also, don’t miss (yes!) Hubba’s annual visit from the hang-10 Hasids themselves, Jewish surf band Meshugga Beach Party. (Donohue)

9 p.m., $10–$15

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

 

THEATER

Sweet Can Productions

Combining aerial silks, acrobatics, juggling, contortion, hula hoops, traditional circus, physical theater, dance, and live music, Sweet Can Production’s newest show Candid takes its audience into a charming topsy-turvy world where anything can happen. The limits of human imagination are stretched as mundane objects and everyday life transform into a breathtaking circus. Directed by Joanna Haigood and Wendy Parkman with new music by Eric Oberthaler, lighting designed by Tad Shannon, and performances by Beth Clarke, Natasha Kaluza, Kerri Kresinski, and Matt White, Candid aims to reveal the magic inherent in the ordinary. (Wiederholt)

Through Jan. 9, 2011

Schedule varies (opens tonight, 7 and 9 p.m.)

$15–$60

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., SF

www.sweetcanproductions.com

 

MUSIC

Sub Swara

Bay Area dubstep freaks sometimes forget that the gateway to their bass addiction was a curious mutation of global funk — one that came to prominence in the mid-late ’00’s and mixed Jamaican dread, glitchy electronics, and bhangra flourishes into a heady, invigorating stew. Ground zero for this sound was the excellent Surya Dub party, much missed since its players went off to conquer the world. With a happy rumble, the Surya Dub crew is reuniting at Public Works, teaming up with Bay woofer-killers Slayers Club to bring in New York City duo Sub Swara, keepers of the international bass flame (with a cosmic-funky twist on their latest CD, Triggers). It’ll be a global-eared rumble that reunites seminal Bay influences while leaving you quaking in your Timberlands. (Marke B.)

10 p.m., $10

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

 

MUSIC

“Monsters of Accordion 2010”

The accordion: for many, it’s the runner-up for most annoying musical instrument (after bagpipes). When used outside of polka, zydeco, cumbia, and other “traditional genres” (read: mainstream pop), it has an attention-drawing, anachronistic quality. To rock it, a player must possess a superhuman degree of cool, like They Might Be Giants and, of course, Weird Al Yankovic. To that list add Jason Webley, the howling one-man band and mind behind Monsters of Accordion, known above all for his ability to convert nonbelievers to the squeezebox. (Prendiville)

With Corn Mo, Renee de la Prade, Petrojvic Blasting Co., and Duckmandu

9 p.m., $14

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

 

SATURDAY 18

MUSIC

Cyndi Lauper

With her string of recent successes, one could say that new wave chanteuse Cyndi Lauper is back. But that really wouldn’t be accurate — the independent firebrand never really went away. Starting with her smash breakthrough 1983 album She’s So Unusual and the string of hit singles that followed, including “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” “She Bop,” and “Time After Time,” Lauper has continued to release a variety of music, along with appearing in films and being involved with human rights causes. She comes to the city tonight for an intimate club gig — here’s to hoping she can be persuaded to play “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”! (Sean McCourt)

9 p.m., $65

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1422

www.independentsf.com

 

DANCE

Labayen Dance

It’s fun to watch artists who consistently surprise. Enrico Labayen is one of them. For a while, he dropped off the radar — turns out he went home to the Philippines to study native mythologies. When he returned, his first major endeavor became an ambitious Carmina Burana. Now he is taking on the Greeks. Icarus at the Edge of Recession promises to offer a fresh perspective on Daedalus as a CEO and Icarus as a young trader. He is showing this parable of a father sacrificing his son for his own ambition as a work in progress during what he calls a “holiday fun(d)raising event.” (Rita Felciano)

8 p.m., $20 (with pre-show party, 7 p.m., $25)

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(415) 509-3129

www.brownpapertickets.com

 

TUESDAY 21

MUSIC

Danny B. Harvey

Guitar slinger extraordinaire Danny B. Harvey has played with everyone from the Rockats, Nancy Sinatra, and Wanda Jackson to Bow Wow Wow and the Head Cat. This current tour stop finds him teaming up with his friend and “Rockabilly Filly” Rosie Flores. Harvey’s frantic finger-picking and tasty solos are truly a sight to behold live — especially when you look up from watching his fingers dancing on the fret board and see his expression — he often looks as if he’s enjoying a Jack and Coke at the bar, a big grin on his face and giving almost no indication of the difficulty of making the incredible sounds coming out of his guitar. (McCourt)

With Rosie Flores

9 p.m., $12–$15

Hotel Utah

500 Fourth St., SF

(415) 546-6300

www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

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Live Shots: Roger Waters’ epic “The Wall,” HP Pavilion, 12/08/2010

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In the minutes before Pink Floyd mastermind Roger Waters took to the stage at HP Pavilion earlier this week to perform the band’s epic 1979 double album The Wall, the playlist coming through the house speakers gave way to Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a song that seemed well-matched for the impending performance. For an artist that is commonly known for romantic jazz ballads, Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” was a defining moment in her career, a point in which she ascended beyond the simplest manifestations of her identity and delved into the  darkest corners of her times.

In a similar sense, there is no easy way around The Wall. Pink Floyd’s last album during their monumental run in the ’70s — Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals — was not only their most artistically ambitious, but a lingering challenge to the nature of the band’s legacy. Longview attempts to define Pink Floyd in the realm of blacklight posters, spacey sounds, or a Dazed and Confused mindset, will inevitably get stuck at The Wall: a dark and confrontational album that is ultimately the most emblematic of Pink Floyd’s greatest characteristics.

So, with Waters (at age 67) suggesting that this will be his last tour, it is appropriate that he would finish with his masterpiece. And make no mistake – this was a concert for the ages.

Playing before an enthralled sold-out crowd, Waters put on a spectacle of acid-casualty-inflicting-potential that seemed peerless on numerous fronts. Musically, the material was as dynamic as it was seamless, deftly rendered by a world-class band of musicians over a juggernaut of a sound system. Visually, the staging seemed calibrated past “entertain” and set on “assault”, showcasing a sensory barrage of giant puppets, crashing airplanes, and flying pigs all amidst the construction (and eventual toppling) of a 40ft wall that also served as a towering projection screen for a dizzying array of images and video.

Yet the most notable aspect of the performance was the sheer relevance of the material. This was really an amazing feature, considering that Waters wrote The Wall in the run up to the Reagan-Thatcher era and was now performing it in the aftermath of Bush-Cheney. In this regard, Waters delved deeply into the confrontational aspect of the album’s material, challenging the audience with all-too-timely themes of war, ideology, government surveillance, and the general estrangement of modern human relations. During “Run Like Hell” the projections on the wall at one point showed the Wikileaks-released video of the 2007 Apache Helicopter massacre in Baghdad; not exactly light viewing material to accompany one of Floyd’s classic radio hits.

Waters looked and sounded formidable throughout the concert, stalking the stage with good-humored authority as the wall was erected in front of the band throughout the beginning half of the album. This first set was packed with striking moments, such as the ominous acoustic beauty of “Goodbye Blue Sky” beset by visuals of bomber planes dropping their payloads of -isms  (dollar signs, religious symbols, and corporate logos) on those below. “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2),” with its re-occurring mantra – “We Don’t Need No Education” – was already a staggering spectacle as a three-story marionette school teacher with laser eyes dwarfed the musicians below, only to then be embellished by a choir of  local school kids filling the stage to sing the later verses.

However, the most poignant moment of the show came during the second set as Waters – who had lost his father as a boy during World War II – performed “Vera” and “Bring the Boys Back Home” beneath video spots of children reuniting with their fathers returning home from war. The final clip – of a young girl going from surprise to gut-wrenching emotion as she first sees her father – left audience members wiping back tears as Water’s sang the line, “Does anybody else in here/feel the way I do?”

The wall came toppling down after the more theatrical rock-opera moments of the second album, culminating with “The Trial” performed  beneath Gerald Scarfe’s hallucinatory animation from the 1982 film adaptation of the album. Waters and company finished the concert amongst the rubble, playing a wonderfully serene and hopeful version of “Outside the Wall.”

Much has been made of the fact that the original staging of this album was a logistical debacle when it was performed in only four cities some 30 years ago, and that the evolution of technology has now made it feasible. Yet, in a similar sense, the album’s material has matured in its own way in this time. Writing during a time of personal crisis in the late 70s, Waters conceived the album as an exploration of human relationships and the many obstacles that hinder them. The timeliness of these themes then — especially after a decade marred by war and a divided population – makes this tour less of a nostalgic throwback and more of manifested vision. Pink Floyd had always been far ahead their time, so there is a fitting logic that it would take three decades for The Wall to be properly realized in concert.

Of course, it’ll be interesting to see if this tour is in fact the last call on an original Pink Floyd experience. Altough the surviving band members are getting on in years (keyboardist Richard Wright died in 2008), they have made some steps at amends recently, and even expressed interest in collaborating again. Perhaps then, there is still time for those walls to come down. After all….when it comes to Pink Floyd, it’s well known that pigs will fly

SFBG Radio: From Wikileaks to class warfare

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In today’s episode, we talk about Wikileaks, why there’s more outrage about embarassing leaks than about really dangerous leaks — and why everybody’s so afraid of talking about class warfare. Cuz we aren’t. Listen up after the jump.


 

sfbgradio12/3/2010 by endorsements2010

WikiLeaks: demystifying diplomacy

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OPINION Compared to the kind of secret cables that WikiLeaks just shared with the world, everyday public statements from government officials are exercises in make-believe.

In a democracy, people have a right to know what their government is actually doing. In a pseudo-democracy, a bunch of fairy tales from high places will do the trick.

Diplomatic facades routinely masquerade as realities. But sometimes the mask slips — for all the world to see — and that’s what just happened with the humongous leak of State Department cables.

“Every government is run by liars,” independent journalist I.F. Stone observed, “and nothing they say should be believed.” The extent and gravity of the lying varies from one government to another — but no pronouncements from world capitals should be taken on faith.

By its own account, the U.S. government has been at war for more than nine years now and there’s no end in sight. Like the Pentagon, the State Department is serving the overall priorities of the warfare state. The nation’s military and diplomacy are moving parts of the same vast war machinery.

Such a contraption requires a muscular bodyguard of partial truths, deceptions, and outright lies. With the nation’s ongoing war efforts at full throttle, the contradictions between public rationales and hidden goals — or between lofty rhetoric and grisly human consequences — cannot stand the light of day.

Details of Washington’s transactional alliances with murderous dictators, corrupt tyrants, warlords, and drug traffickers are among its most closely guarded quasi-secrets. Most media accounts can be blown off by officialdom, but smoking-gun diplomatic cables are harder to ignore.

With its massive and unending reliance on military force — with a result of more and more carnage, leaving behind immense grief and rage in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere — the U.S. government has colossal gaps to bridge between its public relations storylines and its war-making realities.

The same government that devotes tremendous resources to inflicting military violence abroad must tout its humane bona fides and laudable priorities to the folks back home. But that essential public relations task becomes more difficult when official documents to the contrary keep leaking.

No government wants to face documentation of actual policies, goals, and priorities that directly contradict its public claims of virtue. In societies with democratic freedoms, the governments that have the most to fear from such disclosures are the ones that have been doing the most lying to their own people.

The recent mega-leaks are especially jarring because of the extreme contrasts between the U.S. government’s public pretenses and real-life actions. But the standard official response is to blame the leaking messengers.

What kind of “national security” can be built on duplicity from a government that is discredited and refuted by its own documents?

Norman Solomon is co-chair of the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign, launched by Progressive Democrats of America.

 

There are no secrets

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I see Hillary Clinton is all indignant about the latest Wikileaks release. And there will be no end of hand-wringing in journalistic and political circles about whether this material should have been leaked, released, published etc. (But you have to admit, it’s great stuff; I particularly like the comments about the the looney leader of North Korea is still “quite a good drinker.”) And there is, of course, important data that the public ought to have, and I think the NY Times did the right thing by publishing the material.


But there’s another side of this, something that Clinton and Obama and the whole CIA/national security/spy apparatus ought to already know: These days, it’s really hard to keep anything secret for long.


Daniel Ellsberg had to make clandestine photocopies of thousands of pages of Pentagon Papers docs, then smuggle them out of his office and slip them to a Times reporter in a hotel room. These days? Click of a mouse. Hard to trace, impossible to stop. Once documents of any sort have gone to more than one or two people, you might as well assume they’re going out to the whole world.


Anyone who uses email on a professional basis has been told that. Think of poor Brad the Cad. About time the secretary of state caught on.


 


 

Wikileaks, military families and the importance of voting rights

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As Wikileaks’ Iraq war logs continue to reveal the disturbing reality of Bush’s illegal war, and its founder, Julian Assange, continues to be demonized for leaking this information, military families are left wondering if their loved ones were endangered by the actions of rogue military contractors, if Iraqis were tortured by other Iraqis because of the failure of the Bush administration to crack down on this abuse—and whether the same thing is happening in Afghanistan.

Either way, the situation illustrates the importance of voting for ethical leadership, and San Francisco School Board candidate Margaret Brodkin is encouraging all overseas voters and their families, including those in the military, to submit their ballots for the November 2, 2010.

“The Department of Elections has issued 6060 ballots to San Francisco voters overseas,” Brodkin noted in a recent press release. “This population, which includes many military families, has received little to no attention in this election cycle. School Board Candidate Margaret Brodkin cares about families here, and throughout the world. We encourage input from families and parents living and working overseas, and want to know what types of changes you would like to see on the San Francisco Board of Education.”

As Brodkin notes, overseas voters can get more information on their voting rights at the California Secretary of State’s military and overseas voter information website. So, check it out, and use that vote wisely.

FAIR: WikiLeaks and the U.S. Press

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Media resistance to exposure of government secrets

The website WikiLeaks posted tens of thousands of classified intelligence documents relating to the Afghanistan War on Sunday, July 25. Spanning the years 2004-09, the documents had been shared in advance with reporters from the New York Times, the British Guardian and the German Der Spiegel, all of which produced long pieces offering their interpretations of the documents.

In corporate U.S. media, the documents produced several narratives. For some, the WikiLeaks revelations were either not all that important, or certainly not as important as the leak of the Vietnam War-era Pentagon Papers. As a Washington Post story put it (7/27/10), “Unlike the Pentagon Papers, these documents–although they are closer to a real-time assessment and although they land in the superheated Internet era–do not reveal any strategy on the part of the government to mislead the public about the mission and its chances for success.” The New York Times (7/26/10) noted that

overall, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements–attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles, or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.

Such comments reflect a somewhat puzzling standard for what qualifies as official deception. But the overriding message of some prominent outlets was that there was little to glean from the disclosures. The July 27 Washington Post provided a remarkable case study. One news story, headlined “WikiLeaks Disclosures Unlikely to Change Course of Afghanistan War,” presented the leaks as good news for the war effort, asserting that the “release could compel President Obama to explain more forcefully the war’s importance,” and conveying White House claims that “the classified accounts bolstered Obama’s decision in December to pour more troops and money into a war effort that had not received sufficient attention or resources from the Bush administration.”

Another Post story, headlined “WikiLeaks Documents Cause Little Concern Over Public Perception of War,” suggested that the White House and Congress were trying to turn the leaks into “an affirmation of the president’s decision to shift strategy and boost troop levels in the nearly nine-year-long war.” The same could be said for the Washington Post, which also editorialized that the WikiLeaks release “hardly merits the hype offered by the website’s founder.”

One area of obvious concern were documents that described attacks on civilians by U.S. and NATO forces. The WikiLeaks files brought this issue back into the media spotlight, but it’s worth considering how different papers treated the issue. One of the Guardian‘s July 26 stories began with this lead:

A huge cache of secret U.S. military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and NATO commanders fear neighboring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency.

While the British paper led with civilian deaths, the New York TimesJuly 26 story reported that the archive of classified documents “offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.” The article’s second paragraph describes it as a “daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.” Ten paragraphs into the piece there is a reference to commando missions that “claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.” But the documents’ numerous accounts of civilians killed by U.S. or allied forces got little attention in the Times‘ write-up, a choice justified that executive editor Bill Keller (NYTimes.com, 7/25/10) attempted to justify by saying that “all of the major episodes of civilian deaths described in the War Logs had been previously reported in the Times.”

The possibility that the leaked documents might lead to more discussion of civilian casualties was frequently raised as a concern in U.S. media. The Washington Post editorial tried to minimize the documents’ revelations on this issue: “The British newspaper in turn highlights what it says are 144 reported incidents in which Afghan civilians were killed or wounded by coalition forces. But the 195 deaths it counts in those episodes, though regrettable, do not constitute a shocking total for a four-year period.” That point of view was echoed on CBS Evening News by correspondent Lara Logan:

Well, the issue of civilian casualties is a major one. And the U.S. has taken a lot of criticism because of this. However, what’s interesting to note is that according to the documents, 195 Afghan civilians have been killed. But also according to the documents, 2,000 Afghan civilians have been killed by the Taliban, which is more than 10 times the number said to be killed by U.S. and NATO forces. And very little is being made of that. If the coverage would indicate that it’s more of an issue for the U.S. to kill Afghan civilians than it is for the Taliban to do so.

The suggestion that this tally of 195 Afghan civilian deaths is comprehensive is absurd on its face, given that the WikiLeaks documents are in no way at all a comprehensive account of any aspect of the war. As the Guardian noted, that number “is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.” Estimates of civilian casualties vary, but several thousand noncombatant Afghans were killed by U.S. and coalition forces during these years of the war. As for Logan’s point about who bears more responsibility for civilian killings, there have been various attempts to make such determinations. In 2008, for instance, U.N. monitors counted over 2,000 civilian casualties; when responsibility could be determined, 41 percent of the deaths were attributed to U.S./NATO forces.

On the same broadcast in which Logan offered her critique, CBS reporter Chip Reid stressed that civilian deaths would remain a potent issue for the White House. Reid feared that the Obama administration

may be underestimating the problems here because, yes, people were aware and certainly the president was aware of the problem with civilian casualties, but if we’re now going to be bombarded for days on end with a long series of specific examples, that’s going to make it more difficult for both the Afghan people and the American people to support this war.

It is difficult to imagine that corporate media would be “bombarding” anyone “for days on end” with stories of dead Afghan civilians. Liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson (7/27/10), for instance, downplayed the importance of WikiLeaks‘ information about civilian deaths:

We already knew that U.S. and other coalition forces were inflicting civilian casualties that had the effect of enraging local villagers and often driving them into the enemy camp. The documents merely reveal episodes that were previously unpublicized–an October 2008 incident in which French troops opened fire on a bus near Kabul and wounded eight children, for example, and a tragedy two months later when a U.S. squad riddled another bus with gunfire, killing four passengers and wounding 11 others.

Old news, in other words–albeit news about which we were unaware.

Post columnist Anne Applebaum struck a different note (7/29/10), congratulating the media for already thoroughly documenting the sorts of events described in the WikiLeaks documents: “If you don’t know by now that the ISI helped create the Taliban, or that civilian casualties are generally a problem for NATO, or that special forces units are hunting for Al-Qaeda fighters, all that means is that you don’t read the mainstream media. Which means that you don’t really want to know.” (It’s true that regular readers of outlets like the Post may be under the impression that Afghan civilian deaths are more of a problem for NATO than they are for Afghan civilians–FAIR Blog, 5/7/09.)

In the new issue of Time magazine (dated 8/9/10), managing editor Rick Stengel notes that WikiLeaks “has already ratcheted up the debate about the war,” and that Time is trying “to contribute to that debate.” They do so with a cover photo of a disfigured Afghan woman with the headline “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” The clear implication is that the Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. It is difficult to imagine the magazine proposing the opposite: a headline like “What Happens If We Stay in Afghanistan,” accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.

Stengel argues, “We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it,” adding: “What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.”

The idea that the way to respond to the WikiLeaks documents is to highlight atrocities committed by the Taliban is precisely what CBS correspondent Lara Logan called for. And it’s also more propaganda than it is journalism.

FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.

Wikileaks releases classified Afghan War diaries

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Wikileaks has released thousands of classified files about the war in Afghanistan. These Afghan war diaries provide a unique insight into what’s happening on the ground. And it ain’t pretty. You can review the reports by looking at various categories, including “severity”, “friendly fire” and “escalation of force”.


Wikileaks is calling the files “the most significant archive about the reality of war to have ever been released during the course of a war.”


The U.K. Guardian calls them, “a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan.”


Take a look and decide for yourself.


 


 

Chilling footage of journalists getting shot in Iraq

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By Nima Maghame and Rebecca Bowe

On July 12th, 2007 two apache helicopters attacked the small suburb of Al-Amin, Iraq. More than two dozen people were killed, including two Reuters journalists, driver assistant Saeed Chmagh and war photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen.

And the entire incident was recorded on video — from the helicopters.

Reuters demanded an investigation in the summer of 2007, and asked for copies of the video the choppers took. The government refused. But after three years, a copy of the video has finally been released — through Wikileaks. The chilling footage shows the helicopters firing on seemingly unsuspecting Iraqi civilians — and includes the helicopter crews’s comment, which are even more chilling.

It’s as if the gunners were playing a video game, as if they didn’t consider the people on the ground to be living human beings. “Oh, look at those dead bastards,” one crewman says. At another point, the gunners — who aren’t allowed to fire at unarmed targets — practically beg a wounded man to pick up a weapon so they can finish him off. And when the man gets into a van that arrives to help him, they ask for permission to open fire: “Come on, let us shoot!”

The U.S. Military released a memo explaining that the actions taken by the soldiers were in accordance with its own Rules of Engagement.

 

The 17-minute video was posted online at Wikileaks.org, an investigative Web site that publicizes sensitive documents and
information leaked by anonymous sources in order to expose corruption and wrongdoing. Wikileaks obtained the footage “from a number of military whistleblowers,” according to a description accompanying the footage on the Web site CollateralMurder.com. Wikileaks editors had to decode the encrypted version of the leaked video in order to view its contents and air it.

In the video, when shooters inside the helicopter start to zero in on the pedestrians below, they can be heard identifying the objects they are carrying as an AK-47 and an RPG. But according to an Associated Press article quoting an unnamed U.S. military official, “a military investigation later concluded that what was thought to be an RPG was really a long-range photography lens; likewise, the camera looked like an AK-47.”

Reuters stopped short — way, way short — of making a big issue of the killings. “The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones,” said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters news We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular.”

David Finkle wrote about the incident in his 2009 book The Good Soldiers. Finkle, who was following military personnel in charge of training Iraqi national forces, had only been a few streets away when the attack took place. The author had also been friends with Noor-Eldeen and Chmang.

Finkle wrote that both Reuters staff were working independently — that is, they weren’t officially embedded with the U.S. forces — and he claims that’s is why the military didn’t know of their existence. “There had been reports of sniper rifle, rooftop chases, and rocket-propelled grenades being fired at Bravo Company, and as the fighting continued, it attracted the attention of Namir Noor-Eldeen, a 22-year-old photographer for Reuters news agency who lived in Baghdad, and Saeed Chmangh, 40, his driver and assistant,” wrote Finkle, who was close to where the Apaches attacked but not an eyewitness.

“There was a one-second pause and then came the fourth burst. In the cloud, NE could be seen trying to stand, and then he simply seemed to explode,” wrote Finkle. Chmang tried to stand up and run away before falling down again. The video’s audio picked up two of the drivers urging Chmang to arm himself so they can kill him.

“Come on, buddy” says one driver. “All you gotta do is pick up a weapon,” says the other driver.

A Kia passenger van stopped by Chmang and attempted to rescue him. The helicopters radioed for permission to fire on the van and received confirmation just as Chmang was being helped into the van. The soldiers blasted the van just as it started to roll away.

Two children were wounded in the attack as well, and were evacuated by US. Military personnel.

China’s internet censorship: what to do?

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For those of us in the free speech and free press line of work, China’s censorship of the internet is a major practical and theoretical issue. Here is a reasoned approach by Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC). B3

Make no mistake, China’s censorship of the internet is a crime against liberty on a mass scale. Still, American firms can’t just steer clear of the world’s biggest market. What to do?

By Peter Scheer

A milestone of sorts was passed in the first quarter of this year when China blew past the United States to become the biggest internet market in the world. At 225 million users, and still growing at double-digit rates, China’s internet is a business opportunity so grand and irresistible that it can blind normally circumspect people to the moral compromises that cooperation with Chinese government authorities inevitably entails.

I experienced this first-hand when, about a year ago, I made inquiries at the China offices of a number of American law firms to ask for help in comparing internet search results for searches performed inside China–within the “Great Firewall” of government censorship, as it is called–with the same searches performed from locations outside China (and therefore outside the firewall). The law firms demurred, explaining, with commendable candor at least, that they could not risk being observed submitting to Google and Yahoo search terms like “Tiananmen Square” or “Falun Gong”.

Mind you, these were American-trained litigators, the kind of lawyers who barely flinch in the face of a grand jury subpoena, and who spend their careers pushing back against the demands of government authorities. While usually immune to intimidation, they nonetheless feared the repercussions to themselves, their firms, and their clients from the mere act of typing a few search terms into an internet-connected computer. So seductive are the business opportunities in China that the risk of losing them transforms even hardened litigators into wimps.

In conversations with internet entrepreneurs and investors active in China, one often hears arguments that are more rationalization than logic. An internet CEO recently told me that freedom of speech is a “relative” value that, despite its appeal in western democracies, is not appropriate to China. Popular variations on this theme are that freedom of speech is an unaffordable luxury in a country that must be single-minded in its pursuit of economic development; that the people of China are more interested in consumer goods than personal and political freedom; and that westerners’ pressure on China to be more tolerant of dissent is a form of cultural imperialism.

Let’s be clear: Freedom of speech, freedom of political choice, and the rule of law are not relative values; they are absolutes. China’s regime of internet censorship is, without question, a crime against individual liberty on a truly mass scale. That it coexists with a fast-modernizing economy offering its people considerable choice in the economic sphere only makes the curtailment of personal freedom more offensive because less excusable. China does not need to suppress speech to achieve its economic goals. China’s leaders are more cynical than that. They maintain censorship solely to preempt challenges to their monopoly on political power.

This can be seen in the government’s censorship policies. Websites based inside China are subject to content restrictions that are, by design, so uncertain and unpredictable that they force internet companies to censor themselves. Standards that are unknown and unknowable, backed by the threat of license-revocation for companies and jail for individuals, create a pervasive fear that is far more effective than direct regulation at muting opposition to the government and its policies.

Websites based outside China, meanwhile, are subject to blocking by the Great Firewall based not on their content, but on their capacity to create, inside China, large, voluntary online communities that are independent of the government. These include nearly all blogging services, wikipedia and wiki platforms generally (wikileaks included), social networking websites and peer-to-peer technologies of all kinds, including photo-sharing and video-sharing businesses. In other words, the full panoply of internet 2.0 technologies.

Websites commanding vast audiences for user-generated content are seen by authorities as a grave threat. The Chinese government’s worst nightmare, after all, is a lone and anonymous Tibetan uploading to YouTube grainy cellphone videos of rioting police.

What should American internet companies do? To point out that doing business in China is morally compromising is not to say that companies must forswear the world’s biggest market–hardly a realistic option, in any event, for premier internet firms like Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Amazon. And while these companies might prefer to compete in China remotely–basing their servers outside the Great Firewall–government policies force them to set up shop inside China.

Those policies manipulate the firewall to degrade the performance of websites based outside China. Because all data from foreign websites pass through bottlenecks connecting China’s internet with the outside world, and because sensors at those bottlenecks further degrade transmissions across the firewall, non-Chinese websites are experienced from inside China as performing v-e-r-y
s-l-o-w-l-y.

This performance deficit is so substantial–and puts non-Chinese websites at such a huge disadvantage relative to their competitors inside China–that foreign websites must establish a presence inside the firewall. Indeed, Google, despite misgivings, established Google.cn within China in 2007 mainly for this reason, while Yahoo and Amazon crossed the firewall by investing in their Chinese domestic rivals.

American internet companies doing business in China should, for starters, acknowledge the extent of their self-censorship, not hide it or rationalize it or pretend that it is something other than the intensely unpleasant compromise that it is. Spare us the tortured and hypocritical justifications. It helps for companies to admit their complicity; to clarify that all is not as it should be or appears to be; to openly assert their disagreement with Chinese government policies (if they do, indeed, disagree); and to disclose specifics about how their content has been altered to avoid displeasing authorities.

U.S. firms also should do everything they reasonably can to protect their Chinese customers from the surveillance–and worse–of Chinese government authorities. If customer data and identifying information can be stored outside the firewall, beyond the reach of Chinese regulators and courts, they should be, even though that may involve greater costs. While this step does not assure protection of anonymous users (since control of a company’s license to operate in China gives the government considerable de facto leverage, quite apart from territorial limits on subpoenas and other legal processes), it is still meaningful.

If off-shoring of confidential user information is not feasible, companies must take steps to warn their customers about the risks of using their service. And finally, where warnings are not possible or go unheeded, companies should force customers to give their real names when using their websites–which will, in turn, force users to think carefully about what they say or do online. Ironically, the barring of anonymity is the surest means of getting users to appreciate the risks of saying what the government doesn’t want to hear.

Doing business on China’s internet is a messy, though potentially very lucrative, activity. Some companies may be so put off by the messiness that they stay away. For most, however, that is not a viable option. They must learn to be both honest with themselves and honest with their customers.
—-
Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is CFAC’s executive director. CFAC is involved in a legal initiative to use the World Trade Organization to force China to suspend its censorship of the internet on grounds it violates international treaties on free trade.

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