Where Post-Colonialism Is Their Blockade . . .
Our neighbor Yoani Sanchez across the Straits
is in the London Telegraph this weekend, found
in a nicely written article by Andrew Hamilton.
Yoani has a lot of sympathizers and supporters in Germany and Eastern Europe, where they've had a lot of experience with the Stasi and have gained considerable expertise in dealing with the samizdat issue.
See sidebar for a link to her blog.
:: Andrew Hamilton ::
...
Saturday, November 28
Mez: Knox Parents Served (2#) -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -
Andrea Vogt and others are reporting that Inspector Monica Napoleoni, in charge of the Perugia Murder Squad, has served Amanda Knox's parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, with legal notice by hand via Caribinieri that they are under investigation for defamation with regard to an interview they gave to the Times of London in which they claimed their daughter had been abused by the Perugia police.
:: Andrea Vogt :: - - - :: Ann Wise ::
...
Andrea Vogt and others are reporting that Inspector Monica Napoleoni, in charge of the Perugia Murder Squad, has served Amanda Knox's parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, with legal notice by hand via Caribinieri that they are under investigation for defamation with regard to an interview they gave to the Times of London in which they claimed their daughter had been abused by the Perugia police.
:: Andrea Vogt :: - - - :: Ann Wise ::
...
Our Friends From The North -
We've had a bit of a cold snap here during the overnight and early this morning. The temperature dropped down to 50F. I had to use my little space heater to stay cozy. When it gets chilly like this, I tend to stay mostly in the kitchen.
Trundled over to the supermarket yesterday and noticed that some of our French friends from Quebec have arrived, as I could hear them chatting in French.
There's been a minor fuss kicked up by some local full time American residents here because it was reported that some of the Quebec Colony upon arrival have received free Swine Flu shots even though they may not be members of the high-risk group.
Folks can complain til the cows come home,
but they probably won't accomplish anything by it.
...
Trundled over to the supermarket yesterday and noticed that some of our French friends from Quebec have arrived, as I could hear them chatting in French.
There's been a minor fuss kicked up by some local full time American residents here because it was reported that some of the Quebec Colony upon arrival have received free Swine Flu shots even though they may not be members of the high-risk group.
Folks can complain til the cows come home,
but they probably won't accomplish anything by it.
...
Friday, November 27
Loose Links (8#) -
Florida author Jeff VanderMeer from Tallahassee has a new novel out called Finch. It's a combination of Noir and the New Weird. Its protagonist is trying to solve a double murder, but in a rather strange world. Rick Klaw writes about it.
# Josh Marshall has rolled
out Talking Points Newsstream.
# A new Pop Culture Blog, which is
sometimes entertaining, is called The Awl.
# Kyle Pope is the new editor of the
NY Observer; to debut with the December 9th edition.
# Dark Net: Trolling the Vast Underbelly by
Andy Beckett. Ian Clarke responds.
# Shadow Unit - writers' experiment.
# Solsbury Hill - I guess it's been on my mind.
...
# Josh Marshall has rolled
out Talking Points Newsstream.
# A new Pop Culture Blog, which is
sometimes entertaining, is called The Awl.
# Kyle Pope is the new editor of the
NY Observer; to debut with the December 9th edition.
# Dark Net: Trolling the Vast Underbelly by
Andy Beckett. Ian Clarke responds.
# Shadow Unit - writers' experiment.
# Solsbury Hill - I guess it's been on my mind.
...
Wednesday, November 25
SoFlo: Targeted II (3#) -
This is a followup to my previous
entry about the documentary movie
Miami Noir: The Arthur E Teele Story (2008).
There are just a few points about this movie that I want to briefly address here. First, I think the title was an unfortunate choice because it leads to confusion with the popular Akashic series of books. If that isn't a problem for you, maybe you're illiterate.
The story as it was presented in the film had a structural flaw from my perspective. A character who functioned as a pivotal deus ex machina was not satisfactorily resolved.
If you still believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, maybe this doesn't seem like a legitimate issue to you, but midway through the developing situation, a strange character mysteriously enters the mise en scene from out of nowhere and "gifts" us with gratuitous but incendiary information: Frederick "Mercedes" Davis, a transvestite (or transsexual) prostitute with a putative criminal record - OMG, literally, a real fairy! If you still believe in fairies. This character becomes the pivot around which this situation turns to become fatal.
But at the end of the movie, which has been made several years after these events, there is no epilogue to this character. The lack of followup - several years later! - raises some compelling questions, if only out of natural curiosity.
Whatever happened to Frederick "Mercedes" Davis? Is he still alive or has he died in the interim? If he is still alive, is he living as a man or a woman? How does he earn a livelihood these days? Has he had any further encounters with the Law in the interim? Did he get a better deal as a result of volunteering this material?
Who put him up to this stunt? And how much was he paid to do it? These two questions are not unreasonable, since this is the functional definition of prostitute - they do what you pay them to do. It's in their job description.
The apparent oversight to follow up on this pivotal character, I attribute to the relative immaturity of the filmmakers. Miami isn't called The Magic City for nothing. Clearly, no one here wants to open this can of worms again and reconsider any of it; they'd much rather leave it, umm, magical.
So, everyone in this story is a star in his or her own movie. But Michael Lacy has become a perpetual bete noir in my personal movie. Who else would publish unsubstantiated gossip from an ephemeral street character, especially, while knowing full well that it almost certainly will destroy a man's family and entire personal life?
Was this a Noir type story or treatment? If you associate Noir with a particular cinematic style like Expressionist or with a pastiche of techniques and motifs used in a group of period films, probably not. The presentation used fresh and contemporary cinematic techniques; this was not a major sticking point for me.
But was it a Noir type story? That would make a good topic for a lively debate at some kaffeeklatsch, which probably won't happen, due to increasing illiteracy across much of South Florida. You could compare this story to LA Confidential, but the difference between Real Life and Art is like the difference between Kim Philby and Harry Lime.
Was Teele a crook? I don't know, but if he was, he should have been prosecuted and sent to jail, not publicly lynched. What happened to Teele is the kind of thing we expect in corrupt Third World banana republics: he was denied due process.
I watched the movie again late last night, although I regret that I missed the opening by a few minutes. For the record, it was broadcast on Channel 2.1, not 2.2. I hope they rebroadcast it as a summer rerun; if they do, I'd try to catch it again. I fear the two kids who made this film are going to end up just shooting TV commercials.
...
entry about the documentary movie
Miami Noir: The Arthur E Teele Story (2008).
There are just a few points about this movie that I want to briefly address here. First, I think the title was an unfortunate choice because it leads to confusion with the popular Akashic series of books. If that isn't a problem for you, maybe you're illiterate.
The story as it was presented in the film had a structural flaw from my perspective. A character who functioned as a pivotal deus ex machina was not satisfactorily resolved.
If you still believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, maybe this doesn't seem like a legitimate issue to you, but midway through the developing situation, a strange character mysteriously enters the mise en scene from out of nowhere and "gifts" us with gratuitous but incendiary information: Frederick "Mercedes" Davis, a transvestite (or transsexual) prostitute with a putative criminal record - OMG, literally, a real fairy! If you still believe in fairies. This character becomes the pivot around which this situation turns to become fatal.
But at the end of the movie, which has been made several years after these events, there is no epilogue to this character. The lack of followup - several years later! - raises some compelling questions, if only out of natural curiosity.
Whatever happened to Frederick "Mercedes" Davis? Is he still alive or has he died in the interim? If he is still alive, is he living as a man or a woman? How does he earn a livelihood these days? Has he had any further encounters with the Law in the interim? Did he get a better deal as a result of volunteering this material?
Who put him up to this stunt? And how much was he paid to do it? These two questions are not unreasonable, since this is the functional definition of prostitute - they do what you pay them to do. It's in their job description.
The apparent oversight to follow up on this pivotal character, I attribute to the relative immaturity of the filmmakers. Miami isn't called The Magic City for nothing. Clearly, no one here wants to open this can of worms again and reconsider any of it; they'd much rather leave it, umm, magical.
So, everyone in this story is a star in his or her own movie. But Michael Lacy has become a perpetual bete noir in my personal movie. Who else would publish unsubstantiated gossip from an ephemeral street character, especially, while knowing full well that it almost certainly will destroy a man's family and entire personal life?
Was this a Noir type story or treatment? If you associate Noir with a particular cinematic style like Expressionist or with a pastiche of techniques and motifs used in a group of period films, probably not. The presentation used fresh and contemporary cinematic techniques; this was not a major sticking point for me.
But was it a Noir type story? That would make a good topic for a lively debate at some kaffeeklatsch, which probably won't happen, due to increasing illiteracy across much of South Florida. You could compare this story to LA Confidential, but the difference between Real Life and Art is like the difference between Kim Philby and Harry Lime.
Was Teele a crook? I don't know, but if he was, he should have been prosecuted and sent to jail, not publicly lynched. What happened to Teele is the kind of thing we expect in corrupt Third World banana republics: he was denied due process.
I watched the movie again late last night, although I regret that I missed the opening by a few minutes. For the record, it was broadcast on Channel 2.1, not 2.2. I hope they rebroadcast it as a summer rerun; if they do, I'd try to catch it again. I fear the two kids who made this film are going to end up just shooting TV commercials.
...
SoFlo: Targeted
For Destruction (3#) -
Two stories that are fatally linked . . .
Over the weekend, my little digital TV "lost" the local PBS channel. When I successfully rescanned, a film title came up on the screen, and I decided to watch the program.
Miami Noir: The Arthur E. Teele Story
If you missed it, but want to watch it, they are going to rebroadcast it on their second feed line, Wednesday morning at 2am on WPBT/Channel 2.2.
Yikes, that's late tonight!
This one-hour documentary was made by two University of Miami film students, Joshua Miller and Sam Rega.
On July 27, 2005, Teele publicly committed suicide in the front reception desk lobby of The Miami Herald newspaper.
Speaking of Cubans and The Miami Herald . . .
I live in the French Quarter of Broward County. Were you to shop in my neighborhood supermarket, some days you might think you were in France because all of the other shoppers around you are speaking French. No one here is at all interested in Cuba. Despite that, The Miami Herald, which is conducting a very nasty war against us, prominently features a very obnoxious Cuban columnist, Myriam Marquez, on the front page of the Broward Local Section every Sunday.
This week, she and her exile friends are angry because:
"The Cuban regime gets to pick
and choose who can travel to Cuba."
Well, that's what sovereign nations do. Sometime a sovereign nation refuses to admit someone and turns them away. The Cuban regime has made it clear many times that they don't want these exiles on their island, but she does not accept that because she and her friends do not accept the regime's sovereignty over that island.
The problem becomes more complex because the exiles here are mostly the descendants of the Spanish colonists and are mostly white, while the majority of the Cuban population on the island is mostly black. Thus, the regime frequently complains that they are being threatened with an invasion from the US to recolonize them. I am convinced that this conflict can never be resolved until every last one of these colonial descendants is dead and gone.
Meanwhile, this woman doesn't belong in our Broward Local Section, and I really wish they'd remove her. You have no idea how irritating and offensive all this is. Of course, I wouldn't dream of muzzling her - I just don't want her in my local neighborhood newspaper section. They can put her in some other section.
Yes, sadly, these two stories are related.
...
Over the weekend, my little digital TV "lost" the local PBS channel. When I successfully rescanned, a film title came up on the screen, and I decided to watch the program.
Miami Noir: The Arthur E. Teele Story
If you missed it, but want to watch it, they are going to rebroadcast it on their second feed line, Wednesday morning at 2am on WPBT/Channel 2.2.
Yikes, that's late tonight!
This one-hour documentary was made by two University of Miami film students, Joshua Miller and Sam Rega.
On July 27, 2005, Teele publicly committed suicide in the front reception desk lobby of The Miami Herald newspaper.
Speaking of Cubans and The Miami Herald . . .
I live in the French Quarter of Broward County. Were you to shop in my neighborhood supermarket, some days you might think you were in France because all of the other shoppers around you are speaking French. No one here is at all interested in Cuba. Despite that, The Miami Herald, which is conducting a very nasty war against us, prominently features a very obnoxious Cuban columnist, Myriam Marquez, on the front page of the Broward Local Section every Sunday.
This week, she and her exile friends are angry because:
"The Cuban regime gets to pick
and choose who can travel to Cuba."
Well, that's what sovereign nations do. Sometime a sovereign nation refuses to admit someone and turns them away. The Cuban regime has made it clear many times that they don't want these exiles on their island, but she does not accept that because she and her friends do not accept the regime's sovereignty over that island.
The problem becomes more complex because the exiles here are mostly the descendants of the Spanish colonists and are mostly white, while the majority of the Cuban population on the island is mostly black. Thus, the regime frequently complains that they are being threatened with an invasion from the US to recolonize them. I am convinced that this conflict can never be resolved until every last one of these colonial descendants is dead and gone.
Meanwhile, this woman doesn't belong in our Broward Local Section, and I really wish they'd remove her. You have no idea how irritating and offensive all this is. Of course, I wouldn't dream of muzzling her - I just don't want her in my local neighborhood newspaper section. They can put her in some other section.
Yes, sadly, these two stories are related.
...
Sunday, November 22
Mez: A Wilding II (2#) -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -
I think it's important to add Barbie Nadeau's piece to the reading links for this case because it offers some worthwhile insights.
I haven't been able to find Charle Mudede's reaction yet; thus far, the trial was only mentioned in passing this morning at The Slog.
Alas, this case became a magnet for the mentally ill online, including a deranged wannabe cyberstalker. The story seemed to have unleashed a lot of people who have serious problems with boundaries or simply have no respect for them.
...
I think it's important to add Barbie Nadeau's piece to the reading links for this case because it offers some worthwhile insights.
I haven't been able to find Charle Mudede's reaction yet; thus far, the trial was only mentioned in passing this morning at The Slog.
Alas, this case became a magnet for the mentally ill online, including a deranged wannabe cyberstalker. The story seemed to have unleashed a lot of people who have serious problems with boundaries or simply have no respect for them.
...
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