I’m off, yet again. Not sure when I’ll be back, maybe not until next week when I’m back in China. Stay tuned.

This is well, well worth a read. Saved as a Word file.

Money quote is right up front:

The more I read about the hasty, quasi-legal maneuvers used by Iraq’s Shiite leaders to rush Saddam to the gallows on a Muslim holiday, Id al-Adha, and the more I watched the grainy cellphone video of the event, in which a guard is heard taunting Saddam with chants of ‘Moktada! Moktada’ – the Shiite cleric whose death squads have killed hundreds of Sunnis – and the more I read of the insults Saddam spat back, the more it resembled a tribal revenge ritual rather than the culmination of a constitutional process in which America should be proud to have participated.

Remember, those chants of “Moktada” are in celebration of the true victor here, a man who is dedicated to killing our troops and supporting Shiite death squads. And still some say it was all worth it?

A quickie.

I saw three movies this week, Blood Diamond, The Good Shepherd and Apocalypto. I only saw Apocalypto because it was the only thing that fit with our schedule yesterday. Predictably, it was your usual Mel Gibson fare – endless violence, unnecessary gore and men in loin cloths being beaten, maimed, sliced and battered into bloody pulps. Like The Passion, it was technically superb – great cinematography and soundtrack, and tight editing and direction that keeps you riveted, if somewhat disgusted. A few times I simply laughed out loud at the frivolous mayhem. It’s not enough to show a man’s head split open with a primitive weapon. No; Gibson has to show us the blood spraying upward and outward like Old Faithful for a full 30 seconds. We see a very busy executioner lopping off the heads of captured indians and hurtling them down the steps of a pyramid as if they were discarded cabbages. The camera follows the heads as they bounce down in a ghastly ballet. Once was enough to get the point here, but Gibson has to milk the mayhem for maximum effect for as long as he can get away with it. We get to see at least three separate beheadings and rolling heads, and, as an added bonus, we get to watch two men having their hearts ripped out of their bodies; the men gape in horror at their own hearts beating in the executioner’s bloody hand. The hero, just like the hero of The Passion, withstands hideous injuries that no human being could possibly endure. At one point a spear plunges through his back , half of it popping out his chest. But not to worry; the hero puts a determined look on his face and with a deft flick of the wrist he pulls the spear out of his body, blithely tosses it aside and keeps on running. The same when an arrow slices through his shoulder. It makes no difference; like the Eveready bunny he just he keeps going, killing off the enemy all along the way. See it for the silly fun of it – but think of it as a comedy and little else. It’s the only way to keep from getting seriously disturbed by Gibson’s grisly obsession with torture, suffering, bloody entrails and death.

Blood Diamond. Leonardo Dicaprio proves once more that he is the greatest young actor of our times in a film that is as intelligent as Apocalypto is depraved. The thrills come quick and furious, and yet the action is never frivolous or unnecessary. This is an edge-of-the-seat thriller with a very serious message and magnificent performances. I haven’t been so mesmerized by a film in a long time. Don’t miss it.

Last of all is The Good Shepherd, which in its own way is as engaging as Blood Diamond, though it is no thriller. It is a grim, dark and thoroughly depressing examination of what the CIA is, how it came to be and how it works. I loved every moment of it, though it was a trial to sit through. There is no comic relief, no moment of lightness, no jokes. Indeed, not a single character in the entire movie is likable – each is despicable in his own unique way. I love my country but I am aware of its many mistakes and injustices. One of the things I love most about America is that we are free to make movies like this chronicling some of our government’s ugliest chapters. Sometimes, we can even hold the perpetrators to account. I hate that the issue at hand – the dangers of a CIA that answers to no one and sees itself as a god – has worsened under the current administration, but I am still very happy that we can discuss these things and make popular movies about them and blog about them. I respect the fact that we learn about the CIA’s connivance in Chile and Guatemala in college, and that the truth in America so often comes to the surface. Still, there’s a lot about out government not to like, and a lot of people have no idea what the CIA’s sordid story is. They, and everyone else in America and on the planet, should see The Good Shepherd. It’s a great movie.

Okay, back to my race to pack my things and get ready for the big trip tomorrow afternoon. There may be an opportunity for one more post before i go to the airport if I don’t keel over from stress. After that, there will probably be precious little for several days as I gather my things in Taipei and then get set up in Beijing.

Update: Damn, how could I forget?? I also saw The Queen last week, a movie I was expecting to be bored by. Instead, i was thoroughly entertained, enchanted and absorbed. Presuming that the script is a true representation of actual events, I had no idea of how nobly the newly elected Tony Blair rose to the occasion of dealing with Diana’s death. He, as well as the queen herself, emerge as true heroes at the end of this film (though Prince Philip does not). This was another thinking man’s movie, poignant and intelligent and subtle, enhanced by performances that should win some major awards. Throughout, I couldn’t help but wonder how Blair let himself get suckered by a smaller, less experienced leader, thus ensuring his political ruin. By hitching his star to Iraq, Blair destroyed his career and reputation, and robbed his people of a prime minister who showed incredible promise and skill. Iraq is like the plague, infecting everything and everyone it touches. What a tragedy, and how foolish of Blair to keep standing up for it. See The Queen, and remember how splendid a job Blair did before embracing the tar baby of Iraq. Remember, and weep.

Happy New Year. It seems we’ve rung in the new by hanging Bush’s bete noire. Ding-dong, Saddam is dead. New Year coincided with an important Muslim holiday as well, Eid Al-Adha, celebrating the end of the hajj, in the last month of the Islamic calendar:

The Festival of the Sacrifice commemorates the God’s gift of the ram in place of the biblical patriarch Ibrahim’s (Abraham’s) son Isma’il (Ishmael). (In Judaism and Christianity, the child in this story is Ishmael’s brother Isaac.) During the festival, families that can afford to do so sacrifice an animal such as a sheep, goat, camel, or cow, and then divide the meat among themselves, the poor, and friends and neighbours.

I suppose you could look on Saddam’s execution as a sacrifice of sorts, but for what, and to whom?

Morbid curiousity led me to the cell-phone video of the execution. I watched up to the point of the hanging, and stopped. It is a profoundly depressing piece of history. A number of commentators have remarked on its similarity to the Al Qaeda beheading videos, and I would have to agree.

Saddam’s execution takes place in a small, dark cell, cement walls, dimly lit; according to one account I heard, the floors are still stained in places by the blood of those who had died before him, by his orders. The guards and executioners wear ski masks and civilian clothes. At the end, they taunt Hussein. There are shouts of “Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!” in support of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi’ite cleric and militia leader.

God knows how many times this video has been seen by now. Enough to inflame the Sunni Arab world, furious at the shabby, degrading way a Sunni former head of state was dispatched. Enough to demonstrate the degree to which Shi’ite militias have infiltrated the government of “New Iraq” – or are the government, more accurately.

Enough to show the proportion of justice to revenge.

There’s been a considerable amount of debate on the culpability of American authorities in this execution. Our government claims to have had nothing to do with the decision. I’ve heard credible accounts that American officials were suprised by the haste of the whole process, the speed with which the execution was conducted. And on the one hand, it’s hard to understand why American authorities would encourage an action certain to provoke more sectarian violence. On the other, the cynical part of me wonders if more violence was needed to justify the “surge” in American troops the Bush Administration so very much wants. As well, one should never underestimate the extent to which the Bush Administration can utterly fuck things up. And the conspiratorial aspect of my nature wonders about the secrets Saddam takes with him. After all, he was our man in the Iraq/Iran War before he was our Hitler d’jour.

In the end, I’m not sure it matters. The perception will be that America was behind Saddam’s execution, and perceptions are as potent a fuel as realities, it seems.

Yeah, he was a brutal dictator; he murdered thousands of people, and I’m not blind to the poetic justice of his being put down like a dog in the same execution chamber where he’d had people slaughtered in his name. But this was not the kind of justice I want done in mine. Blood spilled over blood, staining the hands of us all.

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return,
To plague the inventor; this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.

This is the outfit I bought today for my move to China. Yes, that’s a real Russian fur hat, and the coat is so dense and heavy I think it can also serve as a bulletproof vest.

Happy New Year to all, and I’ll see you next year!

(Oh, and the picture only makes me look like a cyclops; the other eye is there under the fur flap.)

No, not the Great Wall – China’s other gift to the world:

A GREAT coal rush is under way across China on a scale not seen anywhere since the 19th century.

Its consequences have been detected half a world away in toxic clouds so big that they can seen from space, drifting across the Pacific to California laden with microscopic particles of chemicals that cause cancer and diseases of the heart and lung.

Nonetheless, the Chinese plan to build no fewer than 500 new coal-fired power stations, adding to some 2,000, most of them unmodernised, that spew smoke, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.

It is the political fallout of that decision that is likely to challenge the foundations on which Britain and other developed nations have built their climate change policy – even as there are signs that ordinary Chinese citizens are at last rebelling against lives spent in poisonous conditions.

Cloaked in swirling mists of soot particles and smoke, cities such as China’s ‘coal capital’ of Datong are entering the coldest period of winter in which demand for power and heating produces the worst pollution.

It is often darkness at noon in Datong, just 160 miles west of Beijing, where vehicles drive in daytime with their headlights on to grope through the miasma.

One of the four filthiest towns in China, it stands at the heart of the nation’s coal belt in Shanxi province, a region that mines more coal every year than Britain, Russia and Germany combined.

Cancer rates are soaring, child health is a time bomb and the population, many of whom are heavy cigarette smokers, are paying the price for China’s breakneck rush to riches and industrialisation – an estimated 400,000 premature deaths nationwide because of pollution every year.

Now, for the first time, the Chinese media have reported a revolt among the choking citizens of Shanxi. More than 90% of people surveyed by the provincial bureau for environmental protection said economic growth cannot go on at such an appalling cost.

Is this a turning point? Everyone’s said the ongoing rape of the environment and introduction of a mind-boggling array of toxins into China’s air and water simply cannot go on forever. There has to come a point where it simply cannot be tolerated any longer, as it literally threatens the lives of millions of Chinese citizens.

Based on historical trends, I’ll guess it’s too early for a significant turning point, but that it’s at least the start of the awakening that will ultimately result in dramatic changes. Sadly, these turning points tend not to come until there’s been a major calamity causing huge loss of life, like Hurrican Katrina or the Chernobyl explosion/contamination or the Bhopal catastrophe. The Army Corps of Engineers had warned us for years about the New Orleans levees, but it took Katrina to push the government to action. And I’d put global warming in the same category: People are finally getting it, but government won’t do much until it witnesses a horrifying calamity that will make further inaction impossible. Let’s hope China isn’t as careless about this nightmare as other nations have been about theirs.