End of Summer

Hey everybody,
I'm sure some of you are already in school, but I'm still at home waiting to go overseas. How is everyone? cheers

Field Trip

For all of you who didn't make the field trip...it was an interesting dialogue between the film maker and author of Standard Operating Procedure who were both being interrogated by a British person.  All three had egos that could be felt from the back row.  The author, Philip Gourevitch, articulated his argument much better than the over-weight Errol Morris who casually peppered his speech with pithy statements(questions) like "Now the question remains, was this a war on terror ...or a war of humiliation?" Not that 'war on terror' is a good description of whatever the fuck we're in Iraq for but I'm fairly certain we didn't invade an already turmoil ridden country in order to strip people of their steadily diminishing dignity. The Bush regime is stupid, not sadistic. 

Also, there was a haggard looking, violently irritating middle aged man seated diagonally to our left who clapped every five minutes. Loudly. Obnoxiously. He should have been tortured. 

I think this is sort of off topic but it does pertain to human rights...this guy had been storing his daughter in his basement after convincing his wife that she had run away. he was using her as a sex slave. they had 4 kids. the oldest one, 19, contracted some sort of sickness that demanded hospital care...going to the hospital was the first time she had seen the light of day. and then he was caught, obviously. 

thats really, really fucked up. 

Questions for Errol Morris

Hello- I stumbled accross the following interview with Errol Morris this morning, and thought I would include to provide a preview for what we might see on Tuesday. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002873 The questions are informative and help to form an idea of Morris' intentions in making the film, and his general philosophy... Yes, is another Harper's link; if you didn't check the last one out: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/05/0082030 a tight ditty about 'SOP' and E.M.
Though I don't know the specifics of the forum that we are planning on attending, it might be cool if we could all brainstorm our own questions. Though this might be difficult to do without seeing the film--just a thought.

Again the Harper's account info is Gawainlefras, password: hosiery

Abu Ghraib Photos prison photos

This is a link that I found that has the photos for the Abu Ghraib prison torture, some of the photos are pretty disturbing but would be a great topic of debate on either the blog or in class.  http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560.

justice dept justifies interrogation w/out geneva convention

This article from The New York Times, which discusses interrogation techniques outlined by the CIA, was published on Sunday. "Letters Give CIA Tactics a Legal Rationale" focuses on the ability of the executive branch to step outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention. The letters which were sent from the Justice Dept to Congress on March 5 clarifies "that the administration has not drawn a precise line in deciding which interrogation methods would violate that standard, and is reserving the right to make case-by-case judgments."

This article which is very relevant to what we've been discussing and is similar to what is being discussed in the Ethics of Torture is very interesting. In tonight's reading (The Ethics of Torture) the reader is told of ways in which the government might try to take advantage of their ability to ignore the Geneva Convention and human rights laws, and with these letters you can see it happening and how the government is trying to justify it. I really recommend this to anyone who found the ethics of torture very interesting.

Guantanamo Bay pics

After researching for Guantanamo bay information i found this site with pictures of Guananamo bay and what the prision looks like. None of the pictures show faces of people but shows what cells look like etc. Check it out, it looks pretty bad.

http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/guantanamo/