Violence in Egypt and Libya: Free Speech and Muslims

I woke up yesterday to news that American embassies in Libya and Egypt had been stormed. In Libya, the American ambassador and at least three other Americans had been killed. Wow. What could have caused this? Were we at war? What set it off? Did we need to put our button men on the street?

I was not surprised to learn that this unbelievably awful film, allegedly by a right-wing American-Israeli filmmaker that no one seems to have heard of, had somehow popped up on some people's radar screens. There is a large mostly American and European neo-conservative cottage industry of print and visual media that likes to sell the idea of a clash of civilizations between the Judeo-Christian West and the Islamic East. In this view Muslims are irretrievably backwards, violent, women-hating, cousin-banging religious nuts who can't process that it's no longer the 7th century. Of course from this mindset it is essential that we stand with the State of Israel and support them in their desperate attempt to steal the rest of Palestine for Jewish only settlement struggle against these fanatics. It is also rather important for these ideologues to emphasize the vile, violent, expansionary and reactionary aspects of Islam while glossing over the fact that historically, European Christians weren't exactly known for tolerance of Jews.

This "clash of civilizations" idea wouldn't gain much traction were there indeed not plenty of Muslims ready, eager and willing to play their part. I mean is this stupid or what? Someone (and we don't really know who) makes an ineptly offensive film insulting Muhammad and depicting Muslims as dumb, violent brutes. Outraged Muslims take to the streets to denounce the film and commit dumb brutish acts, including the murder of an American ambassador. I guess some Egyptians and Libyans must not be familiar with the concept of getting played. I guess SOMEONE proved their point. Some Muslims should get it through their skulls that burning things, rioting and shooting people any time someone expresses an opinion you don't like is so 14th century. What happened to boycotts, peaceful protests, writing a book attacking your critics or trying to bring down someone's career behind the scenes?

Free speech in this country still includes the right to satirize, mock or even crudely insult people, ideologies or concepts you don't like, including religion. Remember The Life of Brian? Pi$$ Christ? The Last Temptation of Christ? Do you also remember the violent American Christian protests where they ran amok and started burning things? No? Me neither. Why is it that blasphemy is still a real concept for some people? Honestly I think all religions are equally valid and equally silly. I think it is is just as ridiculous to believe that God talked to you through a burning bush and told you he loved you and yours more than anyone else as it is to believe that God is going to send you to hell for eternity unless you worship him and think he's three beings in one as it is to believe that God sent a prophet who told anyone who believed in him that they were thus entitled to convert people by the sword. We should remember that Arabic is spoken in Africa for many of the same reasons that English, French and Spanish are spoken in the Americas: invasion, conquest, enslavement and settlement. No religion's metaphorical hands are clean. Everyone has awful deeds in their past.

But if I'm the State Department, I really don't care that the people outside my embassy have been lied to and manipulated. I really don't care that their little feelings have been hurt by someone calling them names and making fun of their religion. Anyone attacking my embassy or consulate is going to get two in the head. The embassy is sovereign territory. You don't want other nations or organizations to get the idea that they can just roll up to your embassy and do what they like. If the embassy is attacked it may well be overrun but there ought to be a pile of dead attackers laying on the ground when all is over. Tragically there apparently wasn't the US protection that there should have been at the Benghazi consulate but it is important to note that Libyan forces fought the attackers, along with an American rescue mission.  So we can't say that all Libyans were involved with this or even that the attacks had popular support. We just don't know. By many accounts the consulate attack was simply too well organized and armed to have been the work of spontaneous rioters. Even in Libya I doubt everyone has quick access to mortars and rockets or the skill to coordinate volleys. So this is a bit curious don't you think?

This is my house. I will not allow violence against this house.

We simply can not allow violent people of any faith to enforce a rioter's veto over speech that they do not like. That takes us back to the days where blasphemy and heresy were crimes punishable by imprisonment, torture and death. If people do not like religious criticism or ridicule, unfair or not, their option is to ignore it or to respond in kind. I am an atheist. I have doubts that Muhammad existed but if he did I don't think that God or angels were talking to him. Portions of the Qu'ran or Bible or Torah are laughably ridiculous. If reading that fills a true believer with insensate rage, that's too freaking bad.

Post Enlightenment we have the right to disdain religion. In some majority Muslim countries, that's not necessarily the case. Fortunately several American Muslims are pointing out the benefits and primacy of free speech. Hopefully that idea will spread across the world. Because if a small minority of crazy Muslims goes berserk every time someone "blasphemes", more people in majority non-Muslim nations will start to ask some unpleasant questions about the costs and benefits of Muslim immigration. And that falls right into the "clash of civilizations" meme that the Right is pushing. I think it is time to stop any moves towards any sort of international blasphemy standard. I don't want any sort of internal American limitations on free speech for religious sensibilities.

This is a political movie," said Bacile. "The US lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're fighting with ideas."
Bacile, a California property developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believed the movie would help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.
"Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly.
The two-hour movie, Innocence of Muslims, cost $5m (£3.1m) to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it.
The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.
It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse.

LINK

We should be VERY wary of provocateurs like Bacile, if that is indeed his real name..  Not only are his name and identity in question but an actress now claims that the film was edited post production to include insults about Muhammad. "Bacile" may have been a Coptic Christian who was upset about Muslim violence against his co-religionists and linked up with anti-Muslim people in the US and elsewhere to promote his film. If I were really really conspiracy minded I would wonder if this is indeed some sort of attempt to influence the US election by either making the US president look weak or make him feel constrained to finally give the greenlight for a US attack on Iran. But if that were the case Romney's stupid response to events frittered away an opportunity to look Presidential while making even some other Republicans question his decorum.

We don't have to excuse or explain away the submoronic responses of some Egyptians and Libyans to realize there are some right-wingers who have some very real reasons for wanting to gin up trouble between the US and the Islamic world. They believe in a religious war and they want one. Some of these folks are bigots who seek to deny American Muslims  the rights they themselves enjoy and carve out exceptions to free speech that offends them while hypocritically wanting to keep the right to offend others. These people should not be silenced for that would be wrong. But we don't have to accept their world view either.

The attacks in Libya and Egypt also show why I tend to be against foreign interventions and an activist neo-con foreign policy. We end up making more enemies and/or helping people that really don't like us very much. As far as Libya goes, some Russians evidently could not resist saying "We told you so".

Yevgeny Y. Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Middle East in Moscow, said American leaders should not expect “one word of sympathy” from their Russian counterparts. 

“It is a tragedy to the family of the poor ambassador, but his blood is on the hands of Hillary Clinton personally and Barack Obama personally,” Mr. Satanovsky said. He said Russian warnings against intervention in the Middle East came from the bitter experience of the Soviets in Afghanistan.

“They lynched Qaddafi — do you really think they will be thankful to you?” he said. “They use stupid white people from a big rich and stupid country which they really hate.” 

QUESTIONS
1) Do you think the timing of this has anything to do with the American election?

2) Do you support limitations on speech that insults religion?

3) Did you or do you think the Libyan intervention was a wise decision?

4) How can the US avoid being blamed for things it had nothing to do with?

5) How did the protesters even find out about this film?

6) Do you believe in a "clash of civilizations"?

Book Reviews-Requiem for a Glass Heart, The Cleanup, Legends of Light

Requiem for a Glass Heart
By David Lindsey

Requiem For a Glass Heart is a book I took to read at the barbershop, anticipating a long wait. Fortunately, however the wait wasn't that long and even more fortuitously Requiem For a Glass Heart was actually a pretty entertaining book. It kept me eagerly turning pages to see what happened next. Now that I have finished I suppose I could look back and say I should have seen certain things coming but then again there is a reason that authors often rely on certain tropes. They work. David Lindsey puts his own twist on a La Femme Nikita type story. He also uses two primary female protagonists. This is a little unusual for the thriller genre. The men are not the heroes. Not being a woman I can't say the leads were perfectly written but they didn't strike me as cartoon cutouts either. There are a few male characters who are a bit over the top, including an updated Fu Manchu stereotype, but if you can look past some of that it's not a bad little story.
I think some of it will seem familiar to you but again the author obviously did his research and was talented enough to breathe new life into a thriller/suspense novel format. It's set in the mid nineties, shortly after the chaos of the Soviet Union's disintegration. It's very descriptive of the cities and hotels in which the action takes place.

A devastatingly beautiful Russian woman, Irina Ismaylova, performs assignments across Europe for her boss, Sergei Krupatin. Sergei, who Irina often describes as Satan, is the enormously arrogant, self-satisfied and completely pitiless boss of a Chechen Mafiya organization. In short time he has risen to become not only infamous within Russia and the former Soviet Republics but worldwide, with operations across Europe, South America and the United States. Sergei doesn't tolerate mistakes or disloyalty. To cross him is to guarantee death not only for you and your entire family but also for your friends and associates.
Sergei and Irina have a history together. He has corrupted her into becoming a "special" of his. Her assignments include murdering people that either Sergei can't reach or would prefer that his organization not be implicated in killing. Irina's looks will make just about any man and not a few women lower their guard. To the deeply cynical Sergei this makes her the perfect assassin. He enjoys forcing people, especially women, to do things against their will. But Irina is growing weary of Sergei's sadism and her own moral loss. She wants out. Sergei has one last assignment for Irina, one which she dare not refuse.

In the US, a FBI undercover agent named Cate Cuevas finds out that not only was her husband, a DEA undercover agent infiltrating the Sicilian Mafia, murdered, but also that he was evidently killed either by or in the company of a beautiful mystery woman. His fellow agents knew of his philandering ways but kept silent about his infidelities. While Cate is processing this betrayal, the FBI and DEA get word from Russian and German intelligence that Krupatin is up to something big. He may change his normal pattern of deep cover and visit the US with Irina. Cate's bosses know that Irina is a courier for Sergei. They have a mole in Sergei's organization and think they can leverage that man to get Cate close to Irina. Through Cate they hope to get intel on Sergei and disrupt his plans. What could possibly go wrong?
The Sicilian Mafia and Chinese Triads are involved. Except for Sergei, most other male characters aren't very strongly drawn but that's okay since many of them are only seen through Irina's or Cate's perspective. Male sexuality is often portrayed as something dangerous to women but also something that makes men vulnerable to women. It's ironic as Irina is deadlier than any man except for Sergei. The book's title comes from Irina's self-description to Cate. Irina sees herself as both fragile and hard. The hold that Sergei has over Irina is obvious but isn't confirmed until much later. There's a thin line between love and hate. To conclude, if you enjoy well written thrillers with scummy bad guys, morally complicated Natasha Fatale heroines who might be only slightly less bad than the bad guys, and international criminal/intelligence conspiracies with a fair dose of tastefully understated sex, you will like this book.

The Cleanup
by Sean Doolittle

For whatever reason this book didn't quite grab me as much as I thought it would. I may have to go back and re-read it as during at least some of the time I was reading it I was involved in some difficult projects at work. I also may have just temporarily overdosed on noir books. Hmm. Anyway it was a good story but was occasionally a bit hard to follow.

Matthew Worth is an Omaha, Nebraska police officer who is something of a loser. He comes from a long line of police officers-his grandfather, father and deceased brother were hero cops but Matthew is evidently not cut from the same cloth. His ex-wife was cheating on him with a detective. When Matthew confronted the detective, not only did he badly lose the ensuing fight but as hitting superior officers is a no-no Matthew was given the most humiliating assignment his department could think of. This was to guard a low-rent grocery store which has been the target of a few robberies and burglaries. Most nights this means actually bagging groceries or even sweeping up while he's in uniform. His fellow officers find this to be greatly amusing and love calling in "emergencies" on the police scanner that involve "cleanup in aisle five" or "gimme a price check on preparation H stat!!".

Matthew tries to make the best of it. As he became a police officer out of a sense of family obligation he doesn't have a whole lot of pride that could be injured by this assignment although he is too stubborn to quit. As a side benefit at least Matthew gets to talk to and occasionally flirt with the fallen angel checkout clerk Gwen, who when she's not being abused by her violent thug boyfriend, actually has a kind word for Matthew.
This all goes belly up one night when Matthew gets a frantic call from Gwen. Tiny little Gwen has just removed her hulking boyfriend from the planet and needs Matthew's help. Immediately Matthew has to make a choice about how he wants to play this and if he is going to place the law over his feelings of affection (both lustful and protective) for Gwen.

The decision that Matthew makes sets in motion an avalanche of activity which gets attention all the way up to the Chicago Outfit, which doesn't get an expected delivery at the promised time. And when the Outfit doesn't get what it wants, people die. Matthew will have to rely on 1) Gwen, who has reserves of strength and cunning unknown to him, 2) the detective who "stole" his wife and beat him up and 3) on his estranged big brother who as an ex-con is the black sheep of their law enforcement family.
One nice technique I liked is that the author lets conversations play out very realistically. People don't always explain every little thing and it can take a while before you realize for example that two supposed "good guys" are considering if they should murder someone. Characters make mistakes, take actions based on wrong assumptions and generally make a mess of things. And even when people try to do the right thing, like when Matthew's ex drops by to tell him that she's pregnant by her new husband, they often end up hurting people emotionally.




Legends of Light
by Ed Wardin

I could have sworn that I reviewed this book before. I really thought I did but a search didn't reveal anything. So if I did apologies, that's what happens as you age. Anyway this is a photographic collection of Michigan lighthouses. I always say that if you die and go to heaven you will be reborn on the cool shores of Lake Superior. Hell is of course being forced to attend an Ohio State University football game over and over again.
I love living in Michigan, especially as summer gives way to fall and winter approaches. Michigan is blessed with The Great Lakes. I would love to retire to a lakeside property some day. The Great Lakes are really more freshwater inland seas. In particular, Lake Superior is well named as it is the largest freshwater lake in the world. There are a lot of interesting facts about Lake Superior. In the days before mass transit and aircraft the Great Lakes served as the commercial highways of the northern US, linking the East Coast and Midwest to the Plains States and the South. In order to help captains navigate and avoid accidents, people built a great number of lighthouses all along the shores of the Great Lakes as well as some of the tributary rivers.

Of course now that everyone and their dog has GPS and other more impressive communication and navigation devices these lighthouses are generally unused. Many of them are actually for sale or are maintained as historical buildings. Some others have fallen into disrepair. Organizations have arisen to keep lighthouses maintained and in good order. There are also programs that allow caretakers and their families to live at lighthouses so long as they repair them and keep them up to code.

This coffee table sized book details in quite lavish and striking pictures the various lighthouses of The Great Lakes, some massive and inspirational, others small and picturesque. The lighthouses are shown at all times of day and night, in various types of weather and during all four seasons. Legends of Light is not only a beautiful homage to some works of architecture and art that will hopefully not be forgotten but also serves as a reminder of the natural beauty that lies all around us if we care to take the time to look. The list price for this book was $39.99 but if you are interested you can find it for much less than that. I believe I paid about $9 for it at a clearance sale and it was money well spent, believe me.

Democrats and Choice

Occasionally people on the progressive end of the political spectrum, which tends to be where I am most comfortable, like to point out what they see as the hypocrisy of the Republican pro-life and religious conservative contingent, some of whom, despite mouthing platitudes to small government and rugged American individualism, spend an awful lot of time worrying about such things as how to use government to discourage or prevent things like gay marriage, sex education, teaching that homosexuals are no better or worse than anyone else, and of course abortion. Many progressives triumphantly say that these inconsistencies (as they see them) show that the Republicans and/or pro-life advocates or defenders of traditional marriage really aren't about small government at all and should evidently just go sit down and shut up. Or something. =) It's always fun to point out that people that you don't like anyway are also wrong factually and logically.

But if there's one thing I believe and know to be true it's that hypocrisy is a human condition, not a partisan one. Many of the people who like to claim the mantle of choice and individual freedom, at least when it comes to abortion, aren't necessarily huge defenders of such ideas when it comes to other sections of human life. The same people who want government out of abortion choices often want government involved in lots of other intimate decisions. Hypocrisy? Well I am just shocked I am. A libertarian website pranked DNC delegates into discussing what choices they thought should not be up to the individual. Again, all of us are tight little bundles of reason and emotion, hypocrisy and sincerity. None of the people in this video are necessarily evil or bad, but I do think that occasionally people on all sides should realize that they may not have a monopoly on "good" thinking. There are tons of different perspectives in the world. There are a multitude of ways to be "good".

Comments?
Where does a person's right to make choices for themselves end?
Does government get to constrain those choices?

Interview-20 questions with Steve Barnes and Tananarive Due

Steve Barnes and Tananarive Due are two of the more interesting and successful writers of speculative fiction, horror, fantasy and sci-fi working today. They also happen to be married to each other. Barnes and Due occasionally write together, which sounds as if it must be the coolest thing since sliced bread. One of their latest joint creations is the just released Devil's Wake  which is a zombie novel, primarily but not exclusively aimed at the young adult market.

Barnes in particular has been an influence on my own blogging style. Barnes can be a very inspirational and uplifting writer. He seems to almost practice a relentless positivity. Due has written one of the freshest and most imaginative adaptations of vampirism and immortality this side of True Blood or Brian Lumley. If you haven't read Due's My Soul to Keep, you are missing out.  I've written before of my enjoyment of both Barnes' Lion's Blood series and the Barnes/Due Tennyson Hardwick series. Due has received an NAACP image award as well as an American Book Award. Barnes has written screenplays for works as diverse as Stargate SG-1 and The Outer Limits. One of these days I need to get around to reviewing Barnes' Blood Brothers, one of his earlier and darker novels. Barnes and Due are not only authors but each have numerous other skills, talents and interests including but not limited to martial arts, yoga, civil rights, journalism, teaching, life coaching and personal development. They each inspire you to kick things up a notch in your life and let go of your fears. A great thing about blogging is that you get to interact with quite talented people that you would otherwise never meet.

I thought you might be interested in reading an Urban Politico interview with the nation's hardest working husband and wife writing team. They were gracious enough to take time out of some extremely busy schedules to answer some questions for our readers. Thanks to Steve and Tananarive for their time. And now without further ado here's the interview with Steve Barnes and Tananarive Due. I hope you enjoy it.

The Urban Politico: Tell us about Devil’s Wake. Give us a short description-characters, plot, etc.

Steve Barnes: Devil's Wake is basically a story of survival, friendship and romance set against the background of the Zombie Apocalypse.

The Urban Politico: Why zombies and why now?

Tananarive Due: We have both always loved zombies.  Years ago, we came up with a zombie premise for our first short story collaboration, “Danger Word,” which appeared in Brandon Massey’s Dark Dreams anthology. We always intended to write a novel set in that world entitled Devil's Wake—but first it took a detour as a television pitch (no chance against the show “Jericho,” which had a similar small-town-after-the-fall feel to it) before reappearing in a novel form.

Steve Barnes: The horror field has always spoken to current fears. Zombies are just the latest in a long line. That said, they represent alienation, consumerism, immigration, depersonalization, and the terror of a changing world. That's a great grab-bag of emotional imagery to play with.

The Urban Politico: Devil’s Wake is first in a series, correct? Do you know how long the series will be?

Steve Barnes: As long as both we and readers are engaged. I can clearly see a point where the current story resolves, but as with all things in life, that just opens new doors and possibilities.

The Urban Politico: How has the world of speculative fiction and horror changed since you each started?

Tananarive Due: In terms of being a black author of speculative fiction, the biggest change for me has been the lost sense of cohesion after Octavia E. Butler passed away in 2006.  There are new, strong writers in the field, like Nnedi Okorafor, but it has been too long since we gathered as a group to share experiences and identify ourselves as a part of a thriving niche.  I miss that heightened sense of community.  (I hope to change that during my time as Cosby Chair in the Humanities at Spelman College.) 

Aside from that, I think most “genre” fiction was in the midst of a growth spurt when I started publishing in the mid-1990s.  I was embraced by the horror field right away, but my primary audience was black women—and many of them heard about me through the independent black bookstores like Marcus Books in Oakland.  Now, I think horror, science fiction and African-American book publishers are in the midst of leaner times overall. The horror field has grown vampire weary, as I learned when my publisher didn’t want to use the word blood in my latest African Immortals book, My Soul to Take, which I originally wanted to call Blood Prophecy. 

But everything is cyclical.  Our original idea for Devil’s Wake preceded the zombie book trend and AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” but we are appearing in the thick of it.  Sometimes good timing is accidental.

Steve Barnes: The images have gone more mainstream.

The Urban Politico: When did you each know you were going to be a professional writer? Was there a singular event?

Tananarive Due: I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was four, literally—but in some ways, I really don’t feel that I knew I would be a professional writer until I sold my first novel, The Between.  At the time, I had been working at the Miami Herald for five or six years, writing in my spare time.  I felt very confident after college and graduate school, where I’d made creative leaps and seen myself develop a professional prose style for pages at a time, but I didn’t know if I would ever make a professional sale for publication until my agent called me to let me know that HarperCollins had made an offer on my first novel.  Just two weeks before, I’d had a piece of fiction rejected by a local college literary magazine, so I tell writers all the time that you don’t know how close or far you are sometimes—you just have to keep writing.

Steve Barnes: My third year in college. I entered a writing contest, the winner to read his story to an alumni group. I won, and as I read the story, watching their faces, I realized that this was the greatest love of my life. I dropped out of college and went to work.

The Urban Politico: How has the internet and associated phenomena such as Facebook and illegal file sharing helped or hurt your business model?

Tananarive Due: I don’t yet have any personal knowledge of illegal file sharing having an impact on my work. But a recent book-signing in Atlanta was a testament to the power of Facebook and social media—when we asked which members of the audience had heard about our signing through Facebook, nearly everyone present raised their hands.

Steve Barnes: It sure scares the industry. Epublishing is great for those with a good relationship with the left side of their brains.

The Urban Politico: What’s one thing (and it might be different) that you wish readers or would be writers knew about writing?

Tananarive Due: I don’t think there is enough respect in general for the time it takes to write consistently good fiction. Too many people think they will master writing overnight, or that they are as good as they will ever be.

Steve Barnes: That it is amazingly hard and insecure...and you should only do it if any other choice is harder still, emotionally.

The Urban Politico: Have you ever felt pressure (external or internal) to write more or even solely Caucasian protagonists? If so how have you dealt with that?

Tananarive Due: No editor has ever asked me to write a novel with a white protagonist, although I certainly understand that to do so might widen my appeal.  Or would it?  I know I write my best work when my characters are different versions of myself—and while I have certainly written non-black characters, I was so stamped by an upbringing by civil rights activists in a newly-integrated Southern neighborhood that racial issues tend to provide a subtle underpinning to my themes and events.  Do I believe that my books would have won more crossover readers if my characters were white?  Perhaps, if I had found the right themes to sustain my creative interest.  But my hope is to find more universal appeal by writing more truthfully about the deeply personal—so my main protagonists are always likely to represent a racial metaphor of some kind even if they’re not black. 

Steve Barnes: Sure. In a perfect world, I would have written fewer white characters--but I have this odd compulsion to eat.  

The Urban Politico: What’s it like working with another writer when you are also married to them? Do your writing styles complement each other? Do you take turns writing chapters and/or edit each other’s work?

Tananarive Due: I had never collaborated in fiction before I met Steve, and it isn’t always a comfortable process for me. I characterize collaboration as twice the work and half the power, so a project really has to jump out as a collaboration before I would choose anything above writing solo.  Steve is beautiful to collaborate with because he’s so strong with plot and structure, and can think so quickly on his feet.  At our best, we can create a kind of jazz riffing that feels nearly as spontaneous as solo writing—but with twice the brain power.  At worst, we might argue over plot or execution.  No matter how much you talk it out, sometimes the vision you discussed looks very different when the other writer puts it on paper.

           

We never sit over each other’s shoulders. I write the first drafts for the Tennyson Hardwick mystery novels (South By Southeast comes out September 18th) and Steve writes first drafts on the Devil's Wake novels.

Steve Barnes: We plan the stories together, and then one or the other of us writes the first draft.

The Urban Politico: I like reading each of your works because I know that the black man/woman isn’t automatically going to die first and won’t be a stereotype. Why is that still so common in some fiction?

Tananarive Due: I truly think there is a deep longing in our social fabric for a time of “happiness” when there was a permanent, loyal domestic class, or the myth of that time, which leads to Sacrificial Negro imagery. Aside from that, it’s a cheap way for filmmakers to show “Danger ahead!” without having to kill off one of the white characters—like Loss Lite.

Steve Barnes: Because human beings are hierarchical, and place themselves higher on the hierarchy than they place others. So characters die in the approximate order of perceived value or audience discomfort. Ugly implication, but there you are. If blacks were in charge, you'd see white guys dying nobly to protect their black friends, sob sob.

The Urban Politico: Hollywood and black drama-changing for the better? What can the black (or any) audience do to help that along?

Tananarive Due: First, audiences have to support quality films in droves. There is little that black audiences can do to coax white filmgoers to join them, but if the projects don’t get the support from the black audience, that could be the end of that particular artistic conversation for the next five or ten years.  I’m an enthusiastic supporter of Sundance winner Ava DuVernay, who is writing, directing and producing her dramas from black life—stories about people who happen to be black, not stereotypical “black people” of the popular cinema.  Her film Middle of Nowhere opens in October, and I’m looking forward to it! 

Steve Barnes: Yes, it is. But what I'm waiting for is for black actors to get love scenes in major films. So far, that's a guarantee of box office death. White audiences just avoid that like the plague.

The Urban Politico: Who are some of your top influences as far as other writers? Who are some up and coming writers you think people should know about?

Tananarive Due: My earliest influences were probably Judy Blume, Stephen King and Toni Morrison.  There are too many great writers out there to name, but readers who like my work should definitely try Nnedi Okorafor and Nalo Hopkinson, if they haven’t already.

Steve Barnes: I love the classics: Shakespeare and Aristotle. And modern classics and masters: Stephen King, Robert Heinlein, John D. MacDonald, Octavia Butler, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and Ian Fleming. I admire Nnedi Okorafor.

The Urban Politico: Is there still a distinction between literary and commercial work? Do you self-consciously try to write in one style or another at a given time?

Tananarive Due: I really loathe the categories of “literary” and “commercial,” and I think too many writers cripple themselves artistically by swearing too much by one identity or the other.  I try to write well-written page-turners.  I want them to sell, so I hope they’re commercial—but I want the quality to stand the test of time, so I hope they’re literary.

Steve Barnes: Literary writing references the body of previous literature. Commercial fiction is more concerned with story telling. I'm a story teller.

The Urban Politico: Steve, you used a phrase once which really struck me. You wrote of “sacrificing your melanin on the altar of your testosterone”. Can you explain what that means?

Steve Barnes: Sure. In order to find images of vigorous masculinity, I read books with heroes like Tarzan, Conan, James Bond, and Mike Hammer. All either excluded black people, or depicted them as basically sub-human. 

The Urban Politico: Steve, Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart are made into movies. Who plays Kai? Aidan O’Dere? Nandi? Lamiya? Will we see a Zulu Heart sequel?

Steve Barnes: I honestly don't know about casting. There are more African-featured actors in the field these days, from Idris Elba to Djimon Hansou.

The Urban Politico: Tananarive, does teaching help make you a better writer?

Tananarive Due: I’m having to learn again how to juggle a full-time job with my writing, but overall I do think teaching can make writers better simply because it reminds us of how hard we have worked, and still must work, to pursue our dream.  Working with learning writers makes that quest feel fresh again.

The Urban Politico: You both do so many different things. Simultaneously!! What’s the secret? How do you stay balanced?

Tananarive Due: Believe it or not, I don’t believe I’m a great multi-tasker, so it takes constant practice. I exercise, I meditate, make to-do lists, and play a lot of Angry Birds in spare moments.

Steve Barnes: The work is something I do, not who I am.The trick is to continue to associate with your true self, what part from which the action and creativity arises.

The Urban Politico: If you were going to recommend one of your books to someone who wasn’t familiar with your work, which book would that be and why?

Tananarive Due: I think My Soul to Keep has really emerged as a reader favorite.  It’s more ambitious novel than my first, The Between, and it spawned three sequels—so that’s usually the first book I recommend. 

Steve Barnes: Lion's Blood.

The Urban Politico: Roughly how long does it take you to create a novel from concept to final edit?

Tananarive Due: I generally write a novel in one or two years, depending on how many other projects I’m juggling.

Steve Barnes: Roughly a year, but stretched across about four years--I have multiple projects going at once.

The Urban Politico: Are there some other future projects or plans that you can share with us now?

Tananarive Due: My next project will be a screenplay.  But I’m adhering to the sage writing advice that says not to talk about the project—just write it. This one, I fear, has had far too much talking and not nearly enough writing.  I haven’t written a screenplay in a long time, and I’m ready to jump back in.

Steve Barnes: Yes, I have a movie project I'm not quite ready to talk about. Please keep your fingers crossed!

Tananarive Due blogs at
http://tananarivedue.blogspot.com/
http://www.tananarivedue.com/ 
http://tananarivedue.wordpress.com/

Steven Barnes blogs at http://darkush.blogspot.com/ and helps people bring about positive change in their lives at http://www.diamondhour.com/. He also hosts a regular podcast which discusses personal improvement, growth and how to apply transformative techniques to your own life.
Each writer also maintains an extremely active presence on Facebook.

Movie Reviews-Breaking Bad (Season 3), Lockout, A Clockwork Orange

Breaking Bad (Season Three)
created by Vince Gilligan

The hits just keep on coming in this AMC series. Walter White's (Bryan Cranston) cancer is in remission but his personal life is in a shambles. He made a simple mistake which dismantled the web of lies that he spun to keep his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) ignorant of his work. As Walter was sedated and readied for surgery he accidentally confirmed having a second cell phone.That was all it took to change a previously supportive, if rather pushy wife, into an alternately raging harridan and cold as ice enemy. One wouldn't think that such a small slip-up could cause such havoc but then again there is that saying about women, fury and hell. Skyler is insanely angry at Walter's lies. She thinks he made a fool out of her. She checks on Walter's stories and doesn't like what she finds. At first I was a bit sympathetic to her but shortly thereafter my sympathy dissipated.

Walter might be feeling his oats in the criminal world but as far as Skyler is concerned he's just a lying no good drug dealing s.o.b. And Walter doesn't have the cojones of a Michael Corleone to tell Skyler "Don't ask me about my business!!!!". And Skyler wouldn't accept such dismissal even if Walter tried it. She kicks him out of their house and starts considering divorce. Skyler also does something which will hurt Walter much more than he's hurt her. I mean it's like using a nuclear bomb in response to a minor border dispute. As I mentioned earlier this show is greatly different from Weeds in that events have consequences. Nobody who interacts with drugs or crime gets away clean. There are always costs, great or small. Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) is confused by his parents' fights and sides with his father.
In Season Two Walter and a drugged out Jesse (Aaron Paul) had a business dispute that spun out of control and through a six degrees of separation sort of causality cost Jesse the life of his girlfriend, Jane. It also caused Jane's air traffic controller father to lose focus with equally tragic results and made Walter construct even more elaborate internal justifications and lies about his responsibility for his actions.

In Season Three Walter and Jesse are estranged. Jesse is looking for more respect and independence from Walter. Walter finds it difficult not to talk down to Jesse. Once he gets through rehab a newly sober and even more amoral Jesse wants to start cooking meth again while a depressed Walter attempts to win Skyler back. Walter doesn't want to make meth anymore if it will cost him his family. It doesn't help that Walter admitted the depth of his involvement to Skyler, who had already figured out most of it. There are some interesting questions raised about Western customs of domestic conflict. Why is it when there is a fight between a man and a woman it's the man who has to sleep on the couch or leave the house? I never understood that.

But Walter has worse problems than a shrewish wife. Gus (Giancarlo Esposito), Walter's new distributor, also has business relationships with the Mexican cartels. Gus owns several fast food franchises and is considered a community pillar. It's not absolutely clear to me whether Gus distributes for the cartels or if he is just in an uneasy partnership. I think it's the second. It turns out that the crazy degenerate Tuco from Season One and Two, who was killed by Hank, actually had familial cartel links. His invalid uncle used to be a cartel leader of some ferocity. And that old man has set his other nephews (twin deadly assassins) on Walter's track to avenge their cousin's death. The cartel is not exactly concerned if Gus agrees with this decision. The current cartel boss likes Gus but when push comes to shove he's going to side with his countrymen. Gus likes Walter as much as he likes anyone , which really isn't saying all that much. He doesn't like Jesse. 

Meanwhile Walter's always slimy lawyer and fixer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) is still scheming to make sure he gets his cut of the action while Hank (Dean Norris), operating both on fear and stubbornness, finally has a name (Jesse), face and vehicle to link to the blue meth that he's obsessed with stopping. Like I wrote before Hank may come across as Macho Meathead -and he is- but he's also a pretty good detective. He's starting to make some connections back to Walter. The show amps up this tension nicely as Hank notices some previously undetected backbone in Walter. It also contrasts the deterioration of Walter's and Skyler's marriage with the relative resiliency of Hank's and Marie's (Betsy Brandt). Carmen Serrano has a supporting role as School Principal Carmen Molina, on whom Walter has a crush. He makes goo-goo eyes at her when he thinks she's not looking. Walter starts to find it almost impossible to keep up appearances at school. 

The Gus Fring character really came into his own this year. Much like Vito Corleone he places a high value on politesse, rationality and making sure the other guy gets a fair deal. Gus seemingly likes Walter and enjoys Walter's smarts. Gus smiles and shows people what they want to see. But just like that other fictional gangster, Gus maintains his calmness as a veneer over a very cold, devious and brutal nature. And his smiles are often the smile the shark gives to the seal. Gus is scary not just because he can be vicious. He works in a vicious business after all. Gus' ace in the hole is his intelligence. He's normally at least three steps ahead of everyone, including the arrogant Walter, who still thinks he's smarter than any other criminal. Walter is an extremely proud man. Pride is the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Whereas Season Two was more concerned about the meat and potatoes of hiding criminal behavior and rewards from a spouse and the IRS, Season Three dives deeper into the day to day criminal lifestyle. It pulls the covers back and shows the nasty and violent actions of people that reside within Walter's new world, whether it's a fallen angel street hooker that may service 50 men a day or silent killers who murder people with the same emotion you or I might order a cup of coffee. Mike (Jonathan Banks) gets more screen time. He is a world weary former cop and current investigator for Saul but his true allegiance is to someone else. Depending on his orders he can be either a guardian angel or angel of death for Walter. He's a vibrant grandfatherly man.  If need be he'll put two in your head and then go pick up his granddaughter from day care without missing a beat. This season had lots of twists and turns that led up to some tough decisions and a shocking climax. Walter is finding out that you can't be half a gangster.

There is a song by Ike and Tina Turner titled "Up in Heah" which I like a lot. It chronicles the fall of a naive church going girl into a degraded street woman. One stanza reads

It's cold on this path of evil/The dew falls heavy and hard

While I wait at bars and grills/Commercial love, commercial thrills

But I remember the righteous living/And doing all I knew for good

If I could change this corruption, you know I would if I only could

But now I'm the Daughter of Evil/And I'm trying to get you up in heah!

Those lyrics apply to a lot of people in Breaking Bad, Walter White most of all.
Season 3 Trailer Promo

Lockout
directed by James Mather

There are two, count em two black men with major speaking roles in this film. One of them is thoroughly incompetent. He is the cause of the prison outbreak, gets himself and his charge lost and winds up killing himself to save a white person. The second one is not incompetent but proves to be evil. So just that right there left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
Basically this is Escape from New York but in space. If that appeals to you then give this a chance. If not just keep moving. The story is pretty predictable. Predictability is ok sometimes but it didn't work for me in this movie, racial hang-ups aside. The movie's hook is that in the future, the US government has created a orbital space prison, in which prisoners are kept in suspended animation for their sentence duration. Now that right there seems problematic. The whole point of sending someone dangerous to prison for a long time is so that if they ever do get out they will be older and feebler with depleted testosterone, lowered aggression and hopefully will be much easier for society to handle. Violent crime is a young man's game. Why in the world would you put someone in suspended animation and then bring them out years later with the same youth and aggression they went in with??? Makes no sense.

Suspecting that the real reason for this prison is just to examine the effects of suspended animation on human beings, the US President's daughter Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace) insists upon taking a fact finding goodwill mission to the prison station (MS-1) in hopes of exposing corporate and government malfeasance. That this would bring down her father's administration seems not to have crossed her mind.

Meanwhile back on earth maverick CIA agent Snow (Guy Pearce) (who evidently worked out a LOT for this role-let us go and do likewise gentlemen) is involved in a double cross shootout where his buddy Frank is killed and his shady contact Mace disappears with some critical information. Secret Service director Langral (Peter Stomare) oversees a blink and you missed it trial in which Snow is convicted of murdering Frank and selling classified information. Secret Service agent Harry Shaw (Lennie James) tries to talk secretly to Snow to get his side of the story. I'm not up on all the interlocking responsibilities of the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies but it seems like the CIA, not the Secret Service would be taking the lead here. Anyway Snow is about to be sent on a one way trip to MS-1 when everyone gets news that there's been a breakout on MS-1. The prisoners have hostages, including Emilie. Of course Emilie is a take charge tough as nails woman who doesn't think she needs rescuing.

The brain trust gets the bright idea to sneak Snow up there, have him use his super secret spy skills to find Emilie, get her past 400 angry and very horny convicts, and use the escape pods to get her back to Earth. The other hostages? Stinks to be them.
There is a subplot about how one wicked convict looks after his even more wicked and insane little brother, but really I didn't care too much. Pearce is wasted in this movie imo. Visually however, the film delivers some goods but I just couldn't get past what I thought was a weak story. YMMV. If it's on and you have nothing better to do....
TRAILER

A Clockwork Orange
directed by Stanley Kubrick

This is a classic film which I first saw in college. I was and am a Kubrick fan. When I first saw this I was also somewhat socially alienated so it worked for me on that level as well. However when I recommended to it a woman associate of mine a few years back she could not get past the violence, particularly the sexual violence. I rewatched it recently. I'm still not bothered by the violence though I can certainly see how some people would be. It is sometimes stylized and operatic and at other times shockingly realistic. I would disagree that the film glories in violence or is sexist it but it certainly doesn't condemn violence-at least not on the most accessible level for viewers. It can be disturbing. It's not for people under 18 by any means. So if violence bothers you this film is not for you. It came out in 1971 and initially received a X rating, likely for brief full frontal nudity. Kubrick recut it to get an R rating but then withdrew it from British theaters due to controversy over real life copycat violence. Despite the initial rating this movie was Oscar nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, losing to The French Connection. It should have won. It's visually stunning. Kubrick is at the top of his game.

This film could be considered something of a satire. But besides the violence, this film has a lot to say about the balance of power between the state and the individual, not just in the peculiarly American constitutional sense but in the larger human question of who gets to decide right and wrong-your conscience or the majority of your fellow citizens? The state? God? I thought with the brouhaha over ObamaCare, the controversies over gun control, and both Left and Right authoritarians seeking to extend government influence or even control over citizens in different aspects of their lives this might be a good film to discuss. In Kubrick's view the violence was necessary to the story and critical to the larger point he was trying to make. This was based on a novel. The author, Anthony Burgess, thought that the religious aspects of Free Will were also an important part of the story.

A Clockwork Orange also has a fair number of film techniques that were either invented by Kubrick or became extremely closely associated with him. There's the close-up stare which Kubrick also used in The Shining and other films, lurid cinematography, camera work which is very direct with not much sideways motion, super wide lenses and most spectacularly a camera thrown out of a window to depict a suicide! This film is also famous for the mostly classical music soundtrack, much of which was adapted and arranged by musical genius Walter (soon thereafter Wendy) Carlos. Along with Carlos' Switched On Bach, the soundtrack rewrote the book on what could be done with a Moog synthesizer. Carlos' reworking of Purcell's Death of Queen Mary opens the film. Carlos does such a great job with this that I was truly shocked to discover that Purcell, not Carlos wrote it.

So what's this film about? In a nutshell, it's about free will. In a dystopic England, much of the inner cities have been lost to various gangs of young hoodlums, who, amped up on drugged milk, spend their nights (and occasionally days) aimlessly engaged in petty theft, mindless sex, even more mindless fighting, and every so often rape, murder and home invasions. One such youth is Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the particularly vicious and unlikable leader of three other thugs, Dim, Pete and Georgie. Alex is the literal incarnation of chaotic evil. He is the sort of person who reads The Bible and wishes he were the soldier scourging Jesus or an Old Testament leader getting to know his wives' handmaidens. His only saving grace is that he is a classical music fan-primarily Beethoven.

Alex and his "droogs" or friends, commit more and more crimes until his so-called friends rebel against Alex's high-handed ways and betray him to the police after he's committed a murder. In prison Alex makes plans to get out while trying to avoid getting raped. There's a new technique which the fascist government intends to use to make criminals averse to sex and violence, and set them free, believing that it needs to have space in prisons for intellectuals, liberals, political dissidents, civil libertarians and writers. Alex volunteers for this treatment, thinking he can beat it.
He can't.

It's a mark of Kubrick's skill that he could make you feel a twinge of sympathy for Alex or more likely a bit of disgust for the government. Do you think that the government has the right to take away your free will if you've been convicted of a crime? You may feel differently after watching this film. Kubrick definitely did not believe that the end justified the means or that authoritarian personalities are good things, whether they come from the Right or the Left. David Prowse, who would shortly after be seen, but not heard as Darth Vader, has a role in this movie. The white clothing, bowler hats, codpieces and boots would be used by famous musicians such as John Bonham while the film itself would inspire numerous other actors and directors. Heath Ledger claimed that Alex was one starting point for his portrayal of The Joker.
OPENING SCENE                 TRAILER