VanRamblings Out of Service For Past 29 Hours

VanRamblings

TELUS

As Telus, the Internet Service Provider which allows VanRamblings consistent access to the Internet, has been ‘down’ since late Saturday morning, VanRamblings has been off the ‘Net and unable to post items.
Okay, okay: we could have ‘borrowed’ a friend’s ‘Net access, or trucked on down to the local Internet café … but we didn’t, and, of course, there was no Unbelievable Truth last evening. Oh well.
Now we’re back, though.
Unfortunately, much of the rest of Sunday looks to be particularly busy (being Mother’s Day, and all), so posting will have to hold off til later tonight, Pacific Daylight Savings time. We’re back, and will post.

Elvis Mitchell: ‘I Just Said I Had to Leave’

Media

Memo from New York Times executive editor Bill Keller
Colleagues:
I’m sorry to inform you that Elvis Mitchell has decided to leave The Times. Despite what you may have read elsewhere, it is an amicable parting on both sides, a little wistful but not acrimonious. In the years since he joined The Times, Elvis has brought our readers (and shared with his colleagues) a profound knowledge of film, an original and exciting voice, and a great deal of fun. As one of the editors who hired Elvis, I will miss him a lot, and so will everyone who worked with him.
Bill


ELVIS-MITCHELL

Elvis Mitchell (Photo credit:
Jeremy Harmon/WireImage)


After joining the New York Times as lead film critic in late 1999 ago — arguably, the most influential film reviewer position in American media — Elvis Mitchell has resigned his position with the paper. Sean Elder, at Salon, wrote this piece, in 1999, about the appointment of Mitchell, and fellow reviewer A.O. Scott, to the Times’ movie section.
Richard Prince, at the Maynard Institute, reports that “Mitchell resigned after (cultural news editor Steven) Erlanger appointed colleague A. O. Scott the lead film critic.”
New York magazine’s Metro section suggests that Mitchell’s resignation may have something to do with “how unfriendly a place the New York Times is for blacks,” or, perhaps, the consternation that was felt when Mitchell accepted a job as a visting lecturer in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard (“He took another full-time job while he was working here as a film critic?”).

The Bush Administration’s Continuing Denial of Human Rights
The Iraqi Prison Abuse Scandal: Reaping What It Has Sown

Politics

RUMSFELD-SENATE-HEARING

The Senate hearing into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners; click on photo for story




The fallout from the abuse, by American soldiers, of prisoners detained at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison continues.
Joe Conason, in Salon, provides insight into a report by human rights lawyers which found that the Abu Ghraib abuse was not only lawless — it was sanctioned by Pentagon political appointees.
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Sternberg, in a compelling and readable column, suggests that President Bush is wrong to say prison abuse is inconsistent with the nature and temperment of Americans. Read why.
The New York Times reports on the life and current status of Pfc. Lynndie England, the female national guardsman featured so prominently in the Iraqi abuse photos.
The Times also presents a timeline, titled “Prison Abuses: Military Actions Taken and When Top Officials Knew.”
Update: ITV reports allegations of a “girl as young as 12 (who) was stripped and beaten by military personnel.” National Public Radio in the U.S. offers this audio report, by Jackie Northam, providing detail and insight into the report issued yesterday by the International Committee of the Red Cross on the coalition forces’ treatment of persons held in Iraq.
And, finally in this update on the scandal that is rocking the Bush White House …
Yale law professor Jack Balkin writes that the Bush “administration wanted secrecy. It wanted to be free of legal constraint. It wanted to do whatever it wanted whenever it wanted without ever having to be called to account for it.” Balkin goes on to suggest that in denying the prisoners in Iraq (as well as Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay) the usual protections of the Bill of Rights — including the presumption of innocence, the right to counsel, the right to know the charges against them, and the writ of habeas corpus to test the legality of their detention if they are placed in jail — the Bush administration is now “reaping what it has sown.”

A Monster of A Mess: Critics Say ‘Stay Away From Van Helsing’

Cinema

VANHELSING

The reviews for the first big summertime movie blockbuster, Van Helsing, are in and it’s not looking good for Universal Pictures.
The range of reviewer criticism available at Rotten Tomatoes — where the film receives a 4.2 rating on a scale of one to ten, with 96 out of 123 critics conferring the film with ‘rotten’ status — include derisive commentary from Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly, “a long, kinetic, yet dreary mess” to James Berardinelli’s “the worst would-be summer blockbuster since Battlefield Earth.”
VanRamblings found the $145 million Van Helsing to be little more than a Grade-B Saturday afternoon monster flick, a silly-verging-on-stupid waste of time, money and resources, and utterly forgettable movie fare. Here’s hoping that Troy has more to offer.