I was feeling pretty low, so I watched Takeshi Miike’s Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai. A movie about ritual self-disembowelment was a fitting end to the week I had. So I was more than happy to sit there drinking in the whole slow, stately, highly composed meditation on samurai codes punctuated with carefully placed scenes of bloody agonizing seppuku. In these troublous times, it’s just what the doctor ordered.
September 3rd, 2012 | Comments (35)
Finally got around to seeing 13 Assassins—couldn’t face any of the new film releases this week—and I can’t tell you how soothing it is. It’s a reverent throwback to the great 1950s-’60s Japanese samurai films, and it’s done in neutral shades of gray and white and tan and black. Other than the copious blood spray, of course…
May 30th, 2011 | Comments (17)
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The political establishment’s racist, authoritarian reaction to the 1992 LA riots—blaming broken black families, massing cops and troops, and Ron Paul’s advice to his family on how to kill black “animals” and get away with it…
We’re living through a massive artificial famine, right now. In NW Yemen, home of the Yemeni Shia who’ve fought off a Saudi-financed invasion, the “coalition” of invaders has settled on a slower, more effective strategy: artificial famine and blockade. This is how you kill off a troublesome population, not with bombs and guns alone. Hunger and disease are much better mass killers than firearms and bombs.
I’ve responded to the article in several Facebook posts, but this is important enough to deserve a more formal response. So here it is.
Gutman’s article is a shoddy, dishonest mess, but it will be effective, because the Nation has a better rep than the author’s usual venue, The Daily Beast. So Gutman’s smear will stick, eroding support for the YPG/J, the one heroic faction in the miserable Syrian War…
The notion that the French are cowards is total bullshit, and anybody who knows anything about European military history knows damn well that over the past thousand years, the French have the most glorious military history in Europe, maybe the world.
THE STORY OF HOW PARAGUAY WENT FROM A WANNABE PRUSSIA TO THE RODNEY DANGERFIELD OF SOUTH AMERICA
This article was first published in The eXile on November 5, 2007 FRESNO, CA — By the time you finish this column you will be able to destroy huge buildings, kill hundreds of people in a few minutes, and strike terror…
