Reasons to Believe

The Mouth of the Beast

Greetings from the City of Berzerkeley, um, Berkeley, home of the University of California and its attendant Old Golden Bear. Your fearless blogger is here at the invitation of the Cal Graduate School of Journalism. Last night I participated in a speaking panel here with regard to media coverage of the war.

And, I must say, though more than a few people in the audience were in need of haircuts, they were quite a pleasant bunch of folks. LA Times reporter Rone Tempest, who helped guide my OpEd onto the Sunday Current page last month, was the moderator for the discussion which followed a presentation of a soon-to-be-released movie about soldiers in the war.

I shall reserve my comments (hint: enthusiastic) about the film until it will play well with the producer's overall roll out. Suffice is to say it is a soldier movie, not a war movie.

But the discussion that followed (which carried on into the late hours of the night at a local dining establishment) was lively and respectful. I was joined by another soldier who was part of the film, and the film's director. While I was not the only soldier in the room, I was probably the only guy wearing a tie - and certainly the only one wearint a cardinal one with gold "USC" embroidered all over.

I must say the crowd of journalism students was far more restrained than that of the LA Press Club, where I spoke on Thursday. Nobody in Berkeley has accused me of "marketing war," so far, which was the rather nasty slight hurled at me in Hollywood. I wandered the streets in search of lunch this afternoon, and must say there is nothing quite like the energy of a college town. Even one where everybody needs a haircut.

Speaking of Hollywood, those of you with Cable TV in the City of Los Angeles can watch that lively discussion from the Press Club on Channel 36. I am told it will run at several times throughout the week.

Tonight I shall venture back up the hill for a discussion that is being billed as one fo the biggest events on campus this year, featuring reporters from all over the country, including the NY Time's Baghdad bureau chief. It should be a fascinating time.

Why Crash Got It Right

If you've not seen the movie "Crash," then, well, you ought to. This movie won the Best Picture Oscar for doign what movies ought to do. It told an entertaining story and threaded in thought provokig moral dillemmas.

Purely as a story - eliminate the politics and moral issues - it is a remarkably well told series of vignettes woven together in a neat blanket. My wife and I still giggle about one of the closing lines: "I am speaking Engrish you COW!"

But, let's deal with those issues head on. There is something here for everyone to nod oward approvingly, and something to make everyone uncomfortable. It is balanced and even, and comfortably uncomfortably so.

If you are a lefty, enthusiastic nodding must have jolted into jaw dropping just as quickly as two young black men spun from complaining about lousy restaurant service and the racism of a passing white woman to car jacking that same woman. The line is a classic, somehting to the effect of: "Why ain't we bothered?" "Because we got guns?"

On the flip side, as Conservative, there is more than enough to irk me. Matt Dillon's Ryan character is portrayed, especially in the media, as an evil white LAPD cop. But, is he really? He clearly crosses lines when he sexually man handles a black woman in front of her husband. But he clearly was provoked into the situation, and obviously does it to get even. It's not right, but he did not start off with that intent. Later he clashes with a black HMO worker who denies care to his suffering father. His questioning whether she got her job due to affirmative action ("over five more qualified white men") has been played repeatedly as an examle of his "virulent racism." Yet, the movie never explores the factuality of the statement, nor does it show why it is that people of all races and creeds have that same fear. It is sad, but true, that many people operate with this question.

One of the nice things about the Army is that you need to look no further than a man's collar to see what he has accomplished. Regardless of his looks, ethnicity, articulation or outward intelligence, if the man has more stars or stripes than you, he's the better man (or woman) and he's gotten there fair and square.

The media has downplayed mroe nuanced aspects of the Ryan character. His father ran a business that employed mainly blacks and gave folks who had no options a better life. His second partner is Hispanic, and they banter fondly.

Moreover, at the end of the movie - at the end of the day - Dillon repeatedly risks his own life to save the same black woman from a fiery car wreck. The LAPD I've seen portrayed in the LA Times and every relevent Jesse Jackson press conference would lead you to believe that he would let her burn. But he does not.

There are more aspects to Crash that should speak powerfully to Conservatives about today's racial politics. A white DA targets a white cop when he kills a fellow black officer who apparrently was corrupt (the details of the case would seem to come straight from the Lyga/Gaines shooting in 1997. Gaines, the black officer who was off duty at the time, almost certainly was corrupt and tied to Rafael Perez). the DA blatantly panders by race. His wife reveals herself to be a limousine liberal, openly questioning the character of a Mexican lock smith, then finding that her only friend in the world is her Mexican maid.

Etc., etc. etc.

So, my congratulations to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Eschewing preaching and embracing a fine story with provoking thoughts for everyone in the audience is how it should be. No matter how much preaching the Hollywood press tried to impress upon us.

15 Minutes or so

It has been almst 10 days since the LA Times published my first major article for a national-size publication. "The War You Didn't See," about the experiences of the 184th Infantry in Iraq has since been picked up by papers in Oregon, Utah, Texas, Virgina and Conneticut, among other places. I have been interviewed KFI Radio's John Ziegler show here in LA and in Seattle and Austin, TX.

In short, it has been an interesting experience. Thus far I've received in excess of 300 emails from all around the country, and engaged in "conversation," with several writers. All but two of those emails have been supportive (and one of those writers has engaged in a polite, if shrill, extended exchange with me).

I'm working to parlay a few other opportunities from this exposure, both in writing gigs and other business matters. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to write a weekly or so column for a respectable paper, and sell a couple of books. To that end, I shall be posting some thoughts here from time to time regarding issues of the day and my observations about what these events mean for us as people.

If you find the things I have to say make you think and challenge your perceptions of things, I invite you to return and post your own thoughts. Moreover, I ask you to invite your friends to join in the conversation, if only as readers. And, if you really like it, call your local editor and ask him to add me to his roster of writers.

Thanks for stopping by.

Best,
Robert