Maggie Bowman, producer

Look here for lineup of films set for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival March 9 - 17 in Austin, Texas,  They include “Election Day,” directed by Katy Chevigny,

a verite examination, following a dozen voters (including an ex-felon, a poll worker, and more) over the course of November 2, 2004 - from dawn until long past midnight. (World Premiere)

of which Maggie Bowman is producer.

An Obama moment

Obama, riding an astonishing wave of glowing publicity for a candidate 21 months from an election, already has a bubble around him that is tighter than the one that surrounded Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who spent long hours of the fledgling days of his candidacy in bull sessions with reporters.

Oh boy.  This is Mike Allen’s perspective in The Politico, where he tells of catching up with Obama, who is running for president, for gosh sakes, after a hotel reception from which reporters were barred:

I introduced myself and said, “Good evening, Senator, may I walk with you?” He replied, “You can walk with me. That doesn’t mean you can ask questions.” I chuckled, thinking he was kidding. “But you can certainly walk with me,” he added. The Senator then underscored, “I’m sorry. I’m not answering questions.”

Even an innocuous “[W]hat [do] you want to accomplish this weekend”? got the brush-off.  No “press avail” this time, said O.  Allen concluded:

[A]s Hillary tries to pierce her bubble, however tentatively, Obama appears to be building one.

The Politico is an apparently hot new online publication whose political editor is former Sun-Timesman Roger Simon.  Allen’s experience and commentary are worth keeping in mind in this Obama instance.

He has found the enemy, and it isn’t us

Michael Yon from Iraq:

When I arrived in Mosul a few weeks ago, they were getting about 1 car bomb per week.  Now it’s up to about 1 per day. The fighting is intensifying here, and that’s the bad news. There is some good news, however: Iraqi Security Forces, though taking losses, are thoroughly punishing the enemy here.  Just a few days ago, the enemy launched a large and well-planned attack on a police station.  In late 2004 or 2005, such an attack would have been devastating – and was.  But this time, when the enemy demanded the Iraq Police surrender, the police responded with gunfire. Lots of it. After several hours of fighting, the enemy fled in front of their blood trails.

Yon will be writing more about this.  For now he suggests a new dispatch  “The Hands of God.”  with audio file of a conversation between American soldiers and Iraqi villagers after a homicide bomber attack.  For context he recommends Gates of Fire and Battle for Mosul IV.

Tags: Iraq, Mosul, Iraqi+Security+Forces, Michael+Yon

Confession, first step

My name is Jim and I am a compulsive reader of the daily newspaper. 

I read my ChiTrib.  I find on page one that the not-guilty finding in trial of Bridgeview Hamas supporters is “setback for Bush administration.” (subhead).  I find that a report’s forecast for Iraq is “grim,” according to “sources” who read a “classified intelligence document [that] points to further strife.”  (That’s a Wash Post story, by the way.)  And I find a big Chi Bears story (fancy that), with color pic, and on left a neither gloomy nor anti-Bush story (fancy that) about Chief Justice Roberts pushing for a “more private and less divisive” Supreme Court.  (Does the writer mean “divided”?)

I read my Sun-Times, mostly view it, that is: Great color pic on page one, “We are not terrorists” in big type, “Victory declared for former Chicago grocer as jury rejects major charges in Hamas terror trial” beneath it, a fifth its size at most.  (Page 3 AP story here, but pix are S-T’s)  What, no setback for Bush admin?  Pic is of men praying outside courthouse after grocer was acquitted of racketeering charges.  Mostly viewing it, because this is a TABLOID, brothers and sisters, and I am addicted also to tabloids.  Will anyone help me?

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Pithy question

The Gospels are pithy, why expand them? is Rupert Shortt’s objection to Walter Wangerin’s Jesus: A Novel (Zondervan) in Times Lit Supplement of 3/17/06. “None . . . is a biography of Jesus, still less a neutral report. . . . The four evangelists all fashioned their sources [sic] with great ingenuity to substantiate prior convictions about Christ’s divine mission. Their writing was pithy, as well as skilful. Mark’s text, the shortest, omits almost everything considered inessential to the message of salvation.”

“Christ himself is all brilliance or defiance” here, says Shortt, TLS religion editor and formerly asst. ed. of The Tablet, the British Catholic weekly. “In brief, the message lacks nuance.” If this novel is aimed at non-believers, asks Shortt, the “tautness” of the Gospels themselves are more likely to convince them.

To paraphrase Shortt’s argument, if the risen Lazarus can appear to sinners without effect — Luke 16:19-31: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead,” Abraham told Dives, the rich man in hell — why would “adding fat” to the original “well-chiseled body” of Scripture, as Shortt puts it, convince them?

Shortt approaches the Gospels as a work of art, or at least finely honed craft. I applaud this and understand expanding a text, as in Wangerin’s book, as spelling out its meaning. An expansion says more than the original, and obviously there’s room for that. Wangerin, a prolific writer on such matters, seems excellently qualified to do that. But it’s tricky nonetheless.