Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 268

Baby, It's Cold Inside

Some stories you can do nothing more than reprint, in this case noting the local prosecutor who says some cRIMES "defy understanding."  This, today, is from local KOMO TV/Radio site in Seattle, Wash.

The man who allegedly put his 6-week-old daughter in the freezer to stop her from crying also tried to stop the baby's mother from calling 911, according to charges filed Tuesday.

Roy resident Tyler Deutsch, 25, has been charged with assault of a child, criminal mistreatment and interfering with the reporting of domestic violence for the incident that happened over the weekend.

According to the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office, Deutsch was tired and his baby was crying, so he put her in the freezer, wearing only a diaper, with some frozen cauliflower and a bag of ice and then fell asleep.

Deutsch was awakened when the baby's mother arrived back at the couple's trailer and pulled his daughter out of the freezer, according to charges. The baby had blistered skin and a body temperature of 84 degrees after spending an hour in the freezer.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, the baby's mother tried to call 911 but Deutsch took the phone away from her because he didn't want to get in trouble. The mother was able to leave the trailer and get a neighbor to call for help.

Film Might Turn Hillary Scarlett

Amusing news on upcoming movie with terrible title, Rodham, which could only be about young Hillary Clinton.  And it is.  Pedigree doesn't sound so great, and then there's the matter of a "steamy" sex scene featuring Bill (and Hillary? with him, who knows).   Actresses allegedly interested in role include Scarlett J. (left), Reese W., Amanda S, Jessica C, among others.  Hillary: swank?  Abroad they are putting odds even on Chelsea playing her mom.

Let It Bieb

This football writer reports on TMZ's report on Justin Bieber, possibly stoned, speeding through suburban neighborhood and chased down by former NFL bad boy Keyshawn Johnson, and that's for starters.  He calls his own headline the "weirdest one I'll ever write." It's:
Keyshawn Johnson chased down, called cops on Justin Bieber

My Daily 'Photo of the Day' Feature

Been posting one of my pictures from aorund the world for several months now over at my Photo Blog.   Here's today's:

"Sunrise, Hudson River (Homage to Hiroshige)"

The Joylessness of TV Sex

That's pretty much the title of new piece posted at NYT that reviews trends in TV lovemaking--all bad, in this account, from Carrie and Brody to Marge and Homer (well, I made up the latter).   Interesting nostaglia for "unbridled" sex of Fatal Attraction and especially Bull Durham, which the writer finds more "explicit" than anything in recent years.  Meaning explicitly fun, I guess, without a dark under story.  Or just more "balling."

50 Years Later: Still Masters

Dylan's second, and breakthrough, album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released 50 years ago today.  So, for Memorial Day, Pearl Jam's live version of "Masters of War."

Live from London

Well, sort of.  My favorite current quartet, Pacifica, just played a special lunchtime concert at hallowed Wigmore Hall today and the BBC recorded it:  Beethoven's opus 132, with the astounding slow (third) movement, the Heiliger Dankgesang.

Hiroshima Photographer--Whose Photos Were Suppressed--Dies at 94

Wayne Miller has passed away at the age of 94.  That name surely means nothing to you, even if I add, "Photographer."  I know the name only because I am a student of the atomic bombing of Japan and its aftermath.  Miller was among the first group of Americans to arrive in Hiroshima after the bombing, just over a month after it happened, on September 8, 1945.  With a small group of reporters, he tagged along with a U.S. military mission--he was a Navy man attached to the official wartime photography unit (and took some memorable shots)--and snapped a few pictures in a handful of locations, and flew off.

Few of those pictures were ever published in the months and years to come--and the ones that were focused on damaged buildings and devastated landscapes.  But he had also visited a makeshift medical facility in a battered bank building (all of the hospitals in the city had been destroyed)  and he took striking pictures there of victims of the bombing suffering from massive burns, the new-to-the-world "keloid" scarring from the atomic flash, and also the new and frightening "A-bomb disease" (slow death from exposure to radiation).  But due to strict and long-running postwar military censorship, then press cowardice, Americans were not allowed to see if any of these types of images, in photos or in film, for years or in many cases, decades, while the nuclear arms race ensued the decision to drop the bomb was stoutly defended.

I tell the full story in my book Atomic Cover-Up , which covers the suppression of photos but mainly the historic film footage shot by a special U.S. military team that showed, in color, the human effects of the bomb but was kept hidden for decades, even as one of the veterans who made the film tried to get it released. 

Another Columbine in Oregon?

Or worse?  Details continue to emerge on arrest of student, 17, in Oregon who had extensive bomb materials, plans for more--and hoped to also use rifles--with aim of causing mass destruction at his high school.   Police now like planning to Columbine and also, whatever this means, "video game" violence.   Six explosive devices found under the floor boards in his bedroom.

Just in Time for Memorial Day

In an incident just reported by my local paper, the founder of a Connecticut military museum and Korean War vet was shot and killed by police in his home, after a report of domestic violence.  The man had a handgun out when shot, police say.