Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 283
May 3, 2013
Dash Cam Captures Shootout
The incident happened back in March but video released just today and you may have seen nothing like it. After routine traffic stop in Ohio, guy gets out of car firing a (wait for it) semi-automatic rifle at cops. And keeps firing. They are both wounded as gunman shouts "Kill Me!"--the usual suicide-by-cop. They oblige, but video cut off before that. Note: Why so many cops wants ban on semi-automatic and automatic weapons.
Moyers on Sandy Hook
Full show this weekend from Bill on the "Sandy Hook Promise" with parents of victim, concert excerpts, more. Here's the whole program:
UPDATE: Gitmo Attorney a Suicide
UPDATE Friday Hart's death now confirmed. Attorney who worked with him claim not related to his Gitmo work. See statement. He had not been to the base for months but not sure what that means.
Earlier: This hasn't been confirmed elsewhere (update: as of Thursday morning), but Jason Leopold at Truthout reports that a well-known federal public defender for Gitmo prisoners for several years, Andy Hart of Toledo, 38, has killed himself. Nothing has been announced and Leopold has no details on where this happened, so stay tuned for confirmation of death, and if suicide. Hart "apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Hart left behind a suicide note and a thumb drive, believed to contain his case files. It is unknown where Hart died, what the suicide note said or whether an autopsy was performed.
"Hart’s death comes amid escalating chaos that has engulfed Guantanamo over the past three months—from a mass hunger strike to military commissions and renewed pressure on the White House to shut down the prison facility. Hart was one of three-dozen Guantanamo attorneys who signed a letter in March urging Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to take immediate action and bring about an end to the hunger strike."
Earlier: This hasn't been confirmed elsewhere (update: as of Thursday morning), but Jason Leopold at Truthout reports that a well-known federal public defender for Gitmo prisoners for several years, Andy Hart of Toledo, 38, has killed himself. Nothing has been announced and Leopold has no details on where this happened, so stay tuned for confirmation of death, and if suicide. Hart "apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Hart left behind a suicide note and a thumb drive, believed to contain his case files. It is unknown where Hart died, what the suicide note said or whether an autopsy was performed.
"Hart’s death comes amid escalating chaos that has engulfed Guantanamo over the past three months—from a mass hunger strike to military commissions and renewed pressure on the White House to shut down the prison facility. Hart was one of three-dozen Guantanamo attorneys who signed a letter in March urging Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to take immediate action and bring about an end to the hunger strike."
Kurtz and Daily Download: The Horror!
Mike Calderone with a valuable new piece at Huff Post on Howie Kurtz's role in the mysterious Daily Download, now emerging that he was far from a mere "contributor" but creator. And what about those "advisory board" members such as Jeff Jarvis who didn't know they were on the board? And the Knight Foundation funding. Kurtzgate continues.
Possible 'Fertilizer Bomb' Found in Austin
CNN reports on container with ammonium nitrate left on street that could have done some real damage. Experts trying to decide if meant to go off, or a dry run for something bigger. City on alert. This happened almost two weeks ago details just emerging now. "Initial tests showed the device contained ammonium nitrate, the same volatile substance that sparked a massive explosion last month at a fertilizer distribution plant 110 miles north in West, Texas, said Austin fire Lt. Randy Elmore. He called the apparatus 'a legit system.'"
Excerpt from 'Hollywood Bomb'
And now a free excerpt from my new e-book, Hollywood Bomb: The Unmaking of the 'The Most Important Movie' Ever Made. This is how it opens.
*
The atomic age was barely three days old, thousands of Japanese were still dying in Hiroshima, and the leading Hollywood studio, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, was already trying to sew up exclusive rights to make the first celluloid epic about The Bomb.
On August 9, 1945, just hours after the second atomic attack, on Nagasaki, MGM’s Washington representative, Carter Barron, phoned the chief of the Pentagon’s Feature Film Division to discuss the possibility of the studio rushing ahead with an exclusive movie about the still top-secret bomb project. Five days later, Barron wrote Maj. Stuart Palmer to inform him that MGM was “now working” on a movie tentatively titled Atomic Bomb, and would appreciate any useful “information or material.” The heroine would be the famed female physicist associated with the bomb project, Dr. Lise Meitner
Within weeks, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer would call the movie, now titled The Beginning or the End, “the most important story” he would ever film (and later compare the film to Birth of a Nation and his own Gone with the Wind). It seemed, for a time, that the big-budget film would serve as a warning to mankind about the dangers of going too far down the nuclear path, with the potential to rally public opinion against The Bomb before it was too late to halt an arms race that would eventually bring 50,000 nuclear warheads into the world.
But that was before the making, and unmaking, of The Beginning or the End ended that chance, thanks in large part to intervention by the U.S. military and President Harry S. Truman. It what must be a first for Hollywood, actors slated to play two presidents in the same movie were fired after protests—from a former First Lady and from the sitting President. Also intimately involved was a colorful cast of supporting players, including Ayn Rand, Archbishop Francis Spellman, Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, producer Hal Wallis, and actors Donna Reed, Hume Cronyn and Brian Donlevy, among others.
In the days after VJ Day, Americans were relieved that the war was over but extremely nervous about nuclear energy. Scientists, political figures and poets alike were sounding a similar theme—splitting the atom could bring wonderful advances, if used wisely, or destroy the world, if developed for military purposes. Atomic dreams, and nightmares, ran wild. Limiting the atom to peaceful uses was very much a possibility. “Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear,” warned radio commentator Edward R. Murrow, with “survival not assured.”
While exploding the new weapon over two large cities drew wide support when Japan surrendered a few days later, criticism was now growing, with liberals such as James Agee and Dwight Macdonald joined by the National Council of Churches and conservatives John Foster Douglas and magazine editor David Lawrence. Their protests were centered not only on the specific attacks on Japan, which may have killed over 200,000 (mainly women and children), but any use of such a weapon in the future that would sizzle countless civilians. The New York Herald-Tribune charged that the American bomber crews “had produced what must without doubt be the greatest simultaneous slaughter in the whole history of mankind.” This challenged any further development of nuclear weaponry.
MGM wasn’t the only studio looking to dramatize (or just cash in) on public interest in all things nuclear. Over at Paramount, Hal Wallis ordered research for a movie he was calling Manhattan Project, with a screenplay by Jerome Beatty. The first “arms race” of the postwar era was on.
At MGM, about a month after the Hiroshima attack, Sam Marx, fabled story editor during the heyday of Irving Thalberg and now a producer (Lassie Come Home) at the studio, received a call from Tony Owen, a Hollywood agent. Owen was married to actress Donna Reed, who at the age of twenty-four had already appeared in a dozen films but was a year away from her breakthrough role as Jimmy Stewart’s wife in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Owen told Marx that his wife had received several fascinating letters from Dr. Edward Tomkins, her high school chemistry teacher back in Denison, Iowa, who was now at one of the Manhattan Project’s key sites, the massive complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which produced extracted uranium and other materials for the atomic bomb. Tomkins had expressed surprise that Hollywood did not (as far as he knew) already have an atomic bomb feature in the works and wondered if the film industry wanted to “tell the people of the world some inherent facts about the bomb they should know.”
When Owen met with Marx at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, he showed him letters from Tomkins to his wife. Together they then pitched the idea directly to Louis B. Mayer, who had been spinning his wheels on the Meitner bomb project (there were questions about whether she would cooperate). Mayer also wondered about military and White House approval.
Marx, who had supervised some of the most famous writers in America (such as William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald) at MGM during the 1930s, knew an epic yarn when he saw one. But before proceeding, he planned to visit Oak Ridge. Dr. Tomkins, he knew, was already discussing the idea with other scientists. They would assist the studio only if it was a top-flight production, clearly warned of the misuses of atomic energy, and drew approval from General Leslie Groves, the military head of the Manhattan Project. Some of the scientists had started sketching film scenarios. One depicted civilization reverting to the Stone Age after an all-out nuclear war.
After the Pentagon endorsed the visit (with the caveat that it had to approve any publicity surrounding it), Marx and Owen landed at Oak Ridge on the blustery morning of November 4, 1945. “We are very happy you are here,” Tomkins told them. He urged them to "tell the people of the world some inherent facts about the bomb they should know.... We hope you can soon tell the world the meaning of this bomb, because we are scared to death!"
*
The atomic age was barely three days old, thousands of Japanese were still dying in Hiroshima, and the leading Hollywood studio, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, was already trying to sew up exclusive rights to make the first celluloid epic about The Bomb.
On August 9, 1945, just hours after the second atomic attack, on Nagasaki, MGM’s Washington representative, Carter Barron, phoned the chief of the Pentagon’s Feature Film Division to discuss the possibility of the studio rushing ahead with an exclusive movie about the still top-secret bomb project. Five days later, Barron wrote Maj. Stuart Palmer to inform him that MGM was “now working” on a movie tentatively titled Atomic Bomb, and would appreciate any useful “information or material.” The heroine would be the famed female physicist associated with the bomb project, Dr. Lise Meitner
Within weeks, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer would call the movie, now titled The Beginning or the End, “the most important story” he would ever film (and later compare the film to Birth of a Nation and his own Gone with the Wind). It seemed, for a time, that the big-budget film would serve as a warning to mankind about the dangers of going too far down the nuclear path, with the potential to rally public opinion against The Bomb before it was too late to halt an arms race that would eventually bring 50,000 nuclear warheads into the world.But that was before the making, and unmaking, of The Beginning or the End ended that chance, thanks in large part to intervention by the U.S. military and President Harry S. Truman. It what must be a first for Hollywood, actors slated to play two presidents in the same movie were fired after protests—from a former First Lady and from the sitting President. Also intimately involved was a colorful cast of supporting players, including Ayn Rand, Archbishop Francis Spellman, Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, producer Hal Wallis, and actors Donna Reed, Hume Cronyn and Brian Donlevy, among others.
In the days after VJ Day, Americans were relieved that the war was over but extremely nervous about nuclear energy. Scientists, political figures and poets alike were sounding a similar theme—splitting the atom could bring wonderful advances, if used wisely, or destroy the world, if developed for military purposes. Atomic dreams, and nightmares, ran wild. Limiting the atom to peaceful uses was very much a possibility. “Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear,” warned radio commentator Edward R. Murrow, with “survival not assured.”
While exploding the new weapon over two large cities drew wide support when Japan surrendered a few days later, criticism was now growing, with liberals such as James Agee and Dwight Macdonald joined by the National Council of Churches and conservatives John Foster Douglas and magazine editor David Lawrence. Their protests were centered not only on the specific attacks on Japan, which may have killed over 200,000 (mainly women and children), but any use of such a weapon in the future that would sizzle countless civilians. The New York Herald-Tribune charged that the American bomber crews “had produced what must without doubt be the greatest simultaneous slaughter in the whole history of mankind.” This challenged any further development of nuclear weaponry.
MGM wasn’t the only studio looking to dramatize (or just cash in) on public interest in all things nuclear. Over at Paramount, Hal Wallis ordered research for a movie he was calling Manhattan Project, with a screenplay by Jerome Beatty. The first “arms race” of the postwar era was on.
At MGM, about a month after the Hiroshima attack, Sam Marx, fabled story editor during the heyday of Irving Thalberg and now a producer (Lassie Come Home) at the studio, received a call from Tony Owen, a Hollywood agent. Owen was married to actress Donna Reed, who at the age of twenty-four had already appeared in a dozen films but was a year away from her breakthrough role as Jimmy Stewart’s wife in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Owen told Marx that his wife had received several fascinating letters from Dr. Edward Tomkins, her high school chemistry teacher back in Denison, Iowa, who was now at one of the Manhattan Project’s key sites, the massive complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which produced extracted uranium and other materials for the atomic bomb. Tomkins had expressed surprise that Hollywood did not (as far as he knew) already have an atomic bomb feature in the works and wondered if the film industry wanted to “tell the people of the world some inherent facts about the bomb they should know.”
When Owen met with Marx at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, he showed him letters from Tomkins to his wife. Together they then pitched the idea directly to Louis B. Mayer, who had been spinning his wheels on the Meitner bomb project (there were questions about whether she would cooperate). Mayer also wondered about military and White House approval.
Marx, who had supervised some of the most famous writers in America (such as William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald) at MGM during the 1930s, knew an epic yarn when he saw one. But before proceeding, he planned to visit Oak Ridge. Dr. Tomkins, he knew, was already discussing the idea with other scientists. They would assist the studio only if it was a top-flight production, clearly warned of the misuses of atomic energy, and drew approval from General Leslie Groves, the military head of the Manhattan Project. Some of the scientists had started sketching film scenarios. One depicted civilization reverting to the Stone Age after an all-out nuclear war.
After the Pentagon endorsed the visit (with the caveat that it had to approve any publicity surrounding it), Marx and Owen landed at Oak Ridge on the blustery morning of November 4, 1945. “We are very happy you are here,” Tomkins told them. He urged them to "tell the people of the world some inherent facts about the bomb they should know.... We hope you can soon tell the world the meaning of this bomb, because we are scared to death!"
10 Years Ago, Bush on WMD in Iraq: 'We'll Find Them'
Three NYT items on this day in 2003, from new e-book edition of my So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq.
WASHINGTON, May 4 -- With his administration under growing international pressure to find evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons, President Bush told reporters today that ''we'll find them,'' but cautioned that it would take some time because, he said, Mr. Hussein spent so many years hiding his stockpiles.
Mr. Bush's comments came after his senior aides, in interviews in recent days, had begun to back away from their prewar claims that Mr. Hussein had an arsenal that was loaded and ready to fire.
They now contend that he developed what they call a ''just in time'' production strategy for his weapons, hiding chemical precursors that could be quickly loaded into empty artillery shells or short-range missiles.
*
Letter to the Editor
Some unanswered questions remain: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? What evidence makes Iraq ''an ally of Al Qaeda''? Where is Saddam Hussein? Where is Osama bin Laden? Who is next?
Martin Deppe
Chicago
*
WASHINGTON, May 3-- The structure of the American administration of postwar Iraq remained unresolved today, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a strong endorsement of Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general whose job seemed about to be eclipsed by a former State Department official, L. Paul Bremer.
There was no announcement from the White House today about a plan to install Mr. Bremer, a former counterterrorism director for the State Department during the Reagan administration, as the country's day-to-day overseer. Some administration officials said issues involving the extent of Mr. Bremer's planned authority were still being debated.
Asked at a news conference in London today to explain Mr. Bremer's planned role, Mr. Rumsfeld said, ''I could, but I won't.''
Tattoos: The 15% Solution?
Hard to believe but venerable AdWeek says it's true: A company in New York is offering 15% raises to any employee who gets a tattoo with their logo. And 40 have taken them up on the offer so far. Here's examples for the Rapid Realty notion. No restriction on where to put it.
Keith on George: Stray Cat Blues
Keith Richards, who recorded with George Jones, has released a full statement on his death. Funeral was yesterday.
George Jones has left us. We have lost one of the most individual singers of all time. I cannot express the emptiness I feel. George was as country as it can get, but he was beyond any bag you want to put him in. He was pure American music without ever waving a flag – you can hear a million imitations on the radio every day – but there was, and ever will be, only one George Jones.
He possessed the most touching voice, the most expressive ways of projecting that beautiful instrument of anyone I can call to mind. You heard his heart in every note he sang. Sinatra called him the second best singer ever. (The number one obviously being Frank!). I would contest that.
I truly loved 'the possum.' He was a crazy as me, and just as free… and, oh boy, could he hang.
Duet:
George Jones has left us. We have lost one of the most individual singers of all time. I cannot express the emptiness I feel. George was as country as it can get, but he was beyond any bag you want to put him in. He was pure American music without ever waving a flag – you can hear a million imitations on the radio every day – but there was, and ever will be, only one George Jones.
He possessed the most touching voice, the most expressive ways of projecting that beautiful instrument of anyone I can call to mind. You heard his heart in every note he sang. Sinatra called him the second best singer ever. (The number one obviously being Frank!). I would contest that.
I truly loved 'the possum.' He was a crazy as me, and just as free… and, oh boy, could he hang.
Duet:
May 2, 2013
Plenty Goode
The great Richard Goode did Beethoven's hallowed final three piano sonatas last night in New York and younger great Jeremy Denk, who I interviewed for my recent Beethoven book, ducked out at intermission to tweet that his mind was thoroughly blown by Richard's opus 110. And Jeremy had told me just last year that he never performed that piece because he was rather sick of it, having sat through so many times at student recitals. Here's Goode's recently recorded version, which indeed is now my favorite. Mind-blowing, indeed. Then again, the final four Lvb's sonatas are greatest piano music ever.
