Federico Fellini as Auteur: Seven Aspects of His Films
The study explores Fellini's narrative form and visual presentation, includes materials from his dream notebooks and dream-related film scenes, and examines the fictionalized autobiography, contending that the filmmaker created an "autobiographical legend" of himself and then filmed the legend. Drawing on a wide range of materials, including documents written in Italian and largely unavailable to English-language scholars, Stubbs details the collaborative relationship Fellini had with his wife, actress Giulietta Masina. He focuses on the creative tension between director and actress, which contributed to the effective portrayal of Masina's two predominant characters, the waif and the betrayed wife.
La Dolce vita was the first film I ever watched by Fellini when I was in my teens. I'd didn't have any background knowledge about the film, like Marcello Mastroianni was Fellini's projection of himself or that the film was a mix of reality and dream where different narratives would drop off and then suddenly pick up again. Yet I easily projected my self into that part of the idea that so much of what Mastroianni/Fellini sought remained out of reach. You know that dream where you move closer to some person or place, you walk toward it, then as you're just about there, you reach out and you're back where you started walking toward your vision.
On the other hand Fellini could make ill concieved trash like Satyricon in which he seemed to totally give in to his worse impulses, one of the most awful self indulgent films ever made.
Fired Officer Believed CIA Lied to Congress
But McCarthy's friends, including former officials who support aggressive interrogation methods, resist any suggestion that she handled classified information loosely or that political motives lay behind her dissent and the contacts she has told the agency she had with journalists. She was, in the view of several who know her well, a CIA scapegoat for a White House that they say prefers intelligence acolytes instead of analysts and sees ulterior motives in any policy criticism.
They allege that her firing was another chapter in a long-standing feud between the CIA and the Bush White House, stoked by friction over the merits of the war in Iraq, over whether links existed between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaeda, and over the CIA-instigated criminal inquiry of White House officials suspected of leaking the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.
"When the president nominated Porter Goss [as CIA director in September 2004], he sent Goss over to get a rogue agency under control," Steven Simon, a colleague of McCarthy's at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1999, said Goss's aides told him. Simon said McCarthy's unusually public firing appeared intended not only to block leaks but also to suppress the dissent that has "led to these leaks. The aim was to have a chilling effect, and it will probably work for a while."
This makes sense in that really persuing leakers through legal channels would entail the administration having to answer some very embarrassing questions in regards to adherence to the law and international conventions. We could say that the administration might be embarrassed over the moral questions involved in appointing itself judge, jury, and executioner, but the Bushies have shown that they have no qualms about being completely amoral.
DOJ Moves to Dismiss AT&T Class Action under Cover of Night
Early Saturday morning, in the darkest hours of the night, the Department of Justice made good its threat to file a motion to dismiss our class-action lawsuit against AT&T, contending that AT&T's collaboration with the NSA's massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications (which violates the law and the privacy of its customers)–despite being front page news throughout the United States and the subject of government press conferences and Congressional hearings–is a state secret. The motion was accompanied by declarations by Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander, Director, National Security Agency and John D. Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence.
Faces of the Fallen
Recently updated database of those that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bend to Baja
This is one of those dreams I walk towards and it never materializes into reality. I try and get some nice company like Patagonia to sponsor a months long trip where I get to live out all my more adventurous day dreams, but they always choose someone else. Darn it.
In the margins of the op-ed, Cheney jotted out a series of questions that seemed to challenge many of Wilson's assertions as well as the legitimacy of his CIA sponsored trip to Africa: "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. [sic] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"
It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for Cheney's own notes to be made public. The notes—apparently obtained as a result of a grand jury subpoena—would appear to make Cheney an even more central witness than had been previously thought in the criminal probe. Fitzgerald's prosecution has created continued problems for the White House. Karl Rove, the President Bush's chief political advisor, recently made his fifth grand jury appearance in the case and remains under scrutiny while Fitzgerald weighs whether to file criminal charges against him.
How many times have we heard a variation on that theme, "Or did his wife send him on a junket?" from Fox News and conservative zealots on the net. Do they all think like clones or do they all use the same fax machine.
JOE
I'm supposed to give my Deposition…?
COP
We'll be with you in a minute.
ANN
I'll wait for you…I'm proud of you.
I'll be waiting.
JOE
If I go to jail…?
ANN
I'll knit you a sweater.
from the screenplay STATE AND MAIN by David Mamet
The Long Goodbye 