Results tagged “war”

This guy, a Fort Lewis officer, thought it was a great idea to embezzle $700,000 from Uncle Sam during a recession and a war. Genius! Did he think they weren't gonna notice that kind of pocket change missing from the coffers? The only explanation we can come up with is that his 14-month service in Iraq was more traumatizing than has yet come to light, and if that's the case, our heart goes out to him--but dude still owes the country some cash.

LIVING LEGENDS: No, not Twiggy. We're talking about the hiphop crew out of Cali, two members of which will be performing at Neumos tonight. The Grouch and Eligh are touring for the holidays (official tour title: "How The Grouch Stole Christmas"), sharing the evening's bill with Bayliens and 206 Zulu cornerstones Alpha P. The duo will release an album called Say G&E in the spring, so attendees tonight should be getting a sneak peek at the new material; we've also heard The Grouch's solo album Show You The World, which fans of underground and indie hiphop (a la Atmosphere) are encouraged to check out.

An unconfirmed report in the 's Big Blog claims members of the local Georgian community and their supporters plan a protest today at noon at the Russian consulate at Sixth & Virginia. The protest is in response to Russia's attack on Georgian territory following Georgia's failed attempt late last week to recapture the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Relations between Georgia and Russia have been strained for years, since pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in 2003's Rose Revolution. Russia under the nationalist Vladimir Putin has sought to keep neighboring countries and former Soviet republics like Georgia and Ukraine from moving into the Western fold.

At some point around the beginning of hour three of Bertolt Brecht's , you're finally overwhelmed. Perhaps it was the hot black box theatre, perhaps it was the uncomfortable seats, but as the play reaches it painful conclusion, despite the occasional weaknesses of the production, we found ourselves fighting back tears. That's nothing if not the sign of a great play.

Five years later, it still feels strange and distant; Iraq is still mired in violence--though we argue about whether it's on the wane or the rise--and yet the degree to which it touches on our daily lives seems to have to do more with politics than with the real world consequences of war. Most Americans are so safely distanced from the fighting that we can't wrap our heads around what it's actually like for those of our countrymen whose loved ones are patrolling the streets of Baghdad in body armor as we sit here, comfortably reading about it on a computer screen, let alone what it must be like to be there, as a soldier, or even worse, as an Iraqi.

Right on the heels of the announcement that the Mars Volta was added to the Sasquatch lineup, and right before tickets go on sale this Saturday, the three-day music festival has seen fit to delineate who will be playing on which day:

After months of wild speculation, the official 2008 Sasquatch lineup has finally been announced:

Yes, they're overblown and sure, it's tiring to watch 4+ hours of Hollywood patting itself on the back, but it's the Academy Awards, fer fuckssake. We can't not watch Sunday's big show. From the red carpet fashion to the drawn-out musical numbers to the people-who've-died montage and the Academy's tribute to gaffers, the Oscars offer something for everyone. Plus, this year it's hosted by Jon Stewart and, though his comedy is not exactly made for Hollywood insiders, we still love that wee little funnyman. (Fact: Jon Stewart is approximately Oscar-sized.)

Not that there's anything remarkably surprising about this. Most of us here in this hippy haven understand full well that the War in Iraq was forged under false pretense, and there have been plenty of news stories in the past five years to back up our suspicions.

Absurdistan is an allegorically rich comedy care of witty German director Veit Helmer and filmed in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the tiny titular land, a war of the sexes break out when the local aqueduct ceases to work, and the men are too lazy to fix it. The women declare a strike--no water, no sex--and two childhood sweethearts find themselves feuding instead of consummating their long-standing love. Looks like it's up to the kids to fix the water pipe and get everybody laid. Helmer directs this charming, mostly dialogue-free little film with childlike wonder, with shades of Jeunet in his use of fanciful contraptions, like a gondola on pulleys flying over the town.

Despite being narrated by Sean Penn, it's fairly lo-fi -- a cool-headed interview with media critic Norman Solomon intercut with film and video footage to illustrate salient points on how gullible/acquiescent the American public is when it comes to run-ups to war and how supine the media generally is until after the fact, when lone, contrarian voices are celebrated as if "we knew it all along."

Er, not quite. There is an actual, physical monster in Cloverfield, and unlike the no-see-em trailer, the film eventually shows it in all its gruesome glory (and no, it ain't Stay Puft). Opening Friday, J.J. Abrams' camcorder monster movie (which some describe as "Godzilla meets the Blair Witch") covers a terrible day for all of Manhattan and, in particular, for a group of New Yorkers throwing a bon voyage party for one of their friends. Ruh-roh!

This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs.

The past few months have seen Mr. “Wes C. Addle”—Eddie Vedder—looking more like Mr. Tinseltown than just another (incredibly talented) Easy Street customer. Times don’t look like they’ll be a-changin’ in 2008.

Making up for weeks of hibernation and workaholism, Kim will hit the parties this weekend. Tonight, she’ll don her Groucho glasses for a lesbian function at Jabu’s celebrating the births of her two favorite Sagitarii. Saturday, it’s to the War Room for a company party with the missus and her workmates. Finally, she’ll ship off to the sub-tropics on Monday, where she’ll spend what remains of 2007.

This morning we were glancing through the Going Out section of the Seattle P-I when we ran across these two questionable entries:

"War and Peace": 1 p.m. Sergei Bondarchuk's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel (part one screens today) is widely considered to be one of Russia's greatest achievements. Right up there with Ivan Drago and those wooden dolls that open up to reveal a bunch of smaller wooden dolls. SIFF Cinema, Nesholm Family Lecture Hall, McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St.; 206-464-5830; seattlefilm.org. $7-$10. Also at 7 p.m.

"As You Like It": 7:30 p.m. This Shakespeare comedy of mistaken identities, clowns and women dressed as men dressed as women gives further credence to the theory that the Wayans brothers are descendents of the Bard. Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., Bainbridge Island; 206-842-8569. $15-$20.

We're not sure how to recommend a 7-hour movie, except to agree with Roger Ebert that it does "take the enormous bulk of Leo Tolstoy's novel and somehow transform it into this great chunk of film without losing control along the way," and to point out that the seven hours includes intermissions. SIFF is showing War & Peace at their McCaw Hall theater in two parts (Part 1: almost 4 hours, with intermission; Part 2: 3 hours with intermission).

Last year we invoked the name of Cal Worthington as a flimsy excuse to post the amazing "Montgomery Flea Market" ad. Now, we actually have an ad from the master himself. Big ups to Cal for wearing a Mariners jacket (and also for the zebra). There is a definite lack of men on horses leading zebras around in our television advertising today.

As previously mentioned, Les Savy Fav play Neumo's tonight. If the idea of a pregnant dude spitting water on you doesn't quite float your boat, head to the Croc to check out Cave Singers and Fleet Foxes. Tonight is also a free-free-free hip hop show at the War Room with Bun B and Swizz Beatz, care of the redundantly good people at Goods and Zune. Show up early; the last event like this, with Clipse...

We're not yet convinced that the current War on Plastic Shopping Bags/Global Warming will stand the test of time, but we sure are intrigued that everyone everywhere seems to be trying to make the eco-friendly message stick (do you really think NBC's "Green Week" is destined for the history books? Neither do we.).

It was four years ago that we'd started falling in love with the woman who would one day be our wife. It was about that same time that she'd lent us an album called Night Songs by a band called Stars. And if memory serves us with any amount of clarity, our devoted attention to that album became one of the many things which cemented our infatuation with this woman. Night Songs (Stars' first LP)...

In January of this year, the Weekly's Brian J. Barr described local trio the Cave Singers as "an updated version of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Not the graduate-student, learned interpretations of folk music circa 1962, but folk music approached by way of punk rock. It's sparse, melodic, and simultaneously creepy and alluring, like the widow mourning graveside in Johnny Cash's 'Long Black Veil'." That was enough to get Matador Records interested, who signed the band in May and released their debut album Invitation Songs last month.

The first thing to know about Devra Davis is that she's not speaking from the sidelines: she's director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is an environmental health expert, professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management.

We start things off this weekend with a simple two words from Donte: Muthafucking Justice!

We had no idea that FOSEP was hosting firebrands like these guys. As blogfish (where we also learned October 8 was International Cephalopod Awareness Day) puts it, the duo's Framing Science talk "has stirred some blogging scientists to react with great umbrage." Great fucking umbrage, indeed! (It turns out it's just the atheists, being thin-skinned again.) The Seattle event didn't umbrage that many Seattleites that we could see. Many headed over to McMenamins for beer after. But it should have, and not just Dawkins' apologists. We'll explain.

UPDATE: On-the-spot photographer brentvanw adds in the comments:

Please note that the Duck was full of awestruck tourists and they were listening to "tequila" and singing along while this scene unfolded. The driver was still on her mic after the man exchanged some heated words with her and she promptly climbed out and took a look over the bow and said "Is that you? Oh my."

Next up was Juno, the latest comedy from Jason Reitman. We loved his first feature, Thank You for Smoking, and had heard nothing but good buzz about this flick, which is kinda Knocked Up meets Superbad, if Judd Apatow stopped focusing so much on male friendships and paid more attention to the pregnant girl. As the titular acid-tongued, preggo high schooler, Ellen Page keeps on getting better and better, and the rest of the cast (JK Simmons, Allison Ranney, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman, reunited here with his TV son, sweet baby Michael Cera) ain't no slouch neither. A couple minor quibbles: if anything the film is too cute by half. We don't need pop culture references for the sake of pop culture references: "No, It's Morgan Freeman. I'm here to collect some bones." And we certainly don't need a quirky folk song introducing every goddamn scene (Wes Anderson much?). Still, the film was ultimately very moving -- we always appreciate it when a foul-mouthed movie turns out to have some heart.

Holy poop, Barack Obama raised a record $31 million dollars over the last three months.

Watching David Hare's dramatization of the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq last night at ACT, we were reminded of an email exchange we had that summer with an old college friend. Our friend, a Brit, was at the time starting her career as a history teacher, and if we recall correctly, we wrote her something to the effect of, "You know why World War I started, you know why World War II or Vietnam or Korea or the Falklands started...but in ten years, when your students ask you, 'Why did we invade Iraq?', what are you going to say? What's the explanation going to be?" Her despairing response: "They already are asking. And I don't know what to tell them."