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I read Haleh Esfandiari's new book, My Prison, My Home, in a weekend, much to the chagrin of my mother, who I was visiting at the time. "Sweetheart, she wrote a book," my mom said. "I think she survived." Even though you start Esfandirari's memoir knowing that she got out of the Iranian prison, it's still an amazing story about how a life can be turned upside down in a day. I interview Esfaniari here.
Esfandiari, who was a citizen of both the United States and Iran, was arrested while visiting Tehran and accused of plotting to overthrow the regime. She was put in jail for four months, at the age of 67, and survived thanks to her amazing discipline. The book is far more than a prison thriller. Episodes from Esfandiari's harrowing experience are woven together with insights about the conspiracy-minded Iranian leaders and their difficult relationship with the United States. Although it was written well before this summer's chaos in Tehran, Esfandiari's book will help you understand both why Iranians are so hungry for change, and why its rulers are so afraid of Twitter.
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I wonder what it means that most every review I’ve read of Amreeka, a film that premiered at Sundance and opens in L.A. and New York tonight, uses the word “gentle.” I guess we expect a film tracking the Arab experience in the United States not to be at all gentle, so it comes as a surprise that Cherien Dabis’ debut feature, about a single mother who brings her son from Palestine to the United States in 2003, chooses comedy over condemnation. Dabis seems as interested in the curious, comic openness of Midwesterners as she does in the rubes who think every Arab is a Saddam sympathizer. Muna, played by the adorable Nisreen Faour, is the likable lead whose good-natured confusion drives the film’s comic moments. “Occupation?” an officer at the border asks Muna on her way into the United States from Palestine. “Yes, it is occupied. For 40 years!” she responds.
But Dabis seems not to know what to do with darkness, so when Muna’s teenage son ends up in jail for responding violently to some insults hurled at his mother, we’re left with some cringe-worthy, after-school-special level dialogue. Dabis is never condescending toward the adults in her screenplay, but assumes the adults in her audience need major narrative signposting (Moral here! Resolution this way!). As an object lesson for tweens on the necessity of not calling their classmates terrorists, on the other hand, Amreeka functions perfectly well. So take the kids, but don’t expect a subtle cinematic experience.
Image is a screenshot from the Amreeka trailer.
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Don't you want find out about how Betty will handle her increasingly senile dad? What about Carla's emerging role and the way Mad Men deals with race? And what if Peggy stands up this week and says: "I'm Peggy Olson and I'd like some LSD!"? We're going to be tweeting Mad Men Sunday night and we hope you're there to talk about it with us.
Here’s how to join the conversation:
—Log onto Twitter by 9:59 p.m. on Sunday.
—Search for #xxmadmen to see what’s been said.
—If you have a comment, be sure to append #xxmadmen to the end, so everyone in the TV-tweet group sees it.
—Use the @ system when responding to other TV-tweeters, so they know you’ve replied. (For Twitter novices, that means you say @theirname when you’re responding to someone.)
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I agree, Jessica, that the uproar over President Obama’s back-to-school speech is silly. But the controversy, as I understand it, started not over the speech itself but the accompanying lesson plan, wherein it was suggested that students write a letter to themselves outlining what they could do "to help the president." Isn’t Obama a former community organizer? Whoever wrote up that suggested lesson plan in the Department of Education could just as easily—and probably should have—written that line to say "help your school" or "help your community." If I had to guess—and this is entirely speculation—I would imagine that an idealistic, enthusiastic young employee over at Education thought up the line and couldn’t conceive why anyone wouldn’t want to help the president. As a White House official said, "That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it." For me, that’s the end of the matter.
But I'd also be willing to bet that if Bush 43's Department of Education had come out with a similar lesson plan, someone on the left would have complained that Bush was trying to turn our nation's children into a bunch of warmongering God freaks. I don’t think that this goose-and-gandering is necessarily helpful or productive, but I’m not surprised by it.
I do think it’s silly—and annoying—that some districts are not showing the speech and some people are "urging boycotts." If you’re worried about what your kids are hearing at school, talk to them about it when they get home. We need more information, more discussion, and we need to stop roping ourselves off and listening only to people with whom we agree. Too much of that, and you have 65-year-old men biting off fingers. (Maybe they should be sent back to school to listen to Obama’s speech.) I don’t know whether my son's kindergarten class will be watching the speech, but if he comes home asking me what a public option is, I’ll report back.
Photograph of Barack Obama by Gary Fabiano-Pool/Getty Images.
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I find the uproar over Obama's approaching back-to-school address to be pretty silly. The speech, which schools are being encouraged to air on Tuesday, is meant to encourage kids to stay in school. Sounds innocuous enough, but Obama opponents are using the opportunity to compare him to Saddam Hussein and accuse him of creating a "cult of personality." The reason I find this so absurd is because I was fourth grade when President Bush the first made a similar speech. I didn't remember the speech at all until today's news stories about Obama jogged it loose from the memory graveyard. But it brought up a specific image of being corralled into the gym and made to watch Bush ramble on about god knows what. I can't recall specifically because I wasn't paying attention. After all, I was only 9. I remember being pretty confused as to why our teachers were making us do this and getting scolded for talking during the address.
All of this is to say that the outrage is purely for the parents. Even most high schoolers will think of this address as a boring chore to watch and the kids who are in grade school will barely understand what's going on. Obama could actually be sitting up there spewing pinko propaganda and it will fall on deaf ears. What he's really going to do—give some general remarks about hard work—is going to be pretty well ignored, too. If you're going to oppose this speech, do it because it's a waste of time, not because it's "something you'd expect to see in North Korea," as Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell claims it is.
Photograph by Getty Images.
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If you have a spare hanky, squeeze out a few tears for Alberto Gonzales. The man's foibles are the subject of a joke opera, The Gonzales Contata, at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which has a website that announces, "In protest of male domination of American politics, the genders of the performers have been reversed in relations to the characters they portray." I'm sure Gonzales always wanted to see himself in women's studies drag.
And more laughingstock fodder: Gonzales has now taken back the support he gave earlier this week to Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to launch a preliminary investigation of alleged instances of CIA torture. At first he said, “I think it is legitimate to question and examine that conduct to ensure people are held accountable for their actions, even if it’s action in prosecuting the war on terror."
That seemed digified—a former AG giving the benefit of the doubt to his successor. But now there's a redo: “I don’t support the investigation by the department because this is a matter that has already been reviewed thoroughly and because I believe that another investigation is going to harm our intelligence gathering capabilities and that’s a concern that’s shared by career intelligence officials and so for those reasons I respectfully disagree with the decision.”
As Jeremy Pelofsky of Reuters says, "Sounds like the rollercoaster ride is back on the conservative track." But why? In August, Gonzales told the NYT's Deborah Solomon in August that he hasn't spoken to George W. Bush since Bush left office. This cold shoulder from the president who was supposed to prize loyalty above all else, and repay it in kind. Like I said, cry for AG AG.
Photograph of Alberto Gonzales at his farewell ceremony by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images.
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Not only did this dress by Ra'mon win the challenge on Project Runway last night, but the three lady judges said it was the one they were most likely to wear. Wear to what? A county fair vegetable competition? An Earth Day parade?
Readers, help me out. What am I missing?
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Michelle Cottle at the New Republic argues that the first couple are now stuck with the PDA, because the public expects it. Like Groundhog Day, only it's date night happening over and over, no escape.
The barriers between public and private have long been eroding, and every modern president has had to deal with the resulting overexposure. Something, however, feels different this time around. While previous First Couples have accepted intrusions into their personal lives, they have appeared to do so reluctantly, and only at the prodding of a relentless media. The Obamas, by contrast, seem almost eager to make their private life, especially the romantic bits, part of the national conversation. It’s unquestionably entertaining. But is it a good idea?
Photograph of Barack and Michelle Obama by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images.
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