Alex Zuckerman: The Hill -- Winter's Bone

The Hill: Winter's Bone
by Alex Zuckerman
The Chances We Take



The nature of the film industry has relegated rural America to a symbolic representation of itself. Coastal elites retire to the back country only to make some larger political point about the country as a whole. Small-town poverty is far less compelling than urban decay, if only for its less compelling visual elements. While films like The Deer Hunter and Harlan County, PA made heroes of the heartland, they did so to score political points. White trash are never just allowed to be white trash - they are forced to stand for something more, and usually come off as cartoonish or pathetic. Debra Granik's Winter's Bone avoids these cliches, instead revealing a compelling narrative set in an undiscovered country. A double-winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Winter's Bone brings a regional familiarity and genuine soul that proves why small, smart independents remain indispensable to American film.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, a 17-year-old girl saddled with caring for her two younger siblings and catatonic mother. When the Sheriff (Garrett Dillahunt) informs her that her dad Jessup has skipped out on his bond, the meager existence eked out by the Dollys is threatened. Her family and home hanging in the balance, Ree must find her father, dead or alive. She sets out on foot across a landscape last seen in John Hillcoat's adaptation of The Road; burned out cars dot decaying forests, while weeds over take derelict houses.

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Midweek Politics with David Pakman: Glenn Miller, racist US Senate candidate from Missouri known for his “It’s the Jews, Stupid” campaign

(White Supremacist Glenn Miller Running for Senate in Missouri—Radio Stations Playing His Racist Ads While Claiming They Must Do So ... Despite FCC Stating Radio Stations Don’t Have To Play Them)

Midweek Politics with David Pakman – 04.28.2010

This Week’s Topics:

–Glenn Miller, racist US Senate candidate from Missouri known for his “It’s the Jews, Stupid” campaign joins us live to discuss whether African-Americans or Jews are a bigger problem, his felony conviction, his racism, and much more.

–Part 1 of our interview with former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, author of the new book American Conspiracies, where we discuss conspiracy theories, third parties, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and much more, plus a 10 minute behind the scenes interview on our Members Podcast.

–Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signs a new immigration-related bill into law that allows police to detain and question anyone they believe looks like they might be an illegal immigrant, and we discuss all aspects of the bill, and why even some Republican do not like it.

–Obama does not like the new AZ immigration bill, Bill Kristol, not surprisingly, does not think it is a civil rights violation of any kind, and the AZ state senator linked to the bill has a long history of ties to Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, while Joe Arpaio says the bill will not lead to racial profiling.

–Although he is Hispanic, would David Pakman be likely questioned under this new law?

–After years of calling himself a maverick, countless campaign ads calling him a maverick, countless appearances and speeches referring to being a maverick, and even a book BY JOHN MCCAIN with the word Maverick in the title, McCain hedges for his upcoming election by insisting he never called himself a maverick.

–A man who is possibly the only Hispanic Teabagger in the country loses it, having a complete unrestrained meltdown on camera after being asked a question about healthcare at a DC rally, and we wonder whether him with a gun is something we should be worried about.

–Republicans, Fox News, and others continue trying to convince us that the Tea Party is not overwhelmingly made up of white people who voted for John McCain.

–Will the Tea Party end up helping Democrats, Republicans, or no one at all?

–Voicemails from a radio show accusing Midweek Politics of being a young Republicans club show, and more, as well as emails about Jesse Ventura and Jason Mattera, recent guests on the show.

–Healthcare and obesity, including a discussion about a picture of a circus freak show fat man from 100 years ago that today represents a common site on any city street.

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Allison Kilkenny: Detroit and Missouri -- a tale of two police raids

Detroit and Missouri: a tale of two police raids
by Allison Kilkenny
True/Slant

Aiyana Jones is the 7-year-old girl who was recently killed during a raid on her home. Allegedly, the police launched a flashbang grenade through the window of the apartment where Jones was sleeping, and the device set Jones on fire. Her grandmother, quite understandably, got into an altercation with the armed men who stormed into their home, and during the struggle, the police claim an officer’s gun discharged accidentally, killing Jones.

This official narrative is being disputed by the family’s attorney, who claims video footage shows the police fired into the home at least once after lobbing the grenade through a window – before grandma and the officer ever had their interaction.

This terrible tragedy follows an incident that received considerably more (especially on-line) media attention — a Missouri SWAT raid.

First, a disclaimer: I don’t write this as a way to cast blame. After all, I covered the Missouri incident extensively. The Missouri raid is something that should attract a significant amount of media coverage. And there are several important differences between the story that might explain why one incident went viral, while the other remains in danger of being buried by the Next Big Thing to come along.


Unlike Detroit, the Missouri raid was videotaped, forever capturing the terrible drama of the event, while Jones’s last, awful moments will only be memorialized in the testimony of cops and her family. Additionally, the Missouri raid demonstrated the overzealous, destructive police response to the unwinnable War on Drugs, which 40 years after its implementation, has cost over $1 trillion, failed to meet any of its goals, while “drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.” Most Americans believe the War on Drugs is failing, so video proof of the militaristic behavior of the police during drug raids reinforces widely held, negative views about drug criminalization. Simply: people like to watch what they already know.

The Detroit raid is much more complex, and reveals a more sinister reality. A little poor, black girl dying during a police raid in Detroit is considered as a somewhat normal event in America. It’s terrible, yes. It’s something that makes Americans tisk and shake their heads over, but many view Detroit as a kind of third world country in which terrible things happen. The ghetto is a poor, dilapidated place under constant siege by the police so as to keep the undesirables in order.

To reject the idea that the ghetto should be a bad place entails rethinking much larger American issues: race, class, poverty, wealth disparity, social hierarchy, the two-tier justice system. It’s much easier to accept that bad things happen in the ghetto and move on.

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Arielle Klagsbrun: Washington University (St. Louis) Students Protest Peabody and Tell Them to Get Out of their University

WashU Students Protest Peabody and Tell Them to Get Out of their University
by Arielle Klagsbrun
It's Getting Hot In Here

After months of working on-campus to rename the Consortium for C!#@n Coal Utilization, here at Washington University, we decided to take our concerns to the source: the corporate headquarters of Peabody Energy in downtown St. Louis. Since our flashmob against our administration’s coal-sponsored “America’s Energy Future” Conference, a unanimous Student Union Senate Resolution calling for the renaming of the Consortium and a meeting with the head honchos of the Consortium have not yet yielded our goal – to remove the misleading term “c!#@n coal” from the Consortium’s name – we decided to take our concerns downtown.

This past Friday, March 26, 2010, over fifty Washington University students and St. Louis community members gathered outside of Peabody Energy to protest the company’s business practices. WashU senior Todd Zimmer laid out our demands for the crowd and for Peabody executives. “We want an end to dirty energy,” he said, “we want an end to lies about c!#@n coal, … And we want an end to the relationship between Washington University and Peabody Energy.” Many St. Louis employees emerged from their office buildings to hear our chants of “C!#@n coal, hell no, that’s a lie, it’s got to go,” and “coal, coal, no solution, we are sick of your pollution,” accompanied by a drum set, full-size banners, and signs held by protesters.

While there were many police officers – both city and Peabody security – the protest remained wholly non-violent. We had expected the Peabody security contingent; earlier this week, after the protest was advertised on Facebook and in pamphlets, an anonymous Peabody employee leaked us an internal memo. This memo alerted employees about the protest, telling them to avoid the front entrance, and described us as “anti-everything” activists.

WashU senior Jennifer Marienau dispelled this notion. “We are not anti-everything,” she told the group in a speech, “We’re not anti-community. We’re not anti-solution. We’re for people power, not destructive power.” We students ended our peaceful demonstration with a die-in. With each iteration of the chant, “No joke, coal kills!” members of the protest went fell to the ground in a symbolic representation of the millions endangered by Peabody’s dirty practices and significant contributions to climate change.

Our protest was part of the People’s Settlement, a week of action highlighting the unethical behavior of corporations in St. Louis that continually to place profits over people. Peabody certainly qualifies as one of these unscrupulous corporations. This is a company whose subsidiaries engage in the destructive and dangerous practice of mountaintop removal. This is a company that has heavily funded efforts to block all climate legislation up to this point, and is now suing the EPA over its right to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. This is a company that has adamantly denied the reality of climate change, while developing their dishonest c!#@n coal marketing campaign. This is a company that recently blackmailed St. Louis, threatening to abandon the city and move its jobs elsewhere, unless it received $10 million for “office improvements.”

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