I read a book and watched a movie this week: Book: Against US - The new face of America's enemies in the Muslim world - is the title of the book that I started reading this week. It's a new book, published only about two months back and written by Jim Sciutto, the senior foreign correspondence for ABC News.  He writes, "After seven years of reporting on this subject, I came to an unsettling truth: The Al-Qaeda-inspired view of an evil America bent on destroying Islam has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. Today, America's enemies are not the wild-eyed radicals I had imagined, but are often moderates - and many of those whom we thought were our friends are now some of our most virulent detractors. " Jim writes about 'the terrorist with a Marketing Major' in Jordan, 'Christians for Hezbollah' in Lebanon, 'the Forgotten Democratic Hero' in Egypt, 'Stanch the Bleeding' in Iraq, 'Deaf to America' in Iran, 'Baghdad comes to Birmingham' in UK, 'An Afghan Girl's Wildest Dreams' in Afghanistan, 'the Jihadi Turned Electrician' in Saudi Arabia and elections in Pakistan. It is an interesting to read book and the writing style is lucid. Jim concludes saying, "There's the hope. Today, though in America the reality is a disappointing and a threat. This is the new philosophy - the new cause uniting disparate people in disparate places, the enemy. And those standing up against us are not just masked gunmen in far-off desert hideouts. They are graduate students in Lebanon, democracy campaigners in Egypt, doctors in Iraq, and those young men in my neighborhood of Notting Hills. Their attitude toward the United States - and the Americans - comes from years of living as unwilling subjects of our foreign policy. Their insight into our country is at times grounded in profound wisdom and experience. At other times it's based on pure bunk. But seeing through their eyes will help us understand their vision as well America's position in the post-9/11, post-Iraq, post-George Bush world." Movie: Warm water under the red bridge - is an interesting Japanese movie that I viewed also this week. I simply don't know in which class to put this movie. It's Japanese title is "AKAI HASHI NO SHITA NO NURUI MIZU". If you can get a copy of it, I recommend you watch it. You will enjoy (keep an open mind though). The legendary Japanese director Shohei Imamura made this film in 2001.  A frustrated, unemployed architect learns of a treasure hidden inside an old house near a red bridge in a remote fishing village. Upon arriving he encounters, among numerous colorful characters, a beautiful young woman with an 'unusual' condition who lives with her grand mother in the old house. The unusual condition is quite unique. When she is roused, she starts discharging profusely. The discharge is like a fountain of warm water (which actually flows from the house through the drains into the river under the red bridge). Only love making can subsidise this flow. As our hero makes more and more love (making) with her, she starts to get over this gushing fountain of water discharge and becomes 'normal'. Then another twist in their fate begins. I enjoyed this romantic comedy movie with a flair of magical realism in spite of the gushing out pour of the discharge water. By the way, Imamura is only one of two directors in the history of Cannes Film Festival to receive multiple 'Palm d'Or' award. [ Albuquerque, NM - January 2009 ] |
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