by David Burn | Dec 31, 2004 | Digital culture, Film
Darby and I watched the documentary Revolution OS tonight. It’s a low budget film written, directed, produced, shot and edited by JTS Moore. Prior to this project, Moore, a Hollywood screenwriter, had little knowledge of hacking, open source politics or the characters involved. A friend suggested the idea for the film.
The level of discourse in the film is quite technical, but the political themes and business opportunities are readily available to the less technically inclined. One area of tension that emerges in the film–and all good films need tension–is the conflict between Richard Stallman’s purist “free software” philosophy and Linus Torvalds’ “open source” execution of that philosophy.
Stallman mentions that free means free as in free speech, not free, as in free beer. He also says he intended for there to be business applications from the very beginning of his work with GNU (Gnu’s Not Unix), his project to replace Sun’s proprietary Unix workstation. A project that pre-dated Linus Torvald’s independent, but related efforts in Finland to construct an operating system kernel. Torvalds’ kernel combined with Stallman’s programs ostensibly made up the first versions of what became known as Linux.
Today’s Linux OS, argues Stallman, ought to be rightly called GNU-Linux. But Linus does not like that option. He sees GNU-Linux as but one bundle or distribution of the operating system, like Red Hat Linux or others available on the market today.
by David Burn | Sep 20, 2004 | Film, Media
Whether we like to admit it or not, most of our political arguments–between family, and friends, and co-workers–are informed by the corporate media, thus they are often misguided from the get go. What do I mean by the corporate media? I mean five companies: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox. All systematically feed viewers a distorted version of reality. Fox, for one, blatantly airs right wing propaganda. They have zero credibility in my camp. Sadly, my camp is a bit lonely at present. In these troubled times, the crowds gather round the flag. That’s where the ad revenue is; hence, it is also where the news is.
The scary thing is, we think we have a free press in this country. That’s what we were taught in school. So we are not busy looking for the manipulations and distortions in the stories we are fed. And we are not even thinking about the stories left uncovered. Add to this insanity, The Fox Effect, whereby ABC and the others try to out Fox Fox. Thanks to Rupert Murdoch’s sensational success, we have not one, but five news corporations trying to out do one another with patridiotic symbolism and p.r.-style “news” coverage.
If you doubt that news organizations are engaged in underhanded deceptions, please consider the most intriguing part of the documentary film, OutFoxed, where we learn about freelance political operative, I mean journalist, John Ellis–Dubya’s first cousin and the man responsible for calling the election* on Fox News. If you’re wondering who put this man in place to make such a call (at 2:16 am, no less), you can thank Fox News president Roger Ailes, a man in lock step with Karl Rove, for that service to the nation.
*Reports have John Ellis on a conference call with both George Bush and Jeb Bush, just prior to the historic decision he made on behalf of the Bush family and Fox News.
by David Burn | Jul 17, 2004 | Film, Politics
“We need a fascist government in this country…to save the nation from the communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize a million men overnight.” -bond trader, Gerald MacGuire speaking to a reporter in 1933
There’s another hot political film showing in select theatres right now. The Corporation righteously lays bare the practices and the aims of multi-national corporations. Like Fahrenheit 9/11 there are gems of information sprinkled throughout this film. One iota that really grabbed my attention was the mention of a plot by various Wall Street tygoons to overthrow the government early in FDR’s first term.
What prevented this hostile takeover? Wall Street picked the wrong general. After 33 years in the Marine Corps, Smedley Butler had seen enough. Butler said, “I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” Butler told Congress of the plans underway, yet they never publicized the nefarious affair, nor did they punish (or even question) the conspirators.
Major General Smedley Butler
by David Burn | Jul 15, 2004 | Film, Politics
“What we intend to accomplish is to make sure that history records that we did not go silently, and I perceive that silence is consent.” -U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings
For me, the most compelling and dramatic part of Michael Moore’s sensational political film, Fahrenheit 9/11 (it’s also been called an informercial and several worse names), is when we see the members of the Congressional Black Caucus fighting to be heard on the floor of the U.S. Senate during the Florida recount hullaballoo. This pitiful scene was news to me, although here’s a CNN transcript of Florida Congressman, Alcee Hastings from January 6, 2001, describing the technical manuevers we now have on film. So, there was some coverage at the time, albeit limited.
from the L.A. premiere
by David Burn | Mar 4, 2004 | Film, Music
Paul Pena is a blind Bay Area musician who taught himself the arcane techniques of Tuvan throat singers. This is but one remarkable fact of his extraordinary life. For more about Paul’s throat singing abilities and his journey to Tuva, see the documentary film Genghis Blues.
Paul also put out a record on the Capitol label in the early 1970s and recorded another album, New Train , in 1973. New Train features his original, “Big Old Jet Airliner” (made famous by Steve Miller) and performances by Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia. As often happens in the music business, the recording, although superb in every way, was not released. Not until Genghis Blues won at Sundance and created a new interest in Paul and his work did the album see the light of day. It was relased in September of 2000, 27 years after it was made. Fans of music can now hear for themselves this unique American voice.
by David Burn | Mar 1, 2004 | Film, Music, Politics
Last night Evil Vince busted out Music Is The Weapon, a documentary from the BBC on Nigerian musician/politician, Fela Kuti. I’ve seen his son Femi Kuti perform as an opener for String Cheese Incident. But I really knew nothing about his radical, “James-Brown-of-Africa” father until last night. And I did not know much about Nigeria, an oil-rich nation one in every four Africans calls home. This is an important film to see.
