Last night was Fright Night. I had plans to watch the opening episode of the third season of American Horror Story, a show that despite its disappointingly concluded first season and its at times too-lurid second season still manages to hold considerable promise for me. But I was going to watch Paranormal Activity first; somehowContinue reading “American Horror Story and Torture Porn”
Tag Archives: torture
Lech Majewski’s The Mill and The Cross: A Beautiful Moving Tableaux
The Mill and the Cross, Lech Majewski‘s 2011 film, like Pieter Bruegel the Elder‘s The Procession to Calvary, the painting that inspires it, is beautiful to look at. It might be hard to know what to make of it in a conventional movie-viewing sense, but the cavalcade of gorgeous images that it parades before ourContinue reading “Lech Majewski’s The Mill and The Cross: A Beautiful Moving Tableaux”
A Norm-Preserving Bombing
War waged to prevent the gratuitous, deliberately caused, cruel, inhuman loss of innocent life; a moral intervention, a just war. War waged to preserve an international norm, a collective sensibility of outrage and revulsion at the use of a weapon of mass destruction: a similarly moral intervention, a similarly just war? These questions, obviously, areContinue reading “A Norm-Preserving Bombing”
Chemical Weapons and the ‘Unnecessary Roughness’ Rule
Fans of the NFL will be familiar with the unnecessary roughness rule; it’s one of those features of America’s most popular game that sometimes causes bemusement, even to those who consider themselves long-time devotees. In a game memorably described as ‘young men running around risking spinal injury’ or ‘an endless series of head-on collisions’, thereContinue reading “Chemical Weapons and the ‘Unnecessary Roughness’ Rule”
Drop The Whistle; Shoot A Black Kid Instead (or Torture Prisoners)
Chelsea Manning has been sentenced to jail for thirty-five years for committing the heinous crime of whistleblowing. Manning knows that she didn’t just commit a crime, she committed the wrong sort of crime: Manning spoke to reporters after the hearing, to admit his disappointment at the sentence, telling those gathered, “I look back to thatContinue reading “Drop The Whistle; Shoot A Black Kid Instead (or Torture Prisoners)”
The Police as Paramilitary Force: A Problematic Conception
It is rare to find a police force—anywhere in the world—that enjoys cordial relationships with the community it polices i.e., a police force that is viewed and treated inclusively as a member of the community, one not so much against the bad guys as for the good guys, and which conceives of itself as providingContinue reading “The Police as Paramilitary Force: A Problematic Conception”
American Horror Story’s Asylum: Site of Nightmares
American Horror Story‘s second season always promised to be creepier and more effective than the disappointing first season, which began well, but had devolved into a terrible mess by the time its end rolled around. The second season’s ending had its share of disappointments, but it had many fine moments that came before, the episodicContinue reading “American Horror Story’s Asylum: Site of Nightmares”
Ten Years After: War Criminals Still Walk Free
You call someone a ‘mass-murdering war criminal’, you best not miss. And so, when I use that term to describe the unholy troika of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld–as I have in the past–I should have very good reasons for doing so. Fortunately, that isn’t hard to do: a pretty systematic caseContinue reading “Ten Years After: War Criminals Still Walk Free”
Ten Years After: The Anti-War March of Feb 15, 2003
Exactly ten years ago, I gathered with hundreds of thousands of others, on a freezing cold day in New York City, to take part in an anti-war march. I was still hungover from a friend’s book party the previous night. We marched, got corralled into pens, felt our extremities freeze, jousted with policemen, lost friends,Continue reading “Ten Years After: The Anti-War March of Feb 15, 2003”
Samir Chopra 