Editor's note: Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House. He is an affiliated professor at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute.
What is one to make of Sarah Palin's defensive, bitter, self-centered speech in response to the mass killings in Arizona?
It may well work, in that dog-whistle way the former Alaska governor has, with some ultra-conservatives. But the speech is one more piece of evidence (as if we needed one) that Palin, even at a time when Americans are crying out for healing and unity, is a strikingly polarizing figure.
When she first burst on the national scene, I watched her convention speech and could not imagine Ronald Reagan delivering it. She was sarcastic and caustic and harsh -- everything Reagan was not. I felt the same thing watching her post-Arizona video presentation. The Gipper was a tough partisan and a strong conservative, but he had a sunny, optimistic worldview and a resilient, Teflon manner that slipped punches, drawing in even those who disagreed with him, and driving Democrats to distraction.
Reagan understood the biblical wisdom that "A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." Palin seems hell-bent on using the most grievous words (including the calumny "blood libel") to stir up still more anger: the one thing we already have a surplus of.
Palin's speech goes on for 1,141 words, yet she never mentions the names of the victims (except a reference to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords). Reagan's Challenger speech is just 650 words, and includes heartfelt and personal tribute to all seven of the astronauts who died. The famously prolix President Clinton mourned the 168 Americans murdered by right-wing terrorists in Oklahoma City with just 918 words. But it's just not fair to compare Palin to Reagan or Clinton. They were giants; she is a pygmy.
The timing is wrong, the tone is wrong and the tenor is wrong. Palin talks way too much about herself: how she learned of the shooting, how she reflected on what happened, how she has been puzzled. She lectures us about personal responsibility, about civic engagement, about spirited debate, sharing her views of history and political science and blah, blah, blah.
With a defensiveness that is perhaps understandable, she reminds us that she wisely disavowed violence during a speech in Arizona during the 2010 campaign. But she fails to acknowledge that she did so because three days earlier -- as congressional Democrats were receiving death threats -- she had released the now-infamous map putting Giffords' district and others in cross hairs and urged her followers to "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"
Of course, this is not to say that Palin's rhetoric -- or anyone else's -- had anything to do with this massacre. But her selective recall is self-serving.
Palin could have done something big here. She could have acknowledged that, while bull's-eyes are common political graphics, perhaps in retrospect she should have heeded Giffords' concerns and changed the map. She could have risen above those who unfairly attacked her, saying that she understands how in a time of pain and confusion people sometimes say hurtful things.
She could have called for earlier intervention and better mental health care. She could have even shocked the world and said no one needs a 33-round gun magazine for either self-defense or hunting. (Then again, perhaps Palin is the only one who does. Anyone who misses a caribou five times with a high-powered rifle is no hunter.)
Most of all, Palin could have spoken to us as the devoted mother of five who felt the pain of the parents who lost their child, and of the children who lost their parents in that savage attack. In fact, the words of comfort she did offer felt almost like an afterthought: Oh, yeah, sorry about all those people who were shot ... but did you hear the nasty things the liberals are saying about me? She desperately needed someone to tell her, "Sarah, I know the attacks on you sting, but don't you really want to focus on the attacks that killed six Americans and wounded 13 more?"
This was no Mama Grizzly protecting her cubs. This was a bitter, self-centered politician protecting her hide.
White may be making a comeback on the red carpet this award season, if Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis has anything to say about it.
FOR THE RECORD:
In an earlier version of this article, the age of British-Iranian actress and Amnesty International spokewoman Nazanin Boniadi was given as 39. She's 31.
Haggis, the director of "Crash," and others are urging Hollywood stars to pin on white lapel ribbons to register their opposition to the Iranian government's treatment of acclaimed director Jafar Panahi ("Offside") and fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who were sentenced last month to six years in prison and banned from making movies for 20 years.
Panahi was a supporter of the protest movement that sprang to life after the disputed 2009 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was arrested in March on charges of conspiring to make an unauthorized movie that chronicled the movement; Rasoulof was accused of collaborating with him.
The filmmakers were convicted of national security violations, including propagandizing against the system, a charge often lodged against journalists and artists critical of the hard-line government. They are appealing.
Though Haggis does not know Panahi and Rasoulof personally, and the Iranian government is notoriously resistant to outside pressure, he said he felt compelled do to something when he heard the news.
"When I see something like this, it hits pretty close to home," said Haggis, who with Sean Penn, Martin Scorsese and producer Harvey Weinstein joined with Amnesty International to condemn the sentence and sign Amnesty's petition calling for international pressure on Iran to lift it.
"We just can't point the finger over here. Intolerance is growing in our country as well, so it may be absurd to say what is happening there couldn't happen here," says Haggis, founder of Artists for Peace and Justice, an anti-poverty and social justice effort that has been particularly active in Haiti relief efforts. "It has happened here before" with the 1950s Hollywood anti-Communist blacklist, he noted.
The sentencing of Panahi and Rasoulof will definitely be a hot topic next week at the Sundance Film Festival. Two young Iranian-born directors who are having world premieres at the festival have been speaking out about their plight.
Ali Samadi Ahadi ("Lost Children") — whose latest film, the documentary collage "The Green Wave," is about the events before and after the presidential elections in 2009 and is screening in competition at Sundance — has already run into problems talking about Panahi. Though he has lived in Germany for the last 25 years, he has family in Iran, including his sister and mother. Shortly after a recent interview with the Voice of America, he said his sister was visited by the secret police.
"The only thing you can do is do what you think is right," says Ahadi, who was last in Iran two months before the 2009 election. "If we are talking human rights … then we have to say that Jafar Panahi had made nothing illegal. He used his fundamental human rights and his fundamental rights as a filmmaker. That is the reason we have to raise our voice to say 'stop.' He is really the representation of all filmmakers in Iran and normal people in the streets. If they do that with Jafar Panahi, you can ask yourself how easy can they put pressure on the normal people" to be quiet.
Another young Iranian filmmaker, Maryam Keshavarz ("The Color of Love"), whose drama "Circumstance," which chronicles the relationship between two girls, is also in competition at Sundance, says it has gotten progressively harder to get permits to make films in Iran.
"My brother, who is also a filmmaker, shot before the elections, and it was really difficult," says Keshavarz, who lives in New York. "Now it's nearly impossible to get permits, and producers don't want to take the risk. I shot 'Circumstance' in Lebanon, and a lot of people are starting to make films out of the country, though they are placed in Iran."
British-Iranian actress and Amnesty International spokeswoman Nazanin Boniadi, 31, who last saw her native country when she was 12, said that what is being done with the Amnesty campaign "is really trying to give a voice to the director. Our goal right now is to galvanize Hollywood and the worldwide artistic community to take action."
Besides Amnesty's petition, Directors Guild of America President Taylor Hackford and the National Society of Film Critics have condemned the sentencing of Panahi and Rasoulof.
"To have art suppressed is very dangerous to society. That is why it's so important for me to raise my voice and do something about it," Boniadi says. "As far as the 2009 elections go, there has been a serious crackdown on human rights in Iran, a clampdown on the media and the wrongful imprisonment of journalists. So it seems what's happening is the government is going after people who have a voice, people who change society or public opinion."
Whether the international outcry will have any influence is uncertain. Jan-Christopher Horak, head of the UCLA Film and Television Archive, which since 1990 has presented an annual Celebration of Iranian Cinema, voiced some pessimism.
"You know these kind of governments are unpredictable," he says. "There is no way to know. But I will tell you filmmakers always find a way regardless of what the political conditions are in any given country. One arrest does not change that."
Shirin Neshat, an Iranian visual artist and director of the acclaimed 2009 film "Women Without Men," lives in New York. She hasn't returned to Iran since 1996 because her photographs, short films and her feature film look at the life of women in contemporary Islamic societies. "The government has problems with my own work," she says. "You don't have to do much to get in trouble with this government."
Since the elections in 2009 and the subsequent uprising, says Neshat, "a lot of us who were not really activists but slightly political began to be fully activists. We have been so present and vocal in the medium…. That goes back to Jafar. He is a social realist. And yet the minute this course of events happened, he took a side, and his side was very clear. He was not being cautious. He was doing what he believed in. The government is basically punishing him for not being afraid and continuing to take his positions."
Panahi recently sent an impassioned statement to the Iranian court in which he defended his work while telling the judge that the whole of Iranian cinema was on trial.
"You are putting me on trial for making a film that, at the time of the arrest, was only thirty percent shot. If these charges are true, you are putting not only us on trial but the socially conscious, humanistic and artistic Iranian cinema as well, which tries to stay beyond good and evil, a cinema that does not judge or surrender to power or money, but tries to honestly reflect a realistic image of the society."
Though several directors have left Iran, including the renowned Bahman Ghobadi ("No One Knows About Persian Cats"), Panahi has no plans to leave his homeland.
"I am staying in my country and I like to work in my own country," he said in his statement. "I love my country, I have paid a price for this love too, and I am willing to pay again if necessary."
The words "tourism" and "Iraq" don't often get used in the same sentence these days, but if a new project to help preserve the historic ruins of Babylon pays off, archaeologists and officials say the country could soon be back on the international travel map.
So far, 2011 has been a good year for Babylon. Work funded by a $2 million U.S. State Department grant to restore two major structures has begun and one of two museums on the site damaged in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion is re-opening.
Home to several other ancient sites, including Ur -- the capital of the ancient civilization of Sumeria -- Iraq faces a race against time to protect its heritage against looters, environmental hazards and the ravages of modern life.
It is hoped the project at Babylon, whose legendary Hanging Gardens were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, will help foster the skills needed to transform Iraq's other renowned archaeological sites into a major draw for academics and tourists.
"We're using (Babylon) as a lab for skill building," said Jeff Allen, a conservationist with the World Monuments Fund, which is working with Iraqi officials to try to secure United Nations World Heritage protection for the site.
Although Babylon may not necessarily be top of a very long to-do list for archaeologists in the conflict-scarred country, starting there is crucial because of the site's global fame and its significance to Iraqis, Allan said.
"It holds a certain identity for them, so although I could say there are better archaeological sites in Iraq, probably none of them holds the symbolism for Iraqis that this site does," he said.
Such is Babylon's draw that even as security spiraled out of control in 2004, a handful of Christian American religious tourists were trying to gain access to the site, then occupied by U.S. and later Polish troops.
Originally known as Babel, Babylon is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments in the Bible. The city was the site of the legendary Tower of Babel and features in several Biblical prophecies.
The Iraqi government says 165 tourists from 16 different countries entered Iraq to visit historic sites between 2009 and 2010. It says their willingness to visit despite ongoing risks of violence proves Iraq's potential.
"Considering the security situation that Iraq is passing through, this number of foreign visitors gives a very good indicator of how important tourism is in Iraq and how big the tourism industry will be in the near future," said Tourism and Antiquities Ministry spokesman Abdul Zahra al-Talaqani.
The U.S. Department of State warns that "numerous insurgent groups remain active throughout Iraq" and "recommends against all but essential travel within the country."
The British Foreign office echoes that advice, saying that throughout Iraq "the situation remains highly dangerous."
According to al-Talaqani, Babylon is expected to play such a key part in reviving the country's tourism fortunes that plans are in the works to create a new airport near the site.
If followed through, this development is likely to be emblematic of the delicate balancing act faced by those restoring Babylon: the need to protect it from the pressures of modern life while bowing to the demands of locals who will need to exploit it to earn a living.
"As an archaeological site, you deal with the authentic remains and try to preserve its integrity," said Allen. "At the same time you're trying to offer opportunities for economic growth of the local area."
Another tricky problem is the extensive reconstruction undertaken under Saddam Hussein. Many features were rebuilt -- poorly, experts agree -- including a massive palace, the removal of which would cost millions of dollars.
For now, work is focused on two structures, Babylon's Ishtar Gate and its Nabu sha Hare temple, where effects of the Saddam-era reconstruction are problematic but more surmountable.
Nevertheless, the problems are being exacerbated by rising levels of corrosive water, as agricultural waste water and waste from villages pushes the water table up through surrounding salt lands.
"The degradation is at an incredible, alarming rate," said Allen of the effect of the groundwater on these structures. "We're going to have to do more investigations and find out who did what, then remove the additions and see what we have."
For those trying to preserve Babylon, it would seem the work has only just begun.
The right of the people to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” as the First Amendment to the United States Constitution phrases it, would seem to be a basic feature of the relationship between citizen and state. Even nondemocratic systems acknowledge the principle that the rulers should listen to the complaints of the ruled. Zhao Liang’s “Petition,” a brave and wrenching new documentary from China, takes a bottom-up view of the cruel and absurd ways that lofty ideal is put into practice on the streets of Beijing.
“Where is Petition City?” a man asks early in the film, which was made over more than a decade, culminating in the ambiguous civic triumph of the 2008 Summer Olympics. He is referring to the maze of tents and shanties that house temporary migrants from the provinces who have come to the nation’s capital to appeal for help after encountering indifference, intransigence or outright abuse from the local authorities. The petitioners, some of whom have spent years away from home, tell tales that are sometimes confusing and often horrific. They carry bundles of evidence and write down painstaking accounts of unjust incarceration, bureaucratic bullying and worse. There are reports of beatings and torture, confiscated land, even murder at the hands of powerful and unscrupulous officials.
Each day, some of them crowd into offices, shouting and waving slips of paper as police officers shove them and harried functionaries behind thick, barred windows either try to placate them or shoo them away. Outside the offices, the petitioners are menaced by “retrievers,” well-dressed goons on hand to persuade their fellow citizens to go back home. The retrievers’ purpose is to protect the local powers that be, who might be punished by the central government if there are too many credible reports of corruption or unfairness.
Mr. Zhao’s camera is a stubborn, patient witness to some shocking scenes of bullying and intimidation, and he also offers a sympathetic ear to the ordinary people whose government hardly seems to care. “Petition” is an anthology of Kafkaesque anecdotes, most of them fragmentary, but what gives it shape and almost unbearable dramatic weight are the handful of stories the director pursues in detail. The most sustained of these — the stuff of a tragic novel — involves a woman named Qi, who has come from the countryside after her husband’s death. She is joined by their daughter, Xiaojuan, and it is only late in the film, after they have been separated and reunited, that you realize how long their ordeal has lasted, and how terrible it has been.
“Petition” is part of a wave of recent documentaries that examine, in relentless detail, social and economic conditions in the country. Some of Mr. Zhao’s subjects are almost shockingly candid in their condemnation of the Communist Party’s rule, and in their demands for a more democratic government. (It is perhaps not so shocking that the most outspoken are jailed or committed to mental institutions, or that they return to the petition office after being released). Their courage is evident, but so is their smallness in the face of a vast and complex authoritarian system.
“Petition” opens on Friday at the Anthology Film Archives, which is also presenting Mr. Zhao’s earlier feature, “Crime and Punishment.” That film, about the day-to-day work of military police officers, takes place far from Beijing, but its fine-grained insights into the workings of state power complement and complicate those seen in “Petition.” Neither documentary is easy to watch, and the double feature is almost unbearable, but together they offer eye-opening testimony both to the rigors of life in contemporary China and to the power of committed and honest cinema.
As the nation focuses on health care, there's an entire area that most of us haven't considered: care for our animals. Yet, these animals face a critical challenge: There are not enough health-care providers. There is only one veterinarian in this country for every 10,000 companion and large animals, including dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, dairy cows, beef cattle, swine, sheep and horses.
Animals represent a $900 billion industry, and the shortage of veterinarians impacts all of us.
Two out of three households have a dog or a cat, and the U.S. meat and poultry industries provide the meat on our dinner tables and eggs in our omelets. While our 28 schools of veterinary medicine across the country rise to meet this challenge, there's a particular need to find students who want to care for large animals such as beef and dairy cattle, horses, sheep and hogs.
Still other veterinary professionals are needed in public health, pathology, teaching, regulatory medicine and research. Animals serve as health sentinels for us. Think about H1N1, mad cow and West Nile diseases that affect humans as well as animals. Veterinarians have been at the forefront preventing, researching, monitoring and trying to contain their spread.
The therapies developed for animals and the medical clues we learn from treating them often translate into improved health-care options for you and me as well. Our comparative oncology program, for example, focuses on identifying causes and cures for pets' cancer that might one day apply to all of us.
The tremendous demand for veterinarians is creating career opportunities, but preparing, attracting and educating new students will take time. In most cases, it takes eight years to train a new veterinarian. Students first complete pre-veterinary college requirements and then invest another four years in veterinary school. Many even go beyond that, specializing in the same areas that serve human health, from oncology to orthopedics to ophthalmology.
One way to meet this need for more veterinarians is to encourage our youngsters to consider these careers early. Purdue University is reaching out with Boiler Vet Camps, Boiler Vet Clubs, ZipTrips (electronic field trips for middle-school children) and a diversity scholarship program. We also are one of only three veterinary schools in the country that train both veterinarians and veterinary technicians. To date, Purdue has graduated 1,000 veterinary technicians who possess the nursing skills to support veterinarians.
We should encourage students with an interest in science to consider veterinary medicine as a career. At Purdue, we are doing our part through creative and innovative programming and by planning to expand enrollment in our School of Veterinary Medicine by 20 percent.
These initiatives, coupled with a concerted effort in our country to recognize and promote the importance of the veterinary profession, will enable us collectively to ensure quality care for the animals that play such an important role in our lives and in our economy.
