![[F]](../_images/site.gif) New York Times on the Web Forums  Science
Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans
for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be
limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI
all over again?
    (7415 previous messages)
lunarchick
- 09:25am Jul 25, 2001 EST (#7416
of 7421)
lunarchick@www.com
RIP
Bandit Queen sold into marriage, raped ... fought oppression ...
Murdered by Organised Guns.
film The Bandit Queen. It is a remarkable piece of work,
not least because of the controversy it has engendered, leading it
to be banned in India for the present. The story is based on the
real-life events surrounding Phoolan Devi as she grew up in the
1970s. Destitute and from a lower caste, she was subjected to the
most humiliating physical and mental abuse from a group of
high-caste men in her village. Unable to take it any more, she got
her revenge when she transgressed all convention and joined a
group of bandits, eventually becoming the leader of her own gang
until her arrest in 1983. By then she had become a folk heroine
and revolutionary symbol with her devotees creating their own
images of her.
In an attempt to understand how a myth is made, Kapur and the
screenwriter Mala Sen – who wrote a book about Devi based on the
diaries she kept while in prison – create a mythology of their
own. The extraordinary story deals with issues of sexuality and
class – which make it so contentious in India – and is filmed in
epic style with much made of the cracked and hard Chambal valley
landscape in which the action is set. The haunting soundtrack by
the Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan compounds the mood. But
central to the film is the brilliant performance from Seema Biswas
who plays Devi with a suitably fierce intensity. Certainly the
role is not an easy one. The scenes in which Devi is raped and
tortured are extremely disturbing, though sensitively constructed
to avoid exploitation. ‘Was I born of an act of love or violence?’
Devi cries at one point, feeling no more than a piece of
dispensable trash. Biswas persuades us of Devi’s transformation
as, rather than remain a victim, she is fuelled by a visceral
anger and ends up perpetrating bloody deeds of her own.
If this is not dramatic material enough, the film already has
its own bizarre coda. While the film champions Devi, she herself
has chosen to distance herself from it – though she has yet to see
it. What’s more she has threatened to set herself on fire if The
Bandit Queen is ever released in India; hence the present ban.
Kapur is attempting to contest the decision and one suspects there
is a further saga to come.
lunarchick
- 09:37am Jul 25, 2001 EST (#7417
of 7421)
lunarchick@www.com
GU Thread Bio-weapons
lunarchick
- 10:02am Jul 25, 2001 EST (#7418
of 7421)
lunarchick@www.com
Bwsh is cooking
up a storm on the world stage!
lunarchick
- 10:06am Jul 25, 2001 EST (#7419
of 7421)
lunarchick@www.com
Weapons - the 5000 year old Ice-Man found on the Italian
Alps is now thought to have died from an arrow, the head is in his
shoulder.
lunarchick
- 10:07am Jul 25, 2001 EST (#7420
of 7421)
lunarchick@www.com
Weapons - the 5000 year old Ice-Man found on the Italian
Alps is now thought to have died from an arrow. The head, of which,
is embedded in his leather shoulder.
rshowalter
- 10:13am Jul 25, 2001 EST (#7421
of 7421) 
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Thank God that the military-industrial complex's efforts, in the
last decade, have been so amazingly ineffectual -- that they've made
such fundamental mistakes, both at the level of mathematics and of
judgement - and that they are now committed to "weapons" that are so
totally ineffectual, except as sinks for US national wealth.
We are dealing with an amazingly deep, wide, longstanding
pattern of fraud here.
And that is becoming more widely known.
Some ideas are difficult, not because they are complicated, but
because the challenge so many preconceptions at once -- because they
are, in some social and psychological sense, "unthinkable."
The idea that the United States military industrial complex is
corrupt in decisive ways and a fraud on the whole
world is becoming thinkable.
But perhaps, in the real world, people who've been crazy in an
area of their lives have to come to their senses slowly. Maybe that
is happening now.
We need to overcome Chain Breakers ... http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618
We are in ugly situations where honesty and hard work are needed.
Maybe there are good reasons for hope - though there's plenty to
fear, too. The US military-industrial complex has screwed up so
much, so long, that they've taken the whole world to the edge of
destruction - - we need to wake up, and step back.
   
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