Zero Dark Thirty

Tuesday was the first day of the school year, and also my dear wife returned to work. So, as a person who works from home, you would imagine I just revelled in the peace and quiet and/or called a No Pants Day. In fact I decided that I, - free of the need to include, involve, listen to or supervise others - would walk to North Hobart, see a very long movie, then walk home again. And that would be my day.

So, I had a very nice walk. I get anxious about being late for things, and that has spoiled my enjoyment of many a walk - the thought that if I don’t speed up I’m going to miss something. I walked to school with Elf and the kids thinking after that I would walk home, and then at some stage head off to the cinema for the 10.45 showing. At some point I abandoned that plan, and after seeing the kids to their new classrooms, I just kept on walking, and gave myself a very, very leisurely stroll.

Now to the movie. I had seen that it had very positive reviews, and the chap in the local paper said that it dealt with the very violent real events (torture, terrorist attacks and the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden) in a restrained way - which convinced me to see it, as I am not interested in gore & splatter.

The first two minutes are sound only - over a black screen you hear very affecting audio from September 11. At the start of the film we meet Maya, the young, slim, redhead CIA officer who becomes obsessed with finding Bin Laden. This is all supposedly based on the facts, but I don’t know if this is a montage of more than one person or a completely invented character.

She is newly arrived in-country at one of the CIA’s secret bases. I forget if this was in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Her new boss Dan is waterboarding a prisoner, and we get to see plenty of that. It’s monstrous. Some such as Waleed Aly have called this a pro-torture film. Maya goes from being very uncomfortable witnessing waterboardings, to ordering them to be carried out. As she is the “hero” of the film and is ultimately successful in getting intelligence that leads them to OBL, it leaves itself open to this accusation.

But I disagree. The film does not show any prisoner giving up intelligence while being waterboarded or immediately after. Maya’s stroke of genius was  POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT  to convince a disoriented and sleep-deprived man that he had already told them what they wanted to know. From there, he let his guard down. Yes - waterboarding, 24-hour death metal music and other abuses of human rights got him to that point.

I am an Amnesty member and anti-torture. The reality is that there is a wide grey area between what is illegal and what I am comfortable with. Do I have the right to urge the banning of things that are a) effective and b) not illegal? 

One of the planks of Amnesty’s anti-torture platform is actually expressed by a sceptical character in the film, and it’s not about human rights at all. It is that “intelligence gained through torture is low quality intelligence - in these circumstances people just say anything”. This is an amoral argument against torture, but a good one, which is why Amnesty uses it.

I think what the film does show is that the treatment the US defines as being short of torture is (as depicted) torture. The US military says that waterboarding is OK as it is not “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” Dan says repeatedly to the prisoner - “You lie to me, I hurt you” and then does. Whether it’s severe - well, Maya didn’t want to watch when she was first confronted with it.

I got caught up in the spy thriller aspect, but a bit confused by some of the helicopters-over-Abbotabad stuff.  PSA  One chopper is damaged on landing and can’t take off. Some of the SEALs on the ground blow it up, as it is a top-secret weapon, but we see that from within the other chopper that has taken off. So guys were left behind? No - it looks like everyone makes it back OK. Odd.

It was a very good film, but one that filled me with dread and paranoia. If I was backpacking near the Pakistan border now (rather than 15 years ago) this is NOT a film I would like see. It is not going to win any friends in the Pakistan Tourism Board, that’s for sure. 

Flat drinks with His Excellency

So just as I was falling sick on Tuesday evening, I was obliged to attend a reception at Government House in honour of the 50th birthday of Amnesty International. I changed into my suit at work, and went over to the taxi rank. The first vehicle was a van. I went and hopped into the normal cab behind, which wasn't easy as the metal railing along the rank seems designed to prevent this. I asked the cabbie if it was OK - I felt it would be weird to hire a van for just myself. I didn't even have a bag I could consider as "freight". He indicated that I should get in the van. So, I arrived at Government House looking like I had come to clean the pool.

Nevertheless, I joined a knot of shivering strangers outside the castellated clock tower, assuming they must be other Amnesty members. The word had gone around that at six o'clock we would be admitted to the tower, where a Braided Functionary would tell us what was required of us. On the Governor's turf, it's Governor's Rules. You queue up holding your invitation upside down so Braided Functionary 2 can read it and announce you, as you step in and shake hands with His Excellency and the Mrs.

A few years ago when we needed a new governor, the premier appointed Richard Butler, the international diplomat, who had spent hardly any time in Tasmania. He was an unmitigated disaster who offended everyone, and was essentially paid $650,000 to resign. He was replaced by the then Chief Justice, William Cox (shout out to his niece Anna!) When he retired the next Chief Justice, Peter Underwood, was bumped along to be Governor. You get the feeling that since the Butler Fiasco, only eminent local wiggy types are to be trusted with the keys to the big house.

So we filed in and shook hands with the gubernatorial couple, and filed into a large reception room. There were probably 100 Amnesty people there - lots of rank and file people like myself. The consensus was that they had just invited everybody. There were drinks - OJ, G&T or small glasses of flat-looking beer. For some reason I took the beer. The nibbles were just OK. His Excellency made a nice speech about human rights. At seven, a clock went 'bong', the fresh drinks were whisked away, and the food platters quietly disappeared. After a while functionaries began circulating, just quietly mentioning to selected influential groups that it was time to go, and let His Excellency and Mrs Underwood have dinner and watch Winners and Losers.

The rest of us got the message and joined the tide of human-rights-loving volunteers, who flowed out into the night, debating what to have for dinner and negotiating lifts home.

Edgetables

I just thought up that name for my new greengrocers shop: purveyors of black carrots, blue tomatoes and tattooed pumpkins, maaaaaan.

Again I am going to gather my thoughts about the last week and get them down in blog form. It will be scattered and patchy - sorry in not-quite-advance-anymore.

So - I saw a man walking a large cat through the light bushy fringe of suburban Mt Nelson this morning. It was right at the edge of my vision, and I realised that what I had taken for a dog was too slinky yet self-important. The man had a newspaper under his arm. At first I thought (with joy) he had walked to the shop and back with cat at heel. In fact I think the cat probably roams through this bit of bush near his home, and appeared to meet him as he was almost to the spot where the general bush turned into his backyard.

I was at a soccer clinic with Marcus at the time. All the boys in his team were invited to come along to a "Regional Development Squad". At Under 9 I don't think there is any selection process. Any kids motivated enough to front up for more soccer on Sunday after playing on Saturday are welcome. Marcus really loved it, and made the perceptive comment, "That was really training, because we learned something. Our soccer practice is practice but it isn't training."

His team won 14-0 yesterday, against a team that was fielding some Grade 1 kids. It was obvious from the start that it was going to get lopsided. David takes the corners, and he is one of the few under 9s around that can actually get the ball up in the air - then its just a question of getting it to bounce off anyone, and a goal is pretty likely. Marcus and Felix however both scored impressive intentionally-headed goals. One of the smaller kids was carried off with an injury towards the end. We scored our fourteenth as the ball rolled between the goalie's legs. Groan. Not very good for anyone when it comes out like that. I asked around at the clinic today to find out why that team is playing such little kids, when they seemed to have enough big kids (they had 3 or 4 subs). The answer just seemed to be that the little kids wanted to do it.

To work then. Although I am a designer I like to do the proofreading as well. Anything I am typesetting, it just comes naturally to read it, and fact-check as well as spell-check. I think it's important that we get things right. Sometimes I am accused of being pedantic or some kind of quizmaster freak. A few things got on top of me this week and by Thursday I was fighting the urge to thump particular workmates, who wanted to interrupt my work to discuss particular corrections I had made.

On Friday afternoon the directors called up from one of the bars downstairs for us all to knock off and come down for a drink to celebrate finishing this particular project. They were a few drinks ahead of us, and love was in the air. We were all terrific, indispensable etc. One said "Heyyyy - congratulations, you're our first employee to make it to long service leave!" Apparently I am qualified for 3 months leave with pay. This is odd, because before we got our fridge-sized dog I enquired about LSS. We had half a mind to take the kids out of school for a term, and drive around Australia. At the time I was told it was 5 years away. So on Friday I asked if they were sure. The answer was "Um, pretty sure?"

I had two exciting invitations in the last week. One is to Government House for a reception to honour Amnesty International's 50th anniversary. I was pretty surprised as I volunteer on AI's market stall, but that's it. I'm not even a financial member. Still, I will climb into the suit and hopefully not let the prisoners of conscience down by using the wrong fork.

The other invitation was from a new online parenting magazine, to write blog posts for them. Once that is up and running I will put up links here. I warned them that parenting advice appears less in my blogs than, say, zebras. They seem unfazed.

OK, one last thing. I was invited to go to see Dave Graney last night but passed, as I thought I needed a quiet night. Then Elf announced we were going to My Friend The Chocolate Cake, the veteran acoustic combo. Imp and Ed came as well, and we all enjoyed it immensely.

They consist of piano, double bass, cello, violin, guitar and drums. The pianist, singer and main writer, David Bridie is one of Australia's great songwriters, and has a very distinctive voice. I don't think he has great vocal range but he is perfect for this music. The highlight for me was to see and hear the interactions between David and Hope Csutoros on violin, and particularly between Hope and Helen Mountford on cello. They just love playing together, you can tell. And they've been doing it for 21 years now. The bassist, Dean, is from Hobart. His Mum and Dad were taking tickets on the door.

Small world etc

Last night was the Amnesty International fundraising quiz night. I could not persuade any of my so-called friends to join my quiz team, so I turned up at the event alone. I felt obliged to go as I had helped with the promotions, and had assured everyone involved at the time that I'd be there with bells on, with all my mates, being quite a popular fellow y'know.

The thing was a sellout, despite clashing with a big footy match on TV, and I was only able to squeak in when some ticketholders didn't show. By necessity I joined their team, as there was just nowhere else to sit. I knew one of the team slightly but they were all very nice. Smart too - after three rounds we were leading the pack.

One of the team was a lively sixty-something chap called Pat. After one question ("Who was the last Tasmanian to win the Archibald Prize for Portraiture?" [A: Geoff Dyer]) - Pat asked "And whose brother did he paint?" I was a bit flummoxed. The sitter for the portrait was author Richard Flanagan. His brother Martin is quite well known, but I know he also has 3 or 4 other siblings. Anyway - turned out the answer Pat was looking for was himself - he's another brother.

I was very pleased with this, as although I think very highly of Richard, Martin is actually one of my very favourite writers. Richard is mates with my boss and pops up everywhere, while Martin is based in Melbourne and much more retiring. So I earbashed Pat for some time about how great Martin is and he said he would pass it on.

Martin's last book 'The Line' was written with and about their father Arch, a WW2 veteran in his nineties. I was pleased to hear that he's still with us, and going pretty well. He was a prisoner of war on the Burma Railway with Weary Dunlop.

So, I had a good night, was very pleased to meet Pat Flanagan and we even won the quiz, so I staggered home laden with bottles of wine, each with a big label spruiking the politician who donated it.