Unqualified Offerings

ITEM: The Jawa Report has photos of what the Italian newspaper La Repubblica apparently represents as Giuliana Sgrena’s car. Its condition belies the Italian government claim that American soldiers fired hundreds of rounds at the vehicle. The photos show a single hole in the front windshield, and a nearly unblemished interior, plus a flat tire on the front driver’s side. The windshield story is at odds with the American account of “firing into the engine block” too – the hole is right there in the windshield – but it is not nearly as discrepant with the American version of events as the Italian.

Now this might not be the right car. I can’t read Italian. La Repubblica might have the wrong vehicle. (They appear to be working from Arabic video footage – not sure which station.) But if it is Sgrena’s car, it’s a blow to the credibility of the Italian version of events. It doesn’t establish that the checkpoint conduct was, in crime drama internal affairs division lingo, righteous, but a couple versus a couple hundred bullets is a pretty major thing to be wrong about. (Via Outside the Beltway.)

ITEM: Comicbookslut returns with “From Comics to Crap.” Karin L. Kross considers why Hollywood screws up the comics properties it purchases. She leaves aside superhero movies with the arguable exception of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, concentrating mostly on Things That Have Their Ultimate Origin in Alan Moore.

In the end, of course, there’s not much that any of us here on the ground can do about it. It’s annoying, though, to think that anyone might be getting bad impressions of good comics from incompetent films.

The fear is not misplaced. I understand the LOEG movie did largely kill sales of the graphic novel.

ITEM: Lori at Camera Obscura helps clean out my in-box. I got the impression from her Deadwood post more than her e-mail that she was planning or at least considering some “Against Battlestar Galactica” items, but perhaps not. In the meantime, I hope to see the new Deadwood episode in on-demand rerun this week.

ITEM: Tacitus is back, excitable as ever. The phrase “moral degeneracy” appears. I am, in a perfectly unironic way, curious as to why his Iraq-veteran friend is convinced that things in Iraq are better “especially, for Iraqi women,” since that not only contradicts reports from the, ahem – what do they call the established corportate TV stations and newspapers and radio programs and such again? you know – and (necessarily biased) female Iraqi bloggers, but even a staunch war supporter as Steven Vincent, who has spent a lot of time in-country and has many native-Iraqi sources. As to the import of the Iraqi elections, touched on by Tacitus, I think they’re akin to turning over the doubling cube in backgammon – the stakes go up but the outcome remains uncertain. If things go badly for Iraq henceforth, democracy can lose such prestige as it has gained and more. If things go well, we may well have more Arab democracies, though not necessarily less anti-American terrorism here and abroad.

ITEM: An official statement. Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin has become my favorite comics blog. Perhaps it will be yours too.

ITEM: Last week, Catallarchy published their internal debate about blog promotion, whether it is better to aim for a succession of “Instalanches” or “massive small-blog linkage.” Apparently the former strategy won. I think it’s the faux “one thing has been completely overlooked…” that has me irritated.

UPDATE ITEM: Nate at Polytropos reviews Gene Wolfe’s Wizard Knight bilogy, then adds some thoughts On Rereading Books.