The War Tapes was filmed by three New Hampshire National Guarsmen deployed in Iraq: Mike Moriarty, along with Steve Pink and Zack Brazzi, whose mom lives in Watertown, Mass and who was born in Lebanon (Zack speaks fluent Arabic).

The film starts with their deployment in March of 2004, and ends well after their return to civilian life. I found myself moved by the small things: such as the minute they arrive at Camp Anaconda, and they raise a New Hampshire State flag and say “We’re home”. What they witness in Iraq is hell, and we see some graphic stuff, but not anything the average adult can’t handle. Dead bodies, foul language, graphic descriptions. But mostly we witness the sheer and utter chaos that reigns in Iraq. Not knowing who your enemy is or where your enemy is; bombs going off, IEDs and VBIEDs, not knowing in which direction to shoot and that sense of knowing you came this close to going home in a body bag. Sixteen months later they board a plane and then a bus and the bus whizzes past the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign, and passes a New Hampshire State Trooper and again, tears came to my eyes. This is the moment those soldiers have survived for. The last third of the film is about the soldiers lives after returning. It’s clear that the war is not really over for them, as they suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, war related aches and pains, and the worst part of all: they’ve been through something that their families and coworkers and comrades back home cannot comprehend or understand. So they are alone, with their nightmares, their flashbacks, with their consciences.

Someone online posted how The War Tapes was propaganda, how it was slanted. Of course, everything has a slant, but this was pretty much on the level, and if it’s slanted it’s clear that efforts were at least taken for it not to be. It doesn’t shy from politics but doesn’t go overboard with them either; two of the soldiers clearly question the war, question George W. and his re-election, though they do not question what they themselves are doing. Brazzi says he’s willing to walk everywhere and recycle etc. because he doesn’t want to go to war for oil. He goes off on a diatribe about the evil of SUVs as he rides in an army tank through Baghdad. When he returns to the States, he becomes a citizen of the US, and he says “A good American loves his country and is suspicious of his government.” The third soldier, Moriarty, is staunchly Republican, with two SUVs back home declaring his love for W. But he still thinks Iraq is the worst thing he’s ever seen and he doesn’t want to go back.

I was profoundly moved by it and I hope a lot of people go see it. It’s hard to watch, but it puts you a lot closer to war than the evening news, and amen to that.

Everyone’s been raving about this movie, which I found odd considering Al is kind of, well, a stuffed shirt. Indeed, the film is like one long Power Point presentation, but it marks him as a person who knows his stuff, pounding the pavement for decades on a lonely mission to convince Americans and American politicians that the time to do something is now.. Not tomorrow, not in a year, not in ten. Now.

Supposedly, people have argued with his science. Surely he can’t be absolutely sure of the timeline on his future projections, but they are clearly based on a trajectory we have been on for decades, so it’s hardly a flawed hypothesis. To be honest, although I am already slanted in Al’s direction, I can’t see how you can find fault with his science. It’s not his science, after all. Other people did the research, created the charts. Al’s just showing us the truth. He’s showing us that people who have spoken this truth have had their lives threatened. Scientists in other places and times have actually been forced to change findings to please a status quo, or to keep mum about new information. Al just doesn’t understand why the US insist on focusing on three gold bars (symbolic of present day economics) when the entire globe hangs in the balance.

What horrified me was how we have the lowest automobile (emissions and miles per gallon) standards in the world. We are even behind China in this regard, China who is about to pass us or already has in terms of numbers of vehicles used daily in their country versus ours. We do more damage to the environment than any other country, and we do the least to prevent it, even though we are some big “super power”. Super power fart is what we are.

All I can say is, hang on. Learn to swim because we may be underwater soon, and if we aren’t, we may burn ourselves up in our formerly moderate environs (like mine in the NorthEast) as they go desert-like and unliveable.

At the end of the film, suggestions are offered on how to go “carbon neutral” and how to make changes that will help. One I loved: rather than say “Buy a hybrid” it said If you can, buy a hybrid. :) I appreciated that.

Francesca Lia Block’s books are in the category “Teens”, which is amusing because they are all about drugs, sex, alternative lifestyles, etc. So, controversial in other words. With Francesca it’s not about her stories….the stories are okay; post modern urban fairy tales you might say. Mostly it’s her characters that draw you in, with names like Rave, Jacaranda, Pixie and Pony and Winnie and Cubby. Skater boys with flat tops and androgynous girls with a penchant for falling in love with boys who turn out gay. These people are supercreative, making everything for themselves. But no, it’s not even the characters that make Francesca’s books total wonderlands: it’s the way she puts those damned words together. It’s the places she takes you: “Tonight, I’m at the club where Jacaranda and I used to hang.You take the stairs down beneath the pavement to a room with a low dragon-carved ceiling, red silk-fringed Chinese lanterns, a screen inlaid with peonies, bar of mahogany Buddhas. I’m wearing starry black thrift-shop lace, but even that feels too heavy in the cloying, prickly, woolly heat. All the tattooed-and -pierced ones are hanging out in the red-velvet booths drinking shiny martinis in lotus-shaped glasses or mai-tais decorated like Carmen Miranda hats. I walk around alone and wait.”

Her words make you want to dance, paint, write poetry, sing, sew your own clothes, and find yourself in the craziest weirdest way. I just love the way she writes, the words she uses, the worlds whe paints. She makes me want to go to California NOW.