It is called the hurt locker. This is the place that all members of the military eventually visit. Combat veterans spend more time in it, but all veterans and especially medical personnel, are familiar with its infinite pain. The more skin you have in the game the deeper the hurt.

I am still in the hurt locker. I spent 16 years in the US Army. Thirteen years as an Army brat and then a 3 year enlistment as a volunteer for Viet Nam. I was a medic with the 23rd Infantry, infamous for its killing of over 300 Vietnamese men, women and infants. My war has come from behind me to sit now every day in front of my face. 

Ft. Hood is the latest revelation from the hurt locker. The Major who killed and wounded his comrades was chained in the hurt locker by his pain and rage. The pain was absorbed from the comrades he aided and the rage was fed by inability to stop the pain. Hunters have discovered traps with the gnawed off limb of an animal still in it. This is an apt description of the hurt locker.

Charlie Liteky and Hugh Thompson are perhaps the best two examples of veterans who escaped the hurt locker and somehow preserved their humanity. Charlie Liteky was a chaplain with the 199th Infantry in Viet Nam in 1967. During a firefight he personally dragged 20 men to choppers while under constant fire.  He received the Medal of Honor. In July of 1986 he returned and renounced the Medal of Honor. He left in a brown paper at the Viet Nam Veterans Wall in Washington DC. He was out of the hurt locker. 

Hugh Thompson is the Cobra Gunship pilot who leveled his mini-guns on Capt Medina and Lt. Calley at My Lai in 1968 and promised he would waste them if they didn’t immediately cease firing on Vietnamese women and children.  He was ostracized and forgotten about until he was awarded the Soldiers Medal in March of 1998.  He has since died of cancer. 

These two veterans walked out of the hurt locker by retaining their humanity and resisting the killing and pain that surrounded them.  The US military is being used and abused by its general officers and the civilian leadership of this country.  I fear what is hidden and yet to come out of the hurt locker. 

Dave ionno
Veteran for peace and Viet Nam veteran against War

(EFF) Secrecy surrounds law enforcement’s communications surveillance practices like a dense fog. Particularly shrouded in secrecy are government demands issued under 18 U.S.C. § 2703 of the Stored Communications Act or “SCA” that seek subscriber information or other user records from communications service providers. When the government wants such data from a phone company or online service provider, it can obtain a court order under the SCA demanding the information from the provider, along with a gag order preventing the provider from disclosing the existence of the government’s demand. More often, companies are simply served with subpoenas issued directly by prosecutors without any court involvement; these demands, too, are rarely made public. (For more background on how the SCA works, see this section of EFF’s Surveillance Self-Defense manual.)

Continued…

Brian Baker from South Park Inn, a shelter in Hartford, Natalie Matthews and Sara Zucker from the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness discuss CT’s current homeless situation, in a time when the economy is making getting by a lot more difficult.

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Sunday, November 8

10:30AM-Breakfast and a Movie: Barstool Cowboy (90 min.) w/ short: Mama &
Nardo (8 min.) at Red Rock Tavern
1:00PM-Hallelujah the Hills (82 min.) w/ short: Hallelujah the Villa (28
min.) at La Paloma Sabanera Coffeehouse
4:00PM- Carnivalesque Films’ New Work In Progress (running time TBA) Q&A
with directors David Redmon & Ashley Sabin at La Paloma Sabanera
Coffeehouse
7:30PM-Still Bill (77 min.) w/ short: You Wanted To Make A Film? (25 min.)
at The Studio @ Billings Forge

FILM DESCRIPTIONS:
Woodpecker
Director: Alex Karpovsky
[75 min. | USA | 2009]
Fanatical birdwatchers have descended upon a small town in the Arkansas
bayou in hopes of finding the celebrated Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Declared
extinct in the 1940′s, the bird has apparently been spotted by numerous
experts. Enter amateur birder and poet Johnny Neander, who has convinced
his taciturn sidekick that he will be the one to find the elusive
woodpecker. The ensuing chaos divides the small town between believers and
non-believers, rabid environmentalists and opportunistic entrepreneurs.
Much like the bird itself, Woodpecker explores the intersection of fact
and fiction, manipulating our notions of documentary and narrative
techniques within a tragic comedy about hope, perception, and some very
very strange birds.

Blue Sky
Director Luke Sieczek
[20 min. | USA | 2009]
Who am I? Friend… enemy… both? Our friendship has always been a
problem. We never know what to do with it: what is possible and what is
impossible between us.
Blue Sky is a coming-of-age story about four characters dreaming of love
and friendship. A world of daydream and fantasy merges with a reality that
reverberates with uncertain expectations. Thoughts and emotions turn into
snow, wind, sunlight and rain.

Call Me If You Need Me
Director James Lee
[104 min. | Malaysia | 2009 | Mandarin, Cantonese, & Malay with English
subtitles]
James Lee’s newest indie film is a classic brotherhood gangster yarn
fronted by a lead turn by local music wunderkind Pete Teo. Ah Soon and Or
Kia are two cousins who grew up together in a small village. As an adult,
aggressive Ah Soon now lives in the city and works as a debt collector. He
invites Or Kia, the simpler and more righteous of the two, to join his
expanding business. It would be Ping, Ah Soon’s new girlfriend who would
act as the bridge between the two me, as the age-old themes of loyalty and
honor are explored.

Chasing Cats and Cars
Director Liew Seng Tat
[12 min. | Malaysia | 2009 | Mandarin, Cantonese, & Malay with English
subtitles]
What can a leg do without the man who should be fixed to it? About how you
can forget a leg and the leg decides to go its own way. Exercise in its
own form of absurdism. Jokes are good if you tell them well. Strange jokes
have to be told even better. The maker likes really strange jokes and
that’s why he practices telling them well. Man takes his injured friend to
the hospital. There it becomes apparent that a leg is missing.

Mary May’s Suicide Letter
Director: John Fink
[8 min. | USA | 2009]
The film tells the story of Mary, a women haunted by a personal tragedy
that tears her marriage to a success…

LoliGirls: The Story Behind the Frills and Bows
Directors: Kate Slomkowsky & Linsey Taylor
[18 min. | USA | 2009]
This short documentary follows 3 American girls who are enamored with the
Lolita fashion and lifestyle.

ShowGirls: Provincetown, MA
Director:  C. Fitz
[72 min. | USA | 2009]
ShowGirls: Provincetown, MA is a feature documentary about a small town
talent show with a strong dose of vaudeville where an eclectic mix of
locals, drag queens and the occasional tourist passing through vie for the
$500.00 prize and their chance at fame on stage. Known as a local
institution, this popular show takes place Monday evenings over the summer
as acts of varying artistry, skill, range, and grit vie for the coveted
title of “ShowGirl.”

Mama and Nardo
Director: Alec Tuckman
[8 min. | USA | 2009]
Mama and Nardo is an animated cartoon in the vein of South Park, Family
Guy, and The Simpsons. Mama takes Nardo and friends to a summer camp. Upon
arrival, they discover there’s a serial killer, named Jason Fourknees, on
the loose. Nardo and Mama soon fall victim to this psychopath and must
learn to work together or die.

Barstool Cowboy
Director: Mark Thimijan
[90 min. | USA | 2008]
An unemployed Cowboy who can’t find love vows to stay on a barstool for
three months hoping to find some answers at the bottom of a beer bottle.
Shortly thereafter, he meets a young female art student and quickly
forgets his misery. The pair begin to transform each other’s worlds while
spending time drinking, dancing, and examining the mysteries of life. Will
the Cowboy finally find love or should he have just stayed on his
barstool?

Hallelujah the Villa
Director: David Avallone
[28 min. | USA | 2006]
David Avallone revisits Adolfas Mekas’ 1963 film: Hallelujah the Hills.

Hallelujah the Hills
Director: Adolfas Mekas
[82 min. | USA | 1963]
A very bizarre low budget comedy about two men who take to the woods to
purge their obsessive attraction to a woman named Vera who dumped them
both for a shmuck. This quirky little film is on the verge of being
hilarious. However, it never quite gets all the laughs it shoots for. As a
result, it is only mildly amusing, but worth a viewing if you’re in the
mood for something light and off the beaten path.

Carnivalesque Films’ New Work-In-Progress
Directors: David Redmon & Ashley Sabin
[TBA | USA | 2009]
David Redmon and Ashley Sabin returns to the Hartford International Film
Festival with their new documentary which follows Russian and US modeling
scouts as they scour Siberian landscapes in search of teen girls to become
models in Tokyo.

You Wanted To Make A Film? (At ratzit laasot seret?)
Director: Gali Weintraub
[25 min. | Israel | 2008 | Hebrew with English subtitles]
A complex relationship between Gali, born disabled and the couple, Zehava,
a polio victim and Oren, a folk dancer, son of disabled parents who decide
to put on a dance performance together.

Still Bill
Director: Damani Baker
[77 min. | USA | 2009]
Still Bill follows the story of Bill Withers, best known for his classics,
“Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean on Me,” “Lovely Day” and “Just the Two of Us.”
But Wither’s musical life is just one part of a complex man who was raised
in the coal-mining towns of West Virginia, sailed for nine years with the
Navy, rose to the top of the charts and then left it behind to raise a
family.

Saturday, November 7

5:30PM-Cocktail Party at Firebox Restaurant
7:30PM-Woodpecker (75 min.) w/ short: Blue Sky (20 min.) at The Studio @
Billings Forge
9:00PM-Call Me If You Need Me (104 min.) w/ short: Chasing Cats & Cars (12
min.) at The Studio @ Billings Forge
11:30PM-ShowGirls (72 min.) w/ shorts: Mary May’s Suicide Letter (8 min.)
and LoliGirls: The Story Behind the Frills and Bows (18 min.) at Art
Cinema

Jeff Bartos from the CT chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War discussed his path to anti-war activism and his experiences at the G20 protests in Pittsburgh.

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