The Dish

The immense pleasure of watching Larry Cohen’s 1973 masterpiece, "It’s Alive," is only amplified by the newly released DVD. The director commentary is beyond marvelous. Think Eugene Levy in a Christopher Guest movie talking about his days as director of three – count them, three – movies about a monster baby. CineSchlock-O-Rama summarizes the oeuvre thus:

No breasts. 13 corpses. Mournful toothbrushing. Gratuitous Gabby Hayes impression. Multiple shotgun blasts. Pinata attack. Comical guns-drawn-on-defenseless-infant gag. Leering press. Mangled kitty. Bitch slapping. Swarming squad cars. If mama only knew: "WHAT DOES MY BABY LOOK LIKE!?! WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY BABY!?!"

The president slept through Saddam’s execution and still hasn’t seen the video. He is, rather, focused on the "way forward." How can you go forward when you have no idea where you are – and tenaciously resistant to finding out?

Round One on God got a lot of bloggy attention. Round Two on Iraq, conservatism and the looming apocalypse may get more. I’m afraid I cannot blame Bob Wright for basking in my abject apology for passionately supporting the Bush-run Iraq war.

Michael Totten reports from Lebanon on Hezbollah’s latest shenanigans.

(Photo: Michael Totten.)

The beginning of the struggle for accountability. No surprise that the CIA won’t comply with Congressional inquiries.

Los Alamos, New Mexico, 9 am.

The witnesses this time are FBI agents who saw abuse. Not terror suspects. FBI agents. Money quote:

The reports describe a female guard who detainees said handled their genitals and wiped menstrual blood on their face. Another interrogator reportedly bragged to an FBI agent about dressing as a Catholic priest and "baptizing” a prisoner …

The agency asked 493 employees whether they witnessed aggressive treatment that was not consistent with the FBI’s policies. The bureau received 26 positive responses, including some from agents who were troubled by what they saw.

"I did observe treatment that was not only aggressive but personally very upsetting," one agent wrote, describing seeing a man left in a 100-degree room with no ventilation overnight. "The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently literally been pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Another agent said he heard several "thunderclaps" then saw a detainee lying on the floor with a bloody nose. Interrogators told the agent the man was upset and had thrown himself to the floor.

In one report, an agent said he saw a detainee draped in an Israeli flag in a room with loud music and strobe lights. A note on the report said the Israeli flag "may be over the top but not abusive." The words "may be" were then crossed out and replaced with "is."

The baking of a human being in a virtual oven overnight is torture, plain and simple. But the deliberate effort to use affronts to Islam as a way to disorient Muslim prisoners is just sickening. It’s also beyond stupid. Here we are attempting to persuade moderate Muslims that the U.S. stands for them, and is not a cover for "Zionist crusaders," while we wrap prisoners in an Israeli flag and blasphemously baptize them as Catholics. It’s so unhinged it could only have emerged from the Pentagon of Donald Rumsfeld. You can read the FBI documents here.

(Photo: the remnants of a "coercive interrogation" at the U.S.-run prison at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, 2003.)

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts did the right thing, it seems to me, in upholding the duty of the commonwealth’s legislature to vote on a possible 2008 marriage amendment. (I await the howls about judicial activism from the theocon right.) Yes, there will be a huge surge of Christianist money into Massachusetts to keep gay couples stigmatized under the law. Yes, there will be another round of bitter and emotional debate. But advocates for marriage equality are far too defensive in fearing such a vote. We should be relishing it. So far, very few can argue that marriage equality in Massachusetts has been a failure. On the contrary, it has united many once divided families, it has strengthened many relationships, it has brought more stability to gay culture, it has given children more security, and it has opened hearts and minds. We have close to two years to use this evidence to persuade the people of Massachusetts that civil equality is something to be proud of. By the end of 2008, civil marriage may well be fully legal in California by legislative action – and de facto marriage in the form of civil unions available in several states. I doubt whether Massachusetts will forgo the honor of being the first state to grant gay couples legal equality with their straight peers. But there’s one way to find out. Let’s debate and campaign. The national gay groups, whose record on marriage has been spotty at best, need to make this the first priority of the national movement. Winning a democratic vote on marriage is a huge opportunity – and well within our grasp. We have the arguments. We have the evidence. Now let’s have the vote.

Hitch nails it:

According to the New York Times, there do seem to have been a few insipid misgivings about the timing and the haste, but these appear to have been dissolved soon enough and replaced by a fatalistic passivity that amounts, in theory and practice, to acquiescence in a crude Shiite coup d’√©tat. Thus, far from bringing anything like "closure," the hanging ensures that the poison of Saddamism will stay in the Iraqi bloodstream, mingling with other related infections such as confessional fanaticism and the sort of video sadism that has until now been the prerogative of al-Qaida’s dehumanized ghouls. We have helped to officiate at a human sacrifice. For shame.

Hitch seems surprised that this U.S.-financed execution was carried out with scant regard for the Geneva Conventions. I guess I’m surprised that Hitch is surprised. This is the Bush administration. Since when did they care for proper judicial procedures? My fear is that this execution gives us an insight into the real forces in Iraq and in the Maliki government. This was the reality of Maliki captured by a cell-phone camera, not the spin. And the reality is that Moktada is emerging as the new thug, and the civil war is just getting going. Which is why we need to get out of its way. Soon.

My take on the shifts in religious thought and practice in 2006 – across the globe.

(Photo of the Samarra mosque by Getty.)