Politics as Usual!? Philadelphia filmmakers explore politics on the eve of this critical election in a month-long exhibit of independent media presented by the Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association (PIFVA) The show will run at the Projects Gallery from October 10 Through November 8, 2008. The program will be looped during gallery hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4:00 to 7:00 pm and on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 7:00 pm.
Mingle with PIFVA members and guest filmmakers at the Opening and Closing events. The OPENING on Friday, October 10 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm will be hosted by Big Tea Party's Elizabeth Fiend and include a live poetry performance. The exhibit CLOSING on Saturday, November 08 from 3:00 to 6:00 pm will be hosted by Green City Journal's Caryn Hunt and include moderated discussion with local activists. For more information contact PIFVA at 215.382.2579 or email contactus@pifva.org
Films to be exhibited:
• Bush for Peace By Sarah Christman and Jen Simmons (1 min)
• Choose to Choose by Christiane Badgley (12 min)
• A Mural's Message by the Beacon Center Youth (1 min)
• Copy This Tape by Skylight Films (17 min)
• Blockbuster Letter from the Editor by Ken Winikur & John Lumia (1 min)
• Free the (Schuylkill) River Park Documentary by Rob Stuart (15 min)
• Bean Scene by Deb Rudman with AQ Quintero (1 min)
• Casino Free Philly videos by Edmund Goppelt (20 min)
• Asians Misbehavin': Model Minority Man by Anula Shetty & Mike Kuetemeyer (5 min)
• Taking of Bodine: Never Forget by Community Leadership Institute & Scribe Video Center (10 min)
• Ending an Epidemic Act-Up Fight Back by Big Tea Party (6 min)
• Dis Poem by Tania Isaac (3 min)
• Amiri Baraka's Something in the Way of Things (In Town) by Bryan Green (9 min)
• Iraq Veterans for Peace, Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan by Amadee Braxton, Gail Lloyd, Serena Reed (20 min)
Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association (PIFVA), founded in 1979, is a membership organization whose mission is to strengthen, promote and serve Philadelphia's independent media community through programs which provide opportunities to learn, mentor, produce and screen work, advocate for the community and network. PIFVA is dedicated to increasing the creative capacity of the Philadelphia region by supporting and expanding the work of regionally based media makers. PIFVA's education programs promote public appreciation of independent media making and encourage the talent and ability of area's creative community of filmmakers.

TERROR FILM FESTIVAL
Horror, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Thriller, Drama, Screenplay
www.TerrorFilmFestival.net
October 21-25, 2008 | Philadelphia, PA

Shawn Cain and Tori Cox (hosts of the popular Blog Talk Radio "Independent Film United") will be hosting this year's Claw Awards on Saturday October 25, 2008 in Philadelphia! Come and join the fun!!

Terror Film Festival is a world renowned international independent film festival that runs every October in the heart of Philadelphia PA at the prestigiously creepy Ethical Society Building (right across from beautiful Rittenhouse Square). It’s Halloween Cinematic!

Each year, filmmakers, screenwriters, producers, actors, and directors from around the world attend the festival and the fans get to hang out with all of them. It’s a very cool and informal environment where you can have drinks and chat the night away with the next wave of Spielberg, Lucas, Romero, Sid Haig, Michael Berryman, M. Night Shyamalan, John Carpenter, Hitchcock, Kevin Smith, Tony Todd, and more. The energy level of being with so many creative artists is mind blowing and you’ll see that it’s a life changing experience that will fill your heart with warmth for many years to come. Plus our Claw Awards ceremony on Saturday night is one of the most exciting live award shows on the east coast. It’s an event you don’t want to miss. And it’s all presented by the lovely Princess Horror herself.

TICKETS. Get your tickets now at TFF-MART and watch movies UNTIL YOUR EYES BLEED! And as a SPECIAL ONLINE OFFER, you can save up to 40% when tickets are purchased in-advance online at TFF-MART. Just go to our website and look under TICKETS.

PARKING for TFF is at 1845 Walnut Street (across the street from Rittenhouse Square) and attendees to the festival receive almost 50% OFF the regular rate just because they’re attending TFF and the Ethical Society Building. When you arrive at the festival door, simply ask to have your parking ticket validated and you’re good to go.

HOTELS. And if you want to book a hotel room for your visit, TFF attendees also get SPECIAL DISCOUNTED RATES at hotels throughout Center City Philadelphia. Just tell them you’re at the Ethical Society Building with Terror Film Festival.

So get your family and friends together and come on out to live the excitement and glamour of Terror Film Festival. It’s a spectacular event that you’ll never forget. That, we promise to you.

And if you have a film or screenplay that you'd like to enter, by all means, send it in. All the submission info is at www.TerrorFilmFestival.net, and our final deadline is August 24.

Live your dreams!! Or at least...YOUR NIGHTMARES.

Claw
Festival Director
Terror Film Festival
Horror, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Thriller, Drama, Screenplay
www.TerrorFilmFestival.net
October 21-25, 2008 | Philadelphia, PA

Free the (Schuylkill) River Park Documentary Premier
Followed by Panel Discussion on the Power of Civic Activism

The free viewing of “Free the River Park” will be followed by a panel discussion on the campaign featuring key elected officials and activists. The panel will include Councilman Darrell Clarke, State Representative Babette Josephs and Schuylkill River Park Alliance co-chair Russell Meddin. The movie will be preceded by a light reception.

Date: Thursday, July 17, 2008
Time: 7:30 pm screening; doors open at 6:30
Location: The Academy of Natural Sciences, main auditorium

The film explores a citizens’ ultimately victorious efforts to create and preserve at grade access to the Schuylkill River Park despite the adamant objections of CSX Railroad. The 15-minute film chronicles the protracted grass-roots fight against CSX and their effort to block the community's access to the Schuylkill river, and serves to inspire and instruct other organizations on how to successfully wage efforts to improve and protect their own communities.

Go to Filmaka.com and enter their new international short film contest! For making a 1 to 3 minute film,15-20 winners win $500 to $3000 USD, plus the final winner of this Feature Film contest wins production funding for a feature film with film makers from Hollywood. The theme for the contest is called "TRUTH OR DARE" - more info at http://www.filmaka.com/competition.php?page=current&competition_id=261 .Submissions are due August 3.Guyz check out the Jury members (http://www.filmaka.com/jury.php) - who include Paul Schrader, Zak Penn and Werner Herzog and more.

I just got an anonymous tip that supposedly, a major motion picture will be filming extensively on Penn's campus this summer.

Click to find out which film!

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NEHST STUDIOS TO HOST “BOOT CAMP” FILM TRAINING

Larry Meistrich Offers Opportunity of a Lifetime to Philadelphia Screen Writers & Filmmakers

NEHST Studios will train Philadelphia area aspiring filmmakers and writers looking for their first big break, and company executives will be on hand seeking new ideas and talent for a $250 Million film fund slate of projects coming up.

WHAT: Filmmakers Boot Camp

WHEN: May 30-June 1, 2008 (Fri., 6pm-10pm, Sat. 10am-6pm & Sun., 10am-6pm)

WHERE: T.B.A.

WHO: Writers, Directors, Producers, Anyone!

HOW: Register online at www.filmboot.com for Philly boot camp.

FEES:

* GENERAL ENROLLMENT: $395
* STUDENTS: $150 (enter PHSTU150 as discount code when registering online)
* FILM ORG. DISCOUNT: $300

News Item:
Oscar winner says 9-11 attacks made up.

Ever heard of Marion Cotillard? Maye you have, and maybe you haven't. She recently won an Oscar for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in the film La Vie En Rose. Didn't see the flick? Neither did we, but it's a typical case of critics heaping praise on something the rest of us ignore. You will be seeing Ms Cotillard in the future though, she's slated to star opposite Johnny Depp in the upcoming big budget movie Public Enemy.

Chances are Public Enemy will be a pretty good gangster flick, so when you're watching the female lead on the screen, try to put it out of your mind that she believes the World Trade Center attacks were a hoax. The real reason the Twin Towers went down, according to her, was that the buildings needed a remodel. Yep, you read that right, she claims the buildings were outdated and needed an upgrade. Here's a quote...

"It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them."

Her conclusion is that 9-11 is just another example of the US concocting horror stories for political ends. How politics and building remodels go hand in hand, we're not really sure, but that's her idea. She also believes no one ever landed on the moon. No joke, honest, that's what she said. Although she wasn't alive at the time, she has seen the documentaries, and views them as more Hollywood magic.

Now before you start shouting things like "Moron!", "Idiot!", and "Whacko!", Cotillard may not be any of those things. She is, however, an actress, and actors live in make-believe worlds. She was also, by coincidence, born and raised in France, and that explains a lot.

News Link: The Daily Mail

By Michael Johns

If there exists one visional depiction of the Cold War's end, it is still a Eurocentric one, November 9, 1989, the day East Berliners joined with those of the city's West in celebration of the Berlin Wall's demise. Three weeks earlier, on October 19, 1989, Stalinist East German dictator Erich Honecker, facing mass internal opposition, was forced from power when the Kremlin, overwhelmed with comparable resistance on many fronts, for the first time refused to provide the East German dictatorship with the political or military cover it had come to expect in its Cold War defense of the regime's totalitarian reign over the East German people. Many East Germans began fleeing the nation without resistance into Czechoslovakia, which itself soon underwent its own liberating, anti-communist and now famous "Velvet Revolution."

At some point during the day of November 9, 1989, a public affairs aide to Honecker's successor, holding the almost hysterically superannuated title of "Minister of Propaganda," was predictably asked when East Germans could begin leaving the country in other ways, including to West Germany through the Wall's crossing points. "As far as I know, effective immediately, right now," came the Minister's response. With that reply ended the predominant physical symbol representing the separation of, and conflict between, freedom and totalitarianism--the very essence of the Cold War. Hammers were taken to that Wall over a series of days and nights, celebrations convened, and, importantly, not one East German stood to defend that beacon of isolation, brutality, and autocracy. East met West, freedom prevailed, the Cold War was won.

It's a tidy, inspiring, important, and truthful series of events. But it does not even closely tell the full, vastly more complex story of the West's Cold War victory, which was a truly global conflict, not just a European one. During the Wall's 28-year existence, some 125 brave East Germans were killed trying to leap or otherwise cross the Wall to freedom in the West. Yet, the Cold War took many more than 125 lives; in the name of its perverse, unnatural ideology of governmental control and manipulation of man, communism itself took the lives of some 100 million people during the 20th century, and most of those lives were not lost in Europe. And while two anti-communist U.S. Presidents wisely chose the Wall to highlight the stakes in the epic Cold War conflict, and the military strength of NATO almost certainly held the Soviets from a potentially apocalyptic, expansionist conflict with Western Europe, it is a probable thesis that the most important initiatives to end the Cold War were actually fought and won outside of Europe, and--let there be no mistake--they were American-led.

Somewhat disturbingly, this has not been a story widely told or broadly understood since the West's victory in the Cold War. Nor, when it has been told, has it been told particularly well.
Encouragingly, such an effort partially emerges in Universal Pictures' recently-released film, Charlie Wilson's War, based on real events and a book of the same name by former CBS foreign correspondent George Crile. In its effort to tell a hugely serious story, it predictably includes enough comedic relief for mass appeal. But it is the thesis of this film--that there exists an undeniable correlation between the ultimate victory of the United States-supported resistance in Afghanistan, known as the mujahideen, in their war against the Soviet Union's invasion and occupation of Afghanistan--that makes this film a hugely important leap in greater understanding of the truth behind the late 20th century American-led effort, under Ronald Reagan's Presidency, to win the Cold War, liberate millions, and usher in the great hope of peace and freedom that exists in our current post-Cold War world.

It may now be fading from the memory of many Americans, but looking at the world in January 1981, when the Reagan Presidency began, it would be a laughable premise to suggest that the West was actually winning the Cold War. In fact, during Carter's Presidency, over a dozen nations fell into the Soviet orbit, sometimes--as was the case in Iran and Nicaragua--at Carter's unwitting behest as he withdrew critical U.S. support from strong American allies under the auspices of these governments' human rights violations, only to see worse violations emerge, as was the case in the emergence of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, both of whom also fell quickly into the Soviet orbit.

Importantly, however, as Reagan astutely recognized, in nearly all of these Soviet-supported totalitarian states that comprised the Soviet Union's global sphere of influence, spanning through Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, there was almost nowhere that these totalitarian regimes were not also facing internal opposition from the people they were suppressing. Charlie Wilson's War tells the story of one of the most important of these struggles, Afghanistan, where, as part of overall Soviet aggression and on Carter's watch, the Soviet Union sent over 100,000 troops to invade and occupy Afghanistan in 1979. Quite understandably, it was not a national development well taken by the Afghan people. While fractionalized, thousands of Afghans, known as the mujahideen, rose to oppose the Soviet occupation, and this opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan quickly and properly drew U.S. support.

Who led this brave effort to aid a resistance force which, de facto, was fighting the Cold War for us? One of those people was U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson (played in the film by Tom Hanks), a southern Texas Democrat who, before his intervention in support of the mujahideen, was perhaps best known as a fun-loving bachelor who was not going to let his stuffy Congressional position interfere with his having a good time. Urged on by one of his romantic interests, Houston socialite Joanne Herring (played by Julia Roberts), who urges Wilson to intervene on the mujahideen's behalf, Wilson quickly discovers that the Carter administration's efforts in support of the mujahideen had been disturbingly restricted to a handful of low-level Central Intelligence Agency operatives, led by one very committed CIA officer named Gust Avrakotos, a Pennsylvania-born operative who, upon his 2005 death, The Washington Post called a "blue collar James Bond" who ultimately "ran the largest covert operation in the agency's history." In Charlie Wilson's War, Wilson asks Avrakotos who in Carter's CIA was running the vast and important effort to aid the mujahideen. "Me and three other guys," Avrakotos replies.

Wilson also learns another disturbing fact: that the official Carter policy, described to Wilson during a visit to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan, was to ensure that the U.S. was not seen as intervening in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in any way that would be perceived as inflaming macro-level U.S.-Soviet relations.

As the film correctly depicts, Wilson experienced surprising success in his somewhat rogue effort to substantially increase covert CIA-channeled U.S. aid to the mujahideen, and the results were ultimately nothing short of remarkable, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan turning into Moscow's Vietnam. The mujahideen proved hugely heroic fighters. With the aid of U.S.-supplied Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Soviet MIG and other fighter jets were routinely shot from the sky. Charlie Wilson's War tells this story and, in so doing, provides a fairly new and important context on what was undeniably one of the single greatest contributing factors to the ultimate collapse of global communism. Afghanistan, quite simply, proved for the first time that, with determination and support, the Soviet Union's conquests were reversible. The global significance of this message surely ranks among the most important of the 20th century.

Of course, Afghanistan, important as it proved, was just one of many global Cold War conflicts of the late 20th century. And Charlie Wilson, who does deserve credit for his determination in support of the mujahideen, was just one man. To place this film in some larger context in an understanding of the Soviet empire's ultimate collapse, however, other critical facts cannot be overlooked:

First, the world owes a great debt to many historical global leaders who helped contain Soviet advances and who articulated the threat to freedom imposed by Soviet aggression in the post-World War II era. It must start with Winston Churchill, who, in his famed "Iron Curtain" speech in 1946, awakened the world to this new struggle, saying: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw, Berlin, Praque, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere." Successive U.S. Presidents from Harry Truman at least through Richard Nixon, and the Congresses during those administrations, admirably understood that the Cold War was a battle for the future of the world and that holding Soviet advances at bay--what was known as "containment"--was essential to the West's freedom and security.

Second, when the Reagan administration arrived in Washington in 1981, hugely important and still underrated historical figures in this administration, including then-CIA Director William J. Casey, United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger (sadly, all now deceased) quickly recognized the fact that the Soviet Union's advances since World War II and especially under the Carter administration represented, as Churchill described early Nazi Germany, "a gathering storm." But these great leaders also understood something else. These global advances of totalitarianism were reversible. Reagan saw it too; he spoke with great persuasion (and, at least at first, with limited political support) to the promise of aiding these resistance movements and the possibility of a new dawn in the world. He was smart and brave enough to ask, as no leader before him really did, "what if?" What if the U.S. moved beyond the mere containment of Soviet advances to a rollback of these advances? What if such a U.S. policy could lead to these regimes falling to the hands of people in these nations? What if the cost of the Soviet Union's global aggression ultimately became so taxing that it impacted the very fabric that allowed this entire unnatural empire to exist at all?

The policy that emerged from all of this, articulated by Reagan and known as the Reagan Doctrine, for the first time in the history of American foreign policy stated that wherever people being suppressed by Soviet-supported communist governments were willing to rise against these governments, the U.S. stood ready to assist them and to work for their victory. How brave was this? Consider, for instance, that Reagan articulated this policy openly and persuasively at a time when Soviet nuclear weapons were pointed at American cities and a Soviet military force of some 13 million men were trained and available to defend the Soviet advances that Reagan was convinced could be reversed.

The result of it all now comprises the greatest still largely untold story of modern history: When movements arose in Angola (UNITA), Nicaragua (the contras), and other nations, these movements, like the mujahideen in Afghanistan, enjoyed the benefit of Reagan's full support, even as a hugely politically-charged Democrat-controlled Congress at that time sought to reign in and end Reagan's efforts. But that did not stop Reagan. Addressing CPAC in 1988, a few days after Democrats had shot down the administration's proposed support for the Nicaraguan contras, Reagan said: "Let me make this pledge to you tonight: we're not giving up on those who are fighting for their freedom, and they aren't giving up either...get ready, the curtain hasn't fallen." Reagan's vision and resilience kept these freedom fighters alive when a Democrat-run Congress was consistently looking for ways to undermine and halt the effort. The result was that when that curtain ultimately did fall, a few years later, it fell on the totality of the 74-year standing Soviet empire.

The Reagan Doctrine was not merely opposed politically by the vast majority of Democrats. Their opposition could not have been more indignant or rooted in a perceived moral imperative. As Reagan sought Congressional approval for U.S. aid to the contras, for instance, then Speaker of the House of Representatives Jim Wright, the Texas Democrat, didn't just lead fellow Democrats in attempts to defeat the measure legislatively. He also led fellow Democrats on a mission to Nicaragua, where they posed, smiling, for pictures with Nicaragua's then Soviet and Cuban-supported dictator Daniel Ortega. On foreign soil, they denounced Reagan's efforts to aid the contras as reckless, and later represented that Reagan's policy represented an oversimplification of the Soviet Union's global intentions. Not a few American liberals went even further to argue that the Reagan Doctrine was an open invitation to nuclear war.

Under this background, every vote on aid to UNITA, the contras, and other resistance movements was a huge political ordeal, with the vast majority of Congressional Democrats seeking to defeat the measures. Sometimes they won. But more often, because of extraordinary efforts made by Reagan to verbalize the importance of the policy, and the leadership of many Congressional Republicans who had the vision to fight for it, they lost.
While Wilson was one, many other Congressional names, most Republicans, deserve a rightful place as part of the Reagan army who fought for this critical support, including some who did so despite a lack of solid political support for it in their own districts: Congressmen Dan Burton (R-IN), Jim Courter (R-NJ), Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Jack Kemp (R-NY), Don Ritter (R-PA), E. Clay Shaw (R-FL), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Bob Walker (R-PA), Senators Steve Symms (R-ID), Don Nickles (R-OK), Malcolm Wallop (R-WY), and dozens of others. Sadly, history has not yet properly recorded the role of these brave elected U.S. leaders, many of whom sacrificed political popularity to fight these battles and who articulated the case for this important doctrine that ultimately ended the Soviet empire.

The doctrine also succeeded because others had the vision to lay the intellectual foundation for it, including the Heritage Foundation, which made the case for the doctrine on both a macro and micro level and correctly identified the Reagan era as perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to end the Cold War in freedom's favor. Other advocates included Jack Wheeler, a Ph.D. adventure traveler who was one of the first to notice the opportunity associated with the Reagan Doctrine, relentless Reagan Doctrine advocates Frank Gaffney and Howard Phillips (both former federal government officials), who also saw the promise, and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times, which were nearly alone among print media in supporting it. Along with Wilson, former Reagan speechwriter Dana Rohrabacher, now a California Republican Congressman, was among the first to speak of the strategic and moral imperative for U.S. aid to the mujahideen. Each of these people and organizations overlooked liberal ridicule because they saw--and stood by--the promise for a new world where a totalitarian superpower did not represent an ongoing threat to the freedom and very lives of man.

Regrettably, you will hear none of these names or organizations cited in Charlie Wilson's War. But let there be no mistake: the efforts of these great Americans and organizations ultimately made the West's Cold War victory possible.

The decision to resist Soviet aggression in these regions was hugely contentious, with the vast majority of Democrats (aside from Charlie Wilson and a handful of others) on the other side of this debate. Had these votes gone the other way, with these resistance movements being denied the assistance they needed to resist Soviet aggression, there is no doubt that their plight would have been vastly different. Like the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968, they would have been crushed by the same totalitarian Soviet aggression that successfully suppressed such resistance at home and abroad hundreds of times throughout the 20th century. The Soviets certainly tried their best in Afghanistan. Soviet forces indiscriminately bombed civilians. They blew the hands off children with explosives designed to look like toys. They torched entire caves of scared civilians. What was the human cost of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan? Some two million civilians were killed, and five million more fled the Soviet occupation. If there exists any modern example of "scorched earth" military tactics and institutionalized evil in practice, it can be found in what Soviet troops did in Afghanistan from 1979 until 1989.

This is what the Reagan effort resisted, and it worked. With U.S. support being the single most important determinant, former Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev ultimately labeled his nation's occupation of Afghanistan and decade-long effort to exterminate the mujahideen a "bleeding wound." Yes, it was a bleeding wound. It was a bleeding wound because the Reagan army bravely stood against that Soviet occupation and consciously made it one, not just in Afghanistan but in almost every non-European nation where the Soviets sought to impose their will on people. It is late 20th century resistance that won the Cold War, and it is Reagan and the Reagan army that made that resistance against a ruthless global superpower possible.

Third, as most Americans will recall, the ultimate retreat of the Soviet army from Afghanistan should have opened a promising future for the newly-freed nation, but it was not exactly followed by the emergence of liberal democracy. Unable to maintain a consensus for some continued nation-building following the Soviets' nine-year occupation, as advocated by most of the Reagan army of mujahideen supporters, the Taliban ultimately arose to fill the power vacuum left by the Soviets, making Afghanistan the breeding ground for al-Qaeda training and leading to what has become this nation's current conflict against global terrorism. Does there not exist a contemporary lesson in this? It seems impossible, if we are a nation given to learning even history's most recent lessons, not to see that U.S. post-Saddam engagement in Iraq, costly as it has been, is rooted in not making a similar mistake to the one made in Afghanistan. Had the U.S. committed just several years to help Afghanistan and its people rebuild following its 1989 liberation, what might be the state of this world today? But U.S. neglect of post-occupation Afghanistan, especially under the Clinton administration, invited a worst possible outcome, which ultimately arrived on September 11, 2001.

A final, important point: Just as the importance and ultimate success of the Reagan Doctrine (and its associated, modern-day lesson of the importance of resiliency in our current global conflict against Islamofascism) have escaped many Americans and their leaders, there may be no more outrageously inaccurate thesis held than the one that suggests that U.S. support for the mujahideen during the Reagan years somehow benefited today's al-Qaeda. It did not, and this thesis ranks right there in its absurdity with the one that charges U.S. complicity in the September 11 attacks. Such convictions are not merely historical misinterpretations; they represent an apparent unwillingness to recognize that, in this world, there will almost always exist dangerous nations and movements that resent and seek to challenge and undermine American democracy and American interests.

The fact is that we did not first discover al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001. Yes, elements of what ultimately became al-Qaeda were there in Afghanistan during this critical Cold War conflict, and, yes, they too, for their own reasons, opposed the Soviet occupation of the nation. Having the benefit of fairly extensive involvement in some of the efforts to secure U.S. assistance for the Reagan Doctrine efforts, however, I well remember the passionate discussions in the Reagan administration and among all Congressional and U.S. supporters of the mujahideen over ensuring that U.S. support was restricted to our primary allies in the Afghan effort. And that goal was achieved. Chief among these was another great and largely unsung hero in the Reagan Doctrine's ultimate success, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who earned the warranted nickname "the Lion of Panjshir," and who was assassinated by al-Qaeda agents in what perhaps should have been a foretelling sign, on September 9, 2001, two days prior to the September 11 attacks.

There also existed at this time a very clear recognition among those of us close to, and supportive of, the Afghan resistance that a movement was emerging, then known as Maktab al-Khidamat (often simply referred to by the acronym "MAK"), that was comprised of non-Afghan Arabs. They began arriving in Afghanistan roughly five years following the Soviet invasion from other Arab nations to join in resistance of the Soviet occupation. It was not a large force, but it was a highly dangerous one, including Saudi-born Osama bin Laden (who initially supported MAK financially and later helped establish an Afghan base camp for MAK), Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other figures now comprising current al-Qaeda leadership.

Supporters of the mujahideen at that time were well aware of MAK's existence and the danger it represented. And while there was concern around Pakistan's intelligence agency, known as the ISI, which was heavily engaged in the distribution of U.S. support to the mujahideen, and there was sometimes frustration with the ISI's bureaucracy and inefficiency, the U.S. never aided MAK and, in fact, almost certainly took important steps to neutralize it. In fact, one of bin Laden's closest MAK associates at that time, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who was then viewed as a threat as great as any MAK member, was assassinated in a November 1989 land mine attack in Peshawar, Pakistan. The forces behind that land mine were never formally identified and no party took responsibility, but it is widely perceived that this was one of numerous Reagan-era attempts to minimize the nucleus of the toxic forces that ultimately became al-Qaeda. If not, suffice to say there were no expressions of remorse from any official U.S. governmental bodies.

So let this fact be settled now: The rise of al-Qaeda, while largely attributable to the Clinton administration's eight-year neglect of Afghanistan, during which the Taliban and al-Qaeda, with free reign, established an Afghanistan training presence, U.S. engagement in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan did nothing to strengthen bin Laden or any other al-Qaeda force. Rather, the defeat of the Red Army in that conflict stands as one of the great successes of U.S. engagement in the world, sending a hugely important global signal to the Soviets and the world that the future did not belong to Moscow's totalitarian aspirations. The future belonged to those who resisted it. This change of current is at the heart of the West's Cold War victory.

All Americans should take 100 minutes from their schedule to catch this grand story, as told in Charlie Wilson's War. The intricate details of the Cold War's end will not be fully gleaned from the film, but maybe that's okay. It is still a constructive contribution because it is one of the first mass-appeal efforts to reflect the most important lesson of America's Cold War victory: that the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union and, with deference to East Germany's former Minister of Propaganda, whose spontaneous words blew open the Berlin Wall, sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive and important developments.

Michael Johns, a Deptford, New Jersey-based health care executive, served previously as a White House speechwriter to President George H. W. Bush and a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation. He can be reached by e-mail at: michaeldjohns@gmail.com.

In February, Hiway Theatre, located at 212 Old York Road in Jenkintown, will celebrate the one-year anniversary of the historic theatre’s reopening with a new film series. Guided by the theme, Road Trips and Amazing Journeys, the upcoming series will run from February 15th through February 21st.

Built in 1913, the one-screen movie house can trace its history to the silent film era. Now an important cultural landmark for the Montgomery County and Greater Philadelphia region, the Hiway Theatre operates as a nonprofit member-supported community theatre, offering a unique cinematic experience that enlivens the human spirit, fosters dialogue and promotes learning in an unparalleled environment. For information on upcoming events and the history of the theatre, visit www.hiwaytheatre.org or call (215) 886-9800.

Road Trips and Amazing Journeys will include independent and studio films, as well as repertory selections, to be announced in the coming weeks. Highlighting documentary and fiction features, film narratives include tales of travel, both physical and metaphysical, personal journeys of the heart and spirit, and more. The series will also feature specialized programming for youth: specifically, selections for tweens and teens.

Hiway Theatre Executive Director Fred Kaplan-Mayer is thrilled to offer this special film series, which is being launched by virtue of a generous contribution from the Jenkintown Borough. “Since our reopening, the community response has been tremendous,” says Kaplan-Mayer. “This is our Valentine’s Day present to all our moviegoers and supporters – special films that tell tales of journey and transformation. It is due to community support that the Hiway has been able to transform itself and fulfill its potential as an entertainment destination and as a community organization.”

The series coordinator is Teri Yago Ryan. Ryan is the former Director of Michigan’s acclaimed East Lansing Children’s Film Festival, with a background that includes extensive industry experience in motion pictures and television.

Since 1913, Hiway Theatre has undergone many renovations and name changes. In 2003, a group of local residents who recognized the Hiway’s importance to the Jenkintown community formed a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization to purchase, operate and rehabilitate the theatre. After many years of neglect by previous owners, the new Board of Directors persevered in raising $2 million to fully renovate and update the theatre, adopting the name Hiway – one of the original names of the theatre, recalled affectionately by many Montgomery County and Philadelphia residents. The single-screen movie house evokes an earlier time with its retro interior finishes and original fixtures, while incorporating modern conveniences, complete with 320 new seats for the auditorium, updated projection equipment, Dolby surround sound, as well as an expansion of the lobby with a full service concession stand. The Board is currently at work on the second phase of the capital campaign, raising the remaining funds needed for the “finishing touches,” including the installation of a vertical, neon sign bearing the HIWAY name – a well known sight to residents of the area who came to the theatre during its initial time of operation from 1940 through the 1970s.

In addition to screening first run films, the Hiway has been an annual venue for the Philly Film Fest and the CJHSA Holocaust Film Series and hosts a number of regular programs including the Children’s Matinee Series, Monthly Film Discussion, Classics Series, and Movies Under the Stars, a free, summertime, outdoor program in collaboration with the Abington Art Center, among others.

Press Contact:
Canary Promotion + Design
Emaleigh Doley, (215) 242-6393
High-resolution images available upon request and online at: www.canarypromo.com/hiway

Friday, November 9, 2007
8am-5pm
PA Convention Center

The time has come for us to stop talking about the problems in our neighborhoods and start acting. This year’s conference is inspired by the community activists and youth leaders who work hard to make our neighborhoods places of opportunities where people excel, ideas grow and dreams are realized. By bringing together young people ages 14-21 and adults from around the region, we will begin to create real solutions to the many challenges in our communities. Workshops and interactive sessions will empower youth to effectively address the challenges they face everyday and enhance adults’ capacity to nurture the potential of every youth. We invite everyone, both youth and adults, interested in making a positive and lasting impact in their community to “Step Up!” and “Be the Change”.

**This year’s conference will feature an exciting keynote speech by Ephren W. Taylor, CEO of City Capital Corporation and the youngest African-American CEO of a publicly traded company ever!**

*The conference will also feature a lunchtime comedy performance by Philadelphia’s own Keith from Up Da Block!*

For more information, or to register, visit us online at www.greatsettlements.org or call Amanda at 215-925-7875.

What Do You Do After You Pray:
The Church's Response to Gun-Violence in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA, PA – With more than 250 murders after the first half of 2007, the city once known as the City of Brotherly Love has instead quickly become known as Kill-a-delphia, forcing many residents to live and operate in fear as a result of the gun-violence inflicting the city.

On Saturday, August 25, 2007, Philly Koinonia Ministries (pronounced koy-no-NEE-yah) will organize its initial effort dealing with this problem, the "2007 Gun-drive and City Fellowship". This will be an outdoor effort beginning at 10 a.m. taking place at the Dorothy Emmanuel Recreation Center, located in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia. To effectuate a change in our culture, we must not solely rely on the power of prayer, but also take responsibility with our actions to address the stronghold embattling our city; for our actions speak louder than our words. The organization identifies fear as the stronghold that simultaneously creates gun-violence, and results from gun-violence, and therefore will focus using this effort to present an understanding of God’s love to combat the stronghold of fear dwelling in this city as a result of gun violence; for God is love (1John 4:16) and in love there is no fear (1John 4:18).

In addition to the gun-drive (individuals will receive a gift card in exchange for their gun), this effort will also include an appearance by Mayoral Candidate Michael Nutter; messages given by local Pastors, such as: Bishop Keith W. Reed, Pastor Kevin M. Aiken, Pastor Chandra I. Williams, Pastor Daniel Sutton, Pastor Larry Anderson, Pastor Eric Mason, among others; performances by local choirs and other guest artists; and also a nonprofit/vendor area featuring more than 30 tables of advocates, businesses, and non-profit organizations that offer programs and services related to the focus of this effort.

For more information, please visit www.PhillyKoinonia.org.

I've got a contest going on at http://www.johnnygoodtimes.com where I'm trying to find out what people's best idea is for a terrible sequel. My idea? It's a Wonderful Life 2. Go ahead and post your worst sequel and a sort synopsis of what the movie will be about. Best worst sequel gets a $20 gift certificate to the Bards and 2 free IMAX passes.

Hello all, having helped get Films at the Sedgwick and The Little Theater started in Mt. Airy, I showed Disturbing Images, Albino Code, other independent films as well as. I've taken a break from presentation to do some work on a movie theater concept I'm developing... but I miss the active conversation that showing your films really helped to start.

While the Little Theater is still open for business and looking for filmmakers to show their works there, for the moment I'm not programming the films there.

I figured now is a great time to revisit the "Film Q. Public" concept I've been working on.

Film Q. Public was set up for users to tell the Little Theater what films they wanted to see. The next step is to really expand this open forum for filmmakers and for audiences and "cut out the middle man" - distributors.

My continued goal is to bring together "the makers" with "the watchers." I hope you'll take a look at Film Q. Public. It's a free forum, members can post, everyone can read. Read and contribute to any number of boards, from film discussion of genres, to shooting, cutting or writing.

You can post flash video from most video services, like YouTube or Google Video, so you can have place to have an on-going conversation about your film and keep people updated on screenings you're having.

In fact, you can even watch and discuss a growing number of feature films on the forum-

Charles Chaplin's- The Kid
Alfred Hitchcock's - The Man Who Knew Too Much
American Look (1958)
Iraq For Sale
Farenheit 9/11

You'll find that there are board topics about writing for film, for video tutorials on shooting in HD, boards with video tutorials about cutting in Final Cut Pro, and finally, you can post your resume, head-shots, film investment opportunities or job openings.

I hope you all get a chance to check out the Film Q. Public Forum at http://www.filmqpublic.com/forum

Thanks!

-David Titus

We are pleased to announce the Big Bang Film Festival, a celebration of exciting and inventive films in the Action, Adventure, Suspense and Asian Action Cinema genres. We’re also looking for exciting documentaries of sports and athletic events and activities. Extreme sports enthusiasts have contributed some of the most entertaining video of death defying speed, skill and daring. BBFF will showcase amazing films, some classics, some classics in the making. Every submission is featured as a rotating highlight on the front page of the BBFF website and on our 2007 Submissions page so that all of our filmmakers can link to their listing.

We are calling for submissions. Visit our website for more information on the festival, our submission process, special events, and opportunities to join our team!

Big Bang Film Festival
Philadelphia, PA
October 17-21 2007
Action, Adventure, Suspense and Asian Action Cinema.
contact@bigbangfilmfestival.com
www.BigBangFilmFestival.com
www.myspace.com/bigbangfilmfestival

News Item:
Movies restrict smoking

If you're old enough to remember when Hollywood was called Tinsel Town, or grew up watching old movies on late night TV, you can probably imagine a dozen movie stars uttering that title line [Hey mac, got a light]. It, or a variation, was heard in almost every Bogart flick. James Cagney would ask it of a thug wearing a slanted fedora. Even good guy Jimmy Stewart would ask for a light on a street corner. Mae West would scratch the 'mac', and insert 'big boy'.

That phrase, from any character in a motion picture today, could bump a film's rating from a G to an R. Smoking in theaters, not in the seats, but on the screen, will carry as much ratings weight as sex, violence, and adult language, according to a new press release from the Motion Picture Association of America.

Smoking is bad for your health, no one will argue that. We're just wondering if there's some kind of backlash going on here. For quite a while now, there's been concern that films were getting too graphic, too violent, too sexual. Maybe this is a sign that the pendulum is about to swing to the other extreme. Al Pacino, in Scarface, but without his cigar. Johnny Depp, in Blow, but without the drugs. Robert Stack, in the Untouchables, pointing a finger instead of a machine gun. Hmmm... guess that would depend on which finger he was pointing.

The movie ratings are designed to protect our children, which is something parents used to do. Cruise past your local multi-plex on any Saturday afternoon, and watch how many moms and dads drop off an SUV full of kids, and there's not a G rated film listed anywhere on the marquee. The case can be made that ratings would actually be more appropriate for the evening news. Movies are fantasy, the news is real, and kids pick up on that. Forget the R for taking a puff. Go straight to the X. It's not that long ago that x-rated cigars were on the news every night.

Full Story: Reuters

Cartoon from Sid in the City