Becky and I just got back from the DeBartolo, where we watched a screening of the documentary Screamers, part of Notre Dame’s spring film series of movies about genocide. And I must say, as movies about genocide go, Screamers is an odd one. It’s about 50 percent historical documentary about the Armenian genocide, 30 percent concert tour DVD for System of a Down, and 20 percent a mish-mash of other elements, including endless interviews with Harvard professor Samantha Power, who is apparently academia’s one and only expert on genocide.

[UPDATE: Here’s Becky’s review of the film. It’s kind of funny how we make a lot of the same points, though we didn’t talk about our respective reviews until both were finished — although we were sitting on the couch next to each other, writing them simultaneously. Heh. We’re such freaking nerds.]

[UPDATE 2: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! Please have a look around. If you don’t like college basketball, you may want to visit my Non-Sports Page instead of my homepage, as there are a whole lot of hoops-related posts right now. On the other hand, if you like hoops, go here for all my posts on Championship Week(s).]

The movie’s oddest moment occurred during one of the “concert tour DVD” segments. System of a Down (”SOAD” to the cool kids) is a metal band comprised of four grandchildren of Armenian genocide survivors, and they make it a point to educate their legions of fans about the oft-denied atrocity that killed off most of their ancestors. So, in the movie, we see them at one of their concerts, standing silently on stage while a mini-documentary about the genocide is played for concertgoers on a giant screen. In the background, we hear the typical sort of noises that you’d expect at a rock concert, including quite a bit of hooting and cheering, which is strange enough when it happens while a narrator is talking about the mass extermination of millions of people. But then came the strangest moment of all, when the face of one of the Turkish leaders who orchestrated the genocide appears on the screen. The crowd starts vigorously booing him, as if he’s some sports idol they don’t like. More than anything else, it reminded me of how the crowds at ESPN GameDay react when someone from the opposing team is shown on the screen. Yet here, the crowd was reacting not to a hated coach or quarterback, but to the architect of a crime against humanity. I suppose booing is better than cheering, but the reaction still seemed grossly inappropriate somehow. A negative reaction is of course appropriate, but they’re reacting to something so much weightier and more profound than a simple “boo” can possibly hope to express. It was just weird.

As for the substance of the movie… it had its moments, made some valid points, and of course the basic bottom-line message — that genocide is very bad, and that people who say “never again” but then let it happen again are hypocrites — is pretty much impossible to argue against. That said, I was struck by the naivete and, well, hypocrisy, actually, of many of the true believers. One bloke waiting in line for a SOAD concert in London said he likes the band because they’re “anti-Bush and anti-Blair,” like him. He asserted that this position is obviously correct because (this may not be a direct quote, but it’s close) “I’m anti-war in principle, and that’s something you can’t really argue against.” To which I could only think: “Oh, really? So I guess, since you’re ‘anti-war in principle,’ you would have been opposed to World War II as well? You know, the war that finally — far too late, of course — ended the Holocaust? Yeah, can’t really argue against that!”

(more…)

Shocker nation is excited as they lead Missouri State 34 32 at the half.

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: It’s tied at 60 with 4:09 left. Yikes! Missouri State needs this win! And the Valley probably needs them to get it, lest this be a two-bid year (unless Bradley or Wichita State wins the auto bid). GO BEARS!

You can listen live on ShockerRadio.com or KFNS The Fan out of St. Louis.

UPDATE 2: Bears win!!! Wichita State misses the three-pointer in the final seconds, and it’s a 67-64 Missouri State victory. The Bears should be dancing!

So, in a development bordering on the bizarre, the Missouri Valley Conference quarterfinals go according to seed! Heh. The semifinals will be #1 Southern Illinois vs. #4 Bradley and #2 Creighton vs. #3 Missouri State.

Here’s the radio call from KFNS. It starts with MO State having possession and a 2-point lead:

And here’s the call from ShockerRadio:

A reporter interviews some Wichita State fans. Creighton leads Indiana State 32-20 at half.

My five dollar water. :) BU beats UNI 51-48 on a Will Franklin 3pt FG with two seconds left.

Mike has the day’s biggest games covered with his live reports from the Missouri Valley tournament in St. Louis. He won’t be happy about the Bradley-UNI result; the Braves, bitter rivals of Mike’s beloved Illinois State Redbirds, just wrapped up a win over the Panthers to keep their NCAA dreams alive and set up a semifinal rematch of last year’s memorable title game against Southern Illinois. (Admittedly, it was memorable mostly for falling SIU cheerleaders, but still.)

Today’s most important Missouri Valley game is the last one, at 9:35 PM EST: Missouri State vs. Wichita State, the #3 vs. #6 quarterfinal that MO State simply must win to bolster its at-large profile and solidify the case for a 3-bid Valley. Missouri State was the #3 seed last year, too, but lost to Northern Iowa in the 3-6 game and ended up in the NIT. Obviously, they hope not to repeat that this year. GO BEARS!

But there are also some games of interest outside the MVC tonight. In the Southern Conference, Davidson and Appalachian State play at 6:00 and 8:30, respectively, in semifinal games against Furman and College of Charleson. If both favorites win, tomorrow’s SoCon title game would be the long-anticipated dream matchup between two teams with a combined total of 54 wins. In all likelihood, only one’s getting in, but it would at least make great fodder for low-major discussion on Selection Sunday. And if nothing else, a Davidson-App State final should be a fantastic game that would, as Kyle Whelliston says, “make Pat Forde’s trip down there worthwhile.”

Also tonight, two of Connecticut’s six Division I basketball schools have their backs against the wall, in terms of NCAA Tournament dreams. In the America East conference, #8 seed Hartford plays #9 Stony Brook for the right to see their tourney hopes die another day (against top seed Vermont tomorrow). And in the Ivy League, which doesn’t have a conference tournament, Yale must win at Pennsylvania tonight to stay alive for the regular-season title and auto bid. Both games start at 7:00 PM. Go Hawks! Go Elis!

You can follow all the action on ESPN’s scoreboard page. And looking a little further ahead, Whelliston previews the weekend of conference championship games.

My friend Cindy is excited that Bradley leads 28-21 at half.

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey has resigned in the wake of the Walter Reed hospital scandal, Defense Secretary

Visit CNN for the latest.

There will be a total lunar eclipse tomorrow evening — the first total lunar eclipse since the night the Red Sox won the World Series.

Details on tomorrow’s eclipse can be found here.

At 6:34 p.m., when the Moon rises in South Bend, it’ll be 14 minutes past Greatest Eclipse and 24 minutes until Third Contact (when the Moon begins to emerge from the Earth’s umbra). Unfortunately, it looks like the entire event will be eclipsed by clouds.

1LG weighs in on Propertygate: “For $40,000 a year I deserve to be taught not just by brilliant people but brilliant teachers. I also deserve to be graded using a fair and adequate system which is (to the extent that it can be) unarbitrary and nondiscriminatory.” She adds:

For those of you who think [the petition] is a drastic step, I respectfully disagree. In addition to students communicating their concerns to the administration and the SBA, the SBA president, as a liaison, has also been involved and has met repeatedly with deans etc. So far there has been no solid answer as to why the situation happened or whether the faculty will seriously address the lack of any sort of TA policy. In fact, according to the meeting today, the faculty committee has put this issue on the back burner until the end of the semester.

After going through the representative method (the SBA) and not getting answers, I think a petition is a completely adequate way of voicing a concern.

1LG adds that the problem is not “the use of TAs,” but “the apparent abuse of a TA system in this instance.” She later explains, “The abuse of the TA system has occurred in this instance, I believe, because students are relying entirely on a TA’s teaching of the class, rather than the professor. I think the administration knew this was likely to happen. TAs, if used, should supplement a class; I don’t pay $40K a year to be taught a required, fundamental first year course by a 2L.”

As always, rebuttals — both anonymous and otherwise — are welcomed. I’m not staking out an opinion about this issue one way or the other; I’m just trying to provide a forum for discussion. Thus far, the only people who seem to be speaking out publicly are the ones who are complaining, and that’s why they’ve been featured more prominently than any defenders of the current system.

SIU wins 71-59 but the game was much closer than that. Bradley and Northern Iowa up next.

In Alabama, ten people died — eight of them students at destroyed Enterprise High School — in a tornado outbreak that killed 20 people total.

And in Georgia (site of 9 of those 20 tornado deaths), tragedy struck again today when a bus crash killed six people. The bus was taking the Bluffton University baseball team to the Gene Cusic Classic baseball tournament in Florida; four student-athletes were among the dead, along with the bus driver and his wife. The cause of the crash is unclear at this time.

UPDATE: VodkaPundit is from Enterprise, Alabama, and he’s blogging about the tornado devastation there. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

First the New York Times, then the Washington Post, and now the Wall Street Journal… though this time it’s in more of a minor role. :) About two-thirds of the way through an article about people who liveblog major (and sometimes minor) private events in their lives, the Journal’s Jennifer Saranow writes:

Brendan Loy, a 25-year-old law student at the University of Notre Dame, generally writes about sports, current events, the weather and his life. For his wedding in December 2005, he asked a friend to take pictures on a cellphone and immediately upload them to his blog. The friend, Dan Seremet of Newington, Conn., posted 46 pictures that evening and night and says, “It was an honor.” Mr. Loy estimates he got almost 2,500 unique visitors that day, up from his daily average of 1,500 earlier that week.

I’ve been aware of this forthcoming article for weeks now, but was asked not to blog about it until it appeared. Here’s how the article starts:

If you hate newsy holiday letters, brace yourself for the live blog.

People are increasingly documenting the most mundane and private aspects of their lives and posting them the instant they happen. From birth — “I can see his head a little” — to death — “so many memories,” one blogger posted from a funeral — no experience is too personal or sacred not to be shared.

In November, 30-year-old graduate student Regan Ozbirn of Atlanta chronicled her first Thanksgiving with her husband online, with updates like “bring on the pie!!!” Her husband, computer-support technician Kevin Ozbirn, 33, was a little aggravated when she stopped him as he was about to start carving the turkey so she could take a picture. “I was ready to eat,” he says.

Heh. Read the whole thing.

One minor quibble: I object to the statement “until now, bloggers giving running commentary…have been largely dependent on computers.” Until now? I’ve been liveblogging since May 2002! I suppose it depends on your definition of “now,” and also of “largely,” but all in all, I don’t think this phenomenon is quite as new as the article implies, especially relative to the “age” of the blogosphere itself. What’s new is that new technologies and services are making this sort of thing easier to do (as the article points out in some detail), and that (partly as a result) many more people are doing it. But the capability has been there for quite a while; bloggers were only “largely dependent” on computers if they chose to be.

But, as I said, that’s a quibble. It’s a good article.

P.S. This paragraph is particularly interesting:

Many agree that it’s hard to fully participate in an event if you’re trying to compose pithy, thoughtful notes at the same time. Some academics say the live posts are the latest twist in the decades-old conflict between living in the moment and memorializing it from behind a camera lens, only worse. “People who are live-blogging are psychologically more distant from the event,” says Clay Shirky, a professor of social software at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

In my experience, that can be true, if you let it. It’s a matter of striking the proper balance. Sometimes I’m liveblogging, say, a sporting event, and I realize that I’m not paying as close attention to the game as I’d like. So you know what I do? I put away the phone or the laptop and just watch for a while. Problem solved! As long as you have the capability of coming to that realization and acting accordingly, liveblogging won’t diminish your life experiences. And it can sometimes enhance them — my liveblogging of the Boise State-Oklahoma game being a classic example. I didn’t have anyone to watch the game with, as Becky and her parents were asleep, so my blog posts (and the commentary thereon) were the only way I had of sharing my feelings during that roller-coaster ride. It’s not as good as real human interaction, but it’s better than nothing in a pinch. :)

Another point the article makes is the potential for blogging of everyday events to cause other people discomfort. “While proponents say live blogging helps them experience an event more fully and provides a nice souvenir, the postings can often disrupt the event, get scant traffic and annoy those dragooned into reading them,” Saranow writes. “And that says nothing of the feelings of a person who might not relish the notion of her maternity-room utterances or wedding vows being instantly blasted into cyberspace.” That’s true, too, but again, it’s a problem that’s solved fairly easily by a bit of common sense. Just be considerate! There’s a reason I don’t post photos of people at the Backer without their permission, or whip out my cell phone during Thanksgiving dinner to liveblog Becky’s dad saying grace, or blog anything about certain relatives who I know prefer to remain more private. People who annoy others by showing a total lack of respect for their feelings aren’t suffering from too much technology, they’re suffering from a lack of common sense and common courtesy. (That’s not to say I’ve never screwed up in this regard, but you learn from your mistakes… that’s what life is all about, right?)

Wichita State fans are ready. SIU leads Drake 30-19 at halftime.

Ryan Appleby was playin’ good in the neighborhood last night, and largely as a result, USC lost at Washington, 85-70, breaking the Huskies’ four-game losing streak. Drat. You could sort of see this loss coming — UW being pissed off and having nothing to lose, USC looking ahead to Wazzu and the Pac-10 and NCAA tourneys, and of course the game being at UW — but it still sucks.

The Trojans aren’t necessarily doomed in terms of getting a “protected” seed (i.e., #5 or better) in the Big Dance, but they’ll want to either upset Wazzu and win their Pac-10 quarterfinal game, or else lose to Wazzu but then reach the Pac-10 title game, if not win it.

Whatever their NCAA seed ends up being, the Trojans can still earn the #2 seed in the Pac-10 by winning at Wazzu on Saturday. Gametime is 7:00 PM, but it’s another blankety-blank Fox Prime Ticket game… argh. At least the Pac-10 tournament will be televised here (I think).

In happier news yesterday, Northeast Conference #1 seed Central Connecticut State won its quarterfinal game, 79-61 over #8-seed St. Francis (NY), to move within two home victories of an NCAA tournament berth (and possible spot in the play-in game). The Blue Devils’ next game is Sunday against #4 Mount St. Mary’s, which dispatched with #5 Robert Morris 78-61 yesterday. 1 down, 2 to go!

The biggest emerging story of Championship Week(s), however, is Virginia Military Institute’s improbable run toward the NCAA Tournament. VMI (14-18), the #6 seed in the nation’s #29-ranked conference (the Big South) and the #302 team out of #336 in ESPN’s InsideRPI, has knocked off the conference’s #3 and #2 seeds — the latter a 91-81 victory over High Point last night.

VMI, whose season scoresheet reads a bit like the Loyola Marymount teams of old (lots and lots of offense, absolutely no defense), now advances to Saturday’s title game on ESPN (2:00 PM EST), where they’ll face #1-seed Winthrop, which beat #5 UNC-Asheville 79-60 yesterday.

Winthrop, of course, is a team that has genuine NCAA at-large hopes… or should I say “had”? The Eagles’ profile might have been able to absorb a title-game loss to High Point, but can it absorb a title-game loss to one of the 50 worst teams in the nation? I kind of think not. Losing to VMI is definitely not the sort of final impression you want to leave on the selection committee. So I think the Eagles may need to win Saturday and get the automatic bid. They certainly can’t feel confident about their fate if they lose.

On the bright side, Winthrop has dispatched VMI with ease — and a whole lot of points — in their two prior meetings this season, 109-96 and 108-74. The latter was on Winthrop’s home floor, which is the same place Saturday’s game will be. If nothing else, it oughta be an entertaining game in terms of high-octane offense. And, hey, either outcome is potentially good for me: a Winthrop win puts a deserving low-major squad in the NCAAs for sure, while a VMI win probably bumps Central Connecticut State out of the play-in game. :)

UPDATE: Here’s what this morning’s ESPN Bubble Watch says about Winthrop and the VMI dilemma:

Winthrop rolled after halftime in its Big South semifinal and now is one step away from an auto bid and rendering the at-large debate moot. And what a weird last step it is, as the opponent will be No. 6 seed VMI and its insane uptempo system. Or at least that’s what the Keydets did during the regular season before throttling back to merely fast in the conference tourney to great offensive efficiency improvement. If you’re looking for a hoops fix on Saturday at 2 p.m. and like offense, tune in. Winthrop averaged 109 points a game in the home-and-home with the Keydets in conference play. Should Winthrop lose, would the damage caused by VMI’s poor profile cost Winthrop an at-large? The computer numbers wouldn’t be there, but anyone who watches this team knows it can play — and knows it could win a game or two in the NCAAs.

John Whipple, a freshman, has been chosen as the new Stanford Tree.