Linda Stirling Unmasked: The Black Whip




AGORA
: Dragged from her chariot by a mob of fanatical vigilante Christian monks, the revered astronomer was stripped naked, skinned to her bones with sharp oyster shells, stoned and burned alive as possibly the first executed witch in history. A kind of purge that was apparently big business back then.


CRITICAL WOMEN HEADLINES

12/10/09

Tattooed Under Fire, Directed by Nancy Schiesari,

is a gem of a film; a moment in Texas history that affords an up front and compelling view into the thoughts, the feelings, the method of coping with life threatening events that can not be altered.

The documentary takes the viewer into the River City Tattoo Parlor in Fort Hood Texas, recently made news worthy by a single man's mass killing on the base.

In this documentary we see how the Fort Hood men and women cope with the prospect of deployment and almost certain death or physical/mental alterations which forecast not improvement, nor progress towards a better life, but the turning of life's events in the opposite direction.

This is a film that at its core is anti war and yet no guns, no murder comes before the viewer eyes. Instead we see the men and women commiserating in their own unique way before deployment. We are forced to see what the serious downturn in the American economy means to our youth. They have no where to go to make a living, to join the ranks of the adult world, other than to War, to kill, to come home with memories they can not live with.

With the Fort Hood suicide rate higher than the death toll aboard it is painful to see what has happened to this country and what is happening to our youth. Even if they stay alive, their tattooed body that record their intelligent/emotional histories intact, they are damaged for life as are we, the silent complicit participants.

This is an interesting documentary, a compelling documentary, one where I thought my mind would champion my feelings but at the end, I am crying. I am deeply disturbed as I should be. These are terrible times. Financially, emotionally draining and it is our youth who carry the burden of intentional destruction.

Will it ever end?

LindaZ
WBAI Women's Collective

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