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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

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  • #31
    Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

    Ehmm... will have to aggree with Bulletproof on this Hicks. There's a reason these are called "Private Messages".

    Regards,

    Mourning
    2012 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

    2011 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

    2006 PD ABA Fantasy League runner up, sports.ws

    Comment


    • #32
      Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

      So when he belittles me where others can't hear, it's OK. I see.

      Sorry, I see your (and his) point, Mourning, but I don't respect saying something like that in private to save public face.

      Comment


      • #33
        Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

        You can always reply him in a PM that you don't like that sort of behavior and if he were to continue that threaten and if needed apply a ban on him.

        However, private is private. Just my opinion.

        I see your point, I personally would have done it differently. Back on topic now.

        Regards,

        Mourning
        2012 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

        2011 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

        2006 PD ABA Fantasy League runner up, sports.ws

        Comment


        • #34
          Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

          Whoa. Is everything we edit or PM going to be used against us in the future? That's kind of chilling.

          Comment


          • #35
            Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

            Originally posted by McClintic Sphere View Post
            Whoa. Is everything we edit or PM going to be used against us in the future? That's kind of chilling.
            Oh Jesus Christ. You act like he PMed someone else but me. There's nothing about me being an Admin involved with this.

            "Chilling."

            Comment


            • #36
              Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

              If the film is truly thought-provoking and well-done, than I don't think hypothetically killing the President will be in bad taste. Just as long as it serves a meaningful purpose. If the questions it raises are worthwhile and meaningful, then they should overshadow the killing of the president. If we are able to look at the film for the questions/thoughts it raises instead of the killing of the President, then the film has done its job properly.

              Now, if what DK posted (in spoilers) is what happens in the film, than I'd say killing the president was in bad taste. If all it serves is to make the Bush Administration out to be something like the Third Reich, then the film is nothing but a biased political film. I'm no fan of Bush, but that's taking it a bit far.

              Comment


              • #37
                Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                Why is this tasteless, but movies where entire cities are destoyed are not?
                “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

                “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” - Catherine Aird

                Comment


                • #38
                  Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                  Originally posted by Los Angeles View Post
                  Why is this tasteless, but movies where entire cities are destoyed are not?
                  I suppose one reason may be that it's not personal (such as when a fictional character is killed).

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                    Is this tasteless I believe it is to some but to others this film is a testament to our constitution.
                    It would say much more if the president would address a film like this and let everyone
                    know that he is above it and believes every man/woman has a right to view it if they want to.

                    Would I watch it? NO but thats because of my personal beliefs.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                      Originally posted by Hicks View Post
                      I suppose one reason may be that it's not personal (such as when a fictional character is killed).
                      I find the idea of altering the context and content of real media reports to make them refer to fictional events more disturbing than wondering "what if the most powerful man in the world died"?

                      He's the most powerful man in the world - it's only natural to wonder. There's nothing tasteless about that in my opinion.

                      Nobody in their right mind will see this as anything but a piece of fiction.

                      If you want to see entertainment that's truly tasteless, start with snuff films, move on to "rape" porn and go from there.

                      This isn't even a blip on that scale.
                      “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

                      “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” - Catherine Aird

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                        How would people feel if there a nuclear bomb was dropped on Iran and then went on to justify Bush's policies? I would call that propaganda.

                        I see this film in the same light--just another polemic excerise which will either confirm or harden the viewer's bias. Hardly what I would call art. Again it doesn't mean that a Brit can't have his views, I just don't feel I have to call it brave or worthwhile either.

                        Disclaimer: Again, I realize I haven't seen the film. Perhaps it will be great, but I am skeptical.
                        "They could turn out to be only innocent mathematicians, I suppose," muttered Woevre's section officer, de Decker.

                        "'Only.'" Woevre was amused. "Someday you'll explain to me how that's possible. Seeing that, on the face of it, all mathematics leads, doesn't it, sooner or later, to some kind of human suffering."

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                          Let's go one step farther with this. Let's say a film maker who opposes the war in Iraq decides to do a fictional account that a draft has been imposed. He decides to use real names thinking this will impact peoples thoughts and he means well because in his mind this will actually prevent a draft from happening.

                          Let's just same if some movie producer/director decided to use your family, your kids, your brother, your sister, your father as one of their characters in a movie depicting being killed in war you would have no problem with it?

                          Now some could argue hey it's fictional, he/she is trying to prevent that from happening. You should thank them for caring about your family because it didn't happen. Then I should have the right to follow this jerk around, tell him I'm going to kill him, kill his family, but hey don't take it personal as I'm only joking. What I'm really doing is working on a novel, a screen play, I really don't mean it. I was just throwing this out there and wondering what would happen if this took place.
                          You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                            I agree with you RWB.

                            And Bulletproof, you really come off sounding like a real arrogant *** in the message. Do you truly believe you are better than everyone on this forum?

                            I realize that the message was meant to be private, but it is interesting to see what you say behind all of our backs as well about the people of the forum. You have a VERY high opinion of yourself. Quite possibly too high. In fact, I'm sure your opinion of yourself is definitely too high. You have no idea who most of the people are on this forum in regards to their education, training, jobs, etc. I'm fairly certain, you will find people in this forum who you regularly belittle with your statements as noted above, who probably swim in that "bigger" pond and would be considered much bigger fish than you but chose not to rub it in everyone face as you seem to regularly enjoy doing, privately or publicly.

                            Get over yourself.

                            I myself know that I'm no where near the top of the food chain in intelligence of most of these subjects, but I respect those around me for who they are and not rub their face in it when I think I know more than they do about a particular subject.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Re: Now there is a film about the assasination of President....

                              If anyone is still interested in this, here are a few reviews of the film from the Toronto International Film Festival:

                              http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr..._id=1003121125

                              Sep. 13, 2006

                              Death of a President

                              By Kirk Honeycutt

                              Bottom line: Although slick and clever, the ethics of this fake docu about an imagined assassination of Bush are woeful.

                              TORONTO -- Amid a slew of real documentaries and richly detailed non-fiction books illuminating the ways in which America's current leadership has used deceit and misinformation to advance its political agenda and engineer greater repression comes a fake documentary trying to do the same thing. Only the film, "Death of a President," uses the morally dubious tactic of mixing real news footage with staged events to create an imagined assassination of President George W. Bush.

                              As convincing as the manipulated footage of the President's death in Chicago in October 2007 is, the movie itself cannot be more unconvincing in its approach. Does it not occur to filmmaker Gabriel Range, as he takes his bows for his clever stunt, that the very forces he warns against will use his film as propaganda? Their line will be: If the enemies of President Bush can be so crass as to imagine his cinematic murder, then what value can one give to their arguments against our great leader's domestic and foreign policies? Range has just made Karl Rove's day.

                              Festival organizers have been gleefully crowing about this film since its inclusion in the Toronto Festival was announced at the last minute. But as unpleasant as this swaggering over a failed political movie has been, it's nothing compared to the unpleasantness of watching this skilled British docu-dramatist massage real footage and sound bytes to envision the murder of a person who, whether you like the man or not, is still very much alive.

                              Tellingly, the first half of the movie leading up to the assassination, where amazingly real street demonstrations get out of hand and tense Secret Service and police officers go on high alert, represents the dramatic high point of the film. When Range gets to the second half, where he must justify his slick manipulation of reality, the film bogs down with dry lessons in forensic evidence and legal strategies. It becomes a murder mystery without a detective hero or love interest.

                              The movie means to show how a Cheney Administration, in its zeal to link the killing to terrorism, scapegoats a Syrian-born man, against whom there is the flimsiest of evidence, while ignoring an American vet sickened by the needless carnage in Iraq. The film, made to look like a TV documentary filmed many months after the fact, strongly implies the government got the wrong man. But putting the Syrian on trial allows Dick Cheney to push through Congress a Patriot Act III, which further enhances the American police state and broadens the powers of the executive branch.

                              Among the clever though ethically challenged manipulations is a real presidential visit to the Windy City with the city's leadership occupying the dais with Bush, talking head interviews with grieving staffers and presidential guardians and a state funeral, presumably President Reagan's, doctored so Cheney can orate over his late predecessor's coffin.

                              There is certainly much to admire in the skillful blend of real and fake. One's admiration ends there.
                              ----------------------------------------------------------------------
                              http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117...goryid=31&cs=1

                              Death of a President

                              By TODD MCCARTHY

                              Inflammatory more on a conceptual level than for the ideas it actually advances, the skillful docudrama "Death of a President" uses an imagined assassination of George W. Bush a year hence to explore how the American government might react to such an event and to post warning signs about the dangers of a rush to judgment in a climate all too conducive to instant finger-pointing. Shrewdly blending archival footage with staged material in ways that raise a host of separate issues, pic is calculatingly controversial on the face of things, designed to provoke gobs of media coverage and automatic outrage from those who haven't seen it. Such attention should assure theatrical release in key territories, although best prospects lie in cable (at least in the U.S.) and homevid.

                              From the very first moments, in which an Arabic-speaking woman bemoans the assassin's act and asks, "Why didn't he think about the consequences of his actions?," it is firmly suggested that this is not a film that advocates the killing of Bush. Assembled soberly and credibly in the style of a TV history docu about the event made well after the fact, the picture spends its first half recounting the day--October 19, 2007--leading up to the president's shooting in front of a Chicago hotel, and the second analyzing the search for suspects and the hasty push for justice.

                              English director and co-writer Gabriel Range knows his way around the docu style and the manipulation of footage for his own alarmist purposes, having three years ago made "The Day Britain Stopped," another speculative piece about the collapse of the country's transportation grid and its calamitous result. Range is on a path to becoming the intellectual Irwin Allen, a disaster specialist working in the brainy realm of faux analytical documentaries, a mini-genre arguably initiated by Peter Watkins more than four decades ago with "The War Game."

                              Layering the sense of dread with measured expertise, Range does a formidable job visualizing the circumstances surrounding the crime. As insights are offered key personnel--secret service agents, police, the president's speech writer, an activist and many others, all believably impersonated by actors--TV news-type coverage documents Bush's arrival in Chicago, the arrival of his motorcade into the midst of a hugely unruly demonstration featuring 12,000 protestors and the president's speech to a group of the city's economic leaders (a real event here used fictionally).

                              The demonstration scenes, evidently staged on the streets of Chicago especially for the film, are amazingly realistic and rep the film's high point in terms of vivid docudrama filmmaking. Many of the protestors have a feral, savage horde quality quite unlike their counterparts in the most famous film to have documented real-life Chicago political street battles, Haskell Wexler's "Medium Cool," and their burst beyond proscribed barriers and the resulting surge of police resemble frightening natural eruptions.

                              Despite the misgivings of the main secret service man, Bush insists upon walking the rope line on the way out of the hotel, which is where he's hit by two bullets from an unseen source. The president is pushed into his limo and rushed to Northwestern Hospital as hysteria ensues. This key sequence, which comes 25 minutes in, could have been presented gruesomely and exploitatively but is not; Bush's face, grafted in digitally, is fleetingly seen, but there's no impact or slow motion and it all happens in a flurry.

                              Then there's the waiting period, during which time authorities hurriedly assess where the shots may have come from and search for suspects. It's quickly determined that the shooter was positioned on the twentieth floor of the building across the street. A rifle is found, video surveillance footage is examined and numerous men are rounded up.

                              Soon after the president expires from his wounds, at pic's midway point, a certain Jamal Abu Zikri is arrested, his name leaked to the media with suspicious speed. Employed in the building across the street, Zikri is Syrian and, although he initially denies it, formerly served in that country's army. Once it's learned he also associated with a rabble-rousing Muslim cleric in the Chicago projects and traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, everyone's satisfied that Zikri's the man they want.

                              Pressure is ratcheted up on Syria, and President Cheney quickly pushes through Patriot Act III, which gives the government further powers to fight terrorism domestically. Perhaps the film's most remarkable--or dubious, depending upon one's perspective--sequence in one in which Cheney is seen to be presiding over his predecessor's state funeral, extolling his greatness to the distinguished assembly. One actually sees Cheney himself standing before a flag-bedraped casket at just such a funereal, and one can only presume that what we hear are ingeniously edited excerpts from a speech he gave in honor of a recently deceased government luminary.

                              After the elaborate set-up, the film curiously narrows in the last stretch devoted to Kikri's trial and related events. Far too much time is given over to forensic evidence, and when a possible alternative shooter comes into view, the concerns of the film are reduced nearly to those of a standard-issue murder mystery.

                              The film implicitly links the "conveyor belt" process by which Kikri has been charged, tried and convicted to the assumptions portrayed as truth by the Bush Administration and many others that led to the Iraq invasion, the almost automatic linking of Al-Qaeda to every terrorist incident and so on. It's this change of mindset, the instant associations that now connect to anything Islamic or that might be perceived as threatening the United States, that are the film's chief subjects. It's a point of view very much at odds with the administration line, but the argument is presented in a non-hysterical way that invites debate.

                              Disappointingly, "Death of a President" shrinks from its promise as a piece of genuinely radical or adventurous speculative fiction. For a while, the film references world events that parallel the domestic tragedy, such as flare-ups concerning North Korea and the challenge to Syria. Final section jumps seven months ahead, or to May, 2008, offering the possibility of mentioning such pertinent matters as a Cheney run for reelection, a widening of the Middle East conflict and further U.S. muscle flexing. But there's nothing of the sort. By concentrating solely on the details of the crime, the filmmakers deny themselves the greatest visionary possibilities offered by their premise.

                              The film also raises provocative questions as to the ethics of doctoring real footage to fictional or ideological ends, as well as to the responsibility of even presenting such heinous potential crimes in the context of would-be popular entertainment and thus possibly putting ideas into the heads of the easily suggestible. All this provides plenty of fodder for pontification by cultural commentators.

                              Technically, the film is exceptional.

                              -----------------------------------------------------------------------

                              http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...DITOR/60912001

                              TIFF: Who shot Bush?

                              by Jim Emerson
                              Editor, RogerEbert.com / September 12, 2006

                              TORONTO -- "Death of a President," the documentary-style speculative fiction about the assassination of the 43rd President of the United States, is seamless, intelligent and maybe even necessary to an understanding of George W. Bush's role in the world today, and his place in the wider scope of history. Especially when public awareness of the facts about his administration lags so far behind what has already been documented.

                              Written and directed by Gabriel Range, this very convincingly staged television "documentary" falls into a tradition of fictionalized British films (going back to Peter Watkins' famous "The War Game" and "Punishment Park" in the early 1960s) that use nonfiction techniques to explore contemporary social and political issues. Range himself made a film in 2003 called "The Day Britain Stopped," about what might happen if public transportation came to a standstill. Before that, he made "The Menendez Murders" (2002), described as another form of docu-drama.

                              The scenario is a familiar one: What would happen if a much-hated world leader was killed in office? Since the failed assassination attempts on Adolph Hitler, fictions imagining how things might have changed with the elimination of one powerful figure have fascinated historians and the public. How could they not?

                              We all know that four U.S. presidents have been assassinated, and that every president faces that threat every day. Gerald Ford, one of our most benign chief executives, survived two murder attempts in the month of September 1975 alone -- and he was never as divisive and generally reviled as Bush Jr., whose methods and ideology have been vilified as Hitlerian in real-life speeches and demonstrations that we've all seen already. (I'm speaking only about the real-life hatred the man has evoked worldwide, not the aptness of the Nazi comparison or whether such virulence is justified by his words and actions in office.)

                              "Death of a President" sticks to the assassination and the search for the killer, without exploring the domestic or global political repercussions of an official Cheney administration -- or even whether President Cheney runs for re-election. It covers events from October, 2007, to about a year later. What the film does is to take the real events that have characterized the Bush administration -- particularly its most infamous political modus operandi of marshaling selected and manufactured "facts" to fit a preordained conclusion -- and transpose them from the past into the future. When a forensics expert talks about the evidence against a suspect as being supportive but, in itself, inconclusive (nine points of comparison on a single fingerprint), and says he was told repeatedly to "look again" to strengthen a weak case, it's exactly like the CIA analysts who were interviewed in several "Frontline" documentaries talking about the phony case the administration made for the invasion of Iraq.

                              There is talk of the hundreds of people -- including American citizens -- who suddenly "vanished" from the US after 9/11, rounded up and detained indefinitely in shadow prisons abroad. Something similar happens after the assassination. "Patriot Act III" is passed in the immediate aftermath of Bush's death, giving the FBI and Homeland Security more unspecified surveillance and arrest "powers" -- when what's really needed is stricter adherence to existing procedures and (better analysis of existing intelligence).

                              The Bush assassination, which takes place outside the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Chicago, is politically exploited, just like 9/11, within hours. President Cheney looks for any excuse to go after Syria. A likely suspect is identified in an article on "page 3 or 4" of the Chicago Sun-Times, but somehow that story never catches the public's attention and is overlooked by officials more interested in job security and appearances. Again, just like the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

                              Everyone seems to agree that the anti-Bush demonstrations in Chicago that day were exceptionally angry. A top Chicago police official says he may disagree with the demonstrators, but that they have the right to protest. But, he claims, the key language in the First Amendment says such expressions must be "peaceful and law-abiding." There is no such language in the First Amendment, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that millions of Americans think there is. On the other hand, as a Secret Service agent explains, his job is to protect the president, and when demonstrators break police lines, actually stop the motorcade and come into contact with the presidential vehicle, that is no longer free speech but a direct security threat. I wouldn't contest that at all.

                              Most of all, "Death of a President" is electrifying drama, and compellingly realistic. The actors chosen for interview segments (including the mom from "Freaks & Geeks" as a presidential speechwriter) are unerringly authentic as real people, speaking spontaneously before a documentary lens -- even when it's clear they've rehearsed in their heads what they're going to say, and may even have told these same stories any number of times before. (An arrogant interrogator is particularly convincing in telling self-aggrandizing anecdotes about his assessment and treatment of a suspect.)

                              There's no reason to be threatened by this film, any more than there was to be by "United 93" or "World Trade Center." It's responsible and observant about the world we live in -- and it's certainly not going to give anybody any ideas they haven't had already. In its use of real or fictionalized narratives to examine recent political events -- especially the aftermath of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq -- "Death of a President" isn't all that different from innumerable other films in this year's festival, from "The Host" to "Pan's Labyrinth" to "Rescue Dawn."


                              "Death of a President" has been in the Toronto festival guides as "D.O.A.P." (or "dope"), as if the actual title of the film was too inflammatory for publication (perhaps in the way the comedy "The Pope Must Die" was retitled in America as "The Pope Must Diet"). The "D.O.A.P." designation does not appear on the movie itself. At the press/industry screening Tuesday morning, however, the acronym was conjured by an anti-Bush protest sign in the film that got a good laugh from the international audience: "Solid as a Rock. Only Dumber."

                              P.S. Throughout the festival, men in short-sleeved white shirts have stood in the aisles during press screenings shooting infrared video of the crowd. During the movie, mind you. Ostensibly, this is just a distracting and intrusive anti-piracy measure -- the price you pay for, well, watching a movie. I guess the idea is that if the tapes show any members of the audience photographing what's on the screen, they can be tracked down and prosecuted. No word about those who just pick their noses or itch their butts, but I'm sure a compilation of that footage will eventually appear somewhere -- perhaps on the Internet. I can't tell you, though, how disconcerting it was to see these guys filming us as we watched "Death of a President" and the film talked about the new surveillance procedures allowed under "Patriot Act III." If I disappear trying to legally cross back into the U.S. (I'm a citizen), please look for me.

                              There's another documentary in the festival, JT Petty's "S&MAN," about a creepy "underground" horror filmmaker who shoots a series of stalker movies, following women on the street and to their jobs and then "killing" them. He makes his living selling these on DVD, and their appeal is based in the fact that they appear to be real voyeuristic material. As far as I'm concerned, the creeps with the cameras at TIFF may as well be doing the same thing.

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