ninme

Friday night after work we went to Steelhead Diner for dinner, then we saw Burn After Reading, which was good, although the pacing could have been punchier. But as a follow-up to a Big Oscar-Winning Movie, it was a nice, light-hearted transition piece. Very good acting all around, although the big stars make you think “Look at what George Clooney’s doing now!” which rather breaks down that wall, but that’s okay. And they managed to make a movie about Washington DC and the CIA and tons of people in various government jobs without ever putting in a crack about [situation] since the administration did [action]. And watching the movie with a Seattle audience was particularly special. Which you’ll get if you see the movie.

So the previews. It’s Oscar season. There’s that stupid Ridley Scott helicopter-pr0n movie, where, as always, when it comes to terrorism, the truth is always complicated. And there’s Jamie Foxx turning on the water works in The Soloist, which albeit has an amazing soundtrack. And then there was Milk. Which is Sean Penn with funny hair and bad suits trying to get an Oscar. But it’s also about Harvey Milk, who is someone I’ve never heard of.

After the movie, avoiding eye-contact with all the bums, beggars, alcoholics and addicts that hang out all over the bus stops (Peter was getting into position to come to the aid of this lonely pretty blond girl (probably worked retail as I once did) who had a guy that wouldn’t leave her alone), Peter commented on the rental-quality of all the previewed movies. And I said, “Yeah, well, that Sean Penn movie looked like it might be interesting as a historical thing, but you know you’re going to get home and look it up in Wiki and find out the guy’s a hard-core socialist and whatever else.” So I look up the Wiki article and sure enough: Communists! Riots! Cults! Jim-freaking-Jones, for crying out loud! But turns out he dies at the end, which explains the sainthood.

Anyway, here’s what Wiki says on Milk’s page (which I just read in toto yesterday and don’t remember this passage, so it may have been edited overnight, which wouldn’t surprise me since there’s a movie coming out):

He distributed his campaign literature anywhere he could, including one of the most influential political groups in the city: the Peoples Temple. Milk’s volunteers dropped off brochures there, but came back with vague feelings of apprehension. Because the Peoples Temple leader, Jim Jones, was politically powerful in San Francisco (and supported both candidates), Milk was happy to allow Temple members to work his phones. But to his volunteers, he said, “Make sure you’re always nice to the Peoples Temple. If they ask you to do something, do it, and then send them a note thanking them for asking you to do it. They’re weird and they’re dangerous, and you never want to be on their bad side.”

And here’s what it says on the People’s Temple page:

In California, Jones and the Temple received the support of, among others, Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally, Assemblyman Willie Brown, San Francisco mayor George Moscone, Art Agnos, and Harvey Milk.[30] After the Temple mobilized volunteers and voters instrumental in Moscone’s narrow election victory in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Commission.[31][32] Willie Brown visited the temple many times and spoke publicly in support of Jones, even after investigations and suspicions of cult activity.

After Jones and hundreds of Temple members fled to Jonestown, Moscone’s office issued a press release stating the Mayor’s office would not investigate the Temple. During this time, Harvey Milk spoke at political rallies of the Peoples Temple and later wrote a letter President Jimmy Carter after the investigations began praising Jones and attacking the leader of people attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown as making “bold-faced lies.”

I expect those people might be the same as these:

On November 17, 1978, the group was visited at Jonestown by Leo Ryan, a United States Congressman from the San Francisco area, who was investigating claims of abuse within the Peoples Temple. During this visit, a number of Temple members expressed a desire to leave with the Congressman, and on the afternoon of November 18, these members accompanied Ryan to the local airstrip at Port Kaituma. There they were intercepted by Temple security guards who opened fire on the group, killing Congressman Ryan, three journalists, and one of the Temple defectors. A few seconds of gunfire from the incident were captured on video by Bob Brown, one of the journalists killed in the attack.

On the evening of November 18, in Jonestown, Jones ordered his congregation to drink cyanide-laced Flavor Aid. It was later determined that Jones died from a gunshot, with a contact wound in a location and angle consistent with being self-inflicted. His body was also found to contain high doses of drugs. In all, 918 people died, including over 270 children, resulting in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the incidents of September 11, 2001. This includes four that died at the Temple headquarters in Georgetown that night.

Anyway, it’s Wiki, I wasn’t born yet, the only name I’ve ever heard of is Jim Jones (never knew anything about him except he had a cult) and Moscone (because of the center). The whole thing could be complete bull-pocky.