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Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has written a celebrity blog for us to promote his new film, Standard Operating Procedure. Feel free to post any questions to him below and let him respond! -- Ellen

I made Standard Operating Procedure because I was captivated by the mystery of the Abu Ghraib photographs; photographs that have been seen by more people than any other photographs in history. The iconic photograph of the Hooded Man on the box with wires attached to his hands has been seen by hundreds of millions people, in the U.S. and around the world. Several other photographs of Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman smiling and giving a “thumbs up” have also been widely shown.

It occurred to me that we all know the photographs, but few of us, myself included, could answer the questions: Why were they taken? What do they really show? Were they simply the result of stupidity – after all, what kind of criminal would take photographs of a crime they were committing? There was a long list of unanswered questions.

You look at a photograph, and you think you have seen everything. But all you have seen is what is inside the frame. But photographs reveal, and they conceal. I remember when I first saw the photographs, how bizarre, how perverted they were. I also remember my surprise in learning that it was policy to use American female soldiers to humiliate Iraqi prisoners, and that many of the pictures were merely reenacting ideas that had come from higher-up. I also remember my shock on learning that Abu Ghraib was not some small operation. We look at the pictures, and it is easy to imagine that Abu Ghraib is one or two cell blocks with a couple of hundred prisoners. This just isn’t the case. By the end of 2003, Abu Ghraib was the center of American intelligence operations in Iraq. Some 10,000 prisoners were incarcerated in what was essentially a concentration camp in the middle of the Sunni Triangle.

The size and extent of Abu Ghraib is just one example of how photographs can mislead us. Quite simply, photographs can serve as an exposé and as a cover up. Without the photographs we would know nothing about Abu Ghraib, We think we know who the real culprits are because we can see them, but we do not see (as Megan Ambuhl, one of the MPs, says in the movie) “outside the frame.”

Details are revealed in this movie (and in the many DVD extras) that were unknown and have never been thoroughly investigated: the use of children as hostages; the participation of many, many military and defense organizations in torture and abuse; the terrible risk from mortar attacks which took the lives of both prisoners and soldiers – violations of the Geneva Conventions on every level and in every way.

It is clear that what happened at Abu Ghraib is the result of policy and not the actions of a few rogue soldiers. But this is not a story about the higher-ups. And ultimately, I am not interested in apologizing for these soldiers or an attempt to excuse their behavior. I am more interested in trying through the pictures and their own words to capture something about who they are. As such, Standard Operating Procedure is a story about soldiers, about people – about what it means to be trapped in a moral and political nightmare. It’s not that these soldiers didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong – many did, and did what they did because they felt it was what they were supposed to do and because it was what they were required to do.

When the soldiers of the 372nd MP Brigade walked onto the tier for the first time in October 2003, the patterns of abuse had already been well established. We like to think that as we go through life there are clear signposts that mark what is right and what is wrong. But reality is rarely so simple.

There are many theories about why people do bad things. Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil,” the Stanley Milgram experiments on obedience to authority, Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. I did not want to put this story into a theoretical structure. I wanted it to live and breathe on its own. I wanted to first look before theorizing. Certainly, one of the most surprising things for me in this story was: how different these men and women were from each other. Each with their own issues and separate concerns. I find it deeply moving to listen to Sabrina Harman, one of the MPs who went to prison, read her letters home to Kelly, her girlfriend. The letters and the interview provide a reminder of the pressures these soldiers were under.

Standard Operating Procedure tells the story of ordinary young Americans, thrust into a complicated world not of their own making. Everyone believes they know what the MPs did but no one knows why. Presumably they went in the army to serve their country and do good, but ended up in the heart of darkness. We hear the soldiers tell their own stories in their own words. Can any of us help but wonder how we would react in a similar situation? -- Errol Morris

I bought beets from the store this past weekend, and I'm aiming to use them in recipes all week. I LOVE what beets do for the color of any dish. Talk about eye-catching. The first thing I did was roast them and store them in the fridge. And last night, inspired by the cold, wet weather, I made a big ol' pot of Chili with beets. You have never seen such a color on a pot of chili before. Think of the richest Indian tapestries you've ever laid eyes on. Is there a name for RedPurpleOrange? Repurpange? Photos don't do it justice. This was some day-glo Chili, and it was choc full o' health. My kids Squashcake, 4, and Squishpie, 2, lapped it right up. Yours will, too. Here's the recipe. You can use turkey, chicken, or beef, and any arrangement of vegetables you choose. Really, it will always come out tasting like chili if your spices are right. Here's what I used:

Ingredients:
Olive oil
1 pound ground chicken thigh
1/2 an onion, chopped small
1 roasted beet, chopped small
6 or 7 baby carrots, sliced very thin
1/2 of a red bell pepper, chopped small
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 (14.5 oz.) can chopped fire-roasted tomatoes
1 (32 oz.) carton chicken broth
2 Tablespoons flaxseed meal
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
(add cumin to kick up the smoky flavor without the heat that will turn kids off)

Directions:
1. Coat the bottom of a large pot with some olive oil and put it on medium heat. Add the onion, red pepper, and carrot, and cook until it begins to soften, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the ground chicken, garlic, and all the spices. Cook until the meat is done, breaking it up into the bite size you want, or that your kids will tolerate.
3. Stir in the tomatoes, chicken broth, corn meal, and flax meal, stirring together.
4. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, then simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.
5. Add beans at the end and stir through gently.
6. Taste and adjust spices accordingly.

This recipe grew from Jessica Seinfeld's Turkey Chili recipe in Deceptively Delicious. I use her book as a springboard and I swear you can substitute just about any vegetable for any other in a dish like this and it will taste just as good. It is not too spicy for little kids, but adults can get more chili flavor by adding chopped jalapenos to their own bowls and by adding cumin to the pot. Cumin gives you the smoky flavor without the heat. Shred some cheese and let kids sprinkle it on. Throw a few corn chips around the side and they'll be even happier.

Tomorrow: Blueberry Banana BEET Chocolate Chip Pancakes...

Meet one of the newest members of the Zak! family--the 4-piece nested bowl set.

More than just helpful around the kitchen, this bowl set is extremely easy on the eyes. I recently used the set in red for a party and they were a big hit! The melamine bowls are durable and perfect for picnicking, but also make cool centerpieces for your dining table or handy dishes for appetizers or snacks. They're also dishwasher safe, which makes me much more apt to use 'em!

Available in shades of red, yellow, or pink; a percentage of the proceeds from the pink set will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. The bowls come in a cute gift box too, so if you're planning on giving these as gifts--you've already saved a step.

--AndreaLeigh

Introduction: Ollie is part of a pack that includes five kids and two adults (Mom & Dad). He is "dad's dog" and when the kids say I like him better I tell them its because he listens to me and when I call him he always comes. He is the perfect fit to our active family. The kids entertain him as much as he entertains them.

Home: Richmond Hill, Queens, New York City.

Age: 18 months

Breed: Jack Russell Terrier

Personality: Weighs 15 lbs but thinks he weighs 75 lbs.  Extremely shy and cautious outside of the house and with strangers; pushy and and assertive in his safety zones. Very intelligent and a good problem solver.  He will do anything in his power to be at my side. Loves a good game of chase and keep away. While a lot of dogs are eager to please humans, he has only the desire to please himself. He is very obedient and listens very well. His one weakness is cats, he loves to chase cats. Here kitty-kitty....And while I'm very cute please don't try and pet me, I'd much rather play ball!

Likes: Food, toys, car rides, chasing cats and anything else that will run away from me. Being with the family.

Dislikes: Being petted by strangers; not getting to go out with the rest of the "pack"

Favorite Toy: Any stuffed animal.

Favorite Food: Anything you are eating; any and all meat products.

Trivia: Ollie was named after Mets pitcher, Ollie Perez, after beating the Yankees in inter-league play.

--Spanno
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If you'd like your pet featured on Wag Reflex, email us (wagreflex@amazon.com) with the bolded topics and a 500-pixel-wide JPEG of your pet.

Okay, I'm starting to sound like a WWF announcer (are you ready ruuuuuuumble?) but it is funny that the same Nobel season in which the Swedish chair of the literature prize committee asserted that Americans were not up to European standards saw the first award of the week, for Medicine, go to the French researchers whose claim to discovering the AIDS virus was embroiled in dispute with an American researcher, Robert Gallo, who was not included in today's award. I make no claims to being able to adjudicate the science of the controversy (despite growing up in a National Institutes of Health family, where my dad and Gallo both worked), but it does seem that despite Gallo's "disappointment" at not joining his French colleagues, the controversy (which required at one point an agreement between President Reagan and Prime Minister Chirac) has cooled and the scientific consensus has settled that Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier do have the legitimate claim to first scientific dibs here. Even Anthony Fauci, a high-profile administrator at NIH, "agreed there's no doubt the French scientists first identified the virus. He said they, and zur Hausen [who shared the award for his work on cervical cancer], deserved the Nobel. Fauci said that if additional researchers could have been included, Gallo 'would have been an obvious choice to be added to that list.'"

If you want to return to the bitter days of this '80s scientific controversy (carried on amid the general panic, anger, and shame surrounding the AIDS crisis), NBC's Robert Bazell has a short summary, and you can also visit our contentious customer review section for John Crewdson's Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, a Massive Cover-up and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo (whose take on Gallo is obvious from its subtitle). Gallo and Montagnier also wrote their own versions of the discovery and dispute: Gallo in Virus Hunting: AIDS, Cancer, and the Human Retrovirus: A Story of Scientific Discovery and Montagnier in Virus: The Co-Discoverer of HIV Tracks Its Rampage and Charts the Future. --Tom

Though it's definitely a catchy song, I doubt many people would remember A-ha's "Take On Me" if it weren't for its innovative-for-the-'80s half-animated/half-live action video. Recently, some evil genius took a crack at rewriting "Take on Me," crafting the lyrics as a running commentary describing exactly what's happening in the song's iconic video. The results are hilarious. Behold:

[ht: Line Out]

-- Jeff Reguilon

Many of you probably tuned in to Saturday Night Live this weekend for their opening spoof on the Vice Presidential debate, presided over by Queen Latifah as moderator Gwen Ifill (who pitched that her book was available for pre-order at Amazon, ha!) and once again starring Tina Fey as Sarah Palin (someone get her another Emmy, stat). Here it is again, if you missed it:

But for those of you who turned it off afterwards, too tired or impatient to sit through 90 minutes of commercials and usually mediocre bits, here are the top 3 I enjoyed from this weekend after the debate sketch, with guest host Anne Hathaway. The episode was actually better than average; Hathaway did a great job poking fun at her own mini-scandal this summer in her monologue, and also managed to sing in nearly ever sketch she participated in.

First up: a Mary Poppins spoof (Hathaway perfectly embodies Julie Andrews), where the real meaning of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is revealed:

Meanwhile, Mark Wahlberg talks to some farm animals. I rolled with laughter only because I didn't realize Mark Wahlberg was so spoof-able. ("Say hi to your mother for me, OK?")

The third highlight I picked actually not available to watch (it's Will Forte's song during Weekend Update attempting to run down how everyone voted on the economic bailout), so I'll show the honorable mention, Andy Samberg's digital short with season MVP Kristin Wiig. -- Ellen

The Watchmen is here! Wait, not THAT Watchmen. The much-anticipated film won't be out until next year. However, the "Motion Comics" version of the classic story is unfolding on digital video platforms, including Amazon Video On Demand. Here's some of what what Dave Gibbons, who drew the original graphic novel, told Newsarama about the new thing:

The source material was never designed to be animated and this has created a lot of logistical problems with extended drawing, additional movement to figures that never had it, etc. I think it’s always going to be a hybrid; it’s never going to be the pure thing anymore than the multi-million dollar motion picture will be the real thing. Watchmen the comic book is the real thing.

I still do think it’s an attractive and exciting way to present the material and I also think it shows the great strengths of Alan’s original story and, with modesty, the accessibility of my art style that I used on it. I think people can enjoy the graphic novel, they can enjoy the Motion Comic and they can enjoy the movie. I don’t think enjoying the presence of one excludes enjoyment of the others. I was particularly struck by the reaction of people who did not read the initial graphic novel. They were used to getting their visual excitement and storytelling from YouTube, TV or DVD. I think it’s a way of bridging that gap – bringing people hopefully to Watchmen the graphic novel and hopefully to other graphic novels and comics in general.

The Motion Comics are a great way to get into the world of The Watchmen, but be advised. The graphic novel is indeed graphic, and so are the videos. -- Stephanie Reid-Simons

The sign outside my local elementary school last spring wished students a "great summer" in a typical Travis Heights way: "Whatever Higher Power(s) You May Or May Not Believe In...YEE HA!"

Gender neutral, faith neutral, God neutral...that's my neighborhood here in Austin, Texas. In 2000, George Bush came in behind both Al Gore AND Ralph Nader in Travis Heights. When 70 percent of Texas voted in favor of a ban on gay marriage, my precinct voted 90% against. In my zip code, 90% of the federal election contributions this year went to Democrats.

Oh, and one more thing. Travis Heights Elementary is exactly one block from the house where liberal writer Molly Ivins lived. (If Molly were still alive and writing, our zip code would be bright blue on the Amazon book map.)

To the cable television boys who finger paint on the electoral map, Texas is always solid red. (The CNN guy never taps his digit down in our direction.) But here, in the neighborhood where I live, we're bluer than Vermont. And that's the point about all those red and blue state maps. They are good for showing what has been a remarkably static division in the Electoral College. But they miss how people are living and, I suspect, buying books.

The divisions state to state are real, but they are nothing compared to how Americans are sorting themselves from community to community. Statistician Bob Cushing and I traced the votes at the county level from 1948 to 2004 in our book The Big Sort. We could see that majorities, Republican or Democratic, were piling up in communities. The last five presidential elections have been as close as any in the last 100 years. But an increasing number of people live in counties where elections aren't close at all, where either one party or another wins in a landslide.

So, in 1976 — the nearly dead-even contest between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford — about a quarter of all voters lived in a county where one side or the other won by 20 points or more. By 2004 — the nearly dead-even contest between John Kerry and George W. Bush — almost a half of all voters lived in places, like Travis Heights, where 20 points or more decided the election.

When you look at local voting results over time, you see that counties tip Republican or Democratic, and then they keep tipping as more Republicans move into Republican counties and Democrats cluster in Democratic communities. (Or, at the same time, counties grow increasingly lopsided as members of the minority party decamp for more politically hospitable environs.)

One half of U.S. voters live in counties that have remained unchanged in their presidential preference since 1980; 60 percent live in counties that have not changed since 1988; and nearly 73 percent live in counties that have not changed since 1992. Orange and Los Angeles counties in California are side by side, but local political majorities have been growing in opposite directions since 1976, a phenomenon found in two-thirds of U.S. communities.

Our sense is that people aren't moving to be around others who feel as they did about the Iraq War or single-payer health plans. People are clustering around others who live as they do — people who have similar lifestyles, who read similar kinds of books. And every four years those ways of life align with political party.

Marketing folks have known for some time that demographic factors have little meaning these days. People don't define themselves as "single, male, college-educated, 25 to 35 years of age." They think of themselves as environmentalists, car-racing enthusiasts, or, as one woman told me, "I'm an ocean-oriented person." They know that to learn about another's politics you consider the way they live, not their age, race, or level of education. In a radio talk show in Minneapolis, three callers told me they realized they had moved into a community with polit