This story is interesting for what’s not said — like how did it happen?

An Industry Motivated, More Than Ever, By Fear: New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell reflects on the state of the genre. “…In the aftermath of Sept. 11, it is harder to avoid the fact that American mainstream movies have become incredibly exclusionary: a series of spectacles in which middle-aged white guys — or those who share their sensibility — blow stuff up for the entertainment of the 12- to 19-year- olds who are thought to keep the movie business alive. By playing almost solely to that crowd, the studios have rendered modern movies irrelevant to more discerning filmgoers — the folks who’d rather stay home and wait out the ever-diminishing window between theatrical and home-video release. If you’re a woman over 25 and you want to see a protagonist with concerns similar to your own, you stay in and watch series television — although, interestingly enough, the movies have been catching up.”

iWalk Looks More Like iWish. Does Apple have a slick new PDA (that presents like the iPod) up its sleeve for a Monday unveiling at MacWorld, or is the Mac rumor site with purported pictures the victim of a hoax? Wired

Trolling the Web for Afghan Dead: “In an online report, a University of New Hampshire professor charges that the U.S. military has killed more than 4,000 civilians in Afghanistan and that the U.S. media have largely ignored the toll of the war on terrorism.” Wired On the other side of the coin, the news media are all over this fatality:

Franks Confirms U.S. Soldier Killed By Enemy. The Green Beret, on a mission near the Pakistani border in eastern Afghanistan to “facilitate cooperation” with tribal elements in the area, was killed and a CIA agent accompanying him was injured in what has been described as an ambush. He becomes the first US combat fatality to hostile fire. The Boston Channel