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I liked it a lot. It was fast moving and entertaining.

I note that some reviews were fixated on the destruction of the earth (death by garbage), and the de-evolution of the human race (American types only shown)...altho the fatties aren't slow to show courage when it's needed.

They never mention the eager return to earth by the fatties and the end credit history of reclaiming the planet. Some people are just too blinded by ideology to just relax and enjoy the story.

WALL-E himself is pretty timid, keeps running over his pet cockroach, and EVE shoots first and never checks the results. Gotta love it.

It was worth seeing.

My only question. At the beginning of the movie, it shows many of the giant resort ships being launched, but only one was visited by WALL-E. While each ship holds what seems to be 10s of thousands, I wonder if the remaining ships will ever return to Earth...or if they even still exist.

Mainly this latest horrible crop of anti-war-administration Hollywood garbage.

Here's the news: we know that war is horrible, brutal, and sometimes makes people do bad things. Big, fat duh. What we want to see is how people rise above that, and go on to do great and wonderful things.

The premise of Stop-Loss is that a kid comes home, is promised that he won't have to go back to Iraq, and then is told that circumstances have changed, and he has to go back again anyway. So he has this huge internal struggle of whether or not to become a draft-dodger, all covered with a large dollop of Injustice and another of It's All Bush's Fault. (There, I just saved you $20.) I saw the trailer, and The Mrs. and I turned to each other at the end, and said, in unison, "No."

As I watched the whiny little prick taking shit from his girlfriend about going back, all I could think about was the boys from Easy Company (the Band of Brothers) in the 101 PIR, who went off to war in 1942, and never saw home again till 1946. How's that for a rotation?

Director John Ford would have made Stop-Loss all about a guy who gets called back into service, spends all of thirty seconds bemoaning his fate, says goodbye to his wife (more on this later) and then goes off to lead a daring raid behind enemy lines, and saves his platoon from annihilation by wiping out a machine gun nest. As he lies on the battlefield, grievously wounded, his gruff old sergeant reads him a letter from his wife, saying that she's going to have a baby (there's that good-bye I spoke about). The sergeant finishes the letter, then says: "Don't worry, son: the doc'll patch you up as good as new. You've done your bit, now go home and play with your son. We'll take it from here."

The End.

Gross: $80 million in the first week alone.

My darling daughter loaned me World War Z, the Zombie Apocalypse, over Easter weekend.

Told in an 'interviews with survivors' form, the book covers the initial outbreaks in China thru the 'end' of the war. The end was problematical...there are still 'white' zones around the world, and feral zombies can pop up anywhere. The world lost 2/3s of it's population to zombie re-generation before we learned how to fight back collectively.

Naturally it got my fever'd brain working over-time.

I've got the shotguns and weapons necessary for immediate safety, and I know how to kill zombies having read the authors previous book - The Zombie Survival Guide. We even have an immediate family rally-point that is defensible...Bowman's Tower on the Delaware River. The questionnaire on the website is not as sanguine...only giving me a 40% chance of survival.

My problems is what do I do when I finally run out of ammo? They estimate 200 million zacks in the US alone...a bit much for even my ammo stash.

I need to git me a titanium crow bar or a heavy-duty machete.

I figure eventually we'd head west. Most of the zombies will be following their food source fleeing north (Zombies freeze solid in winter - Canada will be very popular)).

I need to find a castle-type structure near a food source in a rural area.

War Paint Update...

Barbara Cunningham
Honorary United States Marine
 

James Wagner, who everybody called "Daddy Wags", died 5 years ago, he used to run the biggest Marine Corps birthday at 10th and Oregon Avenue at Cookies Tavern. The
baton has been passed to me, I now run the outside of the Marine Corps birthday, I also run the toys for tots program and all our toys go to children of the 3rd Batallion, 13th Marines. This tattoo is in honor of Wags. It's a wreath, it says "Wags" at the bottom and USMC across the top.

There are only 126 honorary Marines, I'm one of them, it's a great honor.
 

 

One of my former students, a master of many parts, has his new book out ...and a slide show in Newsweek.

I bought it Saturday Night and finished it Sunday.

I was not disappointed in the ending at all...I thought it was an absolutely perfect ending for the series. I don't understand the disappointment of some readers...the ending was exciting and excellent.

The mid-parts of the book were a bit long as the main three, with various and sundry helpers, search for the Horcruxes...search - trouble - search - yikes - search - RUN - search - capture...escape...search...etc...for what takes months and months in real time. Somewhat conveniently Voldemort is out of the country on a search of his own. Perhaps seven Horcruxes was too big a number. We had already seen 2 destroyed...the diary and whatever blackened Dumbledor's hand, so 5 more needed to be accounted for...including a search for what had destroyed Dumbledor. This took a bit too long.

Several characters were given the opportunity to destroy the Horcruxes, but at the end of course, it came down to Harry and Tom Riddle.

There were several sub-arcs. The Deathly Hallows turns out to be percolating thru the books since the beginning, and the final key to Riddle's eventual fate...and Harry finds out more about his ancestors thru the Hallows. Love matches are made and finalized. Dombledor's history is reveled. Honorable characters commit betrayal, several formerly evil characters are saved thru feelings of remorse and love, neutral characters take sides, secret histories are reveled. Some well known characters don't make it, some gentle characters exhibit extreme violence when pushed too far, and some timid types reach the summit of bravery and honor. I don't recall any loose ends other than no further exploration of Snape's last admonition to Harry to speak his curses without actually saying them. Some people are complaining about the epilogue...I would have been disappointed not knowing the fates of those who survived that last battle.

I liked it very much. Your mileage may vary.

Many horrible spoilers after the jump...

Outstanding movie



I had been given the graphic novel by my son last fall, and I kept up with all the little snippets of the movie (and the making of it) on the Web. The final cut is much better than just watching disassociated pieces.

My lady wife went with me. The deal has always been that if she goes to an action movie with me, then I have to go to a chick flick with her. This action movie will be worth whatever nightmare she drags me to the next time.

There are scenes in the movie that were not in the graphic novel, and vice versa...just enough to keep you guessing. I also think the the recent brouhaha by the progressives that this movie is a metaphor for the War on Terror is just typical leftist fuzzy thinking. The good guys and bad guys are very clearly drawn. It is a story about honor and courage, as drawn in a comic book, and not a metaphor for our times.

Just like that chick flick Titanic that she dragged me to, we know how it ends. The politics of it are hidden in the mists of time, but certain facts remain that the comic was faithful to.

7000 Greeks from many cities under the leadership of the Spartan King held up the Persian advance long enough for the rest of the Greek city states to prepare for invasion.   They held a narrow gap between the mountains and the sea which was the quick route into southern Greece from were Xerxes landed his troops.  The Greeks were betrayed and their leader sent all but 300 Spartans (and several other small groups) to safety and to spread the word. The Spartans were all killed (save 3* which are not mentioned in this story).  What truly happened there is only known secondhand...all the Greek allies that stayed to fight were killed.

No mention is made of the sea battle at Salamis a few weeks later which really ended the Persian invasion.  Without control of the sea, Xerxes could not support his army.  His remaining land forces were destroyed by the Greeks several months later as noted in the movie.

The Spartans are seen as honorable, courageous, and, I think, a bit single minded. I also think the story treats the Persians pretty well. They are seen to be as courageous as the Greeks. The biggest contrast, of course, is between the two kings...The earthy Leonidas and the androgynous Xerxes. Their parlay is wonderful theater.

The cinematography is along the style of Sin City - with fewer locations. It was adapted from a graphic novel after all. It seemed like a short movie, and (except for the scenes not in the comic) had a minimum of dialog.

Do not expect true historical accuracy...expect an excellent remake of a story you already know.  The politics of the time would fill a tome...but even so, some will fight when there is no hope because that is better than to live as slaves.  Not every Greek city-state of the time agreed, and some submitted to the Persians.

...Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, and still yet if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you, and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. - Winston Churchill

The 15 yard gap between the mountains and the sea where the ancient coast road ran is no longer there...the sediment deposits pushing the sea back a mile or two...enough room for a modern highway.  Monuments tight against the hills show where the battle was fought and lost.

*One was sent as a messenger to another city and returned too late to join in the final battle. He committed suicide in shame. Two were blinded and sent to the rear. One of those returned to the battle and was killed. The other made it to Sparta and was shamed as a coward.

Update:

Tiberius has re-written the script to meet Liberal approval....

There is no way they would applaud this movie as written. To meet
liberal approval, it would have to be re-written to portray Xerxes as a
MLK-like figure trying to bring racial justice and diversity to the
world by saving the deluded Greeks from the "yoke" of Patriarchy and
Western Civilization that they had been tricked into supporting by the
evil Bushitleras...who is in turns both a stuttering retard and a
diabolical mastermind and talks like he's from Texas....and his elite
mercenary army, the Halliburtonite warriors, led by Bushitleras's
trusted lieutenants Cheneyopulas and Rumsfeldos. Bushilteras and his
Halliburtonite warriors, after many gratuitous atrocities on innocent
brown and black people, will hole up in a impregnable position, and
actually put Xerxes in danger of being defeated until a Greek named
Mcainites sees how he's been betrayed by Bushitleras and shows Xerxes a
hidden path that will enable him to out-flank and destroy the
Halliburtonite warriors. Bushitleras will be taken alive after he flees
and leaves the others to thier fate, and grovel and plead before Xerxes
for his life. Xerxes will, of course, answer his pleas and then die
tragically when he foolishly turns his back on Bushitleras long enough
for him to pull out a hidden dagger and back-stab him. Xerxes's
bodyguards will cut him down on the spot, then Xerxes will give his
dying speech about the perils of Patriarchy and the evil of Western
civilization and die while cradled in the arms of Mcainites, who had
become his gay lover.

Update:  Iranian official lashes out at Hollywood movie "300" for insulting
Persian civilization

Betty Paige has finally shown up in Roswell, Texas.

Great comic, you should check it out.

Today was the birthday of my wife's best friend Alida. These two go at it hammer and tongs for each others birthday, and have been doing this for 30 years. After the presents were presented to those birthday girls present at dinner, we went to see Casino Royale. I was pleasantly surprised. I admit to being more excited by Pierce Brosnan back when he was announced as Bond, but Daniel Craig did a great job. We're back to where Bond was a kick ass assassin again rather than a comic gadget guy. He is also a new 00 (we see how he got that designation) with a head a bit too big for his hat. One meme of the movie is how M beats him into shape. Craig looks the part - cut and extremely fit, looking beat-up even when he isn't getting beat up, and initially with a cold ruthless egocentric personality that is skirting thin ice with the wonderful M. M takes no crap from her 00's and when she threatens to have Bond killed if he doesn't straighten up - you believe her. I have to say that an early foot chase scene is the best I have ever seen in a movie. I was amazed. A torture scene late in the movie will have every guy in the place squirming in his seat - a scene where Bond is strapped naked to a rattan chair with the seat cut out - enough said. Fewer gadgets make for better special effects and require actual acting. Oh, and it certainly still doesn't pay for a girl to be romantically involved with Mr. Bond. I don't think Bond fans will be disappointed, and for the rest of you - this is a good movie to grab on DVD.

...but I found this link in a comment at Tam's place. Too Cool.

I finally finished my Review. I've already read the opposing views here and here and here. Not my cup of tea.

America Alone The End of the World as we know it Mark Steyn - Regnery Publishing 214p Steyn ends this book with this statement: This book isn't an argument for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will I have to tell you that I am depressed by this book. We all know that the United States at this time in history could not be overcome militarily by any coalition of the world's forces you want to name. We all know that the only thing that can beat us in any endeavor is a lack of will to do what is necessary. We know that. While I realized the US has been going it alone lately, I never internalized why that was so. In this book, Mark Steyn tells us why. The answer is Demographics and Willpower. He believes Europe is gone and should only be used as a canary in a mine shaft would be used - as a warning to the Anglosphere West that remains. If his demographic figures are correct, and I see the same numbers every day in the news, then Europe will have half the number of Europeans it has now in two generations. The only source of the 50 million immigrants they need to survive is in Africa and the Middle East. Even China's population will shrink to the point where they won't be able to take global advantage of the economic power they are building. Greece is losing half it's population each generation. Do you remember 20 years ago when Japan was buying up everything in sight in the United States and we were going to speaking Japanese and using the Yen as currency before too long? Why didn't it happen? With a population replacement rate that is the lowest in the civilized world at 1.1, with a population that is averaging the oldest in the world, and no immigration to replace population - they ran out of people to take advantage of that growth within one generation. All of that is known, so why did this book depress me? There is no guarantee that America and the remaining West will prevail. It's the Demographics Stupid Actually, I don't think everything's about jihad. But I do think, as I said, that a good 90 percent of everything's about demography. What a black, black picture Steyn portrays. Russia is the sick man of Europe with a population which will drop to under 50 million by the end of the century (from a current 140 million). The average life span of Russian men is lower than that of men in Bangladesh and 70 percent of pregnancies are aborted. Except in the 12 of 89 Russian federal regions which are predominately Islamic and which have healthy birthrates. Saving Ireland, it is the same all over Europe….from London to Athens. The Europeans are being out bred in a shift of population which is unprecedented in a world not in the grips of a major war or plague. Steyn doesn't mention it, but of all our allies, only India is maintaining its population. Not England nor Canada nor Australia. Only the US and India of westernized countries over 20 million are maintaining population. These populations shifts are changing so quickly that we are looking at major bad things happening within the next twenty years…much less 50 or a hundred. In the fourteenth century, the Black Death wiped out a third of the Continent's population; in the twenty-first, a larger proportion will disappear - in effect, by choice. So what possibly can the US do about it? Steyn lays out three possible resolutions: 1. Submit to Islam 2. Destroy Islam 3. Reform Islam Because most of us don't take number one as a serious possibility, we're equally unserious about beiing forced to choose between two and three. Steyn doesn't believe we can hold onto the planet alone..."a totalitarian China, a crumbling Russia, an insane Middle East, a disease-ridden Africa, a civil war-torn Eurabia - and a country that can't even enforce its borders against two relatively benign states will somehow be able to hold the entire planet at bay? Dream on. He wants to create conditions that increase the likelihood of Muslim reform: 1. Support Womans Rights - not feminist pieties 2. Roll back Wahhabi, Iranian, and other ideological exports 3. Support economic and political liberty in the Muslim world 4. Marginalize Moslim states that persecute non-Muslims 5. Throttle the funding of madrassas 6. Create a civil corp to match America's warrior corps to conter Islamism in the ideological wars 7. Marginalize NATO, the UN, the Atomic Energy Agency and concentrate on results-orientated multilateralism 8. Stop bankrolling oil dictatorships by transforming the energy industry 9. End the Iranian regime 10. Strike militarily when the opportunity presents itself ...and of course he expands on each of them. He ends the book with a passage from Conan Doyle's The Tragedy of the Korosko "A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it is mere shirking not to undertake it." He feels we've been shirking too long, and that's unworthy of us.

300...

The Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks Three Rivers Press - New York 2003 Survival is the key word to remember - not victory, not conquest, just survival. This book will not teach you to become a professional zombie hunter. Anyone wishing to devote their life to such a profession must seek training elsewhere.

This medium length book is a scholarly yet practical look at one of the greatest hidden dangers of our times. It is a seminal 247 pages that covers the discovery of the Solanum virus thru practical techniques of avoidance and combat, and preparedness. Learning how to recognize the threat is worth the price of the book alone. I particularly liked the discussion of recorded Zombie attacks reaching from 60,000 BC in Katanda, Central Africa to the near present of 2002 AD in the Virgin Islands.

140-41 AD, Thamugani, Numidia (Algeria) Six small outbreaks among desert nomads were recorded by Luciuis Valerius Strabo, Roman governor of the province. All outbreaks were crushed by two cohorts from the III Augusta Legionary base. Total zombies dispatched: 134. Roman casualties: 5. Other than the official report, a private journal entry by an army engineer records a significant discovery. A local family remained imprisoned in their home for at least twelve days while the savage creatures scratched and clawed fruitlessly at their bolted doors and windows. After we dispatched the filth and rescued the family, their manner looked near to insane. From what we could gather, the wails of the beasts, day after day, night after night, proved to be a merciless form of torture. This is the first known recognition of psychological damage caused by a zombie attack. All six incidents, given their chronological proximity, make a credible case for one or more ghouls from earlier attacks "surviving" long enough to reinfect a population.

This book dispels many myths about the zombie, and delves deep into the physiological implications of the damage caused by the virus. Also, a wide range of weapons are discussed, modern and ancient, that have been used to dispatch the creatures….not all of them were useful. I only take issue with the author on one weapon. He recommends the 30" titanium crowbar. While I agree that it is half the weight of steel and nearly half again as strong, I believe that it is too brittle to stand up to long term use.

The best bludgeon is a crowbar. Its curved, semi sharpened edge also allows for a stabbing motion through the eye socket, directly into the brain case. More than one survivor has reported killing zombies in this manner. Another benefit of the crowbar is that it may be necessary to pry open a door, shift a heavy object, or perform other tasks for which it was designed. None of these functions can be accomplished with any of the previously mentioned items. Even lighter and more durable than the steel crowbar is the titanium model, now trickling into Western markets from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The last few pages of the book are given over to a convenient "Outbreak Journal". This has areas for you to record suspicious events for early detection and advance preparation.

I could not recommend this book more. While zombie attacks are rare in the western world, they are still documented a few times a year. Zombies are easy to kill, but one must be able to recognize what you see, and be prepared to do what must be done. This book will certainly help you with that.

If you like this book, you might also try World War Z or the new Walking Dead, Vol 5.

And now for something completely different…..with spoilers. I bought V for Vendetta at the DVD store in the mall yesterday. Besides the fact that I would spend money to watch Natalie Portman wash dishes, I've wanted to see this movie since I read all the horrible moonbat reviews. No one seemed to actually review the movie, just the political overtones it exposed. Generally I figure the explosions in a movie are their own reward…I don't need to be spoon fed political cant at the same time. I liked it a lot. I rarely watch a DVD twice in a row, but we did with this one. As for the politics of it, only in a moonbat's most fevered imagination could you equate this movie with the political climate in the US today. The movie is loosely based on a comic book written in the mid-eighties, but seems to take place about 2035 with flashbacks to 20 years before. The author of the comic didn't much like the political overtones in the movie either…. After reading the script, Moore remarked that his comic had been "turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country.... [This film] is a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives - which is not what [the comic] 'V for Vendetta' was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]." The moonbat complaint is that the endless War on Terror is kept alive by a fear of the other that is the next thing to make-believe. In this movie, big media is controlled by the government and is their willing tool in a draconian control of the population. The movie's government is not above creating incidents to dramatize the dangers in the world…pretty horrific incidents as it happens. The population is watched constantly by a secret police called 'fingermen' (?), and even sarcasm can get you a death sentence; as well as being gay or not an Anglican. We don't need to go into the human experiments, virus testing on school children, and all the other standard Hollywood trappings of a fascist government. In the real world, there really are people who want to kill us, and the government doesn't need to create incidents…they seem to occur anytime two 19 year old guys named Mohammad get together. This is simply a revenge movie. The main character "V" has been damaged by government hormone experiments to the point that he no longer remembers who he was. He has spent twenty years preparing for a vengeance that is both personal and a political statement. Personal because he has been able to track down and kill those responsible for his torment, and political because he plans to bring down the government that allowed these people to flourish. The name "V" has several layers of meaning as you find out in the movie. The character is also violently insane…although his violence is extremely focused. You wouldn't worry about meeting him in a dark alley, as Evey does, unless you were a "fingerman". __________ There were some interesting and even comic theatrical bits…. The population knows they are being lied to. They joke about how this or that is an obvious government lie because of the well know facial tics of the presenter. "Bollocks" is a term used many times in the movie by various characters reacting to some new government statement. In one scene, sympathetic cops watch a crowd confront a massed Army unit under the control of the government…..resulting in my favorite exchange in the movie. Junior Cop: "What is going to happen? Senior Cop: "What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people *with* guns. " The United States is only mentioned as being in a 'civil war'. Obviously we resisted our new presumptive masters better than the English. One can only surmise from the liberal bent of the producers that the evil neo-cons are being resisted by heroic liberals. Of course in reality liberals have no guns or guts. I like to think that Barbara Boxer made good her threat to force "Mr. and Mrs American, turn them in." and got a different reaction than she expected. Note that there is no mention of America in the comic...that is purely a fiction created by the movie's producers. Is V blind? One character's statement seems to infer that he has no eyes. He doesn't act like it, and another statement seems to say that the hormonal experiments that killed thousands had a different effect on his body. He seems strong, but not super-human and in one scene, V masquerades as a blind beggar. His mask appears to have no eyeholes in it. While he kills all those who personally experimented on his body….not all are violent deaths. One character who has repented gets killed gently, almost reverently. Roses play promenantly in the movie, and more so in the comic. Specifically the Scarlet Carson Rose. Certain members of the government, mainly civil police types, are having second thoughts about what is going on. In the comic, one of these characters joins V's crusade, and another helps Evey out of a tight spot. V sends out 750,000 V costumes to the population of London. Makes for an interesting crowd scene. ___________ Portman as Evey Hammond is wonderful. She grows from a scared mouse of a girl rescued by V into a willing participant in V's vendetta. In truth, she is the key to success. The road is rocky for her, but at the end of the movie she has a Zen-like calmness that she earned thru pain. Hugo Weaving is never seen. But having watched him in Matrix, I could visualize him every time he had a spoken line. Many reviews have called his dialog boring, he communicated sometimes in rhyme, but I knew nearly every one of the lines of poetry and story that he spoke. He was able to convey emotion by the cant of his body or the dip of the Guy Fawkes mask he wore…a fascinating process to watch. The movie was a perfect blend of action and message. The action was great, and the message seems to be interpreted in different ways by different sides of the spectrum. Yeah, I'm glad I bought it. I think I'll watch it again right now. As for the familiar.... Range day tomorrow. The SKS, Ruger 10/22, Walther P22, AR, and Marlin 1894. The Ruger and Walther are for the lovely young friend my son is bringing down. The AR needs function check since I cleaned out the gas tube...and got the new green tip ammo. The SKS is to familiarize the good doctor with combloc 7x39 weapons (sorry purists: no AK) before she scoots off on her next 'doctor's without borders' type gig...she's already handled the Makarov last time out. The Marlin is a specific request from Jess...and I dug into my loose-rounds can and came up with about 3 boxes of 10 types of mixed .38 and .357. Should be a good test. Update: The AR worked flawlessly with the Lake City Ammo. Jesse could consistantly get one hole groups with 3 or 4 shots, and then get a flyer. I expect it's the ammo as I read that it is 3rd tier stuff and each round needs to be inspected. I had two failures to fire with a dented primer cap out of 100 rounds. I also tried the 5.56 chinese stuff my other son gave me, but threw away the box after 3 failures to fire in 4 rounds. Other than that, it the AR worked Sweet. The Marlin handled mixed ammo really well. I would load mixed .357, .38s, 38+P with different bullet types and it all worked fine. The small 6X scope I put on it makes it really fun to shoot. Jesse was tearing up the little .22 reactive targets I had brought...and I mean tearing them up. Our young guest had a great time and fired all the weapons. She almost thought the 1022 was silenced compared to the blasty goodness of the other weapons. Great time this morning...and the movie is still good.

Lady in the Water M Night Shyamalan She: I liked it. It wouldn't be a bad movie for kids to see....it wasn't that scary. I loved the characters and how they all interacted as normal people in an apartment complex would act. The 'little' bits of the movie were great. The story of the mythology could have been fleshed out a bit more, but I'm a mythology fan. I rate all movies I see compared to 'Matix II' - at zero. This movie gets a 10. I gave 'Dead Mans Chest' a 15. Sucker:You know all those TV shows that your girlfriend/wife/sigother watch that you can't understand or get interested in...like Lost. Well, this is a picture for them. It was OK. A get-out-of-trouble-free chick flick of a date movie. See this one with her, and she'll have to go to your next explosions movie. I didn't fall asleep (much) and I didn't walk out to sit on the theater steps (as I have done before). Not all of it made any sense, but that's par for the course for fantasy/horror/chick flicks. Best: I bought into the wierd characters. Worst: I didn't buy into the mythology. I'd rate it around the mid point of my 'Matrix II to Casablanca" scale...sorta about the same as the deVinci Code. While She is planning to grab the DVD, I'd say rent it once so you don't have to buy it.

Well, you know the rest.

I'm reading Desert War by Australian Alan Moorehead. First published as the African Trilogy in 1944. Moorehead (1910-1986) was the pre-eminent uniformed British war coorespondent of his day. His reporting spanned the Spanish Civil War thru VE day and he was no stranger to combat, preferring (unlike his collegue Hemingway) to spend as much time with the front line troops as possible. This book covers his experiences in the Middle East, North Africa, Inda, England, and the US from 1940 thru 1943. The overwhelming majority of the time he was up with the troops in the desert. I find his prose a bit dated for my taste, reading sometimes like a travelog. Understandable in a time before television when authors needed to paint a picture for their readers. A good book by an author with a decidedly gingoistic bent with more than a touch of wartime propaganda thrown in. Which brings me to my point..... Getting a few months off to bring his young family to safety in Canada, he is able to make a short trip to New York to try and understand how these strange Americans are reacting to the world war they lately (it's November 1942) find themselves in. One short section rang bells.... Everywhere I went people seemed to be gripped by the same sense of irritation and frustration. It made no difference whether you talked to a cab driver on Fifth Avenue or a businessman just in from the Middle West. They were in the war but not of it. They were beginning to suffer the discomforts of the war without seeing any definite result. The papers were full of war talk and the streets full of slogans, but where was the action? Where was the money going? Production was coming along fine, but what happened to all the thousands of tanks and guns and jeeps? Why didn't somebody use them? Were the Russians the only people who could fight? ...But the ugly, unthinkable thing that nobody dared mention was beginning to creep into the back of people's minds. Did the nation really want to fight? Were not the Germans and the Japs really better soldiers? Look what was happening on Guadalcanal.... The leadership was wrong. Washington was a hell's kitchen of double-dealing politicians and war profiteers. 'Washington'...was the place where rogues bribed one another to get government contracts, where foreigners intrigued, where men bought themselves out of active service, where fools and incompetents were falling over on another in every government department. American boys were paying with their lives for the mistakes made in the White House. The navy was at loggerheads with the army. The draft was crooked. The whole thing was crooked and there was no firm direction anywhere. Emphasis mine.

Look familiar? And this was the begining of the 'good war' fought by the 'greatest generation'. ...the more they stay the same.

I'm reading Waterloo - New Perspectives by David Hamilton-Williams This is a fairly recent (1993, revised edition 1999) reappraisal of that battle. The author was able to get access to 700 letters which hadn't been looked at in toto for 190 years. These letters had been solicited immediately after the battle from the participating English officers to create a model layout of the unit dispositions during the battle. As it turns out, the officer creating the layout, Captain William Siborne, only used those letters sent to him by officers who were willing to pay to be included....less than 200 of them. No Dutch, French, or Prussian officers were contacted. This secret was kept by Siborne's family for over a hundred years, and they would not release the letters to other scholars. For over a century, the Siborne account was taken as gospel and used as the basis for countless other books. These first person accounts languished in archives for nearly another century. This book has more details about the battle than any other I have seen, and is nearly 180 degrees on unit dispositions from earlier works. That said.... I was struck by one short passage:

By 15 June, 234,720 National Guardsmen had been summoned, and 150,000 were already assembled. From his surplus of regular army officers on half pay, Napoleon assigned many to train the National Guard up to regular army standards. He well remembered how, at La fere-Champenoise in 1814, a division of these untrained men had blundered into the entire Allied army. The division assumed a square formation and fought a stubborn retreat for sixteen miles, assailed by almost the whole of the Allied cavalry, 20,000 horsemen. The Guards were only compelled to surrender when the entire Russian and Prussian Guard infantry blocked them and reduced them by cannon fire.

Here is another more detailed account:

At dawn on the 25th, then, the allied Grand Army turned to the right-about, while Bluecher’s men marched joyfully on the parallel road from Chalons. Near La Fere-Champenoise, on that day, a cloud of Russian and Austrian horse harassed Marmont’s and Mortier’s corps, and took 2,500 prisoners and fifty cannon. Further to the north, Bluecher’s Cossacks swooped on a division of 4,500 men, mostly National Guards, that guarded a large convoy. Stoutly the French formed in squares, and beat them off again and again. Thereupon Colonel Hudson Lowe rode away southwards, to beg reinforcements from Wrede’s Bavarians. They, too, failed to break that indomitable infantry. The 180 wagons had to be left behind; but the recruits plodded on, and seemed likely to break through to Marmont, when the Czar came on the scene. At once he ordered up artillery, riddled their ranks with grapeshot, and when their commander, Pacthod, still refused to surrender, threatened to overwhelm their battered squares by the cavalry of his Guard. Pacthod thereupon ordered his square to surrender. Another band also grounded arms; but the men in the last square fought on, reckless of life, and were beaten down by a whirlwind of sabring, stabbing horsemen, whose fury the generous Czar vainly strove to curb. “I blushed for my very nature as a man,” wrote Colonel Lowe, “at witnessing this scene of carnage.” The day was glorious for France, but it cost her, in all, more than 5,000 killed and wounded, 4,000 prisoners, and 80 cannon, besides the provisions and stores designed for Napoleon’s army. Nothing but the wreck of Marmont’s and Mortier’s corps, about 12,000 men in all, now barred the road to Paris. Meeting with no serious resistance, the allies crossed the Marne at Meaux, and on the 29th reached Bondy, within striking distance of the French capital.

The French weren't always wimps.

We saw Serenity this evening. I have to tell you that it was worth the wait. This has to be the best sci-fi movie I have seen since the first Star Wars 20 odd years ago. It's sci-fi and the post civil war west all wrapped up in one package. The movie feels lived-in and just like life, all endings aren't happy ones. What a great movie. I love it when they actually answer questions and bring an arc to a close. We see some interesting new characters and lose some old favorites. I dearly hope that there is enough of the story left to make another movie, or to start up the show again on TV. We now know why the Alliance is chasing River and how the Reavers came to be. We learn more about the characters and see some (serious) changes in their relationships. River even gets a little better...and by the way, don't mess with her. The barfight scene in the trailer is the least of it. One scene toward the end of the movie had me thinking of a terrier dropped into a pen full of rats. River and the Alliance operative steal the show. Mal aims to mis-behave and hits his target. Tam, Wash , Inara, & Kaylee didn't have enough to do in the movie. Jayne had some great lines. Book was in as an afterthought. Zoe is either a cold-hearted bitch, or so much a professional as not to make a difference. If it had been 4 hours long, it wouldn't have been enough. I hope they make another. Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. Don't forget, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me.