From Hollywood emerges -- The Word of God?

How on earth did The Book of Eli get past the Hollywood censors? Must be some gun-totin' Bible thumpers tucked away there somewhere. And producer Denzel Washington must be one of them as he portrays Eli, emerging from religous wars leading to Holocaust with a book in hand necessary for the return of humanity. Great aesthetics, well-placed surprises and Gary Oldman as the perfect epitomy of evil make this not only entertaining but highly thoughtful for even the most cynical of jaded heathens.

Freedom Resolutism

Almost 200 men of different backgrounds and aspirations band together to crush almost 3000 of the Mexican Army's finest (okay, that would be funny now, but it wasn't in 1836). Why? What did they have in common? What's different today? They believed that the fight for Texas represented the second American Revolution, the key to fulfilling its Manifest Destiny and thus completeness as a nation, a nation free of the class oppressions of Europe and a nation rolling with fresh, green grass. Land -- what drove men mad and women even madder at them. What's different now? Our men are still brave and honorable but none at the Alamo would've later testified to his buddy using an unfair method of fighting, of punching a prisoner. What has gone wrong? These men would riot violently and drunkenly at the mere idea of Courageous Restraint. Sadly, Texas became a slave state, later voted to secede and Confederate forces occupied the Alamo during the Civil War.

How Do You Live in Darkness?

Well, you don't, as Charlotte finally opens her Moor-mangled and stunted heart to real Life and goes gently into that dark night. You don't live with it, you wrestle with it, hide from it, fear & loathe it, and to escape its grip even for a moment is, Miss George Eliot, how you end a book. As Morgan notes, there is a contract implied between the reader and the author, an obligation of the latter. Eventually you have to give the reader some light, some air to breathe and I ponder this as I finish the book and watch my cat on the balcony at midnight as the Florida air allows the Bay breezes to infiltrate the mugginess. This is how you get through the day.

Unsystematic Ruggedness

" ...all this ruggedness is unsystematic. ...It needs folding up and compressing-say into the size of a garden plot. Then you could get your inspiriting ruggedness all in one dose, without having to go to a lot of trouble and tire yourself out," so says the new curate of the Bronte's father, when he might well of been speaking of Emily, Charlotte and Anne themselves rather than of the moors. For they sprawl throughout the book, brilliantly longing for the worlds in books they've grown abnormally attached to. It can't end well, one thinks. But, though tired of the endless journey, one continues trudging across the desolate lands with them, waiting for a break, anything. When the brother, upon of course the weight of all their futures is borne, begins sipping laudanum, even the most crumpled of wind-blown trees seems to shrink somehow more.

Guest Speaker Competition

In order to re-align this site's attempts at playing centerfield, which is not the same as "caving in" as it is a legitimate position, I am offering a free blog posting to anyone who can offer an opposing view, a supporting view or an entirely new view on anything in the fields thus far addressed or thus far promised but not addressed. Complete anonimity is promised, edited copy previewed by you and word count is dependent upon the content. Please send your proposed post to sealife98@yahoo.com. Closing date is seven days from today, D-Day as it is known in circles which care.

Get Veterans in Congress

Check out Veterans for Freedom's Political Action Committee which is running a "10 for 10" campaign. After identifying and checking out ten Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress in November, they're providing a web page dedicated to their support, http://www.vetsforfreedom.org/pac/Operation10-in-10/. Here in Florida, I'm pulling for former Army Lieutenant Colonel Allen West of District 22. He is best known for using the brilliant field tactic of firing a weapon really, really close to a jihadist's head in order to gain valuable intel from him. For this, he was essentially drummed out of the Army. And I doubt if he'll get the "Courageous Restraint" award to which I think he is entitled. His web site waxes on poetically and factually in support of Israel. In fact, he pulls up a crucial but little known Biblical verse about Ishmael, the supposed father of the Arab people and how Muslims (and some confused Christians) link us all together via Abraham. Genesis 16:12 quotes God in saying, "He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen." After Ishmael was born, the Lord went on to make his covenant with Abraham and promised him to be the father of nations, with God on his side. The more veterans we have in Congress, the more the likelihood of the presence and use of common sense and reality-based decision making. While I've had my hard times w/people in the military, deep down I know of no better man than the one who has served in combat.

Peaceniks Challenge Israeli Navy - Get Killed

The recent flotilla fiasco serves as an excellent marker for the Palestinian sympathizer's movement -- they've reached their "Black Power" moment and history has shown that the center will no longer hold. While pictures of civil rights demonstrators being fire-hosed and attacked by dogs drew sympathy, Martin Luther King's non-violent insurgency lost momentum when Stokely Carmichael shouted, "The Negro is going to take what he deserves from the white man!" He followed this with a proclamation of "Black Power," which was quickly taken up by the audience. When militancy ensued, the white sympathizers drew back. The entire message changed and, while civil rights legislation did emerge from King's movement, the Black Power separatists created an entire new dynamic which is today problematic. When you refuse to allow humanitarian aid to reach those you supposedly feel sorry for in order to get a headline, you're not on the wrong side of altruism all of a sudden - you've become a military tactician. In a valuable Military History Quarterly article, Spring 2010, GEN McChrystal is quoted observing the civil rights IO campaign for lessons learned:

The black insurgency holds lessons for 2010. To counter the insurgency in Afghanistan, for example, the U.S. 'must wrest the information initiative' from the enemy 'to win the important battle of perception.'

http://www.historynet.com/why-the-civil-rights-movement-was-an-insurgency.htm (sorry this won't link) Professional protesters have actual doctrine, entire magazines devoted to how to practice pain-in-the-ass peaceful demonstrations, right on the edge. This time, as happens when you engage Israeli commandos, people got killed. They made their point but as the truth ekes out, even surprisingly on NPR, their movement is bound to suffer. The UN cannot possibly continue to support this and to condemn Israel for doing what they are legally allowed to do. Every country has the right to inspect transports bound for their territory and the Gaza Hamas Base Camp falls under that purview. When is the UN going to declare religious warfare illegal and destabilizing of civilization? Instead they celebrate "Nakba Day," a made-up term from the Arabic word for catastrophe to symbolize the Arab Palestinian diaspora. See 17 May 2010 Special Issue National Review for an excellent book review, "The Original Sin," on Efraim Karsh's Palestine Betrayed for the truth. Mona Charen and Cal Thomas also made some good points in today's columns, mostly babbling on about legal, historical points or facts, i.e. peaceniks links to AQ, facts like this one from Charen:

Fact: On board one of the ships, according to Al-Jazeera, the "humanitarian" Palestinians sang "Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return" — a reference to the 628 massacre of Jews in Arabia at the hands of Muhammad.

and blah blah blah... Then again, my expectations of the UN makes me wonder if I should just smoke my green tea instead of drinking it ...