I have visited many historic battlefields, and cemeteries, and locations of monuments. Both in my own country and also abroad.
I have seen many memorials honoring soldiers who fought in war.
But I have yet to see a single memorial honoring any war.
Meanwhile in Fort Pierce, Florida (I happen to have lots of family there) two women were taped by video surveillance at a Winn Dixie supermarket stealing seventy-five sticks of deodorant. Police figure the ladies will try to sell the deodorant to convenience stores.
Not the craziest stories that I've heard lately, but certainly worth passing along for your mirth and merriment :-P
But in the meantime, thought I'd turn y'all's attention to 8mm Vintage Camera, a sa-weeet lil' app from Nexvio for Apple iOS devices that are camera equipped (doesn't matter if it's an iPhone, iPod touch or the newest iPad). 8mm Vintage Camera turns your newfangled Apple contraption into an old-school 8mm movie camera with all the fixins. Select from different lenses, various types of film stock, and you can even give it a classic camera frame jitter effect. I've had this app for a few weeks now and it has definitely become one of my favorites. Indeed, all kinds of fun ideas have crept into mind since I started playing with it!
8mm Vintage Camera is $1.99 on the App Store, and the current version (1.1) is a tiny 2.7 MB download. Click here to get to it on iTunes. You'll thank me that you did :-)
It was April of last year that I caught Tucker & Dale vs. Evil at the first ActionFest film festival in Asheville (slash here for my review of it then). And it was almost one year ago that I ranted about how this movie SCREAMS for distribution! Heck it should have come out last summer: no doubt it would have been the sleeper hit of 2010!
Well, all these very long months later, Magnet Releasing has picked up the film! It will be released theatrically on September 30th and in video on demand on August 26th.
If I might make a suggestion: don't see Tucker & Dale vs. Evil on your teeny tiny monitor at first! This movie deserves to be first beheld on the big screen! I caught it at a midnight showing and it was a crazy good time had by all!
Mash down here for more about the release. Thanks to Drew McComber and "Weird" Ed Woody for passing along the great news.
And hurray to Magnet Releasing for bringing Tucker & Dale vs. Evil to the masses!! :-)
In the end however, I chose not to attend, for a number of reasons. There was already going to be quite a large crowd in attendance with limited space available, and since I don't live in the city limits proper I didn't think it was going to be fair. Citizen journalist though I am, I'm also a citizen who's already publicly stated that the monument should be restored. There were a number of associates who had more reason to be there than I, and I greatly appreciate the reports that they have sent to me.
The biggest reason why I didn't go however, is that in my mind, at this time there is no "controversy" about the monument. It was damaged in an accident, the driver's insurance will certainly pay to have it repaired (as happens countless times across the country each and every day). Did I have a reason to be there as an independent journalist of some repute (hopefully good)?
It began dawning on me yesterday evening that I should just steer clear of this meeting, to not "dignify" a non-issue with attention, and be content to give Mayor James Festerman and the city council the benefit of the doubt and trust them to do the right thing. As of this writing, I'm still counting on them to do that by letting the monument be repaired. Besides, I know that at least one of the Reidsville City Council members is a regular reader of this blog, so my thoughts and observances are going to be considered even if they aren't in the official record.
I'm thankful for those who came to speak in favor of the monument. And I think that I did the right thing in being an absent presence of publick reporterage on this occasion. But based on what I'm hearing this afternoon, I'm gonna keep a really hairy eyeball on this... and if Mayor Festerman and council doesn't do right, I'm gonna be on them like white on rice!
You want to know what that's a monument to?
It is a monument to nearly two thousand men of Rockingham County - more than most other counties in the state which sent the most soldiers to serve in the Confederate army - who arose to the task of defending their families and their communities in a conflict that certainly not one of them had wanted to see in their lifetime or the lifetime of their children.
It is a monument to men who lived in unenviable times and had to cope with those times per an all too natural wisdom that it can not be said a century and a half later has appreciably deepened in clarity... by any of us under the sun.
It is a monument to men who went to fight in a war that was clearly unfortunate... but only the most ignorant or the most foolish would call it a war with any side that was clearly evil.
It is a monument to men who were only doing what they knew best to do in this fallen world, not out of hate but out of love.
It is a monument to men who did what they did, out of duty to God as best that they understood that duty.
Who are we, who are any of us, to presume that we know better or that we would have done otherwise?
Because as far as this writer is concerned, the men who went out from their farms in Rockingham County, were fighting as much for the freedom that we have today... including the freedom to never have to make the choices that they were forced to make... as they were fighting for their own families and friends and communities.
Nearly two thousand men in Rockingham County served in the army of the Confederate States of America. More than six hundred never came home. That too, is a higher percentage than this county's fair share of participation in the Civil War. Either across the state or across the states of the Confederacy.
If none of that is worth remembering, honoring and even celebrating, then... I honestly don't know what would be.
(Perhaps this is part of the reason why the Department of Education was buying up shotguns a year ago?)
Herein lies the tale of one Kenneth Wright of Stockton, California... who yesterday morning was rudely awakened at around 6 a.m. local time by at least a dozen armed officers in SWAT gear. Wright was held in handcuffs in a police car for six hours and his three children (ages 3, 7 and 11) put in another police car.
Why?
Because his estranged wife - who no longer lives at Kenneth's address - was in default of her student loans.
No joke folks: this man's house was raided by gun-totin' thugs on orders from the United States Department of Education...
Mash down here for more about Kenneth Wright at the Daily Mail website. According to an update on Michelle Malkin's site these were not actually SWAT team members that raided Wright's house but "...rather federal agents with the Office of the Inspector General, a 'semi-independent branch of the U.S. Department of Education' that investigates things like student aid fraud."
There you have it: the Department of Education has a highly-armed strike force at its beck and call.
Anyone else reading this and like me, can't help but wonder: "What the hell has happened to our country?!?"
But Dale Price also made sure to liven things up by wearing a different costume each and every one of those mornings! In the ensuing months Price dressed up as a Star Trek fan, as a bride in a wedding dress, as an ice fisherman (when it snowed), as Michael Jackson, as Lady Gaga, and he even sat on a toilet while holding a newspaper for one morning's bus arrival. On the final day he donned full pirate getup (including a "peg leg" in place of his usual prosthetic).
Here's the story about Dale Price's wacky outfits and if you wanna see even more, his family documented his prank with photos on a blog called Wave At The Bus.
Dale Price, you're a good man! I might have to steal this idea from you if Lord willing I ever have children :-P
Thanks to good friend Kristen for finding such a great story!
BUT...
I'm going to get this off my chest from the getgo because it bugs me more than anything else about this movie: the cameo appearance by Wolverine (played by an uncredited Hugh Jackman) is THE WORST thing that I've ever witnessed in a comic book motion picture of this caliber.
Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are going around the world looking for mutants that Xavier has located using the first version of Cerebro. Their search brings them to a bar and Logan, who promptly drops the F-bomb on them before resuming his beer guzzlin' and cigar chompin'.
Look, I understand that the Comics Code Authority ain't what it used to be, and that Wolverine is supposed to be the biggest hardcase of them all, but still: this is an X-Men movie. And to include that line by Wolverine is immature and juvenile and... it's worse than that even. It's disrespectful of the source material of the X-Men comic books that have been published since the early Sixties. I hate this kind of thing, though I'm sure those responsible think themselves "cute" and "clever" for throwing it in there.
Hey guys, there is a time and a place for everything. Including harsh language that most parents still wouldn't want their kids to hear in what is being marketed as a blockbuster movie with bunches of toy tie-ins. It's worse than un-necessary. If you wanted to give Wolverine a fleeting appearance, he could have just been made to give Charles and Erik a surly "Scram, bub" and that would have made everyone happy.
But as it is, it should have been left on the cutting room floor or at least re-dubbed with something more innocuous...
...because it totally jerked me out of the illusion that what I was watching was what X-Men: First Class otherwise very much is: the X-Men movie that we always dreamed of seeing but thought we'd never actually get.
Now I enjoy the 2000 X-Men movie also. But in retrospect X-Men is very much from the "transitional" phase that filmmaking was in at that time: trying to figure out how to give all comic book cinematic adaptations the respect that at that point was the exception more than the rule (see Superman: The Movie for what I mean by this).
X-Men: First Class takes everything that we've learned over the past decade about how to properly project comic books onto the big screen, and then raises the bar big-time. It doesn't "diss" its roots, but it doesn't apologize for breaking free from its cage to become its own animal. And bearing that in mind, I absolutely must tip my hat to what director Matthew Vaughn and his crew have pulled off with this movie.
Now here's the thing where X-Men: First Class most impressed me: the story proper is set in 1962, building up to what history remembers as the Cuban Missile Crisis. But before we get there we see some circa World War II stuff that revisits young Erik Lehnsherr's internment in the concentration camp (first seen in X-Men), intercut with ten-year old Charles Xavier encountering the cold and hungry adolescent mutant Raven trying to steal food from the Xavier mansion. Xavier takes Raven in and promises to take care of her. Juxtaposed against that we witness "Dr. Schmidt" - AKA Sebastian Shaw - threatening to kill Erik's mother unless the boy can move a Nazi coin just as he bent the steel gates of the deathcamp.
Two young men, each set apart from humanity because of God or genetic chance. Both in their own way marked by the extremities of the species that mutation has divorced them from: Charles Xavier who is kind and shows kindness, while Erik Lehnsherr is given cruelty and made to realize that the only way for the world to make sense is to force it to.
I had misgivings about how X-Men: First Class was going to work with a setting now half a century removed from where we are today. But having seen it I think that Vaughn - along with co-writers Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman - did it right. They played up the very real uncertainty that was amok in the world of fifty years ago and cranked it up a dozen notches by throwing in the threat of mutants arising to supplant homo sapien. The result? A brilliant piece of revisionist history that plays out better than many docudramas I've seen of the period!
But that's just the background for the real story here: the biggest reason why I feel that X-Men: First Class is the superior film to 2000's X-Men: how this film portrays Professor Xavier and Magneto (played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, respectively). Whereas Patrick Stewart's take on Xavier was as an "elder statesman" type with a lifetime of wisdom to guide him and his charges, McAvoy's Xavier is very much a green lad bursting with virtue and ideas... but also lacking the self-discipline that Xavier comes to be renowned for. Heck, this young Xavier is a party animal who loves to chug beer and woo sexy women. But in time Xavier comes to understand that - you will excuse the blatant borrowing from another Marvel character - that with great power comes great responsibility. And it is with relishing delight that we watch Xavier come to grips with the task that fate has set before him.
But as much as I really applauded James McAvoy's take on Xavier, I am even wildly more enthralled by what Michael Fassbender did with Erik Lehnsherr: the man better known to the world as Magneto. THIS is the Magneto that I wanted to see in the 2000 movie. Ian McKellan, okay: he brought the necessary seniority and gravitas to the role. But McKellan's portrayal of Magneto lacked what in my mind is the character's most defining quality: his rage at the world of baseline humanity. And that kept us from ever seeing McKellan's Magneto turned on full-tilt against all mankind.
Not so with Fassbender's rendition of this classic villain. In this performance we get to see him become what longtime fans of the X-Men comics know what Magneto truly is: a force of nature as destructive as any hurricane or earthquake. Worse than a force of nature, even. Earthquakes and hurricanes aren't bent on genocide, after all...
It's the dynamic between Charles and Erik that is the soul of X-Men: First Class. But providing the heart is all the mutant-on-mutant action that we've come to expect and demand from a movie emblazoned with "X-"! Kevin Bacon is already one of the best supervillains I've seen in a movie, with his portrayal of Sebastian Shaw (another stroke of brilliance, if you ask me: Shaw has always been a very cool character and it's good to see him get some time in the cinematic limelight at last). January Jones (probably best known for her work on AMC's Mad Men) is hitting on all the right notes as Emma Frost. The rest of the cast is a terrific ensemble, particularly Rose Byrne as the young Moira McTaggert and Jennifer Lawrence as the older Raven/Mystique (look for a cameo by Rebecca Romijn as Mystique's appearance from the previous movies). But I'm especially impressed by Nicholas Hoult's portrayal of the young Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy, AKA Beast. Hoult is spot-on the Hank McCoy that we've all come to know and love... except that not once does he ever say "By my stars and garters!"!! Color me disappointed. But here's hoping that this gets remedied in a follow-up movie. Hey, there'd better be another X-Men movie after this one: it took them eleven years to finally get Magneto's costume right! I don't want it to just be limited to a few seconds at the end of this movie.
I'm not gonna say anything else about it, 'cuz X-Men: First Class really is a movie you deserve going in to see fairly cold, as I did. I didn't know what to honestly expect and in fact, I was braced for a letdown. Happily, I could not have been more wrong. Apart from that one issue with some horridly inappropriate language, this is certainly the X-Men movie that I had no idea I was aching to see for all this time. Highly recommended!
All you have to do at this week's Reidsville City Council meeting is to announce that the driver was insured like all other drivers on the road, that his insurance company will pick up the tab for repairing the Confederate Soldiers Monument just like any other incident involving an auto accident, that said funds will go to repairing the monument, and that council will then proceed to new business.
That is all that needs to happen. That is all that should happen.
Think about it.
Kindest regards,
Chris Knight
Mash down here for more madcap mischief from Lee's White Noise. And Lee, it's lookin' great! Can't wait to see what else you come up with :-)
But thanks to a groundswell of support from a Facebook group, Principal Raymond K. Broderick has turned back to the Light Side and rescinded the suspensions, so Tom and Ryan get to walk at graduation and get their sheepskins after all.
Here's the story from WHDH and here's the report from WWLP...
This story gives me a new hope that ridiculous "zero tolerance" policies will once and for all be thrown over the railing and into the abyss where they belong! Principal Broderick, my hat's tipped to you for doing the right thing and Tom and Ryan: good luck and God bless you as you graduate and move on to bigger and better things! :-)
Christianity is best when it is a bold demonstration to others why they shouldn't be like me at all!
So I'd been working on something for Memorial Day, for a huge chunk of this past weekend and late into last night and several drafts later, the finished product was nothing like what I had originally envisioned.
And that's perfectly fine. The other things that had been on my heart to convey, those can wait for another day. But I gotta tell y'all: I was really looking forward to closing it out with something decidedly upbeat.
So it didn't make it into the Memorial Day tribute proper. That's fine. I still think this is well worth sharing for... well, lots of reasons! It's a catchy lil' ditty that'll no doubt be stuck in your head the rest of the night! It's a classic cartoon from Walter Lantz Studios (look for cameo appearances by one or two famous characters).
And then there is the sheer weight of its theatrical release date: December 6th, 1941.
Think about that for a moment. This cartoon premiered on the very last day of true American innocence. While audiences were first enjoying this cartoon, the navy of the Empire of Japan was steaming across the Pacific toward Pearl Harbor and the date of infamy.
In every way possible that I can imagine, what you're about to see is a historical document of amazing import. It's like one final glimpse of the America that we once were and haven't been since.
Okay, 'nuff from me. Without further ado, here is... "$21 a Day (Once a Month)"!
For the past several days there was something that was percolating in my mind, that I've been struggling to put into words for this occasion.
In the end, I failed. For the time being, anyway. And now I see that in this instance, that my coming up short is the right thing...
Today is not a day to flex my writing skills. Today is not about "me" at all.
Today is the day that we remember those who went and fought and paid the most enormous price that there can be under the sun, so that the rest of us would not have to.
They did not go to fight for glory. They did not go to fight for fame. They did not go to fight so that their names would be immortalized in statue or song or names of great cities.
Too many of them fought and died, alone and in dark places, with only the presence of God to give them comfort and the strength to endure.
They did this, so that their children and the children of people that they could never know in this earthen realm might have just one iota of freedom more than they themselves had been able to know.
Freedom is never free. It only comes at the gravest of costs. And some gave all, so that the rest of us need only maintain the watchful vigilance of sound and grateful mind.
For my own part, the only commentary that I will proffer this day is: Dare we say that we have honored their sacrifice?
For those who gave everything: we remember you.In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
-- Lieutenant Colonel John McRae,Canadian Armywritten near Ypres, BelgiumMay 3, 1915
Knowledge to do a thing is good. Wisdom to not do a thing is often far better.
Y'know, I'm still giggling more than is probably good for one's health about how Weird Al has taken the place of Famine among the Four Horsemen :-P
So many people tried to access "Weird Al" Yankovic's online store yesterday that they crashed the server!
And no wonder...
- Alpocalypse CD/DVD ($13.99)- Alpocalypse CD ($10.99)
- Alpocalypse Deluxe Package ($29.99)
- Alpocalypse Super Deluxe Package ($99.99)
Most people will probably go for the CD/DVD set, which includes the standard music disc and a DVD containing music videos for ten of the songs. The Deluxe Package includes all that plus a limited edition 18"x24" gallery quality Alpocalypse album art lithograph. And the Super Deluxe Package? It has the CD, the DVD, AND a limited edition SIGNED AND NUMBERED cover art lithograph, and also a "highly limited run 4'x4' Alpocalypse Wall Mural made by Fathead".
Yowza!! C'mon, spring for the Super Deluxe Package. You know that you're lusting for it badly! And it'll be your chance to clear your conscience for all those Weird Al songs that you've been downloading for years without paying for them, you hooligan!!
Here's the track listing for Alpocalypse!
1. "Perform This Way"
2. "CNR"
3. "TMZ"
4. "Skipper Dan"
5. "Polka Face"
6. "Craigslist"
7. "Party In The CIA"
8. "Ringtone"
9. "Another Tattoo"
10. "If That Isn't Love"
11. "Whatever You Like"
12. "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me"
Well, "Polka Face" is almost certain to be the traditional medley. But I'm wondering which (if any) of these are gonna be an extra-long which Al has been putting on his albums since 1999's Running With Scissors. Five of these are songs that Al has been releasing during the past couple of years as part of the Internet Leaks collection. 'Course we all know the recent events concerning "Perform This Way" (that its video isn't included on the DVD would indicate that it's still in production). And the rest? "Party In The CIA" especially sounds like a lot of fun :-)
Can't wait until June 21st! I'm gonna go ahead and pre-order a copy... but I'm also gonna be at the nearest big box store bright and early just to behold the sight of a new Weird Al album on the shelves ;-)
