Movie reviews

Every year at this time, lists of the best this and the greatest that are propounded.  A lot of it has to do with one writer's opinion and, as Charles Barkley is wont to say, opinions are like buttholes:  Everyone has one.  Chief among the lists are lists of the best movies that came out during the year.  Movie critics get all arty and inform us why such-and-such movie was Oscar-worthy.  I'm no movie critic, but I do like movies, so I thought I'd add to the worthless lists with a random one of my own.

I see a few movies every year myself.  I don't rush out and catch the midnight showing of any movie, since none of them is worth my time.  But I do watch plenty of movies on cable television, usually a couple of years after they came out.  Some of them I'd never even heard of, which makes the revelation that much more enjoyable for me.  Here, then, are some movies that I've seen over the past year that I enjoyed for different reasons (with a nod to one movie that I'd seen previously but that I hadn't seen in ages until this year) and a couple that I absolutely hated:

Kill the Irishman:  A movie about a real-life labor leader and thug in Cleveland, tracing his rise and violent death in the labor wars of the 1970's.  The Irishman, portrayed ironically but brilliantly by Ray Stevenson, was a gritty representation of what it was like in those labor wars.  It is also a sad commentary on the dog-eat-dog reality of labor unions.

Anamorph:  Willem Dafoe is one of my favorite actors.  I think he's quite underrated.  This movie isn't all that great, but Dafoe delivers his typically great performance. The reason I mention this movie is because I learned about the concept of anamorphosis, which according to Wikipedia is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image.  It's a grisly movie, but how anamorphosis was woven into the plot was interesting.  I also found anamorphosis to be interesting in and of itself, and since I learned about it in this movie, it makes the list.  I like when I can learn something at the movies.

The Guilt Trip:  Karen and I saw this over the Christmas weekend, and although I'm no fan of Barbra Streisand, I thought she did a great job in a very quietly funny movie.  It never went over the top to get laughs, and Seth Rogan is proving himself to be quite the comedic actor.  Of great personal interest to me was the scene at the topless bar where Babs and Seth seek car help.

Act of Valor:  I love good war movies, and this was another good one.  Actual SEALs were cast in the main roles and brought themselves more honor.  That actual missions were used for the storylines just added to my enjoyment.

Cookie's Fortune:  In my opinion, this is one of Robert Altman's finest yet most underappreciated comedies.  The cast is chock-full with name actors and singers, yet no one dominates the film.  The subtle humor in the movie is terrific, and the twist at the end never ceases to make me chortle.

Now, for the worst of the worst:

Chronicle:  Somehow this movie got rated pretty highly on some online movie rating service, so we went to see it.  I still don't know what the point of the movie is.

Any Twilight movie:  I can't remember if we saw both of them this year or only Breaking Dawn, but they are so horribly acted that they make the Harry Potter look like Shakespearean theater.

Cursed:  We saw this one last night on cable.  I taped it because it deals with werewolves, another theme Karen likes.  There were plenty of recognizable actors in the movie and by the time we got to the end of the movie, I turned to Karen and asked her how any of them had a career after this movie.

The Hobbit:  We had both enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies to varying degrees, and I'd read the book, so we thought this movie would be at least pretty good.  We were wrong.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Antique malls

Over the holiday we had occasin to visit an antiques mall to see what presents, if any, we could find.  We didn't find any, but Karen found another bulldog figurine that she bought to add to her collection.  In fact, we found three such items and Karen chose the one she liked best.  It turned out that it has some value well beyond what she paid for it.  The woman knows value.

What struck me, however, was the sadness of the antiques mall.  This didn't feature furniture so much as it did tchotkes from a bygone era.  There were all manner of games and toys from my childhood that, had our Mother not insisted we throw them out, might be worth something today.  We saw old beer mugs, dolls of every variety, Christmas ornaments, tools, signs, figurines, books, jewelry -- you name it, we saw it.  It was as if we had hit the motherlode of one man's junk being another man's treasure.  I looked upon the vast amounts of stuff with awe, thinking that someone had taken the time to collect it all, polish it up and put a value on it, truly believing that someone else might pay good money for much of what was just junk.

To be sure, there were hidden gems within the mountains of detritus that confronted us.  But I'm neither interested enough nor inclined to pore over all these things to discern what has value and what's fool's gold.  Karen has a much better eye than I do for this stuff.  Our plan, at least as far as I was operating was concerned, was for her to tell me what it was she sought and I'd go off and locate it.  It was her job to determine whether it was worthy of purchase.

There was one thing, however, on which Karen and I agreed.  The saddest thing of all among all this jetsam and flotsam of past lives were the photographs that were for sale.  What struck Karen as the saddest were the family photos that were for sale.  Decidedly not faceless but almost certainly nameless, these were photographs of real people, probably unwanted by people at estate sales, where no family survived to claim them.  The people who had booths at the antique mall recognized that they might have resale value as either stage props or decorations.  What struck Karen as saddest is that these people -- long since dead given the apparent age of the photographs themselves -- were once loved by someone and now had their images discarded to be sold to the highest bidder. 

The photographs that touched me were of old buildings.  Some of the buildings in the photographs no longer exist because they were torn down to make way for improved structures.  But like the personal photographs that touched Karen, these photographs had untold stories trapped in them.  What things must have gone on in those buildings?  What new inventions were created in them?  What products were perfected in them?  What romances began in them?  When they were constructed, what did the workmen do to make them more solid? 

We are a notoriously disposable society.  Some of it is natural and to be expected.  We can't hold on to everything lest we become hoarders.  At the same time, there is a natural nostalgia for things from our past.  Sometimes, there's even a nostalgia for things from other people's pasts because it either reminds us of our own or because we feel a kinship with the people whose lives are represented in those photographs.

It's also sad, I think, because we fear that in years to come, photographs of our lives may be found in these antique malls.  What will the people think as they look down on our questionable attire?  Will they feel the same sadness for us that we feel for people born more than one hundred years ago?  Or will they simply see a capitalist opportunity in our mortality?

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Christmas, 2013

Here are some quick thoughts for this Christmas season:

First, Andy Williams died recently.  He was a marvelous singer and, from all accounts, a very decent man.  But if radio stations don't stop playing It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, I may come to hate that song which would be a shame, because he's a wonderful singer and it's a nice tune. 

I'm not anti-Semitic in the slightest, but I think there's something wrong with Jews recording Christmas music for sale.  Sure, Barbra Streisand had/has a great voice, but if she doesn't believe in the divinity of Christ, all she's doing with her Christmas albums is making money off someone else's belief. 

I prefer opening Christmas presents on Christmas Day, not Christmas Eve.  Christmas Eve should be for family gatherings and parties.

I'm not a fan of gift cards for any occasion, especially when the giver knows the recipient.  I think it's lazy.  Put some thought into it already.

Christmas music and specials shouldn't begin until after Thanksgiving and advertisements for Christmas sales absolutely shouldn't start until the week of Thanksgiving.  It not only detracts from Thanksgiving it demeans the true meaning of Christmas.

Mistletoe is a quaint tradition.  I kiss Karen without any external inducements because I like to kiss her.

Christmas day is a bit of a letdown after the presents are opened.  The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is really a nullity.

Christmas in Connecticut with Barbara Stanwyck is my favorite Christmas movie.  There are too many songs for Christmas that I like to name a favorite.

One of my favorite Christmas memories was spent in Madrid, Spain.  A Colombian, a Mexican, a Jew from Boston and I shared a Christmas turkey that I made.

If I have the lyrics in front of me, I can sing You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, and sound like the original recording.

That's all I have time for today.  I wish everyone a Merry Christmas wherever you may find yourself.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Constitutional comparisons

The intense debate about the Sandy Hook killings rages on.  Liberals are screaming about gun control, conservatives push back that gun control isn't the issue.  Somewhere in the middle lies the answer. 

One argument that's being trotted out by liberals is especially enlightening.  Comparisons are being made with gun control laws in other countries and the relative scarcity of deaths by guns in those countries.  Critics of gun control point to countries like Switzerland, Australia and Japan and cite comparatively small numbers of deaths by guns.  Statistics don't lie, even if they can be made to support whatever argument one likes.

But at the root of this liberal usage of comparative analysis is cognitive dissonance.  When recourse to this line of reasoning is made, wide gaps in the reasoning begin to shine through.  Liberals want to use foreign laws and statistics to repeal the Second Amendment.  The slippery slope that that starts is scarier than they realize.

If we can use comparative analysis with foreign laws and statistics to repeal the Second Amendment, why can't we use it to repeal the First Amendment or the Fourth Amendment?  Instead of having an unfettered right to speech, let's say that we employ a version of the British Official Secrets Act, where the government can come in and suppress speech because national secrets might be compromised.  Or, as the British are wont to use it, to suppress speech because the speech may be embarrassing to the government.  What if such a movement had been used to repeal the First Amendment prior to Watergate?  Would the nefarious actions of Nixon's bagmen been revealed?

How about the Fourth Amendment?  Shall we use other nation's laws and statistics to solve crimes to run roughshod over individuals' rights in the name of solving crimes?  In so doing, shall we overlook the abuses that may very well arise from this unfettered governmental power?

The Sixth Amendment mandates speedy trials, including the rights to be notified of the accusation, to confront the accuser, to obtain witnesses and to retain counsel.  Liberals rail when mention is made of doing away with the Miranda warning, which stems from the Sixth Amendment.  Both Miranda and Escobedo had their convictions thrown out because their Sixth Amendment rights were deemed to have been violated.  Other countries now have variations of the Miranda warnings, but only recently. 

In the same vein, accused criminals are presumed guilty and must prove their innocence.  That would make the prosecutors' jobs much easier.  Should we adopt that approach as well?

The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment.  Should we adopt the Turkish use of the bastinado and allow people to be beaten by prison guards in jails? 

The problem with adopting other countries' legal practices and using their statistics to justify their adoption is that it leads us to the slippery slope of adjusting our Constitution to meet the legal standards of other countries.  Sometimes there are things we can adapt to our legal standards that originate in other countries, but many times other countries' legal standards are not nearly as finely tuned as our standards are.

My position on gun control remains unchanged:  Make it more difficult for criminals and people with mental disabilities to obtain and use guns.  Don't punish lawful gunowners for the actions of those who will not or cannot abide by the law.  Once you do that, all our other freedoms are in jeopardy.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Gun control post-Sandy Hook

Two days have passed since the Connecticut school shootings, and the nation is still, rightly, in shock.  It's not in shock that there was a shooting but that it was perpetrated on the most innocent of our citizens, defenseless children who never harmed anyone.  Unfortunately, the identity of the victims is clouding the judgment of adults.

In the first place, gun control advocates have been whipped into a frenzy.  We need to ban assault rifles, they say, we need tighter gun control.  Never letting facts get in the way, they conveniently ignore the simple fact that these weapons were lawfully owned, licensed properly and used, by the owner, in a responsible manner.  At this time, the only unknown about the ownership of these weapons is how they were stored.  Otherwise, they were legitimately owned and licensed by the shooter's deceased mother.

The son stole the weapons to which he had no lawful right.  If his mother didn't store them properly, she bears some responsibility for the tragedy that ensued.  But if they were properly stored, we have to look at the manufacturer of whatever safe in which the weapons were stored.  Even then, perhaps this kid was a genius who was able to break into the safe.  At this point, this is a huge unknown.

The bottom line is that a seriously troubled, sick young man used lawful weapons to commit a horrible crime.  The focus should be on the mental illness of the shooter, not the nature of the weapons that he used and the carnage that he wrought with them.  He could have improvised an IED and effected even more terror.  Had he done that, should we ban fertilizer?

Why isn't there more focus on how someone with such murderous tendencies slipped through the mental health system?  Were there any warnings?  If there weren't, how are we as a society supposed to prepare for such an eventuality?  Frankly, that's like trying to be prepared for a train wreck, or an airplane crash.  But even in those cases, there is usually a mechanical reason to which we can point as the cause of the event.

Sometimes, however, there is no rational explanation.

Almost as bad as the anti-gun reaction has been the veritable feeding frenzy by the press.  The press has long anointed itself as the caretaker of all news for the nation which, to a degree, makes some sense.  But it has an editorial responsibility that accrues to that duty as the sharer of news.  In this country, for example, pictures of mangled bodies from traffic accidents aren't shown on television or in the papers.  The names of victims are withheld until families are notified.  Arguments can be made that those are incorrect decisions, but at very least the argument can be made that thoughtful consideration of its audience and the families of victims has been engaged.

How, then, can the press explain its distressingly ridiculous decision to put children who attended Sandy Hook Elementary School on television the night of the shooting to ask them questions?  If we're not putting mangled bodies on news and in the papers because of the effects it will have on viewers, young and old, why then would we put children who have survived an unimaginable tragedy mere hours after it ended?  I don't care how cloyingly sympathetic the interviewer was with the child.  That child should not be giving his or her opinions hours after enduring a shooting in which his or her classmates were slaughtered.

And what of the parents' decision to allow their children to be interviewed at nine o'clock at night on the day of such a national tragedy?  Gun control advocates are all worked up about the weapons used in this insidious crime.  What do they think of parents irresponsibly putting their loved ones on television to talk about what they witnessed short hours after it happened?  Why aren't state officials looking to take those children from those parents for endangering their mental health? 

I am neither a parent nor a gunowner.  I wish I had had children and someday I will own a rifle.  But the fact that I'm not in either of these groups doesn't lessen the validity of my opinion.  Candidly, I think that not being in either group gives me the necessary distance to look at these issues with less emotion that those who are in them.  That doesn't mean that being a parent or a gunowner renders that opinion invalid, it simply means that my opinions come without raw, first-person emotion.

What is missing from all the post-tragedy chatter is perspective.  Talking heads are asking psychiatrists to provide it for them.  They should be equipped with it already.  So should parents.

When I think about this I'm reminded of the Keanu Reeves character in Parenthood who noted that you need a license to drive a car, own a gun and get married, but you don't need a license to be a parent. I think it's highly ironic that people who don't need licenses -- news anchors and parents -- are the ones who most need licensing.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Sandy Hook

The shootings in Connecticut today are going to reignite the debate over gun control.  The Second Amendment, of course, guarantees gun ownership.

The strongest argument those in favor of stronger gun control make is that weapons kill people.  That's partly true.  But those firearms can't shoot on their own.  People are required to shoot the guns, and besides the weapons themselves, the only other constant in these tragic events is that a shooter is operating the gun.

A lot is made about the type of weapon used:  automatic, semi-automatic, assault rifle.  The type of gun varies, but in almost every instance, the one constant is that the shooter is unhinged, mentally sick, literally a loose cannon.

Sure, there are certain weapons that no citizen reasonably needs.  I'd love to have a .50 cal machine gun, but for what?  Road rage?  I'd love to fire one, but only in a controlled environment with trained professionals assisting me.

Are semi-automatics legitimate weapons for private citizens to own?  Why not?  The impliciet purpose of the Second Amendment is for people to protect themselves.  A semi-automatic weapon would go a long way to accomplish that.

But the one thing people gloss over in these events is that the people taking innocent lives before taking their own are mentally unbalanced, troubled beyond help.  People with this mental make-up have no business being allowed to purchase guns, much less own them.  This, and only this, is the one area where I support tighter gun control.  There should be a database wherein people with a history of mental illness are registered.  Gunshops should have access to this database and be required to consult it before finalizing a sale.  Any gunseller who sells to someone on that list should face very hard jail time.

The counter argument to gun control advocates is that by having carry and conceal laws, tragedies like the one in Connecticut could be avoided.  In other instances, like the mall shooting earlier this month, that's true.  But who in a kindergarten is going to be packing?  Certainly not the children.  The teachers are unlikely to be armed.  Who then?  The janitors?

Tragedies occur.  It's part of life.  But just as we perform maintenance on airplanes and other modes of transportation only to have them fail, tighter gun control laws won't eliminate shootings like the one today.  It's a sad, sad part of life.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Twelves

Today is December 12, 2012, or as they write it in Europe, 12 December 2012.  Any way you cut it, it's 12-12-12; we have intercontinental harmony at last, at least for one day.  Sometime before, I mentioned that I have a minor fixation with numbers despite the fact that I'm mathematically challenged, and I may have mentioned that my favorite number is twelve.  Obviously, then, today has an unusual interest for me.

I read a story about a child somewhere in the country who is celebrating his twelfth birthday today and, remarkably, was born at 12.12p.  I can't even imagine how that feels. 

Today is the last day for nearly a milennium that such a confluence of numbers will occur.  Think about that for a moment.

In any event (heh), this gives me the opportunity to wax obnoxious and obtuse about my favorite number.  It became my favorite number because when I was growing up, quarterbacks traditionally chose that number.  Since I fancied myself a leader, I thought that was a good number to have even though I never strapped on a pair of shoulder pads because our Mother wouldn't sign the insurance waiver.

Here then is a partial list of notable twelves.  Some may only be notable to me, but many will be familiar to others as well:

There are twelve hours in each half of a day.

There were twelve disciples.

There are twelve months in the year and twelve signs of the zodiac.

There are twelve days of Christmas.

Hercules had twelve labors to accomplish.

Twelve strikes are needed for a perfect game in bowling.

There are twelve members in most US juries.

There are twelve inches in a foot.

Twelve-step programs help people recover from addictions.

There are twelve basic hues in the color wheel.

The Twelfth Man is a part of American college football lore.

Twelve people have walked on the moon.

King Arthur surrounded himself with twelve knights.

There are twelve faced cards in a deck of cards.

Eggs are sold by the dozen.

John Basilone is buried in section 12 of Arlington Cemetery.

There are probably plenty of other references to the significance of twelve.  Everyone has his or her favorite number.  But mine is twelve.  Feel free to post your own significant twelve references. 

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Random thoughts, again

Christmas is nearly upon us, and with it another season of gift-giving.  For as long as I can remember, I've always appreciated getting people gifts more than I've enjoyed receiving them.  To find something that a loved one wanted, or might want, excites me more than unwrapping a beautiful present.   And this despite the fact that I can't wrap a present presentably in the slightest. 

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Psy, the Korean singer with a cloyingly annoying song that's all the rage, has been discovered to have recorded a virulently anti-American song on the eve of a visit with the President.  For those of us who were clueless, here are some of the offensive lyrics:

“Kill those f---ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives,” he said.

“Kill those f---ing Yankees who ordered them to torture.”

“Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers.”

“Kill them all slowly and painfully.”

(Psy and several performers were protesting the execution of a Korean missionary who had been captured by Islamists demanding that South Korea not aid the U.S. in the war.)

When called out, Psy offered a much-belated apology that regretted in reality only that he'd been found out.

I have long been a proponent of withdrawing our troops to allow the critical Koreans from the South to repatriate with their brethern from the North.  If that's their true desire, I say let 'em.

But in this case, to attack the US for the death of a fellow South Korean at the hands of Islamofascists and then benefit from the largesse of American kindness, apologizing only when the jig's up, is appalling to me.  I'm all for free speech, but stand up for what you believe.

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Last night there was another awards show on television.  As a general rule, I don't understand the notion of handing out awards for art.  Hollywood has made a cottage industry of the art of handing our awards, going so far as to hand out awards to people for producing awards shows.

But the nihilistic urge is apparently unbounded on the Left Coast.  Last night's awards show was the American Giving Awards.  This is entertainment?  Already, groups give awards to celebrities who support their causes.  Apparently, celebrities have found a way to garner even more air time by turning the tables.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Movie antagonists

Years ago, I read a story about moviemaking that argued that with the fall of the Soviet Union, filmmakers were going to turn to space aliens as their villains.  This was after the first Star Wars trilogy, but soon thereafter we were treated to the Star Wars prequel and assorted other movies involving all manner of space aliens.  Some were comic, some were dramatic, some were thrillers.  Even so, aliens of the spatial variety were in our theaters.

Today Karen and I went to see the latest installment of the Twilight franchise.  The movies themselves are hit-or-miss -- according to Karen; I have a far different opinion that can be guessed -- but since she'd read all the books and got roped into watching the movies as a result, we thought we'd see it through.  The movie was pretty much what we've come to expect -- impossibly beautiful vampires, werewolves, supernatural abilities, the occult -- but what struck me was the previews that were shown prior to the movie itself.

We saw approximately seven previews.  Only two of them had what I would call human themes.  Virtually every other one had either a vampire or a zombie theme.  Even Brad Pitt was in one of them -- World War Z -- and one was a comedy -- Warm Bodies.  After having seen what the Department of Homeland Security did at one of its seminars, I think people have lost their minds, not to mention their creativity.

Earlier this year we were treated to one of the most absurdly titled movies, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer.  I haven't seen the movie, nor do I intend to see it.  But I wonder what the people who greenlighted the movie were drinking or smoking when they thought this would be an entertaining movie.  Seriously?  Abraham Lincoln, vampire slayer?  What next?  Mahatma Gandi, Zombie Hunter?  Mother Teresa, Werewolf of Mombai?

This is patently ridiculous to me.  We now have Islamofascists roaming the world, intent on doing us harm.  The only movies that have come out recently with them as the antagonists deal with the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  Is Hollywood too politically correct to tackle jihadists?  Don't they know that, as Jews, they're already targets for the terrorists' reticules?

I am admittedly not into science fiction.  I can count on one hand the number of science fiction movies that have entertained me.  But this lazy reliance on zombies, vampires and other supernatural beings as antagonists is really lame.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

December 7

Today is the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Already, Remember Pearl Harbor is going the way of Remember the Maine as the freshness of the September 11th attacks is still with this country.  Many Americans view as perfidy the Japanese attack, calling it an unprovoked and surprise attack.  In reality, the Japanese had been bellicose for some time, having already invaded China some eights years prior and been involved in land battles with the Soviets in Manchuria.  Moreover, there was a delay in the Japanese embassy in Washington decoding the orders to bring the declaration of war to the American government, resulting in what many regard as the surprise attack.

I never forget Pearl Harbor.  But I focus more on the entirety of the war in the Pacific.

Apologists have tried to explain the Japanese approach to warfare.  Whatever the cultural underpinnings, the Japanese war machine was one of the most brutal military units to ever wage war.  When one considers all the atrocities that the Japanes committed and then compare them to the atrocities committed by all other countries in the Second World War, there is no question that the Japanese exceeded all the rest, combined.

Before the entry of the United States into World War II, the Japanese in fact engaged in deceptive practices to justify their actions.  The infamous Mukden Incident, in which Japanese arranged for a pretext to justify their invasion of Manchuria, may well have furnished Hitler with his inspiration for starting the European phase of the war in 1939.  The horrible Rape of Nanking, wherein betweeen 40,000 and 400,000 civilians were murdered in cold blood by Japanese forces, occurred in 1937.  Women were raped by entire military units, live Chinese were used for bayonet practice and Japanese officers were actually engaged in a beheading contest.  Not even the Germans' murderous largesse approached these numbers in a single engagement.

Many have heard about Dr. Josef Mengele's barbaric experiments on inmates at Auschwitz.  Fewer have heard about the Japanese Unit 731, which was a unit run by the Kempeitai, the Japanese equivalent of the German SS.  Labeled cynically as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army, was run by the notorious by lesser-known General Shiro Ishii.  Its activities included live vivisections, biological experiments, germ warfare on Chinese civilians and weapons testing.  Of the latter, some of the tests involved testing grenades, chemical weapons and germ-releasing against humans tied to posts at various distances from the location of the blast and testing flamethrowers on live people.  Mengele was a piker compared to Ishii.

During the war, because of their Samurai mentality, the Japanese were exceptionally brutal to many POW's and civilian detainees.  The stories of the Bataan Death March and the Burma Railway are largely known.  In recent years, the plight of the so-called Comfort Women, institutionalized brothels where Korean women were made to serve as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers and sailors, has come to light.

A more comprehensive list (for this space) of Japanese war crimes against civilian detainees can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

It is by no means exhaustive.

Crimes against enemy combatants was equally brutal.  Towards the end of the war, as it became more apparent to Japanese military units that they were going to lose the war, atrocities like the ones committed on Palawan, where American POWs were duped into believing that an air raid was about to occur, made to enter covered slit trenches, doused with gasoline and set on fire, prompted the raid on Cabanatuan to rescue other American POWs.  At Chichi Jima, a deranged Japanese officer had American fliers killed, cooked and eaten.  In Japan, downed American airmen were used in live vivisections without anesthesia.

Whether it was the British, the French, the Dutch, the Soviets, the Aussies or the Americans, no other reported atrocities on the scale of those of the Japanese have ever been reported.  The Germans, while committing similar atrocities, even look like amateurs when compared with the Japanese.

But what separates the Japanese from all other combatant nations in WWII is what happened after the war ended.  Thanks in large measure to Douglas MacArthur (who should have been court-martialed and not awarded the Medal of Honor), Japane got off relatively lightly. War crimes trials were held, but the punishments were wildlly uneven.  What's more, the emperor was not included in the trials.  Had Hitler survived the end of the war, he undoubtedly would have been tried.  Thanks to Dougie MacArthur, Hirohito was spared the indignity.

Fueled by that face-saving by Dougie, Japan has, in the years since the war ended, engaged in a campaign to twist history.  Its schools make next to no mention of the atrocities committed by its forces.  Revisionists try to paint the United States as the aggressor, claiming that it was our oil embargo that forced Japan to attack us, conveniently ignoring the fact that the reason for the embargo in the first place was Japan's expanionist actions and reprehensible waging of war, largely in China.  The last straw, however, is that certain Japanese have tried to argue that the US was guilty of a war crime for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I won't belabor the point that the two bombs probably saved more lives than they took, that the two targets were legitimate military targets and that the Japanese were given plenty of warnings what would happen if they didn't surrender.  One can argue that they had no idea what faced them before Hiroshima, but after that, they had to know what would happen if they didn't surrender. 

But when a country engages in the type of warfare Japan waged as described above, it comes to the argument with unclean hands.  It cannot argue that it was justified in any way and is entitled to reparations, sympathy or understanding for what it suffered.

Pearl Harbor was a very small facet of what happened in the Pacific.  Japan has absolutely no standing to argue that it's the aggrieved party.

It's time for Japan to not offer not another limp-wristed apology but to take full responsibility for what it did during the 1930s and 1940s, teach its citizens what really happened and shut up about war crimes committed against it.  It's lucky to exist at all.  It's only through the benevolence of a more enlightened country that was rebuilt and then protected.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Blog musings

I'm still learning how this blogs works.  Not the preparation of it but how to manipulate its features, how to edit things, how to read comments.  I'm a slow learner when it comes to technology, if I didn't make that clear in the last blog.

Recently, while tooling around behind the scenes, I found out that I can see where people reside who actually read this.  That may be a bit presumptuous; I'm not sure anyone's reading it as much as they stumble onto it...beside Karen, of course.

One feature I've discovered that particularly appeals to me is this featuret that allows me to see the countries from which people are reading this.  So far, the US outpolls all other countries.  Second place stymies me:  The Brits.  I'd have thought this blog wasn't Brit-friendly.  Perhaps that's why they're reading this:  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  But after those two countries it's a bit of a crapshoot.

So far, people in Venezuela, Sweden, Malaysia, China, Israel, Russia and Japan have found their way here...or simply got lost on the wide world web.  I'm not sure that much if any of what I'm posting is intelligible, but I appreciate your time and invite you to make whatever comments you may have.

If I'm disappointed at all, it's that no one from Ireland or Spain has dropped by.  Being a dual-citizen and, as I was told during my year in Spain -- soy españolizado -- I would love to hear from anyone from those countries.

In any event, thanks for taking the time to drop by.  I hope we get to talk someday.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

My ignorance

Ignorance.  Typically, it's viewed with derision.  We shake our heads are ignorant people, say that ignorance of the law is no defense and patronizingly say that ignorance in bliss.  Ignorance can even be lethal.

Yet we are constantly surrounded by ignorance and in fact engage in things everyday with ignornace, blissful or otherwise.  The level of experience doesn't matter, the amount of education doesn't help:  If a person has no knowledge or experience of something, ignorance will typically win.

For example, if a person is confronted for the first time with a particular tool and has little or no experience with that tool, can that person be expected to know how to use it and use it properly?  Imagine, for example, that you have to repair a furnace or some plumbing.  Sure, you can spend however much it will cost to have a repairman do the work, but what if you worry that you'll be told the truth, or that the repair is otherwise cheap, so that you want to repair it yourself.  But where do you begin?  Sure, you can use online guides or books on the subject, but they're not always dispositive.  People are hardware stores might help, but they're in the business of selling their wares.  Besides that, they're not at the house so they can see the problems.  What tools should you use?  I'm not talking about hammers and wrenches and screwdrivers.  I'm talking about tools that are common for repairmen, necessary for certain tasks and largely unknown to the public at large.  Even assuming you find the right tool, how do you know how to use it properly?  More frustrating, how to you learn to use shortcuts that the repairmen know to make the tool work even more effectively?

Then there are the types of knownledge that you need to repair things like electrical outlets and plumbing.  Sure, you have to shut off the electric or the water prior to beginning the project, but then what?  How do you get outlets on the outside of the house to work?  How do you get that refrigerator to work in the garage without causing brownouts?  How do you make sure you have the right pipes for the repair of the toilet? 

Then there are computers.  If you're of a certain age and have never taken a computer course, how do you know all the little nuances of what you can do with the computer without deleting the hardrive?  Where do you learn the shortcuts to process documents more quickly?  Unfortunately, if one takes the time to read the instruction manual, either the person will lose at least a day of his life, come out with a huge headache or both, because the people who write those manuals already know how to use the machines and assume that everyone understands what they're saying.

If, like me, a person's spent a decade focusing on academics, having been told by his parents that he needed to have something to fall back on in the event of an economic downturn, and there was no opportunity to learn other skills relative to repairs or computer usage, the ignorance, especially when compared to the relative knowledge or intelligence, is shocking.  For the person engaged in the activity, it becomes beyond frustrating.  Having acquired proficiencies in so many different things and mastered different tasks, being unable to handle something that to many people is second-nature is downright depressing.  It calls into question one's competence.

Ignorance has many facets.  It can arise in the most surprising of places and with the most unexpected people. 

I hate my ignorance.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Gunownership

I don't own a gun.  I have no rifle, no pistols.  I would like to own a sniper rifle and a semi-automatic, but local taxes make it impracticable.

Violence with guns is horrible.  The carnage guns can wreak is unimaginable to those who have never been in the military or been involved in or seen a shooting.  Gangs with illegal weapons have no conscience and spray and pray that they've hit their intended targets; if they don't, no matter. 

Even so, the Second Amendment to the Constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms.  There is no limitation on that right specified in the Constitution.  What limits there are have come from Congress, oftentimes in conflict with courts' rulings defending the constitutional right.

Despite my interest in owning guns, I've never looked into what it would take to buy and own one.  I'm not well-versed in the purchase of guns, but I have read plenty of articles on the subject.  My opinion, therefore, is inexpert and inexperienced.

I do not believe that gun rights should be abridged any further.  The Constitution provides those rights. 

There should, however, by tighter regulation of gun ownership.  By that I mean that the various governments -- federal, state and municipal -- should cooperate more on the sale, purchase and ownership of guns.  The shootings at Virginia Tech could have been prevented, possibly, if state and federal officials had shared information as to the shooter's mental problems.  If we can have databases that tell you about the history of a car when it's offered for sale, there should be a secure database that allows gun vendors the ability to run a check at the store when someone wants to purchase a weapon.

After purchase, doctors could be required to notify authorities anytime someone is determined to be mentally unstable.  Procedures could be put in place to ensure that some Barney Fife in Hayseed, USA, can't unilaterally revoke a gunowner's license.  This information would then be shared with all federal, state and municipal authorities.   If we can revoke driver's licenses, why can't we revoke gunowners' licenes? 

Liberal groups who are concerned about privacy have to make a choice:  Do you want to have people who shouldn't have guns be able to purchase guns in exchange for the protection of their privacy?  What of the privacy and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of faceless and nameless future victims?  If we can have time, place and manner restrictions on First Amendment rights (for example, judges in many states are prohibited from making political speeches while in office, a clear abridgement of their First Amendment rights), we can have restrictions on privacy for the purchase of high-powered weapons.

Second, there should be crackdowns on those found to have sold guns illegally.  In hand with that there should be tighter controls on who can sell guns, so that those responsible purveyors have nothing to fear from illegal vendors.  Sure, there could be the hassle of more regulations, but the cost of those regulations would be made up by increased sales from people who now have to buy guns from registered vendors because they cannot buy them on the black market.

Third, there should be harsher penalties for anyone who commits a crime with a gun.  Sure, there are already stiff penalties for aggravation of certain crimes, but we could make those penalties even stiffer.  Again, the do-gooder lobby will argue that this felon didn't understand, that the other felon had a harsh life, blah, blah, blah.  Well, apply zero tolerance to anyone who uses a gun in the commission of a crime.

Contrary to those people who believe that guns kill people, it's time to focus on the human element and change what we can about the application of the law to people who buy, sell and use guns.  There will never be a perfect solution to the problem.  Even if all my suggestions were put in action, there will still be a person who loses it and shoots innocent people.  People with driver's licenses can do damage, intentionally or unintentionally, with their cars.  Guns can be used in the same way, often with more widespread tragedy.  But the amount of victims doesn't lessen or increase the tragedy. 

It's time for a commonsense approach to gunownership.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Circumlocution

When I was growing up, if our Mother used a word that I didn't understand, she'd tell me to look it up.  As a result, I fell in love with words.  The more clever a usage of the word, the more thrilled I'd be.  I appreciate wordsmiths. 

After I attended college, I became aware that certain people were simply better at using language.  No matter, I still appreciated the dexterity, the agility, the absolute mastery that some people possessed.  Make no mistake, some people, in my opinion, took it too far.  William Buckley, for example made being intelligent sound utterly pretentious, whatever his politics. 

I have a book somewhere entitled Storied Stadiums by Curt Smith, a former speechwriter for the first President Bush.  It's about all the baseball stadia have ever been used in the majors.  Aside from factual errors, the book is so turgid (...) with heavy vocabulary that it's virtually unintelligible.  When I can locate the book in my dungeon library, I'll post some snippets from the book.  In the meantime, lest the reader think I'm overstating the case, here are some other reviews of the book from readers:

http://www.amazon.com/Storied-Stadiums-Baseballs-History-Ballparks/product-reviews/B001G8WDBY/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

There are other people who take a stab at using language who, frankly, should stay away from it altogether.  One of the funniest things I've seen on TV was a socialite who was quite impressed that she'd been put on the cover of some local socialites' magazine.  Turning to the camera, she said it was a real coup d'etat to be on the cover.  Presumably, it was a bloodless coup getting on the cover, because she bore no visible scars.

I bring this up because oftentimes I choose precisely the funny sounding word when I'm goofing around. This brings Karen no end of mirth.  She shakes her head and mutters just loud enough for me to know she's said something, Who talks like that?  On the occasions that I hear her say that, I tell her Sheldon Cooper does.

This morning after I fed the boys I was wrestling with Custer and Stonewall at the top of the stairs.  For whatever reason, this is one of Custer's favorite pastimes:  Attack daddy at the landing or the top of the stairs.  I indulge him since is goes a way to tiring him out, and a tired Custer means peace and tranquility for the rest of us, so long as Stonewall doesn't violate his canine space. 

I have a mole of sorts just above my right elbow on the outside of my upper arm.  Custer, it would appear, views this as an alternate nipple, because he often goes for it when he's not biting my wrist or lower arm.  When he does this, I push him away, telling him that's not a nipple.  This morning, after about the third time Custer went for it, I asked him derisively -- as if he'd understand -- Custer, do you want a post-prandial snack?

This ticked Karen to no end.  I was joking around with Cus and this is the first phrase that came to mind.  I wasn't trying to be pretentious, but for whatever reason, that was the phrase that occurred to me.  Karen just shook her head and laughed.

I will admit that I am prone to coming up with words that aren't in the mainstream.  That's a combined result of my upbringing, my education and my love of language.  This has resulted in my being branded as snooty, although that's said by one person and partly in jest.  It's also intimidated people -- much to my surprise.  But I can no more change who I am than a beautiful person can change her beauty, a tall person change his height or a man become a woman (please, no Chaz Bono arguments).

Now I'm going to repair to my atheneum to peruse some tracts whilst I footle with a cold beverage, surrounded by man's faithful quadripedal companions.

In other words, I'm going to take a break and read a bit while I enjoy an iced tea with the dogs at my feet.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles