September 27, 2009
Dust in Sydney
Jeepers, those dust storms in Australia were worse than we first thought.
September 26, 2009
Ken Burns back in the spotlight
Documentarian Ken Burns has a new film about America's national parks premiering shortly on PBS. Wildly successful, he draws plenty of criticism, apparently much of it from leftists who think he's too pro-American. That just makes me want to watch all the more, along with millions of others.
If he's assaulted critically -- for being too slow, too longwinded, too sentimental -- it's not because he hasn't thought deeply about the parks, their place in American history and the challenge of translating it all to film.The key difficulty of the project, Burns says, was "how to transcend beauty. This is not a travelogue, not a recommendation of which lodge to stay in. It's a history of the ideas and the individuals that made this uniquely American thing possible for the first time in human history: Land was set aside, not by kings or noblemen or the very rich, but for everybody for all time. That's what we celebrate, but how you wrestle that to the ground is full of peril." He's aware, for instance, "that beauty is itself anesthetizing."
So he's worked to capture more than just the spiritual and political impulses that made the parks possible, the paintings that made them famous, their stirring implications for democracy,
September 12, 2009
September 11, 2009
Eight years and counting
The memories of September 11th will never leave us. We will not forget the burning towers, and the last phone calls, and the smoke over Arlington. We will not forget the rescuers who ran toward danger, and the passengers who rushed the hijackers. We will not forget the men and women who went to work on a typical day and never came home. We will not forget the death of schoolchildren who were on a school trip.And we will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks. And we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief and our mourning.
- President George W. Bush, address to the FBI, September 10, 2003
Learn more:
• Pentagon Memorial Project
• Flight 93 National Memorial
• 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
• Popular Mechanics - Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report
Ways to help:
• Fisher House Foundation
• Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust
• Wounded Warrior Project
September 06, 2009
Hero, not victim
Lots of controversy over the past few days about the editorial judgement, or lack thereof, by the Associated Press for publishing a graphic photo of a fallen Marine in Afghanistan, against the stated wishes of both the family and the DoD.
Donald Sensing, veteran and minister, puts it in perspective.
The very real suffering of the troops deserves to be displayed and explained (but not, I think, this nakedly). Yet if the AP wishes to show its readers the anguish of war, being "fair and balanced" would lead it to present the heroism and profoundly stirring sacrificial spirit among our men and women in uniform. As is, this photo sadly continues the media's tradition of presenting our troops as victims.Lance Cpl Joshua Bernard fell in battle, but he was not a victim. He determined at the hazard of his life to be honorable in his young adulthood, to make sure of his duty, and to leave everything else for later, though later ever came. He gave over to hope his chance of lifelong happiness and the uncertainty of final success, and in mortal danger he relied only upon himself, his buddies and the Corps itself. He chose to risk death young as a free man rather than live long as one conquered. And when fearful lethality loomed he resolved to resist and suffer, rather than flee to save his life; he ran away not from danger but from dishonor. On the battlefield he stood steadfast, and in an instant, at the height of his resolve, he passed away from this life but not from our lives or the destinies of generations yet to come.
Such was the end of this man's life. We need not desire a more heroic spirit than his, although we do pray that others and their families suffer no such fate.
Lots more to ponder. Read the whole thing.