Today marks the 68th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attacks. In mid 1941, the United States reacted to Japanese occupation of French Indochina by freezing Japanese assets. In October, the moderate cabinet in Tokyo was replaced by a hardliner government headed by General Tojo. At 7:58 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, the alarm went out: “Air raid, Pearl Harbor. This is not drill!” as many naval personal were at their Sunday masses.

Although the Americans had received warnings (and ignored them), surprise was complete. Despite the fact that within seven minutes after the first attack, nearly all navy shipboard antiaircraft guns were manned and in action, American losses were heavy: USS West Virginia, Tennessee and Arizona, along with the battleships Shaw, California, Oklahoma and Nevada sank. However, the aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped much to the disappointment of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Combined Fleet. He hoped that a quick, surprise attack on the U.S. fleet would make the Americans petition for peace, leaving the Pacific open for the Japanese expansion. He was said to have commented: “we can run wild for six months or a year, but after that I have utterly no confidence.”

On the U.S side, 188 aircraft were destroyed and 155 aircraft damaged as opposed to the Japanese losses of 27. Over two thousand U.S. militarymen were killed, but most of the civilian casualties during the attack came from them being hit by antiaircraft bullets falling back to earth. The loss was humiliating and total. Japan quickly emerged as a major world power–within a year, it had taken over the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Singapore, Siam, Burma, China, the American Commonwealth of the Philippines, and many South Pacific islands; it already controlled Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan.

The attacks left many enduring legacies. It ended the era of isolationism in the States; it increased the security measures surrounding the American interests home and abroad. Before the Pearl Harbour, the White House “security perimeter” began at the front doors of the building and citizens wandered around on the grounds of the White House as they did in Jefferson’s days. After Japan’s attack, the perimeter was moved outward to the high cast-iron fence, where they remain to this day. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was repealed when the Kuomintong China became an US ally against Fascist Japan, while xenophobia would lead to the Japanese internment camps.

On the Asian side, one of the greatest anthropological discoveries in history fell prey to the Pearl Harbour. Since the 1920s, a gifted Canadian amateur named Davidson Black was excavating in China at a place, Dragon Bone Hill. Among other things, he discovered there Sinanthropus pekinensis, or more commonly the Peking Man. On the day after the Pearl Harbor, a contingent of U.S. Marines, tried to smuggle the bones out of the country. They were intercepted by the Japanese and imprisoned. Their bone crates were left them at the roadside. It was the last that was ever seen of the Peking Man.

(Above pictures: from U.S. Navy Archives)

]]> http://homepaddock.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/december-7-in-history/ Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:07:26 +0000 homepaddock http://homepaddock.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/december-7-in-history/

On December 7:

521 Saint Columba, Irish Christian missionary to Scotland, was born.

1732  The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London.

1863 Richard Sears, American department store founder, was born.

1888 Joyce Cary, Irish author, was born.

1900 Max Planck discovered the law of black body emission.

1921 Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Indian spiritual leader, was born.

1923  Ted Knight, American actor, was born.

1928 Noam Chomsky, American linguist and political writer was born.

1930 W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts broadcast video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The broadcast included the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.

1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the US Pacific Fleet and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Because of the time difference due to the International Date Line, the events of December 8 occurred while the date was still December 7 to the east of this line.

1962 Prince Rainier III of Monaco revised the principality’s constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.

1963 The Bassett Road machine gun murders  took place.

1970 The first ever general election on the basis of direct adult franchise was held in Pakistan for 313 National Assembly seats.

1972  Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, was launched. The crew took the photograph known as “The Blue Marble” as they leave the Earth.

1975 Indonesia invaded East Timor.

1988 Yasser Arafat recognised the right of Israel to exist.

1995 The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

By Paul Chong         Sunday 6 December 2009

(A composite report from reliable sources)

Japanese toymaker Bandai has released paper-thin bath soap that looks like the American 100-dollar bill.(Xinhua/AFP Photo)

Environmental experts recently called toilet paper

“one of the greatest excesses of our age.”

Once the pride & might

Its collapse is now in sight!

This is not just theory. It’s the real thing! Let’s hear from the experts:

US billionaire & investment guru, Jim Rogers, influential former partner of financier George Soros (The World Today Dec 3, 2009) is advising investors to desert the greenback and put their money into commodities. He says the US dollar is a flawed currency that has no future.

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Paul Samuelson, hardly an alarmist, has characterised U.S. financial imbalances as so severe and “irreversible that we must accept that at some future date there will be a run on the dollar. Probably the kind of disorderly run that precipitates a global financial crisis.” . . . while other monetary experts now warn, “We’re in the terminal stages of the world’s most gigantic pyramid scheme.”

Or as Dr. Ron Paul, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, recently noted about the rampant, unprecedented money creation going on, “If we continue doing what we are doing right now, we will literally destroy the dollar.”

The first dramatic debt growth spurt of US debt-based approach financing system occurred with the Civil War. The debt was just $65 million in 1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and had reached $2.7 billion following the war, slowly fluctuating for the rest of the century, finally growing steadily in the 1910s and early 1920s to roughly $22 billion as the country paid for involvement in one war after another – wars which they never did win.

When compared to hard money backed by gold or silver, this debt-based approach has the advantage of making the currency elastic, giving the government a means of expanding or contracting the money supply in response to changing economic conditions. The disadvantage of this approach is inflation. The money supply must be continually expanded in order to finance interest payments on the debt by which it is issued. This devalues the currency, causing inflation.

All signs point toward the U.S. dollar – already down one-third against other world currencies since 2002 – heading at breakneck speed for a precipitous and historic crash.

While all global currencies are falling against tangible

assets, the US Dollar is falling faster.

Unmistakable warning signs reveal here point to a monetary crisis on the verge of spinning wildly out of control, leading to massive INFLATION and quite possibly, a sudden and catastrophic dollar collapse that will forever change US nation.

Mr. Obama, in a recent cable news interview during which he tried to rationalize his multi-trillion dollar spending spree, conceded with a chuckle,“we are out of money now. We’re operating in deep deficits…” This admission came only a few months into his term, and even before he committed upwards of $50 billion more in U.S. taxpayer funds to bailing General Motors out of the hole!

Mega-investor Warren Buffett recently admitted publicly that the frantic spending and money creation underway right now will trigger a currency-destroying inflation that will be much more severe than in the 1970s.

Big-time investment gurus such as Jim Rogers dispatched a strongly worded email offering this sobering assessment:

“The world at large does seem to understand innately that governments are bankrupting themselves and destroying paper currency.”

The sheer havoc unleashed by a dollar crisis will be nationally jolting on a par with Pearl Harbour, John F. Kennedy’s assassination and 9/11. And yes, the bottom could drop out in just a single harrowing day.

The coming dollar collapse will wreak economic and social havoc far beyond skyrocketing prices. Widespread fuel and food shortages, relentless crime waves and the government’s endless socialistic machinations will devastate the American way of life like a giant tornado.

With US main creditors & all the global supporters pulling out,

there will be a catastrophic tsunami unimaginable.

Just this week, US Fed Chief Ben Bernanke declared the US economy is facing “formidable headwinds” & effectively vowed to continue its relentless printing paper dollars.

China’s Andy Xie, recently named by BusinessWeek as one of China’s most influential economists, quickly reacted with the accusation that Bernanke was “poisoning” the US economy by keeping interest rates near zero & creating a tidal wave of newly printed paper dollars. He warned that the next global crisis will be driven by asset inflation . . . which is exactly the present scenario.

Incidentally, toilet roll goes off very quickly towards its end!

Being at the top is not good, there is only one
way to go from there – down.

چند شب پیش مهمون داشتیم. تلفنم زنگ زد. تلفن رو جواب دادم.

من- الو؟

مزاحم- منو یادت می‌آد؟

من- ببخشید متوجه نمی‌شم!

(از صداش کاملاً قیافه و هیکل و طرز رفتارش رو تجسم کردم. از این پسرای چاق و تنِ لش و علاف و عوضی که یا مزاحم تلفنی می‌شن، یا سیگاری و معتاد و اسکان یافته در کنار جـوب!!)

مزاحم- اون روز شماره‌ات رو دادی.

من- من؟! ببخشید، شما کی باشید؟

مزاحم- شماره می‌دی یادت می‌ره؟!

من- … (گوشی را قطع کردم و بیلاخی خوشــــــــگل به سمت گوشی نشان دادم. در همون هنگام متوجه شدم مامانم داشت نیگام می‌کرد! )

پ.ن 1: کردان که از ده طرف سرویس شد! رادان هم که چند قلو زاییده بدبخت! محموت جون! تا خدات نذاشته تو کاسه‌ات، استغفار کن و برگرد به سوی ملت، داداچ!! سید با تو هم هستم… البته تو که با تریاک سر پا وایسادی! تو راحت باش! برو به سلامت!

پ.ن 2: دارم Pearl Harbour رو دانلود می‌کنم. موسیقی متنش که فوق‌العاده بود(آهنگسازش هانس زایمر هست، آهنگساز گلادیاتور) باید خود فیلم هم چیز خوفی باشه!!

پ.ن 3: این مدرسه تکلیف من رو مشخص نکرده. هنوز تکلیفم مشخص نیست واسه همین تمام برنامه‌ریزی‌هام به هم خوردن! المپیاد زیست که هنوز پا در هواس، واسه همین نمی‌دونم المپیاد زیست رو OK کنم یا ادبیات رو. به خاطر همین موضوعات، فعلاً نمی‌تونم پروژه‌ای رو هم برای سمینار علوم و فنونِ امسال شروع کنم. خلاصه کلاً پا در هوام الان!

پ.ن 4: کنسرت جدید Yani(مکزیک) رو کسی دیده/شنیده؟ ارزشش رو داره که از تورنت، 1.4GB دانلود کنم به خاطرش؟

I have just returned from three weeks’ holiday in Japan, hence the inactiveness of this blog.

The visit was mainly rest and relaxation, but I put aside one day to kick off research that for a book about international justice that I plan to write.

I spent a day interviewing people in Tokyo about the war crimes trials that took place shortly after the second world war.

One interview in particular stands out for the raw emotion that I felt whilst conducting it.

The interview was with the grandson of one of those who were indicted for war crimes after the second world war. Not only that, but this particular indictee, as foreign minister, had signed the declaration that authorised the attack on Pearl Harbour which ultimately brought the US into the war.

I had studied all of this in history, of course, but that was text book stuff. This really brought history home, with surprising force. Here was a real person who suffered through these real events, and it took me away from the dusty tombs of A-level history to a world of real people and real feelings.

“For my parents, the Tokyo trials were a matter of life and death,” this interviewee said – since most of the indictees were getting the gallows.

When his grandfather was sentenced to imprisonment instead, his mother got up and said, “we won”.

Besides this fabulously illuminating interview, what came across during my time in Tokyo was how politically-motivated the trials had been.

Few seemed to deny that they were simply “victor’s justice”, with no suggestion that the other side should also be held to account for their crimes.

Moreover, the Tokyo trials were very much shaped by the politics of the time. One university professor said it was very important to look at what the trials (heavily backed by the US) sought to achieve – and that was speedy demilitarisation of Japan. This explains why the emperor, who should have at least been questioned even if he was never indicted, was never touched.

The concept of international justice seems to have changed little, then.

The whole raison d’etre of the ICC is to bring lasting peace to regions afflicted by war, and to put an end to human rights abuses.

Which means that politics necessarily goes hand-in-hand with justice, undermining the purist’s view that the ICC should just be about justice.

That was never the idea, and it can’t work.

The UN’s Security Council (political) makes the referral to the ICC (judicial), and it is then up to the ICC to start an investigation (or not, as the case may be). The two bodies are theoretically separate, but one could argue that they shouldn’t be. There should at least be some formal recognition of the ICC’s political intent.

Look at the mess left by trying to indict Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on a purely judicial basis. Now had one said, yes, we should indict Bashir, but there may be reasons for not indicting him, things may have worked somewhat smoother.

On November 9:

1494 The Family de’ Medici became rulers of Florence.

1620 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sighted land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

1769 Captain Cook observed the transit of Mercury.

1841 King Edward VII was born.

1857  The Atlantic magazine was founded in Boston.

1868  Marie Dressler, Canadian actress, was born.

1887 The United States received rights to Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.

1902  Anthony Asquith, British film director, was born.

1917 Joseph Stalin entered the provisional government of the USSR.

1918  Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicated after the German Revolution, and Germany was proclaimed a Republic.

1918  Spiro Agnew, 39th Vice President of the United States, was born.

1920 White New Zealand policy  was introduced. The Immigration Restriction Amendment Act 1920 made it necessary for immigrants to apply for a permanent residence permit before they arrived in New Zealand.

1921 Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the photoelectric effect..

1936 Mary Travers was born.

1937  Roger McGough, English poet, was born.

1953 Cambodia beccame independent from France.

1955 – Karen Dotrice, British actress

Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber
in a publicity photo for Mary Poppins

1967 The First issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published.

1989  Fall of the Berlin Wall. Communist-controlled East Germany opened checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany. People started demolishing the Berlin Wall.

1994 The chemical element Darmstadtium was discovered.

1998 Brokerage houses were ordered to pay 1.03 billion USD to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for their price-fixing.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Yay, modern history is DEAD and now I only have ONE more left – the bitch called Economics. Anyway I just spent my last half hour writing a huge-ass e-mail response to someone on my thoughts on the exam so I thought I might as well paste it here. If you can’t be bothered or should be studing for physics, stop reading  NOW.

It’s all over! Can I just say that was one of the most tiring yet shortest three hours of my HSC to date. Overall I was very satisfied with the exam, I felt I had prepared enough/right material for the questions. And yes I did get to read your email before the exam which was good.

Russia and the Soviet Union 1917-1941
a) How significant was Lenin’s leadership in the Bolshevik consolidation of power in the period to 1924?
OR
b) To what extentn can Stalinism be considered totalitarianism (gargh, I hate spelling this word esp. 10-20 times in an exam) in the period up to 1942?

As you can tell, I chose b). as it was somewhat similar, if not the same, as my trials question “Evaluate the impact of “the Terror” in the establishment of totalitarianism in the Soviet State.”

I split it off into three sections and talked about
1) His cult of personality, the propaganda he used in order to deify himself. How his cult was upheld and respected by the people out of fear of his totalitarian ways.
2) Which led on to my next paragraph on his use of Purges. I talked about his systematic elimination of opposition and lumped in a bit of trotsky vs stalin power play here.
3) Stalin’s own brand of ideology ie. Stalinism. This was my weakest point and I honestly can’t remember what I wrote for this because I remember thinking to myself at the 35 minute mark “Crap…this doesn’t really flow” so I think I made some rather weak links and connections.

I kept repeated the keywords “totalitarianism” and “Stalinism” , so overall I think I did OK for this one. Oh, I forgot to add I wrote just under 7.5 pages for this = probably 850 words

Trotsky
a) Outline the life of the personality you have studied
b) “Individuals are products of their times” How accurate is this statement in relation to the personality you have studied?

When I read this question in reading time, I felt a huge wave of relief!

a) I thought it was relatively straightforward ? and just narrated his life from birth –> prominence –> decline –> death. It took around 4 pages.
b) Hmm…. I thought this question was also pretty straightforward but after the exam but teacher and friends thoguht differently. I looked at it simply from the angle that Lenin’s circumstances shaped the way he was throughout his life. I looked at how when he was a nobody in 1905 he was reveered for his intellectual prowess, leaderhship abilities etc. but then two decades later in 1920s it was these skills which contributed to his hatred and indirectly to his downfall. Also looked at Stalin’s role and the Stalin vs Trotsky powerplay again. That was basicalyl the jist of my argument and I ended with his downfall + death.

However, after the exam the EXTENSION kids had taken a completely different spin and analysed the question in terms of historiography and historians. (I did extension for 5 weeks and dropped it out of sheer boredom) They looked at Trotsky’s reputation from a much more holistic point of view and considered his interpration throughout history. Gargh, not sure what to think about this question now.

I wrote 5 pages for b). Altogether Trotsky took 50 minutes.

Conflict in the Pacific
a) To what extended did Japanese nationalism lead to the bombing of Pearl HArbour in 1941?
OR
b) Evaluate the viewthat the US had no option but to use the atomic bomb in 1945.

I was also very relieved when  I read this question. Can I make a confession? I didn’t study everything in this topic out of laziness/poor time management etc. etc. and I actually gambled on the “big topics” which I thought would most likely be tested. As it turned out the big dot points I prepared for were 1) Nationalism, 2) A-Bomb, 3) Pearl Harbour  so you can imagine my shock when all three were in teh question!

We had theorised that there would most likely be a A-Bomb question or a Pearl Harbour question since neither had been tested since 2003. I took a) because, again it was so similar to my trials question. “Analyse the impact of Japanese nationalim and imperialism on the growth of tensions from 1937 to 1941.”

My only qualm would be I didn’t mention Pearl Harbour explicititly enough til halfway in because I focussed too much on the events that shaped nationalistic policy. This took 8 pages.

WW1
Source A: Map of German Advance into France (shows Schlieffen plan)
Source B: Extract describing Schlieffen Plan
Source C: A photo of a female munition worker
Source D: Extract discussing women’s roles in WWI

I can’t remember the contents of Q1 anymore but they were the easy type i.e. just basic comprehension so it wasn’t difficult. Sorry for my horrible memory but I had a huge nap after modern to compensate for last couple of late nights so everything just went out the window. Here are the 10 markers, paraphrased

Q2: Using Sources A, B and your own knowledge explain where there was a Stalemate on the Western Front
Q3: Analyse the usefulness + reliability of Sources C and D for a historian studying the impact of the war on women’s roles on the home front in Britain.

I left WWI til last because I knew it required the least “thinking” and was more source based. I had 35 minutes left by the time I finished the other sections and overall I think the questions were fair. Again, we had theorised that it’d be homefronts + women’s roles this year so I was very pleased when I saw this section.

I didn’t do that well in Q2, and it was only until I finished that I had actaully analysed the reliability and usefulness of the sources rather then just explaining why there was a stalemate. I hope this doesn’t hurt me too much… Q3 was ok, talked about DORA, mutionettes, women’s land army etc.

EASTWINDRAIN

EASTWINDRAIN

EASTWINDRAIN

“When crisis leading to worst arises following will be broadcast at end weather reports: one east wind rain war with United States, two north wind cloudy war with Russia, three west wind clear war with Britain including attack on Thailand or Malaya and Dutch Indies. If spoken twice burn codes and secret papers.”

Economics

Selva tropical. No reconozco los troncos ni las hojas de verdes intensos. Ascendemos una ladera escarpada por cañadas estrechas. Las montañas sagradas de Koolau. Residencia de reyes, refugio y santuario. El primer asentamiento nativo hace mil años. El guía nos descubre los misterios de la naturaleza entre bandazos y verjas.

Cae una lluvia fina. Siempre llueve al oeste de la isla. La humedad que arrastran los vientos del noreste se precipita sobre las cimas. En las laderas surgen torrentes y cascadas entre troncos entretejidos de los hau, hibiscos de corazones verdes y flores amarillas y naranjas. Bajo las copas de los kuku‘i, el árbol nacional de Hawaii, de hojas pálidas y bayas negras de los leis de la realeza, y de los hala de hojas alargadas y frutos como piñas. La humedad del aire empapa la ropa y tamiza el aire. Un puñado de vacas dormitan en el mayor rancho de reses de la isla, conservado desde 1850 por la misma familia. 

El camino sinuoso alcanza la cima y se abre al valle Hakipu‘u, una extensión fértil entre las montañas que quita el aliento y nos traslada al jurásico. Los pastos  frondosos refrescados con las sombras de las copas magestuosas de los ohai y de los mangos de brotes teñidos al tono de la fruta madura. En los márgenes papayas apiñadas en troncos estrechos bajo manojos de palmas. Al fondo una playa bañada en el océano calmo frente al islote que recuerda un sombrero chino. El cielo se abre y enciende la hierba de este paraíso grabado en la memoria por el celuloide. 

Los dominios del gran mono blanco, el cielo inundado de cazas en su camino a Pearl Harbour, los troncos que protegieron científicos de bestias extraídas al ámbar. Y desde hace seis años el escenario de LOST la serie mas vista de la última década.  Paseos de Hurley en la furgoneta recién arreglada, caminatas de Kate, Jack, Ben y Locke entre la selva y la playa, el campamento de “Los otros” en los cincuenta. Un remanso vasto e imponente entre picos recortados en verde y playas blancas.

Un murmullo ancestral aflora desde la garganta. Un canto a la divinidad que ha hecho posible este milagro. Una explosión de lava. Unas semillas que alcanzan la tierra fértil, calor y agua. Desearía poder capturar sus tonalidades con palabras. El aire vestido de hierba fresca, frutas y mareas inunda las venas con un soplo de vida eterna.

Fotos: M.da Silva

Kualoa Ranch. Adventure tours. Kahalu’u. Costa este de Oahu. Hawaii.

I apologise devoted filmwipe fans about the delay to todays review. Normally i try and have everything in place so you can read it first thing in the morning like a newspaper or something you actually care about.  But after a mystery illness that blighted my initial attempts to review this film I am here at your service telling you about another film you should avoid like you would syphylis.  The Aryan Couple makes genital warts a less excruciating experience and is something I never hope to have the misfortune of watching ever again.  The film is low budget Fascism at its worst and certainly puts the B in B-Movie. Ignore any comments on other review websites from people writting “It brough me closer to the realities of the situation….blah, blah, blah”.  No it does not.  They are sycophants who’s parents should have been stopped from breeding.  The truth is this film takes you so far away from the realities of being Jewish in the Third Reich that you might as well be watching an episode of Neighbours (At least Neighbours is slightly grittier).  So with those idiots put to bed we shall begin.

The film follows a young Aryan couple who are working as servants for a Jewish family.  The family they work for has managed to neogtiate a safe passage out of the Third Reich to neutral Switzerland after having given Himmler all of their possessions.  However, the Aryan couple are in fact Jews who have been working with the family in order to relay information back to the resistance.  Having realised the Nazi’s have discovered they are Jews they try and join there masters as they flee the country.  This is not possible.  However, the family have bribed a member of the SS to help the family escape.  Everything looks to be going well until another officer in the SS (who has desires on teh young Jewish girl) realises they have escaped and begins an attempt to halt their escape.

Their has been a revival in recent years for world war two films, hits such as Pearl Harbour at the beginning of the decade have been matched with recent successes such as Valkyerie and The Counterfeiter. The Aryan Couple was made slap bang in the middle of this wave and was made in the same year as the extraordinary Downfall (I wonder which one it the most famous? I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t the Aryans).  As I have already hinted (less of a hint more of a scream in your ear) the film is absolutely terrible.  There is nothing to like.  The acting is terrible, the direction is cheap and nasty and makes eating a kebab seem like fine dining,  the script is so weak you can actually see through the paper its written on.  What makes the film so bad is this comparison with its contemporaries.  Films like Downfall captured the public imagination due to a mixture of brilliant acting and direction (even though the film was made on a limited budget).  The thing that sells it is the fantastic script with complete historical accuracy.  This is something the Aryan couple cannot boast.  I am sure the nearest this script came to history was the fact it was written on recycled paper (I will develop the terrible story further in a second) while the acting makes Bungle in Rainbow look like Sidney Poitier.

The trouble with the story is that it makes little or no sense.  Not in terms of what is going on, but in terms of why the audience should care.  There is nothing unique about this story.  Very early on you are introduced to the “Aryan Couple”.  You get the hint they’re spies and then you completely avoid them for half an hour.  Suddenly you find out they’re Jews and you feel as if you should care.  You don’t.  Because the films loses momentum with its central characters (instead preferring to focus on the wealthy Jewish family.  It is this lack of care which really spoils the film.   It never recovers.  The sub plot of a potential rape is also weak and distracting.

The production values are so low the audience feels like they could have created the set in half an hour.  The worst bit that stands out is the journey across Germany in a carriage that has had its interior stolen from a sauna Finland.  Apart from scenes in the manner house everything feels cheap and nasty.  Again this significantly detracts from the overall film and any possible enjoyment.

Overall this is a film with good intentions carried out horribly.  Avoid at all costs unless you’re Finish sauna enthusiast, as they’re the only audience who will find something appealing.

2/10

Pe data de 1 septembrie 1939 Germania nazista invada Polonia; era inceputul celui de-al Doilea Razboi Mondial. Doua zile mai tarziu, Marea Britanie si Franta se alaturau Poloniei si declarau raboi nemtilor. Cu toate acestea cele doua puteri nu s-au implicat in lupta, lasand armata poloneza, depasita tehnic si numeric, sa fie zdrobita de catre Germania. Marea Britanie si Franta au intreprins o singura actiune militara in sprijinul Poloniei, urmata de o retragere, fapt ce a ramas in istorie sub denumirea de “razboiul ciudat”.

Pe data de 17 septembrie, URSS isi lua in primire rolul asumat prin Pactul Ribbentrop-Molotov si a invadat Polonia dinspre est. Pe 22 septembrie Polonia se declara invinsa si era impartita de Germania si URSS.

Pana in iunie 1940 Germania cucerise Polonia, Danemarca, Luxemburg, Belgia, Olanda, Norvegia si Franta. Astfel Marea Britanie ramanea sa lupte singura impotriva nazistilor.

In 1941 Germania isi incepea drumul spre cucerirea Uniunii Sovietice. Dar cum armata nazistilor nu era pregatita sa sa lupte in conditiile iernii rusesti, a fost obligata sa se retraga inainte de a ajunge la Moscova. Acesta a fost punctul de cotitura al celui de-al Doilea Raboi Mondial. Dezastrul de la Stalingrad anunta declinul Germaniei.

In decembrie 1941 japonezii ii atacau pe americani la Pearl Harbour, acestia din urma intrand si ei in razboi. Acest moment este considerat de unii istorici, adevaratul inceput al razboiului mondial, deoarece implicarea Statelor Unite l-a schimbat complet.

Pe 30 aprilie 1945, Hitler s-a sinucis, Germania capituland cateva zile mai tarziu, iar pe 6 si 9 august japonezii au primit lovitura care i-a determinat sa semneze capitularea pe 2 septembrie 1945 la bordul navei USS Missouri, acesta fiind si sfarsitul razboiului.

Bilantul a fost dramatic, al Doilea Razboi Mondial fiind cel mai sangeros si costisitor din istoria omenirii. Peste 70 de milioane de oameni au murit. Aliatii, desi au iesit invingatori, au pierdut in razboi 16 milioane de soldati si peste 45 de milioane de civili, in timp ce tarile Axei au inregistrat 8 milioane de victime in randul soldatilor si 4 milioane intre civili. In total, aproximativ 3% din populatia lumii, in acel moment. De asemenea, s-a estimat ca acest razboi a costat mai multi bani si resurse decat toate celelalte razboaie la un loc; 1000 de miliarde de dolari la valoarea din 1945, fara a se pune la socoteala sumele cheltuite pentru reconstructia de dupa razboi.

Urmarile Razboiului au fost fara precedent. Armele nucleare, avionul cu reactie, rachetele si radarul, blitzkriegul, folosirea pe scara larga a tancurilor, submarinelor, bombardierelor si a formatiunilor de distrugatoare si tancurilor petroliere, sunt doar cateva dintre inventiile militare si noile tactici care au schimbat modul de desfasurare a conflictului.

O alta urmare importanta a razboiului a fost aparitia in 1945, a Organizatiei Natiunilor Unite. Rolul ONU a fost inca de la inceput prevenirea izbucnirii unui nou razboi, la fel de devastator ca cel de-al Doilea Razboi Mondial, si de a asigura o pace durabila.

Ne ramane decat sa speram ca un astfel de conflict nu va mai aparea niciodata, iar lumea va deveni mai buna, ceea ce e destul de greu de crezut.

İngiliz Times gazetesi, tarihi, beyaz perdeye hatalı aktaran 10 sinema filmini yayımladı.

Aralarında üç tane Mel Gibson filminin bulunduğu liste şöyle:

1. U-571 (2000): Amerikalı film yazarı David Ayer’in yansıttığının aksine, şifre makinesi Enigma’yı ilk ele geçirenler Amerikalılar değil, İngiliz deniz kuvvetleriydi.

2. Cesur Yürek (1995): Filmdeki İskoç kahraman William Wallace, fakir bir köylü değildi ve önemli miktarda toprak sahibiydi.

3. M.Ö. 10000 (2000): Filme dahil edilen hayvanların varlığı şüphe uyandırırken, coğrafi açıdan olanaksız bulunan sahnelerse arkeoloji dergilerini durumu gözden geçirmeye yöneltti

4. Vatansever (2000): Mel Gibson’ın filmdeki karakterine ilham veren Francis Marion’un Kızılderilileri zevk için öldüren ve köle ticareti yapan bir tecavüzcü olduğu biliniyor.

5. Pearl Harbor (2001): Filmde, Japonlar’ın savaşa aç bir toplum düzeyine indirgenmesi hatalı.

6. Apocalypto (2006): Mayaların barbarlığı filmde oldukça abartılı aktarılıyor.

7. Amadeus (1984): Arkadaş olan Antonio Salieri ile Mozart arasındaki rekabet olduğundan daha sert yansıtılıyor.

8. Gladyatör (2000): Commodus karakteri gerçek hayatta kardeşi Lucilla’ya âşık olmamış, tam tersine onu öldürmüştü.

9. Young Victoria (2009): Filmdekinin aksine Prens Albert ve Kraliçe Viktorya çifte suikast girişiminden yara almadan kurtulmuştu.

10. Marie Antoinette (2006): Kraliçe Antoinette’in cinsel hayatındaki ‘oyalanma’, XVI. Louis’in korkusundan değil, sağlık sorunundan kaynaklanmıştı.

Kaynak: Ntvmsnbc

My 2CENTS:
As a generation whose mentor has become the Media
Never shall we based our knowledge on what we see on screen,always shall we separate the facts from the Fiction.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

This movie, based on a book by Sylvia Nasar, glossed over some of the less savory moments of Nash’s life: he fathered a son out of wedlock, was arrested in a Santa Monica men’s room on “moral charges,” and made numerous un-P.C. remarks over the years about various minority groups. More flagrantly, the hallucinations Nash suffered in real life were entirely auditory, not visual. And Nash’s big, weepy Nobel Prize acceptance speech at the end? He never gave one.

Braveheart, 1995

Not only was the Scottish hero William Wallace gruesomely executed in 1305, having been captured by the English at Falkirk, but seven centuries later his memory was exhumed, smeared with blue face paint and mutilated by Mel Gibson. Wallace was not the poor villager the film depicts, but a landowner and minor knight. The litany of fibs extends from Wallace’s love interest (Queen Isabella would have been about two-years-old at the time) to his kilt – a garment not developed for another three centuries. The historian Sharon L. Krossa likens it to “a film about Colonial America showing the colonial men wearing 20th century business suits.”

10,000 BC, 2008

This tale of a mammoth hunter travelling across the prehistoric globe to rescue his bride, features some surprising revelations. Were sabre-tooth tigers bull-sized? Could man train Woolly Mammoths to help build pyramids? Did we invent sailing boats so early? Unfortunately the answer to all these questions is no. In fact, the filmmakers incorporated so many animals then extinct, or yet to evolve, and so many future technologies and geographical impossibilities that Archaeology magazine was compelled to review – and pan it: “Unsurprisingly, this tribe is starving, but it is hard to have sympathy for them because any culture that tries to hunt mammoths with a net gets what it deserves.”

The Patriot, 2000

Gibson (rugby) tackles history again with his turn as an honest farmer drawn into the American Revolutionary War, which historian David Hackett Fischer claimed in the New York Times “is to history as Godzilla was to biology.” Crimes erroneously attributed to British soldiers include immolating villagers inside their church, an atrocity actually committed a century and a half later by Nazis in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane. Meanwhile the director Spike Lee complained that the film “dodged around, skirted about or completely ignored slavery.” There is also strong evidence that Francis Marion, the basis for Gibson’s character, was a slave-owning serial rapist who murdered Cherokee Indians for fun.

Pearl Harbour, 2001

The protagonists of Pearl Harbour, George Welch and Kenneth M. Taylor, are based on two real-life US Army Air Corps Second Lieutenants, but the film weaves such a wildly inaccurate account of their love lives and sky-swooping exploits, that the cinematic incarnations have been rendered fictional. Before his death in 2006 Taylor told his son he thought the movie was “over-sensationalized and distorted.” The film’s villains fair no better than its heroes – the Japanese are reduced to a war-hungry stereotype that even in 1967 embarrassed TV bosses enough to mask it in latex and it call Klingon before broadcast.

Apocalypto,2006

This one movie has given entire Anthropology departments migraines. Sure the Maya did have the odd human sacrifice but not to Kulkulkan, the Sun God, and only high-ranking captives taken in battle were killed. The conquistadors arriving at the end of the film made for unlikely saviors: an estimated 90% of indigenous American population was killed by smallpox from their infected livestock.

Amadeus, 1984

Some years after Mozart’s death in 1791, a rumour circulated in Vienna that Antonio Salieri, court composer to Emperor Joseph II, had plotted the Austrian’s death – an assertion upon which Amadeus is based. But if Salieri was murderously jealous of Mozart he gave little clue to it. His contemporary Anselm Hüttenbrenner claimed that Salieri spoke of the prodigy “with exceptional respect,” and Mozart’s widow Constanze trusted the Italian enough to ask him to tutor her son. It is possible that Salieri was wary of usurpation by the young genius, but the rumoured vitriol was probably propaganda fabricated as part of the rivalry between Italian and German schools of music.

Gladiator, 2000

Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus is a coward who lusts after his sister Lucilla and murders his father, Marcus Araelius. In reality Commodus’s accession ended Pax Romana, two centuries of peace and minimal expansion by the empire and he has been described as a capricious show-off. But his father probably died of smallpox and far from falling in love with Lucilla, Commodus had her murdered after her involvement in an assassination attempt upon him. Ultimately, he was strangled in the bathtub by the wrestler Narcissus after twelve years of rule, not as the film asserts, while a new emperor, in a gladiatorial arena at the hands of Maximus – a fictional general based on Narcissus.

Young Victoria, 2009

Prince Albert really did prove his devotion to the pregnant Queen Victoria by bundling her into the well of a carriage during an assassination attempt, but he did not absorb the bullet this film dealt him. The gunman either missed or the pistol jammed, but the royal couple escaped unscathed. Screenwriter Julian Fellowes insisted that accuracy was paramount in his script, but that the alteration was necessary to show Albert’s deed to be “the act of bravery and selflessness that it was.” According to the News of the World, the present Queen was not amused by his decision.

Marie Antoinette 2006

In her stylised biopic of Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola sidelined the simmering politics of the French Revolution to focus exclusively on costumes and cakes. But while Marie lost her head for taking a similar stance, she might have lost it sooner had she propagated the film’s assertion that it took the queen a decade to conceive because Louis XVI was afraid of sex. The delay was almost certainly medical and in 2002 the historian Simone Bertière ascertained from royal correspondence that it was probably Louis’ “bracquemart assez considérable” mismatched with Marie’s “l’étroitesse du chemin” that blighted their love life. Perhaps too indelicate for Kirsten Dunst to explain between mouthfuls of macaroon.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

In 1585, when the movie takes place, Queen Elizabeth was 52 years old – Cate Blanchett was 36 when she shot the film – and was not being courted by suitors like Ivan the Terrible (who was dead by then). And though the movie has her rallying the troops at Tilbury astride a white steed in full armor with a sword, in fact she rode side saddle, carrying a baton. She was more of a regal majorette than Joan of Arc.

Memoirs of a Geisha

The geisha coming-of-age, called “mizuage,” was really more of a makeover, where she changed her hairstyle and clothes. It didn’t involve her getting… intimate with a client. In the climactic scene where Sayuri wows Gion patrons with her dancing prowess, her routine – which involves some platform shoes, fake snow, and a strobe light – seems more like a Studio 54 drag show than anything in pre-war Kyoto.

The Last Samurai

The Japanese in the late 19th century did hire foreign advisers to modernize their army, but they were mostly French, not American. Ken Watanabe’s character was based on the real Saigo Takamori who committed ritual suicide, or “seppuku,” in defeat rather than in a volley of Gatling gun fire. Also, it’s doubtful that a 40-something alcoholic Civil War vet, even one with great hair, would master the chopsticks much less the samurai sword.

300

Though this paean to ancient moral codes and modern physical training is based on the real Battle of Thermopylae, the film takes many stylistic liberties. The most obvious one being Persian king Xerxes was not an 8-foot-tall Cirque du Soleil reject. The Spartan council was made up of men over the age of 60, with no one as young as Theron (played by 37-year-old Dominic West). And the warriors of Sparta went into battle wearing bronze armor, not just leather Speedos.

Every year there is an uproar about the Calgary Stampede and the welfare of animals. One the one hand, bleeding heart liberal critter rights folk try to prevent animals from being tortured while countless more defend what is called “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”.

Some guy doing something macho. Apparently.

Although in general I agree with the bleeding heart liberals about a lot of things, I do belong to P.E.T.A. Yes, I am one of those People who Eat Tasty Animals and I like to go fishing. Still, I think the Stampede is pretty awful. OK, so I’m a hypocrite. But I do think there is a difference between torturing intelligent, sentient animals, and those that a little further down on the brain scale. How many of us won’t swat a fly?

Every year at the Stampede animals die needlessly (four this year). Others are flipped on their back by some big brutes and tied up, while some other guys who think Hummers and Axe body spray are sexy™ torment poor horses, bulls, or large goats by seeing who can sit on them the longest. And they play the worst god awful country music ever. I will, however, listen to justifications for it all and I respect that there are frequent reviews of safety for the critters. But I did read of one justification yesterday morning that BENT ME THE HELL OUT OF SHAPE. You guessed it, it was religious.

This is NOT Dr. Jim

I will admit a bias against the Stampede. Dr. Jim was never really all that into cowboy imagery. Even when I was a kid, Westerns and the like took second or third place behind war movies and model airplanes. I did have some some plastic logs for making cavalry forts, toy cowboy guns and so forth, and I did like to watch F-Troop (remember that?), but really, I wasn’t an imperialistic, land grabbing cowboy, out to displace the Indians.

I was an over militarized, war mongering, carpet bomb the village to save it, ‘ha ha, I sank your battleship’, Tora Tora Tora kind of guy.

Poster for the 70s movie about the bombing of Pearl Harbour (“Tora” = “Tiger” in Japanese, the code word for the operation). Notice the big bird poop-splat on the window of the plane in the foreground. The U.S. was so ill prepared for war they tried to use gulls to stop the Japanese. They were notoriously ineffective. This led to an increase in animal cruelty in Western culture.

In retaliation for the bird poop attacks, the Japanese targeted U.S. gophers, a strategy that backfired as it saved the Americans doing it themselves that year. It did set the stage for post-war reconciliation, though.

Wow, I’m really digressing here, aren’t I? What was this post supposed to be about? Oh yeah, religion and cowboys and horses and stuff.

Some guy, just before moseying into town to visit Miss Kitty at the saloon. She didn’t just sell drinks, did she?

So, what has got my boxers in a bunch? It’s  not any rationally considered ethical position (that I may or may not disagree with), but outright claims of divine license. Yup, the Bible is being drawn into the debate about animal cruelty in a letter in the Calgary Herald. Some guy (not the guy above) from Medicine Hat wrote yesterday:

Re: “Are we having fun yet?” Letter, July 13.
My earliest recollection of the Stampede was in 1932 from our house on Scotchman’s Hill which offered a panoramic view of rodeo and midway. Livestock and the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede have always gone hand in hand. Without rodeo, there is no Calgary Stampede. In trying to make her case against rodeo, Rhonda Anderson claims, “A steer, a horse and a human being are all animals.” Not so! A check of Genesis 1:25-28 proves the unsustainability of that argument.
Bill Shaw

Hokey Dokey, Here is Genesis 1

²⁵And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
²⁸And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Well, that just about explains it all, doesn’t it? We can do what we what to what we want when we want because a bunch of old Israelites (actually Judeans, but that is a different story) thought that their national deity had created them as divine representatives on earth. And since they also thought that this god could do what he wanted to what he wanted whenever he wanted to, that should be good enough for us. Really? Are there no limits to this biblical sanction?

The belief that the Bible sanctions any kind of human excess is something conservative Christians have been wrestling with for a long time. Fortunately, there is a movement within evangelical Christianity to see the human relationship with creation as one of caretaker and not lord and master.

On the other hand, why look to 2500 year old models at all when trying to figure out how to live moral lives? Do we need the Bible to help think about animals? I don’t think so.

The Arrogant Worms, thinking about cows. But not in the biblical sense (I hope).

Right, where were we?  Oh yeah, the war… no, the Bible. Its so hard to tell them apart sometimes!

Noah’s ark that saved humanity and all the animals from being destroyed by some god. Notice the satanic woodpecker out to wreck this deity’s plan. This biblical story gave the Americans the idea of defending themselves by using birds. Unfortunately, they read the wrong translations which mistook the Hebrew term for “woodpecker” as “gull”. This led to the disaster at Pearl Harbor but unexpected success on the ground war when George S. Patton did his own translation, and developed his strategy that he summed up as “The best defense is a good ostrich”.

The Bible also tells of how humans pissed off God so that that almost all of the animals had to be killed. According to Biblical and Judeo-Christian tradition, it is only after the flood that humans began eating meat with God’s permission (so long as we don’t consume its blood). Apparently, any cruelty we inflict on them otherwise is fine, eh, Mr. Shaw? Of course, animals are useful, and we domesticated a lot of them. And we militarized them too, which is why no one has a right to complain about this my conflation of Stampeding Bible Thumpers and WWII history.

Inspired by medieval pictures of a gallant knights like this, the Americans tried to develop their own Ostrich Corp. in WWII.

Anyway, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, the Americans thought they needed bigger birds. National emergencies are often the cause of new biblical translations and this inspired to Patton to make the “New Refeathered Version for American Patriots.” Thus inspired, Patton rounded up some of the best rodeo riders in Brooklyn to lasso some ostriches at the zoo and press them into service. The results were a truly terrifying weapon that could win the war, but at what cost, to both man and bird?

One of the first draftees for America’s new Ostrich cavalry unit, the somewhat reluctant FU Troop.

As it turned out, the ostriches were horribly outclassed by the far bigger German tigers, which weren’t real tigers at all, but #*%#!^*#% TANKS! They were almost completely ostrich proof! Bloody cheaters!

Tiger Tanks on the prowl. Like the Japanese bomber pilots in the Tora Tora Tora raid, the Germans could laugh off any amount of bird poop. The British response to the Tiger Tank was also far less than adequate.

British Field Marshal Meowgomery

But soon, the allies tried new tactics that capitalized on their army’s speed. The U.S. forces, for example, began employing stealth tactics, and that won the day!

Now, what the hell has any of this to do with the Calgary stampede and dipwit’s letter to the Calgary Herald? Isn’t it obvious? Since he thinks we must take a literalistic view of Genesis, we are led to the following realization, realized in the following representation.

A Middle Eastern carpenter on his way to work.

Acknowledging the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs of course, necessarily leads us to several conclusions about how we know what we know about the very ancient world. This ends all doubt about that famous reality T.V. series,

… the Flintstones. We now know this is the only biblical accurate™  show ever to be on the telly. Notice how family friendly it is compared to the image that precedes it, though. Why, it actually has a family in it. Not like that Christian picture. That Jesus guy probably wasn’t even married.

Now, this actually brings us back to the stampede. It’s supposed to be family fun. This is what it looks like NOW:

Evil Nature is ritually subjugated once again.

But, that is not the BIBLICALLY ACCURATE™ way of doing it! No, not at all! Just look at these prehistorical line drawings that look astoundingly like the modern, colour picures in the Flintstones (this proves the historicity of the Flintstones). Here is the original rodeo for you!

 

Now compare the two. Isn’t the second pair a whole lot more fun, mutually supportive and generally nice? No one gets hurt. We have lost our way, we have, and our Preacher from Medicine Hat is all messed up. He’s got it ass backwards.

Animals we keep and care for should have fun living with us, at least until we eat them! People characterize themselves and each other as animals; animal imagery helps form our identity, so we shouldn’t mistreat them. This is easy to demonstrate by reference to the audio visual, televised Arts™.

“Miss Kitty” in a tank (Amanda Blake, 1929-89), a still from the TV series Gunsmoke. She ran the “saloon”, but let’s face it, there were no Western saloons that weren’t also cat houses. Miss Kitty should have been purring for pay. If Patton would have read up on the wild West, he may have invented the militarized tiger tank before the Germans!

A cowboy relaxes in the water park of a frontier “saloon”. Tired of “cow” pokin’ he wants to take a tiger (or three) by the tail and have a real rodeo. See reference above to biblical knowing. Tigers are no longer used in rodeos in North America. As the old saying goes, “another one bites the dusty cowboy on the old saddle horn.”

Wrangler Jane, (Melody Patterson), F-Troop

Now then, while we are on the subject of special relationships between humans and animals, not to mention ropin’, ridin’, and ranglin’, get a load of this! It is way better than watching some yahoo with too much body spray chase a cow around an arena, ain’t it?

Yvonne Craig as Bat Girl, Eartha Kitt as Catwoman from the 60s TV show.
Notice the tiger skin jacket on one one of the hench persons.

The  video is of poor quality so here is a still of Yvonne Craig as Bat Girl. I’m not showing it for any prurient reasons or anything like that, it is just that I feel a responsibility to my audience, such as it is.

hmmmmm, purple…

Now, just to show that everyone here at Dr. Jim’s has respect for tradition, lets go back before Eartha Kitt made her debut on TV as Catwoman. There we find this fine feminine feline:

Julie Newmar, Catwoman during the 1966-67 series.

And, then the movie was released with a different actress playing Catwoman.  And then more movies, with more actresses…Hmmmm, more actresses….

Lee Ann Meriwether, from the 1966 Batman movie.

Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in 1992 Batman Returns.

Halle Berry in 2004’s Catwoman
Should I have a poll as to the best Catwoman?

Halle Berry does seem to have something about cats, which is, of course, fine by me. Notice the nice leopard skin in her appearance in, you guessed it, the Flintstones!

Notice the primitive, hammer like “gopher bopper”.

Now, ALSO in the Flintstones film (the first successful big screen historical epic) were three of the four members of the rock group, the B-52s. For the purposes of the movie, they renamed themselves the B.C. 52s, and that, of course, implies “Christ”. But where does that leave us? Of course, back the aftermath of WWII, and the need for America to have dominion over the earth and to subdue stuff.

A B-52 bomber on a dangerous, biblically apocalyptic and predicted anti-gopher sortie.
Little buggers just won’t stay subdued.

Notice the fine synchronicity here, and the way all the loose threads are coming together. Obviously, this is a well thought out and coherent discussion of animal rights that makes way more sense than Mr. Shaw’s letter could ever hope to. So let’s end it off with a song or two!

B.C. 52s, “Bedrock Twist”

Eartha Kitt (1927-2008), “I Want to be Evil”. Notice the dead tiger.

Technorati Tags: Calgary+Herald, Bible, Genesis, Calgary+Stampede, animal+welfare, rodeo, F-Troop, cowboy, war, world+war+2, tora+tora+tora, Pearl+Harbor, Patton, tank, cat, Batman, Catwoman, Batgirl, Flintstones, Gunsmoke, Noah, Jesus+on+Dinosaur, Amanda+Blake, Melody+Patterson, Michelle+Pfeiffer, Halle+Berry, Eartha+Kitt, Yvonne+Craig, B52s

Pearl Harbour are inspired young-blond Californian-sisters that create timeless fuzzy-beach-pop.  If the current lo-fi-beach trend is your thing, you’re going to love Pearl Harbour.

Definitely not to be confused with the forgettable Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, these new Pearl’s have a good portion of the sun-bleached indie-blogosphere eating out of their hands.

The girls are offering a CD-R from their MySpace, and will have a 12″ on Mexican Summer (see Kurt Vile, Dungen, Ariel Pink, BMSR, Marissa Nadler, Valet, etc.) out in the fall.

All the Pearl Harbour songs I’ve heard so far are pretty much gorgeous, which bodes well for future material.

“Sunburn” was the first Pearl Harbour song I heard, and it’s the catchiest yet.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “Sunburn” (160kbps)

“Lost @ Sea” is a little bit more of a grower, but it’s just as strong “Sunburn”, and is (probably) more re-listenable.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “Lost @ Sea” (128kbps)

I’ve had the least amount of time with “The High Road”, but its barely audible lyrics and muffled melody (sound like the description for this entire genre?) work well together.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “High Road” (128kbps)

“Vapor Girls” is a demo, or at least it’s tagged as such, but it sounds almost complete enough to be a ‘finished’ song.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “Vapor Girls” (demo) (160kbps)

On a related note, Pearl Harbour sister Piper K makes one-off Surfside Slasher tees, and hosts a spacey online radio show.  Her last radio show — entitled Sunburnt — included a number of my personal favorite songs by the Vivian Girls, Beach Fossils, Best Coast, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Holy Fuck, and Dara Pupista; clearly Pearl Harbour preach what they practise.

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Serbuan Jerman dalam Perang Dunia (PD) II ke Rusia yang dikenal dengan sandi Operasi Barbarossa dinilai sebagai kesalahan besar Jerman. Para pengamat sejarah sepakat mengatakan bahwa Adolf Hitler tidak belajar dari sejarah ketika Kaisar Prancis Napoleon Bonaparte bersama l’Grande Armee menyerbu Rusia pada tanggal 23.06.1812. Napoleon babak-belur dan kalah karena sengatan musim dingin Rusia. Gawatnya Adolf Hitler melakukan hal yang sama dan bahkan lebih awal satu hari, tepat tanggal 22.06.1941 pukul 03.30 pagi, penyerbuan itu dilakukan.

Rencana penyerbuan ini disampaikan Hitler dengan antusias di depan jajaran Komando Tertinggi Angkatan Bersenjata pada rapat khusus di bulan Januari tahun 1941. Kolonel Jenderal Heinz Guderian, arsitek Blitzkrieg (Perang Kilat), amat terkejut mendengarnya sebab baginya itu suatu hal yang tidak mungkin dan juga Marsekal Gerd von Rundstedt yang terkenal ketus, mengistilahkan rencana ini sebagai “omong kosong besar”.

Hitler tampaknya amat berambisi untuk menunjukan pada dunia bahwa jika Napoleon pernah gagal menyerbu Rusia 129 tahun lalu, dirinya sama sekali tidaklah demikian. Disamping ada kecenderungan Hitler yang amat memandang rendah Rusia. Kendati ia sempat membuat perjanjian aliansi untuk tidak saling menyerang dengan Stalin pada tanggal 29.09.1939, saat ia harus memusatkan seluruh kekuatannya pada Front Barat. Kini tibalah saatnya giliran Rusia, ketika Eropa Barat berhasil ditundukannya.

Dalam Operasi Barbarossa ini, Jerman mengerahkan 3.3 juta tentaranya, sementara Rusia sebagai pihak yang bertahan diperkirakan memiliki 4,7 juta tentara. Kekuatan militer Jerman dalam rencana ini terbagi dalam Grup Tentara Utara di bawah pimpinan Marsekal Wilhelm von Leeb yang mengincar Leningrad, Grup Tentara Tengah dipimpin oleh Marsekal Fedor von Bock yang mengincar Moskow, dan Grup Tentara Selatan dipimpin oleh Marsekal Gerd von Rundstedt yang mengincar Rostov. Hitler berharap cukup dalam waktu 2 bulan, Rusia harus ditundukan.

Hasil awal penyerbuan amat sangat membuai Hitler. Hitler berbeda bak bumi dan langit dengan Napoleon yang turun langsung bersama prajuritnya. Ia merasa cukup hanya berada di belakang meja komando. Jauh dari medan pertempuran yang sesungguhnya. Ia amat optimis seluruh rencana akan berjalan dengan baik, ketika kota demi kota Rusia dilibasnya seperti Minsk dan Smolensk. Tetapi tanggal 10.07.1941 dijumpai kelemahan strategi Hitler yang amat ironis bahwa ternyata Jerman tidak memiliki rencana ajeg pendudukan kota demi kota di Rusia secara spesifik. Misal ketika Smolenks berhasil diduduki, para jenderalnya ingin terus menyerbu ke Moskow tanpa jeda sedikit pun. Tapi Hitler justeru menginginkan Kiev, Ukraina, yang diserbu lebih dahulu. Perdebatan timbul dan menjadi berkepanjangan. Para jenderalnya mempergunakan strategi militer, yakni biar bagaimana pun ibukota suatu negara jatuh tentu akan menimbulkan runtuhnya moril tempur lawan. Tapi Hitler melihat Ukraina yang subur dan kaya agar dapat menambah kekuatan mesin perangnya. Bahkan ia mengeluh bahwa para jenderalnya tidak mengerti makna ekonomis dari sebuah operasi militer.

Disamping Hitler senantiasa ikut campur untuk setiap keputusan apa pun di medan tempur ketimbang menyerahkan secara fleksibel kepada para jenderalnya sesuai situasi dan kondisi yang senantiasa berubah dengan cepat. Bayangkan saja baru tanggal 25.08.1941, itu artinya Jerman kehilangan 46 hari lamanya ; toh tetap keinginan Hitler yang menang karena akhirnya Kiev diserbu lebih dulu dan penyerbuan ke Moskow sementara ditunda sampai bulan berikutnya. Hal ini tercatat jadi preseden untuk manuver-manuver serangan berikutnya.  Entah kenapa Hitler sekali ini alpa sebab artinya itu sama dengan menantang keganasan musim dingin Rusia yang mengerikan. Karena Kiev dan wilayah Ukraina tidak mungkin dapat dengan cepat ditundukan sebelum musim dingin tiba. Disamping kekuatan Jerman kini kian tersebar pada medan tempur yang sangat luas, ditambah pasokan logistik dan bahan bakar yang kian berkurang, moril dan stamina tentara Jerman terkuras habis-habisan sejalan dengan berjalannya waktu. Sementara itu di lain pihak Stalin berhasil memanfaatkan momentum stagnan yang diciptakan Jerman dengan mendatangkan 160 divisi pasukan cadangan yang masih segar dari Siberia guna mempertahankan Moskow dan kawasan sekitarnya.

Hal ini terbukti ketika peperangan berjalan kian melambat seiring salju pertama turun di Rusia. Suhu anjlok paling sedikit hingga minus 30 derajat Celcius. Rasa dingin yang belum pernah sekali pun dialami tentara Jerman di negerinya sendiri.  Kekuatan tempur Jerman serta merta ikutan anjlok, misal mesin tank dan pesawat Stuka dan Me-190 harus dihangatkan api unggun agar tetap dapat berfungsi. Tapi peralatan mekanis artileri seperti meriam lapangan tidak tertolong, alias tidak bisa digerakan sama sekali karena minyak pelumas untuk geliginya tidak sesuai dengan keadaan medan yang kini telah berubah drastis. Yang gawat tentaranya tidak dilengkapi dengan kelengkapan musim dingin seperti pakaian, mantel, masker, sarung tangan, kaus kaki dan sepatu khusus. Hasil akhir penyerbuan Jerman sudah dapat diduga. Kendati Jerman masih mampu bertempur tapi secara total defensif hingga awal 1943 dan untuk kemudian mundur termehek-mehek secara bertahap dari Rusia kurang lebih setahun berikutnya. Titik kulminasinya ketika Marsekal Friedrich Paulus bersama 22 jenderal dan 91.000 tentara Jerman akhirnya menyerah pada Rusia di Stalingrad tanggal 22.01.1943. Saking terpukulnya, Hitler baru mengijinkan hal ini diumumkan resmi pada rakyat Jerman tanggal 3 Pebruari sebagai “hari berkabung nasional” selama tiga hari.

Tentara Jerman tidak pernah memasuki kota Moskow. Jadi  Napoleon dengan pasukannya lebih cerdas karena masih sempat memijakan kaki di jalan-jalan kota Moskow yang telah dibumi-hanguskan pasukan Rusia, kendati ia juga harus mundur dari Rusia. Singkatnya baik Hitler maupun Napoleon babak belur dan gagal. Para pengamat sejarah menyatakan bahwa seandainya Moskow langsung diserbu pada bulan Juli 1941 ketika Smolensk berhasil dilibas, besar kemungkinan Hitler akan sukses menundukan Rusia dan Revolusi Bolshevik akan runtuh sebab saat itu 160 divisi cadangan Siberia masih belum tiba di Moskow. Atau setidaknya Rusia bagian Barat dapat dikuasai Jerman, karena tidaklah mungkin seluruh Rusia dapat ditundukan kecuali Hitler berkolaborasi dengan Jepang untuk ikut menyerbu Rusia bagian Timur. Tapi sayangnya Jepang sendiri punya skenario lain yakni menyerbu Pearl Harbour, AS, pada tanggal 08.12.1941.

Hal lain lagi yang terbukti jadi masalah adalah Hitler terlalu meremehkan Rusia, ia menduga Rusia hanya memiliki 200 divisi tapi pada kenyataannya kekuatan Rusia adalah 360 divisi ; setelah divisi cadangan ditarik dari Siberia, sebab Stalin yakin AS tidak akan menyerbu bagian Timur Rusia karena AS harus berhadapan dengan Jepang. Sementara Jerman pada Operasi Barbarossa ini memiliki 171 divisi ditambah 61 divisi satelitnya yang berasal dari Rumania, Hongaria, Italia, Finlandia, Spanyol dan Slovakia yang kualitasnya lebih rendah dibandingkan semangat tempur tentara Jerman sendiri. Sementara 40 divisi Jerman lainnya ‘terpaku’ dan tidak bisa ditarik dari Front Barat untuk mendukung, soalnya Hitler harus menjaga serbuan Inggeris yang diprediksi akan segera terjadi.

Operasi Barbarossa sungguh amat menguras kekuatan Jerman, setidaknya kita dapat melihat dari segi bahan bakar ; ketika awal Operasi Barbarossa dilakukan Jerman memiliki persediaan sebanyak 8.929.000 ton – tetapi pada akhir tahun 1941, persediaannya melorot tajam hingga 797.000 ton. Kendati Jerman masih memperoleh dukungan bahan bakar dari kawasan Ploesti, Rumania, dengan kapasitas produksi sebanyak 5.500.000 ton saat itu. Jerman hanya memperoleh 50 persen-nya saja sebab Rumania pun butuh untuk memasok konsumsi dalam negerinya.

Hitler pun gagal mewujudkan ambisinya untuk menguasai Rusia.

Sumber  :

Perang Eropa Jilid I, P.K. Ojong
The Atlas of The Second World War, Paul Keegan
Encyclopedia of Knowledge

Download

David Ray Griffin – The New Pearl Harbour.pdf.html

‘It’s supposed to start with a ‘foot popping’ kiss’

 The Notebook, The Holiday, Princess Diaries, Sweet Home Alabama, Pretty Woman, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days & Ps. I Love You, need I go on… All rom coms you’ve ever ‘aww’d’ at or gave you hope in love at first sight. They never cease to make you happy, cause you to sob or quote endlessly whenever they are brought up, its a sort of gift possessed by these certain movies.

Since joining Lovefilm, I’ve had an in flux of real ‘chick flicks’, easy to watch before you go to sleep or a rainy Sunday afternoon but a movie such a Twilight has had such a impact on the teenage girls of our society, constant facebook statuses ‘I now believe in love again!’ (although I’m not going to agree with Robert Pattinson untouchable good looks, he’s average at best, we all just love him because he’s saves her and falls in love, not due to his rather large forehead I’m welling up thinking about it). What stopped these girls believing in true love in the first place? I’m in no position to declare it out there, I sometimes question it myself, but not everything has to end in divorce.

The perfect example of a ‘Prince Charming’ figure I believe to be, well there’s two ‘Rafe & Danny’ from Pearl Harbour, although not a classic chick flick because of all the violence and it’s heartbreaking (Its not one tear, its more of a ’cry yourself to sleep’ sob) ending, which I can’t decide whether I love it or hate the fact I’m continuing to cry over a made up storyline. These two characters though represent the wartime world, and that’s so attractive, their arrogance, manliness and bravery throughout the whole Pearl Harbour/Bombing Japan missions, whilst being hopelessly in love with Evelyn, I don’t think a woman can ask for much more? (If you’ve not seen it don’t read the next paragraph) The absolute perfection of them is seen in China when Danny has been shot by some bastards from Japan, the most beautiful quote in the history of any movie (Hayley/Steph don’t try & challenge me on this!).

Rafe (Holding Danny in his arms, whilst he’s covered in blood & dying) : Danny, you can’t die. You can’t die. You know why? ‘Cause you’re gonna be a father. You’re gonna be a daddy. I wasn’t supposed to tell you. You’re gonna be a father.

(Grabbing Rafe) Danny: No, you are.

You may all cry now, I’m actually listening to the soundtrack holding back the tears. If a real life prince charming does exist then please let him have all the attributes of these two, let him say the most perfect things just at the right moment, ‘Why do you wanna marry me anyhow?.’ ‘So I can kiss you anytime I want’ Sweet Home Alabamaand if at all possible make him have movie star good looks, don’t let it just happen in the reality of film.

“…..I think I’d miss you even if we’d never met.”

Hoje, o dia já teve muitas cores (a noite também). Eu, vesti-me delas. Agora é o azul que me enche e me cobre. O padrão são as bolas, as bolas a quem já dei váias tacadas, num dia como hoje.

Daqui, desta espécie de Pearl Harbour, eu…