Sunday, January 31, 2010

How would Hank have "done it" at Port Arthur?


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Japan and Russia do battle at Port Arthur, 1904

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Lushun today (Port Arthur) today showing
Chinese naval vessels at anchor




Would Hank have "done it" this a way?

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It's a fair guess that Hank Williams -- traveling musician though he was -- never made it to the city of Dalian in Northeast China.

Could this Honky Tonk
singing preacher known as "Luke the Drifter" have made head or tails of the convulsions this part of China has lived through in the last century?



Some Honky Tonk preaching


What music would he have written if he experienced these sights and sounds?


Surely he would return home with "a picture of life's other side."

Damn, Hank would have enjoyed today's night clubs.



Hank would have enjoyed Honky Tonk China

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It was different when the Japanese took
Dalian from China in 1895.

Japan was then forced to give Dalian and Port Arthur to Russia in 1898.


But Japan seized the area back during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904.


And held onto it pretty much until 1945 when the Russians took it back following World War II.

And finally returned it to China in 1954.


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Forty miles south of Dalian is the naval base of Lushun, once known as Port Arthur.

At night the screaming ghosts of Chinese civilians massacred by Japanese troops in the Sino-Japanese war of 1895 can still be heard.


Reporting on "a tale of darkest massacre" was Canadian/American journalist James Creelman -- writing for Pulitzer's "yellow" New York World.

His eyewitness account of Japanese soldiers shooting and sabering some two thousand Chinese civilians shocked the world.


Creelman blew open Japan's retreat into
sadistic barbarism -- a barbarism which was to reemerge in World War II.

This writer has described Creelman as "the father" of modern human rights reporting.


James Creelman

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Japan at first denied the atrocities -- but later admitted them and apologized for them to James Creelman's boss, Joseph Pulitzer.

In 1904 Japan foreshadowed its attack on Pearl Harbor by beginning its war against Russia with a surprise attack at Port Arthur -- finally winning the
naval battle of that name.





The carnage at sea was hardly enough.

Japanese troops charging up at Russian land fortifications at Port Arthur have had their suicidal assault immortalized in a 1980 Japanese film.

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Russo--Japanese War Memorial at Port Arthur


Today all is peaceful.

Hank relaxes in a hotel, visits an airport, rides a bus and enjoys the beauty of China's scenery.


Friday, January 29, 2010

Let's hear it for "two pictures of life's other side"


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Yeppers!!

Here we have two pictures -- from two of life's diametrically opposite "other sides."


For Americans freedom of expression on the internet is a given.


Throw the gates wide open -- oops, except for child predators, violent pornography, patent infringement, fraud, and theft.


Here is the historic Hillary Clinton speech:



It proclaims freedom of the internet to be a universal value transcending national sovereignty.


Firmly in the American tradition of viewing this country as the bearer of a universal mission to be spread around the world.


As China and Russia once sought to export Marxism, so the Americans have long agressively pushed their value system.

Around the world it is a popular one -- but not without critics.


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For China and other authoritarian regimes, hey, not so fast.

Let's not let this technology be an out of control high speed highway for subversion, and anti-social activities.

Let alone for treasonous movements aimed at splitting up the country, polluting the moral spirit, undermining discipline, promoting individualistic selfishness, and slowing economic growth.

Let's build a "firewall."

But "we Chinese" still want the internet to help connect us to a global world of information and commerce on which our economic power depends.

Ah, perhaps both sides wish to have their apples -- and eat them too.

And here is the Chinese version of events:

Truly "A Picture From Life's Other Side."


Saturday, January 16, 2010

When a heroic reporter becomes "part of the story"


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It is truly "a picture from life's other side" when things are so grim that a reporter must abandon his professional duties and tackle the things others are responsible for doing.

Then we must ask: has the journalist been led astray from doing his true job?

It is sometimes said, almost scathingly, that such a journalist "has become part of the story."

Or has he/she simply stepped up to a higher level of involvement -- the level of "hero?"





In an age where, as always, journalism is sullied by greed, propaganda, and superficial hype it is well to re-remember those stellar occasions when reporters rise to the challenge.

When they grab onto a story --and never, never let go.

A journalist is about as perfect as a cop -- but occasionally just as heroic.


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So when is it appropriate for the media to become part of the story?

To move beyond simply watching and reporting to stepping in actively to participate?

Three preconditions:

1) When lives are at stake.

2) When there is no one else around willing or able to step in.

3) When abandoning all pretense of detachment and objective produces an "even better story."

And that is what happened with CNN's medical reporter, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

When on January 15 a Belgian relief group ordered its medical team withdrawn for security reasons from a temporary hospital set up in earthquake stricken Haiti.

All three pre-conditions were met.

Dr. Gupta remained all through the night in the makeshift hospital, tending to the injured, caring for the sick and post operative patients the doctors had abandoned.
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An Overview of Situation by Dr. Sanjay Gupta







Thursday, January 14, 2010

Even a stagecoach robber specializes when retraining


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There comes a time for professional retraining -- even if you have had proud career robbing stagecoaches.

How about train robbing?



Learning a New Trade: Train Robbing


The Action: Different When Older

The Song


The Real Bill Miner

The Movie



The Romance


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From a "viewer/reviewer" -- not me.


"This really is a masterpiece of film -- and, unfortunately, largely unknown to the greater film-watching public in the United States.

"It is beautiful to watch, to listen to (with its soundtrack including both original work by award-winning composer Michael Conway Baker, of Canada, and the Chieftains) -- and to examine as a chronicle of the period that concluded the Wild West's grasp on the 19th Century and its reach for the 20th.

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Bill Miner, the 'Gentleman Bandit,' was a historical figure whose long prison term for stagecoach robbery left him entirely unprepared (vocationally) for his release back into society -- a society that was now devoid of stagecoaches, and beginning to discover the wonders of motorcars and moving pictures.



"The 29-year-old director, Phillip Borsos (1953-1995), made this film tribute to the last outlaw of the Wild West and to the region that he lived in.

"While others might have gone heavy-handed and clichéd in such a production, Borsos' eye and ear both figure significantly in the film's direction, and its numerous examples of originality:



* A senior citizen star (the late Richard Farnsworth --whose Hollywood career had started as a stuntman, in Westerns -- playing Bill Miner as a thoughtful and kind gentleman) who even gets to look hunky;



* A respectful treatment of an early 20th Century feminist (played by Jackie Burroughs);



* Cinematography that highlights the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, rather than some anonymous California desert;



* A soundtrack that ISN'T Coplandesque (or Morriconesque);



* A 'cowboy picture' where the hero gets the girl, but doesn't get vulgar or trite or even testosterone-driven; AND



* An accurate look at the turn-of-the-century a hundred years ago in a landscape that hasn't entirely disappeared. Yet.



"I have hummed the music from its tuneful soundtrack since the first time I saw it in its initial U.S. theatrical release, and have wanted to visit Kamloops, BC, ever since.

"If you can stand movies without gratuitous pyrotechnics or violence, don't let another day go by without checking out this film classic."

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Covering the Bill Miner Story


Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Bombs in underpants? time to watch your backside



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What next can we expect when we fly the friendly skies?

Unpredictability is the name of the game -- whether you are man, woman, or beast.


"Be Prepared," as the Boy Scouts say.



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We must all watch our backsides to protect ourselves from attack.

(For a more frivolous treatment of these issues see Frederic A. Moritz, Predicting Unexpected Attack: Is It Negligence or an Impossible Task?)

















Monday, January 4, 2010

New Year's Eve: poverty is alive and well in America


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"A Picture From Life's Other Side."

New Year's Eve in Huntsville, Alabama.

Poverty is alive and well in America.

My travels this Christmas season through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama suggest this song -- written by the late Townes Van Zandt -- is a reasonably accurate portrait of our current economy.

For the poor there is perennial economic depression with a constant danger of layoff.

I have met many of these brave "Carolines" -- and known them -- though only in a distant, non-carnal way.

They often bottle sadness in a smile -- but sometimes there can be no smile when times are tough.

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