D. W. Griffith’s classic The Birth of a Nation (1915) is popularly considered the first epic American film. But it was preceded by this.

Update: Congratz to reader tyree, who not only got it, but got one over on me (see comments).

Blackfive has paratrooper porn.

Yeah I know…what can you do with people who think jumping out of airplanes is fun? Ya make ‘em Airborne.

Yeesh…

Interesting stuff (especially if you like shoes) over at Problogger.

Box Office Prophets is giving away a free Serenity hat and t-shirt.

Over at Blogcritics, Matt Moore has this review of Serenity:

What really stood out was the writing, of course. The characters are mostly drawn from action film archetypes (there’s the amoral tough guy, the spunky woman [well, several spunky women], the conflicted leader) and they could have been cardboard flat. Instead they were all very human, reacting to situations and each other unpredictably, but always in ways that make sense. There were also lots of classic Whedon bits: extremely funny lines in the middle of intense action, emotionally crushing blows, and lifting moments of victory. Sometimes all three in the same shot.

Afterwards Zombyboy (he’s got a review with links to other reviews posted here) mentioned that he saw a strong anarcho-libertarian thread running through the picture. He’s absolutely right. Mal, the captain of the Serenity, fought on the losing side of a rebellion against the autocratic Alliance. Now he thinks only of himself. Well, only of himself and his crew. Well, only of himself and his crew until the good of the entire universe gets in the way.

Update: Danial Drezner does a great review. But my favorite part was this quote from Jacob Levy:

This is not a genre-buster like Matrix or even a genre-redefiner like Blade Runner. It’s more of an ante-raiser like Alien: “See? This thing that we’ve gotten used to seeing done badly can be done really, really well.” For Alien, it was making a monster movie genuinely suspenseful, scary, and visually compelling. For Serenity, it’s making space opera morally serious and centered on complete characters with convincing relationships and first-rate dialogue. I predict that it will make watching Star Wars or Star Trek movies harder to do without cringing.

Most of the Star Wars saga already makes me cringe.

Update 2: Movies Online: two 10s and a 9

Mark Tapscott blogs an extended summary by Oklahoma City reporter Jayne Davis, of her book, The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing:

“I later learned that during this same time frame, Al-Hussaini was residing with two former Iraqi Gulf War veterans who provided food-catering services to the commercial airlines at the Boston airport. In the wake of the suicide hijackings of 2001, law enforcement speculated that food services workers might have planted box cutters aboard the doomed flights.

“Hussain Al-Hussaini’s uncanny foreknowledge of a possible dire event slated to take place at Boston Logan Airport, the point of origin for Al-Qaeda’s murderous rampage of 2001, just grazes the surface of the disturbing nexus I have uncovered between 4-19 and 9-11. Was the Oklahoma bombing the silver bullet that could have prevented Black Tuesday?

[…]

“The Oklahoma City bombing, if orchestrated by an Iraqi/Al-Qaeda hit squad, certainly provides a salient rationale for war. How many more Americans would have been marked for death had the United States military not invaded Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, a bloodthirsty broker of terror?

“The fallen heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom did not die in vain to end the proliferation of phantom weapons of mass destruction, but died to prevent another horrifying replay of April 19 and September 11.”

Read the whole thing.

Hat Tip: Our own APV

“Three-ways are the new black.” Somehow, that line resonates with me.

To: Karen Hughes
From: Sgt. Mom
Re: The Modern Version of “Why We Fight”

1. It is a pity that explaining ourselves to the outside world in this current war has to be left to the government, but there you go. You fight the war with what you have, not what you wish you had. Hollywood this time is too incestuously self-involved, too out of touch with everything outside it’s tight little bicoastal enclaves of wealth, ease, and depravity to bother much with the rubes of flyover country… and too afraid, al la Rushdie and van Gogh, to risk a fatwa, a knife in a public street, a car bomb in Morton’s, or a representative from CAIR parked in their outer office. Pity about that— and a pretty sorry showing on the part of those who usually preen themselves on their audacity in “speaking truth to power.” It all depends on the power addressed, I guess.

2. I also gather that Charlotte Beers’ “softly, softly” series of advertisements featuring American Muslims singing the joys of life in the good old US of A went over like the proverbial lead balloon in the Muslim world. Well, if they were anything like the spots that used to air on AFRTS which expanded upon the joys of living in the country we served— well, we were left pretty much rolling our eyes and heading for the latrine, so I can’t see that Ms. Beers whould have been surprised. It’s a tough audience, which requires a tough sell. At this point, it may be necessary to take off the tidy white Madison Avenue gloves, and punch from the gut. Hard.

3. Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight” series, from the Second World War might prove to be an instructive guide, editing together our enemies’ propaganda and newsreel film— turning their own words, deeds— and by implication their own hypocrisies against them, giving an audience an unvarnished look at the intentions and actions of our enemies. Skip the pretty pictures of nice American Moslems in their suburban 2-car garage lives; go straight to the point, and turn the video images of the Islamic Jihad, of Al Jazeera, and the Al-Quada websites right back at the Moslem world in every gory, stomach-churning detail.

4. Show the head-choppings, the murders and the executions, with blade and stone and shot to the head— of Moslems and Westerners alike. Show the jihadis blowing up busloads of schoolchildren and murdering election workers. Show them shouting “Allah Akbar!” as they saw the heads off live people, replay their every murder, boast and claim of responsibility… and give the credit for the source of the video. Show the video of Osama chuckling to his guests as he describes how the Towers collapsed. Include the ferocious, hate-filled rants of those bearded, spittle-beflecked Imams… those in the mosques of the West and the East, too; all those who don’t think anyone but their own congregations are listening.

5. Show too, the aftermath of their work— again, giving credit to the TV media of the Moslem world; show the blood, the body parts strewn all over, the wrecked lives of innocents. Show it all, and choke with blood and shame, anyone who still will try and claim that this version of Islam is a religion of peace. Show every instance of Islamic terrorism’s lies, hypocrisy, and bloodshed… especially the blood shed amongst Moslems by their coreligionists…

6. And finally, show us and the Islamic world as a footnote, the remains of dead jihadis, bits and pieces of their gruesome dead bodies, all mixed in with bits of metal from suicide bombs, dead in the dirt like so much garbage, or shot down like a dog by an American sniper. . . Show how clear and inglorious is the modern jihad, shoveled into an unmarked, un-mourned grave. Throw it all back in their faces— credited, and exhaustively footnoted— every ugly boast, word and deed.

7. Considering that most of the nastier stuff has been common video currency in the radical Islamic world, this might accomplish nothing more than a sort of “greatest jihad hits” highlights video… but it might also grab the attention of that so greatly hoped-for moderate Moslem demographic; those that might be greatly horrified about what has been perpetrated in their name and to their alleged benefit. And of course, the mainstream media-consuming American audience might also be enlightened.

8. At least, think about this public affairs outreach option. It’s not like there’s anything worse that hasn’t been done already.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

You know, when I first saw her speak in the Katrina aftermath, I found her very familiar. Not familiar in the sense I had seen her before, but familiar like “she looks like someone I’ve seen before.” It hit me this morning who she reminds me of-English actress Kathy Burke as Lynda La Hughes in the British comedy Gimme Gimme Gimme.

The details of this story are just coming to light. But I think when it finally does, the rest of the country may just rise in outrage, and tell their representitives to flip Louisiana’s one huge finger. Will it cause those citizens to shine the same light on themselves? I’m skeptical.

Update: Here are some links, for those of you who wish to look into this more deeply. But be forwarned, the legislation is about 500 pages long:

September 22, 2005

Press Release

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., and David Vitter, R-La., today introduced the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act, a comprehensive piece of legislation to provide long-term relief and much-needed assistance to the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast as they work to recover and rebuild the region.

http://landrieu.senate.gov/%7elandrieu/releases/05/2005922648.html

Text of Legislation

Section by Section Summary

For bloggers only.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

Update: Glenn says they are tapped-out. I don’t know if he’s talking about everywhere, or just Knoxville, so I sent a request anyway.

Beautiful Wife did laundry yesterday and changed out the linens. Yeah, clean sheets…love that feeling. She’d also managed to gather up the afghan Gorgeous Daughter had crocheted for my birthday a couple of years ago, but it wasn’t on the bed, under the bed or anywhere around the bed, but I was ready to go to bed. The nights here have been wonderful for sleeping lately, down in the high 50s/low 60s and with the bedroom window open, all you need is the spread and an afghan. I put my slippers back on and headed back downstairs.

Me: “Honey, where’s my gwee?”

BW: “I’m sorry, it’s still in the wash with mine. The one you’re Mom made you is in the gwee box.”

Some of you are scratching your head and wondering if I had a spell check malfunction. Others have it figured out. Some of you suspect. It’s family speak.

Every family has some. Made up words for everyday things. “Gwee” was a Boyo invention from back before he could walk. He was exploring the floor and had tuckered himself out. He was about to drop off right there on the spot but he kept stretching and crying and muttering “Gwee-gwee-gwee-gwee.” I looked at him…I looked where he was looking…I saw his baby blanket and I got up and picked it up…”GWEE-GWEE-GWEEEEEE!” I held up his blanket and asked, “Gwee?” “GWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!” After I picked up the fillings he’d loosened with his primal, dog torturing shreek, I handed him his gwee and from that moment forward, every blanket, comforter, afghan, beach towel used as a blanket because we’re too lazy to go find a real one has been “gwee.” Always will be as far as we’re concerened.

Give us some of your family speak in the comments. You know you have some. Woobies? Binkies? Ca-caroos?

This from Larry Margasak at AP:

DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.

“I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today,” DeLay said.

This should result in a considerable loss of political capital for the GOP.

“It boils down to the fact that we did the catastrophic planning a year ago, and had no money since then to do anything.”

Former FEMA Head Mike Brown.

Which sounds exactly like almost every military organization I’ve belonged to for the past 21 years. Ya make the plans but they take at least 5 years to implement, by which time the technology you were going to use is completely out of date.

Go here to see some pictures of the elusive Giant Squid “in the wild.” Nobody’s ever photographed live ones before.

Squid are such way-cool bizarro animals. But I think they’d make bad pets.

Hat tip: Professor Bainbridge

…but we won’t go until Saturday.

Serenity of course.

They’ve added to the site since the last time I was there. Oh myyyyyyyyy. This is looking very good.

Going on right now at the SciFi Channel.

Because if there are boobies, I’m so there.

As it seems we don’t get much traffic here over the weekends, I have to beg you not to Google this - at least until Tuesday - to give our readers who might know this off the tops of their heads a fair chance:

This renowned actress got her film debut, quite inauspiciously, in Dutch in Seven Lessons.

Update: As this seems to have fallen off the front page, I just fiddled with th time tag, to bring it to the fore.

Update 2: The Answer! Audrey Hepburn. It’s a popular misconception, especially in the United States, that she made he film debut in Roman Holiday . But she had a developing career in Europe (where her most memorable picture was, arguably, The Lavender Hill Mob, staring Alec Guinness) before being “discovered” by Colette and whisked off to Broadway to do the title role in the stage version of Gigi.

Thanks to the readers who looked-up the answer, but remained mum.

I find it quite interesting how, in last Friday’s BSG discourse, no-one bothered to draw parallels between the current episode, and The Living Legend, from the earlier series.