AND NOW BACK TO WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT....

TONIGHT:

PRISON BREAK RETURNS!

While "24" has been re-running itself into a tizz, P-Break has been in quiet retirement, and we can only imagine the outrages visited upon the persons of heroes and villains alike in the legendary third-world Panama prison.

Welcome back, rewind the tape, and LET'S ALL BREAK OUT OF PRISON AGAIN!

ALSO ON THE TUBE, STARTING SEPTEMBER 23:

Ken Burns' new documentary series,
THE WAR

...to be seen on PBS in seven instalments (4 during week one, 3 the following week). The series covers the World War II experiences of real soldiers from four ordinary American towns. It's all documentary -- no armchair commentators allowed-- if you weren't there, you don't get to talk. (There is voice-over by actors, but it uses only the words of veterans no longer here to speak for themselves.) I'm especially anxious to see whose stories get told from Waterbury, Connecticut, home of one branch of my forebears, some of whom I know were veterans.

Burns considers this his best work ever, and though he may have seen this work within a personal context of opposition to the war in Iraq, it is hard to imagine that it will be anything other than a work of authenticity and integrity. I intend to give it a go.

Hope it is not in any way impeded by the fact that, over 14 broadcast hours, it apparently includes four instances of three of George Carlin's "words you can't say on television," which the broadcast standards folks are feeling uncomfortable with. Can you believe it? While skanky women are having "Sex in the City" in every location and position imaginable, and unsupervised children are watching music videos about pimps and ho's, somebody's worried about the men who saved the world saying two F's, one S, and an ***hole. PU-H-H-L-L-E-E-EZE!!!!!

All I can say, is F*** that, you dumbs*** broadcasting ***holes.

There-- now let's move on.

LAST "AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" COMIC STANDING

Wednesday Night Slaughter – GERRY DEE goes down on Last comic Standing.

Unbelievable.

Top Ten Comedic Themes of Stand-Up Artist
Lavell Crawford:

#10 – I’m fat.

#9 – I’m black.

#8 – I’m fat

#7 – I’m black.

#6 – I’m fat, black, and horny.

#5 –TBA

#4 – TBA

#3 – TBA

#2 – TBA

#1 – I’m stumped-- I think I’ll use the last joke I heard and do a lame spin-off of it.

By far the most original and funniest man in the competition, Gerry Dee was up against the unoriginal but moderately funny John Reep and the totally unfunny, often incomprehensible, blue-mouthed and boring Lavell Crawford, whose survival even into the Last Five category was inexplicable.

Inexplicably, Gerry Dee went down to shocking defeat.

I have watched maybe three or four episodes of Last Comic Standing, and it is the only “reality show” I have ever watched. (No, wait, I did watch the final episode of the first season of Survivor just to see what everyone was talking about. Yawn.)

I soon concluded that the results were probably fixed, because that was the only explanation for the continued success of Crawford, whose material was dumb, and increasingly badly delivered. He had to be the Affirmative Action Retention, but the talented guy (that's Gerry) was sure to win because he was the only person worth investing the $250K and the performance deal in. Would a network really throw their money away on a bomb act like Crawford, even if he got the popular vote?

Apparently the answer is “yes”—and now the only explanation for the success of Crawford is that the show ISN’T fixed—the producers are enslaved to the stupidity and gutter tastes of hoi polloi.

This is sad. However, surely the exposure brought by the LCS competition will translate into some big gigs and forward career motion for Gerry. So all is not for nought.

What's really sad is that Crawford represents the kind of Shuck'n'Jive, Steppin' Fetchit, watermelon-coon-shuffle black clown that most decent African-Americans hoped had been banished forever decades ago. That this low-rent stereotype still appeals to anybody, worse yet that it appeals to the audience for BET, is truly depressing.

Wait for it: the O.J. jury weighs in -- next week Lavell beats Reep.

IN THE HOMELAND:




SIX YEARS
"CANCER FREE"

REMEMBER TODAY JACK CHARLES ARON and the 2996.

REMEMBER TODAY PRIVATE KRISTIAN MENCHACA AND PRIVATE THOMAS TUCKER AND THE 3,742.

REMEMBER THE 70,000 (numbers elastic)



AND REMEMBER THAT THE CANCER
HAS METASTASIZED ELSEWHERE:

MADRID


LONDON

BALI


and every single day in
THAILAND

[Link takes you to Little Green Footballs site-- link from there to Zombietime page, to EXTREMELY GRAPHIC PHOTOS -- RATED "R" FOR REVOLTING, RAGE-INDUCING, AND REAL]


AND REMEMBER THAT THE DEFINITION OF THE ENEMY HAS METASTASIZED TOO:

FIRST COUSIN...... ONCE REMOVED
Michael Brown

Apparently meteorites do fall out of the blue and hit the same place twice.

Mike

Just turned 30 on the weekend. Died in his sleep sometime Wednesday,
September 5.

Requiescat in Pace.


Heaven just got a good deal hipper, and gained one more heart of gold.


Cue the angel Corus.

WHAT TO WATCH, OH WHAT TO WATCH?

It'll be a tough choice -- there's the Republican Presidential Debate in Durham, New Hampshire, where even now the empty chairs


await the (5? 7? 4? 12?) candidates for the Republican nomination, who will be taking questions Wednesday night from FOXSnooze's Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, and Wendel Goler -- who are, as far as I can tell, just about the only tv journo's in the biz who are fit to do a respectable job of this.

Damned exciting stuff! Nevertheless, I expect I'll be watching......

LAST COMIC STANDING!


That's because we're down to the last four, one of whom is Gerry Dee, local (Toronto) boy who's made good, doing good clean hilarious story-telling, mostly about the old days when he was a teacher at a school which shall remain nameless, but was attended by



all of whom were, at one time or another, taught by the said Gerry Dee. [As, I think, was Ian Van Toch of happy memory (scroll down), who enjoyed a good joke better than just about anybody.]

So which will it be? Comedy? or Gerry Dee? (ha ha)

Watch the comedy "debate", or whatever you want-- but come 10:00 p.m. Wednesday, September 5:

Click here, VOTE EARLY, AND VOTE OFTEN (you can, you know)
for GERRY DEE to win the BIG PRIZE!

"Hey!"

Requiescat in Pace

Ian Lawson Van Toch

September 16 1984- August 24, 2007

--joined at the hip to my youngest son for grades 7 through 13, and at intervals between then and now

Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne
will shelter them with his presence.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb in the midst of the throne
will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Revelation 7: 15-17

YOO-HOO!!!

ANYBODY STILL AWAKE OUT THERE?

Rumours of Winefred's death have been greatly exaggerated -- it's a matter of being alternately asleep at the wheel, travelling hither and yon ocean to ocean, or trying to put life back in order in the home we haven't been in much this summer.

One day we were in Newfoundland for dinner, and the next day in San Diego for breakfast. A study in contrasts. San Diego is a landscape of burnt toast interrupted by lush greenery, courtesy of mass irrigation borrowed from nearby states. Hangin' out at the beach can look like this:

or this:

[Not bad, really.]

Newfoundland, on t'other hand, is lumpy, rugged, and [seasonally] green all over. Checkin' out the other ocean can look like this:

Newfoundland also has a moose population of over 150,000 on a land mass less than half the size of Norway.

That's Norway-- which boasts only 120,000 moose, but is apparently in a panic about their greenhouse gas emissions (that's eco-talk for moose-farts). So says Germany's Der Speigel, so it must be true. If Newfoundland is similarly doomed, no one seems to have noticed, b'y. Folks there have other things to worry about.

["Crazy Moose" -- hat-tip to the Computer Science Dept. at Memorial University of Newf'n'land]



Meanwhile, back in civilization:

BRAVELY VENTURING INTO THE "DMZ"

That's the "Dennis Miller Zone" for you civilians out there, the talk radio guy with the most laid-back temperament and absolutely THE best guest-list.

In his copious free time, the aforementioned Mr. Miller appears on one or two FOXNews shows. It seems that during a recent Half-Hour [Alleged] Comedy Hour (sorry-- I only watched the first one and it reeked), Miller did a riff on Defeatist-in-Chief Senate Majority Loser Harry Reid, which immediately went viral on the internet. No comedy here, folks, just a flat-out statement o' fact and a challenge for Reid to do the honourable thing and, if not fall on his letter-opener, at least shut his Mojave-dry pie-hole. Watch and snort:

Miller is also to be congratulated for proposing to the squealing infants of both Houses of Congress that they pass urgent legislation at the earliest opportunity, called the "LET'S SHUT UP UNTIL PETRAEUS GETS BACK" ADULT ACT -- and that we all pledge to adopt the mantra that until the General returns and makes his report, WE DON'T SAY NUTTIN' ABOUT NUTTIN' !!!

Hear, hear.

Got it, Senator Reid? And Mr. Dodd-Murtha-Kennedy-Obama-Rodham/Clinton? And on the distaff side, Ms. Pelosi-Boxer-E.Edwards-J.Edwards/Breck? And from the booth/keyboard: Mr. Blitzer-Moyers-Olberman-Matthews-Schneider/ Sullivan-Fisk-Herbert/ Cronkite-Gregory-blah-blah-blah-BLECH?????............

In the absence of up-to-date info from The Source on the Field, wouldja just, as the kids text it, STFU -- 'K?



U.S. NAVY TRAGEDY -- NEWFOUNDLAND HEROISM -- 1942 -- LEST WE FORGET

Early August: visited the site of the horrific wreck [February 18, 1942] of the U.S.S. Truxtun near St. Lawrence, Newfoundland.

In the pitch-dark pre-dawn, during a sleet-chucking gale, three American Navy vessels ran aground on massive rocks at the base of 200-foot cliffs that form the southern tip of the Burin Peninsula, between the fishing/mining town of St. Lawrence and the fishing village of Lawn.

The flagship Wilkes eventually floated loose and was saved, but the Truxtun broke up and lost 110 of 156 on board. Those who survived did so because the local inhabitants braved the ice and snow to haul the near-frozen, oil-encrusted bodies of the sailors up the cliffs, all day and into the next evening, and delivered them into the tender care of local women who scrubbed and warmed them back to life. Every available scrap of extra clothing and foodstocks in the St. Lawrence area went to the shipwrecked men.

Below: the cliffs at Chambers Cove where the Truxtun was impaled between the two projecting offshore rocks:

Pink cliffs at the right are still stained with the black oil which was hurled at them from the shipwreck by 40-foot swells.

To the west of Chambers Cove, at Lawn Head, the Pollux heeled over but remained partially intact. The crew and officers eventually executed the textbook maneuver, attaching a lifeline to the shore and getting as many across as possible. As it turned out, they might have done better to have stayed on board the remnants of their ship. Those who weren't drowned in oil or dashed against the sharp slate cliffs [one sailor was seen decapitated in an instant] were stranded on a frozen ledge. But 140 out of 233 survived, thanks again to the local men who raised them one by one up the cliffs and got them to safety.


A rusted cross, raised by the Catholic parish of St. Thomas Aquinas, pays tribute to the dead of the Truxtun.

In 1954 the American government built the U.S. Memorial hospital to serve the inhabitants of St. Lawrence and Lawn, in gratitude for their sacrifice. (It has since been demolished, and services are provided by a small modern hospital in Burin.)

In 1992, on the 50th anniversary of the disaster, a memorial called "Echoes of Valour" was unveiled in St. Lawrence, honouring the perseverance and and sacrifice of the sailors and their rescuers.

Read Cassie Brown's Standing Into Danger, a gripping hour-by-hour account of the sea disaster and the flawed investigation that followed it.

Survivor tales are equally fascinating, such as that of Lanier Phillips, a black cook's-assistant from Georgia, whose life was saved, and changed forever, in 1942 by the first white people to ever show him kindness. Meet him here [CBC video] on the occasion of the christening of the sixth U.S.Navy ship to be the Truxtun, which took place in June of this year.

This inspiring story and its majestic setting seldom peep on the radar screen of American tourists and admirers of military heroism. Attention should be paid.

And no (in case any of you are wondering), there ain't too many of us who are made of this kind of stuff anymore.

Thank God there are some-- maybe just enough.


HANGIN' OUT -- NEWFOUNDLAND STYLE -- IN ST. JOHN'S

NEWFIE TERRORISM UPDATE (Part deux)

From the St. John's Telegram, Saturday July 28, 2007

"LEAVE A THREAT AT THE TONE"

A young person allegedly attempting to phone in a bomb threat to Marystown central high school last December had to leave a message -- and even called back -- because there was nobody available to answer the phone...it was after 3 p.m. before anybody got the message, which stated, quite simply, "You're all going to die."

No evacuation was required at that point because the students had already left...

A school staff member told the court that the principal was out of school and the secretary was off sick that day, leaving the office staff short-handed.

Etc.

Chortle.

NEWFIE TERRORISM UPDATE

Sleep soundly, world. My 82-year-old terrorist mother-in-law is no longer in possession of her exploding hand-lotion.

Let me explain.

Somebody thought this was funny a few years ago:

















I have my own take on the Newfoundland anti-terrorism effort.

Not long ago I was returning to YYZ from YYT and decided, in order to avoid the infamous Air Canada lost baggage disaster threat, to take my small bag with me as a carry-on. I have little experience at this business, and naturally ended up bringing a few cosmetic items which ran up against the new anti-liquid/gel regulations. Silly me.

I have nothing against those regulations mind you. I happened to be flying out of Heathrow just days after the big exploding plane plot, which prompted the new rules, was thwarted-- so I have been face to face with the harsh reality of what folks can do with some nefarious goo.

Among my luggage leaving St. John's that day was a nearly full pump-spray bottle of the now-extinct, impossible-to-buy Vidal Sassoon alcohol-free hair gel, which I had stockpiled years ago as the brand was disappearing from the market. It's like gold to me-- the only hair gunk I've ever tried that I don't get allergic to in a few weeks.

But the meticulous inspectress at the security line rifled everything in my suitcase, placed the liquids and gels in the smallest plastic bag I'd ever seen, and confiscated my Sassoon treasure. I begged. I pleaded. I offered to demonstrate its non-inflammability. It was no good. She took it away.

Damn that Bin Laden!, I hissed to myself. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! BASTARD! I'm such an idiot! A full bottle! From my secret stash! GONE FOREVER!

BASTARDS!

Yesterday we were returning from St. John's again, this time travelling with my mother-in-law.

She's 82 years old, about five feet tall, less than a hundred pounds, frail to the point of skeletal, white-skinned and white-haired, and walks slowly with a cane.

Airport security confiscated her hand-lotion. It was way over the 30 ml limit.

Whew! We were in serious danger for a minute there. Who knows what she could have done with that little bottle of suspicious liquid.

It's stuff like this keeps us safe in our beds at night. But damn those terrorist bastards! No one is safe from little old ladies anymore!

Newfoundlanders made an outsized contribution to the big wars of the last century, and aquitted themselves with the greatest honour. They continue to punch above their weight in Afghanistan today. But let's get real people-- an octogenarian's hand-lotion is not a threat to national security. Unless maybe she's hiding it under a burka-- and she's a he....

There is but one remedy for these outrages: one must write a poem.

We overthrew the Taliban (too late to save the Buddhas).
And if Bin Laden isn’t dead, he’s cornered like rat.
We’ve backed the Kurds and helped to keep them safe from mad intrudas.
We chased down old Saddam Hussein and squished him like gnat.
It’s been a long time coming, but we finally got the surge,
And now our guys are kicking ass and showing how to win.
So real signs of victory are starting to emerge,
(Unless the politicians grab the towel and throw it in).
With all our will and muscle soon the battle could be done—
But when they take my hair gel, folks, the terrorists have won.

Concerned about the borders, Dubai ports, sharia law?
Pelosi in a head-scarf kinda sticking in your craw?
Wondering if the mosque next door is preaching suicide?
Or if the loo at Burger King is where jihadists hide?
Still, NEVER FEAR! Security is tighter than a drum
In Newfoundland, where dangerous cosmetics dare not come!

If you try to depart St.John’s with goo in small amounts,
Forget it, man, you’re busted! Every millilitre counts!
Those crack investigators will probe every zippered purse
For incendiary hand-cream, and conditioner, and worse!
You may think you’re pretty clever, trying to smuggle that stuff on,
But if you’ve got extra after-shave or wrinkle goop, it’s GONE.

Our first line of defense here in the True North Strong and Free
Are the Gunk’n’Grease Gestapo who watch way too much TV.
Is your granny packing Semtex? Is that lip-gloss wired to blow?
Do they strip-search up in Newfoundland? That’s all I want to know.

We’ve chased them out of Anbar, and Diyala’s coming clean.
It took two trips to Falluja, but that’s now a calmer scene.
We’ve smoked out plots and bombers and the homeland’s not been hit.
And despite what Harry Reid says, things are looking up a bit.
But if you think that victory is just around the bend,
And on the far horizon is the hope that this will end--
Sure, Al Qaeda’s star is sinking and we’ve got them on the run,
But when a Newfie takes my hair-gel, the terrorists have won.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

Look what the Fwench are up to!

Mon Dieu!


Yes, that's right-- a bunch of the French had an attack of gratitude [hat-tip: Gateway Pundit via Instapundit] about the staggering, blood-drenched sacrifice offered on their behalf by the American military heroes of D-Day. Those of us who have visited Normandy are not as surprised as one might think-- residents of that region, of all ages, seem to have learned the lessons of history and suffer from no amnesia. But this is a gesture that must not pass unheralded. Wow. Merci buckets.

Check out the video here [beautifully set to one of the world's great movie scores, music by Ennio Morricone for The Mission].

SALUT, NOTRES AMIS FRANÇAIS!

Quick, everyone, buy some cheese.

BLUB (continued)

Your indulgence, gentle reader, for prolonged absence from the blog-waves.

Keeping up a frantic schedule of late, f'rinstance: several weeks of prep for mere hour-and-a-half lecture about such disparate aspects of the Corpus Christi feast as Los Hombres de Musgo...














and El Misteri d'Elche...














...followed by other less edifying distractions like sewage backing up into shower stall of Newfoundland retreat.

From the sublime to the subterranean slime. Blub, indeed.

Checked my e-mail and apparently the world keeps turning even when I'm out here in the weird time-and-a-half zone. Nice to know some things are ever the same, though. Harry Reid's still a moron. [Should introduce him to Premier Danny Williams-- two peas in a cod.] I can sleep peacefully. As the locals say, "God love ya, m'darlin'." [They do, I swear it.]

Shall return to planet earth soon-- still "live" apparently, despite best efforts of Al Gore to bore it to death.

BLUB


















Fear not-- Winefred has been hiding out, adrift at the bottom of the well (think Dustin Hoffman in his scuba gear at the Braddocks' pool party)-- but has not totally drownded, just gone all purply-white and wrinkled.

Blogging shall re-commence shortly, with wildly random thoughts, political Fredheadings, Arrowhead rippings, movies, reading material, and grandmotherly reflections on super-baby in flannel burka.

I've been working on a post, but today
VICTOR DAVIS HANSEN says

EVERYTHING THAT NEEDS SAYING
[hat-tip Jewish World Review]


The other
D-Day

Sixty-three years ago this week, we landed on the Normandy beaches. As on each anniversary of June 6, 1944, much has been written to commemorate the bravery and competence of the victorious Anglo-American forces.

All true. But as we ponder this achievement of the Greatest Generation that helped lead to the surrender of Nazi Germany less than a year later, we should remember that the entire campaign was, as Wellington said of Waterloo, a near-run thing.

Our forefathers made several mistakes. They attacked nonexistent artillery emplacements. Planes dropped paratroopers far from intended targets. Critical landing assignments on Omaha Beach were missed.

Once they left shore, it got worse. Indeed, D-Day was soon forgotten in the nightmare of GIs being blown apart in the Normandy hedgerows by well-concealed, entrenched German panzers.

Apparently, no American planners — from Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall down to the staff of Allied Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower — had anticipated either the difficulty of penetrating miles of these dense thickets or the deadliness of new German model tanks and anti-tank weapons. So we landed in Europe with the weaponry we had — and it was in large part vastly inferior to that of the Wehrmacht .

The most brilliant armored commander in U.S. history, George S. Patton, had been sacked from theater command for slapping an ill soldier the prior year in Sicily. Gens. Omar N. Bradley and Bernard L. Montgomery lacked his genius and audacity — and tens of thousands of Allied soldiers were to pay for Patton's absence at Normandy.

We finally broke out of the mess, after using heavy bombers to blast holes in the German lines. But again, these operations were fraught with foul-ups.

On two successive occasions we bombed our own troops, altogether killing or wounding over 1,000 Americans, including the highest-ranking officer to die in the European Theater, Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair. The nature of his death was hidden from the press — as were many mistakes and casualties both leading up to and after Normandy.

When the disaster in the bocage near the Normandy beaches ended over two months after D-Day, the victorious Americans, British and Canadians had been bled white.

Altogether, the winners of the Normandy campaign suffered a quarter-million dead, wounded or missing, including almost 30,000 American fatalities — losing nearly 10 times the number of combat dead in four years of fighting in Iraq....

....While we were ground up in the hedgerows, in the Pacific theater thousands of American amphibious troops were lost during the Marianas campaign. True, we kept winning gruesome amphibious assaults, but we didn't seem to learn much from them.

Instead, far worse carnage lay in store at places named Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

All these bloodbaths near the end of the war were characterized by the sheer heroism of the American soldier — who suffered terribly from intelligence failures and poor leadership of his superiors.

What can we learn, then, on this anniversary of the Normandy campaign?

By any historical measure, our forefathers committed as many strategic and tactical blunders as we have in Afghanistan and Iraq — but lost tens of thousands more Americans as a result of such errors. We worry about emboldening Iran by going into Iraq; the Normandy generation fretted about empowering a colossal Soviet Union.

Of course, World War II was an all-out fight for our very existence in a way many believe the war against terror that began on 9/11 is not. Even more would doubt that al-Qaida jihadists in Iraq pose the same threat to civilization as the Wehrmacht did in Europe.

Nevertheless, the Normandy campaign reminds us that war is by nature horrific, fraught with foolish error — and only won by the side that commits the least number of mistakes. Our grandfathers knew that. So they pressed on as best they could, convinced that they needn't be perfect, only good enough, to win.

The American lesson of D-Day and its aftermath was how to overcome occasional abject stupidity while never giving up in the face of an utterly savage enemy. We need to remember that now more than ever.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. [his website here]

Winefred observes: See the German POW's sitting on the ground in a row. They are not handcuffed or hooded or on their knees. They are disarmed; they wait; their guards look genial. Maybe that's their reward for never having been part of a cell that plotted car-bomb attacks on civilians, never having constructed suicide belts to be worn by their sisters or mothers, never having beheaded anyone and danced in his blood while ululating for a video camera. If they'd been concentration camp guards things would have gone harder for them, but as far as we know they were just grunts on the battlefield.

There are parallels from war to war-- but there are differences too.