Friends, thousands of charging Zulus don't faze Sir Michael Caine, eminent British actor, but old age apparently does. He's exiting the stage for the last time and retiring from the acting profession. Farewell, therefore, to a class act and a truly great Thespian.
In other news, home sales are down and so, for the first time in ages, is rent. I find it extraordinary that the median rent in America is over $2,000!!! That's a lot for ordinary mortals to shell out. On the other hand, it also tells you something about how broadly prosperous America is.
https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/rent-inflation-census-bureau/2023/10/16/id/1138441/
Finally, kudos to Australia and New Zealand, both of which gave a shot in the arm to the political right on Saturday. Australia rejected constitutional changes that would have promoted identity politics and given separate representation to the Aborigines. New Zealand rejected an incumbent Labour administration that inflicted on hapless Kiwis some of the most draconian COVID policies in the entire world. Needless to say, the global media is miffed -- and that's a sign that democracy still works, once in a while.
RAY TO DR.WADDY
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tribute to Sir Michael Caine. He was one of my favorite actors, and a very versatile one at that. One of the movies I liked best, that he starred in, was "The Eagle Has Landed", and especially that scene where he played a Luftwaffe Paratroop Colonel who confronts an SS General at a railway station. I'm sure you know what scene I am talking about. Thanks again for your tribute to Caine. And before I forget, his role in "A Bridge Too Far" was significant.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Always liked Michael Caine but where I realized how very good he is was when he was matched with Olivier - Olivier! - in Sleuth. Olivier was in top form in that picture and Caine was every bit his equal. He's been very prolific and versatile. Those Brits are the best actors of all I think. Never saw Caine in a Shakespeare play but actually his accent might have done him well. I've heard Shakespeare done in a thought authentic Elizabethan accent; it sounds something like "cockney"and Olivier could never have gotten away with that!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I'm glad for those Kiwis and Aussies; they've been flirting with the far left for awhile and maybe they got burned!Glad the WSJ termed them victories for common sense. How fortunate they are to have the popular power to tell the radical to step off! How very much so many people would have been glad to be able to shuck the detestable marxist totalitarian yoke. The left is very persistent in ,ehh, "trying peoples' patience" with its reflexive and willful disdain for common sense and those Kiwis and Aussies are pretty down to earth hombres, I think.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: American prosperity: having seen some of the 3rd world and knowing some history, I'll never get over my astonishment at our miraculous material well being in our country. We live better than Louis the 14th! What extraordinary good fortune it is to be a citizen here.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I'm sure the "squad" types and Bernie would sneer at the above but they should be of good cheer as long as N.Korea still obtains.
ReplyDeleteRay, I just watched the scene you mentioned. I can see why a "thoroughgoing bastard" like yourself would find it relatable. Ha!
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of Michael Caine that I've missed over the years, and I look forward to catching up.
Jack, true, the Australians and New Zealanders are practical frontier types like us...but they tolerate far more authoritarianism and socialism than we would. Americans are still the gold standard in terms of loving liberty, if you ask me, although even we have strayed awfully far from the straight and narrow path.
Speaking of North Korea, even the long-suffering citizens of the DPRK may live materially better lives than most people at Louis XIV's court -- thanks entirely to Western technological advances, I hasten to add, and not the "benevolence" of Kim Jong Un.
RAY TO DR. NICK
DeleteBut don't forget that part where Caine tells the SS General that he needs to keep the other SS Officer "downwind from me at all times, because he reminds me of something I pick up on my shoe in the park on a hot day, very unpleasant..." That must refer to you. Ha! Sorry, I can't resist. Does this mean that I will now be reassigned to Minesweeping operations?
Dr. Waddy,Ray,et al from Jack: Actually I asked to be assigned to a minesweeper because they are small ships. Instead I got on a super carrier; go figure!
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteYou need to watch the movie "The Eagle Has Landed" and then you will understand what I am talking about when I use the word "MineSweeping", as it pertains to the movie.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: In your opinion, what is most important to militant Islam as exemplified in Iran's regime: anti colonial resentment of the west or antisemitism?I know some Jewish prophets and Christ himself inhabit Islam's pantheon. Does modern militant Islam consider Judaism heretic and as such intolerable?
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteYou need to start reading (preferably by book instead of YouTube or Social Media BS), in order to correctly understand that Islam has ALWAYS been militant from Day 1 when Mohammed invented it. The first Islamic armies (Islam is the religion, and those who follow it are Muslims), that rode out of Arabia in the 7th Century spread the religion BY THE SWORD. Yes, they told Christians and Jews they could practice their respective religions, with all sorts of restrictions of course, and also that they (Christians and Jews) would have to pay higher taxes. Of course if one converted to Islam they would gain all sorts of benefits.
In any event, YOU need to start "hitting the books" on this subject. STUDY never killed anyone, and I know you are capable of doing both STUDY and RESEARCH. Let me suggest that you begin your quest to understand what a militant religion Islam has always been, that you consult some of the writings of Bat Ye'Or . Answer you own questions, and become your own scholar on this. And learn the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam, of which Iran promotes the latter. Lots of enmity between Iran and Saudi Arabia because of this.
ISLAM HAS ALWAYS BEEN A MILITANT RELIGION OF THE SWORD! The efforts to convince people that it is a religion of peace is BS propaganda.
(Check out that Pan Am Airliner that blew up over Lockerbie (spelling?), Scotland some years ago). Such a peaceful religion.
Ray from Jack: I am blithe to read books; I do incidentally access Youtube if its products come up in a subject search. Otherwise I do not use social media aside from Email and Waddy is right . I have very much more to learn about the history of the Middle East; that's flat. Sometimes people ask me how I prepared to be a reference librarian. I simply say I memorized the required librarian minimum of 60% of all that it is known to humanity. But my store of such knowledge touching the currently very important Middle East is strangely lacking.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteIn your quest to learn about Islam, and in my opinion, one of the first questions that has to be asked about that religion is: If it is such a great religion, how is it that there are so many terrorist organizations running around today claiming Islam as their religion?
Again, look back to Islam's founder and all of the wars he had to fight to impose that religion on Arabia in the 7th Century, even if 7th Century Arabia was pagan.
Good luck on you studies. It should take about a year to get up to speed. Look up Dhimmi (spelling? sorry). It's a word all Muslims use to describe non-Muslims under them.
JACK FROM RAY
ReplyDeleteYour training as a reference library means you have all the tools in your brain to commence studying about Islam and things relative to current events in The Middle East. GET CRACKING! Best of luck.
Ray, I may or may not be a mass murderer, but I'll have you know that I bathe semi-regularly, thank you very much!
ReplyDeleteJack, why would you want to be posted to a small ship? I should think the big ones would be far more comfortable...and safe, no?
Jack, that's a good question about the ideology of Iranian Islamism, and I certainly have no answer to give, but I would remind you that the Iranians are Shiites, and thus, to almost all Muslims outside of Iran, THEY are the heretics! As you will know, many Jews lived scattered throughout the Islamic world for centuries. I won't say they were beloved, but they were tolerated. The Israeli-Palestinian furor has largely put an end to that.
Ray, sure, there's a vast history of militancy and violence in Islam -- and they would say the same of Christianity, and they'd be right. I'm not sure it makes much sense to make sweeping claims about any religion. All we can say for sure is that the vast majority of Christians, Jews, AND Muslims aren't terribly keen on murdering anyone. That's a place to start.
Jack, don't beat yourself up. A lot of Mid-East "experts" are fairly dim on a lot of these dynamics. Heck, the experts told us that the Afghans and Iraqis would fall at our feet and become Jeffersonian democrats in no time. Sure! Plus, there's a vast gulf between reading about a culture and living it, or with it. And I would remind you, Ray, and anyone else paying attention that reading only helps when you read things that aren't claptrap. If you aren't very careful, you can come out of the experience of reading a book dumber than when you started.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: A small ship would probably have been very unpleasant at first due to sea sickness. But I thought that being on a big one would take away from the experience of being "at sea". And it did; plus the noise on a carrier was infernal. Smaller ships , even the size of the WWII destroyers we had in the 60s, are the workaday everyday Navy and just as in Civil War reenactment I have only wanted to be an infantry private, the common soldier, that's what I wanted. Lots of career guys said carriers were good duty and they probably had good reason but. . . .
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: No no: the experts were unanimous in predicting only Madisonian and Hamiltonian republics, replete with central banks, in Iraq and the Afghan wilderness.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: For sure there has been much intense and extensive violence done in the name of Christianity ,including the Crusades but not since the 30 Years War of the 17th century. That done by Jews in the 20th and 21st centuries was done only to defend against annihilation; before that - the Ist century AD against Rome. Islam was spread by conquest within a century of its founding; Muslims penetrated to Central France inthe 8th century before being stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours. This predated the Crusades by 300 years. The Ottomans took Constantinople in the 15th century and blithely turned Christendom's most magificent church into a mosque. They tried to take Vienna in the 17th century; if they had, where would they have stopped? The murderous intent by predominantly Muslim Arabs directed at the very whole of Israel's population; the forceful conversion of Iran and Afghanistan to quasi medieval forms of Islam and the outspoken violent convictions of today's militant Islam: for violence done in its name, Islam appears historically most culpable. I think it may need a Reformation.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: And Islam's earthly founder was a caravan raider. Presumably that involved much physical unpleasantry.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting perspective, Jack. Yes, I could see that being on a carrier is more like being in a city than sailing on a ship. I wonder why they didn't, or couldn't, accommodate your preference?
ReplyDeleteJack, to be sure Islam is more militant NOW -- but the other side of that coin is that most Western "Christians" are, more accurately, devotees of pop psychology, not Christ.