Archive for July, 2008

The Underlying Sadness of “Harold and the Purple Crayon”

by Glenn Vance on July 18, 2008 in Kids with 1 Comment
harold

My old­est boy and I have been read­ing the 50th anniver­sary edi­tion of “Harold and the Pur­ple Crayon” by Crock­ett John­son for a cou­ple of nights now. It’s a nice hard­back col­lec­tion of four of the Harold sto­ries and Noah has been com­pletely enthralled by it. He’ll talk about Harold falling off of a moun­tain only to res­cue him­self by draw­ing a bal­loon so he won’t get hurt. Harold is a clever lit­tle boy who doesn’t for­get how to get out of trou­ble when he needs to and that makes the book fun and excit­ing and inge­nius because the whole thing is Harold’s imag­i­na­tion and where it can take him.

But I started notic­ing some­thing as we were read­ing through the four sto­ries that make up the col­lec­tion — it’s only Harold. There are no other humans any­where in the book. I’m prob­a­bly read­ing too much into it, as I tend to do, but Harold is just all alone in a world of his cre­ation Much like Sci­en­tol­o­gist Tom Cruise. where no one else is. The sto­ries men­tion him look­ing for his home, and him draw­ing the chair that his mother would sit in when she read, and how he remem­bers where his bed is by gaug­ing where the moon is in his win­dow, but other than that Harold is never in a real world.

Now, it could just be that he’s dream­ing and you just never see him wake up, and that’s the more-than-likely answer to the whole thing, or it could be (and I’m just hypoth­e­siz­ing here, brain­storm­ing if you will)maybe Harold is crazy and trapped in his own mind and the pur­ple crayon is some sort of enabler for him to get out of his inner insan­ity, or maybe he’s been trans­ported into a “Twilight-Zone“y place of sight and sound but no dimen­sion other than 2-D and he only has a crayon to help him escape.…

I am read­ing way too much into it. My son likes the story. That’s enough.

II"> Operation Downfall, Part II

by Glenn Vance on July 16, 2008 in History with No comments
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Con­tin­ued from Part I.

Down­fall would have been the largest amphibi­ous land­ing in his­tory, includ­ing 42 air­craft car­ri­ers, 24 bat­tle­ships, 400 destroy­ers and other ships. Four­teen U.S. divi­sions A divi­sion is a large mil­i­tary unit usu­ally con­sist­ing of around ten to twenty thou­sand sol­diers. would take part also as they used Oki­nawa as a stag­ing base and then seized the south­ern por­tion of the island of Kyushu. The inva­sion was sched­uled to start on Novem­ber 1, 1945. But there were some other con­sid­er­a­tions that the plan­ners had to take into account.

There was, nat­u­rally, to be a decep­tion plan lead­ing up to the Olympic inva­sion. By hav­ing such a plan it was hoped, as all decep­tion plans in war were, that Allied casu­al­ties would be min­i­mized because the enemy force would believe that it needed to focus itself else­where. The plan to pre­cede Olympic was Oper­a­tion Pas­tel, wherein which the Joint Chiefs of Staff would attempt to fool the Japan­ese into think­ing that a direct inva­sion of the south­ern islands had been rejected and instead that the Allies would focus first on Japan­ese forces still in main­land China. The first strike would be a false Allied attack on China’s Chusan-Shanghai area, with a fic­tional land­ing date of Octo­ber 1, 1945. This was to be fol­lowed by one of the smaller south­ern Japan­ese islands, Shikoku. After this the Allies hoped to sur­prise the Japan­ese with the Olympic invasion.

All of this was lead­ing up to X-Day, as it was called, where the All­lied forces would invade Kyushu along the east­ern, south­east­ern, south­ern and west­ern coasts of the island near the towns of Miyazaki, Ari­ake, and Kushikino. The inva­sion force was to con­sist of three main groups land­ing on 35 dif­fer­ent beaches, all code­named after makes of auto­mo­biles. The East­ern Assault Force con­sist­ing of the 25th, 33rd and the 41st Infantry Divi­sions, would land near Miyaski and quickly move inland to cap­ture Miyazaki and its nearby air­field. The South­ern Force which was to con­sist of the 1st cav­alry Divi­sion, the 43rd Divi­sion and Amer­i­can Divi­sion would land inside Ari­ake Bay and cap­ture Shibushi and to cap­ture, fur­ther inland, the city of Kanoya and its sur­round­ing air­field. On the west­ern shore of Kyushu near Kushikino the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Marine Divi­sions would land and split, part of which would head inland to cap­ture Sendai while the other half cap­tured the port city of Kagoshima. Once these areas were secured more Allied rein­force­ments con­sist­ing of three Amer­i­can divi­sions would be brought in each month to strengthen the hold on the occu­pied por­tion of Kyushu.

Before and dur­ing all of this activ­ity the U.S. Twen­ti­eth Air Force would be bomb­ing strate­gic tar­gets such as rail­roads, air­fields and the var­i­ous beaches that were to be hit. With a suc­cess­ful bomb­ing cam­paign it was hoped that they could min­i­mize any fast means that rein­force­ments could uti­lize to arrive at the var­i­ous inva­sion points.

The four month timetable for Olympic was not to con­quer the entire island but to gain a foothold for the Allies to jump off of and use as a stag­ing ground for the even big­ger inva­sion — Coro­net. More on it in part 3.

(The info for this piece came, once again, from Wikipedia, the the Com­bined Arms Research Library)

An Open Letter to Colonel Saul Tigh

by Glenn Vance on July 14, 2008 in Television with No comments
Saul-Tigh

Dear Colonel Tigh,
Saul, we’ve known each other a long time at this point, you and I. I’ve been watch­ing you intently for three and a half years as you’ve wres­tled with the Ambrosia-drinkin’ and put-a-gun-to-your-head demons in your mind and you’ve failed more often than I know you’ve wanted to, but I’ll come right out and say it, Saul — you’ve always been my favorite on “Bat­tlestar Galac­tica”. Oth­ers may think that Adama is king or Star­buck is the coolest or Lee is too pretty for words and he gets all the lucky breaks, but for me it’s you, Saul. It’s your craggy ways, your hard livin’, hard drinkin’, always ready for a fight lifestyle, your eye patch, your abil­ity to sum up every sit­u­a­tion by curs­ing. For frak’s sake, you killed your own wife for col­lab­o­rat­ing with the enemy! You loved her and you poi­soned her and held her while she died! Yes, you did cry after­ward rather than drink and curse, but you killed some­one you loved! Do you think Roslin would, could ever do that? No. It’s one of the things that I love about you that just makes you, you.

After that first Cylon war years ago you were drift­ing, floun­der­ing here and there, drink­ing, get­ting into fights, until that one bar where you met Bill Adama and the two of you pledged to each other that no mat­ter what hap­pened the two of you were going to get back into the fleet. And you did. That took guts and guts you have, my brother.

You were crafted by war, Saul, and war needed you. When the Galac­tica had been hit by nuclear mis­siles dur­ing the ini­tial vol­leys of the Cylon War II, you had the hulls sealed off and then the air­locks opened to put out a fire that was threat­en­ing to take out the entire ship. In the process you shot many liv­ing peo­ple into space, but you saved the ship. You killed your crew­men but you did it for the greater good and it was a shin­ing moment in your dented and scarred career. Who else would have had the stones to do that? Few men, I tell you.

And when the war came again you found your place. You hated Cylons with a white-hot Tilium-burning pas­sion and that hate has got­ten you this far, but now you’ve come to a HUGE cross­road, my friend — you’ve dis­cov­ered, along with three other peo­ple on board the Galac­tica, that you’re Cylons. You’re part of the fabled Final Five which makes you spe­cial, very spe­cial. Sud­denly your life has tremen­dous mean­ing — you’re now more than just a man, you’re a sym­bol to some, a god to oth­ers. You’ve been killing Cylons for fifty years, from the first rebel­lion to the holo­caust of the human race to New Caprica, and now you find out you’re a Cylon? You your­self are one of the enemy? Well, that’s almost too much for an ordi­nary man to bear.

But damnit Saul, you’re no ordi­nary man! You’re Saul Tigh, the most rip-snortin’, butt-kickin’ Colonel, XO and one-time dic­ta­tor in the entire human race! Man up, son! Get your­self together!

Oh sure, it was soul cleans­ing when you told Adama that you were a Cylon. But what did you think he was going to do, kill you? Would that have made every­thing bet­ter? That would be too good, too easy for you. He handed you over to his son who almost killed you, but Bill never could kill his best friend. You think The Old Man could really have done that to some­one he loves almost as much as his own son? Never. I even had in my mind the way I thought you would go on the show but as the mid­point of sea­son four showed us it won’t hap­pen. Here it is though for you -

Adama knows you’re a Cylon. He’s in a rage, hold­ing you up against the bulk­head and has a gun to your chest.

ADAMA : You want abso­lu­tion, Saul?! What the frak did you think I was going to do? Kill you so you wouldn’t have to?

TIGH : No Bill. I couldn’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be right.

And then you shoot your­self in the head and as your body falls to the floor of the air­lock Bill bursts into tears as his best friend dies in his arms and he weeps over you because he knows that part of his soul is now gone and can never come back no mat­ter how many model ships or mir­rors he destroys.

It would have been an amaz­ing way for you to go and it would have sucker punched me in the stom­ach to watch you die. But you’re not dead yet, Saul. You have to keep going. The race isn’t over yet, brother. You said it your­self : you’re Saul Tigh, XO of the Bat­tlestar Galac­tica, and what­ever you were then, that’s the way you’re going to be until the day you die. That’s quite a mantra to live by Saul, given what’s hap­pened to you.

Toughen up, Saul. The worst may be yet to come. Good luck and gods’ speed, friend.

I’m (Probably) Done Watching “Heroes”

by Glenn Vance on July 11, 2008 in Television with 1 Comment
heroes

The show “Heroes” started out as a fun but deriv­a­tive con­cept — the hero ori­gin story. More point­edly, “Heroes” is a take on the X-Men. You’ve got your mind reader (Pro­fes­sor X), the guy who can fly (Angel), the girl who can regen­er­ate (Wolver­ine), the girl who can look like any­thing (Mys­tique) and a bunch of oth­ers, but it was fun at the begin­ning since every­body loves the “ori­gin” story. It’s fun to watch peo­ple get new pow­ers and then learn how to use them as well as their lim­i­ta­tions. It’s plain ol’ good vs. evil.

The evil on the show is Gabriel Gray, a nerdy watch repair­man who took the lame moniker of Sylar from one of the brands of watches he fixed. He is able to acquire other pow­ers by (he thinks, but I’m not so sure) eat­ing other hero-type people’s brains. Lovely.

The first sea­son was fun and I stuck around to see if New York would indeed be destroyed by the man who can’t con­trol his pow­ers, Peter Petrelli. Peter had acquired nuclear capa­bil­i­ties from Ted Sprague. Peter, unlike Sylar, gets pow­ers by being around peo­ple who already have the power he will develop. I think Sylar oper­ates the same way but he just doesn’t know it.

Half the joy of sea­son one was watch­ing Hiro, the time-traveling Japan­ese office worker, dis­cover his abil­ity and then real­ize that it can be fun as well as pow­er­ful. His jour­ney, of all of them, has been the most enjoy­able to watch as he grows.

Any­way, there was this “mas­ter­mind” named Daniel Lin­der­man (he has pow­ers too — regen­er­a­tion) who was going to bring about a new age by hav­ing Peter Petrelli destroy New York with his nuclear capa­bil­i­ties and then get Peter’s brother Nathan elected pres­i­dent. Nathan helped Peter get out of the city by fly­ing up into the stratos­phere before explod­ing. In the “destroy NY” show Lin­der­man is shot to death, right through the head, and can’t regen­er­ate. He’s dead. Really dead.

Which brings me around to now. Ain’t It Cool News is link­ing to a story where some­one from the BBC is giv­ing away what’s in a sea­son 3 ‘Heroes’ promo. I’m talk­ing spoil­ers, so if you care and watch the show, skip the next paragraph.

LINDERMAN IS BACK?

What?! Why can’t they kill any­one on this show and not have them stay dead?! Why can’t some­one just die and be really dead?! The freak­ing guy was SHOT IN THE HEAD. Kill him! Kill him! Have him be dead, really dead! Bad guys, even SUPER BAD GUYS, die! Come on, man, just kill some­one off of this show and have him be gone! He wasn’t that cool or any­thing. Even his name is lame. He was even lamer than the guy that could paint the future.((Don’t even get me started on how cool it would have been to have Hiro fight­ing a Tyran­nosaurus. That would have rökked.)) Jeez.

And man, I’ve hung on even through the lame new char­ac­ters they tried to intro­duce last sea­son where all I wanted was for the girl who’s eyes turn black to die. The sweet release of her death would have been a high point of last sea­son, but no, they had to have her “fall in love” with Sylar. She’s as lame as Nikki and Paulo on “Lost” were and the cre­ators of “Lost” were smart enough to kill them off! Kill Black Eyed Girl! Kill her as soon as possible!

The list of peo­ple on the show with pow­ers just keeps grow­ing. Nikki, who sup­pos­edly died in an explo­sion, I’m sure will turn up alive. Nathan, who was shot at the end of last sea­son right before he “came out” about his fly­ing power, I’m sure will be back too. Claire’s dad, who’s death was very pow­er­ful on the show, was res­ur­rected. Sylar him­self prob­a­bly was dead but they’ve brought him back to annoy us with his “my-head-is-down-but-I’m-looking-at-you” eyes and stu­pid way of talk­ing again. And Hiro can’t even kill a bad guy; he has to bury him in a cof­fin alive. The guy he buried is immor­tal so I’m sure he’ll turn up again, as usual.

The only one that I really am glad is back is Hiro’s friend Ando. Ando is one of the few peo­ple on the ros­ter with­out pow­ers which is prob­a­bly why I like him so much. Can’t we have fewer peo­ple with pow­ers? To see their per­spec­tive on those with pow­ers? And can’t this freak­ing show thin the ranks a lit­tle bit before the whole planet is on the show because, you know, they ALL have powers?

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