The people and military of Pakistan are in my prayers today
for the price they paid yesterday for confronting evil. The Taliban attack targeting the children in
a military grade school is far beyond the pale and clearly indicates the depths
of evil present in that medieval group of sub-humans. The political forces within Pakistan have
long sought to negotiate and conciliate a settlement with these barbarians. I hope they now realize something we’ve known
for the last decade - these people cannot be reasoned with or appeased. They are vermin incapable of existing in a twenty-first
century civilized society. They must be
excised. The rest of society will be
safe only when they are dead. I hope the
Pakistanis also take a long look at continuing to allow the Saudi “educators”
to fill up their madrasas spewing their virulent form of hatred that funnels
the young cannon fodder for the Taliban to exploit. Enough.
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| Are My Reflexes Going? |
I re-learned another hard lesson last night. Buddy the Wonder Pooch has a wicked right
cross. I was safely ensconced in Couch Potato Position #1 when he announced his
nightly demand for “play time”. This
usually starts with a loud discussion between the two of us that has my wife’s
eyes constantly searching the ceiling. She
doesn’t understand the depths of negotiation required between a man and his dog
before actual hostilities commence. Play
time usually has us rolling around the carpet as I try to keep my face
protected from Buddy’s flying paws.
Yesterday he took a page right out of Patton’s playbook when he hit me
as I was somewhat inelegantly getting up from the couch. I tried to snap my head back when I saw the right
cross coming in but he was just too quick.
I tried to hide it from my wife but she was soon lathering me with
several forms of antibiotics combined with the attendant lecture on my lack of
maturity to wrestle with dogs at my age (she’ll never understand how much fun
it is). At least the mark will give my
subordinates something to kid me about this morning in the staff meeting – so I’ve
got that going for me.
Date night saw us checking out Exodus: Gods and Kings, the latest Ridley Scott
opus. Any movie that takes on this
story, at least from my generation, will find itself compared to Cecil B
DeMille’s The Ten Commandments which this new version finishes a distant second
to. Scott does epic as well as any
modern director and the sweeping exterior shots were all I hoped for. The crucial relationship between Ramses and
Moses fell completely flat. Both actors,
Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton, looked completely out of place and uncomfortable
in the period garb their parts called for.
Edgerton especially looked completely lost and decidedly unregal. It would be next to impossible to beat Yul
Brynner in that category anyways. Bale
had an even tougher job trying to live up to Charlton Heston and again he fell
way short.
The supporting cast was as good as the leads were bad. Who knew Jesse could be a convincing
Joshua!? The movie is saved by the sheer
spectacle which made it watchable. This
was interesting but sad when you think of all the money spent and that it was
done so much better, on all levels, more than sixty years ago.
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