In the summer, readers run away from blogs like swimmers running out of the water away from the shark in Jaws (We’re going to need a bigger blog).
So what do you do in a blogging slump? Post more? Less? Write longer or shorter posts? Add more pictures of cats? More tweets, likes…eat more chocolate? Or just accept it and take a break for the rest of the summer? Acceptance is such a strange thing, isn’t it? It can be positive – you accept a gift, get accepted into a club, accept an award, or it can become something you feel forced to do, such as compliance or acquiescence.
I accept The Imitation Game was a brilliant film starring Benedict Cumberbatch (who apparently can’t be anything but astonishing) about WWII. I don’t accept it’s completely factual, clearly they took certain liberties such as Cumberbatch portraying Turing as though he had Asperger’s Syndrome. I don’t know if that’s Hollywood pretending everyone who’s a genius has Autism, or because they wanted Cumberbatch to play Turing more like Sherlock.
Joan Clarke (played with dazzling brilliance by Kiera Knightley) wasn’t recruited by Turing, crossword puzzle or otherwise, but was engaged to him.
They did concede Turning’s machine was based on a Polish cryptologic machine (the Polish broke the Enigma code years before), but that he’d built a better, faster machine for the more sophisticated code.
This is Hollywood. They add drama.
Unlike previous films about the Enigma code, this film didn’t cause international snits like U-571, or put us to sleep like Enigma (despite a stunning performance by Kate Winslet, wait, wasn’t she in another famous historically inaccurate film, something about a ship?).
I don’t take umbrage to movies that play with history. Most of history is changeable, written by the victors and those who want to cast themselves in a positive light. I read history books and watch documentaries, but even those should be taken with a grain of salt. Movies, TV shows, and books, even those based on real-life people and events, those are for entertainment.
This delightful movie wasn’t actually about the war or codes, it was about acceptance. Alan Turing was a gifted mathematician and cryptographer and yet, in the end, it didn’t matter if he saved millions of lives or gave us the basis for modern computers, it mattered that he was gay. He was only 41 when he committed suicide after being forced to endure chemical castration. His future work, his life, all lost because no one could accept he wasn’t their definition of ‘normal’.
Fear and discrimination are the real enemies. People refusing to accept the differences of others. Differences should be encouraged, supported, celebrated. Different isn’t less, most often, it’s more.
The world has a short memory and an even shorter attention span.
June 6, 1944, 70 years ago the Allied Forces landed on the beaches of Normandy. It was supposed to be June 5, 1944, but weather delayed it.
Every year we remember those who fought for us. There’s pomp and ceremony and we say we care.
But what about the rest of the year?
Should veterans have to fight for food, shelter, care, and support?
Should we still keep fighting, in wars, in our own countries, among ourselves?
More than 40% don’t vote in North America. We’re so used to our freedoms we take them for granted. We will stay in line for a sale or tickets or waiting for a new product, but don’t take 5 minutes to vote. I know, I voted this morning, it took under 5 minutes; people wait in line at drive-thrus longer than that to get coffee or a burger. I really don’t get it.
Into The Jaws of Death, Robert F. Sargent
Many died that day and for the months after as they fought to take back German-occupied Western Europe and tried and succeeded in turning the tides of the war.
Many call them heroes, but I think most of them didn’t think of themselves that way, they were doing their duty, carrying out orders.
Like police officers and firefighters, soldiers serve their country and its citizens by putting their lives on the line. We see it as brave, they see it as a job, that someone must protect, serve, save, and defend.
Maybe that’s what makes them truly heroes, that they don’t do it to be heroes.
The Normandy landings, codenamed Operation Overlord(with the naval aspect codenamed Operation Neptune) is still the largest seaborne invasion in history. Many movies, books, TV shows, songs, etc. have come from that day. Obviously many aren’t factual, after all, history is written by the winners, but still interesting.
It wasn’t until 1997 that the undersea documentation of the D-Day assault were looked at in a historically significant way, sadly, by then, there was erosion and reclamation by the sea. First underwater archaeological study and surveys in 2000.
They found some interesting information and artefacts as well as some discrepancies.
To this day, small pieces of history haunt the shores and seas of Normandy, a bizarre reminder that history should be remembered, all those who fought, honoured.
I was thinking, if they tried to do something like this today social media would probably tell the German forces every move, how many troops, ships, planes…there would be pictures of parachutes and tweets and pix of where they were landing, people updating their Facebook status and Vine vids…Instagrammers would briefly interrupt posting pix of food to tell where and how many allied forces were and what they were wearing. And many, many memes.
We still don’t know the exact number that died during the Allied invasion. 14 years agoCarol Tuckwiller, a former librarian was assigned the significant mission of identifying every Allied soldier who died on June 6, 1944.
She spent over six years searching through records and evidence, contacting sources, etc., eventually giving up not because all soldiers were accounted for, but she ran out of credible information.
So 70 years later and out of more than 150,000 warriors who went in that day, no one knows for sure how many died. But her work brought many names of fallen soldiers into the historical records and onto plaques and made us realize there were more lives lost than we had understood.
Despite the glossy ceremonies under sun upon sand we must always remember the price of war and the higher price of oppression.
Lives lost, futures stolen, dignity torn asunder, money and power the tyrannical rulers…we could be talking about 70 years ago or any day in various parts of the world, sadly, too little has changed.
Politicians make hypocritical speeches about how much our veterans mean to us while many veterans struggle just to get by in their day-to-day lives.
Those who once stormed the beaches to fight the enemy and liberate oppressed people now have to storm their own governments for the care and attention they should receive with thanks for their valiant service.
Some of the best images of the D-Day invasion are from Canadian war artist, Orville Fisher (the 3 paintings pictured above, please check out his other work, truly, truly amazing).
I doubt the significance of the weathered faces and stiff bodies of the remaining veterans is lost on them or us; make no mistake, most will not be here to celebrate 75 years after D-Day.
We must then remember for them.
Of all the Christmas movies this wins as cheese master. They make every effort to tug at every heart-string and be hepcats at the same time. It’s a rather odd mixture that strangely, works. I love this movie. The songs are embedded in my brain…“Snow” ,“Sisters”,“The Old Man”,“Gee I Wish I Was Back In The Army”,“Love You Didn’t Do Right By Me”,“The Best Things Happen When You’re Dancing”,“Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”, and of course, the title song,“White Christmas”.
I wish I could say I ever get tired of this movie, but I don’t. And it’s not like I sing and dance along with it, the entire time, every single song…
Amusing White Christmas trivia:
White Christmas was the first Paramount film released in VistaVision.
Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen only sang “Sisters” together (and most of Vera-Ellen’s part was dubbed by Rosemary Clooney). All other Vera-Ellen songs were sung by Trudy Stevens. But Vera-Ellen sure could dance (at only 18Vera-Ellen was one of the youngest Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall).If you like Rosemary Clooney’s voice in the movie, note a change when you’re listening to the original soundtrack. Rosemary Clooney wasn’t available, it’s really Peggy Lee you’re hearing. Later an actual soundtrack with Crosby, Clooney, Kaye and Stevens was released on CD.
The photo shown by Vera-Ellen of the Haynes’ brother Benny is really Carl Switzer, who played Alfalfa in The Little Rascals.
White Christmas was directed by Academy Award winning directorMichael Curtiz, also directed the classic Casablanca.
The title song, written by Irving Berlin originally used in the 1942Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire classic, Holiday Inn. It won the film an Oscar for Best Original Song.
The stunning and talented Rosemary Clooney is also the Aunt of George Clooney and was in an episode of ER with him.
The choreography for WC was by an uncredited and young Bob Fosse.
The General played by successful character actor Dean Jagger had a nearly 60 years in over 100 films.
Vera-Ellen played the part of the younger sister, but Rosemary Clooney was actually seven years younger than Vera-Ellen.
White Christmas was the top grossing film of 1954.
In the summer, readers run away from blogs like swimmers running out of the water away from the shark in Jaws (We’re going to need a bigger blog).
And many, many memes.
out of more than 150,000 warriors who went in that day, no one knows for sure how many died. But her work brought many names of fallen soldiers into the historical records and onto plaques and made us realize there were more lives lost than we had understood.
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