universally
not venerated or liked
nothing new in this

Adapted from the line, “This is not the way that Napoleon is seen in France. For most French people, whether they like it or not, Napoleon is a component part of their past and who they are now. This is not to say that he is universally venerated. There is nothing new in this.”, in the review, “Obsession, jealousies and Joséphine: has Ridley Scott’s new film captured the real Napoleon?” by Andrew Hussy in the Guardian.

Mr. Hussey takes in the vast catalogue of films made about Napoleon saying, “Napoleon Bonaparte is probably the most famous Frenchman of all time and is, according to academic sources, second only to Jesus as the most filmed figure in cinema history.” 

Mr. Hussey writes, “

 There are other difficulties in portraying Napoleon for an English-speaking audience. Most notably, in the English-speaking world, the prevailing view of Napoleon has been as a villainous caricature; he is either a jumped-up foreign baddie bent on invading Britain, or more sinisterly, a murderous war-mongering tyrant, a prototype for Adolf Hitler.

This is not the way that Napoleon is seen in France. For most French people, whether they like it or not, Napoleon is a component part of their past and who they are now. This is not to say that he is universally venerated. There is nothing new in this.”

And the review pivots from a review on Ridley Scott to the overall image and perception of Mr. Bonaparte today.

If anyone wants to draw historical allusions to anyone in the current news cycle, that is not for me.

Mr. Hussey does write, “… the true conflict lies in 21st century France – between those who still believe in the universal values of the Republic and those who argue that they are out of date and no longer suitable for a modern, multicultural country.”

While the French Revolution authored Liberté, égalité, fraternité, or ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’.

It was Mr. Bonaparte who adapted it to  liberté, ordre public or Liberty and .. Public Order.

But I digress.

I want to focus on the headline.

Has Ridley Scott’s new film captured the real Napoleon?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Already from just the previews I know that Mr. Scott had taken artist license with some of the scenes (see the battle on the ice.)

But who is there to answer the question?

Has Ridley Scott’s new film captured the real Napoleon?

I am reminded of the movie, “Sunrise at Campobello”.

A movie from the play of the same name that told the story of Franklin Roosevelt and the onset of polio that changed his life.

The movie came out when a lot of people, FDR’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt was still alive.

Mrs. Roosevelt was portrayed by Greer Garson.

Mrs. Roosevelt was asked for her impressions of the movie.

As I remember it and that’s good enough for me, she said that she found the movie interesting and enjoyed the characters in the movie.

She did wonder who they were though as they, “Certainly weren’t the Roosevelt’s.”

apparent that there
was a lot going on but
he wasn’t sure what

Not since the student riots in Chicago that took place while Brown Dog was a very casual student at the Moody Bible Institute had he seen this many people going to and fro.

It was apparent that there was a lot going on but he wasn’t sure what.

Another big crowd in his life had been the Ishpeming Bugle and Firefighters Convention a few years before but there the purpose had been quite specific.

Brown Dog had stood in the garage parking lot waiting for the head gasket of his van to be replaced and had watched several hundred buglers take turns doing their best.

This turned out to be more than enough bugling to last a lifetime.

From the novella, “Westwood Ho” originally published in Julip by Jim Harrison, Grove Press, 2000.

Westwood Ho is a Brown Dog story.

One of five Brown Dog novella’s written by Jim Harrison.

Against my better judgement I am listening to the complete Brown Dog collection from Audible on my drive to work.

I don’t mind … so much … how the reader uses affectations for different characters.

Though the number of fake Native American accent’s in the storyline does push the reader and my tolerance to the limit.

Why can’t they just read the book?

But no, its not the accents or the phraseology that gets me.

It’s the lack of research they put into to pronounce place names in Michigan’s Upper Pennisula that drives me first to laugh and then shake my head in disbelief.

MUN-Sing?

MUN-Sing for Munising?

Oh come on.

es CANA ba for Escanaba.

Ojibwa and Anishinaabe get so mangled I couldn’t figure out what the reader was saying.

Menominee, Ishpeming and Negaunee all get the treatment.

Oh come on.

The feller got a bye on Sault Ste. Marie as Mr. Harrison refers to it as just ‘The Soo’ but I was ready for Salt Saint Mary’s.

Still the sentiment from today as I drove to work emerged from the words.

The focus being It was apparent that there was a lot going on but he wasn’t sure what.

I read the papers.

I watch the news.

It was apparent that there is a lot going on but I am not sure what.

Is it New Year’s yet?

PS … a couple of day later it happened … Salt Saint May’s …. 🤷🏽‍♂️

crossroad coming up
zugswang or zwischenzug
and cannot go back

“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets.”

So said Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on his TV show.

The former Governor has been taken to task for saying such an awful thing though I am not aware of too many folks disagreeing that this is what is coming.

It is kind of like watching this Hurricane Lee out in the Atlantic Ocean and wondering if its coming to where I live, knowing if it does, it won’t be pretty.

What I want to know is was the former Governor quoting Malcolm X on purpose or just cribbing from the a speech on April 12, 1964, at the King Solomon Baptist Church, in Detroit, Michigan where Malcolm X said, “ … if we don’t cast a ballot, it’s going to end up in a situation where we’re going to have to cast a bullet. It’s either a ballot or a bullet.”

What a year.

1964.

And the Republican Candidate for President, Barry Goldwater, would say in his speech accepting the nomination at the Republican Convention on July 16th that, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

The last elected President had been gunned down in Dallas.

So when folks talked about guns and bullets and extremism, no one wondered what was being talked about.

I would turn 4 the day after Mr. Goldwater made his speech but I don’t remember that speech or even if there was a party or cake the next day.

With 11 kids it was easy to get over looked and my Dad usually took a week off in July and it happened a few times that I remember my Mom saying, “Is it the 17th? Your Birthday today?”

But I digress.

Things are heating up around here and maybe the Former Governor is just calling it like he sees it.

Not a threat.

Fact.

That crossroad is coming into view.

Zugswang!

One of my favorite words.

It comes from chess.

It means that it is your turn and you have to make a move and any move and every move is A BAD MOVE.

I don’t know about you but all the choices we got coming look like bad choices.

And the choice to go back to where we were, well, that isn’t a choice either.

Zugswang.

Gotta move.

Gotta make a move.

Is there a chance of a zwischenzug?

Zwischenzug (ZWEISS-chen-Zug) is another chess term.

Zwischenzug according to wikipedia is a chess tactic in which a player, instead of playing the expected move, first interposes another move posing an immediate threat that the opponent must answer, and only then plays the expected move. It is a move that has a high degree of “initiative”.

Instead of playing the expected move, first makes another move.

A move that has a high degree of “initiative”!

Maybe it IS up to us.

Maybe it is zugzwang only if we let it be so.

Maybe if we can display a high degree of “initiative” we can pull a zwischenzug out of our hat.

I don’t know if it would take a high degree of “initiative” or a miracle but we better do something.

I can here Mr. Lincoln talking to us from Gettysburg, a place to really defined the use of the bullet over the ballot, when he said:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us —

that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion —

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain —

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom —

and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

enough to do in
serving God, country without
abandoning themselves

On November 15, 1862, Abraham Lincoln, quoting George Washington, issued a General Order Respecting the Observance of the Sabbath Day in the Army and Navy.

Abe quoting George.

Ought to be good enough for anybody.

Mr. Lincoln wrote:

The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for men and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the divine will demand that Sunday labor in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.

The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer nor the cause they defend be imperiled by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. “At this time of public distress,” adopting the words of Washington in 1776, “men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.” The first general order issued by the Father of his Country after the Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended:

The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.

Hoping and trusting

That we might endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.

Hoping against hope it seems somedays.

impossible to
listen without idea that
senses are deceived

No matter how familiar a person may be with modern machinery and its wonderful performances, or how clear in his mind the principle underlying this strange device may be, it is impossible to listen to the mechanical speech without his experiencing the idea that his senses are deceiving him.

So reads an article in in the journal, Scientific American.

The date of the article is December 22, 1877.

The subject of the article?

The article was written after an in office demonstration of Thomas A. Edison’s first phonograph.

As the Scientific American, it was a ” …simple little contrivance” as the machine itself is still working, or at least it was when Alistair Cooke demonstrated it in his America: A Personal History of the United States (which was produced in 1976 … this video itself is 50 years … how did that happen??)

The AI of its day and the phonograph inspired some of the same fears.

It is already possible by ingenious optical contrivances to throw stereoscopic photographs of people on screens in full view of an audience. Add the talking phonograph to counterfeit their voices, and it would be difficult to carry the Illusion of real presence much further.

The sky is falling … again.

Lets run and tell the King.

PS: Thinking of Kings and those who want to be, this article also had a warning for its day and today.

“The witness“, states the article, “in court will find his own testimony repeated by machine confronting him on cross examination.”