Avatar on DVD

I cannot believe this movie was so popular when released in 2009. All I can say is Americans sure must be cynical to think our US Marines Corps in Iraq leaving with their tail between their legs during Obama's drawdown is the enemy in James Cameron's pretentious portrayal here. This tawdry film sinks to a new low like his outstanding Titanic. Unlike the Sunnis & Shia in Mideast political insurgency, the Na'vi on the planet Pandora (Pandora's box perhaps?) are seen as a primitive civilization much like our Native American nations-living in a tree of souls, riding around on flying reptiles, equipped with poisonous bows and arrows. Dances With Wolves in a Jurassic Park meets Tarzan. Real acting is forsaken with special effects of blue monkeys in a Garden of Eden. The premise of this show errs with the cynical notion the USMC seeks to secure mining rights for a floating rock from the floating mountains by invading Pandora using helicopter gunships & walking Star Wars-like transformers. Then the movie audience is patronized to accept our wheelchair ridden hero as a dreamwalker, teleported as an experimental hybrid of human DNA and the indigenous tribes by climbing into a computerized clamshell to be embedded with the alien inhabitants-not convincingly at all as beaming down or up like in Star Trek. Our hero assimilates to their way of life which in the show is nothing like al-Qaeda or ISIS today; the Na'vi are not terrorists, the Marines in the show are the bad guys, ala blue coats in our Indian wars. Okay Cameron got that far, but where he fails in this farce is our leathernecks of Iwo Jima and Korea fame didn't go to Baghdad to take their oil. America sought to secure the Middle East from chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from being used in another 9/11-like attack on US soil. "Strong heart, stupid baby" rejects his citizenship a little like Edward Snowden of the intelligence agency did, to defeat our Marines and live happily ever after with his lady in the forest. Hell is paved with good intentions perhaps, but the only stupid babies are the ticket holders who got duped by a very unpatriotic James Cameron. Semper Fi.

The Revenant, My Review

The new Leonardo DiCaprio film about Hugh Glass the mountain man in the Rocky Mountain West was right up my street-at an AMC theater I only occasionally go to anymore. Set in 1820s Montana and Dakota Territory beaver pelt trappers from Missouri worked the frontier, competing with other fur companies, the French, hostile Arikaras & the unrelenting elements. The story is about his survival following a grizzly bear attack, then left alone for dead by his companions as they escape a savage Arikara attack for return to Fort Kiowa. A spiritual theme of honor persists throughout as Hugh Glass cares for his Pawnee son, following the death of Hawk's mother by French soldiers in the Mound villages. I believe the Mandans whom Lewis & Clark met along the Upper Missouri River were also in the region-not far from Sioux lands. Hugh Glass lives in the Native American tongue and philosophy of forbearance amid strife by respecting the wind, the trees through his humanity toward a Pawnee man eating buffalo meat as well as saving an Arikara woman being raped by Toussaint Charbonneau in the French camp. The French trade pelts with the Arikara but the Indians want horses instead; the Arikara are looking for the missing daughter Powage on the war path throughout the plot. Revenge is the main story line here as Hugh Glass seeks John Fitzgerald who took his rifle, supplies; betrayal by Fitzgerald ensues as he had agreed to stay with Glass and Jim Bridger to later be paid by Andrew Henry their leader gone ahead with the others for the fort.

The film is visually stunning with camera pans of great trees, ice-covered grasslands, golden spacious plains cut by what's likely portrayed as the Powder River country, the Yellowstone perhaps, the rapids scene, bison herds, elk crossing a stream and snow-covered mountains of avalanches, storms, bitter cold; the moon growing ever larger during this chronology in the winter landscapes! Hugh Glass makes it back alive, reclaiming his redemption as an Arikara party with the woman he saved trot past him on the river bank, following his encounter with Fitzgerald. This movie has been nominated for 12 Academy Awards, a great engaging performances comparable to Jeremiah Johnson, Dances With Wolves, Cast Away or even The Martian which I also saw on DVD this week.

Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp starring Kevin Costner came out in 1994 to my astonishment. I recently found it on Warner Brothers DVD at a supermarket, a 21 year-old movie! I've watched it twice now just this month; I believe it is one of the best Western  films ever made! This version of the famous lawman and the shoot out of the OK Corral in Tombstone surpasses the Kirk Douglass-Burt Lancaster 1956 one or the Kurt Russell-Val Kilmer 1993 show, because I feel Kevin Costner with director Lawrence Kasdan really bring out the history of the period in a comprehensive way-the story focuses on the Earp family, his brothers Virgil, Morgan, James and Warren. Gene Hackman plays their father in the beginning who taught them the value of blood relatives, the evil in the world and the law. Bill Pullman is Ed Masterson, first hired on by Wyatt as a buffalo skinner with his brother Bat-both later become deputies in Dodge City. Wyatt meets Doc Holliday, portrayed by Dennis Quaid with humor and loyal perseverance. The film unlike most of this genre moves meticulously with the characters and personalities, rather than the scenery. For just over three hours it held my interest with the sad death of his young wife in Missouri, Wyatt swearing off liquor for coffee & cigars, faro card games, enforcement of gun rules in town, the love scene with Josie, the murder of Morgan on the pool table, the four man march to the Corral and the payback in the Tucson train yard at night. There's insight to life as well: some men are affable or they're deliberate. When Mattie, Wyatt's live-in prostitute girlfriend tries to kill herself, Doc pours Wyatt a drink while musing about the merits of the other side-Doc suffering from tuberculosis. If Wyatt is going to break his fast, then Doc proposes he do it with a friend. Am I off the hook Wyatt asks, referring to Mattie for Josie? Doc replies" there's no hook, only what we do." Wyatt has his shot. I just can't believe the critics panned this movie. Maybe for some it's too slow or long, but Costner pulled it off and carried it through. This film stands out among Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, Tom Selleck-Sam Elliot Louis L'Amour series, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood productions. Wyatt Earp is one of my favorites!

Insight To Everyday History & Opinion: Trump

Insight To Everyday History & Opinion: Trump: I think Donald Trump needs a bigger airplane-called Air Force One. His sleek personal executive jet landed in Norwood MA for a fund raiser w...

A Letter To a Doctor

With all due respect to your education and medical experience I want to get more facts, knowledge regarding "malignancy" and the colonscopy procedure. Before I can submit to this hasty process since June (phone call appointment, July exam and August fecal test) I've lots of questions and self-educated pre-conceptions about all this. I'm also a very spiritual man with a lot of life wisdom, existential awareness and a college major in philosophy which always questions things.

Common sense probably mixed with normal fear, anxiety tells me a fecal test may or may not indicate colon cancer polyps-not all polyps bleed nor are cancerous, right? FIT detects the presence of blood but not the source. (I've had bleeding gum, also take aspirin). It sounds simple to "remove" a polyp or polyps but the truth is the removal creates a wound that surely bleeds inside my colon wall lining-and if the polyp is already cancerous you've just spread the malignancy inside to adjacent capillaries & lymph system accelerating cancer! Colon cancer in later stages consists of rectal bleeding, diarrhea, anemia/fatigue-none of which I've had continually.

Sedation by anesthesia doesn't turn me on. Propoful is a very dangerous substance-it killed singer Michael Jackson with an overdose. Dehydration, blood clots?

The prep before colonoscopy includes the laxatives which kill "good bacteria" which aid digestion. Disbacteriosis destroys the GI tract giving one food poisoning because incoming food cannot be sanitized by inadequate levels of hydrochloric acidity and enzymes resulting in nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, farting and dehydration. Wonderful!  The rotting of undigested food proteins produces CADAVERINE (lol) poisoning the bloodstream! Infection from pathogenic bacteria and inflammation can also occur. (Colitis, Crohn's raises cancer risk 32 times).

Other risks, realistic complications & unknown factors could include heart attack, stroke, internal bleeding, perforation, pulmonary embolism, kidney failure and/or intestinal obstruction. Fear, stress, humiliation,and depression also enter into the mix.

The odds of complications, injury exceed the actual existence of colon cancer as well. The colonoscopy really is naught anyway offering zero protection from colon cancer. Good fibers get destroyed contributing to weakened state; the synergestic bacteria which protects the mucosa can no longer fight cancer-causing pathogens. A virtual CTC uses radiation risk missing 27% of colorectal lesions giving false positive readings. A natural risk of colorectal 2 1/2-5%, cancer risk by CTC scan goes up 4-8 times or 20%. According to American Cancer Society there two kinds of polyps: adenomas potential cancer and the hyperplastic polyps, not pre-cancerous.

It takes 10-15 years for a polyp to become cancer. This means I could live to age 75 or 80 if the danger is there? Glad to do another FIT, second part of the pneumonia vaccine Oct. 9 appointment. Just me talking. See you again...  Sources: Mayo Clinic, WebMD, others

Trump

I think Donald Trump needs a bigger airplane-called Air Force One. His sleek personal executive jet landed in Norwood MA for a fund raiser with car magnate Ernie Boch Jr.in late August 2015 as Trump's poll numbers continue to climb. Why not a president Trump? Reagan was an actor, Carter a peanut farmer, so let's have a successful billionaire straighten out our mess!  The media loves to edit the man's remarks, spinning their "we're so offended" sound bites while the other GOP candidates languish in relative obscurity. Recall Mr. Trump did say SOME immigrants are nice people. But we do have laws which still have to be enforced. Build a wall with the lovely doorway. I don't think children born in US should be deported, but I think their parents, if illegally here, either obtain citizenship or they take their kids back to wherever! Unreasonable? At that recent most-watched debate FOX NEWS Meghan Kelly should've said he allegedly called women such & such, but I never heard him say that!  She singled him out that night which infuriated him for attacking his character-heck he is married and has women employed in his Trump Organization and Trump Entertainment Resorts. It would be interesting for media to disclose how many minorities work for him as well. Again there are laws. I've not yet heard from the others how we will defeat ISIS, but Trump says we can secure the oil fields over there, taking away the enemy's economic base. Oh that would violate their sovereignty you say. It's time our/Allies' airplanes, trains, malls, cargo ships, skyscrapers, military bases and newspaper office sovereignty were no longer violated by those depraved, barbaric renegades who profess a religion. And Iran will think twice about cheating on this nuclear deal while innocent people continue to be imprisoned there. I like Trump's appraisal about how rich people can control politicians with their lobbyists/ donors-by making the politicians dance like puppets-very honest thing to say by him. I think Donald Trump is exploiting his reality show success (I never watched it) to capitalize on his power, pull and popularity. He is funny & articulate. I love the story how he sued Bill Maher $5 million for calling Trump a name on Jay Leno in 2013. He won and gave it to charity. This country needs self-respect again after 8 years of coddling street thugs, and appeasing our enemies overseas with empty threats/ redlines. End this rubber stamp deficit spending to finance faulty health care websites and automobile ignition switches in near bankrupt stimulus practices. The Veteran's Administration has acted shamefully as our returning maimed people await attention, following a war which was lost by a patronizing, feckless leader who assuaged his audience for political gain in 2008. The new VA hospital project in Denver has skyrocketed to over a billion dollars! I believe Mr. Trump could solve these problems, making America great again. How many of you have taken time to look up his background on Wikipedia? I did- taking two hours to write down his military school and business experience. He's written 17 books about making money, real estate, golf and America. Everybody is talking about Trump. With a 24-30% lead in the polls, crowds turning out in Iowa, NH and South Carolina, maybe the other candidates need to wake up, join forces, and give in to a Trump nomination if Republicans want overcome past defeats by McCain & Romney to take back the White House and Air Force One in 2016!

National Park Service Approaches 100 Years

Next year the National Park Service will have a centennial birthday. I dunno about you but I love going to our parks! Ken Burns really did a great job on PBS with "America's Best Idea", the story of John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, Stephen Mather and other great people who found the foresight to set aside our extraordinary landmarks from total destruction in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. NPS was established within the US Dept. of Interior in 1916 after several parks had already appeared on our map! Those parks include Yellowstone 1872, Yosemite 1890, Mt. Rainier 1899, Mesa Verde 1906, Glacier in MT 1910 and Colorado's own Rocky Mountain 1915 which I honored with a May visit to Bear Lake, still covered in slushy ice and a Mother's Day snowfall. Before there were park rangers the US Army cavalry and the Buffalo Soldiers kept the poachers and loggers away. As time went by not only the views were protected, but the wildlife such as bears, wolves, and exotic birds became the focus of the NPS mission. Some parks have bus/tram systems to cut down on vehicle congestion such as Zion, Grand Canyon and Cape Cod National Seashore. Unlike BLM and National Forests where disbursed camping is allowed, the national parks require developed campground use only-you can't just pull off the road and sleep in your car. That said, I can say they've done a great job in 100 years-saving beautiful places of unique grandeur like Acadia, Canyonlands, Grand Tetons, Death Valley, Capitol Reef and Great Basin-some of my favorites. Over my lifetime I've stopped to ponder NHP-national historic parks which also remind us of where we've come from as a nation, like Minuteman, Saratoga, Gettysburg, Antietam, Yorktown and Appomattox. For sure Washington DC comprises quite a few memorials which all are administered by the Park Service: Lincoln, Washington Monument, Jefferson, FDR, Vietnam Wall and so on. So as a single, retired senior with no real responsibilities beyond an aging parent (siblings help) & an art profession, I am going to Alaska at long last in 2016; going on a limited budget/ time with a nine day stay in Anchorage to explore the trail network in this small city next to Cook Inlet with views of volcanoes west, the Chugach mountains east, glaciers and Kenai NP south. The train will take me to Denali entrance for two nights base before the bus trip into 6 million acre Denali NP with Mt. McKinley the focus, if the rain clouds part for a peek at its two summits 18,000 feet vertical up from the valley! At 20,320' elevation, Denali is higher than Whitney, Elbert, Rainier and the Matterhorn. I'll have to forgo the Arctic portion, Brooks Range and North Slope as the cost skyrockets beyond $6000. Alaska here I come! Happy birthday again in 2016 to our park system.