Gerry Charlotte Phelps

Microsoft: No More Keyboards

(Image from limilight-189.static.daily motion.com)

Not only that - no more mouses either!  See video at No more keyboards...;   Video is just 2 minutes.  It'll be a whole new world! 

(Hat Tip to Fred and Gene Hannah)
 

'Charlie Wilson's War'

Last night I saw "The True Story of Charlie Wilson", a 2-hour special on the History Channel, with the original Charlie Wilson himself and some of the other original characters the roles in the movie were based on, such as the 2 CIA agents, the Julia Roberts role and the belly-dancer's role.  Fascinating.

And a reminder - that one person, or just a handful of people, can sometimes change the grand course of history.  An all-out, grueling effort can fail, or make all the difference.  Charlie Wilson and friends proved it again.

A review of "Charlie Wilson's War" is at http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071221/NATION/549681582/1008 .

Some of Reagan's old staffers have recently complained that the film gives too much credit to Charlie and the Democrats and not enough to the Republicans who also made this happen.  Could be.  I'll have a better idea after I see the film. 

Meantime, "The True Story of Charlie Wilson" will play again on the History Channel on Friday, December 28, at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. (presumably Eastern Time.)

See "Noelle!"

                                                    "Noelle"

In the prize winning movie "Noelle," Father Jonathan Keene - a cold, impatient Catholic priest - arrives in a tiny fishing village the week before Christmas to do what he does best - shut down a dying parish.  But things take an unexpected turn as he becomes entangled in the various lives of the villagee's eccentric characters, including their beautiful librarian, the childlike priest he is displacing, and the magical experience of Mrs. Worthington's legendary Christmas Party, where everyone is welcome and anything is possible.

You should drop by!

See if it is playing at a movie near you by going to http://www.noellethemovie.com.  If not, seeing if you can show it at your church, or another venue would be a great idea!

Warm, good family fun, and a heart-warming Christmas message - the kind of movie that should get around more..

You Gotta See 'Bella!'

                                  (Image from jpcatholic.com)

A rare jewel of a movie.  Powerful and passionate, yet intimate and profoundly moving.  Rings true. In fact, based on a true story.  Already winner of many prizes.  Brings tears to eyes, willing or not. 

You gotta see this one!  But hurry - its run is almost over.  Don't miss it! 

                                             (Preview of "Bella)

"Bella" is a moving portrait of a broken man who's brought back to life through helping an anguished woman.

The little-known cast is sensational.  Star Eduardo Verastegui, Mexican leading man (the 'Brad Pitt of Latin America') brings quiet intensity and great heart to his portrayal of Jose, a man hiding behind a beard, after a sudden fall from soccer star to chef in a Mexican restaurant.  Co-star Tammy Blanchard is pitch-perfect as Nina, a just-fired waitress, newly pregnant, tough, and alone in the world.  Both absolutely earned Oscars!  One only hopes they will get them. 

There are also other Oscar-candidates in this tremendous movie:  Jose's brother Manny (Manuel Perez), truly outstanding; and Jose's parents (Angelica Aragon and Jaime Terelli) who make us acutely homesick for the Hispanic families we have known. 

__

Then in a brilliant role almost too brief to register, Ali Landry as Celia, a just-bereaved young mother.  Her sudden grief is excruciatingly real as she attacks Jose, runs away from him to a cop, but back to Jose again, the one whose trauma mirrors her own.  If she does not get an Oscar nomination for this, it simply would not be fair.

__

"Bella" is based on a true story, about a soccer pro whose life is forever changed by a horrible accident.  It is also a tearjerker, true.  But one you will long remember and probably, want to see again some day.

(Some other links about "Bella."  http://backyardconservative.blogspot.com/2006/11/bella-movie.html, for who made the movie and why;  more information from http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200710/COM20071023c.html , interviews and trailers from http://www.bellamoviesite.com/resources/news/archives/category/news.)

Men and Women: Vive La Difference

                               (Video from ymarsakar.wordpress.com)

Are man and women different?  Oh yes!  Although feminists have insisted for decades that there is no difference, or that any differences are culturally learned, not inborn, science is re-acknowledging that male/female differences are hard-wired.

How can the difference be demonstrated? Ymarsakar brilliantly uses ballet and ice skating to illustrate how men and women rely on, and play to, each other's strengths.   Their different strengths are, in countless ways, a good fit.  She says:

The ice dance seems rather a fitting analogy...since the man is the base and foundation, using his strength to lift up the woman, holding her and more or less protecting her with his strength..  She could not, after all, do what her partner does for her, yet it doesn't need to be exactly the same.  A woman on the ice contributes grace, beauty and perfection of form and motion.  Different from what the man contributes, which is a foundation, strength, endurance, and so forth.

Watch the video and just listen and see.

But neoneocon, a former ballet dancer, speaks not only of the grace of the woman, but also of her tremendous strength.

Back when I was dancing, my personal experience with partnering surprised me.  What is required of the woman is what you don't see -- what is hidden by the impression of tremendous grace -- and that is a tremendous and steely strength. 

Not upper-body strength to lift: that's what the man must have, who must also take care to hide the effort involved and not telegraph it or make it look any way but easy.

And it's not too hard for an onlooker to imagine how difficult it must be to lift a woman...even a 100 pound woman is harder to lift than a bag of groceries.  It's much harder to imagine the strength a woman needs to hold her pose in the air, even upside down at times, and to conquer her fear and trust a partner who quite literally holds her fate in his hands.

Trusting a partner who holds her fate in his hands?  Yes, literally.  See this video of ice-skating champions from Russia, where the man, holding the woman high above his head, loses footing and she crashes down from that height, with such force that it knocks her out.

The sad part of that story was not what happened to her, but to him.  She was OK, and quickly regained her willingness to trust him on the ice again.  But he was not able to bring himself to risk lifting her again, and left ice skating.

Which perhaps brings us to the crux of the relations between men and women.  That is, the courage to trust.  It has to be there.  If lost, it has to be regained.  Then paired men and women can often move, function and live almost as one - united in body, heart and mind, despite their tremendous differences.  That very real possibility keeps us pursuing the dream of men who complement women, and women who complement men.  Who become more, together, than each could be separately. 

Perhaps ballet and ice dancing move us so because they lift up the dream before us again.  And la difference?  Vive!

You Gotta See This Six-Year-Old

In case you thought that Britain's talent was all used up when Paul Potts aced the grand prize on "Got Talent," here is a six-year-old Briton named Connie competing.  Watch what she does to Simon.  Here she sings "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  You won't forget this one.

Click the above image to view this video

Hat tip to thedailyreel.com.

Paul Potts Sings "Time to Say Goodbye"

For all those of you who are fans of the song "Time to Say Goodbye", here is Paul Potts singing it.  It is his second perfomance on Britain's "Got Talent" show, before his third performance which won him the grand prize.  Enjoy!

Click here to see the video.  Or at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHYYz_mGP1U

(Hat Tip to thedailyreel.com)

Paul Potts Wins!

(Click Image above to hear Paul Potts sing in Semi-Finals)

(The same performance as in the post below this one.)

Then click here to hear Paul sing at the finals last night - and win!  Or at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-dsTWaiRdQ

Last night, in Britain's "Idol" equivalent, "Got Talent," Paul Potts again sang "Nessun Dorma" and won the finals, receiving the grand prize.  What he will do with the $200,000 prize money?  He says,  pay off bills.  Get his teeth fixed. 

It also looks like he may sing for the Queen.

Go, Paul!

"Idol's" Best - You Gotta See This!

       watch video

Anybody here want to vote for Paul Potts?

Don't Touch My Bone!

(Image from kennelclub-petinsurance.co.uk)

The funniest thing you ever saw!  2 minutes, here

(Hat Tip and thanks to Warren Yowell)

Now - This Horse Outdanced Blue Mare

    Anky Van Grunsven on Winner Keltec Salinero

         (Image from equestrianconnection.com)

Now see the horse that won over the prancing blue mare below, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPJGEzI3aIc.

(Hat tip to Joan Archibald)

Incredible Dancing Horse

                  (Image from kk-horses.com)

The most beautiful thing you ever saw!  (The last half especially.)

See at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX-0Jav1fGg.

(Hat Tip to JoanClar)

Hydrogen Fueled Car, No Steering Wheel

(Hat Tip to Joan Archibald)

It is beautiful.  Watch the prototype driving around, at

http://youtube.com/v/ry6w3mRm-FM.  Made in America.

See The Award-Winning "Murat" Video

(Hat Tip to Leeann Clark.)

This stirring 8-minute performance by "Murat" at

http://www.dailymotion.com/visited/search/jerome%20murat/video/xf9oo_jerome-murat= will bring delight to your day  No wonder it won the award.  Enjoy!

"THE LOOMING TOWER" INTERVIEW

"The Looming Tower" is "the best book on Al Queda," already on many best-seller lists.  Hugh Hewitt interviews author Lawrence Wright on his radio show on 9/22/06.  The transcript is here.

The interview starts:

"HH.  If you're driving, you'll want to pull over.  If you're in your house, you'll want to sit down.  For the next two hours, I'm going to talk with Lawrence Wright, author of 'The Looming Tower: Al Queda and The Road to 9/11,' about the nature of al Queda, where it came from, where it is going, what it did on 9/11, and what it did before and since.  It's a conversation you really don't want to miss. The Looming Tower is now on best seller lists across the United States, widely hailed as the most comprehensive history of al Queda ever put forward.  (Emphasis added.) 

"Lawrence Wright is a staff writer at the New Yorker, a fellow at the Center on Law and Security at New York University.  He's the author of five previous books.  He's a graduate of Tulane, and I'm pleased to welcome him.  Lawrence Wright, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show."

You really should read the entire excellent interview.  It amounts to an outstanding review of the book, plus additional material.  Your understanding of al Queda and our relation to it will be greatly enhanced.

You Gotta, Hafta See "End of the Spear"

First, this movie is nothing like you might think.  About religious people, but with remarkably little "religion" talk.  It is like you just dropped in on these families.  Nothing feels cloying or faked.  Authentic from first to last.

It opens with a view of the Ecuadorian Amazon River basin that is - I haven't thought this for a long time - heartbreakingly beautiful.  Just makes you pause in your breathing.  Joan Sutherland is singing from "Lakme" as the tiny plane flys slow and low over the clear water.  Apparently the young missionaries thought Sutherland's singing would communicate their peaceful intentions.

They prepare for contact by flying the small plane over the tribal territory over and over.  Eventually they begin to lower gifts on a long rope.  The tribe members are delighted and send gifts back.  Finally they think they have prepared long enough.  Five young men land the little plane on a sand bar by the river.

Some of them strip down to their shorts to show the almost naked tribespeople that they are just the same as they are.  A few brave ones come out of the jungle and tentatively touch them.  Sutherland's beautiful singing is playing loudly over a speaker.  A tribeswoman thinks one of the men is doing the singing and tells him in her language, "You are the tallest woman I ever saw!"  But things go badly wrong among the suspicious tribesmen waiting in the jungle's edge, and the spearing begins.  While not gory, the scene is very sad, very tragic because of the terrible misunderstanding.

The film is unexpectedly moving, over and over.  When the young missionary pilot is saying goodbye to his son.  When the officials arrive to tell the wives what happened.  When the film the pilot was making of the scene before the killing started has been recovered and is being viewed, we are seeing the fresh-made widows and orphans watching, with tears and laughter by turns.  We find our cheeks wet too.

The courage in the film is all of the silent type.  No speeches or yelling.  When the widows decide to go to the killer tribe themselves, they handle their very dangerous arrival with great calm and ingenuity. 

These missionaries were aware of how little time this tribe had.  They were so extraordinarily violent and lethal that the government authorities were preparing to attack them and if necessary, wipe them out.  So the missionaries took risks that they might not have taken under other circumstances.

This tribe, who speared each other as well as outsiders, was near extinction when the missionaries began to convert them.  They were down to just 250 members.  After the widows moved in among them, soon they grew to around 2000.  For the first time in the tribe's history, there began to be grandparents.  No one had survived the spearings long enough for that to happen before.

The pilot's son visited them long after, and his old friends among the tribe wanted him and his family to stay.  How one finally convinced him is the climax of the film.

Very simply, this is one of the finest films I have ever seen. 

(Be sure to stay for the credits, or you will miss one of the best parts.)

YOU GOTTA GET THE NEW "DEFENDER'S BIBLE!"

The book of Job in the Bible was always the hardest for me to understand.  This time, for the first time, I understand it.  And for the first time, I am swept by the depth and beauty of this oldest of all the books of the Bible.  How did this happen?  Through using Henry Morris' notes in his "Defender's Bible."

Of all my Bibles, the Defender's Bible is my all-time favorite.  For 10 years I have used it almost exclusively.  Now World Bible Publishers is bringing out a new version with greatly expanded notes.

Who is Henry Morris?  He may be the greatest living Bible teacher.  He is also a scientist, and the founder of the Institute for Creation Research.

He shows a remarkable ability to understand scripture from a scientific point of view, and to find new connections between parts of scripture.  A superb apologist, he is able to support the scientific truths in scripture, a 7-day creation over evolution, Jesus as God's incarnate Son and the inerrancy and full inspiration of scripture.  This Bible was also designed to defend all scriptures which have come under attack.

The translation is NKJ.  The appendices alone are worth the price of this extraordinary Bible. The footnotes comprise one of the finest Bible courses you will ever find.  They help the reader understand even the most difficult of passages, especially those about creation.  Over 3000 new notes and 2 appendices have been added to the original 6400 notes and 18 appendices. 

Dr. Morris considers this Bible his work of a lifetime, based on more than 50 years of scholarship and Bible study.  His testimony is that "the Bible can be believed just like it's written." 

No apologist, no discipler, no pastor or evangelist or teacher or student of the Bible should be without this exceptional Bible.  It is without equal.

(It can be ordered online, at ICR, Amazon or Barnes and Noble with various bindings and prices. A CD-Rom containing the entire Bible and notes plus the text of Morris' book "Many Infallible Proofs" is included with each copy.)

YOU GOTTA SEE "THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE!"

The Chronicles of Narnia created a medical miracle for me in prison.  Diki, one of my "prison kids," had bequeathed her set of Narnia books to me when she left.  Naturally, I refused to read them; they were for children!

But then the fearsome Asian flu epidemic of the 1970s slammed all of the prison at once, in just a few minutes.  Within 2 hours, the whole prison was locked down.  There was no other way.  In the first few minutes, the prison hospital was filled.  The staff was swiftly incapacitated.  One matron was hospitalized with double pneumonia in the first hour.  Most others went home sick.  They were too ill to work.  They could not treat us anyhow (there was no treatment) so the only thing they could do was lock us in until we all got over it.

It was not bird flu.  None of us died.  But in the first hours we coughed so hard that we threw up, so sick that we wondered if we were going to die.  Then got so much sicker that we were afraid we might not die after all!  It was a bad, bad time.  What I needed was a powerful pain-killer that would last 3-4 days.  A book that would be light reading, but so fascinating that I would forget how sick I was.  The Narnia books looked like they might work, so I started reading them.

They turned out to be perfect.  Not only did they make me forget my pain and misery, they were  so good that I read the whole 7-book set one and a half times without stopping.  Children's books, true; but also a delight for adults.  In later years I read them a couple more times.  Then read them aloud to my grandson, who, like me, was utterly caught up in them.

So like everyone else who loves C.S. Lewis' "The Narnia Chronicles," I just hoped that at least the movie would not mess the story up beyond recognition.  Last night, it was with both hope and concern that I sat down in the theatre.

Then - what a great experience!  Not at all the disappointment so many of us feared.  Instead, it was faithful to the book, non-sugary, surprisingly powerful, moving to tears at times and marvelously filmed. 

Forgive me for starting with the battle scenes, but they were - glorious!  Not gory, but rousing.  Peter, barely a young man (played by William Moseley,) tentatively bumbled his way into becoming a warrior and leader.  The dispicable Edward (Skandar Keynes) suddenly risked his life to save another.  The beautiful White Witch was awesomely threatening and skilled in battle.  Among the most memorable parts were flying griffiths and a phoenix as flaming fire-bird, fighting an air war over the battle field.  And once you have seen a cavalry charge that includes a rhinoceros, keeping pace with the line of racing horses as they tear into the enemy line, you can never again think of rhinos as anything but magnificent.

But the story is what is so central to Narnia; what happens to a land when wickedness takes over, what it is like for its citizens, especially those who resist the evil ruler, and the powerful and far-reaching consequences of acts of betrayal by just one person.  Then the gradual dawning of hope, as Aslan, the great lion, is rumored to be returning.  And why Aslan had to die, and how horrible it was, and the difference it made.  There were two times when Aslan appeared that caused me to gasp, and to weep.  He was fearsomely beautiful.  Aslan remained a fitting and wonderful way to understand about Christ.  The story was honored, and intact.

The young people were tremendously authentic, natural and engaging in their roles.  The little girl, Georgie Henley, who played young Lucy with her unyielding decency, seems sure to be a new child star.

The computer-generated parts were excellent, better than I have seen yet, without the awkwardness and darker hue of many of their predecessors.  Tilda Swinton, as the delicately icy White Witch, was a riveting presence who added layer on elegant layer of charm, spite, stragetic genius and high authority to her character as the ruler over evil forces.  She should get an oscar nomination.  No doubt she won't, since it is a "family" film with a story of Christ as the undercurrent.  If so, what a pity!  She absolutely earned it.

But no denial of an Oscar will keep millions of us away from this fine film.  It is ours now! 

(And by the way - you will miss something if you leave before the credits are over.)

YOU GOTTA READ "PAIN FREE!"

Sometimes I caught an intriguing radio program on Saturdays called "Pain Free."  Intriguing because it went like this:  the host, Pete Egoscue, would ask the caller, "Where do you hurt?"  The caller would say something like "My lower back."  Then Pete would tell them something like "OK.  Get up, go stand with your back against the wall and do this."  Then "Now do so-and-so with your arms."  Then "Now go do so-and-so."  About then Pete would ask the caller "How's your back?"  Then there would be a pause.  Then the guy would say "It doesn't hurt!"

With the next caller, again "Where do you hurt?"  Answer: "My carpal tunnel."  Pete: "OK.  Go do this."  Then "Go do this."  Then "Go do this."  Then "How's your carpal tunnel?"  Then a pause.  Then the caller would say "It doesn't hurt."  And the next caller would say the same thing.  And the next, and the next.

Every time I would think "I've gotta get that book!"  Then forget.  But a couple of months ago I finally got "Pain Free."  Distracted and lazy as I am, I only did one exercise.  It was for my neck pain, but for that, I had to do a shoulder exercise, not a neck exercise.  Typical of Pete.  So to save time and multi-task, I did the exercise while I was doing my daily walk.  (Not for the whole walk, just when I remembered to do it.)

Well, in a few days, my neck pain (from an old whiplash injury) just stopped.  Great!  I continued with the shoulder exercise while walking.  It improved my posture, and I liked that.  The next thing I noticed was that I did not want one of my pillows at night anymore.  It was the little one I put on top of my regular pillow.  After a few more nights, I no longer wanted the regular pillow either.  Now I am very comfortable with no pillow at all - something the book never mentioned.  And still no more neck pain.  And my rounded shoulders are straightening up too.

Why did I not do more?  Well, I gave the book away to a friend in pain before I could read the rest!  And ordered another.  But still did not do any more.  Why not?  Well, I gave the second book away to a second friend in pain before I could read the rest.  And ordered another.  So now I am on my third copy - and determined not to give this one away.  My attitude now?  Get your own book!  (And my third and fourth friends in pain are doing just that.)

Pete Egoscue spent about a year in bed recovering from a bad wound he got in the Viet Nam War.  Then another year in therapy.  Then he became a physiologist and therapist.  He learned that our deepest layer of muscles are "posture muscles" designed to hold our bones in the proper relation to each other.  That when they are strong enough to do that, our joints fit together properly and move properly and don't hurt.  That when the posture muscles are too weak - a result of our sedentary lifestyle - our joints fit together wrong.  Then they wear unevenly and we have problems, then joint pain.  His book "Pain Free" teaches how to strengthen the posture muscles so that they can keep our joints functioning well, and without pain.

How well does it work?  Well, at his clinic he gives 100% refund unless the client is 100% pleased with the result.  He is also the one who got Jack Nicklaus back to playing tournament golf after extreme back pain had stopped him from playing at all.  And his methods are simple enough to learn out of a book.  It sure doesn't cost much - not to mention a lot less than therapy, drugs or surgery.

This Saturday I caught his radio show again.  A woman caller was just raving about how wonderful his method was, how much it had helped her, how many of his books she had given away, etc.  Then Pete asked, "Where do you hurt?"  "Oh, it's my jaw" she told him.  "Very bad?"  Pete asked?  "Yes, when I go to the dentist I can't open my mouth very far," she told him.  So he started.  "Go stand with your back up against the wall."  "OK."  (I'm repeating as best as I can remember what he told her, but probably not accurately.)  "Now stand pigeon-toed."  "OK."  "Now do..." something else, I forget what. 

Then he asked her, "How is your jaw?"  Then there was that pause.  Then she said, "It doesn't hurt!"  Then Pete did something I never heard him do before.  She really broke him up.  He started laughing and couldn't stop.  She kept talking, and he kept laughing.  I'm guessing he was just amazed that someone who knew so much about his methods had not tried them for the pain in her jaw.  (I don't know if he ever stopped laughing because I always turn off the radio while I'm entering a freeway, so I missed the rest of the show.)

Anyhow - unless you have a perfect body that never hurts - you gotta read "Pain Free"!

YOU GOTTA READ "PAIN FREE!"

Sometimes I caught an intriguing radio program on Saturdays called "Pain Free."  Intriguing because it went like this:  the host, Pete Egoscue, would ask the caller, "Where do you hurt?"  The caller would say something like "My lower back."  Then Pete would tell them something like "OK.  Get up, go stand with your back against the wall and do this."  Then "Now do so-and-so with your arms."  Then "Now go do so-and-so."  About then Pete would ask the caller "How's your back?"  Then there would be a pause.  Then the guy would say "It doesn't hurt!"

With the next caller, again "Where do you hurt?"  Answer: "My carpal tunnel."  Pete: "OK.  Go do this."  Then "Go do this."  Then "Go do this."  Then "How's your carpal tunnel?"  Then a pause.  Then the caller would say "It doesn't hurt."  And the next caller would say the same thing.  And the next, and the next.

Every time I would think "I've gotta get that book!"  Then forget.  But a couple of months ago I finally got "Pain Free."  Distracted and lazy as I am, I only did one exercise.  It was for my neck pain, but for that, I had to do a shoulder exercise, not a neck exercise.  Typical of Pete.  So to save time and multi-task, I did the exercise while I was doing my daily walk.  (Not for the whole walk, just when I remembered to do it.)

Well, in a few days, my neck pain (from an old whiplash injury) just stopped.  Great!  I continued with the shoulder exercise while walking.  It improved my posture, and I liked that.  The next thing I noticed was that I did not want one of my pillows at night anymore.  It was the little one I put on top of my regular pillow.  After a few more nights, I no longer wanted the regular pillow either.  Now I am very comfortable with no pillow at all - something the book never mentioned.  And still no more neck pain.  And my rounded shoulders are straightening up too.

Why did I not do more?  Well, I gave the book away to a friend in pain before I could read the rest!  And ordered another.  But still did not do any more.  Why not?  Well, I gave the second book away to a second friend in pain before I could read the rest.  And ordered another.  So now I am on my third copy - and determined not to give this one away.  My attitude now?  Get your own book!  (And my third and fourth friends in pain are doing just that.)

Pete Egoscue spent about a year in bed recovering from a bad wound he got in the Viet Nam War.  Then another year in therapy.  Then he became a physiologist and therapist.  He learned that our deepest layer of muscles are "posture muscles" designed to hold our bones in the proper relation to each other.  That when they are strong enough to do that, our joints fit together properly and move properly and don't hurt.  That when the posture muscles are too weak - a result of our sedentary lifestyle - our joints fit together wrong.  Then they wear unevenly and we have problems, then joint pain.  His book "Pain Free" teaches how to strengthen the posture muscles so that they can keep our joints functioning well, and without pain.

How well does it work?  Well, at his clinic he gives 100% refund unless the client is 100% pleased with the result.  He is also the one who got Jack Nicklaus back to playing tournament golf after extreme back pain had stopped him from playing at all.  And his methods are simple enough to learn out of a book.  It sure doesn't cost much - not to mention a lot less than therapy, drugs or surgery.

This Saturday I caught his radio show again.  A woman caller was just raving about how wonderful his method was, how much it had helped her, how many of his books she had given away, etc.  Then Pete asked, "Where do you hurt?"  "Oh, it's my jaw" she told him.  "Very bad?"  Pete asked?  "Yes, when I go to the dentist I can't open my mouth very far," she told him.  So he started.  "Go stand with your back up against the wall."  "OK."  (I'm repeating as best as I can remember what he told her, but probably not accurately.)  "Now stand pigeon-toed."  "OK."  "Now do..." something else, I forget what. 

Then he asked her, "How is your jaw?"  Then there was that pause.  Then she said, "It doesn't hurt!"  Then Pete did something I never heard him do before.  She really broke him up.  He started laughing and couldn't stop.  She kept talking, and he kept laughing.  I'm guessing he was just amazed that someone who knew so much about his methods had not tried them for the pain in her jaw.  (I don't know if he ever stopped laughing because I always turn off the radio while I'm entering a freeway, so I missed the rest of the show.)

Anyhow - unless you have a perfect body that never hurts - you gotta read "Pain Free"!

YOU GOTTA SEE "THE GREAT RAID"

Yesterday I saw “The Great Raid.”  I cried, and actually clapped and cheered, more than once.  And I thought “This is one the best movies made in many years.”  Powerful and moving, it tells the true story of how a large campful of American POWs were rescued, from behind Japanese lines, by a small band of Army Rangers and some valiant Filipino guerrillas in World War II.  It is based on eyewitness accounts in the books, “The Ghost Soldiers” (which I own) and “The Great Raid on Canabatuan.”  Documentary film is inserted throughout the film, most memorably during the credits at the end when the actual released prisoners are shown leaving the camp, then arriving to cheering crowds in San Francisco.

This combines three great parallel stories of WWII in the Pacific.  One is the Ranger’s raid to free the POWs. One is the endurance and courage of the POWs.  And one is the incredibly courageous Filipino resistance, including an American nurse in the capital, who all risked life and torture every day to smuggle medicine and food to the sick and starving POWs.  The nurse, Margaret Utinski, (portrayed by Connie Neilson in a bravura performance) was eventually captured and tortured.  Later she was given a medal by the U.S. Congress.

In the prison camp, Joseph Fiennes (of “Shakespeare in Love” fame) gives what may be the best performance of his life as the fictional Major Gibson. When asked how he achieved such skeletal thinness for the role, he said “I just stopped eating.”  The story of the toughness, courage and dogged tenacity of the weakened prisoners and the brutality of the guards is gritty and historically accurate, powerfully moving without being sentimental.

The raid itself was carried out with only a few hours of preparation by Rangers who, though well-trained by the maverick Lt. Colonel Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt, the cop from “Miss Congeniality”), had never fought in a battle.  It was known that the Japanese killed all prisoners rather than letting them be freed by the advancing U.S. army.  Two large camps were only 30 miles away from the fast-moving U.S. front lines.  Word came down to get there fast and set those prisoners free before they were executed.  With only 48 hours to go, Col. Mucci gives the job of planning and leading the raid to young Captain Bob Prince (James Franco of “Spiderman.”) 

The untried Rangers, assisted by the Filipino guerrillas they first met when they were literally on the way there, sneaked through Japanese held territory all the way to the camps.  Nearby Filipino villages risked their existence (whole villages were often wiped out as punishment) by providing carts for prisoners who could not walk.  The Rangers had to cross an open field in front of the camp in daylight, before hiding in a ditch near the fence until dark.

Just the numbers alone would make the Great Raid incredible.  All prisoners were rescued, with just one prisoner death, and one Ranger death.   Twenty Filipino irregulars also died at a bridge, holding back the Japanese from reinforcing the guards at the prison camp.  But over 800 Japanese died; all the camp guards plus hundreds at the bridge.

It is a stand-up-and-cheer, bowl-you-over kind of movie that leaves you wanting to see it again.  Yet most reviews are terrible, and attendance is low.  Why it that?  Two reasons.

Most reviews are terrible because, as can quickly be seen in most of them, the liberal reviewers are so viscerally opposed to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration, and the very idea of “Just Wars” of liberation, that they trash this movie because it is so effective in showing the reasons for such wars.  Still, truly professional reviewers like Roger Ebert, liberal or not, give it high praise (see at www.rogerebert.suntimes.com.)

The other reason is that the movie was poorly publicized, because of the war mounted by Eisner of Disney (the one responsible for changing the Disney image from family-oriented to smut-friendly) against Henry Weinstein of Miramax.  Weinstein approved this movie right after 9/11 for immediate release.  But like a lot of Miramax movies, it was kept on the shelf by Disney.  Ebert explains in the following quote: (which also suggests he is no fan of the war in Iraq.)

“It was completed by 2002, but like a lot of Miramax inventory sat on the shelf (Miramax won a “shelf award” at the Indie Spirits one year for the quality of its unreleased pictures).  Now that Disney and Miramax are going separate ways, Miramax is releasing a lot of those films in the final months of its original management.  ‘The Great Raid’ is perhaps more timely now than it would have been a few years ago, when ‘smart bombs’ and a couple of weeks of warfare were supposed to solve the Iraq situation.  Now that we are involved in a lengthy and bloody ground war there, it is good to have a film that is not about entertainment for action fans, but about how wars are won with great difficulty, risk and cost.”

What a shame that such a movie gets caught between an anti-war campaign from leftist reviewers, and the Eisner-Weinstein battle!  A truly great movie is being missed by millions who would love it. 

The word needs to go out!