"Don't Lock Your Knees"

Yesterday, for the first time in nearly 34 years, THC received this advice.  The last occasion was on the day of his wedding when his best man, LDC, called him aside just prior to the start of the ceremony.  Expecting something profound, THC was instead merely told "don't lock your knees" because if he began to feel faint during the ceremony he would fall over if his knees were locked.  THC faithfully followed the suggestion, kept his knees loose, and has remained married for nearly 34 years so perhaps it was indeed profound advice.

Yesterday's admonition came during a visit to the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum and was in advance of the raptor exhibition in which assorted hawks, owls and falcons flew just over the heads of the assembled crowd.  The advice was given for the same reason - between the heat, dehydration and turning quickly to follow the birds you'll fall right over if you have your knees locked and become faint.  Some things never change.

THC highly recommends the museum which is spectacularly located on a hillside on the edge of the desert about 15 miles from downtown Tucson.  He also recommends that rather than go when we did in the middle of the day make it out there early in the morning before the sun gets too high.  Even on a March day that is only 80 degrees the direct sun can get pretty intense.  And the drive over Gates Pass Road to get to the museum is a treat.

In Every Dream Home A Heartache

In every dream home a heartache
And every step I take
Takes me further from heaven
Is there a heaven?
I'd like to think so

Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno and the Roxy Music gang from the mid-70s indulging in some existential angst.  

Susan B Anthony List v Driehaus

A very funny amicus brief has been filed with the US Supreme Court (there's a sentence you don't see everyday) and regardless of your political persuasion it makes for a very enjoyable read.  It was filed by PJ O'Rourke, noted humorist and author (Parliament of Whores is THC's favorite), and the Cato Institute, a libertarian group.
(PJ)
The case, Susan B Anthony List v Driehaus is a free-speech case which oddly enough has reached the Supreme Court.  The Ohio statute involved presents the question "can a state government criminalize political statements that are less than 100% truthful?"

You can find more background on the case by reading this



The O'Rourke/Cato brief is non-partisan, poking fun at everyone across the political spectrum (including the Supreme Court itself) and invoking Stephen Colbert's concept of "truthiness" to make its point about the dangers of regulating political speech or, as the brief puts it:

This case concerns amici because the law at issue undermines the First Amendment's protection of the serious business of making politics funny.

An excerpt is below but THC urges you to read the whole thing (including the footnotes) as it is by far the most entertaining legal brief he has ever read.

While George Washington may have been incapable of telling a lie, his successors

have not had the same integrity. The campaign promise (and its subsequent violation),

as well as disparaging statements about one’s opponent (whether true,

mostly true, mostly not true, or entirely fantastic),are cornerstones of American democracy.

Indeed, mocking and satire are as old as America, and if this Court doesn’t believe

amici, it can ask Thomas Jefferson, “the son of a half-breed squaw, sired by

a Virginia mulatto father.”

Or perhaps it should ponder, as Grover Cleveland was forced to, “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?”

In modern times, “truthiness”—a “truth” asserted“from the gut” or because it

“feels right,” without regard to evidence or logic —is also a key part of

political discourse. It is difficult to imagine life without it, and our political discourse

is weakened by Orwellian laws that try to prohibit it. 

After all, where would we be without the knowledge that Democrats are

pinko-communist flag-burners who want to tax churches and use the money to fund

abortions so they can use the fetal stem cells to create pot-smoking lesbian ATF agents

who will steal all the guns and invite the UN to take over America? 

Voters have to decide whether we’d be better off electing Republicans, those hateful,

assault-weapon-wielding maniacs who believe that George Washington and Jesus Christ

incorporated the nation after a Gettysburg reenactment and that the only thing 

wrong with the death penalty is that it isn’t administered quickly enough to secular-

humanist professors of Chicano studies.

Hey, That's My Shirt!

Faithful readers know that THC was a big fan of Breaking Bad (see Baby Blue) and is a proud owner of a Los Pollos Hermanos T-shirt.  Well, according to The Smoking Gun, so is Daniel Kowalski, the young owner of a meth lab busted by the police.

Los Pollos Hermanos is the fast-food chain owned by Gus, Walter White's most formidable nemesis.

Weird Volcanic Craters

THC is a sucker for this kind of stuff.  If you are too, you can find some intriguing pictures at myscienceacademy.org

My favorite, because it is embedded in a populated area, is in Xico, Mexico, on the south end of the Mexico City megalopolis.

They Died With Their Boots On

The Misremembering History Series

THC recently rewatched, for the first time since childhood, They Died With Their Boots On, a 1941 film starring Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer.  Hollywood movies have always had a strained relationship with historical accuracy but this film may be the champion containing nothing even vaguely related to real events (with one exception noted below) though there was, indeed, a George Armstrong Custer and he wound up on the losing side at the Little Big Horn.

According to the movie, General Custer single-handedly turned the tide of the Civil War and won the battle of Gettysburg with his brave cavalry charge.  In his Western service he displayed faultless judgement.  The night before the Little Big Horn he knew he was doomed due to circumstances beyond his control but gallantly went ahead the next morning though, in reality, he did not even know there was a Sioux encampment nearby.

Along with the stunning historical fabrications there was another aspect that THC had not picked up the last time he watched the movie on TV as a child - the treatment of Indians.  It is much more sympathetic to the Indians than THC remembered and certainly more favorable than what has become the popular version since the 1970s; that prior to then Hollywood always portrayed Indians as as untrustworthy savages.

This is seen throughout the film but most pointedly in a scene that take place the night before the Little Big Horn when Custer attempts to send a British military observer attached to his command (Lt Butler) to the rear with a message.  Butler refuses and the following dialogue ensues.

Lt. Butler: Why are you asking me to go back with it?
Custer: Well, for one thing you're an Englishman, not an American.
Lt Butler: Not an American! What do you Yankees think you are? The only REAL Americans in this merry old parish are on the other side of the hill with feathers in their hair.
Custer: You're probably right about that. 

Butler stays with Custer and dies the next day.  Of course, there was not really a British military observer with Custer.  And, for that matter, George Armstrong Custer did not speak with an English accent, as Errol Flynn does in the movie!  

Indians are portrayed as honest and brave in the film. The villains are the corrupt white traders and politicians who are cheating the Indians and the plot of the film revolves around Custer's attempt to expose this chicanery and to help the tribes.  The movie sets the origin of the Little Bighorn campaign in a plot by the traders and politicians to trigger an Indian war so their land can be seized.  Come to think of it, that's probably the most accurate part of the film..

Here's the trailer for the film.  It's a hoot.

They Died With Their Boots On is not the only movie of the period that looks a little different when watched today.  John Ford's Fort Apache (1948), starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda, is also sympathetic to the Indians.   In the movie, a new cavalry commander arrives at Fort Apache.  Lt Colonel Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda) is a martinet who despises Indians and runs his command by the book. Capt Kirby York (John Wayne) has been at the post for many years and tries vainly to get Thursday to treat the Apaches, led by Cochise (Miguel Iglan) with respect, and to replace the corrupt Indian agent who is driving the Apaches to revolt.  And Shirley Temple is in the film!

You can watch below some scenes from Fort Apache, along with commentary from AO Scott of the NY Times that strains a little too hard for current day relevance.