With little actual warning, the HK cops-and-robbers thriller Infernal Affairs destroyed all comers this past Christmas season. At over 55 million Hong Kong dollars, the film has gone on to become the territory's second highest-grossing local film behind Shaolin Soccer. Cries of "Box Office Miracle" were trumpeted by Hong Kong's so-called fourth estate, which advanced the opinion that Hong Kong Cinema was revived. Still, it would be preferable if a box-office revival came with an actual good motion picture. Thankfully, they pulled it off; despite some flaws, Infernal Affairs is pretty good stuff.

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai stars as Yan, a police mole in the triads for the past ten years. He's been deep, deep undercover for so long that he's started to question his focus and sanity. Meanwhile, he has a mirror opposite on the other side. Andy Lau is Ming, a rising cop who's secretly a triad mole. For the same ten years, he's been feeding information to Sam (Eric Tsang), a ruthless triad kingpin who Yan currently works for. Sam's archenemy is Organized Crime and Triad Bureau Inspector Wong (Anthony Wong), who's Yan's only link to the police force. On a routine drug bust, both sides discover the presence of a mole within their ranks, and both sides charge their respective undercover with finding the offending party. However, Ming's exact loyalties are not entirely clear, which may mean problems for both Sam and Inspector Wong. Meanwhile, Yan tries not to be killed by either side.

Other than the killer concept, there's really nothing ultra new about Infernal Affairs. The mirror-image cop/criminal thing has been done to death in everything from Running Out of Time to Face/Off, and Infernal Affairs doesn't really get out from beneath that. The concept of opposing moles adds an extra layer, but it's still nothing more than a minor tweak to genre convention. The weak female roles are a good example of how Infernal Affairs typifies its genre. Kelly Chen appears as Dr. Lee, Yan's appointed psychiatrist and probably the greatest-looking health practitioner ever. However, despite Chen's presence, Dr. Lee doesn't do much more than provide Yan with a love interest, and Taiwanese singer Elva Hsiao's ballyhooed cameo is obligatory character backstory. If either woman had been lost, it likely wouldn't have hurt the film at all.

Conversely, the character of Ming's girlfriend Mary is underused. As played by Sammi Cheng, she's an overly spritely novelist who spouts metaphorical dialogue as if there were no tomorrow. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don't use her character to further flesh out Ming. Ming is a bad guy who wants to be a good guy, but our only real clue to this is his apparent reticence when he first enrolls in the police academy. The young Ming is played fittingly by Edison Chen, who shines in roles requiring only three lines of dialogue and no wannabe gangster posturing. When Chen is onscreen, we see that Ming wants no part of the undercover life; but when Andy Lau takes over, his objections to the life of a mole seem external: big promotions, new apartment, bubbly girlfriend. If he's outed as a triad mole then he loses those things—a prime motivation for wanting to be good. Those things aren't properly explored; sometimes, it seems that he simply is tired of being controlled by Sam.

What it all comes down to is "why." Yan wants to ditch the undercover life because he's tired of living in darkness. Ming wants to get out for seemingly selfish reasons, but is that entirely true? The moral murkiness that's offered up makes Ming seem only self-involved, and not really a mixture of good or evil. Andy Lau does a fine job with the character, and even brings a sinister quality to the proceedings. Then again, it would have been nice to have some confirmation of what exactly was going on with Ming. The character work in Infernal Affairs has been lauded by a variety of critics. It happens to be excellent genre work, but no new ground is truly covered, and in Ming's case potential was wasted.

However, what Infernal Affairs gets absolutely right is the thrill of the chase. There are some contrivances along the way (With a molehunt going on, wouldn't the respective moles freeze physical meetings with the opposing side?), but the mounting chase between the two leading characters creates gripping cinematic tension. Likewise, the fates of certain characters are affecting, and some of the plot twists are genuinely compelling. Co-directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak manage the film well, providing sharp, efficient direction and the presence of mind to not deviate too frequently into unnecessary filler. It probably made some people happy to throw in the obligatory romantic subplots, but the directors wisely spend little time there.

The rest of the production is similarly top-notch. The other male actors are fine in their iconic roles. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai brings his subtle strengths as an actor to the tried-and-true character of Yan, and Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang and Chapman To (as Yan's triad buddy) are excellent in their roles. Wong, especially, makes the rather small part of Inspector Wong a memorable one. His subtle underplaying creates more of a character than probably existed on paper. Furthermore, the cinematography (by Andrew Lau and Lai Yiu-Fai, with an assist from Christopher Doyle) is exemplary. This may be the most fittingly shot film of the year, with the dark, cool colors of the triad underworld contrasting with the stark, bright beauty of Hong Kong's daytime cityscape. A lot of this stuff is award material; expect to see Hong Kong Film Award nominations for many of the participants involved.

Still, the question does come up: was Infernal Affairs worthy of all money made at the box office? Given its massive box-office take, some might judge the film to be a victim of massive hype, and be disappointed at the result. Such thinking isn't entirely beyond understanding; this isn't Shaolin Soccer, a film which was simultaneously familiar, original and thrillingly engaging. Infernal Affairs is simply good, solid commercial work with a marvelous production and some fine actors at the top of their game. It's a prime example of massive synergy, where you take the best of what's available and use it to its fullest. Forget fresh, inspired plotlines or startling thematic originality; this is simply a well-made, familiar storyline with all the big stars appearing in the same movie at the same time. And really, isn't a Hong Kong film like that worth the price of admission?

(3.5 out of 5) So Says the Jaw Breaker.

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---------------oOo--------------- Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had been graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955 In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 28th in History

1676 - Indian chief King Philip, also known as Metacom, is killed by English soldiers, ending the war between Indians and colonists.

1862 - Mistakenly believing the Confederate Army to be in retreat, Union General John Pope attacks, beginning the Battle of Groveten. Both sides sustain heavy casualties.

1914 - Three German cruisers are sunk by ships of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the first major naval battle of World War I.

1938 - The first degree given to a ventriloquist's dummy is awarded to Charlie McCarthy--Edgar Bergen's wooden partner. The honorary degree, "Master of Innuendo and Snappy Comeback," is presented on radio by Ralph Dennis, the dean of the School of Speech at Northwestern University.

1941 - The German U-boat U-570 is captured by the British and renamed Graph

1944 - German forces in Toulon and Marseilles, France, surrender to the Allies.

1945 - Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-Tung arrives in Chunking to confer with Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek in a futile effort to avert civil war.

1963 - One of the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, takes place and reaches its climax at the base of the Lincoln Memorial when Dr. Martin Luther King delivers his "I have a dream" speech.

1965 - The Viet Cong are routed in the Mekong Delta by U.S. forces, with more than 50 killed.

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Saturday, August 27, 2005

Captain William Kidd

Although his name is synonymous with swashbuckling pirates, New York sea captain William Kidd denied to the end of his life that he ever acted like one. In 1696 Kidd reluctantly became a privateer for England and was expected to fight pirates on the open sea, seize their cargoes, and provide a hefty share of the spoils to the Crown. According to his British accusers, Kidd turned to piracy himself as the deadline for reporting to his employers in New York approached and he had not taken enough booty to fulfill his commission. Kidd himself did not know he was a wanted man until he dropped anchor in the West Indies in April 1699. He chose to surrender to the authorities and submit to a London trial, believing to the end that he could clear his name. After a trial in which important evidence in his favor was suppressed, Kidd was found guilty of piracy and hanged on May 23, 1701.

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---------------oOo--------------- The Battle of Long Island

The Battle of Long Island took place on August 27, 1776. The American outpost of Colonel Edward Hand's sent word that the British were preparing to cross Long Island from Staten Island on August 22, at dawn. There were three frigates, the Phoenix, Rose, and Greyhound, and two bomb ketches named Carcass and Thunder, in Gravesend Bay. The frigates were anchored in the Namews.

British generals Cornwallis and Clinton had a force of 4,000 men that included Von Donop's corps of jaegers and grenadiers. The force started crossing to Denyse Point and they were covered by the guns of the H.M.S. Rainbow. Two hundred men of Edward Hand's withdrew to Prospect Hill, destroying the property and supplies that the British might use. The British boats returned to Staten Island and landed in Gravesend Bay with more then 5000 men. By noon, they had landed almost 5,000 men and about 40 cannons safely on shore. The Americans couldn't defend themselves and were pushed back.

The American forces were distributed on the evening before the battle. Their forces had a total strength of 550 in the area of Gowanus Road. To the left in the Flatbush Pass there were 1,000 troops, and to the right at Bedford Pass there was a force of 800 men with only 3 guns.

In the early morning hours on August 27, the Americans fired on a few British soldiers who were near the Red Lion Inn. A few hours later, the Americans were attacked by 200-300 British troops. These attacks started the battle. General Howe was trying to distract the Americans so that Grant could attack; the plan worked. This lead to a battle between Grant and Alexander. Though Alexander only had 1,600 men, he was smart to organize his men into the open, European style, rather than just hiding them behind cover. Grant, on the other hand, had 7,000 men, which meant that they were superior to the Americans. At the end of this battle, there were only 12 dead, and 5 wounded. The Americans were waiting to be attacked again.

The British had marched to Bedford, and were now behind the Americans. They had marched over 9 miles, with 10,000 men, and the Americans never detected them. Somehow the Germans (Hessians) on the British side began attacking the Americans. The Americans traveled along Port Road to Brooklyn because it was one of the few roads still open.

The heaviest fighting happened near Baker's Tavern. The Americans did really well against the odds presented to them. During the battles Washington was able to get 9,500 soldiers out into the field.

No one can give an exact number of Americans involved in the Battle of Long Island, but it is estimated that there were at least 10,000. It is also estimated that 1,407 Americans were wounded, captured, or missing, and 312 were killed. A British report says that there were 89 Americans officers imprisoned, and 1,097 other Americans were kept as prisoners.

There were 22,000 British and Germans on Long Island, and they had a total loss of 377. Five British officers, and 56 men were killed, while 13 officers, and 275 men were wounded or missing. Two Germans were killed, and three officers and 23 men were wounded.

According to both posession of the disputed territory and casualties, the British won this battle.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 27th in History

1626 - The Danes are crushed by the Catholic League in Germany, marking the end of Danish intervention in European wars.

1776 - The Americans are defeated by the British at the Battle of Long Island, New York.

1793 - Maximilien Robespierre is elected to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris, France.

1813 - The Allies defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Dresden.

1861 - Union troops make an amphibious landing at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

1862 - As the Second Battle of Bull Run rages, Confederate soldiers attack Loudoun County, Virginia.

1881 - New York state's Pure Food Law goes into effect to prevent "the adulteration of food or drugs."

1894 - The United States congress passes an income tax law as part of a general tariff act, but it is found unconstitutional.

1910 - Thomas Edison demonstrates the first "talking" pictures--using a phonograph--in his New Jersey laboratory.

1912 - Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes first appears in a magazine.

1916 - Italy declares war on Germany.

1928 - Fifteen nations sign the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, outlawing war and calling for the settlement of disputes through arbitration. Forty-seven other countries eventually sign the pact.

1941 - The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumimaro Konoye, issues an invitation for a meeting with President Roosevelt.

1945 - B-29 Superfortress bombers begin to drop supplies into Allied prisoner of war camps in China.

1963 - Cambodia severs ties with South Vietnam.

1979 - Lord Mountbatten is killed by an Irish terrorist bomb in his sail boat in Sligo, Ireland.

1989 - Chuck Berry performs his tune Johnny B. Goode for NASA staff in celebration of Voyager II's encounter with the planet Neptune.

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Friday, August 26, 2005

The Nineteenth Amendment

On August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed, giving American women the right to vote. The amendment had been first introduced in Congress in 1878, setting in motion supporters who demonstrated, lobbied, marched and spoke out for woman suffrage. They were often met with venomous opposition. Early on, the two main factions of the movement disagreed about how to achieve their goal, but they ultimately united in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association and worked together to get the amendment passed. By August 18, 1920, three-fourths of the United States had agreed to the bill. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 26.

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---------------oOo--------------- The 40-year-old virgin

Now that the influential success of The Wedding Crashers has made it safe for R-rated comedies to corrupt us with gleeful raunch, along comes The 40 Year-Old Virgin to claim its share of the pie. Cut it a big fat slice. A howlingly comic revel in bad taste, it still finds time to make you feel good about Andy Stitzer, the carnally innocent hero of this bawdy bedtime story. Steve Carell, best known as a team player on The Daily Show, The Office and such movies as Anchorman, earns top-banana status as Andy. He is flat-out hilarious. See him wake up with morning wood and pee in his own face. Hear him talk to his collectible action figures; he repaints them on weekends when he's not making the perfect egg-salad sandwich. Watch him try to fake macho with his co-workers at a Smart Tech store by saying that when you touch a woman's breast, it feels like sand.

That nails it. He's a virgin, and the guys -- Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Romany Malco could not be funnier -- spend the rest of the movie trying to find a woman to bust his cherry. They tell him to act tough, "like David Caruso in Jade" -- a line for true connoisseurs of junk video. But sex freak Beth (Elizabeth Banks) and a drunk Nicky (Leslie Mann) scare him off. A speed-dating session is attempted, as is an ouch of a chest-hair waxing. (Carell did it for real; you can see the blood beading to the surface of his skin.) But Andy sets a more daunting task for himself than getting laid: finding one woman, building a relationship and making it stick. Her name is Trish, a divorced mom of three and the grandma of one. The terrific Catherine Keener plays her with such sexy warmth that this cinematic stag party, loaded with "know how I know you're gay" jokes and wicked jabs at male dysfunction, actually grows a heart.

Don't panic. The script, which Carell wrote with first-time director Judd Apatow, keeps firing off rude, raucous laughs. Apatow deserves to have his butt kissed in perpetuity for Freaks and Geeks and The Larry Sanders Show, and what he doesn't yet grasp about framing a scene he makes up for with his intuitive grasp of the architecture of a joke. Know how I know that Apatow has a big future making movie comedies? Because he knows that laughs fly higher and wilder when the characters keep it real. Without that, it's all Deuce Bigelow.

(3 out of 5) So Says the Jaw Breaker.

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---------------oOo--------------- Joan of Arc

Saint Joan was born on January 6, 1412, in the village of Domremy to Jacques and Isabelle d'Arc. Joan was the youngest of their five children. While growing up among the fields and pastures of her village, she was called Jeannette but when she entered into her mission, her name was changed to Jeanne, la Pucelle, or Joan, the Maid.

As a child she was taught domestic skills as well as her religion by her mother. Joan would later say, "As for spinning and sewing, I fear no woman in Rouen." And again, "It was my mother alone who taught me the 'Our Father' and 'Hail Mary' and the 'Creed;' and from none other was I taught my faith."

From her earliest of years Joan was known for her obedience to her parents, religious fervor, goodness, unselfish generosity and kindness toward her neighbors. Simonin Munier, one of Joan's childhood friends, tells how Joan had nursed him back to health when he was sick. Some of her playmates teased her for being 'too pious.' Others remembered how she would give up her bed to the homeless stranger who came to her father's door asking for shelter.

Joan was 'like all the others' in her village until her thirteenth year. "When I was about thirteen, I received revelation from Our Lord by a voice which told me to be good and attend church often and that God would help me." She stated that her 'Voices' were Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. At first her 'Voices' came to her two or three times a week but as the time for her mission drew near (five years later), they visited her daily telling her to 'Go into France' to raise the siege of Orleans, conduct the Dauphin Charles to Reims for his crowning and to drive the English from the land.

Joan went to the neighboring town of Vaucouleurs, which means Valley of many colors. There she spoke to the loyal French governor by the name of Sir Robert de Baudricourt. After many rejections he finally agreed to send her to the Dauphin who at the time was living at the castle of Chinon.

On the evening of February 23, 1429, she began her mission for God. In the company of six men, she rode through the Gate of France on her way to Chinon. Joan reached this town on March 6th, but was not received by the Dauphin, Charles, until the evening of March 9th.
After being accepted and approved by a Church council headed by the Archbishop of Reims, Joan was allowed to lead the Dauphin's army. This part of her career was meteoric. She entered Orleans on the evening of April 29th and by May 8th the city had been freed. The Loire campaign started on June 9th and by June 19th the English were driven out of the Loire valley. The march to Reims started on June 29th and by July 17th Charles was crowned King of France in the cathedral of Reims.

From this time on, for reasons know only to King Charles, the king no longer valued Joan's advice and guidance. She had always told him that God had given her 'a year and a little longer' to accomplish His will but the king seemed to take no notice of it. For almost a year he wasted what time remained to Joan, until in frustration, she left the court. Her last campaign lasted from the middle of March until her capture at the town of Compiegne on May 23rd, 1430. Her 'year and a little longer' was over.

Abandoned by her king and friends, she started her year of captivity. As a prisoner of the Burgundians she was treated fairly but that all changed when on November 21st, 1430, she was handed over the English. How she survived their harsh treatment of her is a miracle in itself.
The English not only wanted to kill Joan but they also wanted to discredit King Charles as a false king by having Joan condemned by the Church as a witch and a heretic. To obtain this goal the English used those Church authorities whom they knew to be favorable to them and the staunchest of these was Bishop Cauchon.

Joan's trial of condemnation lasted from February 21st until May 23rd. She was finally burnt at the stake in Rouen's market square on May 30th, 1431.

Twenty-five years later the findings of Joan's first trial were overturned and declared 'null and void' by another Church court, who this time was favorable to King Charles. It was not until 1920 that the Church of Rome officially declared Joan to be a saint. Her feast day is celebrated on May 30th.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 26th in History

1017 - Turks defeat the Byzantine army under Emperor Romanus IV at Manikert, Eastern Turkey.

1429 - Joan of Arc makes a triumphant entry into Paris.

1789 - The Constituent Assembly in Versailles, France, approves the final version of the Declaration of Human Rights.

1862 - Confederate General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson encircles the Union Army under General John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

1883 - The Indonesian island of Krakatoa erupts in the largest explosion recorded in history, heard 2,200 miles away in Madagascar. The resulting destruction sends volcanic ash up 50 miles into the atmosphere and kills almost 36,000 people--both on the island itself and from the resulting 131-foot tidal waves that obliterate 163 villages on the shores of nearby Java and Sumatra.

1920 - The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving women the right to vote.

1943 - The United States recognizes the French Committee of National Liberation.

1957 - Ford Motor Company reveals the Edsel, its latest luxury car.

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---------------oOo--------------- Liberation of Paris

Allied troops led by French General Jacques Leclerc marched into Paris on August 24, 1944, liberating the city from the Germans who had occupied it since June 1940. Although ordered by Adolf Hitler to leave Paris a smoldering ruin, Paris' military governor Major General Dietrich von Cholitz lied to his superiors and left the city's landmarks intact. By noon of August 25, the French tricolor was again flying over the French capital. Crowds of jubilant Parisians, some of whom are shown here celebrating before the Arc de Triomphe that evening, rejoiced in their freedom.

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Thursday, August 25, 2005

Battle of Crecy (1346)

Crecy is the first major battle in which bowmen were pitted against knights. There is also some evidence that primitive small arms fire or "hand gonnes" were used. Until Crecy, knights fought each other on horseback. Here the French expected to have a battle with the knights of the smaller English army but the latter had been practising new ways of bringing down men in armour, most of the English army dismounted to do battle with the French, which was not the normal procedure.The longbow made a major debut at this battle which changed the way battles were fought for at least another fifty years. The English reinvented warfare, making chivalric battles an outmoded form of warfare.

The longbow was probably first developed by the Welsh and introduced into England about 1250. Shorter bows had been used down the centuries, they appear in use by both Anglians and Normans in the Bayeaux Tapestry. The longbow however had a much greater effective range, some claim up to 200 yards.

In 1298 Edward I used Welsh archers at the battle of Falkirk. The longbow was as tall as the man who used it. Arrows fitted with a bodkin (metal tip) could pierce chain mail at 100 paces if they contacted their target perpendicular to the body. The arrow flights were made from grey goose feathers. Edward I had been the first to experiment with the longbow in warfare and Edward III later pitted archers against Scottish Nationalist knights at Halidon Hill, Berwickshire (1333). The longbow was not considered a noble weapon, for it was the English yeomanry who brought down much of the French nobility here at Crecy.

The cross bow had a shorter range than the longbow, the French at Crecy used about 6,000 Genoese crossbow men in their frontal attack, and virtually ran them down as their own knights charged in.

At the tender age of sixteen, Edward III's son, the "Black Prince" as the French dubbed him from the colour of his armour [although some later say his black character] was in command on the wing at Crecy. Edward chose the battle site on the brow of a low hill where he set his men at
arms and archers. Edward surveyed the battle from a windmill2.These archers had been enlisted in England by officials, and were paid for from the exchequer. In all there were between 12,000 and 20,000 men under Edward (different sources vary- the first casualty in war is truth), the French cavalry was at least that number and all told Phillip VI's army consisted of 30,000-40,000 men. But Edward had a secret weapon, somewhere between 3,000 and 11,000 highly trained archers. They had been trained in the manner of a rapid rate of shooting.

Three thousand archers loosed 10-20 arrows each per minute, more arrows were brought forward or archers moved back to collect another supply. In the words of one commentator "arrows fell like snow". This mass volley of arrows was a new method of fighting and was first tried at Crecy. On one side of the hill lay a marsh and on the other side a forest. The battle line was 2000 yards long. The men-at-arms and spearmen were in three groups with the archers at either end arranged in a open "V' shape towards the enemy. Each archer had two sheaves of arrows each holding 24 arrows. The French were drawn up with the Genoese crossbow men and then behind them French knights on horseback.

In the fifty years after Crecy, knights dismounted to fight, they abandoned their horses and engaged in slogging matches on foot. For 200 years the longbow and infantry were placed to the fore in any battle replacing the position of the cavalry. Pictures of the battle of Crecy emphasise the stab in the back, the underhand blow. The French interpreted the new method of combat as anti-chivalric. The horse did not return to the battlefield until the 1400's when armour for these animals was developed and refined.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 25th in History

357 - Julian Caesar defeats the Alamanni at Strousbourg in Gaul.

1346 - Edward III of England defeats Philip VI's army at the Battle of Crecy in France.

1758 - The Prussian army defeats the invading Russians at the Battle of Zorndorf.

1765 - In protest over the stamp tax, American colonists sack and burn the home of Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson.

1830 - The "Tom Thumb" steam locomotive runs its famous race with a horse-drawn car. The horse wins because the engine, which had been ahead, breaks down.

1862 - Union and Confederate troops skirmish at Waterloo Bridge, Virginia, during the Second Bull Run Campaign.

1864 - Confederate General A.P. Hill pushes back Union General Winfield Scott Hancock from Reams Station where his army has spent several days destroying railroad tracks.

1875 - "Captain" Matthew Webb becomes the first man to swim across the English Channel.

1916 - The National Park Service is established as part of the Department of the Interior.

1921 - The United States, which never ratified the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, finally signs a peace treaty with Germany.

1925 - A. Phillip Randolph organizes the Sleeping Car Porters' Union.

1940 - The first parachute wedding ceremony is performed by Rev. Homer Tomlinson at the New York City World's Fair for Arno Rudolphi and Ann Hayward. The minister, bride and groom, best man, maid of honor and four musicians were all suspended from parachutes.

1941 - British and Soviet forces enter Iran, opening up a route to supply the Soviet Union.

1943 - The Allies complete the occupation of New Georgia.

1944 - Paris is liberated from German occupation by Free French Forces under General Jacques LeClerc.

1989 - NASA scientists receive stuning photographs of Neptune and its moons from Voyager 2.

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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Digital Fortress

One weekend, the NSA’s top cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, gets an urgent call from her boss, Commander Strathmore, to come to work. She arrives to the shocking news that TRANSLTR, the NSA's incredibly fast and infallible code-breaking machine against which even the best computer encryption software is useless, has at long last come face to face with its nemesis. Codenamed the Digital Fortress, it is an unbreakable code created by an ex-NSA cryptographer, Ensei Tankado, who had threatened to make it available for public use if the NSA didn’t make TRANSLTR’s existence known to the general public. As the repercussions of this comprise a deadly threat to the nation’s security, it sends shockwaves through the corridors of the NSA.

Even as Susan scrambles to find Ensei’s secret partner, she is puzzled, angry and scared that Commander Strathmore has inexplicably sent her boyfriend David, an ordinary university professor, on a dangerous mission to Spain to retrieve this unbreakable code’s key. Does the key really exist, and if so, will David ever find it and live to bring it back? It’s a race against time as secrecy, deceit and lies escalate, and Susan finds herself smack dab in the middle of it all. Faced with betrayal and terror, this young woman has to fight for love, life and country.

Once again, this Dan Brown novel emphasizes cryptography and details its origins, uses and various forms, and the subject makes for fascinating reading, if a bit dry. Through the central character of Susan, we come to see how cryptography has evolved in today’s time and also something about the NSA, its functions, capabilities and awesome power. With an ingenious plot whose exciting premise is further bolstered by a rapid pace, lots of suspense, interesting characterizations and a romantic entanglement thrown in for good measure, Digital Fortress is a cutting-edge techno-thriller that compels the readers to wonder how much the government is concealing from the public, and whether big brother is really watching everything everywhere. Dan Brown’s laudable detailed research makes this book so realistic it’s scary. Moreover, it will provoke readers to think and wonder if this loss of privacy and violation of human rights is justified by the number of horrific terrorist plots foiled and lives spared daily -- an interesting dilemma.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 11:03 PM :: 10 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- Behind the Red Door

“Family,” among other things, connotes love, safety and comfort. Youngsters often count on a big brother or sister for protection; but what happens when they can’t be shielded from darkness and pain? Behind the Red Door aims to parse this very particular strain of heartache.

Kyra Sedgwick is Natalie Haddad, a starving artist who travels to Boston for a lucrative commercial assignment. After all, integrity doesn’t pay the bills. Only once she’s on location does she discover that her agent/friend Julia (Stockard Channing in a woefully underwritten role) has set her up. She’s been hired to work for her estranged older brother (24’s Kiefer Sutherland), a controlling advertising mogul. Her first impulse is to take the next shuttle out, but she turns heel to face him and, ultimately, her past.

Black and white shards of flashbacks, seen from Natalie's perspective, are sprinkled throughout the film. In her mind’s eye, brother Roy taunted her and failed to protect her from their tyrant of a father, but, most egregiously, he couldn’t save their mother’s life. Natalie chose to leave their Dorchester neighborhood home and moved to New York City. Roy stayed behind and became an affluent executive. Apparently, Stockard Channing has known each of them for some time (the film doesn't specify how) and, despite feeling “in the middle,” she is not above manipulating Natalie to see her brother for the first time in a decade.

Natalie means to do the job and get on the first plane out the next morning, but, true to form, Roy pressures her to stay for his birthday party. Natalie reluctantly attends, and far from welcoming home the prodigal sister, he practices cruelty. Only when his all-too-shallow friends leave, does he reveal that he is in the advanced stages of AIDS. He also confides that his last lover didn’t leave him, but that he died a year and a day ago – and that Roy didn’t tell anyone. Roy's secretiveness is a key component in the film and it is difficult to accept. After all, he is an openly gay man. He owns his own business and is, judging by a Cape Cod house that subscribers to Metropolitan Home would lust over, fabulously wealthy. (The gorgeous vistas that suggest tony Cohasset on the Massachusetts North Shore are actually St. John’s Newfoundland. Score another point for the Canadian film industry.)

Since Roy’s invited guests are mostly gay men, it is puzzling that he would keep a long-term relationship from them. It is not a hard sell, however, that Roy would want to mask his illness. In a society that worships youth and vitality, when you lose your hair you lose your power--and when you lose your T cells, you lose your ability to command.

Writer/director Matia Karrell (Oscar-nominated in 1988 for best live action short film for Cadillac Dreams) and co-author C.W. Cressler have not been content to merely cast a contentious relationship between Natalie and Roy. They have made Roy a piece of work, no doubt to show his growth throughout the film. But his character, as written, is nearly unwatchable. He is the kind of snob who not only sends back Petrus ’62, but makes the waiter feel that he should commit hari-kari for having despoiled his taste buds. Surely there are gay men who are as fastidious as Roy (when hospitalized he can’t endure his stay without his Gucci “kit” and Armani robe), but this guy is toxic and his redemption is difficult to accept.

Kyra Sedgwick has an easier time of it, and more to do. While Roy declines and learns to bellow less and plant impatiens, she is confronting past demons. While the death of their mother is a closed book for Roy, Natalie was too young when it happened to have a first-hand memory. She is keenly aware of the town talk that her father was tried for her mother’s murder, but acquitted due to lack of any hard evidence. When not monitoring Roy or managing his ad campaign, she finds time to have the sealed files re-opened, comb through them, and ultimately confront her father for the first time in fifteen years.

Although Behind the Red Door is in parts a schematic, more than a nuanced drama, both Kyra Sedgwick and Kiefer Sutherland portray sister and brother with dignity. The awkward set-up finally gives way to a portrait of a family of two, who are at last there for one another. Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, film and theater about AIDS have led the way to a greater understanding not only of the disease, but also of what it means to know someone who is gay. As AIDS/HIV disease has become a chronic, rather than terminal, disease, there is an urge to move on (of late reporters have been saying that more lives in the U.S. are being lost, for example, to the flu), so films of this nature are crucial to continuing awareness.

Behind the Red Door is one of the first efforts in a Viacom and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation initiative launching on January 6, 2003. Its mission is to create programming that contributes to a better understanding of HIV/AIDS. The massive Viacom empire includes the Sundance Channel, BET, Simon & Schuster, CBS, MTV, UPN, Paramount, and Showtime – which produced this film. Perhaps this synergy can be leveraged in such a fashion that it can make a positive difference, fostering dialogue and promoting understanding.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 24th in History

79 - Mount Vesuvius erupts destroying Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other smaller settlements.

410 - German barbarians sack Rome.

1542 - In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro returns to the mouth of the Amazon River after having sailed the length of the great river as far as the Andes Mountains.

1572 - Some 50,000 people are put to death in the ‘Massacre of St. Bartholomew’ as Charles IX of France attempts to rid the country of Huguenots.

1780 - King Louis XVI abolishes torture as a means to get suspects to confess.

1814 - British troops under General Robert Ross capture Washington, D.C., which they set on fire in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada.

1847 - Charlotte Bronte, using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sends a manuscript of Jane Eyre to her publisher in London.

1869 - Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patents the waffle iron.

1891 - Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera.

1894 - Congress passes the first graduated income tax law, which is declared unconstitutional the next year.

1896 - Thomas Brooks is shot and killed by an unknown assailant begining a six year feud with the McFarland family.

1912 - By an act of Congress, Alaska is given a territorial legislature of two houses.

1942 - In the battle of the Eastern Solomons, the third carrier-versus-carrier battle of the war, U.S. naval forces defeat a Japanese force attempting to screen reinforcements for the Guadalcanal fighting.

1948 - Edith Mae Irby becomes the first African-American student to attend the University of Arkansas.

1954 - Congress outlaws the Communist Party in the United States.

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Sunday, August 21, 2005

Alive

In October 1972 a plane carrying a Rugby team of 45 from Uraguay to Chile crashes in the Andes. The survivors fend for themselves amidt the cold, in spite of injuries, and with a very limited supply of food. For 72 days they struggle to survive with only 16 actually surviving to be rescued in December.

The movie Alive tells their story for the world to see. It begins with the Rugy Team all upbeat about everything. But then their plane crashes and everything changes. The plane crash scene in the movie was one of the best ever from any movie. The wings and tail of the plane were torn from the body in midair before the plane even hit the ground. From that point the plane slides a good distance through the ice. Once out on the ground most of the survivors of the initial crash are injured in some ways. Some have broken bones and are unable to move. The only real food supply they have on hand is chocolate bars.

The Rugy team's captain becomes a leader of sorts for the survivors. He orchestrates rationing of the chocolate they have and asserts command over the others. After food supplies run out, his team begins to die off starting with the weaker members. After much thought and prayer the team's captain convinces those who remain that canibolizing the flesh of their dead friends is the only way they will be able to survive.

Bodies are arranged with their faces in the snow. Those who remain apparently did not want to know just who they were eating. From that position pieces of meat are cut from their bodies to be shared. Icey cold slivers of beef are passed around, and swallowed with great difficulty. A few of the strongest survivors are given the largest portion of the meat so that they can attempt to climb higher up the peak of the mountain to try to reach help and attract attention to airplanes or anything that may be flying over.

In the end there ultimately were survivors of this ordeal as the movie is based on a real world experience with survivors. To many this is the movie where people ate people and nothing more than that. But beyond canibolism the movie features, an incredible plane crash, and a survival of the fittest storyline veiled in prayer and religion that is a true adventure to behold.

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---------------oOo--------------- Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199)

Founder of the first warrior government (bakufu) in Kamakura, and its first Sei'itai Shogun. Son of Yoshitomo and the daughter of Fujiwara Suenori. In 1158 at the age of twelve, he received his first court title and shortly afterwards he was appointed an administrator. At the end of that year, the Minamoto lost the Hoagie War to the Taira forces, and young Yoritomo was sent to exile in Izu in the Kanto. Twenty years later, in 1180, a disgruntled prince Mochihito'o issued an imperial edict calling the Minamoto to rise against the Taira who were under the leadership of Taira no Kiyomori. Yoritomo, like a number of other Minamoto, used this edict to legitimize his call-to-arms against those associated with Taira no Kiyomori, or those who opposed Yoritomo. Although contemporary records (i.e., Azuma Kagami) describe Yoritomo's call-to-arms in terms of restoring the Minamoto clan and taking revenge against Kiyomori, it is more likely that Yoritomo's aim was primarily to establish semi-independency for warriors in the Eastern Provinces (Togoku). It was only in 1183 that Yoritomo sent his brother Yoshitsune and Minamoto Yoshinaka to destroy the Taira in the Western Provinces (saigoku)--and even that was the result of Taira assaults on him, not a pre planned strategy.

The war between Minamoto no Yoritomo's forces and Taira forces was a major civil war that continued for five years from 1180 to 1185, and is known as the Genpei War. In 1185, after Yoshitsune's brilliant sea battle at Dannoura, Yoritomo became the de-facto leader of a new warrior society. He established a military government that operated independently of the court, though in close co-operation, and was responsible for keeping law and order in the provinces. This was the beginning of a new chapter in Japanese history, dominated by a dual structure of rulership--by courtiers and warriors, each with its sphere of authority and power.

Minamoto no Yoritomo died in 1199, supposedly after suffering a serious illness. His eldest son Yori'ie succeeded him to become the second Kamakura shogun, and after his assassination Yoritomo's second son Sanetomo became the third Kamakura shogun. However, tragedies continued to haunt Yoritomo's lineage when his grandson (Yori'ie's son) assassinated Sanetomo (his uncle) because he believed that Sanetomo was behind the death of his father Yori'ie. After the assassination, the assassin was caught and executed, thus ending Yoritomo's direct lineage.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 21st in History

1129 - The warrior Yoritomo is made Shogun without equal in Japan.

1525 - Estavao Gomes returns to Portugal after failing to find a clear waterway to Asia.

1794 - France surrenders the island of Corsica to the British.

1808 - Napoleon Bonaparte's General Junot is defeated by Wellington at the first Battle of the Peninsular War at Vimiero, Portugal.

1831 - Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia that kills close to 60 whites.

1858 - The first of a series of debates begins between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Douglas goes on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time.

1863 - Confederate raiders under William Quantrill strike Lawrence, Kansas, leaving 150 civilians dead.

1864 - Confederate General A.P. Hill attacks Union troops south of Petersburg, Va., at the Weldon railroad. His attack is repulsed, resulting in heavy Confederate casualties.

1915 - Italy declares war on Turkey.

1942 - U.S. Marines turn back the first major Japanese ground attack on Guadalcanal in the Battle of Tenaru.

1944 - The Dumbarton Oaks conference, which lays the foundation for the establishment of the United Nations, is held in Washington, D.C.

1945 - President Harry S. Truman cancels all contracts under the Lend-Lease Act.

1959 - Hawaii is admitted into the Union.

1963 - The South Vietnamese Army arrests over 100 Buddhist monks in Saigon.

1968 - Soviet forces invade Czechoslovakia because of the country's experiments with a more liberal government.

1996 - The new Globe theater opens in England.

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Thursday, August 18, 2005

Timing

Everything is great when it comes in the perfect time! However everything is exactly the opposite when it comes in the wrong time. How can we define when it's the right time or the other way around?

Well for starters, speaking about myself, it is the perfect time to finish the film and getting it ready to viewing and building discussion groups. Moreover, it's the not a good time to get sick!!!
I wake this morning with the most painful headache ever, I'm having a fever, sweating like I'm lost in the desert and have no apitite.

Perfect!! That's all what I needed now is to get sick when I have all those meetings with different communities and organization to promote my film and I'm sick!!!

Just felt like bitching for once!! :)

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 8:40 PM :: 2 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- James Meredith

James Meredith was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, on 25th June, 1933. While attending Jackson State College (1960-62) Meredith attempted to become the first African American to gain admission to the University of Mississippi.

Twice rejected in 1961, Meredith filed a complaint with the district court on 31st May 1961. Meredith's allegations that he been denied admission because of his colour was rejected by the district court. However, on appeal, the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court reversed this ruling. By a 2 to 1 decision the judges decided that Meredith had indeed been refused admission solely because of his race and that Mississippi was maintaining a policy of educational segregation.

Meredith's admission to the University of Mississippi was opposed by state officials and students and the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, decided to send federal marshals to protect Meredith from threats of being lynched. During riots that followed Kennedy's decision, 160 marshals were wounded (28 by gunfire) and two bystanders were killed.

Despite this opposition, Meredith continued to study at the University of Mississippi and successfully graduated in 1964. Meredith's account of this experience at the university, Three Years in Mississippi was published in 1966.On 5th June, 1966, Meredith started a solitary March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, to protest against racism.

Soon after starting his march he was shot by sniper. When they heard the news, other civil rights campaigners, including Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Floyd McKissick, decided to continue the march in Meredith's name. When the marchers got to Greenwood, Mississippi, Stokely Carmichael made his famous Black Power speech.

Carmichael called for "black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, and to build a sense of community". He also advocated that African Americans should form and lead their own organizations and urged a complete rejection of the values of American society. After hospital treatment Meredith rejoined the March Against Fear on 25th June, 1966.

The following day the marchers arrived in Jackson, Mississippi. Once again the civil rights movement had shown that it would not give in to white racism. After his time at the University of Mississippi, Meredith continued his education at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria (1964-65) and at Columbia University (1966-68). Meredith ceased being a civil rights activist in the late 1960s and found employment as a stockbroker.

Meredith joined the Republican Party and made several attempts to be elected to Congress. He became increasingly conservative and in 1988 accused liberal whites as being "the greatest enemy" of African Americans. He also opposed economic sanctions against South Africa and making the birthday of Martin Luther King a national holiday.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 18th in History

1587 - In the Roanoke Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare become parents of a baby girl whom they name Virginia, the first English child born in what would become the United States.

1698 - After invading Denmark and capturing Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden forces Frederick IV of Denmark to sign the Peace of Travendal.

1759 - The French fleet is destroyed by the British under "Old Dreadnought" Boscawen at the battle of Lagos Bay.

1782 - Poet and artist William Blake marries Catherine Sophia Boucher.

1862 - Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart's headquarters is raided by Union troops of the 5th New York and 1st Michigan cavalries.

1864 - Union General William T. Sherman sends General Judson Kilpatrick to raid Confederate lines of communication outside Atlanta. The raid is unsuccessful.

1870 - Prussian forces defeat the French at the Battle of Gravelotte during the Franco-Prussian War.

1898 - Adolph Ochs takes over the New York Times, saying his aim is to give "the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is permissible in good society, and give it early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other medium."

1914 - Germany declares war on Russia while President Woodrow Wilson issues his Proclamation of Neutrality.

1920 - Tennessee becomes the thirty-sixth state to ratify the nineteenth amendment granting women's sufferage, completing the three-quarters necessary to put the amendment into effect.

1929 - The first cross-country women's air derby begins. Louise McPhetride Thaden wins first prize in the heavier-plane division, while Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie finishes first in the lighter-plane category.

1939 - The film The Wizard of Oz opens in New York City.

1942 - Japan sends a crack army to Guadalcanal to repulse the U.S. Marines fighting there.

1943 - The Royal Air Force Bomber Command completes the first major strike against the German missile development facility at Peenemunde.

1963 - James Meredith, the first African American to attend University of Mississippi, graduates.

1965 - Operation Starlite marks the beginning of major U.S. ground combat operations in Vietnam.

1966 - Australian troops repulse a Viet Cong attack at Long Tan.

1969 - Two concert goers die at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York, one from an overdose of heroin, the other from a burst appendix.

1991 - A group of hard-line communist leaders unhappy with the drift toward the collapse of the Soviet Union seize control of the government in Moscow and place President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under house arrest

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Tuesday, August 16, 2005

The Island

Could “The Island” be that “Logan’s Run” remake we have all been waiting for?

“The Island” stars Ewan McGregor as Lincoln Six-Echo, a man who lives in a perfect, yet very strict environment. His utopian world is filled with duties and routines which Lincoln begins to question. How does his perfect world actually operate?

The only real salvation that Lincoln and the people of his controlled world have is a daily lottery where winners are whisked off to the mythical paradise “the island” to live the rest of their lives in freedom. Where is this “island” and what do you do when you get there?

The more questions Lincoln raises the more he begins to doubt his surroundings until he learns that he is in fact living a lie and that he is a clone. Lincoln grabs fellow resident and his friend Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson) and they begin to run for their lives. Together they will find out all the secrets that their world hides.

“The Island” is one of those films that the less you know going in the better the experience it will be. The problem with that kind of film is that it’s very hard to market especially when you have a high-profile director like Michael Bay at the helm.

The opening and experiences that Lincoln Six-Echo encounters while still within the utopian society are interesting and really draw you in. Director Michael Bay’s restraint here is actually impressive where we begin to see a story with real substance and he allows his actors to act.

I really enjoyed McGregor and Johansson as the leads in this film and the humanity they bring to their characters. McGregor is one of the most intriguing actors working in Hollywood today and this proves it once again. I can’t imagine what this film would have been like without him. Can you imagine a hack like Colin Farrell in this role? Perish the thought.

The production design and basic plot elements reminded me a lot of the sci-fi classic “Logan’s Run” where the utopian survivors begin to doubt that the outside world is contaminated and that their society is in fact a lie so they must run. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t a direct remake but it does house a lot of the same philosophy.

The idea of replacing the whole “dated” nuclear holocaust angle in “Logan’s Run” with this cloning angle is actually very intriguing and seems a perfect way to bring that story into our world and deliver a similar impact it had back in the 1970s.

I was enthralled by “The Island” and started to believe it was the best movie of the summer. For over an hour, I was transfixed to the screen. Then the more the film moved along the more signature Michael Bay shots I started to see. Man stepping from helicopter in slow-mo with blades whizzing above him. A cluttered freeway crash sequence ripped right out of “Bad Boys 2”. And even more explosions and bellowing action stunts that are way, way over the top.

I liked Michael Bay a lot when he was restrained from using his signature stuff and I even believed for a second that he could be a great director if given the right material. But once I started getting hit with Michael Bay mayhem I started to lose touch with the story and the characters. Don’t get me wrong there was also some of the adrenaline junkie stuff I liked but it just seemed tiresome and routine especially the truck sequence.

Surprisingly the product placement in the film didn’t bug me as much as it has been talked about. There are some scenes where I did notice it but for me it wasn’t any worse than it was in “Minority Report”.

I liked “The Island” and a lot of what it had to offer but I think the film should have stuck more with the story and less with the explosions.

(3.5 out of 5) So Says the Jaw Breaker.

Check out the movie's website.

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Monday, August 15, 2005

Japan Surrenders

At 7 p.m. on August 15, 1945, reporters gathered in the Oval Office to hear President Harry S. Truman announce the unconditional surrender of Japan. Shaken by the atomic destruction wreaked on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and faced with the daunting prospect of Allied invasion, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito met with his ministers on the morning of August 14 and announced, "We cannot continue the war any longer." World War II was over.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 15th in History

1261 - Constantinople falls to Michael VIII of Nicea and his army.

1385 - John of Portugal defeats John of Castile at the Battle of Aljubarrota.

1598 - Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, leads an Irish force to victory over the British at Battle of Yellow Ford.

1760 - Frederick II defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Liegnitz.

1864 - The Confederate raider Tallahassee captures six Federal ships off New England.

1872 - The first ballot voting in England is conducted.

1914 - The Panama Canal opens to traffic.

1935 - American comedian and "cowboy philosopher" Will Rogers dies in an airplane accident, along with American aviation pioneer Wiley Post.

1942 - The Japanese submarine I-25 departs Japan with a floatplane in its hold which will be assembled upon arriving off the West Coast of the United States, and used to bomb U.S. forests.

1944 - American, British and French forces land on the southern coast of France, between Toulon and Cannes, in Operation Dragoon.

1945 - Gasoline and fuel oil rationing ends in the United States.

1947 - Britain grants independence to India and Pakistan.

1950 - Two U.S. divisions are badly mauled by the North Korean Army at the Battle of the Bowling Alley in South Korea, which rages on for five more days.

1969 - Over 400,000 young people attend a weekend of rock music at Woodstock, New York.

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Friday, August 12, 2005

Why Should I care?

Coming soon to a Theater near you! :)

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Thursday, August 11, 2005

Sudoku

You would imagine that with such a name this puzzle originated in Japan, but it has been around for many years in the United Kingdom. However, the Japanese found an example under the title "Number Place" in an American magazine and translated it as something quite different: su meaning number; doku which translates as single or bachelor. It immediately caught on in Japan, where number puzzles are much more prevalent than word puzzles. Crosswords don't work well in the Japanese language.

The sudoku puzzle reached craze status in Japan in 2004 and the craze spread to the UK through the puzzle pages of national newspapers. The Daily Telegraph uses the name Sudoku, but you may see it called su doku elsewhere. However, there is no doubt that the work has been adopted into modern parlance, much like "Crossword"

Sudoku is not a mathematical or arithmetical puzzle. It works just as well if the numbers are substituted with letters or some other symbols, but numbers work best.

To learn more about this crazy game that I'm getting addicted to visit its website

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---------------oOo--------------- Project Kenya - Last Phase

I can't believe it's been 4 months since I came back from Kenya. It just feels as if I just came back yesterday. Going through the photos of AIESEC AfroXLDS is Nairobi and the Kibera Slums where I went to film a documentary still feels fresh in my head and heart.

I announce proudly that I have finished the Documentary!!!

The title will be "Why Should I care? The Reality Behind Youth"

Now to the last phase of the project, is to get the film out there!! I'm working on the proposal and Oleg is organizing for me a fundraising event on September 17th where I will be playing the trailer for the first time. The most exciting moment is that the full team (Alex, Kurt, Oleg, Matt, and myself) will be united once again to view what we have achieved. I registered a website for the documentary as well http://www.whyshouldicare.net It's still under construction but should be out there by the end of this week with updates and photos and some teasers for the film!

Living a moment of proudness!! :)

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Wednesday, August 10, 2005

AUGUST 10th in History

955 - Otto organizes his nobles and defeats the invading Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in Germany.

1539 - King Francis of France declares that all official documents are to be written in French, not Latin.

1557 - French troops are defeated by Emmanuel Philibert's Spanish army at St. Quentin, France.

1582 - Russia ends its 25-year war with Poland.

1628 - The Swedish warship Vasa capsizes and sinks in Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage.

1779 - Louis XVI of France frees the last remaining serfs on royal land.

1831 - William Driver of Salem, Massachusetts, is the first to use the term "Old Glory" in connection with the American flag, when he gives that name to a large flag aboard his ship, the Charles Daggett.

1846 - The Smithsonian Institution is established in Washington through the bequest of James Smithson.

1864 - Confederate Commander John Bell Hood sends his cavalry north of Atlanta to cut off Union General William Sherman's supply lines.

1911 - The House of Lords in Great Britain gives up its veto power, making the House of Commons the more powerful House.

1913 - The Treaty of Bucharest ends the Second Balkan War.

1941 - Great Britain and the Soviet Union promise aid to Turkey if it is attacked by the AxisPowers.

1950 - President Harry S. Truman calls the National Guard to active duty to fight in the Korean War.

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Monday, August 08, 2005

The Great Train Robbery

The Great Train Robbery was the name given to a train robbery, occurring on August 8, 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom.

The Royal Mail's Glasgow to London travelling post office (TPO) train was stopped by tampered signals. The 15-member gang, led by Bruce Reynolds and including Ronnie Biggs, Charlie Wilson, Jimmy Hussey, John Wheater, Brian Field, Jimmy White, Tommy Wisbey, Gordon Goody and Buster Edwards, got away with £2.6 million. Although no guns were used in the robbery, some members of the gang struck the train driver, Jack Mills, on the head with iron bars. Mills never fully recovered from the attack and never returned to work. He died in 1970.
Thirteen of the gang members were caught after police discovered their fingerprints in their Oxfordshire farmhouse hide-out. The robbers were tried, sentenced and imprisoned.

Biggs and Reynolds escaped from prison 15 months into their sentences, eventually settling in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Charlie Wilson escaped and was living outside Montreal, Canada on Rigaud Mountain. In the upper-middle-class neighbourhood where the large, secluded properties are surrounded by trees, Wilson was just another resident who enjoyed his privacy. Only when his wife made the mistake of telephoning her parents in England, was Scotland Yard able to track him down.

Despite the injury to the train driver, the robbery and escape are regarded by many as highly romantic, and Ronnie Biggs is treated affectionately by some of the British tabloid press.
In May 2001 Biggs, aged 71, returned to Britain. He had suffered several strokes and had indicated his desire to return to England even if it meant being imprisoned. He was.

The story of Buster Edwards, who fled to Mexico but later surrendered to authorities, was dramatised in the 1988 film, Buster, which starred Phil Collins in the title role.
One of the TPO carriages involved is now preserved at Birmingham Railway Museum.

The lost money was never recovered.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 8th in History

1306 - King Wenceslas of Poland is murdered.

1570 - Charles IX of France signs the Treaty of St. Germain, ending the third war of religion and giving religious freedom to the Huguenots.

1636 - The invading armies of Spain, Austria and Bavaria are stopped at the village of St.-Jean-de-Losne, only 50 miles from France.

1648 - Ibrahim, the sultan of Istanbul, is thrown into prison, then assassinated.

1786 - Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michael-Gabriel Baccard become the first men to climb Mont Blanc in France.

1876 - Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph.

1899 - The first household refrigerating machine is patented.

1925 - The first national congress of the Ku Klux Klan opens.

1937 - The Japanese Army occupies Beijing.

1940 - The German Luftwaffe attacks Great Britain for the first time, begining the Battle of Britain.

1942 - U.S. Marines capture the Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal.

1944 - U.S. forces complete the capture of the Marianas Islands.

1945 - The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.

1950 - U.S. troops repel the first North Korean attempt to overrun them at the battle of Naktong Bulge, which continued for 10 days.

1963 - The "Great Train Robbery"

1974 - President Richard Nixon resigns from the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal.

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---------------oOo--------------- The Purple Heart

The Purple Heart is an American decoration—the oldest military decoration in the world in present use and the first American award made available to the common soldier. It was initially created as the Badge of Military Merit by one of the world’s most famed and best-loved heroes—General George Washington.

General Washington is often pictured as a cold, stern soldier, a proud aristocrat. Yet we know he showed sympathy and concern for his troops, and was not too proud to pray humbly on his knees for his beloved country and for the men who served it, and him, so bravely and loyally.

His keen appreciation of the importance of the common soldier in any campaign impelled him to recognize outstanding valor and merit by granting a commission or an advance in rank to deserving individuals. In the summer of 1782 he was ordered by the Continental Congress to cease doing so—there were no funds to pay the soldiers, much less the officers!

Deprived of his usual means of reward, he must have searched for a substitute. Shortly after receiving the "stop" order from Congress, he wrote his memorable General Orders of August 7, 1782, which read in part as follows:

"The General, ever desirous to cherish virtuous ambition in his soldiers as well as foster and encourage every species of military merit, directs that whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed, the author of it shall be permitted to wear on his facings, over his left breast, the figure of a heart in purple cloth or silk edged with narrow lace or binding. Not only instances of unusual gallantry but also of extraordinary fidelity and essential service in any way shall meet with due reward. The name and regiment of the persons so certified are to be enrolled in a Book of Merit which shall be kept in the orderly room." The order further states: "Men who have merited this distinction to be suffered to pass all guards and sentinels which officers are permitted to do. The order to be retroactive to the earliest stages of the war, and to be a permanent one." Washington ended his order with: "The road to glory in a patriot army and a free country is thus open to all."

Lost or misfiled for almost 150 years among the War Department Records at Washington, D.C., this important paper came to light during the search for Washington’s papers prior to the celebration of his bicentennial in 1932. With it were the dramatic accounts of three soldiers who received the decoration at Newburgh, N.Y., at Washington’s Headquarters. The Book of Merit has not been found. The U.S. War Department revived the Purple Heart decoration on February 22, 1932. Miss Elizabeth Will, an Army heraldic specialist in the Office of the Quartermaster General, was named to redesign the newly revived medal, which became known as the Purple Heart. Using general specifications provided to her, Ms. Will created the design sketch for the present medal of the Purple Heart. The Commission of Fine Arts solicited plaster models from three leading sculptors for the medal, selecting that of John R. Sinnock of the Philadelphia Mint in May 1931. The revived form is of metal, instead of perishable cloth, made in the shape of a rich purple heart bordered with gold, with a bust of Washington in the center and the Washington coat-of-arms at the top. The latter is believed to have been the source of the stars and stripes of the American Flag.

The PURPLE HEART is awarded to members of the armed forces of the U.S. who are wounded by an instrument of war in the hands of the enemy and posthumously to the next of kin in the name of those who are killed in action or die of wounds received in action. It is specifically a combat decoration.

An organization now known as the "Military Order of the Purple Heart," was formed in 1932 for the protection and mutual interest of all who have received the decoration. Composed exclusively of Purple Heart recipients, it is the only veterans service organization comprised strictly of "combat" veterans.

Funds for welfare, rehabilitation and/or service work carried on by the organization are derived through the collection of used household items, the operation of Thrift Stores, through the donation of automobiles and, at the community level, from the annual distribution of its official flower, the Purple Heart Viola. Violas are assembled by disabled and needy veterans, many of whom receive little or no compensation from other sources. Thus your contribution to programs of the Military Order of the Purple Heart serve a two-fold purpose—they help the veterans who participate in these endeavors and enable the organization to do many things on behalf of hospitalized and needy veterans and their families.

Wives, mothers, daughters, step-daughters and adopted daughters of Purple Heart recipients are eligible to belong to the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, which also does important work nationally and locally in Veterans’ Hospitals. Further information about the Order and its Ladies’ Auxiliary may be obtained from the National Headquarters as listed below.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 7th in History

1782 - General George Washington authorizes the award of the Purple Heart for soldiers wounded in combat.

1906 - In North Carolina, a mob defies a court order and lynches three African Americans which becomes known as "The Lyerly Murders."

1916 - Persia forms an alliance with Britain and Russia.

1922 - The Irish Republican Army cuts the cable link between the United States and Europe at Waterville landing station.

1934 - In Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals rules that the govenment can neither confiscate nor ban James Joyce's novel Ulysses.

1936 - The United States declares non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

1944 - German forces launch a major counter attack against U.S. forces near Mortain, France.

1964 - Congress overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing the president to use unlimited military force to prevent attacks on U.S. forces.

1966 - The United States loses seven planes over North Vietnam, the most in the war up to this point.

1973 - A U.S. plane "accidentally" bombs a Cambodian village, killing 400 civilians.

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---------------oOo--------------- Camp Fever 2005

So this post could be the sequel to the previous post! I left to Kipling Station to meet up with Ted and Alex, they told me to be there by 7:30am, and it's 8:30am and no sign of them....I call Alex to find out that he is still sleeping!! Ted went to Alex's place ad woke him up personally and both came to pick me up at 9:15am, two hour wait the subway station, good thing I had my novel to read while waiting I covered a nice 200 pages!!

The drive to the site - Sauble Falls - was not that far as we expected, the only thing that was worrying me was seeing all the small towns with only white people walking around. We stopped at the town called "Owen Sound" With only 4000 in population, and I wanted to get out and ask for direction to a certain road, Ted stopped me and warned me that they might flip out to see an Arab in an all-white town!! I though that was a stupid concept but I started looking around and all those wierd stares from people towards me gave me the chills. "I think I'll wait in the car" That was my final decision!!

My group (Ted, myself and, Alex) were the first to get to the camping site, so we started getting the tents up and cooking some lunch. One by one, the rest of our friends started arriving, till all 17 of us were ready to rock on. I can't write everything we did at camp but I'll tell you this, it felt awesome to be out there with nature, no cells phones, no computer, basically no communication with the out-side world. Felt so free.

The beach was nice and breezy. Poeple playing volleyballs, kids building sand-castles, the ice cream truck. With all that, it did not stop me from brainstorming for my book, writing down ideas and notes under the sound of waves was undescribable. The wierd conversations we had around camp fire were so funny. The best conversation was this:

Kevin: Oleg. You're Gay
Oleg : You're Fat!
Kevin: You're still Gay!!

It felt shitty leaving this afternoon and coming back to this part of the world were all people think of is work, work, work, and paying bills. I guess thats what I'm back for, but it was a good escape of reality for a change.

Shauna and I at the beach, You can see my small note-book beside me!! A full time Author works everywhere, anytime!

Oleg and I, on the last day of camp

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Friday, August 05, 2005

Sleepless in Toronto

I have been up for 30 hours so far and its 8am. I have a session with Alex in an hour but I'm yet to feel tired and exhausted. I've been working as usual on my books, documentary, and some music productions that made me forget to go to sleep and that the sun have rised, going to sleep is the least of my concerns.

I met up with Alex at 9am at Kipling Subway Station and he looked like shit! He only had 4 hours of sleep and he is not feeling well. In the other hand, I, who had no sleep for over 30 hours, am ready to rock and roll my day. Realizing that today is going to be a very long day I started having doubts that I would survive it physically and mentally but I am a soldier!!

We were done with our session in the film production at 1pm, and Alex had to go for a meeting with this guy who is the webmaster of his website, but since we had another session in a music production studio downtown at 2pm I came along. When we were producing music at the studio that's when my body started to fall apart! I started nodding and falling asleep during the session almost every three minutes, I tried walking around the place to get my blood cyrcle around my body, it worked for a bit but the second I sit my ass down I start to black out!!

Thank god the session ends at 6pm!! Now another mission coming up!! Shopping for food for camping which is tomorrow!! We walking around China Town to get some cheap shrimps and crabs so we can grill them on camp fire!! Going ghetto is the way to have an awesome camp!!
By the way, this whole day I have not eaten anything so I started to get really hungry, we stopped at a Chinese Restuarant but I could only eat half my plate although I was ready hungry!! Now I know something is really wrong with me!!

It was 9pm now and we have to be to another place!! Our friend Gavin's birthday party!! My brain at this point could not process any longer!! We stopped at Alex's driveway and I told him that he can get ready and I will take a nap in his car. Alex woke me up to realize that I have slept for 2 hours, it was 11pm!! The dog of the house next door was barking like crazy and Alex told me that he would not stop barking cuz I was snoring like a coal fatory!!! hahaha

I feel a little refreshed now. We went to this lounge called "SuperMarket" where Gavin's party was. The second I stepped in, My brain started blacking out again. I couldn't talk to people, couldn't stand properly. So I stayed for an hour and then told Alex that I should go home cuz I can't take this anymore. Alex wanted to stay cuz there were people that he wanted to talk to about some music productions which he have decided to become his career. No arguments about that!! I took the bus to my place and when I saw the bed it was like calling my name!! I dropped on it looked at the time......1:30am. Holy shit I have not slept for over 48 hours....well if you subtract the 2 hour nap I had on his driveway!! Now it's almost 5:30am!! only 4 hours of sleep and I couldn't go back to sleep so I decided to write this blog.

In two hours I'm going to meet up with the guys and go camping......I hope I can survive that with this much of sleep!!

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Thursday, August 04, 2005

Jeffrey Anderson

Jeffrey Scott Anderson is a double agent in the worlds of fiction and science. Committed to writing science thrillers without sacrificing plausibility in the slightest scientific details, he writes from a vantage point of a broad background in science and medicine.

His diverse interests surfaced as an undergraduate student in mathematics, where he also pursued concentrations in chemistry, physics, Russian literature, and psychology. He began his graduate studies in abstract mathematics, where he proved theorems about strategy spaces of infinite games. After completing his M.S. degree in mathematics, he followed his love of complex systems to forge a career studying the human brain.

At Northwestern University, he received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees, studying the brain circuitry underlying visual perception. From years of tracking electrical signals around brain cells, he advanced several new theories about how the brain successfully performs the complex computations required for sensory processing. His discovery that the brain uses random noise to improve sensitivity and flexibility in detecting visual cues solved a longstanding problem in vision research. His research has been published in numerous elite scientific journals, including Science, Nature Neuroscience, and Neuron.

Following his medical training, he became a resident physician at the University of Utah Medical Center. As an internal medicine intern, he became acquainted with first response procedures to biological weapons while serving in a busy emergency room during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. During this year, he began construction of Sleeper Cell, his first novel.

He subsequently began training in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Utah, where he currently balances clinical responsibilities with his research in functional brain MRI and new diagnostic tests for multiple sclerosis. Most recently, he has received the Research Resident Award from the Radiological Society of North America.

He is scheduled to begin fellowship training in Neuroradiology in 2006, after which he may actually get a real job. Skeptics think it is more likely he will avoid employment to pursue his research, writing, and numerous hobbies, which include running, software development, digital video editing, and beach loitering.

After living around the United States, as well as in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Russia, he now resides in Salt Lake City with his wife and four energetic children. Whenever the children are asleep, he can be found polishing his next novel, Second Genesis.

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---------------oOo--------------- Sleeper Cell

At the start of Dr. Anderson's thought-provoking debut medical thriller, people are dying in Los Angeles from what appears to be a new, unknown virus. At the same time, a Web site in Indonesia warns of Allah's "nanodeath" holocaust: "His nanomachines cannot be stopped until they have destroyed every American man, woman, and child." A team of scientists spring into action to trace the origin of the bug, finding what appears to be "a microscopic machine that can reproduce itself... essentially an artificial virus." Casualties begin to mount while the team struggles to catch up; meanwhile, politicos in Washington make plans to use the attack as grounds for military action they had already been seeking to carry out. The author does a great job of building excitement by interweaving the more bookish, scientific passages with espionage involving embedded terrorists, counteragents and rogue university professors. If scenes involving Washington decision makers are oversimplified, they successfully show how cause and effect, in times of war, are almost never clearly connected. Anderson doesn't shy away from his story's natural climax (though his fictional president closes on an upbeat note, it's far from a happy ending), making this book much more cautionary than the average escapist thriller.

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---------------oOo--------------- Mahatma Ghandi

Mahatma Gandhi became one of the pivotal figures, if not the main figure, in India's history in the Twentieth Century. Along with Jinnah and Nehru, Gandhi shaped India's history up to its independence in 1947.

Mahatma Gandhi was born in 1869 and he died in 1948.

Gandhi was born in Porbander in western India. In 1888, he went to London to study law. He returned to Bombay to work as a barrister but went to South Africa to work in 1907. In South Africa, he took part in passive protests against the Transvaal government's treatment of Indian settlers who were in the minority in the region. In 1915, he returned to India and, after joining the Congress movement, he emerged as one of the party's leaders.

Gandhi encouraged Indians to boycott British goods and buy Indian goods instead. This helped to revitalise local economies in India and it also hit home at the British by undermining their economy in the country. Gandhi preached passive resistance, believing that acts of violence against the British only provoked a negative reaction whereas passive resistance provoked the British into doing something which invariably pushed more people into supporting the Indian National Congress movement.

Gandhi was imprisoned in 1922, 1930, 1933 and in 1942. While in prison, he went on hunger strike. His fame was such that his death in prison would make international headlines and greatly embarrass the British at a time when Britain was condemning dictators in Europe.
In 1931, Gandhi came to Britain for the Round Table conferences. Nothing was achieved except for the publicity that Gandhi received for dressing in the clothes of an Indian villager; Gandhi saw this type of dress as perfectly normal for a man who represented the Indian people. The British representatives at the conference were more soberly dressed in formal morning dress.

When in India, Gandhi took on the British where possible. He famous walk to the sea to produce salt was typical of his actions. Britain had a monopoly on salt production in India and Gandhi saw this as wrong. Hence his decision to produce salt by the sea.

He realised that the religious issues of India were too deep for any remedy to work. Hence he collaborated with Mountbatten and Wavell in the build up to independence in 1947. This association with the break-up of India was to cost him his life. There had been one assassination attempt on Gandhi on January 20th 1948 - it had failed. Just ten days later on the 30th January, he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic who could not forgive Gandhi for his belief that Muslims had equal value to Hindus and no-one was better than anybody else.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 4th in History

1265 - King Henry III puts down a revolt of English barons lead by Simon de Montfort.

1578 - A crusade against the Moors of Morocco is routed at the Battle of Alcazar-el-Kebir. King Sebastian of Portugal and 8,000 of his soldiers are killed.

1717 - A friendship treaty is signed between France and Russia.

1864 - Federal troops fail to capture Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island, one of the Confederate forts defending Mobile Bay.

1879 - A law is passed in Germany making Alsace Lorraine a territory of the empire.

1914 - Germany invades Belgium causing Great Britain to declare war on Germany.

1942 - The British government charges that Mohandas Gandhi and his All-Indian Congress Party favor "appeasement" with Japan.

1952 - Helicopters from the U.S. Air Force Air Rescue Service land in Germany, completing the first transatlantic flight by helicopter in 51 hours and 55 minutes of flight time.

1964 - The U.S.S. Maddox and Turner Joy exchange fire with North Vietnamese patrol boats.

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---------------oOo--------------- Christopher Columbus

After five centuries, Columbus remains a mysterious and controversial figure who has been variously described as one of the greatest mariners in history, a visionary genius, a mystic, a national hero, a failed administrator, a naive entrepreneur, and a ruthless and greedy imperialist.

Columbus's enterprise to find a westward route to Asia grew out of the practical experience of a long and varied maritime career, as well as out of his considerable reading in geographical and theological literature. He settled for a time in Portugal, where he tried unsuccessfully to enlist support for his project, before moving to Spain. After many difficulties, through a combination of good luck and persuasiveness, he gained the support of the Catholic monarchs, Isabel and Fernando.

The widely published report of his voyage of 1492 made Columbus famous throughout Europe and secured for him the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and further royal patronage. Columbus, who never abandoned the belief that he had reached Asia, led three more expeditions to the Caribbean. But intrigue and his own administrative failings brought disappointment and political obscurity to his final years.

Queen Isabel and King Fernando had agreed to Columbus's lavish demands if he succeeded on his first voyage: he would be knighted, appointed Admiral of the Ocean Sea, made the viceroy of any new lands, and awarded ten percent of any new wealth. By 1502, however, Columbus had every reason to fear for the security of his position. He had been charged with maladministration in the Indies.

The Library's vellum copy of the Book of Privileges is one of four that Columbus commissioned to record his agreements with the Spanish crown. It is unique in preserving an unofficial transcription of a Papal Bull of September 26, 1493 in which Pope Alexander VI extended Spain's rights to the New World.

Much concerned with social status, Columbus was granted a coat of arms in 1493. By 1502, he had added several new elements, such as an emerging continent next to islands and five golden anchors to represent the office of the Admiral of the Sea.

As a reward for his successful voyage of discovery, the Spanish sovereigns granted Columbus the right to bear arms. According to the blazon specified in letters patent dated May 20, 1493, Columbus was to bear in the first and the second quarters the royal charges of Castile and Leon -- the castle and the lion -- but with different tinctures or colors. In the third quarter would be islands in a wavy sea, and in the fourth, the customary arms of his family.

The earlist graphic representation of Columbus's arms is found in his Book of Privileges and shows the significant modifications Columbus ordered by his own authority. In addition to the royal charges that were authorized in the top quarters, Columbus adopted the royal colors as well, added a continent among the islands in the third quarter, and for the fourth quarter borrowed five anchors in fess from the blazon of the Admiral of Castille. Columbus's bold usurpation of the royal arms, as well as his choice of additional symbols, help to define his personality and his sense of the significance of his service to the Spanish monarchs.

The Book of Privileges is a collection of agreements between Columbus and the crowns of Spain prepared in Seville in 1502 before his 4th final voyage. The compilation of documents includes the 1497 confirmation of the rights to titles and profits granted to the Admiral by the 1492 contract of Santa Fe and augmented in 1493 and 1494, as well as routine instructions and authorizations related to his third voyage. We know that four copies of his Book of Privileges existed in 1502, three written on vellum and one on paper.

All three vellum copies have thirty-six documents in common, including the Papal Bull inter caetera of May 4, 1493, defining the line of demarcation of future Spanish and Portuguese explorations, and specifically acknowledging Columbus's contributions. The bull is the first document on vellum in the Library's copy and the thirty-sixth document in the Genoa and the Paris codices. The Library copy does not have the elaborate rubricated title page, the vividly colored Columbus coat of arms, or the authenticating notarial signatures contained in the other copies. The Library's copy, however, does have a unique transcription of the Papal Bull Dudum siquidem of September 26, 1493, extending the Spanish donation. The bull is folded and addressed to the Spanish sovereigns.

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---------------oOo--------------- AUGUST 3rd in History

1347 - Six burghers of the surrounded French city of Calais surrender to Edward III of England in hopes of relieving the siege.

1492 - Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his voyage to the new world.

1546 - French printer Etienne Dolet, accused of heresy, blasphemy and sedition, is hanged and burned at the stake for printing reformist literature.

1692 - French forces under Marshal Luxembourg defeat the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in the Netherlands.

1805 - Mohammed Ali becomes the new ruler of Egypt.

1882 - Congress passes the Immigration Act, banning Chinese immigration for ten years.

1911 - Airplanes are used for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes reconnoiter Turkish lines near Tripoli.

1914 - Germany declares war on France.

1916 - Sir Roger Casement is hanged for treason in England.

1945 - Chinese troops under American General Joseph Stilwell take the town of Myitkyina from the Japanese.

1967 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces plans to send 45,000 more troops to Vietnam.

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Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Life

We always think of what we want to be in the future and plan our way to get to our ultimate goal in life. We challenge ourselves everyday to convince ourselves that we are capable of becoming what we have dreamt of becoming. Some of us change their paths to another direction after figuring out their true ambitious. Yet, some of us might not even make it at all because they might clash with death or "The Dark Angel"

Today my youngest brother "Jassim" is celebrating his 15th birthday. Tomorrow Kuwait is remembering the Iraqi invasion on their soil back in 1990. Yesterday one of our dear friends in AIESEC "Bharat" Have passed away as well as the King of Saudi Arabia - King Fahad.
People celebrating birthdays, weddings, graduation.....a rememberance of happiness and success.
Others, remembering deaths in families, wars.....a rememberance of sadness and illness.

There is this world wide saying.....this is the circle of life, people die and people are born. When I look at my life now I ask myself. What have I done so far? What is my purpose in life? Am I gonna find that out or that the "Dark Angel" will get to me first?
Well, at the end, it doesn't really matter. What you are is who you are. As you grow a day older everyday you discover something new about yourself, bad or good. You impact people's lives, bad or good. You impact your own life, bad or good.

Your actions today are tomorrow's reactions

Peace be upon you all

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---------------oOo--------------- A Bronx Tale

It's New York City in 1960 -- the Fordham neighborhood. Living at East 187th Street is the family of Calogero (played at age 9 by Francis Capra and at age 17 by Lillo Brancato). Calogero's father Lorenzo (Robert De Niro) believes that a man should work hard for a living, and thus refuses to be involved in anything that has illegal overtones, such as working for Sonny (Chazz Palminteri), the local "boss". Calogero has different views, however. He idolizes Sonny, and, given a chance to help the "boss" beat a murder rap, Calogero takes it. A grateful Sonny brings the 9-year old under his wing and, despite the protestations of Lorenzo, a bond develops. Soon, Calogero has two fathers -- each giving different advice and neither respecting what the other has to say.

Robert De Niro has appeared in some of the greatest gangster films of the past two decades, working for directors such as Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather 2), Brian DePalma (The Untouchables), and, of course, Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas). As a result, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that De Niro has chosen this genre for his first behind-the-camera motion picture.

A Bronx Tale covers little new ground, but the material's presentation is anything but ordinary. Sure, on the surface, it's another gangster movie, but the story, like the deeply-realized characters, is multi-layered. A Bronx Tale could be accused of tackling too much, and perhaps its few failures are because of an overly-ambitious scope, but the film has impressive vision and packs a legitimate emotional punch.

While there is violence in A Bronx Tale, it isn't a focal point (curiously, most of the violent scenes are fairly "clean" -- we see graphic beatings, but little blood). Instead, as they should be, the characters are kept at the center. The three principles -- Calogero, Sonny, and Lorenzo -- are all well-realized. This is as much a credit to the writing of Chazz Palminteri and the direction of Robert De Niro as to the quartet of fine actors essaying the characters.

If the movie takes a wrong turn, it's in trying to incorporate an anti-racist theme by having Calogero fall for Jane, a black girl. Today, mixed race relationships are subject to various tensions and pressures, but that's nothing compared to how it was in 1968, and A Bronx Tale isn't as successful putting these issues in perspective as when it deals with the complex relationship of Calogero and his "two fathers." As in The Godfather trilogy, family is the central issue here.

De Niro successfully varies the tone, keeping it light and playful at times, dark and somber at others. A Bronx Tale is his triumph, and a testimony that all those years of watching the best in the business have borne fruit. If what is yet to come has any of the promise shown by this debut, we may be witnessing the birth of yet another directing talent.

(3 out of 5) So Says the Jaw Breaker.


Check out the movie's website

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Monday, August 01, 2005

JULY 31st in History

904 - Arabs capture Thessalonica.

1703 - English novelist Daniel Defoe is made to stand in the pillory as punishment for offending the government and church with his satire The Shortest Way With Dissenters.

1760 - Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, drives the French army back to the Rhine River.

1790 - The U.S. Patent Office opens.

1891 - Great Britain declares territories in Southern Africa up to the Congo to be within their sphere of influence.

1904 - The Trans-Siberian railroad connecting the Ural mountains with Russia's Pacific coast, is completed.

1917 - The third Battle of Ypres commences as the British attack the German lines.

1932 - Adolf Hitler's Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) doubles its strength in legislative elections.

1944 - The Soviet army takes Kovno, the capital of Lithuania.

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