"....and we are here as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight"

.....All you blog and soccer junkies out there, I've been too busy watching just as you are, and also glued to Game of Thrones on the internet.  Yes, I know it can also be seen on HBO if you are privy to it.  This is its fourth season, so I suppose it began the same time as the last World Cup.  I didn't catch it from the beginning because I didn't know about it, but if you start now you can see all the episodes before they expire.  You'll be missing one of the best TV series ever!  Each episode is an hour and you won't believe your eyes or your ears.  Don't let Huston watch.

 

.....In addition I couldn't believe the soccer stupidity when Portugal was given the tying goal on a platter with only a few seconds left to play.  Why was Ronaldo allowed a free rein down the right side of the pitch. Why weren't two defenders giving him a problem?  Why wasn't the box filled with defenders who were defending at that point in the match? Where were they all?  How did that Portuguese striker find no one guarding him from in front and on both sides? Where in hell was every one on our side there with only one minute to play?  What a disaster! Now we surely either beat Germany (Ha!) or at least play them to a draw.  I'm afraid neither is going to happen against that team, and USA will be on their way home, and either Portugal or Ghana will be on their way to the 16.

 

.....Now about mundane things; I must find something to keep my brain from shrinking after the World Cup and Thorns.  I could continue writing the Great Unknown American Novel (The Lost Universe) or teach a Shakespearean play (perhaps to residents who want to get an education), or I can write another Great Unknown American musical which doesn't get performed.  The problem with getting back to continue with the novel is motivation. I did know where I was going with it, but I've forgotten. The problem with teaching a play is that I don't know if I have the energy required. I was once a professional teacher able to walk up and down the aisles ( as was my style). Now I can't. And I don't know if I can teach Shakespeare sitting at a desk.  And the problem with the musical is getting it performed before some idiot thinks he can do better with it.  So, how am I supposed to get to 100 or at the least--to 95? Huh?

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." (BIBLE)

.....Right now I am spending my time between "Game of Thorns" and the World Cup.  If there is a conflict between the two, I won't know what to do.  It's like Robert Frost wrote, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...and I took the one less traveled by." In this case, if you go by TV, then Thorns solves the conflict because fewer people watch it, and trillions watch the World Cup. And it's like Yogi Berra said, If you come to a fork in the road, take it." The World Cup is no doubt exciting but it doesn't show women in full frontal nudity.  In almost every episode; I wonder what they get paid. Besides writing this blog is mostly what I do--but there is plenty to do here anyway.  I'm 90 but that's no excuse for sitting around, moping.  I believe that 98% of men over 90 lose their hair--or they just possess a wisp of grey.

 

.....Another hobby of mine is scratching off scratchoff tickets. Yesterday I was busy with something else and so I asked RH+ to scratch off a few tickets that I had left over, so she did.  And so for me, she scratched off one, and won $100 from a 5$ ticket! Not a bad return.  So I recommend that you buy some scratchoffs if they sell them in your state. Speaking of my previous hobbies, I recommend them also. I just got comment from Mike regarding hobbies, and it seemed to me that Mike likes a clean environment so his hobby now is cleaning chatchkas off all the tables. I've been to his apartment and I noticed a trillion chatchkas everywhere.  So, now Mike has all clean tables, and soon he will be looking for something else to do. Eating a steak at Longhorns is something else that he loves to do, but I don't think you can call it a hobby, just a nutritional habit. 

 

.....Speaking of Mike, his comment on the post about Agincourt must be longer than the post I have here. I don't mean that he commented on Shakespeare's bit about Henry V. Actually, what he wrote had nothing to do with what that post was about.  It had to do with the fact that he had nothing to do.  Oh, I won't go on, because you can read his comment and you may comment on his comment.  Forgive me, but "Thorn" is on.

St. Crispins Day speech (Shakespeare)

History seems to repeat itself and Henry Vs speech to his troops on his St. Crispins Day has several aspects that remind me of "the longest day".

The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day), near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France. Henry V's victory (like ours on D-Day) at Agincourt, against a numerically superior French army, crippled France and started a new period in the war during which Henry married the French king's daughter and then Henry's son, Henry VI, was made heir to the throne of France. Shakespeare celebrates this event in his play about Henry V, and though by a very long-shot, I am no Shakespeare, I have edited the speech for those who can remember ....."the longest Day".

ST. CRISPIN'S DAY SPEECH BY HENRY V

In response to Westmoreland's dismay at the lack of troop strength, King Henry expresses his belief that the few men - 'brothers' - will be able to boast each year on St. Crispin's Day of their victory over the French

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more..
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

"War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus." (St.Exupery)

.....The "debate" about the exchange of five "terrorists" for our last remaining soldier in Afghanistan was arriving at a ridiculous length at the comment section of my previous post. I thought it best, that if I still had thoughts about it, I could continue on this post, rather than on another comment.  And I still have thoughts about it.  First of all Bergdahl was a prisoner of war, not of terrorists.  Terrorism is about the exploitation of civilians, not soldiers. Critics of the exchange are ignoring the precedent that's really at stake here: keeping our promise to bring home our troops.

.....Critics of Obama's decision to honor this precedent at the first opportunity believe the negotiation for Bergdorf sends a dangerous message to terrorists. But they're ignoring the larger message his abandonment would have sent to our troops, their families and prospective recruits.  It would have betrayed our pledge that if you are captured in the service to our country, we'll free you.  The Foreign Relations Authorization Act defines "terrorism" as "...premeditated politically motivated violence perpetrated against NONCOMBATANT (CAPS MINE) targets by subnational groups".  The Taliban were our combatant enemies in a war; Bergdahl, is a soldier. He was a POW, not a civilian hostage.

.....They say that he left his post without authorization provoking a search and rescue mission that led to several deaths, etc.,etc. None of the claims against him have yet to be adjudicated. But our allegiance to our soldiers has to be as solid as their allegiance to us. We don't have to love their character. Loyalty transcends personality--and loyalty works both ways.  The men and women who put their lives on the line (as did I) look to their government for meaningful support, and to be loyal to the crucial message "I'll cover you. You cover me. We're here for each other. We'll get you out."

"Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds." (Pearl Buck)

     "Game of Thrones," HBO's fantasy series based on author George R.R. Martin's still-unfinished "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga, is not like those shows. It is about swords and sigils and dragons and frozen baby-crazed zombies and it is decidedly uninterested in transcending these trappings or ironically critiquing them. As such it represents a strange convergence of hierarchies, a work from a genre (fantasy) not traditionally associated with prestige in a form (television) newly associated with prestige on a network (HBO) most iconically associated with that transition. "Game of Thrones" is a terrifically fun and immensely popular show, but can a work so flagrantly inauthentic actually be important television?

.....The answer is yes, and precisely for its unreality, its joyful hostility toward anything like allegory, commentary or social relevance. Much like "Star Wars" and "Hogwarts" and other great Neverlands, "Game of Thrones" doesn't hold a mirror to anything. It is aggressively false, a work of far-fetched imagination so intricate and finely realized it becomes compelling on its own terms, disorienting and dazzling us in the ways that only the best storytelling can. This is a show in which we cheer on an adolescent girl's precocious transformation into a serial murderer; this is a show in which a character's desire to release people from slavery is convincingly rendered as a conundrum. The most recent episode ended with yet another shocking death, a character we're coming to hate killing a character we'd come to pity, to save the life of a character we've come to love. How are we even supposed to feel? Other than, yet again, thrilled. 

 

.....I had nothing to do the other day, and was getting so bored, I thought of moving to Las Vegas.  Anyway instead of moving to Vegas I looked to see if there was anything good to watch on HBO.  And there was; at least I think so, and the critic from our newspaper also thinks so, as you can gather from the article in our newspaper.  This is the fourth season for this show, and if you have HBO, I suggest that you start with the first season if you can get it on your TV.  Oh, and by the way, don't let the children watch it!  Unless they enjoy naked women, and rough language.

 

.....And to change the subject, I cannot believe that a few idiotic Congressmen are using the release of Sgt. Bowe from five years as a POW as another desperate way to get at President Obama.  They claim that they are "furious" about the exchange because of the release of five terrorists.  It seems that they would prefer to leave Bowe to die over there.  The men in our military always believe that we don't leave anyone behind.  The Israelis did not flinch when they released 1000 "terrorists" from prison to exchange for one Israeli soldier.  Why would anyone want to vote for a guy who would object to an exchange of five terrorists for one American?