scattershooting’s blog

As I get older I find my musical tastes changing. if you ride with me in the car, I'm worse than you can imagine except I have no remote! I change the station, CD track or XM radio channel constantly. I'm ADD or something when it comes to listening. So it takes something special to keep me from reaching over to press whatever button or know I can find.

While browsing XM this a.m., I ran across Lucy Kaplansky. Simply put she is a sort of folk singer - i can't categorize her anymore except to say I've  found a new/old sound I like. So if you like Shawn Colvin (who happens to be her producer) then you may want to check her out. I think this is my next CD purchase.

I just finished up an interesting documentary called “The Fog of War” by Errol Morris.

It came out in 2003 but our library just now got a copy that I could check out. I’m too cheap to buy movies and renting a documentary seems ….

If you’ve not heard of this film, it basically features former Secretary of Defense (during Kennedy and Johnson’s Presidencies) Robert McNamara, recounting his involvement during the height of the Vietnam War.

Errol Morris does an interesting job of turning 90 minutes of a talking- head into something very watchable.

Whether you agree with McNamara or not, watching it will provide some insight into what we did as a country during Vietnam. And it is hard to believe that the sharp mind and voice speaking on camera is that of a man in his mid-eighties with a remarkable recall for historic details. I guess if you live the history, you remember it.

During the war, McNamara took almost as much if not more grief from everyone about Vietnam as did either President. And in his twilight years he took even more for seemingly recanting his involvement in support of the administrations actions during the war. But I think if you listen closely he says more than once, that at the time, no one knew for sure what to do, they thought they were doing the right thing, everyone agreed (except perhaps for General Curtis LeMay) that war was horrible but they made the best decisions they could.

In hindsight of course we can see they royally misunderstood everything and in the process lost more than 50,000 lives, several million North and South Vietnamese were killed and when the dust had settled, Vietnam was re-united and did become Communist. But all we have to do is look at the country now – while no economic powerhouse, American companies like Coca Cola and others are in the marketplace there.

As I watched I knew this was a movie with a message undoubtedly geared toward or about the war in Iraq too. I can only hope that we are not making the same mistakes all over again.

On a technical or stylistic side – Errol Morris has an odd technique that somehow works. He uses odd angles and framing. McNamara talks often right into the camera. I wonder if Morris had more than one camera because he cuts quickly from tight shots to close-ups to odd framings – all seamlessly on McNamara.

Inevitably during an interview, you need to edit out portions of statements, clean things up, eliminate pauses etc. The traditional way is a cutaway – cut off the speaker, show something else, hide your audio edit underneath the picture cut and then come back to the speaker. Errol Morris simply leaves lots of the jump cuts that are visible when you don’t use a cutaway. It is much more than that but this is a simple explanation of what he does.

His use of stock film must have taken researchers years to find and decide exactly what shot to put where.

And finally the score from Phillip Glass is timeless – meaning to me that it works under transitions, under modern footage but also under the archival stuff that goes back to WWI.

I’ve not seen nor do I desire to see Michael Moore’s various rants that he calls documentaries. This one for me is one of the better. About 90 minutes long – I watched it in three sittings and never got tired or bored. I still don’t understand the war I grew up during, but this helped me to understand a part of it I didn’t know much about.

No not Mel's latest foray into Mayan culture but rather Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". Still not
sure what to make of this. He is a very different writer. Somewhat choppy prose - but whether
you like his style or not, it may be more representative of how we speak.

This one is about a journey, of sorts, during what must be a post-nuclear catastrophe or something. In the book it is never made clear exactly what has happened - just something devastating and bad.

Imagine the first Mad Max (knew I could work Mel Gibson in here somewhere!) but with fewer people.

I won't give anything away but I was at first annoyed by the flashbacks in the older man's mind.

But then after awhile I wanted to know more about his life before all this stuff happened.

Do I recommend it? Not sure. not very long and a pretty quick - but not easy - read.

Far too many people have already weighed in on this little movie that could. I’d like to simply say a couple of things about it now that I’ve watched it with my family.

For the first hour or so my wife and I kept looking at each other as if to say, “aren’t we glad this was a borrowed copy and we didn’t buy or rent this?”

But for me (and I’m not sure of the turning point for my wife) a change happened at the scene where the struggling coach encourages, motivates (pick your favorite word here) one of his players as he tries to carry another player on his back the length of the football field.

Somehow that scene seemed real to me. It had emotion. It wasn’t flat or pat.

After that I was in.

Is this a great movie? No. But is it worthwhile? Yes.

Christians may find the theology a little too contrived. Without giving too much away, everything works out in the end. A sort of Romans 8:28 theology. And I have to admit for some people things do sometimes work out that way.

A couple of weeks ago a family at our church lost their mother to cancer. I’ll spare you the details but I’d venture to say that even though their faith is strong (still), they could tell you from first-hand experience, that things (on the surface) don’t always turn out good or happy or wonderful. A man lost his wife, Three boys lost their mother. Hard stuff.

I don’t want to get my theology from country music but I like the words in the Martina McBride song “Anyway.” They go something like this: “God is great, but sometimes life ain’t fair. When I pray, sometimes things don’t’ always work out like they should, but I do it anyway.”

That line gets me every time.

Perhaps it is my own shortcomings that keep me from living the life as portrayed and experienced in Facing the Giants. But for reasons unknown to me (and many others), our lives here on earth are messy and to paraphrase the book title of a couple of decades ago, “Bad stuff happens to good people.” I think how we deal with that bad stuff is what separates us from everybody else.

Here's a plug for another book I'm in the middle of. "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day". A rather unwieldy title but a small book packed with lots of wisdom. The Cliff Notes version? God didn't create us to pay it safe. We need to stop living as if our purpose in life was to die. Take risks. The author Mark Batterson says that most people don't really regret the stuff they do (obviously we do some stupid stuff and we should be sorry for it, stop doing it etc. but) what people REALLY regret are the things they didn't do.

Silly personal story but when I was in my early 20s I took a solo camping trip to Colorado. Hiked through the Maroon Bells near Aspen. Absolutely beautiful country. One day while hiking I came to a creek where one side was higher than the other. The creek was maybe 6 feet wide. I started to jump over. Decided not to. Backed up for a better start - got to the edge and chickened out. Ended up walking around to find a "safe" way across. I still remember that simple silly avoidance of risk.

One day after hours of hiking I came into the town of Aspen (long before it got too expensive for average folks) looking for something to eat. Parked my car, walked around, ate and came back. Someone left a note on my car that said (and trust me I still remember most of the words exactly): "Another believer from Dallas (I had my SMU sticker and a fish decal on my rear window so they put two-and-two together). We are staying at..." - ok here I forget the name of the campground but it went on to invite me up to camp out with them. I have no idea who these people were. I got in my car and drove back to my solitary campsite and slept and ate alone. But to this day I wish I had gone up to meet them.

These are just two of my own examples of regrets and how they stick with you.

An update on Travels with Charley

. I just finished this up last night. For some reason it has taken me several weeks to get through what is not that hard of a book. But now having finished some observations while still fresh (or at least not stale!)

I doubt anyone would read this book if written by a contemporary star author. Steinbeck was an icon when he made his trip. Hard to imagine for instance - John Grisham doing this today. OK maybe Stephen King. Now that I think about it, if King travelled the country and wrote such a book, it would be another best seller. Funny I'm not a big fan of his but he is talented in what he does. I did enjoy "On Writing" his sort of how-to book for writers. Reading that I can appreciate that he really works hard at what he does. Sort of like the Sonic commercials. I hate them with a pure hatred. But I went to a luncheon and one of the creators of those spots shared his story of how they came to be and how they actually do them. While I still hate them, I appreciate that they represent hard work by lots of people. I digress.

This was my second time through "Travels..." and both times what really stands out are the sections where he deals with race. I grew up in the south (OK Texas is maybe more west than south) in the 50s and 60s. It was certainly a racially fragile enviroment. Steinbeck writes with an obvious concern and yet honesty about this part of our culture. I think he realizes that even though to southerners, he is just a liberal northerer, at his core, he still struggles with issues of race, equality etc. It is hard to believe that we have changed some much in 40 years. To an African-American or any minority I'm sure the changes are too slow and too few. But coming at it from my white southern perspective, seems like we've come a long way. On my other blog (redbridgerancher.blogspot.com) I wrote a short post not too long ago (Still Alive and Kicking) about a pocket of racism I ran across in my daily travels.

I'm not sure I can strongly recommend that you MUST read this book. But if you want to check back into the late 50s/early60s and see a different look at a very different time in America, then go ahead.

nothing new here except to alert anyone who cares about this sort of thing to check out a weekly series at USA Today - religion.usatoday.com.

Today's - April 16 - is particularly interesting. The plethora of books and all-things-Atheist have been bothering me but I really didn't have any good answers or comebacks. Mr. Feder in this column does a pretty good job of providing some balance.

Every column is not a great one and I don't always agree. But it is a pretty good forum in what may not be considered a "religion" or "Christian-friendly" newspaper. I think most people would lump USA Today in with the rest of the main-stream-media. But this weekly column offers a flicker of hope.

Another book on my nightstand is Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. A few months ago my daughter bought this and said she was joining a reading group on it. She dropped out but kept the book and recently gave it to me. I listened to it a few years ago and really enjoyed it. But I've dropped back into the early 60s once more and am following Steinbeck in his travels across the country with his poodle - yes a poodle.

Some of it is unrecognizeable. America has changed a lot in the 40+ years since his travels. But in other areas you'd swear he was sitting in a bar somewhere in Detroit or Memphis and transcribing the comments on the patrons. I've tried to read several of his novels and have never been able to penetrate them. But for some reason this one resonaters with me. See for yourself.

Not sure why I have been led to read certain books lately but I'm in the middle of the previous book and had to send it back to the library and wait my turn (weakness #1 - I'm stingy and hardly buy books anymore). But I heard about another one that I started last night and it has me wanting to go back for me. It is called Once upon a country : a Palestinian life / Sari Nusseibeh. It is written by a native Palestianian and I'm only about 30 pages in but I am hooked. Not sure if it is the subkect matter, the "eyewitness" aspect of it or what. But I promise to report more on this in the coming days.

Like the mild-mannered Kent fellow, I thought I'd use this VOX blog site to write differently than anywhere else. I'm serious and conservative on my other blog so will attempt to be less structured or whatever on this one.

This is the book I am currently trying to read. Its a slog thru some history we should probably know but don't. I hope it will help me understand better what is going on in the middle east and elsewhere. But already, am I'm only up to about 1840 in the book's timeline, I notice a trend. Whenever we get involved with that part of the world, we don't seem to know what we are doing. It took us several president's and a decade or two to finally get a handle on the Barbary Coast pirates so I don't have much hope we will ever get one on Iraq.