"Lone Survivor" lives against all odds.

Was the mission portrayed in the new movie Sole Survivor cursed from the beginning? It doesn’t appear so at first, but later, in the new Afghan war film starring Mark Wahlberg, it shows how an undercover Navy Seal mission code named Operation Red Wings encounters almost completely fatal opposition by the Taliban.

The team is inserted by helicopter into the Afghan landscape and hikes deep into rocky and forested mountain terrain. Their objective is to maintain a look out on a village and then terminate resident Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.
Excellent cinematography in the film shows panoramic mountain vistas, majestic sun rises and the rugged beauty of terrain in Afghanistan. Costumes, setting and varied characters add dynamic realism.

Sole Survivor opens with scenes of Navy Seal training. Soaked by waves on a beach for hours. Crawls through mud. Jumps into a swimming pool with tied feet. Interspersed scenes depict the Taliban. In one an Afghan man is getting his head hacked off.

While hidden in brush waiting for their target to appear, goats and three Afghan goat herders stumble upon the team and are captured. What to do? They carry a radio and that's evidence they’re Taliban. But one’s a boy, one’s an old man and the third is young adult with a scornful face. The team debates whether to “Terminate the compromise,” "tie them up," or "free them." The first option is murderous but appears the safest way to secure the mission. Team commander Michael Murphy, portrayed by Taylor Kitsch, orders the goat herders set free.

One released prisoner leap frogs down rocky slopes apparently with news of what he has encountered. Later the Seals see a nearby ridge alive with Taliban.
The ensuing carnage grips the theater and propels the film into some of the best war movie action I’ve seen. The Seal Team inflicts enormous damage on the Taliban, but so outnumbered are the Americans that they get forced back time and again by not only rifle but rocket and machine gun fire.

Repeatedly they tumble down rock slopes amid explosions, wounded and hurting but returning fire. The visualizations are outstanding.
When two double bladed chinook helicopters arrive with reinforcements, one is demolished by an enemy rocket. The other flies away amid a palpable sense of wrecked hope.
The death scenes of the three Americans who perish are slowed and highlight their demises.

I felt the story of how Marcus Luttrell lived the most compelling part of the movie. If you like war movies, and if you’re not bothered by the politics of the war in Afghanistan, I’d say go to this film. I give it an eight on a scale of one to ten.      

What's the missing ingredient in our politics?

I believe in the value of individuals. I value the belief so much that abortion goes against my grain. What about the homeless mother with two young daughters collecting cans and bottles out of garbage cans and sleeping in parks? She's pregnant. Looking at her situation, I’d view abortion in a more acceptable light and probably alter my perspective.

The ability to switch perspective is important. Most of us have emotional buttons and strong feelings. We're convinced our point of view is the only possible one correct. We're immune to perspective change because when our buttons are pushed by someone who espouses a differing opinion, we automatically don’t listen. We almost can’t listen because our takes are welded tight into our identities. Our defenses are automatic.They shield us. They protect our perspectives so we can’t look at matters in a different light. My argument is that's part and parcel of the human condition.

I’m naturally a Democrat. My instincts endorse the view that vulnerable people deserve protection from powerful interests. I support unions because I’m more an employee than business owner. Unions sit on one side of the teeter totter and because they do that balances the equilibrium between owner and worker. I support that. However I'm not going to bash Republicans as people. I’m not going to sling personal invective. I’m not going to douse the fire of political discord with gasoline.

I’m going to search for common ground. I’m going to live with momentary, unsettled feelings and respond rather than react. If Pat Robertson says something of value, I’m not going to discount the remark because Pat Robertson made it.  

What happened to courtesy in the politics of the United States? I don’t care who the President is. The position itself confers a dignity on the office that obligates respect. The President is the elected representative of the country. The liberal faction fumed against the second President Bush with unrestrained venom. The conservative faction is doing the same against President Obama. We have the strongholds of the Left and Right hurling boulders against their opposites and refusing to collaborate for the good of the country. Grouped in the middle is the majority that simply wants things to work. They want food and shelter. They want jobs and a good education for their kids. They want affordable housing. They want security on the streets.

Some of us are perhaps willing to no longer care how things work as long as they work. Jobs created by an elected official to aid impoverished constituents through a technically illegal manipulation? Is that getting things to work?

I stray off topic. I mean to emphasis that the whole social and political climate in the country would improve if we began to treat Americans with different views than our own with more courtesy and respect.

The Bad Boys

The Bad Boys? What provoked the enmity between the brood of my siblings and The Bad Boys? It just had always existed. The conflict was about who would dominate the acre of weedy field separating our houses.

A staked wood fence divided our grass back yard from the field. The fence guarded our house and served as a last line of defense.

Kids against the Bad Boys

We won and lost in this kid conflict of the middle 1950s.  We built a fort in No Man’s Land. We set fire to the field. They shot BB guns at us. Rocks and dirt clods flew at moving targets. Both sides had metal and wood sling shots. I preferred wood sling shots because they were hefty and solid.

In the heart of a fight a Bad Boy twirls as the rock I throw hits his chest. They press against us. We’re forced behind the fence and when they start to clamber over,  my older brother asks to let him use my slingshot. I refuse but soon consent. Into the back yard out strides our eldest sibling demanding an end to the fight. The Bad Boys immediately run. They must have mistaken her for our mother.

One hazy early morning I notice a truck size pile of smooth throwing rocks dumped in No Man’s Land. The threat is apparent. Without a share of those rocks we’ll be at a pronounced disadvantage. A sister and I huddle to counter the threat.

We arise at early dawn and sneak to the rock pile. We place them into a pail one at a time because we want it kept quiet. It’s frustrating because we’re in a hurry. I don’t know to this day how the Bad Boys discovered we were there. It was a complete surprise because we didn't see them coming. Four rushed at us throwing a shower of rocks. I took one in the temple and stunned, managed to stay on my feet.  I yelled to my sister to scram and covered her by throwing rocks at the ambushing team as fast as I could. I then slammed out of there myself, our mission failing.
 

Siblings against the Bad Boys

It’s a quiet afternoon. The Bad Boys loll in their trench in front of their house on the far side of the field.  I ritually eat grasshopper legs for courage. My brother pats me on the shoulder. I sprint toward them with a fist full of dirt. Not directly, but around the side. They're caught off guard when I throw dirt and run full tilt back to our side. It’s symbolic. It’s important however to let the Bad Boys know we will provoke. We’re going to unsettle them too.                          

I remember one battle is unusually pitched. We don’t fist fight, but we mix it up hurling rocks back and forth with unusual intensity. The Bad Boys suddenly break and run.  The unexpected event strikes joy into us. We repeatedly leap and shout exultant yells. We not only win that day, we prove the Bad Boys can be as afraid of us as we are of them.

Repeat...I am a senior citizen!

I’m getting used to being a “senior.” I’m getting accustomed to people calling me “sir.”  When people first started calling me "sir," I felt it a mistake. “I’m no sir!” I protested to myself, “Why am I being called sir?" I said to myself  “This is happening way too fast!!”

My maternal grandfather and sister circa 1947.

I’m 64 years old. When I was 55 or so years old, I glimpsed the top of my head and saw a bald spot. “Holy Moses I've got a bald spot?!" I inwardly exclaimed. I felt taken aback. Then once a jive kid calls me “grandpa!"

With this feedback I have begun to accept that I am a senior citizen.

I look at pictures in Facebook of friends who were grammar school classmates or pals from the late 60s, and they're seniors. I deduct I've got to be a senior as much as they are.

I walk on the treadmill at the gym.  I ran on the treadmill 20 years ago.

I’m enjoying aspects of being a senior. I feel more “entitled” to speak my mind. I enjoy feeling more free to talk without worrying how other people might think or respond. My sense of humor has enlivened with the onset of years. I like that. I like the slower pace of being an older retired man. I can read a book at leisure, watch a movie, write an e-mail or talk on the phone with little outside pressure.

I’ve felt bad sometimes as I’ve entered the older years. I’ve felt I didn’t reach my potential. Although I still feel that way sometimes, I don’t as often because I realize the past is spilled milk. I look at my accomplishments in better light and see I made a beneficial difference.

Grisham one of a kind book writer.

If I see a book by John Grisham I’ve never read, I’ll enjoy reading it.

I like how most of Grisham’s books deal with legal and moral issues in small towns of the South. The pithy dialogue he writes for his individualistic, flamboyant characters entertain.

I’m reading his latest novel now, “Sycamore Row.” It’s about what happens when a wealthy white man, close to death from cancer, hand-writes  a new will the day before he hangs himself from a tree.  He bequeaths 90% of his $20,000,000 fortune to his black housekeeper.  With that Grisham creates high impact word pictures of racism in the South, greed among the deceased man’s children, and conflict as attorneys contest the handwritten will. Most of Grisham’s books teach lessons on how the legal system works. He incorporates the drama of stories into structures of the law.

John Grisham

Grisham’s “The Painted House” was a memorable book to read. Unlike the legal drama, the book tells a story amid cotton farming in the South of the early 1950s. One reason I liked it was because a boy narrates the story and the book speaks in the vernacular of the time and place.

The cotton crop needs harvesting. Mexican workers arrive in cattle cars. Ozark Hill people arrive and put a tent on the front lawn of the family house. Grisham’s familiarity with little while growing up enables him to write well the backdrops of poverty in many of his books.

He entertains with telling details expertly thrown into the mix of his novels. He amusingly shows how people pretend. I don’t find wasted or hazy words in his writing. Grisham wrote thirty two published books and nine the film industry made into movies.

Two other memorably enjoyed books by Grisham are “The Runaway Jury” and “The Street Lawyer.”  The first tells an intriguing story as two opposed interests outside the legal system vie to manipulate jurors to win a verdict. The second tells a story about a corporate lawyer who changes his values and starts practicing law for homeless people.

Grisham brings to life the culture of segregation and country characteristics of what life probably is like in the rural South. He was born in Arkansas and raised in the South. He lives in the South now and knows its characteristics. Grisham in his early years traveled from place to place in the South with his family, until settling in Southhaven, DeSoto County, Mississippi. His father did construction and cotton farming. Grisham worked in a nursery watering plants, as a plumber’s helper, as a sales clerk in a department store and in a road crew spreading asphalt.

He first graduated from Mississippi State University with a BS in accounting, and in 1983 with a JD from the Mississippi State University School of Law. He returned to his hometown of Southhaven and practiced law for the next decade. Sometimes he was chosen by courts to represent indigent clients and gained valuable experience in civil and criminal law. He served from 1983 to 1990 as a Democrat in the Mississippi House of Representatives.

Grisham is on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project, a national organization which advocates for DNA testing to prove the innocence of wrongfully convicted prisoners.

My take on Facebook

When Facebook friends comment on my news feed, I like that. I enjoy reading about what they have done or seen or feel. I prefer these rather than canned, eye-catching messages. These put distance between people. It’s like marching in a protest and carrying a sign. People see and respond to the sign. The person with the sign gets hidden. I've enjoyed reading articles FB friends have posted. I would still prefer to see more posts from individuals simply sharing about their daily lives.

When someone “likes” a comment or photo I put on FB, the positive reinforcement feels good. I like to read threads of conversation on my news feed. If a friend posts a comment and I respond, and her friend posts a comment, dialogue between strangers can ensue. I like discussions on FB. I suspect many feel an unwritten rule that stipulates no talking to people you don't know.

FB has great potential as a forum for entertainment. People could discuss a book or movie. A thread of conversation could ensue. In my four years of experience, this happens infrequently. Many people are perhaps shy and some afraid they might be mocked. Many seem uncomfortable with speaking their minds to strangers. Probably many are too busy with work and family to spend more than a little time on FB.

When I joined FB I was gratified to find long lost friends. I'm now in touch with people I knew when I was in grammar and high school. I didn’t know where they were or if they still lived. Kudos to FB for allowing me to re-connect with them.

One benefit to FB is the ability to start your own “FB Room”. You name the room and have authority over the room. You can allow people to join the room and can eject people from the room. Most of these types of rooms are created with a special purpose in mind. One room was built for people living in, or planning to move to Ecuador. Valuable advice, networking and knowledge are dispensed. Another room was built for people in a 12 Step program. In these rooms people freely share about themselves with others in that particular 12 Step program.

FB offers benefit to the world, but the world in my estimation doesn't use FB to its full potential.

Chat Junkies

Go to a chat room, like ICQ 50 Something. Make your nick. Go there often. That’s how you become a regular. And join the chat! That’s what chat-rooms are for, and even though nowadays I rarely go to them, I was a regular in ICQ 50 Something for years, and known as Frappe.

I talked in English and sometimes French with people from Germany, Australia, Holland, Israel, Canada, England, Morocco, Brazil and from every part of the United States. Regulars would appear in the room usually at their established times. These times would shift as the world turns so that at different times different sets of regulars showed up in the room. I worked a graveyard shift for a security company and sat alone with a computer and chatted with nicks like Luv, Doggy, Hesperus, Mountain Man, Colorado Woman and Wildflower.  

We chatted for fun. Some of us became friends. I enjoy people with serious bents, who talk about politics or books and movies. I was flabbergasted when a friend in Germany claimed the Taliban to be little more than a cultural phenomenon. I replied I viewed them as a barbaric threat to Afghanistan. I respected this woman. She spoke French, German and English. Our differing views didn't upset our friendship, but I wondered if her take on the Taliban was shared by many in Europe.

When the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, the conversation of the entire room converged on that topic. Australia was enduring an historically severe drought and I had no idea until an Aussie regular explained how her farm and surrounding fields had long withered from lack of rain. The cyber world appears to bend cosmological rules. In chat rooms, you can live at the same time for hours with someone technically in your past or future.  

If you go into a room everyday using the same nick and chat, you get amazed at how much about a person you come to know. You get amazed at how much you share when you come to know and trust other regulars. You sit alone but you’re laughing at the same joke with people from around the world.

It gets enticing in the chat rooms. Country Girl and I had an  online romance that started in ICQ 50 Something. It was an entirely online and via telephone affair. One guy and gal who were long time regulars left the chat-room permanently and started living together.

Like any place where human interaction exists, the risk of injured feelings exists as well. I’ve seen instances where a nick abusively destroys the concord of a chat room. That’s why ICQ 50 Something has moderators with authority to kick a person out of the chat-room.