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08/25/2004 Archived Entry: "USA Today"

Only one cartoon today...but it's a good one!: Clay Bennett's "Q&A". I have been assured by the editor with whom I've been working at USA Today that the editorial I wrote on Kobe Bryant's accuser will run in today's edition, having been bumped forward from its scheduled publication last week. One disadvantage of living down a gravel road in rural Ontario, however, is that I do not have easy access to USA Today and I don't know if it will be posted online.

UPDATE: The exchange is online: the point and my counterppoint.

Gordon P. offers the following movie review...

Finally saw Jerry Bruckheimer's _King Authur_, which was based on one of the various different theories of a possible historical origin for Arthurian legend. On the whole, I felt it was quite well done --- and it was _definitely_ a =VERY= different take on the story !!! The Arthur / Guinevere / Lancelot triangle plays no significant role at all; nor does Mordred, Morgan le Fey, or the Quest for the Holy Grail. Merlin is the leader of a group of Pictish tribes known as the Wodes, not a "Wizard." The Romans and the Saxons both come off rather badly; they both brutally oppress the celtic Britons. And a group of people I've never even heard of before plays a central role: The Sarmatian Horsemen, a group of nomadic tribesmen from the persian region, who are presented as the origin figures for the legend of King Arthur's Knights, and whose women were believed by the greeks to have descended from the Amazons warriors !!!

It also contained some fairly explicit "libertarian" messages: 1.) All men are born free. Freedom is both our birthright and our nature. 2.) No state has the right to deprive free men of their freedom. .) No state has either the power or the authority to "grant" free men the freedom that is already theirs by nature and birthright. 4.) The state _lies_ about its nature to delude free men into serving it. 5.) The choices an individual makes define the meaning of their lives. I also for the first time learned of Pelagious, a British monk who appears to have been both a "Proto-Protestant" and a proto-"Christian Libertarian."

In many respects, this film reminds me quite a bit of _The Last Samurai_, in mood, tone, and cinematography. (There are also obvious parallels to _Braveheart_...) While the Irish countryside it was filmed in was quite
spectacular and beautiful, be warned that the battle scenes are brutally explicit (which should probably not have been too surprising, given that it was a Jerry Bruckheimer film... :-/). In summary, in my opinion, this film is definitely worth seeing...