RIFLE RANGE BOY

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/mosul-photos_n_5862248.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000010 This combination of two photographs shows a 1932 image of the Crooked Minaret mosque next to a Yazidi shrine in Mosul, northern Iraq, from the Library of Congress, and the same site, without the shrine, on June 8, 2009. (Library of Congress/AP) At the beginning of June, Islamic State militants launched a lightning offensive in Iraq. Just four days into their campaign, they  captured the country's second largest city , Mosul, taking over roads, banks, courts, schools and hospitals. The group  issued religious decrees  governing daily life according to a rigid interpretation of Islamic law. Many of the city's Shiites were persecuted or forced to flee and their  iconic shrines and landmarks were destroyed . Since its capture, Mosul has become a symbol of the hardships people face living under the Islamic Sate. The Associated Press ha...

There he was standing undecided what to buy. He knew exactly what he wanted to buy. He knew how everything worked, right down to the low down nitty-gritty details. He knows where the nuts and the bolts should fit in. He knew what is the latest gizmo in town and what is the newest 'kit in the block'. And he knew how much each item costs. In short, he knew the good, the bad, the ugly and anything in between. But yet, he cannot decide on his latest gadget that he wants to lay his hands on. The Smoking Man of X Files: Are you sure you want to know the whole truth? I do not think you  can handle the Truth!  Item A is superior in one aspect which is less efficient than item B but is more pricey as compared to item C which in turn is more durable than item D and the list goes on. At the end of the day, he is at his wit's end on what to do next. The thought of losing his hard earned money to a sub-standard merchandise is unacceptable in his book. So he waits. The troubl...

Sanshiro Sugata (   ( 姿三四郎 , aka Judo Saga; 1943 ) Director: Akira Kurosawa Japan was at the pinnacle of spreading the influence of The Land of the Rising Sun over its Eastern and South East Asian minions. Back home it was business as usual, art and culture wise. Movies were still made and Kurosawa made his directorial debut through this movie. To keep to the wartime sensitivities of the nation, the censors slashed 1845 feet (17 minutes) of the film footage prior to screening without the consent of the producers. This debut effort shows unique characteristic camera work of Kurosawa. The story is simple. A rogue but talented street fighter, Sanshiro Sugata, tries to learn martial arts from a master who refuses. First, he has to learn humility and discipline. He transforms into a conscientious and respected Judo fighter. A shady character appears to challenge him to a square fight but his master denies that. The fight eventually happens at the end. Before that he has fig...

Man with a Movie Camera ( Человек с киноаппаратом, Silent; 1929) Director: Dziga Vertov In a BBC poll recently, this documentary from the silent film era got the nod as the best documentary film ever made. It is surprising that even with the modern investigative journalistic techniques and presentations, this Russian entry won hands down. And the best part is that there is no story, no plot, no actors and no inter-titling (the message that comes in between scenes to convey the unspoken words). What the director is showing are his newly thought movie making techniques which were considered avant-garde at his time. The use of slow motion, panning, super-imposing, zooming and others are highlighted. He also tries to promote his 'state of the art' mobile camera on a tripod. His wife did an excellent job on editing. The subjects were ordinary subjects from three Russian towns doing their daily chores like dancing, sleeping, cleaning, washing, commuting from the trams and...

Shubun (Scandal, Japanese; 1950) Director: Akira Kurosawa The theme of this movie is still relevant today. The talk of the need for the public to know everything versus the space for citizens and people in authority to safeguard their secrecy is an ongoing debate. Where the line should be drawn on the Truth is anybody's guess. With the recent leakage of supposedly private intimate poses of celebrities to the media is proof of this ongoing debate on this debacle. The boundary of what is indeed trash and what is news is progressively blurred as the public gets all excited with trivial unimportant happenings or smut that happens to people in the limelight or are the people in the press simply sensationalizing these trivial non events? Again, Kurosawa had chosen a modern looking post war Japan with a Western outlook. People are dressed in Western clothes, jackets, pants and dresses and the ladies were donning cropped modern hairstyles. The recreational activities mirror their Weste...

A dejected kilt-wearing Scotsman walking back to day time job and back to reality.... Since King James I/VI united Scotland and England under the same umbrella after his mother was abdicated, imprisoned and eventually beheaded for treason, Scots had always been feeling that they have been short changed. The impression that I got when I was there is that the Scots were just waiting to break free from the union. The recent referendum outcome obviously proved me wrong. Come Monday, it is back life and back to reality. The nay sayers and the yay sayers have to bury the hatchet, hold hands, walk into the sun set and be embroiled in the daily challenges of life. That is life. No matter what differences we have harbour against each other and the outcomes that may despair us, we have to carry on with life with a straight face. To all the people who think that we are being hypocrite by not standing our ground and rejecting all kinds of actions that contradicts our belief, I say get re...

http://time.com/3154186/millennials-selfish-entitled-helicopter-parenting/ Millennials Are Selfish and Entitled, and Helicopter Parents Are to Blame Nick Gillespie @nickgillespie Aug. 21, 2014 There are more overprotective moms and dads at a time when children are actually safer than ever Peter Lourenco—Flickr RF/Getty Images It’s natural to resent younger Americans — they’re younger!— but we’re on the verge of a new generation gap that may make the nasty old fights between baby boomers and their “Greatest Generation” parents look like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Seventy-one percent of American adults think of 18-to-29-year-olds — millennials, basically — as “selfish,” and 65% of us think of them as “entitled.” That’s according to the latest Reason-Rupe Poll , a quarterly survey of 1,000 representative adult Americans. If millennials are self-absorbed little monsters who expect the world to come to them and for their parents to clean up their rooms ...

Victory over evil? Burning effigy of 10 headed Ravana on Vijayadashami. Now, what is education and what is it to be learned? Is it the ability to regurgitate in verbatim what is written by page and chapter without actually understanding what is written or recited? Or is it the ability to understand that there may be two sides of the coin and allowance must be given to an alternative perspective to what has been accepted as the truth without batting an eyelid? I do not think that one becomes stupid or is a trouble maker by questioning what seems to be a no-brainer. Year in year out the effigy of Ravana is burnt with so much pomp and vigour to signify the win of good over evil with the help of the Gods. Ravana is painted in hideous hues and is vilified as the epitome of everything that is evil on Earth. After fasting and praying for 9 days to signify the greatness of the matriarchal forces of Nature, devotees celebrate their victory of staying true to their endeavour by symbo...

The Wild Angels (1966) This movie is the prelude to the 1969 'Easy Rider' about counterculture movement. Honestly, there is nothing great to say about this one. It is about a bunch of young adults of the Hell's Angels just riding and riding being chased by cop, beating up people, breaking up things and getting high. The thing that struck me was the two main actors - Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra, both offspring of great legends of showbiz, namely Henry Fonda and Frank Sinatra. Peter Fonda had his own successes and so did Nancy Sinatra. Nancy, famous with her signature tune 'These boots are made for walking', did not do so well in the silver screen as she did on the music front. It made me uneasy whilst watching this movie is to see how offspring of a generation who had strived hard to make it big, never have the tenacity to scale great heights as the generation before them did. The story also reminds me of how the younger ones in any society at any time of his...

Easy Rider (1969) This classic of the late 60s glorifies the counterculture spirit of that era. Even though it seem to showcase a decadent lifestyle with hedonistic desires away from the usual requirements of society like working and following the law, herein lies the philosophical outlook on life. The message is imparted via the travelogues of two hippie bikers as the they span the USA from Los Angeles to St Louis to attend Mardi Gras before they retire in style in Florida with the ill-gotten stash of cash obtain by drug trafficking big time. The riders (Wyatt@Captain America, Peter Fonda, the producer; Billy, Dennis Hopper, the director) pick up a hitchhiker and spend a night in a commune. In the 60s, people who were disillusioned with the way the capitalistic industrial world was heading, with war and nuclear threat, decide to give it all up to live the simple life with simple desires with lots of love and hallucinogens. The riders could see that the members of the commune, ev...

Blade Runner (1982) I remember watching this movie during the carefree days of post-STPM examinations. It was one of the films that my friends and I managed to watch through a then-new contraption called VCR using VHS tapes. One thing that struck me then was the rampant use of Chinese in the film's billboards and the hawker food stalls. It was, however, set in Los Angeles.Was it a subtle message that the Chinese culture would prevail in the year 2019? The world is an Orwellian type of dark, wet and chaotic world where pandemonium ruled, and police are kings whilst the big corporations rule. Clones of men called replicants are used to do menial and dangerous works, especially those that involve work in outer space. They are outlawed to be on Earth. Blade Runners are law enforcement officers specific to apprehend them. Four replicants made it back and pose a threat. Basically, they came back to get their makers to extend their lifespan. You see, they are only made to serve for...

The Big Chill (1983) It is nice to see how some of the actors who we have seen through the years use to look in their younger days. This early romedy (romantic comedy) film is supported by a group of actors who went on to greater heights on their own accord - Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, William Hurt, Tom Berenger and Jeff Goldblum. 4 guys and 3 girls who were childhood friends gather together for the funeral of friend who had committed suicide. All of them compare notes of the successes, their failures and their lost dreams in this poignant tale of self discovery. They soon realise that they are all different after battling the hard knocks and cruelty of life. After the short stint at the village of the deceased, they discover that they would never find out why the friend committed suicide but they found new zest to carry on with life. The best part of the movie is the soundtrack of many marvellous songs of the yesteryears. Bad Moon Rising - CCR Heard it on the grapevine...

The actions of King Rama, his consort Sita, his brother Laxman, his humble servant Hanuman have been used as the yardstick of how a human being should live his life. King Rama and his principle on natural justice, respect of power and upholding of promises; Queen Sita and her virtues of a chaste wife exemplified by her conduct; Laxman with the meaning of true friendship and Hanuman with undivided subservience to authority. The conducts and misconducts of the aristocrats and noblemen in Rama's court yard form the pillar of what Hindus the world over use to run and not to run their daily lives. Man, the losers, were always awed by their captors. They would try to emulate and assimilate the cultures of their new found victors as their own. That would explain why we speak English and not don our sarongs to work. So what I am saying is...Everyone is a role model either directly or indirectly to his subordinates. A child, no matter how much he despises his parents, will eventually pi...

A King in New York (1957) Many Americans look back at the early years of the 50s with much disdain. They had let the idea of a senator and politics of the time to go on a witch hunt on individuals based on frivolous hearsay. All in the name of nationalism and national security, many valuable man-hours were wasted. After all these, one would think that the general public cannot be taken for a ride anymore or can they? Based on turn of events of late, the hoodwinking continues. Coming closer to our shores, people are being unpatriotic with same flimsy reasons with a hidden agenda behind them. It seem that we will never learn from history. We will have to endure the whole thrust of its mayhem before we look back at yourselves, in years to come, and hopefully laugh at ourselves! The post WW2 years in America was tumultuous one. The Cold War had started and US of A had slowly taken the rein as the leader of the free world. Free they may be with their capitalistic market forces stance on...

Jalan Pintas (Short cut, Malay, 2011) This Malaysian film is banned by FINAS but had to be nominated for 2012 Puchon Fantastic Film Festival to be noticed. The reason for its ban is probably due to the copious use of unnecessary foul four lettered Malaysian words and the protagonist's given name in the credit is Najib Razak. In the movie itself, he introduces himself as Bakar (Burn) Razak! Every now and then you see snippets of government logo which seem contradictory to the story, as if in a mocking manner. And the movie screams of nihilism from every angle - a hostile urban environment streaming with gangsters, loafers and mad men, people in power who nonchalantly practise favouritism and nepotism, town folks are rude and that the country is a living hell for an educated young man with no connections. It narrates how possibly Bakar's life would have been if he had taken a short-cut to attend his job interview. At the end of the day, both roads lead to path of destructi...

Thanks RS for contribution. http://www.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/wwi/introduction/ One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1914, a series of events set off an unprecedented global conflict that ultimately claimed the lives of more than 16 million people, dramatically redrew the maps of Europe, and set the stage for the 20th Century. Alan Taylor APRIL 27, 2014 A century ago, an assassin, a Serbian nationalist, killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary  as he visited Sarajevo. This act was the catalyst for a massive conflict that lasted four years.  More than 65 million soldiers were mobilized by more than 30 nations, with battles taking place around the world. Industrialization brought modern weapons, machinery, and tactics to warfare, vastly increasing the killing power of armies. Battlefield conditions were horrific, typified by the chaotic, cratered hellscape of the Western Front, where soldiers in muddy trenches faced bullets, bom...