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Winter reading
Just finished a good book and thought i'd pass on the info:

"UNBROKEN"
by Laura Hillenbrand... author of "SEABISCUIT"

A WWII story of survival, resilience, and redemption.

Olympic runner...AAF B24 bomdadier...pacific POW.
the story of Luie Zamperini.
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#1 01-04-2011, 08:37 PM,
Winter viewing.

I just, finally watched the DVD "Invictus" with Morgan Freeman (Nelson Mandela) and Matt Damon (as François Pienaar, captain of South Africa's Springbock rugby team) ... directed by Clint Eastwood).

Story of how as the newly elected president, Mandela (who had been a political prisoner during 27 years in a tiny prison cell, until the world demanded his release and ending Apartheid) tries to unite South Africa by promoting its not very good -- at first -- rugby team. I didn't know anything about rugby -- which the movie corrected. :d It's basically North American football played very aggressively without helmets and padding -- just jersies, cleats and bare legs. In the movie, after each game the players look really beat up and bloody. The movie reenacts 4-5 important rugby matches leading to the 1995 World Cup finals (hosted by South Africa).

Nice, true story movie with convincing acting and accents by Freeman and Damon (who must have had to do a lot of body building for this movie ... which works).

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Above and Beyond"

Thinking of my friends to the north, I watched SEVERAL times a movie made for CBC-TV about World War II, "Above and Beyond." It's about how a team of young American and Canadian civilian fliers, ferried Hudson bombers, for the first time flying a treacherous Newfoundland to England route to avoid German U-boats (that regularly sank lots of ships on their way to England while carrying these medium bombers). I gave a copy of the DVD to my very long time, expat Canadian friends (originally from BC) who've lived for half a century in St. Louis. They LOVED it. All of us (in medical research) had learned for the first time from this movie that the Canadian, medical Nobel Prize winner Sir Frederick Banting (discoverer of insulin) was killed in one of these planes. It went down between Gander, Newfoundland and England due to engine failure.

Good made-for-TV movie.
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" ... If you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." ~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
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#2 02-05-2011, 08:00 AM,
Clint Eastwood has directed several great movies. A WWII movie "Letters from Iwo Jima" was based on recently found buried letters home from Japanese soldiers based at Iwo Jima during the American 39 day siege to take the island. This is stuff that wasn't taught to us in grade school.
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#3 02-05-2011, 12:56 PM,
Another easy read is "riding with attitude" by Don Norris. We picked this book up from him at the Tor. show, early Jan. He was very nice to talk to and left you very curious to know more about this gentleman.
'85 GL1200 Aspencade
'07 Shadow Sabre 1100
South of Sarnia, SW Ontario, Can
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#4 02-06-2011, 07:16 AM,
Roleketu Wrote:Clint Eastwood has directed several great movies. A WWII movie "Letters from Iwo Jima" was based on recently found buried letters home from Japanese soldiers based at Iwo Jima during the American 39 day siege to take the island. This is stuff that wasn't taught to us in grade school.

I've seen and enjoyed both of these two ("Flags of Our Fathers" & "Letters from Iwo Jima") Clint Eastwood movies.

This sort of stuff is STILL not taught in grade school.

Neither taught in grade school is the World War II treason-for-profit by certain American corporate leaders titled "Trading with the Enemy" or the importation of already indicted Nazi war criminal doctors for working on U.S. Air Force high altitude and space medicine projects -- in defiance of President Harry S. Truman's explicit directive forbidding such a program.

Ironically, "Operation Paperclip" (as the clandestine program was called), had been organized by the CIA (in defiance of a signed presidential order forbidding such Nazi-infested programs) to enhance America's security during the Cold War. This program had been headed by a U.S. Army colonel, a gung-ho alcoholic. It was later discovered that he was also selling strategically important military secrets to the Soviet Union during the war in Korea. Amazingly, the colonel after being caught, court marshalled, and convicted wasn't hanged but rather given a relatively light 15-20 year prison sentence.

Benjamin Franklin was correct when he famously quipped, security isn't safe. ['Gotta love that man!]

It seems not only don't they teach in grade school important details of World War II history, they don't even teach important sayings by famous American patriots and founding fathers.
[Image: Akriti2450x338.jpg]

" ... If you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." ~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
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#5 02-06-2011, 09:12 AM,
Not only do they not teach that stuff, but if you would like to know what is going on in the U.S. try getting your news from the BBC.

The reports from them are totally different from the reports we get in our local news.
1978 'Wing UnDressed, Progressivily Weber Carbureted.
1976 'Wing undressed doner
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#6 04-10-2011, 02:45 PM,
Hi AzWing. Thanks in your advice. I see some good news in BBC. Hopefully, I can also work in mine. Big Grin
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#7 04-25-2011, 08:40 PM,
AzWing Wrote:Not only do they not teach that stuff, but if you would like to know what is going on in the U.S. try getting your news from the BBC.

The reports from them are totally different from the reports we get in our local news.

One of my sons is a seasoned and well paid investigative reporter for a major national and international American news company. He complained to me that a top executive recently sent around a notice to limit EVERY news story to less than 700 words (calculated to increase their profits), saying, "nobody wants to read more than 700 words!"

We'll have to change the U.S. Constitution to read: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of the press to print fewer words for profit" :d
[Image: Akriti2450x338.jpg]

" ... If you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." ~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
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#8 04-26-2011, 01:21 AM,
Maybe I'm just a worry-wart, but I sure do NOT like what I see going on in the US today and where I fear we might be headed. I used to worry about my kids (still do I guess), but they're all grown and married with their own families now and doing fairly well. BUT now I worry about what kind of country/world my grandkids are going to grow up in. Seems like every other day there's a new law that softens our country, or one that limits the freedoms of the middle class, or gives more to the rich. or...!!!
Geez, where'd all this animosity come from? I think I'd better jump down off my soapbox before I have a stroke. :YMPEACE:
Sorry folks, I didn't mean to get all riled up, especially here in a motorcycle forum where there should be nothing but joy when talking about our rides. Guess I read to many newspapers and listen to the news too much. Think I'll go for a ride and clear my head. Oops, it's raining like crazy right now. Boooo. Oh well, that just adds to my mood. :evil:
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#9 04-27-2011, 06:22 AM,
Raining in Chicago with a Wing in the garage can do that to you ... begin worrying about the world and your grand kids.

However, whenever I get glum about the future (especially if I can't escape from it on my Wing() my thoughts go way back to what president Harry S. Truman once said. There are at least two reasons why he made a good president: First of all, he never wanted to be president (he had been very happy in the Senate) ... ever. It was something he inherited by the death of president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Secondly, he never spent one day in college ... too poor a Missouri farm boy. That may explain why he may have been the only government official ever to memorize the U.S. Constitution ... and to actually understand how it works. The Constitution is a slowly, grinding along invisible machine. It was a machine designed by geniuses for operating the government by idiots! [Kind of like the GoldWing! :d ]

Truman assured us all. So long as the Constitution remains in effect **== Americans and their neighbors will over the long run do all right. Anyone trying to change or stop or derail the Constitution will come out of it like someone who had been hit by an 18 wheeler ... he said. He knew, because as president he once tried to go against and do an end run around the Constitution (during a national railway strike when Truman activated the U.S. Army to take the railroads over ... and the Supreme court beat him up over it).

So that's all we've got. A machine designed by geniuses for operating the government by idiots!

Now go out and ride. \:d/
[Image: Akriti2450x338.jpg]

" ... If you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." ~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
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#10 04-27-2011, 07:06 AM,


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