Tag Archives: lifestyle

The Korean Korean War to protect Japan

Posted on June 5, 2014 by | Leave a comment

  [The Front Line is available on Netflix]

Hi readers.  Although the Korean War wouldn’t have happened if General Douglas MacArthur hadn’t been so preoccupied about protecting Japan, the Japanese film makers have never said thank you by making a movie about it.  Although MacArthur’s, “Korea is a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan” assertion got a lot of US, British, Chinese and other soldiers killed, no Japanese died in it.  And no Japanese money, troops, anything, has supported then non-war existing during the half-century since.

Thanks to the Korean film industry and the Chinese film industry a whole new perspective on the Korean War is being handed out to anyone interested enough to watch some movies.  I’ll throw one in from the British film industry just to spread the wealth around.  A Hill in Korea was Michael Caine’s first movie role, and as it happens he was a British Army Korean War Vet.

GIs and Korean women:

A Chinese movie about a hard fought battle against US troops during the Korean War:

Two brothers are drafted into the South Korean Army during the war.  Excellent film.

Here’s one about British troops fighting in Korea to protect Japan:

But it’s just movies.  Fact is, once Japan quit slaughtering troops from all over the planet, other troops from all over the planet began dying to protect the Japanese.  And 20-30 thousand US troops are still in Korea prepared to die to protect Japan.

Thank you for your service.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 1950's, America

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Korean kids are higher quality stupid than US kids

Posted on June 3, 2014 by | 13 comments

Hi readers.  I saw the entire movie, Attack the Gas Station 2, on Netflix and found it fascinating.  It ain’t the same Korea I spent 14 months in back in 1963-’64.  Hell, it ain’t even a 3rd world country anymore.

jackjeepkorea2

When this photo was taken near Camp Howze, Korea [Pong Il Chon], I can say with authority there was a rice paddy somewhere nearby where people toiled from daybreak to dark. Somewhere nearby men were carrying a-frames loaded with firewood several times their own weight. Probably somewhere in Korea there was affluence staying well hidden, but the ‘average’ Korean made a few dollars per month and most would never expect to be able to afford a bicycle anytime during their lives.

But several things impressed me about the Korean film.  First, it’s the best photography I’ve seen in any of the foreign films I’ve watched on Netflix lately.  Secondly, the characters are wealthy in the middle-class way US citizens,  even the poor ones, are wealthy by standards of the 1960s.

Secondly, the kids are easily as stupid as US kids, but it’s a higher quality stupidity.  I suppose it hasn’t had time to mature, to become as decadent as US kids manifest constantly in public.  Stupidity of Korean kids has the quality of an over-ripe apple that hasn’t yet begun to rot.

And thirdly, the amazing wealth.  Look at that gas station, the cars and the people driving them.  The motorcycles those kids are riding and the clothes they’re wearing.  Observe the body-fat.  Those people might well be Americans in  the better neighborhoods.

By comparison, consider another Netflix foreign film, this one from Russia.  The Suit.  Some Russian youngsters fall in love with a Gucci suit in a store window and the adventures they go through to acquire it.  And what happens once they have it in their possession.

The Suit is a damned eye-opening good movie, well done and fun to watch, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Attack the Gas Station 2.  The Russian kids are smarter, incidently, and not so wealthy.

Anyone who tells you different is wrong.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America, Art

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That reincarnated kid video

Posted on June 2, 2014 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  When you think about it the surprise is the Internet isn’t full of what?  Stories?  Reports?  Incidents?  Descriptions of this phenomenon and people for whom the experience is as real as their lives.

But you won’t come across it often.  There’s the 300 cases in India a European physician researched and wrote a book about a decade-or-so ago, and a lot of conjectures and suppositions.  And the million-or-so people who go around telling anyone who will listen which famous person in history they used to be.

That’s why this case comes across so strongly, I reckons.  That, and the fact the kid is from the US, whereas most research into the phenomenon has been elsewhere.

But this one was a US fighter pilot over Japan reincarnated as a kid in the United States.  Maybe nothing can be concluded from it beyond something I’ve never doubted anyway, that reincarnation happens.  But it’s possible if a person knew which parts of this not to draw any conclusions from a lot might be learned from it.

On the other hand, the human way is to draw all manner of conclusions from every shred of it, construct a doctrine and sand-cathedral from it, and figure out away to make money as a cash cow.

Glad to see the kid didn’t get any wisdom out of the ordeal.  Ought to be interesting to watch him along about time when he could volunteer for the US military.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Post card art, lousy dreams and cats

Posted on June 2, 2014 by | 15 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.  Jeanne’s about to zoom away on her morning bicycle ride, trying to find something long sleeved to block something just this side of the morning chill.    She says she had a lousy dream last night, dreamed Leonard Cohen died.  Bummer.

I recall dreaming Al Jolson died sometime a few years ago, but the fact he’d been dead several decades already took the edge off it.  Not a good dream, but better than when he actually did it.  I was in grammar school at the time and it’s the first time someone I really liked died, I think.  He had just come back from a USO tour visiting troops in Korea and went kerplunk.  Lousier than dreaming about it.

Anyway, in spite of myself I’ve been allowing my mind to wander into Jeanne’s Library job postcard art project.  http://librarymailart.wordpress.com/

Trying to think of something that could be forced down the throat of the post office as a post card and sent over there to be forced down their thoats disguised as art.  I’m considering gluing a 78 rpm record to a 33 rpm LP, a 45 rpm single, and a CD and putting address and stamps on the whole shebang.  Might do it yet if I can find the 78 and 33.

But I wanted to sneak around and tell you about cats, mostly.  That cat documentary at the top got me thinking about Hydrox and might have given me a dream about Niaid last night, or maybe she was just saying hi.  A lot better than dreaming about Al Jolson or Leonard Cohen.

Hydrox, by the way, is hanging in there, and I’m including him in my gratitude affirmations numerous times every day.  Been spending portions of almost every night outdoors doing what cats do.

And I’m about to toodle off to physical therapy to do what old human guys do when they’re hanging in there day to day, including themselves in their own gratitude affirmations numerous times every day.

Old Jules

 

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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21st Century Automotives

Posted on May 30, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Jeanne’s ride, a 1991 Oldsmobile 98, tried to go kerplunk.  Her working two jobs and depending on it didn’t keep it from wearing out and the brakes going soft around the time I began borrowing it for physical therapy three times a week.

Well, I’m nothing if not confident when it comes to replacing master cylinders on vintage vehicles.  Hell I’ve done it over Christmas [you might recall] on an aging RV in the parking lot of an AutoZone in Big Spring, Texas while enjoying heart attacks on the side].  [ A merry little dumpster diving year-end adventure]

So I assured her I could replace that master cylinder in a New York minute.  Instead, what happened in a New York minute is the discovery I’ve got nothing in me if it’s strength or endurance you’re measuring.  So not far into the job she called her son, Michael, and I kibitzed while he changed it out.

Which is why I didn’t be the one to twist off the left front bleeder valve inside the wossname, como se llama caliper.  I was the one who did the talking at the parts houses trying to get a non-Chinese steel easy-out, buying one out of hunger that deformed and didn’t break, but also didn’t back out that bleeder valve.

So Jeanne took the Olds to the Firestorm store and got an estimate to fix it.  But they told her all manner of things else needed fixing amounting to 2000 3000 smackers.

So she went to the credit union and borrowed money hopefully enough to buy a car, an old one, but good, or better than the Olds.  Decided on a Subaru Forester or Toyota RVsomething, or Honda CRV with 150k miles or thereabouts.  Needs something high enough off the ground to go on unpaved roads sometimes.

A couple of Sikhs, offspring of Punjabi parents who migrated here in the what? 80s maybe, had one listed on Craigslist.  2002 Subaru Forester with 165000 miles that looked good and fit inside her budget with a little hammering.

Looked great.  So she had them hold it with $200 until she could have a mechanic go over it for another $100.  Mechanic says, “Subaru’s a great vehicle, but not this one.  You don’t want this one unless you want to spend $3000 trying to get it fixed.”

Hot damn.  They kept $100 of the earnest money, those Punjabi bastards, but agreed to pay for the mechanic examination.

No pain, no gain.  She told her boys to fix the damned brakes, replace the caliper on the Olds, that it didn’t look so bad after all.  What’s a bad radiator, electrical problems, rearview mirrors that flap in the wind and power windows going to hell among friends?

Maybe I could sell her the old 1978 Ford Econoline RV that has a new master cylinder and most of the damage of blown tires hidden out of sight underneath the truck.  Except I’m going to have to live in that again one day if I live so long.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Kansas City Star

Posted on May 29, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

The KS Star gave Boy Scout merit badge hunters a gold star on Sunday.  Jeanne and I figured to visit the Union Cemetery, oldest one in KC, on Memorial Day just for the hell of it.  Then I saw the KC Star front page had Boy Scouts out decorating graves of veterans there.  And everyone using the words ‘Veteran’ and ‘Warrior’ interchangeably.

This isn't Union Cemetery, but you get the idea anyway.

This isn’t Union Cemetery, but you get the idea anyway.

As it happens a lot of  one-time Confederates are buried at the Union Cemetery.  Once a person gets into the spirit of putting flags on graves, might as well send the troop out with Confederate battle flags, too.  Most were one-time Confederates who died decades after the Great War of Secession, but there’s a monument over the mass grave of Confederate POWs who died in a prison camp near here.  That one got a forest of Confederate battle flags.

I say this with some authority, though we took a pass on the Memorial Day visit.  Went out there Sunday, Memorial Day Eve, instead.  Though most of the burying that’s ever going to be done there has already happened, 55,000 funerals seems plenty for most normal purposes.  And a surprising lot had flags sticking up from them courtesy of Boy Scouts.  Back in the heyday of Union Cemetery veterans had a lot bigger wars to get drafted into.

Likely as not somewhere out there the Boy Scouts put German flags on WWI Germans who fought in the Big one on the wrong side before migrating to the US.  Maybe even a few from WWII.

Because the only way past the post-WWII series of incomprehensible US military adventures in foreign lands with any hope of inspiring those Boy Scouts to enlist to buy a piece of one is to ignore the Wars and glorify the warriors.  Dead or alive.  Company clerks, regimental band trumpet players, helicopter mechanics.  All heroes, all warriors, all guilty of conspicuous courage without having to do a damned thing to demonstrate it to anyone.

If you’ve never done anything worth mentioning in your entire life and never will, visit your Army recruiter.  Gets you a flag on your grave after everyone’s forgotten everything else about you.

A lot of old US Veterans have to be getting a lot of secret laughs about this in the privacy of their home bathrooms before they hoist their trousers, pluck their galluses over their shoulders, and carefully place their cammy ball caps with VETERAN over the visor onto their gray pompadours.

Old Jules

 

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Curry fish for the Gods only

Posted on May 22, 2014 by | 9 comments

ironhorse wall menu

The pink haired, much pierced daughter of the Hong Kongish couple owning the Iron Horse [low sodium] Asian restaurant spent a year or more doing the menu-items on the walls and ceiling. Prices don’t change much and aren’t likely to, I’m thinking.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

A person gets a hankering to eat someplace with storebought food occasionally, and if he does he can figure on getting a salt-load worthy of the Morton Girl.  Here in Olathe there’s a Chinese joint named the Iron Horse tries to breach the pattern, might even succeed except for the taste.  It’s not great, but they’ll swear there’s no added salt and no wossname monosodium glutamate.

But I gradually am coming to think I can’t afford to eat in food joints, and that they can’t make as good an Asian food as I can, and I know how much salt is in it.  Without having to listen and feel around for spots in front of my eyes or blind staggers.  Maybe if Chinese steel weren’t so lousy I’d be more prone to believe what’s said about the contents of food items.

Anyway, I was leading up to saying I made up the most toothsome stir-fry  curry dish without any salt at all last night, with steamed rice.  Gave Jeanne a taste before dumping it onto the rice.  A look of delight crossed her face briefly before she gasped, “Wow!” and ran for something to drink.

She’s of the opinion that all my years of loving habenero and other seasonings have left me bereft of taste buds.  Claimed she could feel that spoonful burning it’s way all the way down her goozle.

Being the best no-sodium Asian chef in Christiandom’s fairly nice, but I can’t find anyone else who can eat my creations.

Old Jules

 

 

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The Monastery: Mr. Vid and the Nun [Russian Orthodox in Norway]

Posted on May 21, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  More Nun stuff.

Worlds collide, tempers flare and dreams come true when Mr. Vig, an 82-year-old Danish recluse who has never known love, and Sister Amvrosija, a headstrong nun, join forces to transform Mr. Vig’s run-down castle into a Russian Orthodox monastery.

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The heel of the loaf

Posted on May 21, 2014 by | 17 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

I mostly never forget to do my gratitude affirmation ritual as many times per day as I remember to do it.  Suffice to say, many times each day.  But I’m prone to forget my forgiveness rituals unless I catch myself being angry, or sense a seed of anger feeling around for a hold on my consciousness.

This morning I had to add forgiveness affirmations as an adjunct to the gratitudes, however.  Old memories climbing up into my head for a breath of air.

I was associated for a number of years with a family who didn’t throw away the heel of the loaf, as some families do and my own family would have never considered because it was too alien a concept.  In my childhood home you ate the heel if it arrived on pain of I can’t imagine what.

But this family I had to forgive this morning found a way around throwing the heel away, or throwing it away.  They’d each reach past it and get the next slice down, leaving the heel for someone else.  Me when I was around, because they all just passed it by.

When the loaf bag went empty except for two heels, someone would carefully place the two heels into a bag of left over heels, presumably in case anyone came along who’d prefer eating a dry heel to a piece of wasp nest fresh out of the loaf.

A lot of it got thrown away I’m sure, and a fair amount fed birds or went into stuffings.  Meatloafs got rice instead of dry breadcrumbs.

Something got me remembering that after all these years, and I felt my gorge rising.  Damned people leaving the heel for someone else.  And what it implies.

And had myself a specially scheduled on-the-spot ritual of forgiveness affirmations.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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A love affair with Nuns-

Posted on May 20, 2014 by | 12 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

A while back I found myself thinking about the weird what? Metaphysical? Fantasy relationship? That US non-Catholics have with Nuns.  And have had during most of my life.  The television series, The Flying Nun [which I promise I never sat through a single episode of and therefore can’t testify as to how lousy it must have been] was only one example.

Of course there was Two Mules for Sister Sara.  A Clint Eastwood flick as I recall, with Shirley MacLaine as the nun.  Not a bad movie, and I do remember noting for future thought the male/female tensions throughout and wondering why.

The setting’s one not often used:  the French invasion and occupation of Mexico during the US Civil War.

Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, with Robert Mitchum as a WWII US Marine Corps corporal and Deborah Kerr, a nun.  Stranded together on an island in the South Pacific behind Japanese lines.  Mitchum, at least, comes out and tells it as it is.

Considering the potential, The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine is a surprisingly sorry example of the phenomenon.  Heck, they picked a time when the Inquisition was rolling along full steam, picked a passle of nuns in a convent, but they just never managed to get the male juices flowing the way Clint’s and Robert’s US Marine and Civil War veteran juices flowed when placed in close proximity with those sexy ladies.

But then, of course, there’s the expected decline you’d probably expect that comes from being in a different century.  Nude Nuns with Big Guns was probably inevitable.  If we didn’t know it we should have.

After all, we’re living in a world where Rap music has been around 35 years.  People who listen to Rap are listening to the same music their dads and granddads listened to, and liking it.

Nude Nuns with Big Guns can’t hold a candle to that piece of trivia.

Wonder how old Sally Field is faring these days.  I’d surely like to see her step into the 21st Century with a leading role in Nude Nuns with Big Guns.

Old Jules

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