The Fighting 501st

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Now that I am out of college and have the spare time and a full time job that pays, I've been able to return to an organization that I've really been proud to be a part of. in 2004, I joined the 501st Storm Trooper Legion and trooped with the group in 2005, for Celebration 3. But then, I was inactivated because I wasn't able to really participate. Last weekend, I got back into the fold with the 2007 Woburn Parade. It was a lot bigger than I expected with something like 40 people from the garrison going. I got in a lot earlier than I thought I would, around 8 am (having gotten up and left at 5:15 am). When I got there, I got an extremely warm welcome from the people who were there even earlier than I was there. For the rest of the day, it was mingling with other 501st people, as well as kids that we walked around and saw.
While down there, I realised why this is so much fun - the looks on the children's faces when they see someone in Storm Trooper armor, or any costume from Star Wars. That makes my day every time. The 501st is a fun organization to be a part of, mainly because it's a chance to be a complete geek for a while, but also because of the work that we can accomplish in armor - the group does a number of charity events, usually with children's organizations - much of this comes from our founder's daughter, Katie Albin, who recently died last year from cancer. The group doesn't charge for appearances, but suggests donations to such charities. Hopefully, I'll be able to do some of the visits in the near future.

Paul Tibbets

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I just heard the news via the AP - Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the B-29 Enola Gay, died earlier today at the age of 92. The Enola Gay was the plane that dropped the first atomic warhead on the city of Hiroshima, Japan on August 8th, 1945. An estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people died in the initial blast.

I first read his book that he wrote - I'm blanking on the title at the moment, but it was an interesting insight to the training and the dropping of the bombs. Interestingly, Tibbets said that under the same circumstances, he would do it again. Also interestingly, he has requested no service or head stone for his body.

Look to the Skies

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I finally finished the first two books in the Outward Odyssey series, both by Colin Burgess and Francis French, about some of the earlier days of the human space exploration. The first book, Into That Silent Sea, covers the first space missions, from Yuri Gagarin's training and historic flight to the stars, to the end of the Soyuz missions, as well as the Mercury and Gemini flights that were the precursor to the famous Apollo missions. In the Shadow of the Moon, the second book, we start with Gemini and go through Apollo 11. Future books in the series will cover the rest of space flight.For years, I have been interested in the moon, sharing with many young boys the dreams of becoming an astronaut and flying to space. I had a book on the moon landings with some fantastic illustrations of how everything worked that captured my imagination, and in 1997, when the Star Wars movies were re-released, my interests in space took another direction, and eventually, I've settled on history.

These books are essentially the culmination of everything that I've been interested in and have sought to study. Rather than a technical history of the space agency, looking largely at the science involved, these two books look at the raw history of the the earlier space projects, going into painstaking detail to tell what seems to be the most complete story of human space exploration yet. Both books capture the human side of this elegantly, capturing the joys, determination and frustrations on both the American and Russian spacefarers alike, and introduces the reader to a host of characters that are deserving, if not more so, of the fame that has really only been bestowed upon Neil Armstrong. We meet Yuri Gagarin, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and numerous other astronauts and cosmonauts that have given so much for what has proven to be an incredible realization of a dream that has since stalled. These books examine each of the astronauts and their missions in exacting detail, while also looking at the side events going along around them, mainly, the Cold War, and the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union is really put out there, examined largely without much of the military connotations that the cold war generally gets.

These books are incredibly dense and rich in history and detail that it might be hard for a regular reader to really pick up, but these two books are really what the public needs to read - this is the story of, in my opinion, the last heroes that the world has seen in years, and unfortunately, their impact in the public consciousness has really waned. This is not a bad thing, because these books are well written accounts of history that do not pander down to a lower denominator - this isn't part of the popular history that seems to have plagued the World War II bookshelves at bookstores. While events such as Challenger and Columbia grab headlines and even to the point where minor technical problems are highlighted in the hourly news, there has been little in the space program that has galvanized the public like those early missions.

Outward Odyssey: A History of Human Space Flight

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Earlier this summer, I came across the documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon, and went hunting for a book, and came across one by the same title, by Francis French and Colin Burgess. It was a fantastic read on the history of Gemini to Apollo 11, and by a coincidence, the book and film had the same title. A little more searching came across a second book, Into That Silent Sea by the same two authors, which is about the first space flights. I'm almost done with that one, and a review will be coming for both books shortly. I did a little more looking today and found that these two books are the first of ten, in a series that's being published by the University of Nebraska Press, which is fantastic. The Series is called Outward Odyssey: A History of Human Space Exploration. The first two books were absolutely astonishing - these are a history of human space flight, from the human side of things, rather than the technological side.

Here's what's coming up from the University of Nebraska Press's Outward Odyssey series: To a Distant Day: The Rocket Pioneers, due out early 2008, by Chris Gainor. Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story, due out late 2008, by David Hitt, Owen Garriott and Joe Kerwin Ambassadors from Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft, early 2009, by Jay Gallentine Footprints in the Dust: Apollo and the Conquest of the Moon, late 2009, by Tod Bryant. There's a couple others forthcoming, one on the history of Soviet spacestations and the ISS, as well as two on the space shuttle, from the early orgins to Challenger, and from Challenger to today. The last book will be on private ventures into space. This is a really exciting series, and I can't wait to read them, if the first two were any indication, these are likely to be classics.

On This Day...

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Today marks the 143rd anniversary of the Northern most battle in the Civil War, a Confederate Raid on a bank in St. Alban's Vermont. Moving in through Canada, lead by Bennett Young, of Kentucky, the group of Confederates number twenty-one calvery men. They arrived nine days earlier and assembled, and at 3:00 pm, they started a robbery of three banks in the town. One civilian was killed, and despite orders to burn the town down, the Confederates were only able to burn down a single shed. They were able to get away with over 200,000 dollars, but were later arrested in Canada.

Review: In the Shadow of the Moon

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Over the weekend, the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon finally reached Vermont after several weeks in other cities. Ever since I saw the first trailer over the summer, the film has been on the top of my to-see list for months now. The premise of the documentary is simple - what was the Apollo moon landings like to those who actually did it? The film featured nine surviving Apollo astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Eugene Cernan, Michael Collins, Jim Lovell, Edgar D. Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt, Dave Scott and John Young. The notable absence is of Neil Armstrong, who generally refuses to do interviews. The documentary is an absolute wonder to watch. While Armstrong is absent, the remaining astronauts make up for it, filling in their side of what happened. Michael Collins is one of the big stars of this, with some of the best insights to the mission and the sheer awe that the Apollo crews faced. Inter dispersed with the interviews of the astronauts is a lot of footage of the Apollo missions, from launches to the astronauts themselves. What's good here is that the director places the Apollo missions in context of the world by reminding us that the Vietnam war and civil rights movement is ongoing at this time, which is helpful. This is a highly inspiring documentary. I got chills watching parts of it, such as when Armstrong took his first step onto the surface, from Kennedy's speech, and numerous other occasions. Other times at the not so wonderful parts, such as the archived speech that Nixon was to give in the event that the astronauts would be stranded on the moon. There is much that works here. The interviews with the astronauts are filmed differently than most other documentaries, right up in their faces to really capture expression, and to some extent, for some creative purposes. It really worked well, even if a little unconventional. Coupled with the footage of the times and the absolutely wonderful soundtrack, this was just an absolutely amazing thing to watch.

There are some shortfalls though. While numerous astronauts are interviewed, the only missions that really get looked at is Apollo 11 and Apollo 13. The others are mentioned, and there's footage from them, but there's not as much there, as to their purpose. There's also little on why the Apollo program ended, and the status of NASA since. There are also a couple of times when questions are glossed over or not really followed through with. The entire film is a fairly quick look at the Apollo program, and it's main shortcoming is that it's a little too quick. What they have though, is absolutely amazing, wonderful and something that's an essential thing to go out and watch.

I've recently read a book by the same title, In the Shadow of the Moon (named by complete coincidence, according to the author), which provides a much more in depth look at the Gemini-Apollo program, and the book before it, Into the Silent Sea, is the beginnings of space flight to Mercury and probably a little beyond, both by Francis French. I'd highly recommend reading both.

This film comes at an interesting time. We haven't returned to the moon since those missions, and I think that we're at the brink of a crossroads where it comes to space. The X-Prize has been won and another has been created, and NASA has been ordered and is looking into future missions to the moon.

But, like with World War II veterans, we're going to loose these nine men, and probably within the next ten years or so. Will these guys live to see people return to the moon? I'm thinking that it's increasingly unlikely.

Blackwater USA

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I just came across this article on Mark Grimsley's blog, Blog Them Out of the Stone Age:

Blackwater and me: A love story it ain't By Robert Bateman October 12, 2007 I know something about Blackwater USA. This opinion is both intellectually driven as well as moderately emotional. You see, during my own yearlong tour in Iraq, the bad boys of Blackwater twice came closer to killing me than did any of the insurgents or Al Qaeda types. That sort of thing sticks with you. One story will suffice to make my point. The first time it happened was in the spring of 2005. For various reasons, none of which bear repeating, I was moving through downtown Baghdad in an unmarked civilian sedan. I was with two other men, but they had the native look, while I was in my uniform, hunched in the back seat and partially covered by a blanket, hoping that the curtains on the window were enough to conceal my incongruous presence, not to mention my weapons. It was not the normal manner in which an Army infantry major moved around the city, but it was what the situation called for, so there I was. We were in normal Baghdad traffic, with the flow such as it was, in the hubbub of confusion that is generated when you suddenly introduce more than 1 million extra vehicles in the course of two years into a city that previously had only a few hundred thousand vehicles, and no real licensing authority. As we approached one semi-infamous intersection along the main route used by Blackwater between the International Zone (a.k.a. the Green Zone) and the Ministry of Interior, one of Blackwater's convoys roared through. Apparently, Blackwater's agents did not like the look of us, the main body of cars in front of them. Their response was, to say the least, contrary to the best interests of the United States effort in Iraq. Barreling through in their huge, black armored Suburbans and Expeditions, they drove other cars onto the sidewalk even as they popped off rounds from at least one weapon, though I cannot say if the shots were aimed at us or fired into the sky as a warning. I do know one thing: It enraged me ... and Blackwater is, at least nominally, on our side.

Full Article

I've been watching the news on Blackwater USA in recent days after they've been involved with shootings of Iraqi civilians. Over the past couple of years in Iraqi, there's been a little news about the private security firms over there, and it's always been alarming to me, that essentially civilians are going into war with little oversight and with what seemed like a group of reckless people looking for some sort o of war story. This article just helps my opinion of the company along... The news that they most likely killed civilians is disgusting, and sadly, doesn't surprise me all that much. From Norwich, I've certainly met a number of people who were likely bound for Iraq, and in some cases, these are people who are extremely pro-US, violent and wanting nothing short of revenge for the events of 9-11. It's not a good combination, and I suspect that some people who would join this type of organization. Blackwater is nothing short of a mercenary organization, and throughout history, these groups have been despised and hated for what they do. Erik Prince has said that his people are putting their lives on the line for their country - that's complete bullshit, in my opinion. The people in Blackwater are there for the money - they're paid a lot and have a lot of support behind them financially. If they wanted to be there for their country, they'd join the US armed forces, not a sketchy private army with no oversight or concern for anything but their profits.

Pushing Daisies, or, the Best Show of the Year

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ABC aired one of their newest shows last night, and I caught it earlier today via their nifty online TV thingy.

Go. Watch. This. Show.

Asside from being utterly brilliant, the show is extremely well acted, highly, highly, highly original and quirky and is probably one of the coolest things to hit TV since ... I don't know when. Reminded me a lot of the film Big Fish.
The plot of the show is this: A boy, Ned, finds that he has the ability to bring people back to life, with just one touch.

A couple problems: 1 - if he touches them again, they're dead, for good, he can't bring them back, ever. 2 - If he doesn't touch the person again, someone nearby dies. 3 - he just brought his childhood sweetheart back to life..
He's in the business with a private investigator (who's the same guy who played Vogler in House), and they've been making a living bringing people back to life, asking them who killed them, and collecting the reward.
Just simplely an amazing show. The guy who created it also did Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Heroes and Star Trek Voyager, as a producer and writer for both shows, so he knows the business.

Now, the real question is, can this show hold an audience? I really hope so, because this one is just too good to die. However, it's a bit out there, and very, very different, so it might have a hard time holding onto an audience. I guess we'll see.

History vs. Hollywood

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I just read this column about the War and how columnist felt that it needed to be livened up a bit:

In Ken Burns' 'War,' passion is MIA Next time PBS has enough cash to hire Ken Burns for a project like the 15-hour World War II series that ended last night on Ch. 13, here's a suggestion: See if it's enough to buy Steven Spielberg. Burns is skilled and knows what elements tell a story. But Spielberg - who, okay, would be unlikely to take the gig - could bring it some heart. There's a sense of sterility to Burns' "The War," a kind of academic detachment that undercuts its goal of conveying the impact of the most lethal conflict in human history on the American towns that sent their sons and daughters to fight it. Burns finds plenty of people to tell their stories, and he knows the stories to explore, including racial tension. But while having well-spoken people in elegant rooms makes for a fine history symposium, it distances the viewer from the raw impact of the horrors the series nominally is trying to bring home. Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" sent viewers home shaking. "The War" often feels like preparation for a quiz. Read the full column here.

In my opinion, the strongest point of the War is it’s academic detachment from the stories that the public is much more likely to be familiar with, such as Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers. Burns, as a historian, has brought the public a very accessible and comprehensive look at the second world war – no mean feat, given the enormous size and complexity of the war. Omitting some elements that are more humanizing was probably not possible given the already massive nature of the project and not as relevant to the overall picture. The complete story of World War II is impossible to tell in 15 hours, impossible to tell in 24, 48 or more, it’s just so big.

Introducing someone like Steven Spielberg to “bring it some heart” would be a disaster. Saving Private Ryan was interesting as a war film, given the technical difficulties in capturing the look and feel of war, but from a historic point of view, was absolutely horrible. It gets details wrong and pulls it all together into a story that is so over-melodramatic that it’s laughable. It’s not history, it’s entertainment. There’s a huge difference, and in a documentary, history should not be sacrificed for a little more liveliness for the audience’s sake. They should be, and deserve to see what happened, not what someone from Hollywood thinks might look cool on the screen.

The Kingdom, or, How Hollywood's A-Team Saves the Day

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I was able to go out and see The Kingdom on Saturday night. It was one of those movies that looked like a decent enough action movie, kind of along the lines of the Bourne movies or something similar. The trailers looked promising, and it's clearly a product of today's world, terrorism and CSI coming together. The film opens with an attack on a worker's compound and is very reminicent of some of the bombings that took place in Saudi Arabia, although the story is fictional. A second blast kills an FBI agent, and an FBI team, led by Jamie Foxx's character, Agent Fleury, manages to make their way to Saudi Arabia to investigate the bombing. Along the way they have to work through cultural differences, and soon are on their way to finding the people responsible, taking down what appears to be one of the terrorist cells. However, on their way out, one member of the team is kidnapped when their convoy is attacked and they go off to rescue him. I have mixed reactions to this movie. On one hand, it's trying to be a complex geo-political thrilled a'la Syriana. It somewhat succeeds in this, at least with the first half. We see the team working politicians, then the Saudis before starting their investigation, taking control of the scene and along the way, we get to see that Fleury and Col. Faris aren't all that different. Thus far, interesting. The forensics aspect is also interesting, but it's investigations-lite. However, once they start shooting, it's not that great. Once again, we see the Hollywood stars shooting their way around a situation that reminds me a lot of Black Hawk Down, and what little realism that was built up is now completely gone. Granted, the shootout scenes were well filmed and interesting to watch, but when the good guys are just blasting away at the bad guys, now the generic evil terrorist with RPGs or Kalashnikovs, good guys walking away generally without a scratch or bullet wound (except for Col. Faris - Are Saudis now the new Black guy sacrifice?), that ruined it for me.

Filmwise, this was interesting, there was some excellent camera work here, with the fact cuts and action, very similar to the Bourne movies. The colors were good and there were some outstanding framing on some of the people. There were even some interesting moments towards the end. Jason Bate's character asked Fleury what he told Gardner's character. His reply was: We're going to kill them all. Overlapped from that scene was an identical one, when a woman asked a boy what his grandfather told him as he was dying (shot by the agents). The boy's answer was the same: We're going to kill them all. That for me was the highlight of the movie, pulling the two sides together. It's not entirely profound, just it was an interesting way to end the movie - the problems are still all there, and it's cyclical. Where the film was utilizing basic knowledge to get the message across to the American public in an extremely simplified fashion, this is as deep as the director's willing to get and still attract some of an audience. This isn't Syriana. It glosses over the culture and differences and problems, even using Abu Hamza (a couple real people, different situation) as one of the villians. (The real Hamza is a UK cleric, recently convicted of preaching violence in London and is currently serving a prison sentance) (The other is an Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, whom this movie was probably meant to use). Ever since 9-11, I've known that film and real-world events would mesh, some in obvious ways, others just influenced. We've had a couple of 9-11 movies, World Trade Center and United 93, as well as a couple of movies, Syriana (which is probably the best of them all), this film, even several television shows, such as The Unit and Alias have been influenced by the events, not to mention the Bourne movies. Back during World War II, there were a number of films that were released, such as the John Wayne films, that are mainly propeganda, to boost moral, that we are on the right side, and that they were on the wrong side. This movie does much of the same things, although I'm pretty sure it wasn't financed by the State Department. The movie attempts to make the Middle East situation a right/wrong and clear cut one, and that's just not accurate, on a number of levels. The situations are extremely complex. The film even does a bit of a history lesson in the beginning, bringing the audience up to speed, a necessary thing for US audiences, unfortunently, and also attempts to simplify the situation between the US and Saudi Arabia. It's a nice attempt, but for US audiences? That's a bit of a stretch.

First Four Minutes of The Kingdom

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Today, the action movie The Kingdom, opens today in theaters. This is one that I've been looking forwards to for a little while, right inline with some of the action-espionage movies. It's got an incredible cast and directed by Peter Berg, who also worked heavily with Alias. The first four minutes of the film has surfaced online:

It's one of the coolest openings that I've ever seen for a movie - it's essentially a history lesson for those of us who know absolutely nothing about the Middle East and Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure how accurate it is - it looks to be fairly complete, although it's hardly detailed in any meaningful fashion. But, it does stick everything into a nice timeline right up to 9-11, with some extremely cool graphics.

I'm thinking of heading out to see this tonight, it looks like a good movie, or in any case, an enjoyable one.

Current Writings - Byron Clark

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In the time off from work, I've been working on a new paper that I'm hoping to get published sometime down the road. For the past eight or so years, I've worked or helped out at YMCA Camp Abnaki, and over that time, I've gotten really interested in the history surrounding camp. I was able to get some documents when I was up there last time to do some more research on various aspects of the camp's history. I've been intending on working on a larger history of camp through a set of papers. There's a lot of possibilities for work with this camp's history.

While going through the documents, I started writing up a timeline of Byron Clark's (the founder of camp) and found that he was not only involved in camp, but over twenty different organizations in the Burlington era, but also was involved with World War I, and might have been responsible for bringing the Boy Scouting movement to Vermont. When I consulted with one of the doctors here, he suggested to look at him as a progressive, which makes sense seeing that he was most active during the progressive era.

After another consult, I've gotten a bunch of sources and places to look, and I've since started an outline and have started working out the bits inbetween. He looks like a facinating person, and much much more interesting than I had previously known, which had been through the view of Abnaki. Now, with a larger view, it's a much more complicated picture.

More as I write it up.

Parent.co

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The War

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Over the weekend, I picked up the companion book for Ken Burn's The War, written by Burns and longtime collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward. The book, along with other companion books, is a literary mirror to the multiple hours long documentaries that Burns is well known for producing and writing. The War is a 14 hour long documentary that's to air on PBS starting September 23rd. The book is an outstanding and highly detailed look at the Second World War.The War is practically comprehensive. Covering an exhaustive amount time, from the entry of the United States on December 8th after the attack on Pearl Harbor through to the extensive campaigns in Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranian and the Pacific and to the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Most books and authors hardly dare to cover that amount of ground in the amount of detail that this pair of authors go into.

The War focuses on the entire campaign through the eyes of four towns in the United States- Luverne Minnesota, Sacramento California, Waterbury Conneticut and Mobile Alamaba. This is a war that is shown through the eyes of ordinary Americans, high school graduates and people who had hoped to serve their country in what is considered by many to be the last great war. However, from the start, Burns shows us that war is not great, no matter what the causes and reasons behind it. He opens with a quote:

I don't think there is such a thing as a good war. There are sometimes necessary wars. And I think one might way "just" wars. I never questioned the necessity of that war. And I still do not question it. It was something that had to be done. - Sam Hynes.

This is the tone that the rest of the book follows. Burns sets out to show what war looks like, and backs it up with hundreds of photographs, throughout the 451 pages. Some of these pictures are familiar to history buffs. Others, most of them, are completely new to me, and they really show a side of the war that's the same. The book also covers a lot of ground that doesn't really get lumped together. The book not only covers the battlefields and the times that the soldiers spent on the ground between gunshots, but also the home front, from the woes of the families waiting to hear from their sons, fathers, children and husbands, the rationings, as well as the racial tensions among workers and the internment of African and Japanese decendants living in the United States, as well as their plight to get recognized as real people and soldiers. The book and presumably, the documentary along with it, are not without their flaws. While they provide some stunning work on the war, there are parts that are missing, mainly the years leading up to the US's entry to the war. The book picks up and drops off with Japan, at Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. There's very little on the buildup of Japanese, Italian German agression, militarily and politically, as well as the Russian relations. Similarly, there's very little on the aftermath of the war, which is one of the biggest factors in creating the modern world, after the United States and Russia carved up Europe that would essentially plunge the world in to another World conflict. But that's not the focus of the book or documentary. This story looks at the war, but from the eyes of the soldiers. We get the personal stories of the people from those four towns. And they've done that spectacularly. The War is an outstanding work of popular history. With any luck, Burns will succeed in bringing the Second World War to a public that really only knows it through the films Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Windtalkers or Flags of Our Fathers, or the books of Stephen Ambrose. Hopefully, the War will be a much more accurate version of what happened those 60 years ago. Hopefully, it'll go a long way towards telling the public those stories that will soon be lost. This is really something to check out.

Everybody's Going to the Moon

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The New York Times is reporting today that the group who financed the X-Prize has come back with a second challenge for the fledgling, but growing private space industry - The first group to land a rover on the moon, move around and take video, will win the new prize, this time at $25 million dollars. The first X-Prize was valued at $10 million, for the first group to create a privately funded and built space ship that could travel to a certain height and back again within two weeks, and was won in 2004 by SpaceShipOne, which was helped along by Paul Allen, who is the co-founded of the Microsoft corperation. $25 Million in Prizes Is Offered for Trip to Moon

The NYT has posted up a discussion thing on whether this is a good or bad idea, and the result from readers seems to be fairly positive. Although it still puzzles me that people on there, in this day and age still maintain that we never went to the moon, that it was filmed in the desert somewhere. Other people have said that it's a waste of money, that the focus should be here at home, on big issues such as global warming and things like that that'll help benefit humanity down here. I personally think that we should go to the stars, now. I've begun to read more on the space industry and it's history. Two books that I've gone through have been extremely interesting. The first is called Rocketeers, and is about the race for the X-Prize a couple years ago. I was introduced to a band of people who want to go to space, and have started building real rockets in their garages and private hangers on a shoestring budget to reach into space. Often, these people are the age of my parents, and remember seeing the lunar landings on the TV, and were inspired by that sort of thing. The other book that I read was called In the Shadow of the Moon, and is about the Gemini to Apollo missions that NASA conducted to reach the moon. If anything, I'm a bit more convinced that NASA really screwed up our chances at long term space habitation and exploration. For starters, it was essentially given it's purpose to win a race, one that we ultimately one, with several lunar landings before interest vanished. What happens once a race is won? NASA's turned it's focus on more scientific endevours, rather than exploration, which is a fine goal, but not one that's likely to go out and start poking everything above us. Plus, NASA's a governmental agency, and with a waning in public interest, politicians have their way with the agency, and now that we don't have to beat the Russians at something, we're back down with the Space Shuttle (Which I think was a bit of a crappy idea. Looks cool, but ultimately doesn't serve our interests in exploration). This is why the X-Prizes are so important. Commercial enterprises are what will bring us to space. It's always been the key behind exploration, whether it was the Spanish coming to the New World, Lewis & Clark's expeditions into the Western United States and the British interests in India, all because money was to be made from those locations. I'm sure that we can find some way to make space travel profitable. Asteroids have high metal contents. Tourism in space has already started, with various people going to Russia for trips into orbit. I'm sure that there could be a market for a number of other things in and around our planet, whether it's a week trip to a space station, the Moon or Mars or whether it's for private science enterprises. Publicly administrated space exploration doesn't work. The two shuttle disasters, the Challenger and the Columbia, both shut down American manned space missions for years afterwards while the problem was sought and people debated whether the risk was too high. Not to sound callous, but those crews are a relatively small price to pay, and are the ultimate heroes for the coming future, because they risked everything to further humanity along this path. There will be more deaths - all exploration is fraught with peril, and these might be necessary, or maybe not, but it should not stop us from getting out there.

Alternate Routes & Paolo Nutini

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I went out to the Higher Ground to catch The Alternate Routes and Paolo Nutini as they played a couple of good sets of music up here. The Alternate Routes have been up here in Vermont before, and I was able to see them at their free concert back in July. Paolo Nutini, I'd heard of, as he's been on the radio with his two singles.

The Alternate Routes opened, and played a fairly good set this time around. It was a bit of an improvement over their July performance, and it was a bit of a shorter set, and they had concentrated on their better songs. Consequencely, their songs were pretty fast, which brought the crowd into full gear by the middle of their set until their finale. They once again used their toolbox & microphone combination during Fourtune Teller (I really hope that this makes it into their next album, whenever that is.) and they got the crowd singing along for My Old Lady. They pulled out an incredible amoung of energy for their time on stage. They're still a new band, and had a couple of moments where they stumbled a little. They talked a little much between songs, but they've really started playing much better together as a group. Above all, it looked like they were having fun.

Set List: - Shelly - Time Is A Runaway - California - Going Home With You - Roxanne (Tease, The Police) - Fortune Teller (Toolbox) - Aftermath - Ordinary - My Old Lady

Paolo Nutini is an artist that I don't know a whole lot about, andreally didn't have a whole lot of time to research them. I've listenedto New Shoes a number of times, and was fairly surprised at how raspy hesounded, as if he's been on tour for a long time. He was also a bithunched over and seemed shy on stage in front of everyone, and took acouple of songs to really get a good flow going. They really kicked inwhen they got Trouble So High, a cover song, where the reggae sound really complimented his vocal work.

It took a while to get used to his voice, but it's different, and worked pretty well with his songs. The faster songs worked the best with him, such as New Shoes, Last Request and Trouble So High, as well as a couple of others. He also did a number of covers - 3 - which seemed like quite a bit compared to other concerts that I've gone to. By the end, it looked like he was beginning to enjoy himself, and the crowd certainly seemed to be enjoying the act - he was the main focus of the night, and the crowd got into his music much faster than they did with the Alternate Routes.

Set List - Alloway Groove - New Shoes - Rewind - These Streets - Autumn - Natural Blues (Moby Cover) - Millions Faces - 55 to 1 (New Song) - Everybody's Talking (Harry Nielssen Cover) - Last Request - Rainbows - Jenny, Don't Be Hasty Encore - Millions of Stones? - I Wan'na Be Like You (Louis Prima & Phil Harris Cover - From the Jungle Book) - Funky Cigarette

Both performers did very well on stage. The Alternate Routes seems to be improving their act, at least since I'd last seen them in July, and they performed a really good, if a short, set. They demonstrated a considerable amount of energy and really seemed to enjoy their time on stage. Paolo Nutini seemed to be a bit more shy in front of the crowd, but played a fun set that really got the crowd going, which was fun to watch, with a good blend of fast and slow songs. In both cases, they both played their radio singles early in the sets, which surprised me, but it seemed to work nicely. They built up to a finale with their faster songs and settled into some of the deeper tracks from their albums over course of the sets. A couple of people asked me what I was doing while I was writing down the set lists, which was interesting. I handed out this address to a couple of people, and if you're reading this, thanks for your interest and hope that you found this okay. I also talked with a husband and wife who were there with their daughter, and they seemed to enjoy their time there.

I'll get more pictures online at some point later today.

Hype - Buy - Look

The War

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Last weekend was the alumni weekend on campus. I got around to seeing some old friends who were able to make it up, which was fun, to catch up and see how people have moved on a bit. It's been an interesting weekend. Yesterday, a new exhibit on the Mountain Cold Weather division opened, to celebrate their 30th anniversary this year. Part of that was a screening of a documentary on the 10th Mountain Division, which is similar in nature to the MCW. The documentary was mainly on the 10th work in World War II, which fit with the next hour of the event. The Sullivan Museum coordinated with PBS, and they did a one hour preview of Ken Burn's newest documentary, The War.
From that preview, I'm amazed. It's a fantastic look at the second World War. Burns is a fantastic documentary film maker - his prior works - the ones that I've seen - Civil War and Jazz, are fantastic, very in depth looks at each subject, to a near comprehensive level. The War is a look at the second World War through four towns in the US.

Where Burns has used photographs in prior documentaries, he uses video footage, to create an unparalleled portrait of the War. The project was started shortly after Burns learned two statistics - That nearly a thousand World War II veterans die each day, when they started the work six years ago, and that number's only risen. And secondly, 40 % of graduating high school seniors thought that the U.S. and Germany fought in the Second World War together, against Russia.
Hopefully, this will be a bit of a step in bringing the history of what happened to more people, so that number is reduced somewhat- it's a disturbing statistic. It'll also be nice to see something about WWII besides what people see in films.
The War will be starting on Sunday, September 23rd, at 8:00 pm on PBS, and will be running through the week. The entire thing will be about 14 hours long, and at least in Vermont, we'll be getting the original edition, not the censored version that some places will be airing. Later on, after the first original airing, the censored version will be aired during family friendly times. I'm not thrilled with a censored war documentary. I know I can't wait to see it though.