By Debbie Schlussel
If you’re a fan of the Indiana Jones movies–as I am–then you’ll be interested in the plot for the latest–and, perhaps, last–installment: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” It will be hard to believe a 65-year-old Jones doing stunts, etc., but perhaps he will get away with it as Sylvester Stallone kinda did with “Rocky Balboa.” The movie, scheduled for release in theaters in late May 2008, employs one of the same tricks as the sixth “Rocky”–flashbacks to the previous movies.
Here’s the scoop:

When last we saw Indy, he was riding off into the sunset in 1989’s The Last Crusade, set in 1938 near the start of World War II. The new movie, due this spring, is set at the height of the Cold War in 1957, so the character has aged in real time – 19 years.

“He’s teaching and having kind of a quiet life,” the producer says. Once the archaeologist is thrust back into danger, the signature Indiana Jones red line tracing across the map will take him to New Mexico, Connecticut, Mexico City and the jungles of Peru.
Despite all the gray-hair jokes (Harrison Ford is 65), Indy is still swinging from dangerous precipices and absorbing punches.
“Indy’s a fallible character. He makes mistakes and gets hurt. He has a few more aches and pains now,” Marshall says. “That’s the other thing people like: He’s a real character, not a character with superpowers.”
The Nazis are no longer Indy’s chief foe – he’s racing for the Crystal Skull against operatives from the Soviet Union, including Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as the seductive Agent Spalko. “Indy always has a love-hate relationship with every woman he ever comes in contact with,” Marshall says.
Ray Winstone, currently the star of Beowulf, co-stars as an unethical rival archaeologist. Transformers star Shia LaBeouf sports greaser hair and rides a motorcycle as the hero’s sidekick.
The Last Crusade concluded without a cliffhanger, but Crystal Skull will revisit bits from other films, including Karen Allen’s feisty Marion Ravenwood from 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The artifact of the title is inspired by real quartz sculptures of disputed origins that are carved in a way that defies the natural structure of the crystal.

Sounds interesting.
Too bad Indie likely doesn’t live long enough to be believable doing digs in the modern Middle East and fighting off terrorists, but hey, he’d be in his 90s or hundreds or something like that, by then.
The Cold War will probably do, so long as he doesn’t make us morally equivalent to the Commies, as at least one Harrison Ford movie did previously.

By Debbie Schlussel
They were the first “Me” generation.
The more privileged members of the Baby Boomer generation protested against the Vietnam War on our shores, while their contemporaries gave their lives and limbs to the Viet Cong over there.
They supported illegal drug use, free love/rampant sex, and bra burning. They paved the way for the decline of the nuclear family–today, over 80% of children born to families in Detroit are to single-mother households (and the same goes for other major cities).
They were the most selfish generation. Their parents sacrificed during World War II, but then spoiled them rotten.

And now these spoilees are as selfish in near-death as they were throughout their lives. Dow Jones reports that, even though many Boomers are multi-millionaires, they are leaving little of it to their kids and spending it all on themselves before they die.
But on the bright side, this will hopefully end–with the Boomer generation–the cycle of spoiled counter-cultural senses of entitlement that they had:

The greatest transfer of wealth in history may end up leaving heirs disappointed — and could mean big changes for financial advisers.
As “mass-affluent” boomer millionaires, or baby boomers worth around a few million dollars, start to turn 65, forecasts and patterns in their retirement planning suggest that many may leave little or no substantial wealth to their children.
The affluent boomer crowd typically has plans for a fully funded dream retirement that lasts two decades or more. Having bankrolled kids through years of education and early adulthood, these boomers feel less than obligated to pass along to their children much of their hard-earned wealth. . . .
One recent study by Harrison Group and American Express Publishing, a division of American Express Co., sketches the profile of mass-affluent boomers.
The study describes a group of approximately 2.1 million Americans that has annual discretionary income between $125,000 and $249,000 — that is, income after taxes, mortgage and standard bills — and an average net worth of $1.9 million.
While holding $1.9 million in assets at retirement would seem to assure very comfortable leisure years, paying for that leisure could mean little wealth is left at the end. In fact, more than half (52 percent) of the study’s respondents reported worrying about running out of money before death.
As a result, say economists and financial advisers, when rank-and-file millionaire boomers are pushed to decide between living a full retirement or scaling back post-career spending to preserve capital for their children or grandchildren, a fully funded lifestyle is typically the victor.
“They’re a lot more worried about maintaining their lifestyle than about leaving everybody else wealthy,” says Montgomery.
Academics also see a decline. In October of 2000, Dr. Jagadeesh Gokhale, then a senior economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and Laurence Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University, identified what they called a “declining bequest ethic.” They found fewer than half (48.4 percent) of those interviewed for the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance believed it was “important to leave an estate to heirs.” The steepest decline in sentiment during the 1990s — almost ten percentage points — came from Americans age 65 and older.

ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.

By Debbie Schlussel
With all of the hoopla about Oprah’s forays–this weekend–into Iowa, South Carolina, New Hamsphire, etc., on behalf of Barack Hussein Obama, I remind you of my views on Oprah’s “in-kind” campaign contribution to his campaign, from late October. Also, I now ask (as forecasted in this video), why Oprah gets away with switching to a strong and very fake “urban” accent when she’s speaking to Blacks in South Carolina (and “suburban” accent when she’s rallying Whites in Iowa). (Remember, I did this without a teleprompter and thinking the strong lights would drown me out, thus the way-too-excessive makeup).

By Debbie Schlussel
Major film critics’ societies and individual reviewers from all over the country are raving about “There Will Be Blood,” a movie that debuts in New York and Los Angeles in late December and the rest of the country in January.
I have seen the movie, starring Daniel Day-Lewis. And while I’m prohibited from posting an early review, I can tell you this: About an oil prospector-cum-millionaire, the movie is an almost three hours of anti-Christian propaganda. One of the major characters in the movie is an Evangelical Christian preacher, who is portrayed as weird, mean, sleazy, and a phony who will say or do anything for money. And most of the congregants in his church are the same. When a person is killed working at an oil well, the preacher predictably blames it on the fact that the oil baron refused to allow him to bless the oil well. And there are other similar incidences throughout the movie.

I thought I’d like this movie, which at the beginning was beautiful and interesting, but it degraded into a saga of mystery, killing, and above all of that–anti-Christian ranting. And that’s probably why it will likely do well at the Oscars, next year.
If this is what mainstream movie critics love–and they do; they’re gushing over this movie–it says a lot about what they think of religious Christians: not much.
Merry Christmas.
Stay tuned for my complete review.

By Debbie Schlussel
Today’s Wall Street Journal sums up some of the most ridiculous comments of GOP candidates in attendance at the Miami Spanish language debate. But the article misquotes a Romney answer about the illegal aliens who mowed his lawn, claiming he said it’s not his job to check whether they are legal (he did not say that, according to the transcript). (The full transcript is here.)
First off, my favorite comment was by Tom Tancredo, who said “Yo No Hablo”. He refused to participate in the debate because it was not in English:

The eighth candidate, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, the toughest of the lot in condemning illegal immigration, boycotted the event because it wasn’t in English. The Univision Democratic debate in September was watched by 2.2 million people.

Good for him. The only guy with real guts in the pack.

Send in the Clowns
Then, there’s the rest of the lot. Some highlights, er . . . lowlights:
* Ron Paul sounds just like the Rosie O’Donnell crowd on the left:

Rep. Ron Paul said the U.S. needs to engage with hostile leaders in Venezuela and Cuba. “We create the [Hugo] Chavezes of the world. We create the [Fidel] Castros,” he said to resounding boos from the University of Miami audience.
He was alone in that view; other candidates drew approval with tough talk on Cuba.

Um, pardon me, but aren’t libertarians (one of which Paul is supposed to be) against “engaging” with governments–any governments, hostile or otherwise? I thought that’s why Paul opposed America going into Iraq. Way to be a consistent “isolationist.”
* Mike Huckabee clearly doesn’t understand that our government barely does more than a few minutes of checking–if that–on temporary workers allowed into this country on visas:

[H]e spent more time explaining how the U.S. government has failed those who seek to come here. “If you can get an American Express card in two weeks it shouldn’t take seven years to get a work permit to come to this country in order to work on a farm,” he said.

Actually, it doesn’t take seven years to get a work permit. It’s much quicker in most cases, far too quick. And the necessary background checks are not being done. An American Express card has absolutely nothing to do with this. That’s about checking credit, not someone’s identity and possible terrorist and/or criminal activity in a foreign country. This guy is clearly too uninformed on a major national security issue to become President.
* Fred Thompson also doesn’t get it on anchor babies. He’s worried about children separated from their illegal alien parents who chose to be here illegally and have them here as a means to try to stay:

Asked whether children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants should be separated from their parents, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson allowed that these children are U.S. citizens. But he used the opportunity to condemn “endless chain migration” where one citizen brings many family members to this country.

Gee, if he really meant that, then why won’t he publicly support an end to birthright citizenship–an end to anchor babyhood. The only Presidential candidate–of either party–publicly supporting that is Tancredo.
Well, that’s because Thompson doesn’t care about the anchor baby problem. The transcript of the debate quotes him as saying this:

The — our courts have ruled that such children, such babies born here are United States citizens. That’s part of the 14th Amendment as has been interpreted by the courts, as I understand it. . . . I believe that the concentration should not be on the concern of waiting until that child grows up and serves as an anchor baby, as we hear so much talk about. . . . So I think that . . . the issue to focus on [is] not innocent children who are born here not of their own accord and who our courts have said our United States citizens.

Um, lawyer Fred Thompson, understands it incorrectly. The 14th Amendment language pertaining to anchor babies has not reached the Supreme Court in contemporary times. The language says that those born within America’s “jurisdiction” are citizens. It was written to make the children of slaves full citizens. It is debatable that anchor babies–born to illegal aliens–are within our “jurisdiction.”
That a lawyer doesn’t know this basic fact on a major issue in the Presidential campaign ought to tell you something. He ain’t prepared.
That he isn’t concerned with anchor babies, some of whom are the children of terrorists we’ve deported, is jaw-dropping. For that reason alone, we should be concerned about anchor babies and end birthright citizenship.
Woe is us. If this is our lot of opponents to Dem Nominee Hillary Rodham Cankles–and it is–Slick Willie will return to the Lincoln Bedroom many times in the not so distant future.

By Debbie Schlussel
If you’re a fan of best-selling crime-thriller novelist David Baldacci, perhaps it’s time to rethink that. I’ve written about so many thriller novelists who insidiously include their liberal, pan-Islamist views (here and here) in what are supposed to be light, entertaining mysteries. Add Baldacci to that slobbering pile.
Today’s USA Today has a gushing page-long piece about him that is, well, enlightening. Aside from having two bad former Presidents–Bill Clinton & George H.W. Bush–and lots of federal law enforcement agents as fans, he buys into long ago disproven myth that Muslims only commit terrorism because of lack of economic opportunity. And he thinks HAMAS-, Castro-, and Arafat-fan/conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone is “courageous.” So courageous, he named the recurring hero of some of his books after Stone.

You see, Baldacci doesn’t really believe there are good guys and bad guys (like most liberals). He believes in the moral equivalency of them both. Sadly, with these views, he’s a consultant to the federal government on potential terrorist plots.
Baldacci regurgitates his strange views as propaganda inside his novels. Do his readers buy his propaganda? Probably, since he’s already got two former Commanders-in-Chief buying what he’s pimping:

In 1999, then-President Clinton named Baldacci’s The Simple Truth his favorite book of the year. In a recent e-mail to USA TODAY, Clinton wrote: “I love David Baldacci’s books, the dizzying plot twists, the evocative scenes, the compelling characters. His books are riveting thrillers that also enable readers to learn something about important subjects.”
Says former president and ex-CIA director Bush in an e-mail: “David Baldacci is a valued friend. I read every book he writes and love them all. He is the master of the suspenseful plot.” . . .
“I’d read a lot of thrillers about politicians and presidents,” Baldacci says, “but never one where you flip the stereotypes and make good people bad and bad people good.”
Fourteen best sellers later, Baldacci remains a publishing powerhouse. Fifty million copies of his books are in print worldwide. Stone Cold (Grand Central, $26.99), his newest thriller, and Simple Genius, published in April, entered USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list at No. 2, his highest debuts. (Stone Cold is now No. 21.) . . .
Baldacci has nurtured sources he’s too discreet to name and who have shared with him information he would never reveal. “People who have expertise just love to share it. That’s human nature.”
He counts former and active Secret Service agents, ex-Marines, a former member of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, a former attorney general, a former Homeland Security chief and several former presidents among his sources.
“Once you gain their confidence and trust, they’re pretty open about how they do their job or how their agency functions or doesn’t function, the constraints they feel. I’ve never asked for classified information,” Baldacci says. “People have given me classified information, but always with the disclaimer ‘This can never end up in a book.’ And it never does.”
Margaret Moore, a retired agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and co-founder of WIFLE (Women in Federal Law Enforcement), says she finds Baldacci’s novels realistic. In fact, a recurring character in some of his books is a member of WIFLE. [DS: Oh, the same group that had “law enforcer” Julie L. Myers, The ICE Princess, as its keynote speaker at a waste-of-time convention, where they paid Baldacci to speak to them. Great for the women on “The View” and watchers of “Oprah.” For the rest of us, who cares?] . . .
Through the years, his reputation and popularity have made research much easier. “Now I have agencies call me up,” he says. “They want me to come in and talk to them and write about them in my books.”
Recently, he met with representatives of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which runs the U.S. spy satellite network. . . .
He’s also among a handful of authors and screenwriters – including Brad Meltzer (The Book of Fate) and David DeBatto (co-author with Pete Nelson of CI:Homeland Threat) – who have been asked to develop doomsday scenarios for government analysis.
Three years ago, he was contacted by a contractor working for Homeland Security. “I was asked, ‘How would you blow up the Super Bowl?’ and my task was to come up with a way to do it, send it to them and they would reverse-engineer it. They would figure out a way to make sure it could never happen.” . . .
Stone Cold is the third in Baldacci’s Camel Club series. Like most of his novels, it takes place in and around Washington and involves corruption at high government levels. The Camel Club, led by ex-CIA assassin Oliver Stone, is a “ragtag regiment” of conspiracy theorists who covertly work to keep the government accountable.
Baldacci named his character for film director Oliver Stone, whose controversial movies include JFK. “It was a perfect name for him to take,” Baldacci says. “My Oliver Stone is a big-time conspiracy theorist who doesn’t trust anybody. So I thought it would be a tip of the hat.” Baldacci says he admires Stone’s movies because “they take a position, they’re courageous and they stir up controversy. And that’s never a bad thing.” . . .
“Someone asked me one time, ‘How cynical are you about the U.S. government on a scale of 1 to 10?’ I think my answer was 8.5 to 9.3,” Baldacci says. . . .
In 2005’s The Camel Club, the book that kicked off the series, Stone and followers try to stop a terrorist plot that could lead to a nuclear attack in the Middle East.
Baldacci says he received about 100 negative e-mails and several death threats from people (he never pursued their identities) who didn’t like the way his novel tried to understand the roots of terrorism.
“In The Camel Club, I had the audacity to make a complex issue complicated instead of very simple, black and white,” he says. “I posed the question, ‘Wouldn’t it be smart to understand why a normal person in the Middle East might become a terrorist?’ I was exploring things some people didn’t want explored. They wanted John Wayne.”
The roots of terrorism he explores in the novel include economic and social pressures faced by young Muslims.

Hmmm . . . Clearly this walking human conceit balloon doesn’t “understand” the “roots of terrorism” at all. He didn’t “explore” a thing about this. How does he explain away that Mohammed Atta and most of the 18 other hijackers came from wealthy, educated families? How does he explain away all of the wealthy, educated Palestinian homicide bombers. This myth has been exploded so many times, it’s amazing this thriller “genius” still believes in it. He’s the last one out. Please turn off the lights.

Because of early criticism, Baldacci was convinced The Camel Club would not be popular with the reading public, but it turned out to be his biggest seller in hardcover. . . .
“In every thriller written about Washington, particularly after 9/11, there are good guys and there are bad guys, and there’s no gray area at all,” Baldacci says. “Good guys kill all the bad guys, and they do it any way they can because that makes the world safer and better. That’s total BS, but it plays well to audiences.
“For me, the gray is where I live, and that’s the only reason I write books like this.” Those who fight for justice in his novels don’t always survive or win their battles. But critics and fans appear to like Baldacci’s less than black-and-white approach to good and evil.

Yes, for David Baldacci, there are no good guys–no hard-working federal agents trying to do their jobs without committing crime. And there are no bad guys. No Muslim terrorists are really bad because he “lives” in “the gray” fantasyland where they blow up 3,000 people not for Islamic jihad but because they couldn’t afford a pizza.
His success is just more proof of what they say about the birthrate of suckers. One hatched every minute.
With over 50 million copies of Baldacci novels in print, perhaps that birth-rate estimation is too conservative.
File Under: What Not To Buy Your Book-Loving Recipient for the Holidays

By Debbie Schlussel
Why did former Major League Baseball pro Mark Littell parade around in his underwear for an ad? This is probably one of the most tasteless, but effective (and funny), product endorsement ads out there (former MLBer Chris Sabo makes a cameo):

By Debbie Schlussel
This weekend, it’s a great time to read a good book or rent an old classic movie. There’s little decent at the movies, though “Awake” is okay. My reviews:
* “The Golden Compass“: Read my complete review, from yesterday. A young girl is given a magic golden compass, which answers questions with symbols. It helps her as she battles the evil (religious) Magisterium that wants to squelch free thinkers. She must also battle the Magisterium’s evil agent, Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman). Dull, boring, anti-religious, and very scary for kids who won’t understand what is going on. Again, read my complete review.
* “Margot at the Wedding“: Probably the worst movie of the year, possibly the decade, and perhaps the century. 1.5 hours of your life very tragically wasted. Words cannot express how awful this movie is.

Will I ever be able to erase the scene of the naked, fat butt and back profile of Jack Black from my mind? I hope so. Then, there’s the scene of Nicole Kidman (Margot) masturbating. That seems to be the entire purpose of this weird, dreadful-to-the-nth movie: showing us these people’s gross private parts and hearing them talk about the coarse, such as whether they are still “f-ckable,” a frequent word in the dialogue. Oy.
The “plot,” if you can call it that: A selfish, highly-negative writer, Margot (Kidman) is upset that her sister with whom she’s not close, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is marrying a loser (Jack Black). She goes to her sister’s house on the water to break up the wedding. But we really don’t see any of that. Instead, we see the ugly nakedness, see weird neighbors and their weird exploits, and watch Margot, her effeminate son, her sister, and her sister’s young daughter engage in weird conversations and talk about sex, but not in any way that would interest you, only in a way that would creep you out. Believe me, it’s way worse than it sounds.
This movie is absolutely horrid, as virtually the entire test audience at a promo screening agreed. YUCK! Skip at all cost.

* “Awake“: A young, handsome billionaire, Clay (Hayden Christensen), needs a heart transplant, and his doctor best friend (Terrence Howard) is going to do the transplant when a heart with a match is found. Meanwhile Clay is secretly engaged to his mother’s sexy assistant (Jessica Alba). His mother wants him to have a top surgeon do the trasplant, but he objects. She doesn’t want him to marry her assistant, either.
He gets married quickly and, suddenly, a heart becomes available. As he undergoes surgery, the anesthesia doesn’t completely take effect (this actually happens on occasion in real life). And the young billionaire can feel and hear everything, but can’t talk. He soon discovers that mother knows best, about very many things, as he overhears a plot to kill him.
While I often object that movies are way too long, this was, perhaps, a little short, at just 78 minutes. It didn’t give us much time to figure out what was going on. On the other hand, it was short and quick, and there were hints all along about who was in on the plot. And the resolution of the plot is different and new.
Not the greatest, but not bad–and certainly not so bad that they should have skipped critic screenings, as they did on this one–either.

By Debbie Schlussel
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked. Until then, we had not really entered World War II. They attacked us. Just like all the many attacks in which the replacement-“they” have attacked us–not just on 9/11/01, but well before and after.
Today, 66 years later there is nary a peep in the mainstream media or on the newscasts. But there are five Pearl Harbor survivors, in their 80s and 90s, who regularly volunteer at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center, talking to visitors and keeping history alive. There were 15, but now just five (check out the photo gallery of these suriving heroes). These heroes are dying out:

They are the ironmen of their generation, living through Dec. 7, 1941, and the World War that followed, and defying the pitfalls of age and health into their 80s and 90s.

The five Pearl Harbor survivors who regularly volunteer at the USS Arizona Memorial visitor center, talking and joking with tourists and signing autographs, may have lost a step or two, but not their wit.
“He’s the old man right here,” Alfred Rodrigues, 87, said while cocking his head toward Herb Weatherwax. “How old are you, Dad?”
Weatherwax, sitting at the same table, stated that he’s 90.
“It’s been 90 beautiful years. Beautiful,” said the former soldier. That excludes some dark times, though, such as witnessing the destruction of Pearl Harbor and Wheeler Army Airfield.
When a 55-year-old woman from New Jersey swoops over, plants a kiss on Rodrigues’ cheek and says “Thank you” and starts to walk away, Weatherwax chimes in, “Hey, come back!” widening his ever-present smile.
That’s how it goes when the aging survivors are holding court. But it’s a limited engagement, and they are a dwindling resource whose presence has become that much more precious as their ranks have thinned.
Ten years ago, about 15 Pearl Harbor survivors were part of the pool of veterans who mingled with visitors. Several years ago, that number had fallen to 10, and now there are just the five.
One of the regulars, Air Force veteran Bill Cope, died on Nov. 25 at age 94.
“The attrition level is here, and we know that every day that they show up, it’s sort of like a gift,” said Arizona Memorial historian Daniel Martinez.
The numbers are reflective of the nationwide loss of the “greatest generation,” and of the ever-shrinking survivor turnout for the next anniversary of the attack that launched the United States into World War II.
On Friday, fewer than 50 are expected at Kilo pier for the 66th anniversary. Eighteen survivors from the battleship USS Oklahoma — a large number — are coming for the dedication of a new memorial on Ford Island. . . .
Robert Kinzler was in the 25th Infantry Division. During the attack, his company was ordered to take up a position at Roosevelt High School, and Kinzler saw the Pearl Harbor destruction.
Weatherwax, who was born in Honolulu in 1917, received the instruction to report to his duty station at Schofield Barracks that morning. Late in the war, his unit joined up with Russian soldiers in western Germany.
Sterling Cale, a Navy corpsman on Dec. 7, 1941, was in charge of the burial party removing bodies from the USS Arizona.

Navy Corpsman/Pearl Harbor Survivor Sterling Cale

Everett Hyland was serving aboard the USS Pennsylvania, which was in drydock No. 1 on that morning, and was seriously wounded when a Japanese bomb exploded near his battle station.
And Rodrigues, who was born in Kapa’a, Kaua’i, was at Bishop’s Point at Pearl Harbor. He was issued a .30-caliber rifle and started shooting at the Japanese planes that passed overhead.
Rodrigues had just sat down for breakfast when the general alarm sounded.
“Just before the general alarm sounded, we heard a lot of explosions,” Rodrigues said. “But you know, many times, they were working in Pearl Harbor, dredging the harbor, so we thought nothing of it.”
Then he saw the rising sun on the planes and knew O’ahu was being attacked.
“They were flying low enough to see the pilots’ faces,” Rodrigues added. “It was scary. It was scary.” . . .
Those firsthand accounts won’t be around forever. The veterans themselves know it most of all.
Rodrigues said there are only 19 members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association still on O’ahu.
“The Arizona had 233 survivors, and I just got word … that there are only 25 living,” he said. “I hate to say it, but we know that our time is coming. I don’t go to church, but I say my prayers.”
In the meantime, they are ambassadors of history from a time of world conflict and, ultimately, peace with Japan and Germany. . . .
Martinez, the Arizona Memorial’s historian, said hundreds of “oral histories” from survivors have been recorded over the years. But the real-life link in the not-too-distant future will be gone.
“These stories will remain alive, but what will be a loss is for the visitors, because the visitors have a chance today to touch history by meeting (the veterans), getting an autograph and a picture with them,” Martinez said. “That’s going to be lost, and that is irreplaceable.”

Remember Pearl Harbor, because they won’t be around for too much longer to remember it for you.
***
As I wrote last year:

[Then,] we were fighting a more finite, defeatable enemy. On December 7, 1941, 2,388 U.S. military personnel were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 1,178 American servicemen were wounded. 12 ships were sunk or beached, 9 damaged. We lost 164 aircraft to total destruction, and 159 others were damaged.
Today, we are fighting the new version of those allied with the Japanese–the new Nazis. They are far more committed, far more dangerous. They don’t just bomb ships and planes and military. They torture and murder innocent civilians.
Do we have the resolve? It seems that our resolve is sinking along with the Pearl Harbor Memorial which is sinking into the ground beneath it and may need to be propped up? Who will prop the back-to-sleep America from its sinking beneath the Islamic fundamentalism on our own shores?

Sadly, these Pearl Harbor vets won’t be around much longer. And we have a dearth of those like them in today’s day and age, willing to fight the enemy and to what it takes.
From my 2005 coverage of Pearl Harbor Day, don’t forget these words from the Memorial:

My brothers lie in state,
In clear waters
Of testimony, their willingness
To answer our Nation’s call.
An angel bends down, whispers in my ear,
Never forget. Never forget.
Honor them. They
Gave their lives for you.
No man hath a greater love.
Do them honor.
And never forget.

Never forget Pearl Harbor. And never forget that we are facing an enemy far more fierce, an enemy that is slowly defeating us.

By Debbie Schlussel
For over a month now, readers have been filling my inbox asking whether I’ve seen “The Golden Compass” (TGC). I saw it, earlier this week.
As you may have heard, TGC is under fire from the Catholic League and other conservative groups for being anti-Christian, as the book on which it is based is supposed to be. After seeing it, I can see their point. I’m not Catholic, and I don’t believe little kids–at whom this movie is aimed–will get anything anti-religious out of it. It’s been toned down enough so that they won’t really understand what’s going on. But to adults, the message is very clear.
Frankly, I thought the movie was long and boring, and I didn’t like it on its own artistic merits, religion aside. For young kids, I think it will be a little too scary. There is blood and fighting and it’s not a cute, cuddly movie. In fact, cute cuddly things are routinely choked to death or otherwise executed.

As for the Christian stuff, the movie doesn’t come out and say it’s “the Church,” or “there are religious leaders” who are against us. But to adults, it’s obvious. A group of men in long Black robes and collars (which look like Catholic religious leaders’ garb) are evil and the villains ones in this film, and they are from the Magisterium. And although their “symbol” is not a cross, it looks like a cross buried betweem several shapes. Although it is never really explained what the Magistereum is, I know that it’s a Catholic term. Nicole Kidman, who plays the Magisterium’s evil “agent,” explains to the film’s young heroine, Lyra:

They tell you how to live your life. But in a good way. . . . People need instruction.

In the movie, everyone has a “demon,” a soft, cute, cuddly animal that represents their alter ego. But a “demon” is supposed to be like your bad influence within your mind. We have that concept in Judaism, as well. It’s an evil part of your mind–not an external, cute, cuddly animal.
In the movie, the Magisterium is evil, villainous, and vicious. It kidnaps kids from their families, especially the poor, and separates the kids from their “demons” in some sort of scary shock therapy machine. And the Magisterium murders others. Lyra, the film’s child heroine, learns that the Magisterium took her away from her mother because she was born when her parents were not married. One Magisterium cleric tries to poison Lyra’s uncle.
That’s the essence of the anti-religious portion of this movie. It is populated by a lot of battle and fight scenes and computer-generated special effects and images, and has occasional appearances by Kidman and new James Bond, Daniel Craig.
But over all, it is boring. It may be a hit at the movies this weekend, but it won’t last.
It’s not just that it’s anti-religious. It’s that it’s boring and not of much interest. There’s no clear plotline. It just kind of wanders aimlessly from crisis to crisis and ends with yet another quest (in order to make a sequel–it’s based on a trilogy). They spent a lot of money on sets, costumes, actors, and special effects, but very little on substance.