Monday, December 10, 2007

Sex and Lucia, Boom!, Title IX

Netflix movie tonight, a honey: Sex and Lucia, a story set in Madrid and a nearby island. Spanish, subtitles, lots of nudity of all kinds (nice but not all that necessary - just part of life and love, you know; still nice...), and a really great, convoluted story that centers around Lucia, a dark haired, lovely waitress who gets the man she wants by going up to him and telling him that she's in love with him. And that is where the story starts, kinda. Lots of twists and turns and even a little confusion along the way to a great ending. A good one. Give it a five.

Boom! Continuing to read Brokaw's tome on the Sixties. There are so many stories that it has to be hard for any of them to receive the attention that they deserve - that was my fear when I picked up this book and the main reason I returned, without reading, his bestseller, Greatest Generation. With that said, I find myself enjoying the retelling of many of the stories in Boom! Just finished a section on Vietnam and I thought he leaned over backwards to be evenhanded although he makes it plain that he himself was opposed to the war and still thinks it was one of those wrong wars at a wrong time. His Jim Webb, now Senator Jim Webb, section had this remarkable moment for me: the two of them, along with Webb's wife, a Vietnam born woman who was born in 1968 and fled along with others in 1975, were in Vietnam in one of the areas where Webb had served and fought. He was interested in developing some sort of center that would memorialize the actions of both the Americans and the Vietnamese soldiers who fought and died in the area and was trying to convince the local authorities to approve the project. His ideas were received rather coldly and he told Brokaw that he didn't think he was going to make much progress there. Hmmm. I would think not. Makes me wonder if there are any memorials in Boston to the English who fell during our revolutionary war; or maybe memorials to the Mexicans who died at the Alamo? Webb was also affronted by the heavy handed way in which Americans were depicted in a Vietnam War Museum in Saigon. Jeesh, Webb, don't you remember what we Americans did to that tiny country? How many of their people died and were mutilated by boys from the good old USA? Or the devastation done to their country in the name of freedom? Or the cold shoulder we gave them for thirty years after they took control of their own destiny by kicking the foreigners out?

Title IX, that law that has made such a difference for women for quite some time now, was signed into law by what president. Give yourself ten points if you come up with the correct answer. Life has its surprises...

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