She seems like a dream, and it's in dreams where I see her nowadays. What remains? Many personality traits, along with my freckles and red flecks of  hair (now graying fast). Certainly she taught me the sense of fairness, decency and loyalty to family and friends. She would not even hurt her enemies. But I also have had other mothers–good, kind women who taught me things as I grew up and who gave me love and support. I know who they are–some are still here, some not. They did me many kindnesses and never asked for any type of compensation.

Certainly, we'd have no civilization without the quiet work of women/mothers–their sympathy, patience, wisdom, gentle chiding, the faith they have in all of us even when we offer only bad promises. Well, as I'm slipping into preachy talk, I'll snap it off now….I think anyone who reflects will see it should be "Motherness" day.

The little guy loves the bike path especially, they have a wonderful playground and he can't get enough of the swing. When I think of the money wasted in bombs and drones and things that destroy–money that could rebuild or own fracturing and ailing infrastructure, economy, and cities–I could weep.

Anyway what truly distresses me is that the whole meaning of the poem is missing. The crucial relationship with Beatrice is ruined–she is Dante's paramour here and he goes to hell to save her. In short, he's not the Dante of the poem, but Orpheus. He is also a crusader who wields a sword and kills monsters in hell….This sort of revision is on the par of "The Passion of the Christ." Perhaps I am not surprised by this–this violent piece was not drawn from the poem, but rather from a Japanese video game….

That aside, this expanding universe doesn't offer me the consolation of a hell…(I doubt I'd qualify for the other place). Hell is preferable to nothing–that there is no force caring enough either punish to me or reward me. That thinking indicates the possibility of mercy. But nothing cannot be made anthropomorphic.

But then again, I share my lack of overarching purpose with great oceans, planets, suns, mountains. This inorganic matter doesn't think or feel or worry that some primal non-living purpose created it.Ah, these are the limits to the mammal. Genetics makes us throw ourselves at the void and hope we come out the other side intact.

I mean, you couldn't get away from the roar–all so that those that enjoy watching engines of war overhead could feel inspired that someone else was on the business end of an American bomb or something…. I decided that at least the scene was no longer schmaltzy. Thoreau also hated war, too….but he's not in a position to protest. But his words are.

Best thing about the movie is the graceful scene where French paratroopers take a town. One camera moving back shows the troops moving like ballet dancers. It was clearly down in one take. I know historic events are hard to film–I'm no fan of "Saving Private Ryan," but I admire the intent. That said, this could be remade as a miniseries….

One other advantage to the film: You can play "Find the Star." Mitchum, Fonda, Wayne, Lawford, Burton, even Gert Froebe–Auric Goldfinger. (He has a German stamp in his likeness.) Incidentally, his rival, James Bond, AKA Sean Connery makes a brief appearance in the middle of the movie. Then there is Richard Burton, playing the angry man of the 1950s,  as a downed RAF pilot, ruminating in a kind of pointless coda.

Outside of a few grandees like Lee and Washington, the rural South was almost neolithic in its poverty-stricken lifestyle. He saw the South as being violent, racist, backwards, illiterate and permanently doomed to being a stagnant pool of ignorance. Nearly the entire hierarchy of the South–business, legal, judicial, administrative–was pro-slavery.

He also discusses at length the methods taken by the old ruling network to re-enslave the freed blacks by using chain gains–a practice that in some forms continues to this day. If Wilson was flawed, it was in his argument by comparison–nations are not organisms.