The Movie "Captain Phillips" Commands Little Attention

Heralded actor Tom Hanks latest movie details the realities of modern day piracy on the worlds seas, yet lacks a much needed cerebral punch.

"Captain Phillips" is worth a watch when its theater release has run its course. (2.5 star rating) The movie is Based on the true story of Captain Richard Phillips, a U.S. cargo-ship captain played by Hanks who surrendered himself to Somali pirates in 2009 so that his crew would be freed.

Somali pirate Muse, acted by Barkhad Abdi is the ring leader among the pirates who seize control of the cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama en route to Mombasa, Kenya. His counterpart, Bilal, characterized by actor Barkhad Abdirahman is the menacing force to the Americans.

Abdi, Bilal and the rest of the Somali pirates, because of their birth place and station in life are forced into sea crimes which ignited my intrigue on more global happenings. Excessive greed soon consumes Muse and Bilal after seizing helm of the cargo ship. The chaos begins soon after they kidnap captain Phillips and the U.S. Navy gets involved.

Screen writer Billy Ray adapted the story from the book "A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea" by Stephan Talty. Actors Hanks, Abdi and Abdirahman nailed their performances while everyone else had minimal roles including the alluring actress Catherine Keener who plays Hanks wife, Andrea Phillips.

Brief moments of intensity in "Captain Phillips" were too brief in this lengthy flick which is a onetime watch when it comes to Netflix.

The Novel "Pirate Alley" has Its Brief Moments of Interest

The novel "Pirate Alley" is a graphic escapade of vicious rape, insane greed and certainly not for the faint of heart.

Returning hero’s spawned in writer Stephen Coonts mind, Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini are the brains in thwarting depraved pirates who hi-jack a cruise ship with more than 800 passengers. The main characters Carmellini and Grafton are mere side notes to in the story which adds to the novel many flaws.

The cruise ship, Sultan of the Sea is sailing on the narrow gulf of Suei and the Gulf of Aden, perhaps the busiest highway for ships infested with pirates known a "Pirate Alley."

The very beginning of the books captures the attention span in moments, with a story line that has nothing to do with the main plot. I imagine Coonts was illustrating Carmellini’s ability to fight crime with wits and brawn.

The main villains Sheikh Ragnar and his partner in crime Mustafa al-Said epitomize evil the way Wall Street defines financial atrocity. Ragnar and Said are characters anyone who is not sadistic would love to hate. The two inhuman men lead the charge in the brutal raping to death of women and senseless torture and killing of other innocents people.

"Pirate Alley" is a tale about a cruise ship seized by Ragnar, Said and their savagely cruel gang of Somalia pirates with an insane goal to acquire the almighty dollar. The ships passengers are held ransom for 200 million American dollars.

The author Coonts said Somalia is without government with raging pirates swarming along the coast with armed hungry men eager to loot, pillage and rape anybody. It's like Europe in the Dark Ages or Wall Street.

I had mixed feelings about "Pirate Alley." On one had it had the gripping elements any story should have, intriguing characters and the arousal of the reader’s curiosity as to what will happen next.

Although there are surprises in the book, the story festers into futility in the middle and is soon muddled into a boring read. Without revealing too much of the story, the parts I did like were educational and pleasing to me. Commanding officer of the USS Richard Ward, Millicent C. Fjestand known as 'the old woman' and called big momma behind her back is a fun character with a dilly of weapon on her ship. The weapon is Mark 45 mod four; it fires shells five inches in diameter weighing 70 pounds each with a muzzle velocity of 2,650 feet per second. Mark 45's efficient range is 20 miles.

One of the rape victims, Nora Needling gets her revenge by bounding her rapist so tight with rope his hands turn white from lack of circulation. She then removes a certain part of his man hood with a kitchen knife and leaves him bound and bleeding to a slow death.

A violent appetizing beginning to "Pirate Alley" followed by a lackadaisical middle and ending nets the novel an average read.

　

　



　

　

　

　




　

"Weight of the Human Heart' is Heavy on the Eyelids

Australian author Ryan O’Neil’s new book “Weight of the Human Heart,” released in July barely warrants a one star rating.

The only reason I gave the novel “Weight of the Human Heart” even one star was because the first two short stories were OK at best. The rest of the stories in the book where borage of boring words thrust onto paper with no comprehensible purpose.

The first story, the title of the book, “Weight of the Human Heart” was actually a pleasant read, complete with excellent character development, conflict and an excellent conclusion.

Barbara, the daughter of an unloving mother who is a moderately successful writer narrates the entire story. I almost cried when Barbara wrote a story for her mother when she was five-years-old and her mother littered her story with corrections and basically told her to give up writing. Then kindergartener Barbra cried herself to sleep that night. The story is a simple tale of a single mom and only child with no laughter or affection toward each other. 

The second story, the title I forgot is about a Tutsi girl from Rwanda, a place in east Africa. The young girl flees from a Rwandan genocide. I’ll give the ending away in in this story; If you don’t want to know the ending, don’t read the next sentence. The girl does escape but she has to exit Rwanda in a black river filled with dead bodies in the pitch black of the darkest of nights.

The other six or seven stories in “Weight of the Human Heart” were an absolute debacle of disarray. “A Short Story,” one of the last works in the book was 1, 798 words O’ Neil said. It was 1,798 words too much. “A Short Story” was a lame account of how to write a story which was about as useful and intriguing as discarded nail clippings. 

“Weight of the Human Heart” is only 240 pages, but this afternoon read transformed into a month long read due to the constant breaks I needed to stay awake for the tedious and weary read.

 

Government II, Write Mind and Sea Me From the "Dead Poems" Files.

        

                                               Government II

                                Makers of mayhem. Lurid lies foster into wars

                                where world leaders send children to die other

                                than their own.

                                Economic demise forever has poverty on the rise. 

                                Universal health and dental care buried in 

                                bureaucratic balderdash. More and more freedoms

                                fading fast. Taxes rise while services fall. Political 

                                poison pollutes us all.

   Write Mind

No desk or lap top. Eagar imagination spins. No 

pin, insanity seeps in. Lunatic fury fuels frustration.

Remember that phrase. Hold that thought.

Indeed, dying is easy, comedy is hard.  

                                                Izzy Schurr /Anonymous

                            Sea Me

The kiss of the colliding waves. Rippled sand

decorates the cusp of a low tide. Aluminous

moonlight radiating lacquered night beading

off the brilliant stars. The warmth of a pitted

fire thrust itself against my body. 

Tall red and yellow flames swallowing mother

night, which has caressed me with her dark embrace.

                                                                   Izzy Schurr

Life, Death, War and Nonsense

        Life and Death
　

Geckos dwell in the caves of the ancients, and roam
through hollowed rib cages where the heart used to be.
Demons laugh as we plan for tomorrow. Predator’s dwell
in anticipation. Indeed the devils work shop is a busy
place. Near death or seized success?
Just another pawn in a soulless generation. Which gener-
ation will destroy the last of civilization? Knowledge over
powers laughter. Laughter dances on knowledge, it
dances with wisdom, it dances with folly.
                                       Izzy Schurr / Nancy Simpson Hoke
　                       

                          War III
　

Unseen enemy is near, the air charged with fear,
Heart beats unclear. Whispered violence
Echoes death.
　                        

                         Nonsense

　
Razzle dazzle, pies in the castle. Where is Miss.
Frazzle? Under da castle? Perhaps causing a
hassle? Why no, she’s eating sassle. What is
sassle? Sometimes it’s sweet, bright, and
light. Other times it’s sour, dark, and heavy.
Sassle is often like dark chocolate, and some
times it’s like white chocolate. It’s never like
hot chocolate. Mostly it’s Wokalit. Wokalit pie.
chocolate pie, sapple pie, apple pie. Scary pie,
cherry pie, pickle pie, chicken pot pie. Never eat
a mud pie like a Burf or a Wurf. Instead why not
surf. Perhaps walk with a Wurf.
                                                        Izzy Schurr

World Wide Rape is Much Too Real

In too many parts of the world it's legal to be a pedophile and rape young girls which raises the question, 'Why are some young girls born only to suffer?'

Thirty nine-thousand girls a day around the globe are forced into marriage, many of them under the age of 18 according the March article "Child brides around the world sold off like cattle." (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/08/child-brides-sold/1972905/)

The above article states that a 17-year-old girl in Juba, South Sudan Africa was beaten to death for refusing to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather. Girls as young as 12-years-old in South Sudan are forced to marry much older men. Instead of war for oil and power, how about war against forced marriages for every female in the world?

Half the women in South Sudan between the ages of 19 and 15 are forced into marriage. In west Niger, Africa 75 percent of girls are married before the age of 18. 

How many sadistic occultist use religion as a tool for raping very young girls? Twelve-year-old girls marry middle aged men who already have several wives. The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs who has 80 wives, including a 12-year-old girl leads a very demented cult in the U.S. Incidentally, Jeffs is currently in prison for life. Why the U.S. military does not swoop in and shut this nefarious religion down is a complete mystery to me.

An ABC news article from April; "Warren Jeffs Still Calling the Shots from Prison?"  details the horrid facts of the FLDS. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/04/warren-jeffs-still-calling-the-shots-from-prison/)  The FLDS is not affiliated with the LDS, the most popular Mormon practice.

Freedom of religion is a fantastic thing and I'm all for it. However a felony is a felony, epically when adolescence girls are being raped by men in their mid-50s. As I'm typing this very second, the FLDS religion is allowing some of its men to engage in polygamy and force elementary age school girls to marry men older than 55-years old. The U.S. government allows this religion to torture very young girls because it's OK with their lame brained parents who believe Jeffs words of sheer nonsense according to the above article.

In Afghanistan girls as young as 8-years-old are forced into marriage or face brutal public flogging or even made into a suicide bomber according the web site; http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/features/index.asp?article=f013111_brides.

Disguised in boys' clothes, Khadija Rasoul, 13, and Basgol Sakhi, 14, traveled for two days to escape their illegal, forced marriages to much older men according to an “Upfront” magazine article on the above web page. Policeman recognized them as girls, ignored their pleas, and sent them back home, where they were publicly and viciously flogged for daring to run away from their husbands.

“What a Wonderful World," by Louis Armstrong is often not true. If I was a praying man, I'd simply pray that everyone could be safe. I got those words from one of my college professors at Dixie State College, now Dixie State University.

"More than 100 teens rescued in weekend sex-trafficking raids, FBI says," an article on the website; http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/29/19754475-more-than-100-teens-rescued-in-weekend-sex-trafficking-raids-fbi-says?lite claims an estimated 240,000 children in the U.S. are considered at risk of sexual exploitation.

"Why are little ones born only to suffer?" (Peart. N. 1991)

The Bay Area Blitz, Northern California Teams are Winners

Since 2001, Bay Area professional sports teams have amassed seven championships in multiple sports; football, baseball and soccer.

 

Surprisingly the San Francisco Giants have the least consecutive playoff appearances (two) of all the bay area pro teams according to Mark Purdy, a journalist for the Mercury News in his article “ San Jose Sharks top list of Bay Area's longest playoff streaks,” published April 28. (http://www.mercurynews.com/mark-purdy/ci_23127548/san-jose-sharks-top-list-bay-areas-longest)

 

Of course the Giants have won two of the last three World Series, the zenith in the world of baseball.

The San Jose SaberCats clinched another playoff berth this season, so stay alert for the Arena Football League playoffs which start Sat Aug, 3. ArenaBowl XXVI in Orlando, Fla. Will occur Sat Aug, 17.

 

The SaberCats have won three titles since 2002; including their last title in 2008.The San Jose soccer Earthquakes have two Major League Soccer titles in this young century. (2001; 2003)

 

The Oakland Athletics won the American League western conference title last season and missed playing the Giants in last year’s World Series by one game. Despite being 27^th out of 30 teams for the lowest payroll in Major League Baseball according to the ESPN website; (http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/salaries/_/name/oak/oakland-athletics).

The A’s are riding a six consecutive series winning streak. During the team’s current streak, they are 6-3 against the teams with the three best records in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox.

 

Incidentally the A’s have the fourth best record in baseball and only two teams in MLB have won more World Series than the A’ who are currently in first place in the AL west.

 

Although the San Jose Sharks have never won a hockey title, the Stanley Cup, they have not missed the playoffs since the 2002-2003 NHL season. Currently the Sharks lead all Bay Area teams with the most consecutive playoff appearances with nine. The 49ers are second on that list with eight according to Purdy’s article.

 

Only one team has won more Super Bowls then the 49ers. The Niners are back in the playoff picture before the cameras are even turned on. Last year’s NFC conference champs are poised for another Super Bowl run. 

 

Noteworthy are many of the Santa Rosa Junior College teams and the Petaluma Little League baseball team which was one win away from playing for the world title. Remember that game against Tennessee when they scored 10 runs in the top of the 9th to tie the game up in the national championship game? Arguably the most exciting baseball game ever played.

Eight state junior college championships have been accumulated by the JC women’s swim, soccer and basketball teams; Six of those championships coming since 2004, including a 2011 state title from the JC women’s basketball team.
(http://www.santarosa.edu/)

 

Since 2001, the JC men’s soccer, swimming and baseball teams have amassed four state titles and the 2001 soccer team has the lone national title for the SRJC. The JC men’s swimmers won the state title last year. The state title in baseball was in 2005.

Although the Golden State Warriors and the Oakland Raiders have been out of serious contention for too many years, the Warriors have established themselves as a perianal playoff team when they made it to the playoffs last year and lost to the San Antonio Spurs in six games without their lone all-star David Lee. The Warriors and Raiders have still combined to win four championships.