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15 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Off With the Heads of ... · 0 replies · +2 points

Hollywood lionizes royalty because Hollywood lionizes glamour, and royalty is glamourous. It's an extension of the whole fairy-tale-princess thing.

You, and Mr. Rice, are reading wwwaaaayyyyy too much into what is, in the final analysis, merely the setting of the story told in The King's Speech.

15 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Off With the Heads of ... · 0 replies · +1 points

My response is a bit long for the comments, so it's on my blog here, if anyone's interested:
http://pnrmiscellany.blogspot.com/2011/02/missing...

15 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Grading the Super and ... · 0 replies · +3 points

I liked the Coke border ad, however predictable. The VW-Darth ad was cute, and I liked the Silverado Lassie ad ("I didn't even know this town HAD a volcano!").

I thought the Audi commercial well done, too.

I thought the Homeaway ad funny, too, but having spent a month with my wife and 3 young children in a room with a hot plate and a fridge at the Navy Lodge a couple times when moving my family to a new duty station, I can relate to that ad completely.

Not sure about decapitating babies, but they didn't do that on the ad I saw.

15 years ago @ Big Peace - Of 'Thin Skinned Wusse... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree w/CWO Reese. I think his skipper, CAPT (now RADM) Rice did him and the Navy an incredible disservice in not squashing this after the first such video was produced. If he'd done his job as skipper when Honors was his XO, a lot of this might have been avoided.

15 years ago @ Big Peace - Those 'Sordid' USS Ent... · 0 replies · +1 points

Small boys it does get tight like that. But you've got a couple hundred guys on board. A carrier deployed has 4,700 or more. While it's important for the CO and XO to come across as human, the distance you speak of is a bit more necessary. It's the difference between a company commander and a regimental commander.

Given that he's the CO now, any time a CVN skipper is relieved it's national news. But it SHOULD have been handled via a private chat between him and his CO at the time. Like it or not, the Navy is a gov't organization, so it's a political organization, and after Tailhook, this is the political reality we're dealing with. CAPT (then) Rice should've made that clear to his XO. That he didn't is where the real failure rests. He set his XO and the Navy up for this kind of embarrassment. If Honors goes, so should Rice.

15 years ago @ Big Peace - Those 'Sordid' USS Ent... · 1 reply · +1 points

Although I have not spent as much time at sea as Capt. Honors, I have spent a fair bit of time deployed and away from home - probably a little more than half of the 10 years I was active duty (including a stint on a carrier). Whether most of the crew enjoyed it or not is, frankly, irrelevant given that he's the XO. Most probably wished he'd shut up and get to the movie. Some of the crew may have enjoyed it, and those who did not would not have spoken up - it's the XO doing this, after all. I guarantee you it diminished his authority on the ship even if it was popular.

If he were a department head on a small boy or in a squadron, or as a junior officer, you're absolutely right, but as the XO (or CO) on a carrier, no. His position precludes it. If he couldn't see that, his CO should have and stopped it after the first one.

15 years ago @ Big Hollywood - A New Year's Message t... · 0 replies · +4 points

Ditto

15 years ago @ Big Peace - Those 'Sordid' USS Ent... · 5 replies · +6 points

I disagree. He's not being sacrificed to the repeal of DADT, though that's the way the media is framing it.

The man was the Executive Officer of an aircraft carrier when he made these videos, responsible for maintaining discipline and order on the ship. It is absolutely vital that such discipline be perceived as objective and even-handed. These videos crossed a line similar to that drawn by prohibitions on fraternization, as well as simply being dull and in bad taste.

If he were a LCDR and a Department Head in a squadron, no problem, but as the XO of a carrier? In 2007 - 16 years after Tailhook? No. He MUST be above such things in his official capacity as XO and, had these things been noted in his record, he would never have screened for command, regardless of DADT.

These billets are highly competitive. There are only so many carriers in the fleet and there are plenty of qualified people who want desperately to command one. That his CO at the time ignored this meant that some of those others were screwed over, too and I think RADM Lawrance S. Rice also has some explaining to do.

15 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Does Hollywood Make Art? · 2 replies · +4 points

Can art be funny? All the emotions referred to are sobering, reflective, even mournful. The movies mentioned are also a sobering, even tragic group. But what of humor? Hamlet is art, but isn't Much Ado About Nothing also?

I can't help but think back to my impression of Classic Literature when I was in high school and college. It seemed that, for something to be a "Classic" it had to be either depressing or dull, preferrably both. Thank God for Mark Twain and Jane Austen.

15 years ago @ Big Peace - 857,000 Decorations an... · 0 replies · +2 points

See this: http://www.stripes.com/news/most-bronze-stars-for...

This was during the Kosovo operation, by the way. The law was changed after this to require the service for which a bronze star is awarded actually occur in a combat zone.

In any event, the point was not that we DO this, but by way of answering your question as to why we're having the conversation by means of a "reductio ad absurdam" example.

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