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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of a kind you don´t get to see too often
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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While sitting out Hurricane Irma in Meridian, Mississippi I read Bernard Cornwell's historical novel "Agincourt". It's a lively account from the perspective of one of the archers of the events preceding the embarkation of the English expedition, the nearly disastrous siege of Harfleur, the dismal retreat of the English along the coast. The English were intercepted and outnumbered by the French at Agincourt, and against all odds they scored a resounding victory.
I liked the book. Maybe I was influenced by one of my ancestors having been in the English expedition as a young knight, before inheriting his father's rank.
In an appendix Cornwell tells of some of his research for the book. A friend of his competes with the longbow. When Cornwell tried to draw his friend's bow, he found he had not the strength to bring the string back to his ear. He could only pull it halfway. It takes years of training and practice to develop the strength and skill to handle the weapon effectively.
The English showed great foresight by instituting regular training with the longbow and regular competition between villages among the free peasant yeomen. In their continuing wars the French avoided direct confrontation with the English, preferring to pursue, weaken and starve them, rather than facing the devastating effect of the longbow upon the armored upper classes and men at arms.
The longbow may have been a decisive advantage at Agincourt, but the state of the battlefield and the large size of the French army may have been equally influential. The battlefield is narrow, with dropoffs at the sides. It narrows further toward the English end of the field. It rained hard all night before the battle, reducing the ground to a quagmire.
Despite the hail of arrows the French charged the English, seeming to believe their superior numbers would crush them. The English archers pretty well exhausted their supply of arrows, drew their swords and joined the ranks of dismounted knights and armored men at arms, who stood their ground. The French cavalry was mired in the mud. The dismounted French knights and men at arms were continually forced onto the English line by the large forces behnd them pressing forward, the French front unable to retreat or regroup. As the day wore on French bodies piled up before the English in heaps. Eventually the English carried the day, and finished their retreat to Calais unmolested.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 15 2017 15:15:11
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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The fallen French horsemen/knights piled up, impeding the forward movement of the forces behind them. Another element of the battle was the use of pointed stakes by Henry's forces. They were stuck into the ground at an angle so that the French knights' mounts who had not been struck down by the arrows of the longbowmen were impaled by the stakes, creating further barriers to the forward movement of the French.
Agincourt is one of the great battles in history, and Shakespeare sums it up well in the words he puts in Henry V's speech to his men on the eve of battle. (The battle occurred on St. Crispin's Day):
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so lowly
This day shall enoble his rank.
And gentlemen in England, now abed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 15 2017 15:44:53
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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One wonders what is up in the night sky circling the earth jostling for angle and triangulation to send beams of counter measures and deflect attacks that are not humanly sited on mud plains.
I wager the edge of the atmosphere and out into main swath of orbit has some gagetry making the rounds that we'll not hear about, and that that stuff eventually going to be written about. What an interesting, and probably nerdy, history that will make. Measure vs counter measure, and all taking place concurrently with wars and battlefields which are still essentially city streets in siege.
I wonder how the French could have played Agincourt had GPS tracking and satellite images been given then. Like an oracle to them. If both sides had the same weapons and tactics, but suddenly each Commander had images and tracking, how would they make use of it? When the the US became mired in Iraq, or as it was about to happen I said this will despite all the technology boil down to twenty years of door to door fighting with guns. By force if modernity war picks up the latest advantage in hardware, but it's still a room to room street to street project. We're still going to build the A-10 close support attack plane, but the SR-71 is obsolete.
Funny, my conservative uncle said all Japan has to do to back China off the unilateral airspace line they drew in the East China Sea, which is international water, and part Japan territorial limit, is buy a few F-22 Raptors and fly them routinely up that red line.
This was delightful for me to hear, as the F-22 was not built for export, it's against US law to sell the Raptors as they have classified systems aboard. They are not licensed to be built by other nations. However the F-35 was made for export, sort of the Toyota truck of fighter planes, VTOL and all. Raptors are superior, but F-35's will keep workers employed in aerospace assembly jobs.
My uncle loves to mansplain war and global politics to me, so when he made that error, I claimed a silent checkmate.
Sorry for the typos and slop, I'm on my phone pad killing time before I go teach forth graders about American food vs washoku, ( Japanese food)
The war on cuisine continues.
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https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Nov. 15 2017 22:57:14
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
The fallen French horsemen/knights piled up, impeding the forward movement of the forces behind them. Another element of the battle was the use of pointed stakes by Henry's forces. They were stuck into the ground at an angle so that the French knights' mounts who had not been struck down by the arrows of the longbowmen were impaled by the stakes, creating further barriers to the forward movement of the French.
Bill
In later times, with larger forces and bigger battlefields the tactic of the angled stakes was used by infantry to defend against cavalry. The infantry formed into a hollow square, in at least three ranks, with grounded lances in front of each side. Until the quickly reloading rifles of modern times such as the Martini and the Mauser, the only way to sustain fire with infantry was for one rank to fire while others reloaded.
I have read that cavalry horses would shy from the gounded lances, rather than injuring themselves upon them. The French cavalry's horses at Agincourt were just as intelligent as Wellington's at Waterloo, but they were forced onto the English stakes by the crush of forces advancing behind them on the narrowing field.
There is a science of crowds. It has been ignored on smaller and larger scales with fatal results. Years ago I read an analysis which concluded that on the narrow, muddy field of Agincourt, the greatly superior size of the French army was in fact a serious disadvantage. By the writers' calculations the French would have suffered many self-inflicted casualties from trampling and suffocation as the advancing crowd was more and more compressed on the narrowing field.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 16 2017 4:01:16
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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As a kid and Indian in mind, I would carve and make all sorts of utensils following beautiful drawings in a special book about North-American Indians. Also crafting long bows strong enough to sometimes lose arrows out of sight when shooting full range vertically. (Which would give a panicky feeling then, not knowing where it come down and ram into the ground.) My skills with shooting and throwing knifes were rather good.
And years later in the Balkan, I had just built another bow and arrows with tips that I had forged myself, when another kid was provoking me from a distance of well over 100 meters. I shot him in the leg. Phew; was I lucky that it was a rough ground where offences weren´t taken too seriously. Still, bewildering memory.
Anyway, years ago the local municipality asked for suggestions about what to make of a vacant strip of ground between two double lanes. I envisioned a bright café with integrated arrow loop which should be accessible and visible from inside the place, and made some raw drawings.
Not only imagining how I´d be liking such a place myself, but how locals could be accepting it as well. After all folks here used to be handy with arrow shooting in ancient time, and I fancy that the passion may still be lingering in their guts. Together with western specialties of cake shop and snacks, me thought there could be potential to draw in public to such a place. (Though uncertain whether public arrow shooting could be allowed here.)
Surprisingly, however there was taken no opportunity of cashing in bribe from competing applicants, and the municipality dropped its ambitions with the strip by merely planting some green and bushes in the symmetrical ways common here.
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Date Nov. 16 2017 4:54:04
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Piwin)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Piwin
7,000+ saints in the Roman Catholic martyrology, of which 10 are Rufuses. 
The most famous of them seems to be Saint Rufus of Cartagena. He is known for having single-handedly prayed off the hoards of Vandals come to pillage the city. He later moved North, making many new converts along the way. He became known as the "Convert-or-I'll-slingshot-a-rosary-bead-in-your-eye" monk. He died in 281 CE, near Avignon, in the small village of Saint-Pétard-sur-Plouc. The only contemporary record of his life and deeds is the "Annals of the rosary-slinging monks of Eastern Iberia" by Piwinius the Elder. According to him, Saint Rufus was killed by a vengeful gang of Vandal spies whose weapon of choice was the portable Dutch oven. It is said that he was heard praying under the sheets until the very end and to this day he is the only known case of death by Dutch oven. There is some irony to the fact that this death by Dutch oven does not show up at all in the "Annals of the Vandals".
I had missed out on this one.
I need to kindly point out though that those 10 old versions were just plagiarism of the modern specimen.
Actual saint ruphustic releases have successfully withstood hostile invasions of disco, rap, cowboy boots, bald heads, swatch watches, drainpipe jeans, bicycles with saddles higher than handlebars, piercings, tatoos, coffee macchiato and McBooks, while despite of condemnation for nonconformism as upright neandertaler no arrow nor dust cloud could prevent a riding into the sunset. 
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Date Nov. 16 2017 15:40:17
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Arash
Posts: 4495
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Ruphus)
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So I watched the documentary you linked, but don't have the time to read the comments. But to me it looks like what he is trying to say (with much nicer words, to not upset us):
Hey you stupid ignorant f?cks! If you want quality journalism in todays world, you need to pay and you need to stop to make yourself even more stupid than you already are. Or else those people and cooperations with huge amounts of money in their hand (in one hand) who actually do pay lots of money, will take over, even more than today, and there will be no single independent journalist left soon, since - guess what - they need to make a living too, just like you. And they have to adopt to YOUR PREFERENCES AS A VIEWER.
Of course its also talk about mediocre journalism, etc. but the main culprit here are we ignorant people who are smartphone zombies and youtube trend junkies, watching useless **** in our free time, following idiots on twitter, and subbing to moronic "news channels" to make us feel important (which we are not)...not to make us smarter to vote for the right guy or find out the right "version" of scientific facts or whatever...but simply to entertain us.
Honestly, we could have working democracy EVERYWHERE, right now. Its not the guys on top stopping us, its we the people, who are dumb, scared, ignorant and lazy.
_____________________________
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Date Nov. 16 2017 15:58:59
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Arash)
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quote:
but the main culprit here are we ignorant people who are smartphone zombies and youtube trend junkies, watching useless **** in our free time, following idiots on twitter, and subbing to moronic "news channels" to make us feel important (which we are not)...not to make us smarter to vote for the right guy or find out the right "version" of scientific facts or whatever...but simply to entertain us.
A wise observation, Arash. As Pogo used to say, in the comic strip of the same name by Walt Kelly, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 16 2017 19:49:32
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Arash
So I watched the documentary you linked, but don't have the time to read the comments. But to me it looks like what he is trying to say (with much nicer words, to not upset us):
Hey you stupid ignorant f?cks! If you want quality journalism in todays world, you need to pay and you need to stop to make yourself even more stupid than you already are. Or else those people and cooperations with huge amounts of money in their hand (in one hand) who actually do pay lots of money, will take over, even more than today, and there will be no single independent journalist left soon, since - guess what - they need to make a living too, just like you. And they have to adopt to YOUR PREFERENCES AS A VIEWER.
Of course its also talk about mediocre journalism, etc. but the main culprit here are we ignorant people who are smartphone zombies and youtube trend junkies, watching useless **** in our free time, following idiots on twitter, and subbing to moronic "news channels" to make us feel important (which we are not)...not to make us smarter to vote for the right guy or find out the right "version" of scientific facts or whatever...but simply to entertain us.
Honestly, we could have working democracy EVERYWHERE, right now. Its not the guys on top stopping us, its we the people, who are dumb, scared, ignorant and lazy.
That makes for a good part of the problem, and among the info that could be doing us well would be some basics of pedagogics and psychology. The other part, not that minor either, is centuries of routines with autocracy. Means and manipulation over time have been refined to meticulous detail.
I don´t know if you were around when the green party entered the German parliament, but that was an exemplary example of what happens when authentic aims of change manage to occur on broader base and how they will be neutralized. And when deemed necessary / time pressing there will be applied 'good ol´routines' still, as with Olof Palme, Uwe Barschel, Litwinenko and others.
So, even if people were prepared for maturity psychologically (AND informed by quality media and educational system), it wouldn´t be all yet. Lesser even with upper caste´s control of the latter, plus economy and not at last power of state. By nature of the matter, and evidence of about 5000 years of history, it isn´t intending to freely give up an eldorado for any humane or reasonable consideration.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Piwin
quote:
no arrow nor dust cloud could prevent a riding into the sunset.
Unless of course you took that arrow in the knee... 
BTW, I just saw that that da Vinci painting sold for 450M dollars. I'm quitting my job to focus on drawing better stick figures.
Let me be your manager. I already gave sample of promotion and of how to attract dressed-in-black blokes with extra long four-seasons cashmere scarfs.
Considering quantity, you neeed to invest a day and put out bunches of artworks, though. (Me can assist. Am good with throwing blobs at canvas. -Maybe even per slingshot or longbow. Could also do escrima brush strokes.) Agents and gallery owners request quantity and 'interesting' personal record as precondition. (Maybe we can make you primary school class-mate with Gerhard Richter, or say that you grew up in a brothel / or that you had a sex-reversal, or maybe that you are a secret outcasted son of Margaret Thatcher who then was forced to make his way through Falkland favelas or such ... Or maybe all of it together. Man, that would shoot you through the roof!)
- You need to lend me your yacht for a couple of weeks per year though, for fishing and show-off anchoring at the Cote d'Azur. Man, that could be healthy measure against the holes in my socks.
Seriously, during news on the latest art record, I was thinking that this very sum would probably suffice to arrange for a halting of the extinct of most endangered, higher developed species. Now going to be hanging on a wall instead while the cream of the planet keeps perishing worse than before.
With respect to Leonardo da Vinci, he would have certainly thought: "Sick as sick can be." 
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Date Nov. 17 2017 5:51:18
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Must-see docu on journalism, of ... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Richard, your review of Bernard Cornwell's "Agincourt" has inspired me to buy the book today. I have read several histories of the Battle of Agincourt, the best by far being the late British military historian John Keegan's masterpiece "The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme." But I like good historical fiction, and Cornwell does it well. Having never read his "Agincourt," I look forward to a good read. Thanks for the review.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 17 2017 14:49:15
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