Friday, May 29, 2015

History is written by the winners, or Hollywood screen writers and sometimes Historians...

    David Hackett Fisher writes books about History, and the RWVA uses Paul Revere's Ride as the base for the Three Strikes of the Match and the Dangerous Old Men stories that are shared on the two days of Appleseed marksmanship training and in Libertyseed events at schools and organizations without firearms. So when I found he had written a book: Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in History) I had to get my kindle version because I had the DVD, The Crossing, starring Jeff Daniels , which I had watched and watched many times.

   
   Imagine how much I could learn from the book - since I had the Hollywood writer's version... little did I know how much was untrue and untold by the DVD.  Of course I knew there was much more in the printed word, and my mind is much better than my vision for expansion into depths uncharted by machines or the minds of lesser men.  Okay, I do know that you only have a little time to get the message about the event on the screen and into the minds of the audience, and Shakespeare for all his glory, didn't really have all his plays exactly as History would tell them - so I will expect the medium to incite a little curiosity and then the searchers to go out and find the truth they need in other evidence and reporting.

   If I were to read all the tales about the attack at Trenton, there would be a core of citations that would lead me to my opinion (I wasn't really there, except in spirit). It is a good day, will visit the YMCA, to sit around and talk, no sweating today, and then I will see a movie Ex Machina, one cannot live by old wars alone.

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