George Case's Blog, page 12

Fly On, Little Wing

On October 2, 2019, a B-17 Flying Fortress crashed shortly after takeoff in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, killing both pilots and five passengers. The aircraft, built in 1945, had been exhibited and flown as an aeronautical history lesson: thousands of B-17s were operated by the United States during World War II and the model has long […]

Girls Got Rhythm

As live music returns to the stages of the world, few performers will be happier getting back to work than the members of tribute bands. Just about every big-name artist of the Twentieth Century, at one time or another, has been paid homage (or imitated, or exploited, if you prefer) by sound- and lookalike acts; […]

War-Maker Machinery

Over twenty years since Saving Private Ryan premiered, it’s clear that Steven Spielberg’s 1998 World War II epic established a new category of movies.  In Enemy At the Gates (2001), Windtalkers (2002), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Fury (2014), the series Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), as well as Hacksaw Ridge (2016), Dunkirk […]

Taking Genocides

Here’s a hypothetical that may turn into an actual before too long.  In April 2022, the Canadian federal government announced a plan to make illegal the denial or downplaying of the Holocaust, the Nazis’ murder of six million Jews and others in Europe between 1933 and 1945.  Irwin Cotler, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on […]

Stop the “Hate”

In a culture increasingly sensitive to the use of certain inflammatory words, one word is still often used in everyday conversation and political discourse – despite being arguably the most inflammatory four-letter term in the language. That word is hate. All of us, it’s safe to assume, have casually invoked this epithet in many contexts. […]

My Amble and the Siege of Ottawa

Reposted from February 2022 / A public inquiry into the government’s use of the federal Emergencies Act to disperse the truck blockaders is ongoing Yesterday afternoon (Saturday) I journeyed from my suburban home to downtown Ottawa, where, as much of the world knows, an anti-vaccine-mandate protest gathering has settled in for over two weeks. Up […]

Busted For Possession

ʼTis the season for The Exorcist. What better time than late October to appreciate William Peter Blattyʼs landmark 1971 horror novel or William Friedkinʼs blockbuster 1973 cinematic adaptation of it? Much of The Exorcistʼs enduring power lies in its supposed basis in fact: just as the historic actuality of Vlad the Impaler gives Bram Stokerʼs […]

The Regan Revolution

There will never be another Exorcist, but not for lack of trying.  By now it’s fair to say William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel and William Friedkin’s 1973 film version have become folk archetypes, spawning numerous sequels and prequels of the book (Legion, 1983) and movie (Exorcist II:  The Heretic, 1977; Exorcist III, 1990; Exorcist IV: […]

End of Days

Autumn is my favorite of the seasons, for its natural elements and, inextricably, for the human responses we have projected on to them.  It is the time of John Keats’ “Ode to Autumn” (O season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...), of Guns n’ Roses’ “November Rain,” the jazz standard “The Falling Leaves,” and the iconic […]

Crazy Eruption Train

There are many ongoing, unwinnable rivalries for a top tier of historical significance: Genghis Khan or Atilla the Hun? The Vikings or Columbus? Hemingway or Fitzgerald? Kennedy or Nixon? Bush or Gore? Beatles or Stones? But within one highly specialized field of scholarship, no debate is more emotional, more subjective, or more awesome than the […]