This morning before I left for work I started downloading the film Going Upriver. At 650MB, I figured it would take a couple of hours, even via cable modem. This evening I sat down at my PC to watch it. This may sound like rank heresy, since the Red Sox were playing the Yankees at the culmination of a series which has turned even cricket-loving expat Brits like myself into baseball enthusiasts! (I must admit, however, that I did have a browser window open to keep an eye on the score…..)
The film runs for 90 minutes. The first half hour is about the Vietnam experiences of John Kerry, Max Cleland, Bob Kerrey, and others. It is not for the squeamish: the snapshot of US soldiers grinning over Vietnamese corpses is disturbingly familiar. The remainder of the film is about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War: the Winter Soldier Investigation of winter 1971; the Dewey Canyon III demonstration in Washington a couple of months later, which culminated in Kerry’s appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the repudiation of medals; and Kerry’s subsequent TV appearances, including the confrontation with O’Neill.
Over the last year or so, I’ve seen many clips from these amateur movies and TV recordings, but this is the first time I’ve seen the material assembled so completely, unhampered by the exigencies of MTV-generation editing. Kerry is remarkably impressive for a man of his age, both in his speech and his actions. One thing that really comes across from the body language of those around him – whether long-haired veterans or pin-stripe-suited Senators – is the fact that he clearly commanded enormous respect. As we now know, this respect even extended to the Nixon White House; the legacy of their response is still with us in the form of John O’Neill’s vicious “Swift Boat” lies. (He learned his dirty tricks from the master.)
Even though the film is playing in theatres, and can be purchased on DVD, you can download it from here, as I did. You can also get it through BitTorrent, eDonkey and Kazaa. Please watch it, and share it. It’s an important part of American history, and painfully relevant today.
And yes – the Red Sox did it! 10 to 3. Who would have believed it? As I finish typing this, people are outside in the street, sounding car horns, letting off fireworks, whooping it up… and this is in a quiet residential area of Brookline. I wonder what it’s like downtown?
I take that back: there is an Import from iPhoto feature that works (that’s Al Stewart in concert in Boston), but this ignores the third party image link issue.
Let’s try inserting a picture. Again, that’s on the HTML menu rather than the toolbar. The New dialog is nice; the Previous one is odd, and didn’t seem to work – perhaps it only shows images that you’ve previously uploaded with MarsEdit. But neither of these lets me link to a third party image, as far as I can see.