Free Republic

In honor of Veterans Day today TCM will play The Best Years of Our Lives this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern). I want to draw from my previously posted comments on the movie to recall it briefly with a little background provided by Mark Harris. Harris tells the highly improbable story behind the making of the film in Five Came Back, his excellent account of the prominent directors who volunteered to use their filmmaking skills in the armed forces during the World War II (John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens). Harris’s account of The Best...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930’s, 40’s and50’s !! First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank-While they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs Covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets, on our heads. As infants and children, we would ride...

Frustrated at California's woes, voters are sharply pessimistic about whether the next governor will be able to move the state in the right direction, and most believe California is in the midst of a long-term decline, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll shows. Against that grim backdrop, next year's political contests loom as potentially volatile, but Democrats start out holding the upper hand, the poll found. .. In the election to replace Schwarzenegger, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, the only major figure currently angling for the Democratic nomination, was seen favorably by more than 4 in 10 voters, and unfavorably by...