All posts by David

About David

I have been with VPL since January, 2002 and have spent the bulk of my time as an Adult Services Librarian at Ansley Grove Library. I enjoy non-fiction books and documentaries on a wide variety of topics. My preferred format is audiobook for my daily commute.  |  Meet the team

The Valour and the Horror

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2017 is an important year for Canada.  It’s the 150th anniversary year of Confederation and the 100th anniversary year of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.  All but forgotten is the 25th anniversary of the production of a National Film Board three-part documentary on Canada’s effort in the Second World War: The Valour and the Horror, produced in 1992.  It is not a comprehensive history, neither is it glorious in any sense.  It is a highly critical examination of three important events in Canada’s military history: the doomed defense of Hong Kong against the Japanese in 1941; Canada’s role in British Bomber Command; and Canada’s role in the Battle of Normandy.  In each of these parts, the producers show great admiration, even reverence, for the Canadian junior officers and ordinary men, while being highly critical, even contemptuous, of political leaders and senior Canadian and British officers.

Perhaps the most famous, or infamous part of this documentary was Part II: Death By Moonlight: Bomber Command.  In it the producers are highly critical of Air Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris for his enthusiastic targeting, through area bombing, of German civilians in a failed effort to demoralize the population.  They use as their chief example the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943 that killed over 32,000 civilians including more than 9,000 children.  While absolving the pilots and crews under his command, they all but accuse Harris of war crimes.  This set off a firestorm (pardon the pun), of protest from politicians who were greatly affronted by the implication of Canadians participating in war crimes.  They even hauled the producers before a Senate committee.  The CBC was so cowed by this (self) righteous indignation that they cravenly decided to pull the broadcast of the documentary.

I invite you to watch this three-part documentary and to read up on the attack on free speech it spawned, an attack that was not so vigorously defended by our less than intrepid public broadcaster.

Escape the Ordinary – Summer Reads – One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

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One Summer

A brilliant slice of the very rich life that was going on in America in the summer of 1927, from Charles Lindbergh to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Al Capone, Al Jolson, Clara Bow, and innumerable other colorful figures. Bryson squeezes in many monumental events including Lindbergh’s historic solo flight, Babe Ruth’s pursuit of a 60-homerun season, the invention of television, the heyday of radio, the dawn of the talking motion picture and so much more. A better popular history would be difficult to find.

One thing I found intriguing is that the author clearly is not American and did not write this book for a North American audience alone. As mentioned above, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and the rest of the 1927 New York Yankees, feature prominently in this book. Bryson takes a significant amount of time to explain the basic terminology and rules of baseball. While not every North American reader is familiar with the game, no American writer would have bothered.

Where to Invade Next – Documentary

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With a documentary titled Where to Invade Next, and directed by Michael Moore, you might think you would know the kind of film you were going to get, and you’d be wrong.  At least, I was.  I expected this to be a critique of what Moore would view as America’s ham-fisted foreign policy, and that he was worried that America was ready to intervene militarily in yet another far-flung place.

Instead, the award-winning director, at his sanctimonious best, takes a junket around Europe, finding what he believes to be superior social policies and claiming them for the United States.  His tour includes stops in Italy, France, Finland, Norway, Germany, Slovenia, Iceland, Portugal, and a side trip to Tunisia.  He paints an idyllic picture of life in these countries, staking claims to, among other things, mandatory paid vacation, superior school lunches, a no-homework education system, a humane penal system, free university, drug addiction treated as a public health issue, and constitutionally entrenched women’s rights. Continue reading →