Sunday, April 06, 2008

Ben Hur Enters Celestial Chariot Races with a Vespa


The first thing I was greeted with this morning upon firing up my browser was the news of Charlton Heston's passing, and the obligatory yet distasteful jokes about his "cold, dead hands."

That Chuck spent his later years as a whipping boy of the Left has always troubled me. Though I may not have agreed with all his politics, I always respected Heston. He always gave me the feeling of being the kind of man you could agree to disagree with. The snark with which many progressives have approached his passing, seems indicative of the loss of civil discourse in this country.

The Charlton Heston I'll remember is the man who marched with MLK, who starred in one of the best movies EVAH (Orson Welles' Touch of Evil) and made some of the best matinée fodder ever, from sword and sandal epics, to classic B-Movie Sci-Fi which are still quoted today.

Quinlan: Our friend Vargas has some very special ideas about police procedure. He seems to think it don't matter whether killers hang or not, so long as we obey the fine print.
Vargas: Captain, I don't think a policeman should work like a dog catcher in putting criminals behind bars. No! In any free country, a policeman is supposed to enforce the law, and the law protects the guilty as well as the innocent.
Quinlan: Our job is tough enough.
Vargas: It's supposed to be. It has to be tough. A policeman's job is only easy in a police state. That's the whole point, Captain - who's the boss, the cop or the law?

-From Touch of Evil

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