It seems like a week to remember the good…
It was forty years ago this week that Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Some saw him as a trouble maker and maybe even a communist (Oh no a communist, “Burn him, Burn him”), but others as a visionary fighting a rights campaign with non-violent protest (inspired by the Mahatma’s approach against the British in India), and as I’m not qualified to be a paranoid Red-Neck ill have to adopt the latter for my own personal interpretation.
Apparently assassinated by James Earl Ray (and I’m still waiting for Oliver Stone to tell me what really happened on that day!), King might not of have grasped the complete philosophy of racial unity, but perhaps that didn’t matter, what mattered was his commitment and total belief in equality for all. Good book recommendation time – ‘The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.’ – 0-349-11298-3.
So to remember the next…
Dith Pran (65), died this week from cancer. Dith who? Dith Pran stupid! Dith was the guy (along with Sydney Schanberg), who came to symbolise the struggle against Cambodia’s political foray into Marxism during the seventies. Dith survived, against all the odds, the brutal campaign raged by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.
His three year fight for survival (publicised tirelessly at the time by Schanberg, who's life Dith had saved ensuring his escape at the beginning of the up-rising), was seen by many as the only insight into Cambodia’s forgotten cause. Good film recommendation time –"The Killing Fields" - Complete with an excellent sound track by Mike Oldfield (Coincidentally the phrase ‘Killing Fields’ is attributed to Dith). Although in one of those oddities of 'The Movies', the last scene of the film which sees Dith and Schangberg finally reunited after his escape from Cambodia is played out to 'Imagine' which John Lennon gave his permission to use. So why odd? Well, 'Imagine no possessions, no religion to', this could of been Pol Pot and Rouge's Mantra!
Only the good die young right?
And on a lighter note, I’ve drawn 150-1 shot "Hi Cloy" in the annual office sweep stake for the Grand National. I am conceiving how to spend my winnings as I type, not!
Ciao Ciao
Confused From Cambridge
I Blog there4 I Am
Dith Pran (65), died this week from cancer. Dith who? Dith Pran stupid! Dith was the guy (along with Sydney Schanberg), who came to symbolise the struggle against 
said...
gemmak said...
2Comments:
Fltech,
If Stone stays in the business long enough, he has a chance to eventually get a fact right - based on the infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters theory. I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Also . . .
Jump in the Wayback Machine 12 years . . . Dr. Haing Ngor, who played Dith Pran in the film and won an Oscar, was murdered on 25 FEB 1996 in Los Angeles' Chinatown by a street gang - the "Oriental Lazy Boyz"
His estate was picked over by "hangers-on" claiming to be relatives and friends.
He escaped the gangs in Camodia only to be killed by a Cambodian gang in LA.
Nice post :o)
....but isn't that book the one you said was 'boring'?? ;o) Ok, maybe I'll give it a try anyways, boring may still be informative and there are worse people to be informed about.
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