David Tennant As Jimmy Murphy

Summertime in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

‘A long time ago in a galaxy far far away... there lived a Monster.’

Can we just talk about this one moment in Schindler’s List(1993)? The guards have stolen all of the children away and have loaded them onto trucks to be taken to death camps, and when the mothers realize this there is a literal stampede to reach the trucks before they leave.

A wave of women break the line and rush the Nazi guards standing there. A whole group of desperate mothers, screaming for their children. You can’t tell me this never happened in the camps during the actual Holocaust. The camera angle is messy and it shakes, which means that the cameraman was amidst a sea of waving children, and there are quite a few moments where it looks like the women who get too close are run over by the trucks without any hesitation. It’s a very raw moment in a very raw movie.

Okay, whatever else I am COMPLETELY behind the Good Omens soundtrack.

Can I just speak for a second about how much of an absolute crazy BAMF Stonewall Jackson was?

I mean, this was a guy who was raised in the mountains of Virginia (later West Virginia) who pulled through West Point because of his skills in math and sheer tenaciousness. But he LIKED the army, and even after the Mexican American War he was teaching students what it meant to be a soldier.

When the South seceded from the Union, Jackson followed his State and was recruited into the Confederacy.

“Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken and can then be destroyed by half their number.” 

He earned his nickname of “Stonewall” in the Battle of First Manassas (First Bull Run as it was known in the North) when he stood in the midst of battle without retreating and thus inspired his men and the surrounding Rebels to stand their ground and chase the Union off. He became one of General Robert E. Lee’s most trusted soldiers and friends, so much so that when Jackson died Lee reportedly said, “He has lost his left arm. I have lost my right.” Jackson and Lee together won so many battles due to their combined tactical genius and tenaciousness that if Jackson hadn’t died then it’s possible that the Confederacy may have won the war.

Aside from his (near) brilliance on the field, Stonewall was well known for being eccentric. A list of habits and beliefs he had baffled contemporaries and still fascinates people today:

1) He believed that one of his arms was longer than the other and so would frequently held up the “longer” one to aide in better circulation.

2) Although debatable today, it was also said that Jackson loved chewing on whole lemons and was rarely seen without one even in the midst of battle.

3) He believed that if he had pepper in his food that it would make his left leg ache.

4) He was known by contemporaries as a “champion sleeper”, able to sleep anywhere-- even falling asleep with food in his mouth.

And that was only a few things.

And of course Jackson was a religious zealot, believing that he belonged to the “army of the Living God.” His religious views made it so that he was unafraid even in battle, believing that the Lord was utterly in control and would call him home only when it was time. He wouldn’t even mail a letter on Saturday in fear that it would be in transit on a Sunday.

But of course his respect of the Sabbath didn’t stop him from participating in battle. 

He was also oddly bloodthirsty. He was known for his need for pursuit of the enemy, and there was even once when asked how the Confederacy could stop the Union from pursuing them, Jackson replied, “Kill them! Kill them all!” 

Jackson has got to be one of the most fascinating figures of the American Civil War. I can’t say that this man was as great a hero as history will sometimes paint him but he was still someone who even today is hotly debated among historians. Some say he was a religious nut. Still others say that he was a hero of the South. 

I think he was just a man, but he was someone who history will never quite figure out. Stonewall Jackson observed the Sabbath but was unafraid to kill the enemy. He was a borderline hypochondriac but he was unafraid of death. He’s simply a contradiction to himself in a lot of ways, and I think that is what makes Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson still such a figurehead of the Civil War and, I daresay, one its most fascinating.

Peggy Carter and Ellie Miller are related. Just saying.

Alec Hardy’s offhand comment about ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ raises so many more questions. Is he a secret nerd? Did he grow up watching Star Trek and Lost in Space too? SMDM aired in the early 1970s, following Lee Majors’ time as Heath Barclay on ‘Big Valley’, and it was an American production so I’m just imagining him as a ten year old finding some way of finding it on television in Scotland and then getting really excited years later when the seasons of the show were rerun and then the tapes and dvds came out.

So did Mary Poppins inspire Missy, or did Missy inspire Mary Poppins?

Hoping David and his family the best comfort they can after Sandy’s death. I was just listening to ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken?’ and it made me think of my own uncle who loved God and his family and left behind far too many people behind when he died. But I’m thinking that Sandy, like my uncle, believed that that ‘circle’ won’t be broken even by death.

“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2