Fantasy Factories
Sam Aurelius Milam III

The most important difference between fictional characters and historical characters is the intentions of the authors who created them. —Milam's Notes

I like to watch documentaries.  When I turn on the television, I'm likely to check the documentary channels before I check the other channels.  I'll often watch a documentary in preference to a movie.
The first documentaries that I remember watching were programs that I watched while I was visiting my grandparents in Wharton, Texas, during the 1950s.  They were short programs about how things were made and used.  The series was called Industry On Parade.  It was a precursor to more recent documentaries such as Modern Marvels.
Also during the1950s, my father worked at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.  Because of his job, he had access to a source of army training films.  They were the old celluloid stuff, in big flat, round metal cans.  He brought some of them home and showed them to us on his Bell & Howell movie projector.  Some of them were army indoctrination and propaganda films, variously disguised.  I still remember bits and pieces of them.  I recall one propaganda piece that was presented as fiction.  A soldier who hadn't bothered to get new shoes when he needed them ran through a wooded location in a combat situation, got a twig caught in a hole in his shoe, tripped, fell, and was killed.  The intended lesson was that soldiers should always follow established procedures.  There was a reel of the Disney wartime cartoons.  In retrospect, I can recognize them as being a very entertaining form of wartime propaganda.  There was an allegory called Miracle in Paradise Valley.  In that little movie, a farmer took a short cut that was too close to a gully and his tractor tumbled over the edge.  Again, the moral of the story was to follow established procedures.  There was one reel of film that might not actually have come from Fort Sam Houston.  We saw only the first few seconds of it.  That brief glimpse was of a woman who pulled her shirt up around her face, revealing a rather nice set of boobs.  Poppa stopped that one abruptly with the terse comment, "Oops.  You kids aren't supposed to be watching that one."  No propaganda there.  In retrospect, I can only chuckle.  All of the films that Poppa showed us were interesting but the premier programs were the reels of Victory at Sea.  He had several of them and I watched them at every opportunity.  They were of special importance to me because Poppa had served in the navy during World War II.  My love of documentaries was well established by Victory at Sea.  Later, while I was attending the East Central High School, during the early 1960s, my love of documentaries was sustained by our biology teacher, Mr. Powers.  He showed us several reels of the Walt Disney True Life Adventure series.  To me, they were a magical and enchanting cinematic peek into the planet Earth, viewed as a natural wonderland.
During those early years and for most of the years that followed, I'm afraid that I was largely uncritical of documentaries.  They were always presented as being factual.  In keeping with the brainwashing to which I was exposed in the schools,¹ I just accepted them.  Back in February of 2008, my uncritical acceptance of documentaries came to a screeching halt.  This is what happened.  I was again watching my copy of Victory at Sea.  Up until then, I'd been greatly impressed with the documentary.  While I was watching the program on that particular day, I noticed something that changed my attitude.  There was a sequence in the episode Sealing the Breach in which the crew of a German submarine torpedoed an American cargo ship.  Action inside of the German submarine was shown by what appeared to be authentic German footage, presumably

Suffrage Is a Lie and a Trap
Sam Aurelius Milam III
You're not governed by the people that you elect but by the legislation that they pass.  You have a tiny influence on the election but no influence at all on the legislation.  If you don't like the legislation, then your only option is to vote for somebody else next time.  If the incumbent loses, then that doesn't repeal the legislation that he passed.  You're still governed by it.
Voting doesn't do you any good.  It accomplishes only one thing.  It legitimizes authority.  Vote against the police state by not voting.

Letters to the Editor
In regard to the "Comeuppance" article [July issue, page 3], I saw the same video clip.  Without knowing exactly what led up to the incident, I think that the cop would have been in the wrong even if the person he hit had been male.  Just because a person is cursing and acting foolishly, that doesn't justify such violence.  In no way was the cop in danger of being seriously harmed by that woman.  It looked like he just became impatient, and decided to wallop her.  Wasn't all over a jay walking incident?  Must have been a REALLY hot day.