Brian H. Appleton

Omid Irani By the way for what it is worth. "War Horse" in my opinion is the best movie of the year...it was absolutely nothing like I expected from the title. It was the most subtle condemnation of war I have ever seen in my life. It sang quiet praise to the young people on all sides to have the right priorities of peace and being in touch with their common humanity. The scene where a young German and a young Englishman keep a truce and help eachother cut the horse loose from the barbed wire it is stuck in in the middle of no man's land and then shake hands and tell eachother to stay safe is unbelievable...stunning...amazing...the scenery and the music is also extremely beautiful and the story of the little French girl and her granfather is very moving. I saw it twice and silently wept the whole time both times. I took my 95 year old mom 1.) because like the protagonist she grew up on a farm. 2.) Like the protagonist she raised her own horse and 3.) like the protagonist she was a soldier in the army during the war ( only WWII rather than WWI.) She loved it. I kept thinking how ridiculous war is and especially WWI in which the two opposing kings were first cousins...a lot of people to kill over a family feud...but learning nothing we went on to have WWII. Now that geneticists are discovering that social organization and behavior is inherited in social insects like bees, termites and ants and they can even isolate the microsatellite loci and genes controlling the behavior, I am beginning to think that man's salvation is not religion but genetic engineering. What if they could isolate the mean gene and the greed gene and select them out of us...that would be a good start. ;o)