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Show Li 1 f-s j"""" Reading the Papers Out Loud: This is not the first time that American battle flags have been carried to the Mediterranean, They were there ver a century ago for the same purpose the extermination extermina-tion of pirates ... At that time we fought for the freedom of the seas. Now we fight for the freedom of America ... If you said that a little while ago, you were called a warmonger, an interventionist or a soandso . . . But no one today doubts that America is safer because men from Montana and Georgia, Vermont Ver-mont and Nevada are throwing pirates pi-rates out of Tunis and Algeria . . . This AEF is more than a lesson in geography. It is a milestone in national responsibility. Rome and Berlin now know that Tripoli and Libya are our next military mili-tary objectives. But their chief worry is that world freedom is our war aim . . . They know that while one concentration camp exists while one Nazi propaganda cell functions and while one squad of Axis troops resists our arms will remain in the field . . . America has liberated North Africa because a free America can only exist in a free world . . . The full strength of America will continue to march . . . Because the road to Berlin is the only way back to Main St. The whispering that went on against the British is now being directed di-rected against the French . . . Maybe it's wrong to keep Darlan on the job, but Gen. Eisenhower got that far by ignoring the clamor clique, so why should he listen to them now? You can get a rap against Giraud, too, if you turn your ear in a certain direction . . . DeGaulle has an enemy section over here, and so have most of the French military leaders our forces are dealing with . . . It's the same old line you heard against Churchill, Wavell, Ritchie, etc. You'll hear it again if we happen to line up with the Arabs or the Hottentots. Because it's easier to say something some-thing than to know something. Nobody has lined up more eagerly for the war causes than the Hollywood Holly-wood workers . . . They have contributed con-tributed their time and their talents to amusing the service men and building up bond sales. The spirit out there is right, too . . Then they tip over the works by making a flicker that gives people the idea that it's still 1928 in California. The latest to get the hammers is "Once Upon a Honeymoon." Several of the N. Y. reviewers were shocked that a picture could take ruined Warsaw as the setting for a piece of low comedy. This is the third flicker that has earned rebukes for the movie makers. They will soon have to start reading the New York reviews re-views with smoked glasses. They're too blinding for the naked eye. There's no group as superstitious as show people. They fear more jinxes than a voodoo tribe . . . One of their pet superstitions is that their colleagues always die in threes. It's just happened again, with May Robson, Edna Mae Oliver and Laura Hope Crews passing away. Earlier in the year a Hollywood Holly-wood trio died within a short time of each other John Barrymore and two producers, J. Walter Ruben and Bernie Hyman. Brooks Atkinson gave a tender column to George M. Cohan. Best of all was his discussion of "Over There," which was the "theme song" of the last war. Mr. Atkinson Atkin-son tells you why. "Although 'Over There' has the strangest and most unlikely tune," said Mr. A., "it is one of the songs almost any American Amer-ican can sing on the spur of the moment. It is a perfect expression of a popular emotion" . . . What more could you ask of a war song? So far there have been good ditties for the service branches Air Corps, Marines, etc. but nothing for the civilians to get hot about . . . Mr. Cohan knew how to stir up people. He might have spun out another "Over There." For that reason, and too many others, he died too soon. Two lasses were schmoosing over their daiquiris, wishing the war would end and things get back to normal. What's normal? . . . That's when the Stock Market fell on its kisser and bankrupted everybody every-body who's anybody . . . That's when Bundists strutted in Madison Square Garden and challenged the law to make something of it . . . That's when people lived in tar paper pa-per shacks and peddled apples on the corner . . . That's when the dust storms shooed okies all over the nation. Things 1 Never Knew 'Til Now: That you shouldn't applaud at the end of "The Star Spangled Banner." (It would be just as correct to applaud ap-plaud a minister's prayer.) That when your doctor writes on the prescription: "Gossypium puri-factum" puri-factum" don't get panicky. (It only means absorbent cotton.) That Miles Standish was one of the few warriors correctly christened. chris-tened. Miles, in Latin, means soldier. sol-dier. (Oh, I read it somewhere!) i |