At sea the powerful Royal Navy instituted a blockade of the majority of the American coastline (allowing some exports from New England, which was trading with Britain and Canada in defiance of American laws.) The blockade devastated American agricultural exports, but helped stimulate local factories that replaced goods previously imported. The American strategy of using small gunboats to defend ports was a fiasco, as the British raided the coast at will. The most famous episode was a series of British raids on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. These raids included an attack on Washington D.C. that resulted in the burning of the White House, the Capitol, the navy yard and other public buildings. This was later called "Burning of Washington".

By the terms of the treaty [of Ghent], all land captured by either side was returned to the previous owner; the Americans received fishing rights in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and all outstanding debts and property taken was to be returned or paid for. Instead of returning captured slaves, large numbers of which had been recruited as free men into the British services, the British paid cash for them.

Consequences

This was a war in which nothing changed, no territory was lost nor gained by either side. None of the points of contention were addressed by the Treaty of Ghent, yet it was a war that changed much between the United States of America and Great Britain. Never again would the U.S. think that it could always beat Great Britain nor did Great Britain ever again fail to treat the U.S. as a national power in its own right. The Treaty of Ghent established the status quo ante bellum; that is, there were no territorial changes made by either side. The issue of impressing American seamen was made moot when the Royal Navy stopped impressment after the defeat of Napoleon. The United States of America saw that further war with Great Britain was ruiniously expensive to its young economy, while Great Britain realised that another contest with the United States of America would probably cost her Canada.

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You wanted low-brow? You GOT low-brow!, 29 November 2006

Author: Benoξt A. Racine from Toronto, Ontario, Canada


I remember thinking when "Superman" (1978) came out, that American culture had reached a new low by celebrating the film version of a comic book, no matter how iconic it seemed at the time. I mean, what can you say about a culture that is so illiterate that it can't even read comic books and needs to have them translated as moving pictures?!

This new installment of the Superman franchise is just more of the same - albeit with better CGI and a raised quota of sadistic violence. I'm not saying it is unpleasant to watch for what it is, but many things about it stick in my craw:

(1) The jumbled action scenes. I call it the James Cameron Action Movie Rule of Deficient Exposition. At no point during any action scene is the spectator able to know or understand what he/she is looking at unless he/she is seeing the movie for the second time.

(2) The simplistic characters. They found an actor whose only qualification is to be a Christopher Reeve clone. He is lit and photographed at all times like a wax statuette in a curio cabinet. As Clark Kent, he never utters complete sentences. As Superman, he is a monosyllabic bore. The Lois Lane character is played solely for her afternoon soap-opera and hormonal (cough! pre-menstrual) qualities. The rest of the characters are a collection of clichιed non-entities and unidimensional, uncomprehending retards.

(3) The hypocrisy of the cultural references. The script-writer can never stoop low enough to condescend to his intended lowest-common-denominator audience. The snooty hostess on the space shuttle flight has to have a British accent, of course, even though she works for NASA. On a par with antisocial behaviour like pleasuring an elderly woman, classical - a.k.a. "high-brow" - music is associated with the decadent and evil Lex Luthor (he listens to Sunday morning chestnuts like the Four Seasons by Vivaldi, the duo from "Lakmι" and the Habanera from "Carmen" - what a low-life!), even though the John Ottman/John Williams score to this nearly-silent film, whose best lines can be heard in the DVD outtakes, is as complex and classical as any ballet by Chostakovitch.

(4) Superman's inability to tackle the real problems that plague our world, like political and corporate greed, pollution and religious intolerance.

But these elements have now become as commonplace in North-American culture as the central place comic books occupy in the national psyche. I guess you only get what you pay for...

One major difference with LOTR, as fantasies go, is that LOTR had very few intra-species killings, the original sin of Gollum killing his brother and the spontaneous Orc brawls being two notable exceptions. Most battles showed Men, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits against Orcs, Wraiths, Beasts, Trolls and assorted hybrids who were presented as the embodiment of absolute evil on earth.

In 300, the enemy Persians (real human beings, last time I checked) are dehumanized and made into beasts and monsters and their leader's evil nature is encapsulated in his being effeminate (i.e. gay). This is putting fantasy, mythology, bargain-basement psychology and "history" at the service of hate propaganda and is very reminiscent of Nazi films directed against the "animal" nature of Jews.

Is this just a case of not having seen enough mindless US summer blockbusters or a case of having seen too many?