Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Young Guns
Old Bob

Old Carl

Bob Woodward is that of as one of the best journalists of all time, and, along with Carl Bernstein, reported on one of the biggest presidential scandals in modern history. Woodward lived in Illinois, not leaving until he enrolled in Yale with an NROTC scholarship. After serving for five years in the Navy, Woodward took graduate level classes at George Washington university, all the while working as a journalist. Despite an already promising looking future, Woodward didn't get his big break until he helped to uncover the Watergate scandal.

Woodward's successes did not stop at the Watergate scandal, though. He has authored/coauthored 15 non-fiction books in the last 35 years, all of which hit national best seller status. A whopping 11 of these books also hit national #1 non-fiction best seller status. All of Woodward's books have been proven to be true in their facts, and have helped to make the government stay honest in their dealings. Woodward still works for the Washington Post, as an associate editor, and also still writes stories.

Carl Bernstein's parents were communists, surprisingly. Because of their supposed political affiliations, the Bernsteins were tracked by the FBI for 30 years, even though nothing was conclusively proven. No one knew for sure that they were part of the Party until Bernstein himself revealed it years later. Bernstein stayed in Maryland for most of his early life, going both to high school and college in the state.

Bernstein started working with the Post, and was actually the first to suspect Nixon's involvment when the Watergate scandal came around. After Watergate, though, Bernstein did not see as much success as Woodward. He difinately wasn't as much of a boy scout, either. He was involved in an extra-marital affair, which caused his wife to miscarry their second child. His wife then made a movie which pretty much did nothing but bash Bernstein and his dirty mistress. Lots of Gossip. Bernstein did work with Woodward to write two books though, All the President's Men, and The Final Days.

Avatar

Avatar... the film to destroy all other films. At least, it destroyed all other films at the box office, and this first place it has earned is well-deserved. I, myself, went to see the movie, and I give it three thumbs up. The movie is pretty long, but I definately didn't mind sitting through it as it was so well done. So yea, pretty awesome.
Avatar takes place in the year 2154, on the moon Pandora, in Alpha Centauri. Humans have come to this moon to mine for a precious element, unobtanium, but have run into trouble with the moon's native inhabitants. The moon is full of dangerous beasts, as well as the indigenous species, the Na'vi. At first, in the movie, the humans and Na'vi stay away from each other, but as it goes on the humans want to mind underneath the Na'vi's home tree. This results in conflict.
The movie is named after the genetically altered Na'vi bodies that the main human characters used to interact with the species. Eventually, the main character becomes attached to the Na'vi, after spending time with them, and even falls in love. He fights with the Na'vi, and wins the battle against the humans, forcing them to leave for Earth. In the end of the movie, the main character is able to permanently remain in his Avatar body, and become the Na'vi people's chief.
The movie had an enormous budget at close to $300 million, but it made good use of every penny. It also made up for this enormous budget by grossing over 2 billion dollars worlwide, which was a new record. Avatar sunk Titanic's previous world record, and continue to bring in more and more money. Obviously, they won't be taking it out of theatres too soon.
Avatar also has been being worked on for a long time. The director came up with the idea in 1994, and planned to start filming after he finished Titanic. He decided to postpone making the movie, though, as he did not feel technology was advanced enough to realise his vision. More majour work didn't start again until 2005-2006. Supposedly, for every frame of the movie (1/24 of second) took about 48 hours to complete.

Ninja

The mysterious ninja. Walking on water, vanishing into thin air, flying over rooftops...these all have become staples in a Hollywood ninja's fighting repertoire. "What were the ninjas really like," one may ask. "Could they really do all of these amazing feats?"
The ninja are thought to have origninated in 14th century Japan, although there early hisory is hard to know, as there aren't really any written records. One speculation as to why not much is known of the ninja is that many of them may have been taken from humble beginning, and thus were not very literate. Another is that they were just very good at keeping secrets, so not much got out about them.
There had pretty much always been espionage and underhanded tactics in Japan, although it was frowned upon and thought of as not honourable, but there was no specialised training for these spies until around the 15th century, thus the ninja was born. Ninjas were pretty much merceneraies who were just willing to do the kind of things Samurai wouldn't.
The ninjas' primary jobs were espionage, sabotage, and assassination. Ninjas would use disguise so that they could gather information about enemy terrain, installations, and passwords/communiques. Ninja sabotage mostly involved fire...burning castles and camps was common. So far as assassination goes, its always hard to prove that ninjas did it...because they're ninjas! But we all know they did.
Of course, the Samurai and other important people who feared the ninja tried to set up protective measures against them. Passages in castles would often be labyrinthine, so as to make for difficult and long navigation. Gravel, and metal hinges which would squeak, also made for a good early warning system. Segregated building helped to prevent the chance of fire spreading.
Ninjas trained in what is today called ninjiutsu. Although today seen as a type of martial art, taditional ninjiutsu was about espionage and survival skills. Like samurai, the ninja were trained from childhood, and techniques were passed down through generations of family. They were taught martial arts, of course, as well as information about disguise, poison, explosives, and stealth.

This Monthy in History-February

February 1, 2003 - Sixteen minutes before it was scheduled to land, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart in flight over west Texas, killing all seven crew members.

Feb. 6- Birthday - Legendary baseball player George Herman "Babe" Ruth (1895-1948) was born in Baltimore, Maryland.

February 11-Birthday - American inventor Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was born in Milan, Ohio.

February 12-Birthday - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) the 16th U.S. President was born in Hardin County, Kentucky.

February 13, 1635 - Boston Latin School, the first public school in America was established in Boston, Mass.

February 14, 1929 - The St. Valentine's Day massacre occurred in Chicago

February 22-Birthday - George Washington (1732-1799) was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

February 26-Birthday - American frontiersman "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917) was born in Scott County, Indiana.