Rambo's (blow)back

Just finished shooting (pun clearly intended) on the border of Burma, Rambo is back in the news. Already, a trailer for his new movie has been up for a while. (Tagline--when you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing.) What I never knew until a friend mentioned it at a party, is that in Rambo III, he's fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan alongside the Mujahideen! Some choice dialogue, courtesy of IMDB:

Masoud, Afghan Mujahedeen Leader: Now you see how it is here. Somewhere in the war there's supposed to be honor. Where's the honor here? Where? Now, we're taking the survivors to the border. Are you coming?
Rambo: I'm going to the fort.
Masoud, Afghan Mujahedeen Leader: Have you not seen enough death? Go! Go while you can! This isn't your war.
Rambo: It is now.
Masoud, Afghan Mujahedeen Leader: So be it. You're a good friend.

..

Mousa: This is Afghanistan... Alexander the Great try to conquer this country... then Genghis Khan, then the British. Now Russia. But Afghan people fight hard, they never be defeated. Ancient enemy make prayer about these people... you wish to hear?
Rambo: Um-hum.
Mousa: Very good. It says, 'May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.' Understand what this means?
Rambo: That you guys don't take any shit?
Mousa: Yes... something like this.

Fittingly

Since I'm in New York visiting (about 18 hours left), I figured why go outside when I can have the superior experience of reading the New Yorker in a living room in New York? A story I read last night on Google's quest to scan all books eerily compliments Jonathan Lethem's brilliant 'collage' in this month's Harper's -- among many things a celebration of plagiarism as the motor of culture in all its forms.

Glued together, the two pieces raise the prospect something monstrous and tantalizing, of gotcha-plagiarism-hunting to a whole new level: using Google's inventory of all books -- and eventually, I imagine, magazines, then newspapers, then song lyrics, then flyers, etc -- plus perhaps another elegant algorithm or two to construct a plagiarism database, where anyone can see which revered singer/novelist/orator stole what from whom to create what.

What a democratic, leveling force! Finally, our most treasured wordsmiths subjected to the same humiliating cavity search as suspicious looking airplane travelers and hapless college kids.