I just cannot get behind this Star Trek rebirth.  The whole thing is just so unrealistic.  Not the warp speed or phasers or beaming about the universe - those are at least remotely plausible.  I am talking about the fact that the starship Enterprise is composed entirely of officers and yet it still seems to function.  Where are the non-commissioned officers (NCO), the petty officers and sergeants who actually make any military organization run?  No, I can suspend disbelief over Klingons and tribbles, and I actively support the notion of green alien hotties.  But the idea of a functioning military unit without sergeants is just a wormhole too far.

Hollywood movies often focus on the commanders, the captains and colonels, but they have also managed to highlight some great sergeants as well.  When you are picking out DVDs for next weekend, remember that May 16th is Armed Forces Day and consider a few selections that show the sergeant in all his gruff and grumbling glory. 

If you have never experienced the joy of going through basic training and do not plan to, your first stop should be Full Metal Jacket, with R. Lee Ermey’s legendary portrayal of a Marine drill instructor who must have missed out on the block of instruction on sensitivity.  I saw this in the theater about a week before I reported to Basic.  That was a poor idea.

Elizabeth Edwards has hit the chat show circuit to hawk her new memoir “Resilience.”  Her interview with Oprah airs Thursday.  Elizabeth has some important lessons to teach the young women of today.  The most important of these lessons is to be nothing like her, though I’m pretty sure that’s not the message she is trying to send.

Typically, when someone whines about his or her circumstances, I take a common sense approach and start by blaming the victim.  The fact is that bad things tend to happen to people who make bad, or at least dumb, decisions.  No money?  You’re probably not working hard enough.  Dead end job?  You probably didn’t get an education.  Creepy husband who cheats with a trampy party girl and humiliates you in front of the entire nation?  You probably chose to marry and stick with a creepy husband who would cheat with a trampy party girl and humiliate you in front of the entire nation. 

Elizabeth is not at fault for the death of her son in a tragic auto accident, or for her fight with cancer.  But she sure as hell is at fault for partnering with the kind of guy who would exploit both those things to further his own ambitions.  Democratic strategist Robert Shrum tells of how when Johnny got the vice presidential nod in 2004, he told John Kerry a story he had never told anyone else, about how he kept a vigil by his son’s body and tearfully promised to uphold the boy’s ideals.  Kerry was appalled - because Edwards had told him the very same story a couple years before, including the part about never telling anyone before. 

Watching “24” this week, I realized that our number one threat is multi-national corporations with battalions of hired killers on the payroll.  Similarly, “Michael Clayton,” “The International,” the new “State of Play” and many others have taught me that big companies assassinate their rivals, whistleblowers, policemen and random passersby with astonishing regularity.

I wish.  But then, I’m a trial lawyer and I could use a new house.

Sadly, the real world is much more esoteric than the portrait Hollywood paints, and the real threat is not quite so picturesque.  Instead of corporate death squads composed of hardboiled mercenaries with high tech assault rifles, the real killers are boring jihadi doofuses with dusty AKs, booby-trapped Fiats and the occasional boxcutter.   

Let’s stop and check the numbers.  Real terrorists, counting the victims of 9/11 and American losses in Iraq and Afghanistan: Over 7900 murdered. Victims of corporate murder: Zero. Nada. Zip. I would add in the number of Iraqis and Afghanis murdered by these folks, except that toll is beyond counting.  And to many liberals, their lives don’t seem to count anyway.