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2. THE BOURNE IDENTITY (1980)
TIME PERIOD: Vietnam War era to the late 1970s.
Robert Ludlum’s most popular fictional creation – Jason Bourne (Real name David Webb) – has become as thoroughly overused, distorted and bastardized as James Bond or Sherlock Holmes. Ludlum himself already watered down the character’s original impact with two additional novels putting the amnesiac figure in increasingly ridiculous situations.
Since then other writers have churned out so many silly Bourne stories (ten at last count) to the point where Jason Bourne In Spaaaaace is the only avenue left unexplored. Or maybe a crossover with All My Sins Remembered. The Matt Damon movies use virtually nothing but the Jason Bourne name.
To me the bulk of the appeal of the original novel The Bourne Identity was that a reader only had to suspend disbelief just enough to accept an amnesiac figure surviving the unique set of circumstances presented in that story.
At the end it was accepted by all characters that David Webb/ Jason Bourne was in no condition to continue his intelligence work. Not only because of his amnesia but because he had found happiness with Marie, which made him lose the near-suicidal edge he had needed to succeed as Bourne.
In my opinion Ludlum should have done PREQUEL stories of David Webb as Delta in the Vietnam War’s Operation: Medusa or his days pursuing Carlos as Cain/ Jason Bourne PRIOR to his amnesia.
HERO: Since there are virtually no spoilers left about this character who has had everything but his own comic book series I will go ahead and lay out all the details of the ORIGINAL figure. This is for potential Bourne fans who associate him purely with the silly super-soldier nonsense of the movies and have avoided him because of that.
I think transferring Jason Bourne to more recent time periods robbed the story of a great deal of its unique appeal. Movies CAN work as period pieces. Studios still churn out spy flicks set during World War Two for crying out loud. There’s no reason why they can’t keep the period setting for stories dependent on the Vietnam War or late Cold War events for their full impact.
So again … HERO: DAVID WEBB, an American scholar who specialized in ancient Vietnamese culture and spoke multiple regional languages. Webb had been serving in various diplomatic posts throughout Indochina and had a Vietnamese wife and children.
When his wife and children were killed during a fly-by strafing from a plane of unknown national origin Webb left diplomatic work and volunteered for the top secret Operation: Medusa. (Ludlum’s fictional version of the real-life Phoenix Project.)
Under the codename Delta (later refined to Delta One), David Webb thrived in that Black Ops program. Delta proved ruthless and bloodthirsty, with his command of local languages and culture making him an irreplaceable asset against the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese regulars and international mercenaries in the region.
Operation: Medusa’s operatives served as assassins, torturers, guerillas and saboteurs, often locating POW camps and facilitating escapes. On one particular mission Jason Bourne, a treacherous Medusan from Australia, betrayed Delta and his team. In response Webb killed Bourne on the spot. Continue reading
New paradigms replace the old. It’s the way of life. The previous paradigm featured narrow-minded, reactionary parents clashing with open-minded educators who were trying to update the state of American education after decades of stagnation. 
Here at Balladeer’s Blog I am enthralled by the political realignment going on here in the U.S. ever since the campaign and election of our de facto Third Party President Donald Trump – the Richard Channing of Presidents. 
3. THE HOLCROFT COVENANT (1978) 
All of that seems like ancient history to thirty-something Noel Holcroft, a successful New Yorker going into business for himself after working as an architect at various prestigious outfits. From out of the blue, representatives from the Grande Banque de Geneve contact Noel about a numbered Swiss Bank Account which his father left to him and the children of two associates. 
VILLAIN: Johann Von Tiebolt, the son of one of Heinrich Clausen’s cohorts in diverting funds to the Geneva Account. Johann is known to the world at large as John Tennyson and is the designated New Fuhrer who will lead the Fourth Reich. 
Readers have been clamoring for a recurring series about the joke that Left-Wing Archie Bunkers have reduced America’s “educational system” (LMFAO) to. Here is the first installment plus as a bonus I included some links to previous blog posts I’ve written about how Democrats – who enormously outnumber members of any other political party in the “teaching” profession – abuse their position as teachers to cram their personal political prejudices down the throats of their students. 
JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS COUNTER-INTUITIVE IT DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN IT IS “DEEP” OR “INTELLECTUAL.” 
CAL-BERKELEY ANNOUNCES NEW POST-GRADUATE COURSE IN BOOK-BURNING 
HILLARY CLINTON ACCUSES PRESIDENT TRUMP OF COLLUDING WITH HIS VOTERS TO KICK HER SORRY ASS IN THE 2016 ELECTION 
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