RUST COMMENTARY: CAPE AIR SHOW PROMISES TO BE ONE OF THE BEST EVER

The three-day Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival (this Friday, Saturday and Sunday) has one of the finest air show schedules ever in my 35 years of flying. Balloon launches Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening and Sunday morning provide a never-ending sight of quiet beauty.

There will be some of the top aviation acrobatic flying in the country all three days, including some of the St. Louis Fourth of July Aviation Show veterans such as the CAPE TOYOTA-sponsored AIRSPORTS TEAM special German-built Extra 300.

In the patriotic mode, there will be a display and fly-by of military airplanes (including the STEALTH) and civilian aircraft. All in all, a major effort is being made to provide you and your family with an educational, entertaining and meaningful experience.

Helicopter, balloon and plane rides will be available during the event.

AND ... the JERRY FORD 12-piece band will be performing sounds of the World War II era at a USO-style hangar dance Friday from 7 p.m. along with a few more surprises sure to please the nostalgic interest in the WWII era for those attending the dance. (See the SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN advertisement and article and TIPOFF for more details.)

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My wife, Wendy, grandson, Sho, and I had an enjoyable Fourth of July family cookout and flag-raising ceremony, with patriotic songs and quizzes led by my brother-in-law, GARY GILBERT (a Civil War re-enactor and expert on the history of that period), plus many other family members.

While heading home we swung through Arena Park to hear the band concert and got caught up with the horse walks for 7-year-old SHO; talking with friends (including EUGENE HOLLOWAY SR. who reminisced about both of our early and long working hours when I sold and he laid carpet); and the wonderful fireworks display.

I thought the crowd was smaller in the arena stands than I'd remembered, but I'm glad we left a little early, because the real crowd was outside the arena stands. Lined along all the roads and sitting in front lawns and on the ball fields were large groups of people sharing with their neighbors and children a togetherness most of the older people had first experienced in their early years.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!

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THE FALL OF FILM: With all the bluster emitted lately from Hollywood about the genius and high-tech accomplishments of today's motion picture producers, actors, screenwriters and musical composers, isn't it ironic that a pitiful seven movies released since 1990 made it to the top 100 films chosen by the American Film Institute recently?

And to add insult to injury, only one of these disappointments landed above the 64th position. The top two, "Citizen Kane" and "Casablanca" (black and white classics), premiered in the early 1940s. In fact, three of the first four were made before 1942, the third being "Gone With the Wind."

When checking this list by decades, surprisingly, the 1950s, '60s and '70s delivered the most acclaimed motion pictures of this century -- some 44 -- with a big dropoff after the 1970s.

The film chosen best of the so-called modern era is so much better than what we envision as a good picture today that it boggles the mind. "The Godfather" delivered a superb screenplay, a truly magnificent cast, fantastic music and cinematography that mesmerized and helped transport the viewer into this spellbinding story.

Where, though, in today's films are the creative storytelling and patriotic fervor of Frank Capra ("Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "It's a Wonderful Life") or the visual genius and gripping suspenseful adventures of David Lean ("Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia")?

Although contemporary films such as "Jurassic Park" and "Star Wars" usher us into a fantasy world for a few hours, they did not connect in any way to our real lives. They do not inspire us to achieve, to survive or to relate to someone else's fortunes or misfortunes.

With all of the intellectual progress that we have supposedly made as a society in the last decade or so, the creative film genius of the past haunts us with its down-to-earth, homespun simplicity of visual storytelling -- that raw, dynamic, emotional energy that reaches down to the very core of our inner being. -- CHICAGO TRIBUNE letter to the editor by Al Carli.

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New Poll Shows Moral Concerns: A new poll done by the liberal group "Emily's List" has caused real consternation in Washington. It shows that American women now list "moral decline" as the No. 1 issue facing the country with "crime and drugs" a close second. Concern about economic issues has plummeted in the last six months.

Israeli Nuclear Submarines: The Middle East is a long way from China, but the ripples from President Clinton's summit are being felt around the world. Israel has just announced a decision to buy three submarines from Germany. These submarines can be equipped with cruise missiles bearing nuclear warheads. Clearly, the Israelis are worried about nuclear weapons coming into the hands of Iraqis, Iranians and anyone else who might show up on China's list of hot commercial prospects. This decision is an indication that the Netanyahu government will place greater reliance on its own deterrence than on the Clinton administration's high-sounding assurances. Smart decision. -- Washington Update.

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Same-party political fights were some of the most wicked experiences I ever had. Republicans against Republicans as in the FORD vs REAGAN primary fight for president and Democrat against Democrat as previously discussed in this column by CHRISTOPHER MATTHEWS. Matthews is one of the fast-rising media stars who was formerly a speechwriter in the Carter White House and later an aide to Democrat Speaker of the HOUSE "TIP" O'Neill. Here is an excerpt:

RFK's California "exploitation": Eugene McCarthy, the first Democrat to stand against President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policies, is still angry at the man who sought, tragically, to replace him in the anti-war cause: Robert F. Kennedy.

"It was pure exploitation," McCarthy says of the three issues he believes Kennedy used to squeeze out a narrow win in the June 1968 California presidential primary.

One dealt with U.S. aid to Israel. McCarthy accuses Kennedy of promising Democratic primary voters a big shipment of U.S. jet aircraft to Israel, a country that just the year before had won the Six-Day War.

That RFK campaign promise, the former Minnesota senator says through 30 years of hindsight, was a blatant and dishonest pander to the Jewish community where the erudite, liberal McCarthy had enjoyed considerable strength.

As McCarthy recalls the jets-for-Israel issue, the Democratic-controlled Congress had delivered for years such warplanes to the Jewish state through a stealthy process that had Israel pay for the planes with funds Congress quietly drew from general appropriations. The object was to minimize the anger from Israel's Arab rivals.

"The Israelis wanted it that way," McCarthy said in an interview. "They were willing to have the money given to them and then come back and buy (the planes)."

Kennedy's promise to deliver the jets directly to Israel during the '68 California primary was, he recalls grimly, "a false issue."

For Kennedy, McCarthy notes, that promise would prove fatal. "Bobby said he would give them the jets and Sirhan somewhere cited that as another force that moved him to do what he did."

McCarthy was referring to Kennedy's assassination by Sirhan Sirhan, an Arab zealot, just minutes after acknowledging his victory in the make-or-break California primary.

The survivor of that historic 1968 California Democratic primary recalls two other areas where he believes his rival falsely exploited the candidates' positions.

One was race. "He said I was going to pull 10,000 blacks from Watts and put them in Orange County. He said that in the San Francisco debate."

The other Kennedy claim that McCarthy resents to this day was that he, the man who had pioneered the anti-war challenge to Johnson, would "negotiate with communists."

"Who would you negotiate with?" McCarthy asks three decades later. How would America broker an end to the Vietnam War if not with the people we were fighting, the communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong?

On all three points, McCarthy remains unforgiving of the man who died soon after their heated California contest.

"I suppose the three most sensitive, most prejudicial issues this country faced were race, anti-communism and anti-Semitism. He tried to exploit all of them."

It's said that the Irish think of Heaven as the place where men get their revenge with each other. Gene McCarthy, flinty and feisty, is in no mood to wait. -- Christopher Matthews, San Francisco Examiner.

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.