If you have not read the book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, or seen the movie directed by Angelina Jolie, we recommend you do so. It’s a story too good to be missed.

And there is a six minute short available free online, Unbroken: The Power of Forgiveness, that digs a little deeper into the story. We recommend it as well.

My friend John Seel alerted me to the short film in an email, writing, “in partnership with Unbroken and NBC Universal, the John Templeton Foundation released a 6-minute film that explores Louis’ story further and amplifies Unbroken’s themes of faith, resilience, and the power of forgiveness. The film resides on a site we created on the Power of Forgiveness and the film will also appear on the Unbroken DVD. The film was directed by Oscar-winning director, Ross Kauffman.”

You can see the short film here.

The year is 1993 and war has come to Bosnia. Two soldiers, a Croat and a Serb, find themselves caught in a trench between the opposing front lines. It’s a deadly conflict, and the film takes it seriously as it should yet the story is told with a deliciously biting sense of irony. And when the United Nations peace-keeping troops show up, led by an officer—appropriately named Soft—the irony only makes the pain of the situation that much deeper.

Although No Man’s Land won an Oscar (Best Foreign Film, 2002) I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did. This is a sensitive story, sensitively told and filmed in a way that is plausible, deeply human, and simultaneously comic and tragic.

War is one of the most indelible proofs of the world’s brokenness, a horror that is sadly as old as human history. The wisdom literature of the Hebrews identified human evil not simply as wickedness and rebellion but also as folly—a foolishness so profound, so innate, so invasive that it mistakes darkness for light and imagines being lost in the cosmos as a proud declaration of personal autonomy. “Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs,” one ancient proverb said, “rather than a fool in his folly.” No Man’s Land successfully navigates a difficult line, revealing the brutality of a modern battlefield as a place where folly reigns supreme. We watch the plot unfold, laughing while being sobered.

Source: Proverbs 17:12

The ordinary Bell pepper: 0.

A lowly pimento: 100 – 500.

Tabasco sauce: 2,500 – 5,000.

Jalapeno peppers: 2,500 – 8,000.

Cayenne pepper: 30,000 – 50,000.

Turns out there is a pepper, called the Bhut jolokia, which leaves all these in the dust, clocking in at, I’m not making this up, at 855,000 – 1,050,000 Scoville units.

The bhut jolokia is grown in northeastern India and Bangladesh, and actually eaten there, my newspaper reports, “for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.” The first reason I understand. The second also makes sense since I assume that having the lining of one’s stomach cauterized would indeed cure most common stomach ailments. The third one, well, I live in the north so will not speculate.

Anyway, the Indian military has announced they are using the bhut jolokia “to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects.” Thinking about that made me realize that if they use a gourd as the casing and fertilizer as the explosive, this could be the first fully natural, organic, locally grown weapon.

One more good part of God’s Creation sadly perverted by the fall. Better than using a bullet, I realize, but still.