Eight stories of Americans making journeys

Title: Going After Cacciato
Author: Tim O’Brien
Where I Read It: Breaking Into Print
A soldier stationed in Vietnam decides to walk to France. Other members of his squad try to stop him. Cacciato has a reputation for being dim-witted (a "rockhead," he's called), and his idea is absurd, but at the same time it doesn't seem all that crazy to try to get away, no matter how. The way they've been living so far, with comrades dying in gruesome ways and days full of pointlessness and ugly nonsense, it doesn't seem that crazy for someone to want to walk off into the distance. But that would be desertion, and the rest of them can't let him do that, can they?

O'Brien later developed this story into a novel, which I haven't read, but already in this story he fleshes out distinct characters - some petty and eager to kill, others more sympathetic and thoughtful.

Title: The Halfway Diner
Author: John Sayles
Where I Read It: American Voices
A group of women makes a round-trip by bus each Sunday to visit their men at a state penitentiary. The diner is the halfway point on the trip.

The bus is their world in this story. The women break into different groups, sometimes forming friendships, but what happens in the prison may affect their own relationships. To what extent will they take up the battles between their men and reenact it among themselves? The story unfolds through the eyes of one of the Latinas - who has a well-written voice - and I love how the inside of that bus becomes an entire world, and so does the dismal diner. Sayles also has a gift for writing female characters as realistic people, instead of walking bundles of cliches (the same holds true in what I've watched of his movies so far - Passion Fish and The Secret of Roan Inish).

Some thoughts on the Tucson massacre

Earlier I posted an excerpt from Lincoln's First Inaugural Address.

And now I find myself linking to Jon Stewart (from President to Jester). I haven't watched a full episode of The Daily Show in years, though occasionally I'll view some clips on the internet.

I'm glad I came across this one. He presents here probably one of the sanest reactions I've heard from a media commentator/pundit after the Tucson massacre. He also articulates some thoughts I've had while reading through the updates on the aftermath.

Even before anything meaningful was known about the killer and his state of mind and possible motivations (which are still quite muddled and all over the place, to say the least), various media commentators and politicians were already insisting on the narrative of their choice and using it for their own ends, trying to see if they could tie the shooter and his off-the-wall ramblings to any one party. Casting blame and deflecting and defending against it. Some earnest conviction here, but also no shortage of hypocrisy, grandstanding and dishonesty.

The details that have been coming out increasingly show a man who is deranged, with a history of deranged and disturbed behavior, and who is not politically active and has so far not been found to be a member of any extremist group (he was identified as a registered independent who didn't vote in the 2010 elections; that's the most definitive statement that has been made of his politics so far) - in fact his thoughts about government and people and life and the universe, if you have the heart and patience to sift through them, are like something out of scribbled science fiction; being registered for one party or another probably would have been minimally relevant to how he processes the world. According to friends (and some stuff found in his house) he also had some sort of weird fixation on Congresswoman Giffords for a few years now, after meeting her at a similar sort of event where he disliked her answer to a question he posed. (That, and added just now, he really liked movies on conspiracies, mind control, and altered states of consciousness - the article at the link talks about some of his life and also about his parents, who are going through their own personal hell, which I hope they can get through.) For the time being, this is the information we have.

Back to Jon Stewart. The monologue begins at 2:28 (the clip starts with some back-and-forth between him and a colleague, which is amusing but skippable). I really encourage you all to take several minutes to watch it:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona Shootings Reaction
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Prayers for Gabrielle Giffords and her family and friends; I hope her recovery is steady and sure. Prayers also for the people who were wounded and the six who died (Christina Green, Dorothy Morris, John Roll, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwin Stoddard, and Gabe Zimmerman), and for their families and friends, who are going through hellish times; I hope they find strength, support, love and healing.

Some other brave, decent people: Daniel Hernandez, a college student at the University of Arizona, who had been working as an intern for Giffords for only five days. When he heard gunshots he ran towards the crowd, getting there in the immediate aftermath. He might have saved his boss's life; he held Gifford's head and applied pressure to the head wound. He then stayed with her and kept holding her hand when the medics took over. Patricia Maisch, who wrestled ammo away from the shooter and prevented him from reloading his gun, and Retired Colonel Bill Badger, Roger Sulzgeber, and Joseph Zimudie who tackled and held down the shooter.

I'm tired of hearing that society is in a hopeless state - worse than it's ever been. (Study history, including the history of political rhetoric, and that assertion falls apart.) I also don't want to see a further breakdown in political discourse or acts of political opportunism and demagoguery because of a lone deranged killer (with his blank smirking mugshot, nihilism, and scrambled thought processes). Right now everything about this tragedy is especially raw, everyone's talking about it, but it's also possible to pause, take a breath, and think.

Stewart's monologue was a breath of fresh air for this reason. I found it thoughtful and decent.

Extracts: "The better angels of our nature"

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. - from Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, 1861

Much-needed perspective.

"Day is done, gone the sun..."

A photo of Washington Square Park in Philadelphia, the location of the Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier: Freedom is a light for which many men have died in darkness.

We remember and honor the men and women of our military.

Audio of SGM Woody English, U.S. Army Band, playing Taps.

Here's an interesting site on the history of the bugle call, Taps, played at military funerals and memorial events.

And some of the verses often set to the twenty-four notes:

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills,
From the sky.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.


Fades the light; And afar
Goeth day, And the stars
Shineth bright,
Fare thee well; Day has gone,
Night is on.


Thanks and praise, For our days,
'Neath the sun, Neath the stars,
'Neath the sky,
As we go, This we know,
God is nigh.

Ben Franklin and formative books

I've been reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Ben Franklin and thinking about the descriptions of Franklin's childhood in Puritan Boston, including books he cited as favorites or key influences:

- John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
"A central theme of Bunyan's book... was contained in its title: progress, the concept that individuals, and humanity in general, move forward and improve based on a steady increase of knowledge and the wisdom that comes from conquering adversity." (Isaacson, pg. 25)

- Plutarch's Lives
"... also based on the premise that individual endeavor can change the course of history for the better." (Isaacson, pg. 25)

- Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good by Cotton Mather
"'If I have been,' Franklin wrote to Cotton Mather's son... 'a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book.'" (Isaacson, pg. 26)

It's interesting to consider how these books shaped Franklin (and also what ideas he accepted, and which ones he ultimately disregarded and discarded, such as Calvinism's notion of predestination); remember also that Franklin did not come from a wealthy home - his father was a tallow chandler, and Franklin did not have any sort of extensive schooling - these books were available to him at home, and at age 10 he started apprenticing at an older brother's print shop (an education in and of itself and an experience that influenced the course of his life). A lot of personal initiative then, from an early age. And while his knowledge and intellectual endeavors expanded throughout his life, these books seemed to form the germ of his later thinking and his attitude towards an individual's personal development and civic responsibilities (undertaken out of a sense of personal duty).


I wonder what books are considered foundational by modern young readers. There are different religious texts; and what about secular books? Which books did you find left a lasting impression on you, helped shape your ideas (to whatever extent and for whatever duration), impacted decisions you've made or values you've cultivated and considered important? Did you find these books in your home, on your parents' bookshelves? Were they given to you by a good friend or teacher?

Also, to what extent were the books influential - did you recognize them as being important or life-altering shortly after reading them? Or only years later? (or do you mostly just say they were, as part of the narrative you're constructing of your life and how you got to where you are?)

"The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here."

Both the words and the deeds are remembered, though like much of our history, the fact of them is remembered more than the spirit. We need reminding; the words, the memory of those deeds, need repeating.

November 19th, 1863, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. And the words, they project across decades, decades, the spirit and the force of the ideas alive to us, if only we choose to attend to them.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

It's easy to take this country for granted; it's easy take your liberties for granted. But the struggle for their continuance and endurance has always been hard-fought; it certainly still is today. Don't let yourself forget what our soldiers do and face every day. And keep in mind the multiple ways in which this struggle manifests itself - the daily battle against complacency, ignorance and lazy habits of mind, defeatism, petty tyrannies, the creeping tendrils of confinement and control that wrap themselves around our lives when we're not looking, when we cease to care.

The Gettysburg Address