''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
I am astounded by how we cannot ban military weapons in this country. If black men were carrying them, the guns (and probably the men) would be off the streets in a heartbeat:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/white-men-have-much-to-discuss-about-mass-shootings/2013/03/29/7b001d02-97f3-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html
This love affair with guns is disconcerting. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to get around it. One of the tragic flaws in our society.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those things about American life that I simply cannot grasp -- how a nation can willingly allow people to purchase, walk around with, and sadly _use_ military weapons and ammunition. I think it's more than a flaw -- it's a real sickness.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at the role of Western, War and Crime movies in our societies, it is not so surprising why Americans demand fire power. It is one of those chicken or the egg arguments, which came first guns or violence?
ReplyDeleteI think it has something to do with the fact that most Americans take almost all good fortune for granted. They pay lip service to cherishing their freedoms and rights but seldom have had to defend them. Most Americans will never understand how good they have it.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the big spike in assault rifle sales is tied to all these doomsday preppers and Dominionists waiting for the end of the world as we know it, imagining a post-Apocalyptic world of zombies until the lord comes down to take them away.
ReplyDeleteOh, you two! April Fools' Day was yesterday! Google nose.
ReplyDeleteMy point, if you can call it one, is that if we don't understand the true value of something, we aren't likely to know how to protect it. When it seems threatened, our response may not match the threat proportionally: we may either fail to address it or overreact. The continued insistence that assault weapons be unregulated would appear to be a disproportionate reaction to a perceived threat. It is an Elmer Fudd kind of reaction, and Elmer Fudd is a buffoon.
DeleteI wasn't fooling,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.myfoxal.com/story/20321411/doomsday-preppers-help-increase-gun-sales-at-local-store
and this from an indisputable source -- Fox News, or Fux News as Jim Carrey calls it.
http://tinyurl.com/cuwqmbz
ReplyDeleteAnnette Funicello, RIP
Growing up in Brooklyn me and my buddies all agreed she was the most beautiful girl we ever saw. Always loved her for her beauty, charm, and wholesome personality. I guess I will always adore her as long as I live.
On a total meander, I stumbled on this program tonight and it was amazing. It uses the biological and geological history of Australia as a way of telling the history of life on earth:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/australia-first-years.html#australia-awakening
I remember reading Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore many years ago.
ReplyDeleteHAPPY PATRIOT'S DAY!
ReplyDeleteAlso, this is National Library Week - please send thank you notes to your local librarian.
Looks like we need a new meander. In the meantime, as they sing his praises in Dallas:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/24/george-w-bushs-presidency-in-24-charts/
Nothing a few paintings of dogs won't cure ; )
ReplyDeleteOr portraits of himself trying to wash himself clean in the bath.
ReplyDelete