Where America's Day Begins

If nothing else, Donald Trump now has everyone talking about Guam. No sooner did our immenseness threaten North Korea with "fire and fury like the world has never seen," than his alter ego fired back by saying he would now target Guam with his next missile. This all may turn out to be just the latest "pissing contest" Trump has engaged in, but Guam is none too happy about the attention it is now getting.

It is doubtful a North Korean missile could actually hit Guam, but one has to wonder why Trump would even launch this kind of hyperbole given the active missile testing going on in North Korea. Just recently the country fired a ballistic missile 2800 kilometers into space to see if it had the range to hit the US, which has long been Kim's mission ever since he inherited the country from his father. Kim now has a new goal -- can he hit a remote island in the Pacific Ocean? I would think Alaska to be a much easier target.

Rather than quell Trump's incendiary rhetoric, Gen. Mattis chose to echo his commander's off-the-cuff comment. I would think the last thing the "Warrior Monk" wants is another war on his hands. His track record hasn't been very good since 2002 with Iraq and Afghanistan still torn by civil strife and the situation in Syria even worse. Does he really want to get into another hornet's nest in Northeast Asia where China and Russia have deeply vested interests?

What bothers me most about the general's message is how ignorant it sounds for a man considered to have one of the sharpest intellects in the military. North Korea doesn't need to match our arsenal to wreak havoc on the world. It has more than enough firepower to engulf the region in flames if it so chooses. Why provoke an incident that could have extremely dire consequences?

Part of it seems to be that this administration takes Kim Jong-Un to be a petty man-child who is only capable of understanding these kinds of threats. Of course, Trump talks this way with everyone so it is easy for him to play the role. But, what good does it do? North Korea is already feeling deeply hurt by the latest set of UN sanctions, calling it a "hostile policy." At what point does Little Kim just say, "fuck it," and decides to take a pot shot at the US, his archnemesis?

One would like to think clearer heads will prevail, showing that you can communicate with Pyongyang in less blunt terms. After all, this is what our Secretary of State has said for months, but has yet to make any such overture. I don't think anyone will "sleep well at night" given the current rhetoric, especially the folks in Guam.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''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

Rick DiguetteAugust 10, 2017 at 3:55 PM
This served only one purpose. It allowed Trump to stroke his own ego. The result, despite all the ensuing clarifications offered by senior members of his administration, was that the guy showed his butt once again. Ego + ignorance = disaster.
James FergusonAugust 11, 2017 at 7:16 AM
Worst of it, Little Kim got the better of him,
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/kim-jong-un-doesnt-strike-174809266.html

Dispatches from Vilnius

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