Eclectic Views

    
"The Long-distance Cyclist's Handbook".  Strange idea of fun, I know.
  

    
Riding long distances works for me. I did SF-DC a long time ago. What
did you learn?
  

    
Do dictionaries count?
  

    
The most recent book I finished was "Phules Paradise" by Robert
Aspirin.

Nearing the end of "Madwand" by Roger Zelazny, as well as "Ill Wind"
by Rachel Caine.

Any book I pick up any more is reading for fun.  And I always have
several going at once.
  

    
Some Jack London.
  

    
Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher
  

    
I remember a really enjoyable book I finished just a couple weeks ago: "The
Adventures of King Pausole" by Pierre Louys.  I think it may be the only
comedy he wrote.  Impossible to describe briefly, though; a sort of utopian
satire through fin de siecle lenses.
  

    
Last day to tell us about a recent book you read just for fun.
  

    
The Sex Lives of Cannibals : Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
by J. MAARTEN TROOST

Funny, exotic, non-fiction travelogue. Highly recommended. 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767915305/qid=1117206689/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-8553005-0381637>
  

    
Secrets of the tsil cafe  

Great recipes and fiction about a boy who grows 
up the son of particular and eccentric chefs in kansas city.
  

    
New question: Who do you remember on Memorial Day?
  

    
I have trouble with the patriotic holidays because I am troubled by 
much of the military history and military identity of this country.  I 
don't dislike people who served and died, and I don't want to interfere 
with grieving their loss.  It's the war and jingoism that makes me uneasy.

This is a good question.  I think I want to remember those who have died
to try to stop wars.  There's no separate holiday for them, so why not
share?  
  

    
The towns of Columbus, Miss.; Macon, Ga.; Richmond, Va.;  
Boalsburg, Pa.; and Carbondale, Ill. all claim to be the 
birthplace of Memorial Day.  There is no question that it is a 
holiday to commemorate the veterans of the Civil War.  The only 
question is whether it started as a Confederate celebration or a 
Union holiday.  The first official national Memorial Day was May 
30, 1868.  The town of Waterloo, NY celebrated the holiday on May 
5, 1866.

I use the day to remember my classmates who died during the late 
1960s and early 1970s while serving, voluntarily or otherwise, in 
the U.S. armed forces.  I remember their names. 
  

    
> The town of Waterloo, NY celebrated the holiday on May 5, 1866.

The better to remember those who died celebrating Cinco de Mayo.
  

    
I remember the Civil War dead. I can't see any way around that war.
The West was going to be slave or free, and as the West went, so would
the country go. New England was not going to tolerate being forced into
supporting slavery, and the Southern slave-holders were not going to
tolerate losing their slaves. Slavery was just stone flat wrong, and it
was not going to go away by itself. Sooner or later, someone would
have started using slaves in factories, and would have made so much
money that the institution would still be around.

It was a necessary war, and it killed more of us than any other war
ever. It is a miracle that we were ever able to make peace again.
  

    
To the extent that we did.
  

    
> slavery was just stone flat wrong

While true, that position neglects that slavery makes workers a capital 
expense, sometimes resulting in better treatment than otherwise.  Only a 
fool works slaves to death.

The non-slave can walk away from any particular situation, but there's 
no escaping an economic environment that only values capital.

> slaves in factories

A case in point is conditions in factories through much of the 19th 
century, until the labor movement really got underway.
  

    

I remember my dad.  and my grandfather.  and feel grateful that I still 
have my spouse.  And this year, I remember my good friend in command and 
Bakuba, and the friends and soldiers he has lost already.
  

    
Dad.  He was probably one of the youngest WWII veterans, since he enlisted
at age 17 in 1944.

I didn't learn until recently just how much he wanted to make a career out
of the military, but an injujry cut that short.  He had a pretty good
career anyway, thanks to the GI bill and some hard work, but he must have
felt a background level of disappointment for the rest of his life.
  

    
I remember my uncle, after whom I am named, whose B-29 went down in Tokyo
Bay shortly before I was born.
  

    
I remember my father who spent WW II in the Aleutians and just missed
being a second lieutenant on Omaha Beach. The life expectancy for
second lieutenants on Omaha Beach wasn't very long. So due to a
combination of luck and Harry Truman I'm here to be typing this.

I remember my grandfather who joined the Army and then the Navy so he
could see duty in the Spanish American War. He went to Washington and
had interviews with both the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of
the Navy to see which branch of the service would get him into action
quicker.

I remember my great grandfather who was a physician and a very
successful businessman. He hired someone to take his place in the Civil
War. I remember the guy he hired. I do not know if the replacement
lived or died or what his name was. No one is left alive who could
possibly know. (I suppose I could ask all my cousins, one of them may
know but my grandmother was sure that "people" knew all about it and
thought less of the family because of it. I'm pretty sure that by 1960
no one in Cedar Rapids had a clue about what my great grand father had
done in 1865.)
  

    <scribbled by satyr Tue 31 May 05 07:03>
  

    
I *really* don't do holidays in general, and Memorial Day is not
particularly an exception to that, although I might feel differently about
that if I had ever been personally acquainted with someone who died in
war.  Strange as it may seem, I've only ever known the survivors.

However, I've recently had some cause to remember people, some still
living, who I knew in my youth, several lifetimes ago, as it seems.
Collectively, they're never far from my thoughts, of course, but lately
closer than at some other times.

I'm sure the recent passing (last fall) of my step-mother -- who
continued to live in the area as long as she was able to -- has something
to do with it.  She was as much a product of that environment as anyone,
having herself grown up less than three miles from the house in which I
grew up, although she had moved away as a young adult and spent many years
living elsewhere before returning.  Remembering her leads inevitably to
remembering others.

I too left as a young adult, but I doubt that I will ever return, more
than for a short visit.  The place is still there, of course, but the
people I remember the most are mostly gone, one way or another, dead,
moved away, or grown up to become someone different than I remember, or
so I imagine.

Some of these people were veterans, others were not, but all had been
through some sort of hardship, and most showed evidence of the grace such
experiences can confer.

But back to Memorial Day...

Even if I had ever really known someone who died in war, I think I would
still be ambivalent about this holiday, at least inasmuch as it is an
occasion to remember *our* dead, as opposed to the dead among those our
soldiers fought against.

Inasmuch as it is an occasion for mourning all who've fallen, on whichever
side, and for renewing our resolve to work toward a world in which
differences are settled peaceably and none are asked to kill or die when
diplomacy fails -- and for mourning those who will yet fall, because that
world is still a long way off -- *that* would be a holiday I could get
behind and in which I could wholeheartedly participate.
  

    
Last day to tell us who you remember on Memorial Day.
  

    
New question: what is your favorite summertime beverage?