Escaping the Carolina Heat
Ack! I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t really prepared for it. Having been bred and born in the great state of Maine, my blood has a certain constancy. A consistancy akin to sluge. Ergo my internal mechanics don’t handle heat well at all. Despite living in Southern California for decades, it hasn’t thinned enough for me to take anything past 92 degrees with any kind of consciousness (“Temperature Overload. System shut-down commencing immediately.”), or if I am forced to be conscious, any sort of equanimity. Thursday I spent in Raleigh, a city laid out over pre-existing cow trails (and I’m not entirely sure what kind of grass those cows were eating) And the only reason I and the motorists within 30 yard of me were not involved in a Falling Down-style massacre was that I found a Barnes and Noble to hibernate in at the height of the day.
Needless to say I have taken to darting out of my apartment at 6:00 am on the weekends to do errands in order be back home and sealed in with my beloved AC by 11:00 am.
Hot sucks! Humid sucks! Bleah! :P
News
I have been watching the situation between Israel and Lebanon developing with a great deal of concern. First of all, when it comes to Israel and it’s relations with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab Middle East, no one is innocent. Period. Given the millennia’s of abuse they have suffered at other's hands, I do believe that Israel does have the right to exist. However I also believe that they have to obligation to keep the promises they made when they were founded 50 years ago to find homes for the displaced Palestinians, many of whom are still living in refugee camps. It would also be nice if they stopped rolling their tanks through these camps and firing into the crowd. It would be nice if they didn’t use the slightest excuse to bomb the crap out of Palestinian neighborhoods killing civilians. It would have been nice for their Arab neighbors to actually take in Palestinians rather than using them as an excuse to hate and underhanded pawns to attack Israel. It would be nice if they left Israel alone altogether. It would be nice of the Palestinians didn’t use suicide bombing of civilian targets as a tool for diplomacy. The entire situation is so convoluted and screwed up everyone needs a spanking and to be sent to their rooms for about 150 years.
What is sad is that Lebanon, who finally freed itself from Syria in a natural uprising last year, is paying the price for Iranian and Syrian support of Hezbollah guerillas. No matter who wins, the Lebanese are screwed.
What I do know is this: We cannot get involved as an individual nation. If we, the nation that has occupied Iraq against pretty much everyone wishes, gets involved in this conflict, we will face the combined wrath of every Muslim nation in the Middle East. It will be the straw that breaks the camels back. The question then would be; who then will join them against the U.S., we who have alienated our worldwide allies with our belligerent “cowboy diplomacy” foreign policy against they, who have most of the world’s supply of oil. It would be the beginning of another world war, only this time, we don’t have the only Nuclear weapon.
People I have spoken with feel that it unlikely given the choice between oil and our overextended military vs. evangelical idealism Bush will throw in with Israel and there is some good reasoning there. But the possibility exists and it makes me very nervous.
The UN security council is talking of stepping up the UNIFIL’s presence into a truly effective force to stop Hezbollah attacks, and therefore not give Israel an excuse to attack anymore. Good. This is the way it should be handled: Internationally. I pray that the UN can prove itself better than it’s predecessor in this matter, prove that it can act as a force for peace. Dear Gods I pray for peace.
As If You Didn’t Know It Already
Walmart blows.
I’m proud to say I have never set foot in one.
Because Everyone Needs an "Awww!"
I got this from my pal in NZ, though I think it was probably taken in North America. Love that globalism!
Racing at Louden
Well, er…I’m afraid I got caught up in a book I was reading and missed most of the race. When I did finally tune in via trackpass at lap 298 of 300, I was very pleased to find Elliott in the top five, and then not-so-pleased when the cautions kept coming, stretching the race to 308 laps and beyond Elliott fuel window.
*sigh* Cannot buy a break.
However, things on the radio were very upbeat. It looks like they got the car dialed in and made some good calls to gain track position. Plus as Tommy said, Elliott “drove the hell out of that thing…” Tommy and Elliott were very encouraging of one another so no matter what is going on in Elliott’s contract talks, it doesn’t seem to have effected the steady improvement in the #38 Team relations.
Rumors are, of course, flying like mad. Sadler is claiming that he is staying put for the time being, devoting himself to the #38 and his commitment to the Yates (good man), but keeping his options open. So he could just be holding out for something in his contract.
Y’know, it’s silly season in full swing… *shrugs*rolls eyes*
So, The Book…
No trip to a bookstore is without it’s rewards and I doubt Mr. Sadler will mind taking a back seat to Pickett’s Charge. Despite having seen and loved the film “Gettysburg” ages ago, I only managed to pick up the novel on which it is based while hiding out from the heat this last Thursday: Michael Shaara’s Killer Angles.
I enjoyed it. Perhaps not rapturously, but it was very interesting and Shaara’s portrayal of the disparate collection of men involved in one of the most decisive turning points in American history is extremely engaging.
It may sound odd to many that the entire novel encompasses three days, but, like Black Hawk Down, which only encompasses two, there was a hell of a lot going on in those three days. Shaara covers the battle through the eyes of such people such as Longstreet, Chamberlain, Armistead and Buford. Shaara is more Historian than Author, so most of the interior voices from which the battle is viewed sound similar, but that is forgiveable in the face of what is presented. The events and people are so extrodinary that one forgets it's a historical work, but if one reads this book with the awareness that this is real, these people were real, this actually happened, it becomes a very powerful.
The main point of the book, I think of almost any in-depth look at the Battle of Gettyburg, is why General Lee, who’s defensive war tactics had served him so well up to that point, chose to attack the Union high ground at Gettysburg culminating in a suicidal Pickett’s Charge. No one really knows what got in his head. Eisenhower once stood where the Union position had been on Cemetery Ridge, overlooking the long stretch of field Pickett’s men had to march under fire and was equally mystified, commenting “Lee must have been so mad at Meade he just wanted to throw a brick at him.” Shaara’s theory is more subtle, that Lee basically was ashamed of fighting a defensive war and bought into his own press that the Great Army of Virginia could do anything, including what amounted to mounting a Napoleonic charge on Hell itself.
I don’t know about that. Lee wasn’t a vain or stupid man. He had come into the Civil War unwillingly with a very detailed awareness of what the Union army was capable of. He thought secession was a mistake and the only reason he turned down command of the Union Army was that he could not lift his hand against his homeland of Virginia. Perhaps the success of the better commanded Confederate Army did put him off guard, perhaps he was tired and wanted to bring a final end to the war, perhaps he wasn’t able to adapt Napoleonic tactics to the deadly emerging in technologies of warfare. Perhaps a lot of things. Lee did take responsibility for it’s failure, but never really explained why. It remains, as always, a-"what-the-hell-was-he-thinking"-mystery.
However, the book is great for introducing the casual history reader to some of the lesser known names who were major players in this battle. The ghost of John Buford especially owes Shaara for finally making his name known to the greater public as the man who chose and held the ground the Union fought from, a single decision and a singular determination that swung the tide of the war. The book/film also brought one of Maine’s favorite sons to the public eye: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a professor or rhetoric and revealed religion from Bowdoin College who was one of the most successful commanders of the Civil War. He went on to be president of Bowdoin college and three term governor of Maine. Excellent biography of him here, BTW, if you can find it. His portrayal of James Longstreet also did much to improve the man’s reputation as “One of the Most Hated Men in the South” (Just because he became a Republican and worked with Grant), when in fact he was one of the few people in the war who understood the changing nature of warfare they were facing. His military thinking was decades ahead of his time. The book also does a great job using the commanders to outline the various attitudes soldier approached that conflict with. The different reasons why they were fighting, a subject still hotly contested to this day.
All in all, a great book, both entertaining and informative.
Needless to say I have taken to darting out of my apartment at 6:00 am on the weekends to do errands in order be back home and sealed in with my beloved AC by 11:00 am.
Hot sucks! Humid sucks! Bleah! :P
News
I have been watching the situation between Israel and Lebanon developing with a great deal of concern. First of all, when it comes to Israel and it’s relations with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab Middle East, no one is innocent. Period. Given the millennia’s of abuse they have suffered at other's hands, I do believe that Israel does have the right to exist. However I also believe that they have to obligation to keep the promises they made when they were founded 50 years ago to find homes for the displaced Palestinians, many of whom are still living in refugee camps. It would also be nice if they stopped rolling their tanks through these camps and firing into the crowd. It would be nice if they didn’t use the slightest excuse to bomb the crap out of Palestinian neighborhoods killing civilians. It would have been nice for their Arab neighbors to actually take in Palestinians rather than using them as an excuse to hate and underhanded pawns to attack Israel. It would be nice if they left Israel alone altogether. It would be nice of the Palestinians didn’t use suicide bombing of civilian targets as a tool for diplomacy. The entire situation is so convoluted and screwed up everyone needs a spanking and to be sent to their rooms for about 150 years.
What is sad is that Lebanon, who finally freed itself from Syria in a natural uprising last year, is paying the price for Iranian and Syrian support of Hezbollah guerillas. No matter who wins, the Lebanese are screwed.
What I do know is this: We cannot get involved as an individual nation. If we, the nation that has occupied Iraq against pretty much everyone wishes, gets involved in this conflict, we will face the combined wrath of every Muslim nation in the Middle East. It will be the straw that breaks the camels back. The question then would be; who then will join them against the U.S., we who have alienated our worldwide allies with our belligerent “cowboy diplomacy” foreign policy against they, who have most of the world’s supply of oil. It would be the beginning of another world war, only this time, we don’t have the only Nuclear weapon.
People I have spoken with feel that it unlikely given the choice between oil and our overextended military vs. evangelical idealism Bush will throw in with Israel and there is some good reasoning there. But the possibility exists and it makes me very nervous.
The UN security council is talking of stepping up the UNIFIL’s presence into a truly effective force to stop Hezbollah attacks, and therefore not give Israel an excuse to attack anymore. Good. This is the way it should be handled: Internationally. I pray that the UN can prove itself better than it’s predecessor in this matter, prove that it can act as a force for peace. Dear Gods I pray for peace.
As If You Didn’t Know It Already
Walmart blows.
I’m proud to say I have never set foot in one.
Because Everyone Needs an "Awww!"
I got this from my pal in NZ, though I think it was probably taken in North America. Love that globalism!Racing at Louden
Well, er…I’m afraid I got caught up in a book I was reading and missed most of the race. When I did finally tune in via trackpass at lap 298 of 300, I was very pleased to find Elliott in the top five, and then not-so-pleased when the cautions kept coming, stretching the race to 308 laps and beyond Elliott fuel window.
*sigh* Cannot buy a break.
However, things on the radio were very upbeat. It looks like they got the car dialed in and made some good calls to gain track position. Plus as Tommy said, Elliott “drove the hell out of that thing…” Tommy and Elliott were very encouraging of one another so no matter what is going on in Elliott’s contract talks, it doesn’t seem to have effected the steady improvement in the #38 Team relations.
Rumors are, of course, flying like mad. Sadler is claiming that he is staying put for the time being, devoting himself to the #38 and his commitment to the Yates (good man), but keeping his options open. So he could just be holding out for something in his contract.
Y’know, it’s silly season in full swing… *shrugs*rolls eyes*
So, The Book…
No trip to a bookstore is without it’s rewards and I doubt Mr. Sadler will mind taking a back seat to Pickett’s Charge. Despite having seen and loved the film “Gettysburg” ages ago, I only managed to pick up the novel on which it is based while hiding out from the heat this last Thursday: Michael Shaara’s Killer Angles.
I enjoyed it. Perhaps not rapturously, but it was very interesting and Shaara’s portrayal of the disparate collection of men involved in one of the most decisive turning points in American history is extremely engaging.
It may sound odd to many that the entire novel encompasses three days, but, like Black Hawk Down, which only encompasses two, there was a hell of a lot going on in those three days. Shaara covers the battle through the eyes of such people such as Longstreet, Chamberlain, Armistead and Buford. Shaara is more Historian than Author, so most of the interior voices from which the battle is viewed sound similar, but that is forgiveable in the face of what is presented. The events and people are so extrodinary that one forgets it's a historical work, but if one reads this book with the awareness that this is real, these people were real, this actually happened, it becomes a very powerful.
The main point of the book, I think of almost any in-depth look at the Battle of Gettyburg, is why General Lee, who’s defensive war tactics had served him so well up to that point, chose to attack the Union high ground at Gettysburg culminating in a suicidal Pickett’s Charge. No one really knows what got in his head. Eisenhower once stood where the Union position had been on Cemetery Ridge, overlooking the long stretch of field Pickett’s men had to march under fire and was equally mystified, commenting “Lee must have been so mad at Meade he just wanted to throw a brick at him.” Shaara’s theory is more subtle, that Lee basically was ashamed of fighting a defensive war and bought into his own press that the Great Army of Virginia could do anything, including what amounted to mounting a Napoleonic charge on Hell itself.
I don’t know about that. Lee wasn’t a vain or stupid man. He had come into the Civil War unwillingly with a very detailed awareness of what the Union army was capable of. He thought secession was a mistake and the only reason he turned down command of the Union Army was that he could not lift his hand against his homeland of Virginia. Perhaps the success of the better commanded Confederate Army did put him off guard, perhaps he was tired and wanted to bring a final end to the war, perhaps he wasn’t able to adapt Napoleonic tactics to the deadly emerging in technologies of warfare. Perhaps a lot of things. Lee did take responsibility for it’s failure, but never really explained why. It remains, as always, a-"what-the-hell-was-he-thinking"-mystery.
However, the book is great for introducing the casual history reader to some of the lesser known names who were major players in this battle. The ghost of John Buford especially owes Shaara for finally making his name known to the greater public as the man who chose and held the ground the Union fought from, a single decision and a singular determination that swung the tide of the war. The book/film also brought one of Maine’s favorite sons to the public eye: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a professor or rhetoric and revealed religion from Bowdoin College who was one of the most successful commanders of the Civil War. He went on to be president of Bowdoin college and three term governor of Maine. Excellent biography of him here, BTW, if you can find it. His portrayal of James Longstreet also did much to improve the man’s reputation as “One of the Most Hated Men in the South” (Just because he became a Republican and worked with Grant), when in fact he was one of the few people in the war who understood the changing nature of warfare they were facing. His military thinking was decades ahead of his time. The book also does a great job using the commanders to outline the various attitudes soldier approached that conflict with. The different reasons why they were fighting, a subject still hotly contested to this day.All in all, a great book, both entertaining and informative.
posted by KiplingKat | 1:59 PM
2 Comments:
Ola. Haven't spoken in a while. Was'up?
Yes, the heat is bad. (and when someone like me, whose favorite activity is getting in a hot, sun-baked car on a summer day, thinks the heat is bad...the heat is pretty bad) my only trouble with it, personally, is that it is responsible for the breaking of the a.c. unit at work, which not only cools the peeps, it cools the equipment, too. and guess what? we had short, after short, after short...it was like trying to steer a sinking ship through an obstacle course, never knowing which piece of necessary equipment would fail during a live broadcast or while recording. ugh. so tired. 2 days of this. it's not like they weren't trying to fix it, at one point i thought one of the repairmen would need to go to the emerg. room or something, he was shaking and purple and almost delirious. adding to the general festivities were 6 INSANE Russians welding the water tower directly above our studios (WTF?) and i have no clue why they were there these days of all days, or who decided 6 crazy Russians should have the city contract to weld. all i know is, they dropped sparks constantly and set our studio ON FIRE MORE THAN ONCE.
which my boss, who's the chief engineer, and the same purple, dying reapir guys put out....several times. i just don't see how none of this constituted an emergency to these assholes, but i'm told that is because i'm not a man.
right. so we're all clear: they admitted to being dumbasses right there, didn't they? the whole gender defined as doing singularly stupid things, by their own definition! well, that's how i'm taking it.
and the news is FABulous, isn't it? nothing like sitting in a hot dark studio, watching the world tear itself to bits. (when we didn't lose the signal, that is) i remember having a conversation a few days after 9/11 with a friend of mine who was originally from India and had grown up in Hell's Kitchen. she had this whole other view of terrorism, Muslims, and especially Israel that I had never really gotten to know in depth before. if you can rate conversations, i think maybe this one was a top-5 in importance in my whole life...which is strange when you figure how completely delirious and shocked we both still were. neither of us could sleep, but we had made plans to start work for the salvation army on 14th street the next morning, so we just hung out and talked until it was time to go. to sum up, in about 5 hours i made the point (pro-Israel in nature) that if we thought we were angry confused, etc. after One terrorist attack, what should that tell us about a country where that was an everyday occurance, where people define themselves not by ethnicity (not all people who lived in "old" Palestine had a problem with sharing it with Jews, as many first-person accounts can attest) or even religion (an actual majority of Muslims don't approve of using violence, especially since Mohammed preached a peaceful way of life) but instead define their whole agenda , and recruit poor, victimized masses, in the name of hating...you. wiping...you...off the face of the earth. so i looked at it as"hey, fuck 'em. they throw rocks, they would use nukes if they had some: they're crazy fuckers. go Israel, go."
she had grown up with a whole other way of thinking, since a lot of foreigners in the u.s. feel that the Americans hate them and lump them together (see: people who can't tell a mullah from a Seik...even though they were at war with each other for centuries, and HATE being confused) she made the point that, basically, when one group of people has all the money, power, weapons, and allies, they can either stand idly by while the worst scum of the earth move into the refugee camps and brainwash the hopeless; or they can help the downtrodden du jour to find better lives. but if they don't help then they lose the ability to blame, because they help created the situation. (and oddly, this is basically the gist of that whole evil-wins-when-good-men-do-nothing part of the judeo/christian ethic, which always seems like the very first thing we wanna forget when it's inconvenient)
in terms of importance, it was definitely the turning point in my life as far as deciding what was i going to personally do with all my anger and sadness at losing so many people and witnessing so much pain. was i going to ignore the causes, and ineffectually place blame on everyone else in the whole world, or was i going to try (even lamely...especially lamely, since that is my forte) to help?
i don't know what she got out of it, but ya know... she did say that she had never thought of it that way before, and we were both pretty amazed to have changed one small portion of each other's minds without once getting angry or upset. it was very cool, and probably my only truly good memory of that time.
i digress. what's interesting to me now is that our discussion of 5 years ago is strikingly similar to the national discussion now. the role of the lebanese in this current sitch is a perfect acid test for what our (i'm sorry to use one of "their" words) "values" really are. they want a democracy. they did not wiat around for one to come to them, they are fighting for it themselves. along comes a warlord, filling the gap in police, schools, and basic infrastructure. he says 'follow me, i know what i'm doing, this rabble of wetsern-wanna-bes can't save you". they have to decide, even while the rest of the world raises the stakes on them by the day. aren't we pro-democracy? don't we love secularism? this IS America, right? why are we bombing the piss out of two countries that were clearly unready for democracy instead of aiding the one that was?
i do agree they have become pawns in the hands of bigger players. unlike the cold war where 2 superpowers engaged in a cnstant game of chicken, this is war-by-proxy, where two fat idealogues use the poor and dispossessed to fight it out in a sneaky, monstrously underhanded little way. once again, i feel sorry for israel for being the usual target, but at the same time enraged with their stupidity at once again accepting the role of mercenaries of the middle east. why can't they see past us? or do they, but feel they have no choice? one thing from that discussion on: i have never had a simple, non-contradictory opinion about israel (or, by extension, us) since then.
so now, i'm just disgusted; but paradoxically hopeful that now that the shifting alliances and motivations for war are becoming so obvious, that people will very soon reach the same decision I did as a dumb, sad kid a few years ago, and then we can start rebuilding. i mean, even the most determined idiot is running out of excuses, soon it will be unavoidable and maybe people will finally put down the credit card (and kool aid) and start thinking again?
it's nice thought, right?
more random good news: today i went to the family clinic in my county to get el cheapo healthcare, and they asked if i'd agree to have a totally free aids test. i was like "Seriously? you're just giving them away now?" I LOVE this. This is the best idea. I agreed to take it, and it was fascinating: you swab your gums with a little swizzle stick, then wait 20 minutes. How cool is that? I'm so excited when the system works. Now they have my name and age and all that, they have the names and ages of all the other girls there (we were all like "hell yeah!") and they have the date. i know that doesn't sound super impressive, but that is the nuts and bolts of how epidemics can/could be tracked and maybe stopped. if (god please forbid) any of us got the disease, they'd already have a database at the county level of who/when/where to narrow potential victims down. every one of us knew someone who'd died of aids in the bad old days, so we were just like "can we send everyone we know?" any guilt i may have felt at first about 'wasting' a test (since i really already knew i'm healthy) were assuaged by the lady administering them, because it is EXACTLY the people who think there's no way THEY could have it who spread it.
so i guess the proper way to celebrate would have been to go out and get some ack-TION, but after this heat...nah. i'm going to sleep. (not big on the guys available around here for any ack-TIOn, either, but you already knew that. the super-macho ex-marine-ex-firefighter-ex-boyfriend from last summer (not the psycho from last christmas...why do i have more than 1 to keep track of? that's nuts!) sent a ridiculously beautiful bouquet to work, with an apology and a letter...but no. i will be strong.
must...resist...boys...
o.m.t.
re: civil war history, this is something i need to knwo more about. i have friends who do reenactments, and even though i mostly make fun of them, i have to admit that their knowledge and, well, scholarship impresses the hell out of me. even my brother has shocked me with his detailed knowledge of certain battles...and he's almost rainman-level on the weapons and boats they used. i've just been avoiding it to be ornery, i guess. i really should start learning. if you have nice, easy recommendations...suitable for a shallow flibbertigibbet (love that word) whose brain is fried? g'head an share. it can't hurt. then maybe when he starts expounding on submarines and cannon balls, i could shock the hell out of him by saying something smart.
shutting up now. bye!
Hey Vic, I’m sorry it took 24 hours to get back to you. The comments system went wonky yesterday.
“Hot” sounds like quite an adventure in your neck of the woods. We did get a blessed dousing last night, thank the Gods, I love the way storms come on here. I completely concur on the “dumbass” assessment. Somewhere my Neolithic brain recognizes “Fire Bad”, I guess theirs aren’t quite as developed.
Re: The conversation. I agree the conversations like that are the most important ones in people lives and it’s great when it doesn’t involve intellectual bloodshed. And I agree with both your stances.
There was a lot of war by proxy in the Middle East during the Cold War too. Afghanistan for example, we funded the Mujahdeen that fought against Soviet occupation. Once the the Soviets were gone, we promptly abandoned them to their fate, allowing the Taliban to rise to power. Then there was Iran and Iraq squaring off for us. My mother made the point that basically, what is happening in the Middle East is basically the last stages of WW-I, only now it’s the tools that have become the users, sorta. Arabs are not being used by the USSR or the US anymore; they’re acting on their own agenda and yet you are right in that these factions are being used to fight out a cultural war between east and west.
It’s a very strange, weird twisted situation. A Gordian knot that Bush has proven cutting through only makes worse.
Tres’ cool on the healthcare. That is how it’s supposed to work. There tends to stretches of time between whom I share my bed with (This last one has been…coming up on 4 years. It’s not usually this long but I just have not been interested. Got burned, bad, and found academia far more satisfying than any relationship I have had so far, so why bother and hey, I think in three more years I qualify for Born-Again-Virgin status *chuckle*) (and you though you were the queen of TMI) but I still get tested every six months to a year, whenever they draw blood. “Oh yeah, can you take a vial for…” Better safe than sorry for me and whomever the next guy maybe.
O.K. we have the jet-setting philanderer, the stalker and now the ex-military macho fireman, do fill me in. :)
Where to start with the Civil War. Wow. Uhm… the big problem is that the American Civil War has been picked apart so thoroughly by historians that it is hard to come up with an all encompassing introductory book. My father is a Civil War Historian (unpublished as of yet, *hint, hint* Dad!) so I grew up with it, just absorbed it by osmosis. Either you have large volumes focusing on one battle or personality, or you have multi-volume works akin to tackling Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (and some even larger) that cover the entire thing. My personal recommendation is to rent the Ken Burns Civil War series (an utterly brilliant documentary) and start with that to introduce you to the major players as well as social and tactical movements of the war.
P.S. You will fall in love with Shelby Foote, irascible, plain speaking, horse-sensed and utterly charming historian. Sadly, the gentleman passed away a couple years ago.
Also the accompanying music is incredible.
Foote points out that much of the American identity as a nation came from that conflict. As he puts it, it shifted from “The United States are..” to “The United States is…” That coupled with the fact that it was a ideological war (whether you believe it was over slavery or states rights…to have slavery, it still came down to ideology rather than territory) and the fact that it was the last gentlemen’s war with last of chivalric feeling, its easy to see why “Late Unpleasantness” still captures so much of the American imagination.
I remember someone showing me a map of the 2004 election, which states went red and which went blue, compared to a map of the Confederacy and Union during the Civil War. Interestingly enough only two states swapped sides (Indiana and Ohio). The slavery issue and states right issues were settled, but there is still a cultural divide at work that goes back at least 140 years. I have to wonder if and/or when these two concepts of America will collide again and if it wouldn’t be possible now to open a dialogue to find some middle ground.
BTW. Fark just held a photoshop contest for Guilliani’s presidential campaign. Thought you might find it amusing. http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2169125
Hope things are cooler on your end!
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