Today's Civil War

I've recently joined a writer's group. This is a segment from a book that is currently being written by one of the other members, and will probably conflict with many people's political standings and ideology. What do you think?

August 7, 2005

Chapter Seventeen, Toothpicks and Rebel Flags

Guess what! The Civil War is over. As great, as tragic, as marvelous, as wonderful, as memorable as it was: It is over. Let’s move on.

Think about whom you know today that displays a rebel flag; actually, as a rule, you see, as I understand it, the Confederate Battle flag. Where do you see them? What kind of people displays them and where are they displayed?

Yes, I was born in the south and the Confederacy is a part of my heritage. So are typhoid, small pox and racism. Today when you see the rebel flag, it is in many, if not most cases, a symbol of racism.

When this argument first came to light I was somewhat up in arms too, so to speak. I then did what I am asking Americans to do. I gave it some thought. The argument is right on target. The rebel flag when displayed today is done so as a symbol of racism in almost every case. If you think I am wrong, and some of you will, look at the people displaying it. Look where it is displayed. Yes, I know a state or two still has it as part of its official stuff. I hope that too will pass.

I drive a pickup truck, without stickers, I own guns, not in the back window of the pickup and I occasionally use a toothpick in private rather than in public. That is a stereotype, no question about it. Think about it.

What was the Confederacy about? What was the Civil War about? Who knows? Oh my goodness! Almost everybody knows, or thinks he/she knows what the Civil War was about. States’ Rights, right? Slavery, right? Please remember that history can be wrong too. Some history, I suspect, was written from the perspective of the writer and in some cases with more opinion than fact. I grew up believing that the Civil War was about state’s rights. My black friends would tell me in a heartbeat that I was full of crap; the Civil War was about slavery. I don’t know and I am proud to be able to admit that.

I do know: The civil war was a tragic occurrence in our country’s history and it demonstrated a total breakdown in the principles on which this country was founded. It proved that people operate on their beliefs without regard for others and without much thought about rightness or consequences. Seems to me the US has done the same in Iraq.

Things haven’t changed much in those regards. Today, we still see people operating on their beliefs without much thought or regard for others. Albert Switzer supposedly was asked “Doctor what is wrong with men today?” He replied: “Men don’t think”. Amen.

Of course, in those days, the male dogma was used. I would say today that men and women don’t think.

Abraham Lincoln said, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present”. I believe this statement to be as true today as when he said it over a hundred years ago.

We can’t possibly deal with this stormy present until we stop fighting the Civil War. The north won that one; the union was preserved. Get over it.

If you want to fly a flag today other than the Stars and Stripes try one that says, “bush lied and people died”. (I still can’t bring myself to capitalize that word when referring to W, the shrub.)

Elephant Man

"Tis true my form is something odd, But blaming me is blaming God. Could I create myself anew, I would not fail in pleasing you. If I could reach from pole to pole, Or grasp the ocean with a span, I would be measured by the soul, The mind's the standard of the man."

It's About Time We Thinned The Herds.

So I've been sitting back through this whole swine flu thing trying to make a decision. A lot of people were scared, a lot of people who normally seem like very logical people. Yet every news bulletin I heard on the radio made me wonder why it was even worth reporting about.

Honestly, there was a part of me that this was the beginning of a long awaited zombie apocalypse, BUT NO SUCH LUCK. I'll just have to wait to take my turn at anarchy and killing dead things.

But really. After all the rumors and news reports and discussions, all I have to ask is this: what makes this any different from plain old influenze that kill around 36,000 people every year? Don't get me wrong, we have had influenza pandemics in the past that were completely worth worrying about. And a local girl even died from complications of the flu when I was in middle school.

All I have to say is this: if this isn't some sort of goverment conspiracy hiding how horrible and mutating this disease actually is, I will be sorely disappointed.

I leave you with this little tidbit:

"At this moment there are 6,470,818,671 people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to make it through the day. And others are just now facing the truth. Some are evil men at war with good. And some are good, struggling with the evil. 6 billion people in the world. 6 billion souls. And sometimes, all you need is one."

Last Night

"Dude. My shoelaces hurt."

Good Times With Bad Friends

"What the hell are you shaving with, a mouse?"

Borrowed Thought

How do you say f*** you politely?

Concerned Citizens of the World Unite

"I was just reading a news story on a celebrity gossip website about Angelina Jolie's rumored plans to adopt her next baby from India, and when I glanced down at the comments I was expecting to see the usual griping about how her family resembles a traveling circus or SHILOH IS SO CUTE! or YUCK SHE KISSED HER BROTHER WHATEVER. But the very first comment was left by a more profoundly concerned citizen of the world who asked, "WHY IS IT NEVER A MEXICAN??!!"

That comment totally made my day."

--Heather Armstrong

Gen-Y Slackers.

"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die."

--Bill Watterson

Lemony Snicket

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them."

"People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict."

"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things."

"Taking one’s chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck."

"No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read."

"I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies."

"Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too."

"All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk."

"Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily."

"One of the greatest myths in the world - & the phrase 'greatest myths' is just a fancy way of saying 'big fat lies' -- is that troublesome things get less & less troublesome if you do them more & more. People say this myth when they are teaching children to ride bicycles, for instance, as though falling off a bicycle & skinning your knee is less troublesome the fourteenth time you do it than it is the first time. The truth is that troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, & that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent."

"Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women."

"I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms."

"A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead."

"They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so."

"One of the world's most popular entertainments is a deck of cards, which contains thirteen each of four suits, highlighted by kings, queens and jacks, who are possibly the queen's younger, more attractive boyfriends."

"But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible...."

"The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author . . . "

"It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing."

"There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself."

"Sooner or later, everyone's story has an unfortunate event or two...The solution, of course, is to stay as far away from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life."