Brief update

Spent last night listening to some of Mandy Patinkin's falsetto songs with my roommate -- Over the Rainbow, No One Is Alone, something from Les Miserables that I can't remember now ... and we watched a few clips of Abel Glance's Napoleon! We wanted to watch the whole thing, but we assumed since it's a silent film from 1927, it would only be half an hour or so ... in reality, it's 7 hours! I suggested we see if our buddy who's into silent films already owns it on Blu-ray, and if he does, we can set a date to watch it with him.

We also *tried* to watch a documentary on COVID and cruise lines but it wasn't great -- like a half-hearted high school project.

War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

This is a slim little volume written by Chris Hedges, a war journalist who reported on the Dirty War in Argentina, the Yugoslav Wars, and the Gulf Wars (all prior to publishing this book). It's a great little treatise on the way a state builds up its "national myth" in times of war to whip the people into a fervor -- and an examination of how people really act in wartime, with abundant references to Classical poems and literature.

I don't have my typical Good vs. Bad assessment for this book. The entire text was interesting and well-written; I never felt like the author was wasting my time. His writing style was a little flowery for my tastes, but not offensive, and I quickly got used to it.

So without any frills, here's the quotes I highlighted as I was reading!

 

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