Paste has an interesting list of graphic novels this week. These history and alt-history titles look good: Defiance by Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis, The Red Wing by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra.
In loosely related news, the U.S. Army is testing a bionic exoskeleton to help soldiers carry more farther and run at 7 mph for a long stretch. Tests have gone well, and they appear to be close to battlefield exercises. What are they calling it? Human Universal Load Carrier or HULC.
He pitches another rock over the barley stalks.
“Is my work not vital? Of course. That’s not what he rejects. I am. What more could he…? Does he need blood?”
His brother calls from the hilltop. Cain lifts his face to him. “Blood I can get,” he mutters.
“Are you still angry?” Abel asks. “If you do well, he will accept you.”
“I know you’re right,” he replies. And favored. Cain feigns confession and waits for his brother to turn his back. The stone shatters against Abel’s skull. Cain strikes him again as thunder rolls above—what have you done?
To maintain the spirit of the Independence Day holiday, while shrewdly combining it with themes in my Davy Crockett post a couple days back, I thought I’d share a few examples of Crockett’s own prose (or Chilton’s, or Abbott’s). Things that I found amusing or illuminating. Then I’ll draw a vapid conclusion.
From A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee, by David Crockett [and Thomas Chilton]:
“And for the information of young hunters, I will just say, in this place, that whenever a fellow gets bad lost, the way home is just the way he don’t think it is. This rule will hit nine times out of ten.”
“I didn’t think that courage ought to be measured by the beard, for fear a goat would have the preference over a man.”
“We were in a devil of a fix; part of our men on one side of the creek, and part on the other, and the Indians all the time pouring it on us, as hot as fresh mustard to a sore shin.”
“We considered this a good warrant, though it was only in verbal writing.”
“I was determined to stand up to my lick-log, salt or no salt.”
“But I asked a bear no favours, further than civility….”
[Of the political practice of buying drinks for prospective voters:] “…for [politicians] all treat in that country; not to get elected, of course—for that would be against the law; but just, as I before said, to make themselves and their friends feel their keeping a little.”
“I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and one that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgment.”
From David Crockett: His Life and Adventures, by John S. C. Abbott:
“There were some gentlemen that invited me to go to Cambridge, where the big college or university is, where they keep ready-made titles or nick-names to give people. I would not go, for I did not know but they might stick an LL.D. on me before they let me go….”
And finally, a quotation by Abbott himself, which might help to explain why he chose to produce a censored version of Crockett’s own book, though he obviously found the man’s manners and morals unacceptable to the refined mind:
The idea seemed never to have entered his mind that there could be any person superior to David Crockett, or any one so humble that Crockett was entitled to look down upon him with condescension…. And this was not the result of thought, of any political or moral principle. It was a part of his nature, which belonged to him without any volition, like his stature or complexion. This is one of the rarest qualities to be found in any man.
Abbott’s book isn’t worth a lot, but I think there’s some insight there. Crockett was an early example of a kind of American politician which would later be perfected in another son of frontiersmen, Abraham Lincoln. A new thing was happening in America, something never before seen in the world, and I think it’s appropriate to celebrate David Crockett as a political, as well as a geographical, pioneer.
For Independence Day, this rather silly vignette, loosely based, not on an actual event, but on something Benjamin Franklin once proposed in jest. From the film version of “1776,” featuring Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson, Howard Da Silva as Franklin, and the great William Daniels as John Adams.
A happy Fourth to you all!
The Wordsmith’s Word of the Day is focusing on words with meanings that contradict, such as today’s word, ravel, which can mean to entangle and untangle. For example: “Colin Innes, from the Department of Public Works, says the roads tend to get worse in the spring. ‘In the spring here we’ve seen all kinds of failures related to frost boils and things raveling apart and potholes.'”
Alexis Grant, a journalist working on a travel memoir on the side, has a good list on why a writer should keep a day job.
“When I got there, it was to the utter astonishment of my wife; for she supposed I was dead. My neighbours who had started with me had returned and took my horse home, which they had found with theirs; and they reported that they had seen men who had helped to bury me; and who saw me draw my last breath. I know’d this was a whapper of a lie, as soon as I heard it.”
This Mark Twain-esque passage comes from A Narrative Of the Life of David Crockett, Of the State Of Tennessee. It purports to be the autobiography of Congressman Crockett. Historians are divided as to the extent of the truth of that claim. It’s now known that he collaborated with a fellow congressman and Baptist minister, Thomas Chilton, to produce the book. No one knows how much Crockett actually contributed (writing was a hard job for him, he himself admitted). Still, for this reader, the narrator’s voice is unmistakable, and I thought I could tell when an educated hand took over to insert more refined passages.
If Davy Crockett had been born in the 20th Century, he’d have lived in a trailer park. I don’t say that in condescension. He took considerable pride in belonging to the lowest stratum of white society, the movers and fringe population who drifted ahead of the great waves of settlement, living a subsistence life where more Indians than whites dwelt. Until he discovered that his affability and storytelling skills could win him political office, he could boast no distinction at all, aside from being one of Tennessee’s foremost bear hunters. He’d served honorably under Andrew Jackson in the Creek War, but with no great distinction either. He made several efforts to become a man of wealth, but never once achieved any success, except in election. Continue reading Two biographies of Davy Crockett
Sara Zarr, author of How to Save a Life
Sara says she feels that way about adult fiction too and asks why it isn’t frequently criticized for being so dark like YA lit has been for many years. What we need in both book fields, she says, is hope, even if the story is a dark one. “We need context, we need excellence, everywhere. Not just for the young.”
I’d like to direct your attention to a couple of links before I have another say of my own on the issue of homosexual marriage.
First of all, Ed Veith at Cranach links to an article by an Australian sociologist, from The Australian:
Phillips’s use of language implies opponents of gay marriage are likely to be motivated by “old-time religion”, which is by definition “incompatible with modern society”. From this standpoint, criticism or the questioning of the moral status of gay marriage violates the cultural standards of “modern society”. What we have here is the casual affirmation of a double standard: tolerance towards supporters of gay marriage and intolerance directed towards its opponents.
Then, from World Magazine, a report on an effort by military chaplains to get legal protection for their right to believe, and to express their belief, that homosexual behavior is sinful.
And that, I think, goes to the heart of the matter. The true goal of the “gay” movement, I believe, is more than just to end restrictions on homosexuality and homosexual behavior. It is to marginalize, and then criminalize, traditional religious beliefs.
Any religion that holds to the authority of Scripture, whether directly (as in the case of Orthodox Jews) or mediated through the New Testament (as with Christians) is a threat to the spirit of the age. The installation of the “gay” agenda in our laws, and the demand that everyone must respect homosexuality on penalty of law, provides an opportunity to turn matters of faith into matters of statute.
Muslims are a special problem. I’m not sure how Muslims will be handled. The Muslim conundrum (for the Left) may in fact be the only thing to prevent the disasters I see coming.
This is what I see—First, more and more people will lose their jobs on account of their religious beliefs, and they will find they have no recourse to law.
The slogan will be (I’m almost sure it will be worded this way) “There Is No Right To Hate!”
Once that step has been accomplished, the imprisonment and “reeducation” of dissenters will follow, sooner or later. No appeal to constitutional rights can prevail, because “There Is No Right To Hate!”
The church will go underground. Maybe some of us will be able to flee to China, or parts of Africa, where (one hopes) there will by then be some measure of freedom of religion.
I’m not saying true Christianity will disappear. The church will always exist, if only in a persecuted remnant, until the return of the Lord.
Still, I think more and more often of Luke 18:8, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Scientist and author Tali Sharot likes to read books from places she’s familiar with. She likes The Easter Parade by Richard Yates, because it’s placed in New York. In this interview with the Boston Globe, she describes her reading habits. It’s nice to see people dropping books they are no longer interested in.