PHONING IT IN

It probably looks like I've been doing that for a few days but I can't draw on my usual sources of inspiration because they are unbelievably dismal and depressing. If I wanted that, I could just read the New York Times or Washington Post. When I deliver dire, dismal, depressing stuff, I want to make it up, not quote the news.

I have neglected some of the deeper wells of memory and I can do something about that, tomorrow. Those Civil War letters don't transcribe themselves you know. They take some time to puzzle out because, let's be honest, most of them appear to have been written by candlelight in a tent by a young man who was too young for the Army and learning things at an almost impossible rate by the standards of today and also making up the English language, spelling and grammar the way this administration's spokesmen do.

When I read the early letters sent home after the Regiment was formed and ordered to service and sent to undergo training, it is easy to see the partially lettered youngster who is coming to grips with the school of hard knocks. Thanks to a commenter here I see that young Luther enjoyed the aid of his commander who knew the young man was not of age but who would not/could not send the young man back to his angry father.

They knew each other. They all knew each other. They were not like a modern military formation thrown together by chance and circumstance. They dashed to the colors and joined immediately after the opening shots of the Civil War and then they went on to serve together for much of the rest of the conflict until, as it happened, the war in their sector petered out and left them with not much to do and a government unwilling and unable to pay them to do nothing. They mustered out, took their pay and went home to get on with the lives they had, for the most part, voluntarily interrupted in order to serve their country.

I live much closer to my family's roots then I have for almost 50 years. They were scattered around Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana long ago. They lived in places with names like Liberty and New Philadelphia.

It's a little odd living here in MetroParkCentralis these days. The Republican National Convention will be held here in July and I'm not sure what to expect. The civil society that I remember as a young man was never anything but a complete myth. I was 7 when the SDS decided to show the Democrats their outrage and while I think those guys are 10 x the men that the modern pajama outrage boy are, I don't discount your actual anarchists and haters who I expect will come out in droves to tie up the city.

It does make you wonder though at how prescient the GOP was to choose this city and these cops to provide a backdrop for their convention. There may well be a shortage of money, equipment, ethics and morality in that cop shop, but there is no shortage of unrestrained, unpunished, untapped police brutality, ammunition and sheer animus for blacks. If there is any city on this continent that won't hesitate to up the brutality against demonstrators and take a bulldozer to the party, it is MetroParkCentralis.

OK, so those images won't play nicely in the deep blue but, sadly, for the rest of the country, it will be like night and day. The people who want Trump are kind of tired of being hijacked by the 11%. They'll enjoy watching the enemies of civilization meet the Hussar.