This Week’s Posts
From the Archives
Why we should fear University Inc., for the New York Times magazine.
Song of the Week
Book Recommendation
My Best Friend’s Exorcism, Grady Hendrix, 2016
You could be forgiven for thinking that this book was part of the avalanche of 80s-tinged nostalgia porn that came in the wake of Stranger Things, but in fact My Best Friend’s Exorcism was published a couple months before the show was released. This book is fun, sprightly, and unexpectedly bittersweet, a shot of creepy moods against a Day-Glo background. The friendship at the heart of the narrative is essential to what the book is attempting, and thank goodness it’s well-drawn and very believable. A great brief Halloween read to bang out in a weekend.
NFL Picks of the Week
Let’s see if we can keep this streak going. Watching the Chiefs-Buccaneers game last week, you could come away thinking that the Bucs will be stinging and due for a big win. Or you could come away thinking that Tom Brady’s looking diminished, the offensive line is in disarray, and their defense doesn’t really pop anywhere. So I’m taking the Atlanta Falcons +10 in Tampa. That’s just a big number and good value, though I like the Bucs to win. 5-0 baby!
Season record: 5-0-0
Comment of the Week
This is beautifully written, and you make some good points, but I feel like I can only half agree with you here. I do the Christianity stuff because I believe it to be true, and the Apostle Paul’s on your side (“If there is no resurrection of the dead, we are of all men the most to be pitied,” etc.)…but at the same time, it seems like there’s something entirely reasonable about saying, “I don’t believe God is real, but I *do* believe evolution has left me with a need for supernatural belief, and I have to satisfy that need however I can.” In that sense, practicing religion is no different from eating Splenda or whatever (“Evolution gave me a sugar craving, but the modern world has made sugar more dangerous than helpful, so I’m fulfilling the craving the safest way I know”).
It’s true that, if there’s nothing beyond the grave, religion is ultimately pointless, but then…so is everything. We’re all just here playing a game that everyone, eventually, loses. - Luke T. Harrington
That’s it. Domani.
Digest, 10/9/2022: Don't Worry
BACKDOOR COVER BABY
So a kid gets the urge to go on an adventure and voluntarily joins the army during Vietnam, requesting to go infantry.
He goes through training and ends up in the rice fields almost before he knows what’s up. He patrols for a couple of months, gets into a couple of firefights, takes some indirect, but nothing too crazy. But soon enough his unit gets airdropped deep into Vietcong territory and is ordered to take a hill that’s crawling with black pajama wearing guerrillas.
It’s the worst day of his life. He humps his gear uphill in the steamy heat, diving face first into the brush every time the tracers get flung his way. His buddy gets gut shot and bleeds out right in front of him, screaming for his momma. His Lieutenant trips a land mine and loses his legs in a sudden rip. For the first time, this young man actually sights in on a living body mere yards away and opens fire, seeing the bullets impact and staring his victim in the eyes as he dies.
It’s a twelve hour, exhausting, exhilarating, godawful mess of a day. But they win. They take that hill and make it safe for capitalism and democracy.
As they group up on the hill, still glassy-eyed and filthy and breathing heavy from the exertion, the platoon sergeant gathers them up and tells them to prep for extraction, the choppers will be there soon to take them home.
The young man loses it, breaks down crying and screaming- he demands to know, “What was the point of all that, then? Just kill people and kill ourselves to take a random ass hill for an hour? What the fuck, sarge?”
The platoon sergeant hushes him, calms him down, says, “You and me, we’re enlisted, kid. We don’t see the bigger picture, that’s the officers’ job.”
And that phrase catches hold of him, on the flight back to base. The bigger picture. The bigger picture. The bigger picture. Others can see it, but we can’t. We took that hill and got massacred because of the bigger picture.
When his tour is done, the young man applies for OCS and gets his butter bar; he wanted in on the secret that officers knew but Joe didn’t. But he finds that life as a platoon leader is just as crazy and violent and messy and pointless as it was before- they were still zipping around blasting VC, losing men, taking hills for no reason. Being a Lieutenant brought no wisdom. He asks his CO for clarity.
The captain says, “Ah, well. You and me, we’re military men. The strategy and goals of the fighting are crafted by the politicians back home. We just execute policy.”
And so the young man, who is no longer very young, runs out his contract and goes home. There, he runs for Congress. If the politicians could see the bigger picture, he would have to be a politician.
He is a good looking fellow, speaks well, has a certain intelligence and wit, has a glowing military record. He wins the election in a landslide.
But when he gets to Congress and starts coordinating political maneuvers with his new party mates, he finds he is as confused as ever. All the politicians were running around trying to get re-elected, trying to scheme and plan. They have no idea what made some hills in Vietnam valuable and some not, why some soldiers need to get gut shot and others don’t. Frustrated, he brings his concerns to a party leader- a senator of some renown- and asks about the bigger picture.
“Well,” says the senator. “We merely craft laws. The president sets the tone of foreign affairs. Our job is to get our guy into the hot seat and follow his lead. He’s the one who truly sees the bigger picture.”
And so the old man who had once been a young infantryman sets a new goal- the presidency.
He plans it out for ten years. He schmoozes, he crafts bills, he plays politics, he learns the ins and outs of fundraising and political alliances and PR. And at last, he campaigns for the highest office in the land.
He is a veteran congressman with a great record, nobody had any beef with him, and everybody knows he could play ball. He is still intelligent and charismatic, and his military record is of course a plus. He wins the election in a landslide.
When he enters the White House for the first time, he trembles. He was there, at last. This was it. He is going to finally see the bigger picture.
That first briefing crushes his soul. His cabinet babbles on, talking about Latvian trade networks, healthcare costs, a minor crisis in Somalia. It’s all chaos out there. It is all just as crazy and pointless and bizarre and arbitrary as it had been that terrible day in Vietnam.
The President erupts mid-meeting in a desperate fury, cutting off the Secretary of the Interior as she drones on about infrastructure.
”GODDAMN IT, YOU SOULLESS BASTARDS! WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT!? THE BIGGER PICTURE! WHAT’S THE BIGGER PICTURE?”
The room falls silent, in utter shock at his outburst. The emptiness after the screaming hangs heavy.
Finally, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff raises one hesitant finger as though to ask permission to speak, and asks, “Mr. President, are you telling me that you were on that fucking hill too?”