Memorial Day 2018

Congress passed the National Monument of Remembrance Act, dictating that you should pause at 3p.m. to remember the soldiers who have died in combat. The story goes that someone got the idea when some children touring Washington D.C. were asked what Memorial Day is, and one child answered, "That's the day the pool opens." Realizing that people thought of it more as a day of barbecues, blockbuster movie releases and, apparently, pool openings than a day to honor the soldiers who died for our country, Congress decided to pass a law specifically reminding us what the holiday is all about. They chose that time because it's when they felt Americans were most enjoying the freedom provided by those soldiers who died defending our country.

Of course, the law hasn't done all that much to change our behavior. There'll probably be more people eating hotdogs than observing a moment of silence at 3p.m. across the country today, but hey, what's a more American freedom to celebrate than that one?

Explore your wilderness

Curiosity is the elixir of life, not your savior, not your mentor, but it is your friend:

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come. 

Jack Gilbert

2018 Massing of The Colors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA6yIfZhKdc