Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Eighteen

“Depression is melancholy minus its charms.” – Susan Sontag

I like this quote. It reminds me that, once upon a time melancholy was known as “the English disease.” Today, of course, the English disease is soccer.

Melancholy, the blues, whatever you call it, is a condition of human life. Some try to deny it, some wallow in it dramatically, wearing it like a badge. There are times in my life when I've dressed in black, thrown myself on fainting couches, and written execrable poetry. Well, maybe not all that. I have written some terrible limericks. Anyway, being down in the dumps isn't the worst thing. It can lead to contemplation, occasional bouts of creativity, and can look rather romantic. Or it's just self-absorption, sobbing, and too much ice cream. Don't worry, you'll get over it.

Depression, on the other hand, is not at all charming. It's not funny, and just saying that you'll get over it doesn't help a bit. It is a serious disorder of the mind and body. It can ruin every aspect of your life, including your health. It's not a mood or a 'tude, it is death in life. Sometimes it is death itself.

You probably already know that. There's a good chance that someone close to you has been through it or is going through it. It may even be you. Sucks, doesn't it? I know, I've been there.

Here's the thing. Help is available. If you're suffering you don't have to take it forever. You're not going to be able to fix it on your own, you're not going to be able to talk yourself out of it, and you're certainly not going to be able to tough it out or endure it forever.

People with asthma don't try to make their own inhalers. People with myopia don't try to grind their own lenses. Then why should someone expect that they can handle this one on their own? If you're depressed, you need professional help.

Who do you call? Depression is a sickness. When you are sick, you call a doctor. Talk to him or her. Describe your symptoms. You're probably feeling physical symptoms along with the emotional symptoms. It's all part of the illness. Ask your doctor for help. You may get a referral to see someone who can help you work your way through it. You may get a prescription for medicine. You may get both. Either way, you'll probably feel a little better after seeing the doctor because you know you've begun to do something important. The way back can be difficult, but it's a lot better than where you are.

Here's a handy little guide from the Mayo Clinic. It includes some good ideas about preparing to see your doctor.  Check out the symptoms section.  You might see something that looks familiar.

If you're just feeling blue, write me a poem or something.  If you're a hot, mopey goth chick, give me a call.  But if you've got this terrible condition, you can do something about it.  You can get help.

Tractor Beams!

New Scientist says we've got tractor beams!  Take that Jonathan Archer and your wimpy grappler.  Oh, wait, it's just a repulsor.  Tony Stark's had one of those for years.  Still, pretty cool.

Song Silenced

The school board of Franklin Township, Indiana, has pulled Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon from their school and out of students hands. The book had been assigned to about 50 11th grade students in advanced placement English classes. Acting quickly to protect the college-bound students from the National Book Critic's Circle Award winning novel, the youths were ordered to stop reading the text and return the book to the school where it could be locked up immediately. School board member, noted literary critic, and protector of public morals Scott Veerkamp, said that he “was about as appalled as I've ever been in my life. I wouldn't want to expose my children to that garbage.” He went on to report that he “couldn't even sleep last night when I read some of the excerpts.”

Indeed, great literature can be powerful stuff. Especially great literature that deals with adult themes and uses adult language. As we all know, most 11th graders have never thought of, been exposed to, or discussed such things before. To suddenly encounter them in the form of a book can be far too much for them to bear.

Seriously, these are students who will likely be heading off to college in a couple of years. In college they are going to be reading things that are sometimes challenging. Isn't it the job of a school to prepare kids for their future and not to keep them in an intellectually sanitized bubble?

Therefore, I now declare Franklin Township, Indiana, to be Maniacal Hooting's official Most Embarrassing Place in America ™ (outside of Arizona).

Civil War

It rested there, taunting me. Looking down at me, mocking my ignorance, intimidating me with its heft and reputation. I'd sit down on the couch with some silly little book, a bit of literary fluff, and there it would be, too proud even to smirk. Shelby Foote's The Civil War, a Narrative. Three volumes of it. Almost 3,000 pages. Big, heavy books. This wasn't a quick read, this was a commitment.

I'm not a complete idiot. I knew something of that war. I knew when it was fought, where (generally), why (mostly), and how (a little). I knew something about the major players. I'd read this and that. I've watched the Ken Burns documentary. But even as I watched and listened to Foote himself fill in a detail here and add an impression there, I knew I wasn't getting it. I knew there was so much more to understand than could possibly be covered in a few hours of TV and a patchwork education. What I needed was a complete picture, an overview of the war from start to finish.

There it was, as I said. My Best Beloved's thrice-read copies (yeah, she's like that – turbo history buff). As I've written before (somewhere I'm sure), one of the reason I read is to reduce my huge store of ignorance. It seems I have a never ending supply of the stuff. So I picked up the first volume, determined to plow right through to the end.

I couldn't do it, actually. As good as it was, and it was very good, I needed to take a break from war from time to time, so between volumes I took little excursions. I read about religion, romance, and the British. And then I went back to the war.

One thing I knew. The Civil War was the most transformative event in our country's history. The big, obvious things were settled; whether or not we would be a house divided, whether or not we would be a nation of freedom or slavery. It also changed the very definition of our country, the very way that we saw our nation. It changed the United States from a plural to a singular. Before 1861 most people would say “The United States are . . .” From 1865 on we say “The United States is . . .” In trying to split us apart the south inadvertently stitched us together tighter than before. As Foote points out in his third volume, once these Americans who previously had never been but a few miles from where they were born walked, fought, bled, died, suffered, and grieved all over their country it became something it had never really been before. Their country. E pluribus unum indeed.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I started reading Foote because I wanted to get a good overview of the whole war. I got that. But I also learned how really huge this topic is. Even Foote couldn't capture it all. He missed bits and pieces. One of my favorite people, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of Maine, is only briefly mentioned. The horror of Andersonville isn't covered except to say that the war crimes trial of it's commander was unfair. And the more I read the more I realized that no matter how big, no matter how many volumes, no one writer can ever describe the whole of the war. It is just too huge a story.

So Foote's Civil War isn't the place to end your studies. It is the place to begin. It is, as the title says, a narrative history. For all its heft it isn't a dry, scholarly tome. It is a story. A huge, amazing, fascinating, complex, and vitally important story, and Mr Foote took it upon himself the daunting task of telling it. He tells it very well. He was not, when he began this project, an historian. He was a novelist. He approached his history in that way, with a novelist's sense of character, place, plot, pacing, and story. The reader gets a strong sense of the people, mostly of the leaders but peppered with insight into the lives of lower ranking soldiers. The horror of some of the individual battles is shown clearly. Foote's language is poetic when there is call to be poetic, stark when that is called for, and always insightful and informative.

I saw for the first time how battles in far-flung theaters of war affected feelings and strategy across the country. I've always been more aware of the fighting in the east, such as in Gettysburg and Georgia, but now I see the importance of the whole war, including riverboats on the Mississippi, the blunders on the Red River, and fighting ships off the coast of France.

Unlike some readers I tend to view this as a battle of good versus evil. For the north it was a war to make sure that a “government conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” should “not perish from the earth.” For the south it was about preserving a way of life predicated on the right of some people to own other people. While reading I would cheer northern victories and was saddened by their losses. As a good historian Foote took a more evenhanded approach, not going out of his way to condemn but not shying from making moral judgments when they were called for. I was unaware of but unsurprised by the savagery with which Confederate soldiers dealt with black men wearing blue uniforms. I was also unaware of and was surprised by the heartless way U.S. Grant treated his own wounded men, letting them suffer and die on the field rather than allowing a ceasefire to rescue them.

Insights into the leaders of the war is one of the special gifts of these books. The strengths and flaws of Jefferson Davis, contrasted with those of Abraham Lincoln, the single-mindedness of Grant, the manias of Stonewall Jackson, the remarkable and occasionally brutal leadership of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and the tremendous energy and loyalty of Sherman are some of the profiles Foote presents. I don't think anyone will ever understand the incredibly deep and complex mind of Lincoln, but I have come a step closer after reading this.

And I've come a step closer to reducing my store of Civil War ignorance. Unfortunately (or fortunately, since I rather enjoy learning things), I've discovered that even with this huge overview stuffed into my head, my supply of ignorance is greater than I had imagined.

I May Never Eat Pastrami Again

Here's a fashion trend I never understood – butt print pants. Why someone would go around with “juicy” or “dance” or a school's name printed across their bottoms I do not know. I hadn't really thought about it until this afternoon. I was walking along the sidewalk. In front of me, facing away, was an elderly woman. She looked to be in her eighties. She was taking tiny little steps with the help of her gray metal cane. As I got closer I noticed the writing. They were sparkly gold letters on the tan sweatpants. “Mike's,” it said on one octogenarian buttock, “Deli,” it said on the other.

There are some things that I am not meant to understand.

Well Done, Mr Nimoy

After six decades, Leonard Nimoy has decided to retire from the acting profession. He will be officially finished after today's final trip to Vulcan (really, that's where he is today). A veteran of stage (my parents once saw him as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof) and screen (big and small), he did voice-overs, directed, wrote, and, of course, sang. I will miss seeing him work, but if he feels it's time to rest, you can't say he hasn't earned it. Of Mr Nimoy I will say this – I am, and always will be, his fan.

Earth Day: The Struggle For Survival

Today is Earth Day, a day that we have set aside to be mindful of mankind's first enemy, the Earth. Yes the Earth, our home and birthplace, has been trying to kill us for uncounted centuries. Millennia ago we were just another of her species, struggling day to day in the ongoing battle for survival. It's a game she forces creatures to play for her own perverse amusement, pitting beast against beast, creature against climate and catastrophe. One day a small band of humans rose above the fray and beat a small patch of the Earth into submission. Agriculture was born. The dangers of hunting and gathering were put behind us as ranching and farming were embraced. The Earth was tamed. She has never forgiven us.

In time we began to beat more of the Earth into submission. We gathered together in settlements to keep the powers of the Earth at bay. We called them cities, and from this was civilization born. Civilization has been our bulwark against wildness.

While we have advanced, the enemy has not sat still. She continues to be a threat. Hurricanes ravage our coasts. Earthquakes crush our cities and kill our people. Mother nature's hit squads, the beasts of the land and sea, threaten to tear us apart. If it's not sharks it's bears, if not bears it's whales. And if it's not whales, it's microbes. Lately our homicidal mother has been using a giant volcano. What's next, drought? Locust? Killer penguins?

The history of civilization is the history of our war against nature. Some of us seem to have forgotten that. But I say that today, this Earth Day, we should stand up as one and shout no! We will not go quietly into that dark night. We will light it up with electricity and coal fires. We will pave over the Earth and build walls to keep it out. We will cut down trees, eat beasts, and burn what we don't use. Then, one day, as we board spaceships to take us away from the lifeless cinder called Earth, we will remember this day. It will no longer be called Earth Day. It will be our new Independence Day. These future Earth-free men and women will remember us as the fly away. Then they'll nuke the Earth from obit. It's the only way to be safe.

Trekkie Quiz Thingie

I first saw this over at Electronic Cerebrectomy. Thought I'd throw in my two credits.

1. What is your favorite Star Trek movie? (not including STXI)?
Galaxy Quest. I kid, I kid. Star Trek IV was the most fun (“There be whales here”) and II was probably the best movie (Kaaahhhnnn!), but I have a great affection for VI. It seemed a graceful ending to the story.

2. What is your favorite scene in STXI?
Criminy, I don't know. I like the bit where Kirk asks who that “pointy-eared bastard” is and McCoy says that he doesn't know “but I like him.” Or maybe when Scotty asks if they have sandwiches in the future.

3. When was your first introduction to the Star Trek franchise?
I have no idea. I was a child and it was in syndication, five shows a week. Loved it, of course.

4. Is there anything Star Trek around the room in which you're currently sitting?
A model of the Enterprise-D that my brother carved from wood. A witty whittler, my brother. There's a couple of pins in a drawer behind me. That's about it.

5. Vulcan ears are: A) cute, B) sexy, C) neither, D) both.
It depends on who's wearing them. The answer can be either C or D.

6. If you could be any other species than human in the Star Trek universe, you would be:
Vulcan would be a . . . logical choice, but I think I'd rather be Organian. It's one of the few near omnipotent species that didn't become total jerks (like the Q) or smarmy twerps (like the Metrons).

7. Which pet would you rather have: a sehlat or a tribble?
At first I thought tribble, because my small apartment would be a problem for a rambunctious critter like a sehlat, but then I realized that a tribble would become many tribbles and I'd soon have more tribbles than I could handle. But wait! In the animated series Cyrano Jones returned with genetically engineered tribbles that didn't reproduce. Once Doctor McCoy perfected the process by adding a shot of neoethylene the safe tribble was invented. The odd pink color seems a bit strange, but I think I could manage. So, tribble it is.

8.Who might you cast in the role of reboot Nurse Chapel? Khan? Other reboot character?
For Chapel I would go with whoever J.J. Abrams is married to. Kahn would be either Joe Piscapo or Carrot Top. We could get Wil Wheaton to play Harry Mudd. Really, I've got nothing here. Wait a minute, that last one might actually be a good idea.

9. Kirk and Spock are:
Mythic characters.

10. If you could give any Star Trek character a chance to be captain of the Enterprise, who would it be?
Mr. Leslie. He's the man.

BONUS. Think fast! Give one Star Trek quote from memory.
“Brain and brain! What is brain?”

From Out of the West . . .

I've decided that if I couldn't live in New England I would choose to move to Portland, Oregon. Why? Here is the cover of the latest issue of the Portland Mercury.

Yes, it is Betty White in a metal bikini, wielding a flaming chainsaw, and riding a John Ritter centaur with an erupting volcano in the background. The Mercury asked it's readers what they would like to see on the cover and then had an artist realize their wish. I tip my hat to you Portland. That's a fine bit of weirdness.

Alot of Monsters

I don't remember where I first saw someone linking to this wonderful post about the dreaded alot, but by now a lot of people have been talking about it. I don't know too much about this creature, but I do know that the local newspaper in the town I grew up in reported on the alot a lot.

Spring Cleaning

I just got a bit bored with the way things look around here, so I updated the layout of the old blog. Hope you don't mind. I think I like it.

Blogging While Sleepy

I think there are a couple of typos in last night's post. Serves me right. I fell asleep twice while I was writing it. Just passed right out sitting here at the desk.

I've got to get up three hours earlier than usual tomorrow for work. Not my idea of fun. Anyway, I just thought I'd give you that little window into my world, working silly hours and going nose first into the keyboard. Life is good, no?

You Wouldn't Happen to Have $3.3 Million You Could Spare?

Times are tough, municipal budgets are shrinking, and our wonderful Boston Public Library is in trouble. With a budget shortfall of $3.3 million, the trustees have decided to lay off a bunch of people and to close three branches.

It's times like this that I miss Billy Bulger. As President of the Senate in the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Bulger kept things running the way he wanted them run. If a political operative's brother-in-law needed a cushy job, it was done. The construction project somehow gets awarded to one of his old neighborhood guys. It was old fashioned Boston politics, and he was the master. What the President wanted, the President pretty much got.

And one thing the President wanted was a world class library. In Bulger's day the BPL always got the funding it needed. Say what you will about him, the man believed that literacy and education was an essential public good.

Billy Bulger left politics about a decade and a half ago. When he stepped down I knew that this day would come. Sooner or later we'd feel a pinch, politicians would see the library budget as a source of money, and there would be no one to stand in the way.

The good old days, the era when marginally corrupt politicians would take care of us, is over. Today we need someone else to take care of us. This column in the Globe says that we now need the private sector to come to the rescue. True enough.

While I'm not sure how many billionaire philanthropists or institutional donors read the Globe these days, I'm fairly certain that this blog is tremendously popular among incredibly wealthy people. Therefore, as a public service, I would now like to make the following plea:

Hello there rich people and people responsible for giving away large piles of money. If you're planning on giving away some money today, why not give it to the Boston Public Library? It is a very nice library. It is a clean, well lighted place. Well, pretty clean. Some of the old carpeting is a bit troubling, but other than that it is lovely. If you choose to preserve the library in our town I'm sure it will be of some benefit to you. Think of the good press. I'll be the trustees would be willing to sell naming rights. Imagine your name over the door at one of the beloved neighborhood branches. You can't buy that sort of good will. Or can you? Yes, you can.

So Mr Rich Person. Now is your chance to be a major patron of the arts, literature, and education in our fair city. It would be a very good thing to do, and I'm betting that having a library named after you would be a major chick magnet. Just something to think about.

Surrender

One hundred and forty five years ago today Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to U.S. Grant at a place called Appomattox Court House. Lee, as you may know, was the military leader of a rebellion against the United States. He believed that people of European descent should be permitted to own people of African descent and do with them as they would. He himself owned some people. There is evidence that he once had some of his people whipped and brined. When the war began he was in the army. He had a choice. He could remember his oath to “bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States of America, and the orders of the officers appointed over me,” or he could abjure this oath and commit treason. He chose the latter course. He used his considerable skills to great advantage for the rebellion. Usually outnumbered, outgunned, and under-supplied, his brilliant leadership earned him the nickname “Mars' Robert,” and considerably lengthened a war which eventually took approximately 625,000 American lives.

Contrary to some expectations, he was not imprisoned for his role in the rebellion. He later served as president of a university that was eventually renamed in his honor. Today many Americans hold him in high regard as a great leader and moral exemplar.

Others remember him as a slaver, a traitor, and a man willing to kill thousands of people for one of the worst causes imaginable.

Ether

I just read in The American Literary Blog that 163 years ago yesterday Henry Wadsworth Longfellow went to the dentist. An amazing coincidence, as I am about to leave for another dental appointment. I believe I shall also ask for the ether. Sounds pleasant.