In Flander's Field the Poppies Blow
Between the Crosses, Row on Row

Yesterday I was talking to Looper and she said she wanted to work for the political future. I said, jokingly, maybe they could fire me out of a cannon at Bush. She said, That's always the question -- if you are going to die is it better to take someone with you, or is it morally wrong... Me: No! I'd never do that! L: Why not? Me: Because it's a moral wrong from which no good could come! L: Well, what about Archduke Ferdinand? Me: Awwk! What good came from that?????????? L: Well, the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire... Me: And destroy the whole world... that's one way to do it...
I was getting more and more agitated. When I think about the 14-18 war it's as an event that is not very far in the past, which affected EVERYTHING that came after it... and not for the good... An entire generation of young men from my country were killed or damaged physically and mentally. After the War to End All Wars there was a brief peace before WWII. I can't even think about it. Awwwk.

In the 1960s, when things were more interesting because there wasn't the relentless homogenization there is now, my parents, because they had unusual tastes and appreciated things that weren't run-of-the-mill, had various strange places they found that were sources of unusual things. One such place my father went to, taking me on occasion, was a place in Philadelphia that stockpiled all kinds of clothing that could be sold to anyone, but was specifically for the wardrobe mistresses of theatres. That man, whose name I can't recall offhand, had been the assistant dresser for the Archduke Ferdinand (I think ir was A.F. and not a different Major Player). We went there because all kinds of riding clothes turned up there, and besides, my father liked places like that. I remember it -- upstairs, cavernous, absolutely jam-packed with piles of things...