In and Out of Links

From the Washington Post - The Truth About Massachusetts.

. I'm sorry, but people who think Massachusetts is a culturally or politically demented place have never been to Massachusetts.

Or at least never spent any length of time here. I know a lot of people with a lot of different political opinions and perspectives, but I don't know any Chomsky-type America haters. (The only exception is the resident Irish leftie down at the local who is prone to rants about the evil that is the United States. Oddly enough this hasn't prevented him from settling here and raising a family - but that's a rant for another time.

My blue-collar hometown of Fall River, Mass., was solidly Democratic, but as conservative in its values as you could imagine -- family, church, neighborhood, hard work and patriotism were the drill.

Mr. Dionne's observations about Fall River could be applied to most of this state. Except perhaps Cambridge. And I'm certainly excluding students, at least those that aren't natives.

Next up, some graffiti from an abandoned fortress in Verdun (as in Verdun, France, site of a major WWI battle):
Austin White ---- Chicago, Ill. ---- 1918
Austin White ---- Chicago, Ill. ---- 1945
This is the last time I want to write my name here.

I came across this tidbit posted on silflay Hraka today, a scant day or two after reading about it in Paul Fussell's Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. The quote stayed with me, probably because my maternal grandfather served in northwest Europe during WWII. I don't know if he left any graffiti there - he never spoke of it much. Except to teach me a rhyme about 'a place in France where the naked ladies dance.'

He was kind of a card like that.