NYT: On the Mall, 2 Events Speak Volumes (Antiwar march & book fair)

[kskiska]

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

It was a collision of cultures made for a novel by Tom Wolfe, who as it happened was there. On Saturday, if you got out of the Washington Metro at the Smithsonian stop, cheery volunteers pointed the crowd in opposite directions. "The book festival is to your left and the march is to your right," the volunteers chanted.

A few steps away, people in green T-shirts gave out programs for the fifth National Book Festival on the Mall, sponsored by the Library of Congress and "hosted by First Lady Laura Bush," as the program's cover proudly said. People in black T-shirts, meanwhile, handed out schedules for the antiwar march of tens of thousands of people around the White House, which took place simultaneously just streets away.

(snip)

Still, there was no escaping the reality that Iraq intruded on Mrs. Bush's admired book festival this year in ways that were not just geographic.

A handful of the 80 authors, poets and illustrators invited to participate in the festival's events declined a breakfast with Mrs. Bush at the White House and a dinner with her at the Library of Congress, saying they were too opposed to her husband to go.

(snip)

"The way I've dealt with this is just to fly down and do the reading, and fly out," said E. L. Doctorow, the author of "Ragtime" and more recently "The March," who was heckled when he made anti-Bush remarks in a commencement address at Hofstra University last year. "I don't see any point in making a big fuss about it. I just said, 'No, thank you.' "

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/politics/26letter.html

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. I saw part of the book fair on C-Span

concerning authors who had written history books and they both were saying that Americans really need to know their history during these times. I thought yeah, no kidding, since Americans historically have not known their history very well, and the conservatives are trying to overthrow the government by promoting a revisionist history to the public, that would be a really good idea.

However, I doubt many Americans would actually devote any time to such studies.

[stillcool]

4. i have to agree with you....

as i am fairly ignorant about the history of my own country, and when it comes to other countries....it's blatant. While i have been trying to educate myself...it's not easy choosing material to read...i check out the non-fiction forum here for pointers and have not been diappointed.

[electricray]

6. I recommend "A People's History" by Howard Zinn

So far it is a wonderful read and offers insight that I never got in standard history courses.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

7. I don't know if this will help you, but one of the things that

started my interest in history, which I hated in H.S. and would do only the minimum required to get by, was a book I read in my early 20's. During that time I was still reading a lot of literature and happened to pic up a book called "War and Remembrance" by Herman Wouk. It is a fictional story about a military family in WWII. The main characters are a father and son, both in the Navy, in the pacific theater. The format of the book is that it tells two or three chapters of the story and then interlaces it with a chapter of the historical events that were transpiring at the time.

Unfortunately, primarily because public schools do such a poor job of teaching history, it was the first time that I made the connection between historical events having a real impact on real peoples lives as opposed to the format of schools where you just memorize names and dates and never get any of the context of which these events occur in.

Since then I have been an avid reader of history as it goes to explain so much of why the world around me works the way it does today. It is true that history repeats itself and right now we are repeating some really bad parts.

Hope this helps.

FFC

[expatriot]

2. man that is a pullitzer prize winning opening line....

"It was a collision of cultures made for a novel by Tom Wolfe, who as it happened was there."

Do they give Pullitzers for opening lines? You think they would, it is such an important part of journalism.

[jwirr]

3. Tom Wolfe was there? March or Festival?

[RoyGBiv]

5. Festival, naturally ...

He's a Shrub Man.