The Birds Are On Fire

In the last 3 weeks I have read George W's 'Decision Points' then 'A Farewell To Arms' in honor of the passing of our last WWI veteran.

Decision Points was interesting as a post-mortem, explaining many things he did, although never answering my question, of Why The Hell he did not defend his administration, thus allowing the most cruel and vicious attacks on every aspect of himself and his policies to become accepted widom.

I am not sure that American politics and public life will ever really recover from that failure.

Hemingway was well, Hemingwayesque.

I also read, and just finished yesterday, Laura Bush's, 'Spoken From The Heart'.  Reading it so soon after her husband's book allowed me to contrast his memories to hers, for a much more rounded view of events and reactions to them.  She is a better writer than he is.

One small story from the morning of September 11 moved me to the extent that I want to excerpt it here:

"On the morning of 9/11, students at another school, P.S. 234, an elementary school for grades pre-K through fifth, were on their playground four blocks from the Twin towers. They heard the thunderous crash and saw the first plane hit. Other children, already in their classrooms, where windows were open to let in the air on that bright, fresh fall morning, caught sight of the North Tower engulfed in flames.


Within minutes of the attack, many parents had rushed to the school to pick up their children, but as the streets clogged with evacuees and emergency vehicles racing north, 150 students remained behind. The school's principal, Anna Switzer, herded them, their teachers, and a few parents inside. Before the South Tower fell, Switzer and her teachers lined up the students, ages five to eleven, in a single file and told them to hold hands. They stepped out of the building into the ash and smoke. Some looked up and watched as men and women flung themselves from the upper floors of the towers, their bodies passing through the billowing flames.

One child said, “The Birds are on fire.” "

Toward the end of the book, she essentially begins to do little more than to list her husbands initiatives and programs, such as the anti-AIDS and anti-malaria programs for Africa, and to give statistics showing how well they worked.

In all, I recommend both of the Bush's books.

Hemingway is outside my poor power to recommend.  You either will or have read him, or you won't, no matter what I might say.