Wonderful post, Jonna! I agree. Most billionaires seem disconnected from anything close to empathy or reality. The sight of the tech billionaires at Trump's inauguration was a reminder of his only priority. I respect Bill Gates for giving away his wealth and Warren Buffet for his comments about the need for the wealthy to pay taxes. I'm a novelist and have written books set in WWI and WWII: the death toll was appalling in both as well as the sheer destruction. But madness is the word for trench warfare, for the alliances that formed on either side, for shooting your own men who froze scrambling up the trench walls, and the inability to stop the killing. Madness is the only word to describe normalizing the slaughter of the Jews, Communists, and anyone else caught up by the Nazis in their death camps. Germans living near the camps couldn't avoid smelling the horrible stench of the crematoriums--yet somehow wanted the world to believe they didn't know what was happening. Madness is certainly the word for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; our veterans are still suffering even as Musk's Doge fires workers at the V. A.
Keep writing! You have a fresh voice and have me adding books to my reading list.
I can't wait to meet you this fall at the annual RSMA in Cedar Falls. I'm one of Barbara L's friends. My book club is reading your novel about Frances Perkins this month. I'm just wrapping up my own novel, The Recollection, set in 1933, when banks were folding and one in ten farms changed hands in Iowa. I'm a huge fan of the CCC and what it accomplished as well as FDR's 'tree army.' Not only did they employ young men and build things, they engaged artists in creating murals and other works of art. They also hired photographers to document what was going on in the country. (The Waterloo Public Library has several murals that date to this period. I hope you've seen them.)
Cherie! I'm so sorry I missed this post initially - we were in the midst of high school graduation celebrations for my son and apparently I just didn't see this come in. Thank you so much for your comments - I look forward to meeting you as well! I will look for your work and look forward to reading _The Recollection_. I'd be glad to come talk with your book club if that would be of interest - I spoke with one other club that had read the book, and it was such a lovely discussion - so different from doing a reading for those who haven't read it yet (though of course that is always fun as well).
Historian Ferdinand Foch, the French Marshal who commanded Allied forces at the end of World War I, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." And Eric Hobsbawm described the two wars as two episodes in a single conflict, 1914 to 1945: a prolonged "Thirty-One Years' War."
Re: money. You think it's weird now? Just wait until we have nothing but cybercurrency.
Of course that was Marechal Foch! I had never heard of him before I studied abroad in Angers, where one of the main street near the chateau was the Boulevard du Marechal Foch (the Europeans are so much better than we are at remembering the Great War; I was glad to buy a poppy to wear in the fall when we were at Kew Gardens). The cybercurrency thing is terrifying. Gil Duran's Nerd Reich newsletter is indispensable right now, about the tech bros and the 'Network state" of unfree company towns they want to create (it's very Octavia Butler/Parable of the Sower). Thank you for the encouragement to write, as always.
Wonderful post, Jonna! I agree. Most billionaires seem disconnected from anything close to empathy or reality. The sight of the tech billionaires at Trump's inauguration was a reminder of his only priority. I respect Bill Gates for giving away his wealth and Warren Buffet for his comments about the need for the wealthy to pay taxes. I'm a novelist and have written books set in WWI and WWII: the death toll was appalling in both as well as the sheer destruction. But madness is the word for trench warfare, for the alliances that formed on either side, for shooting your own men who froze scrambling up the trench walls, and the inability to stop the killing. Madness is the only word to describe normalizing the slaughter of the Jews, Communists, and anyone else caught up by the Nazis in their death camps. Germans living near the camps couldn't avoid smelling the horrible stench of the crematoriums--yet somehow wanted the world to believe they didn't know what was happening. Madness is certainly the word for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; our veterans are still suffering even as Musk's Doge fires workers at the V. A.
Keep writing! You have a fresh voice and have me adding books to my reading list.
I can't wait to meet you this fall at the annual RSMA in Cedar Falls. I'm one of Barbara L's friends. My book club is reading your novel about Frances Perkins this month. I'm just wrapping up my own novel, The Recollection, set in 1933, when banks were folding and one in ten farms changed hands in Iowa. I'm a huge fan of the CCC and what it accomplished as well as FDR's 'tree army.' Not only did they employ young men and build things, they engaged artists in creating murals and other works of art. They also hired photographers to document what was going on in the country. (The Waterloo Public Library has several murals that date to this period. I hope you've seen them.)
Cherie! I'm so sorry I missed this post initially - we were in the midst of high school graduation celebrations for my son and apparently I just didn't see this come in. Thank you so much for your comments - I look forward to meeting you as well! I will look for your work and look forward to reading _The Recollection_. I'd be glad to come talk with your book club if that would be of interest - I spoke with one other club that had read the book, and it was such a lovely discussion - so different from doing a reading for those who haven't read it yet (though of course that is always fun as well).
Historian Ferdinand Foch, the French Marshal who commanded Allied forces at the end of World War I, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." And Eric Hobsbawm described the two wars as two episodes in a single conflict, 1914 to 1945: a prolonged "Thirty-One Years' War."
Re: money. You think it's weird now? Just wait until we have nothing but cybercurrency.
Please. Write more often.
Of course that was Marechal Foch! I had never heard of him before I studied abroad in Angers, where one of the main street near the chateau was the Boulevard du Marechal Foch (the Europeans are so much better than we are at remembering the Great War; I was glad to buy a poppy to wear in the fall when we were at Kew Gardens). The cybercurrency thing is terrifying. Gil Duran's Nerd Reich newsletter is indispensable right now, about the tech bros and the 'Network state" of unfree company towns they want to create (it's very Octavia Butler/Parable of the Sower). Thank you for the encouragement to write, as always.