“The parapet, the wire, and the mud,” Tomlinson posited in 1935, are now “permanent features of human existence.” Which is to say that anxiety without end, without purpose, without reward, and without meaning is woven into the fabric of contemporary life. Where we find a “parapet” we find an occasion for anxiety, self-testing, doubts about one’s identity and value, and a fascinated love-loathing of the threatening, alien terrain on the other side.
– Paul Fussell, “The Great War and Modern Memory”
a technology job is no excuse 
It is interesting how what seemed an inevitable and enduring part of the future so quickly became largely an artifact of the past. Even Saddam’s extensive border defenses fell like cardboard as soon as the American forces wanted to get across.
– MJM
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