Written with a clear bias, which given the extent of atrocity and human rights violations that occurred, is not exactly unforeseen. It is a truly robotic person who isn't the slightest bit disgusted by reading Turse's recitation of what happened at My Lai, (one of the most well-known operations of the Vietnam War) or really, any tiny hamlet US troops were told to "search-and-destroy". All that death and destruction rained down on an undeserving people, culminating in a ultimately failed venture of "democracy".

"The United States never wanted to admit that the conflict might be a true "people's war," and that Vietnamese were bound to the revolution because they saw it as a fight for their families, their land, and their country."

I was constantly moved to put this down, disturbed yet unsurprised by the machinations of my government. They used racism and general xenophobia as a way to make a proving ground for new US military technologies, all while pretending to fight the good fight against communism. This conflict ruined the lives of the (young, so incredibly young) soldiers they brainwashed to this nightmare and the thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese civilians who had the audacity to exist where the US wanted to firebomb/bulldoze/defoliate. None of this is news, really, but I can see echoes of it in the way OEF and OIF is presented by our media; Turse makes oblique reference to it in the very end: "Never having come to grips with what our country actually did during the war, we see its ghost arise anew with each successive military intervention. Was Iraq the new Vietnam?"

This book was an experience I wish had never happened. As Sherman once said, "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." But it did happen and we should at least do the victims of this cruelty the favor of remembering it fully, without mitigation.

4.5 stars.

"And if there's one thing you need to know and understand about the Empire it is that it will take whatever it wants, whenever it wants. The Empire will take everything you care about, everything and everyone you love, if you let them."

Review to come.

"We tell ourselves that racism is about moral values, when instead it is about the survival strategy of systemic power."

On class, intersectionality, the fatigue that comes with always being the one to explain, interject, protest. It's important to write about and it's important for me to acknowledge and internalize, so that I can be better about calling other white people on their racism, so that I don't immediately fall into knee-jerk reactionary mode regarding White Feminism. Basically: think more, listen more, do more.

A cute story based on real events. The authors take pains to foster the idea that diversity in family structure makes no difference as long as there is love abound.

"We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness."

Review to come.

Chosen for my read around the world challenge, this time in Mexico.

This is a story told from the perspective of Tochtli, a boy with a unique point of view - his father Yolcaut is a powerful figure in the cartel business with plans to make it to the tippy-top of the organization through any means necessary. It is a cartel, after all. Throughout the majority of this book, Tochtli is preoccupied with obtaining a Liberian pygmy hippo, all while plunking down insidiously creepy or odd facts about his life in the palace that he's very rarely allowed to leave.

The childlike phrasing and the use of vocabulary words, is incredibly creepy, considering all the goings-on (i.e. "One of the things I've learned from Yolcaut is that sometimes people don't turn into corpses with just one bullet.") See again: cartel.

There's a lot of commentary about machismo from Tochtli's point-of-view, which is informed by what his father says and does:

And: "The other day a man I didn't know came to our palace and Yolcaut wanted to know if I was macho or not. The man's face was covered in blood and, the truth is, I was a bit scared when I saw him. But I didn't say anything, because being macho means you're not scared and if you are scared you're a faggot.

This was a quick, interesting read but I wish that I had chosen something else for Mexico - what most non-Latinx Americans (aka me) know about the country is horror stories about violence and cartels, driven by the bombastic media and overall racist reporting. I suppose I wanted to learn something else, too.

"Did you never kill with your own hands?"
"It's possible I did," Girumuhatse said. "Because if I didn't they'd have killed my wife."
"Possible?" I said. "Or true?"
Bosco, the translator, said, "You know what he means," and didn't translate the question.

I'm not sure I learned a whole lot about Rwanda, so much as I did about about the politics that surround what it means to be Rwandan at the end of the twentieth century, specifically from the viewpoint of a white journalist.

UNTITLED BIRTHDAY LAMENT, CIRCA 1927

Time doth flit.
Oh, shit!

I have always loved any Dorothy Parker that I have come across in anthologies, but I have never taken the time to search her out specifically until recently. The editor of this collection is similarly enamored, which made for a delightful introduction of Parker's life and background.

She seemed to take pleasure in writing about the opposite sex, generally characterizing males as a bunch of pesky, untrustworthy creatures put on earth to bring disorder into the lives of women. Her other favorite subject was death: wishing for it, obsessing about it, hurrying along its appearance.

#relatable

This book contains three parts - the original portable that was arranged by Mrs. Parker herself, a selection of other writings presumably chosen by Meade and then finally a sampler that pulls several magazine articles as well as letters to friends and other authors that have been made public. Voyeur that I am, I absolutely love reading famous people's private letters.

Dorothy Parker was a complicated woman, both self-deprecating and proud, who lived perhaps longer than she would have liked. There was never a part of this collection that I skimmed or set down for something else; it's a wonderful example of why she appeals to so many people.

Catullus 97
Really, I shouldn't have thought that it made any difference
   whether Aemilius opened his mouth or his
   asshole:
one wouldn't expect to find elegance wafting from either.
   However, his asshole does show greater
   refinement,
since it has no teeth.

Gaius Valerius Catullus, a man himself of great refinement and taste.

"Would it surprise you if I left?" she asked at last.
"I suppose it would if you just disappeared. I'm sure I'd worry."
"But you wouldn't come looking for me?"
Yoshiki thought for a moment. "Probably not," he said, putting the headphones back over his ears to show that the conversation was over.

Ennui and finding your purpose as corpse disposal: a novel.