THESE DEAD SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN :

Intimations of America's Mortality (James Carroll, July 2, 2002, Boston Globe

[T]o acknowledge that the United States of America has a beginning, and is thus bound by the rules of time, is implicitly to recall that this nation will equally have an end. What the Fourth of July celebrates at bottom is American mortality. Like every birthday celebration, it defies the human temptation to imagine oneself as living forever. There is a time past when we did not exist, and there is a time future when again we will not exist. To remember the one is to anticipate the other. And everything America accomplishes and signifies must be measured, finally, against this radical transience within which it all occurs.

Having eviscerated two of his books--Constantine's Sword and American Requiem--few things have surprised me more than how much I like this column. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 2, 2002 8:56 PM