Armistice Day.

[nwhiker]

Yes, I know it's generic "Veterans Day" in the US. Whatever. It's the day, kinda like Memorial Day, when we go rah ran thank our veterans for protecting our freedumbs, and then the next day, we cut their benefits, refuse to pay them enough to keep them and their families off of welfare, and oh hai, ignore all the ones our lack of strong social safety net has left on the street.

But it's the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice. And Trump refused to participate yesterday because it was raining (I guess his hair truly is cotton candy).

@popehat on twitter posted a bitter take on Trump's being afraid of melting in the rain by tweeting the following (how I wish I could embed tweets!):

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
But it’s kind of drizzly, let’s not go.

I mean, the men that truly defended freedom back during the Great War did so in conditions that were horrid. Trenches. Lice and maggots. Sitting in their own filth. Gas attacks. Etc. They did it. And Trump couldn't be assed to get out of his hotel room because of a bit of fucking rain, and instead stayed there watching Fox News and tweeting vicious nasty things to Californians devastated by hideous forest fires. If there is a hell, I'm sure Trump has a place of honour waiting there for him.


Today, Emmanuel Macron put out a series of tweets that both reminded and warned. That nationalist and patriotism are not the same thing, that the embracing one renders the other meaningless, but it ignores the fundamental values of humanity that we all claim we want our nations to embrace.

World War I was called the War to End All Wars. It didn't, it wasn't, and like each year since Trump's election, I feel more and more like we are meandering our way down a gently sloped path that could lead us some place we don't truly want to go. Values we once held as inviolate are now negotiable, and that is scary. I hope that the latest election results will help us move away from where we were headed. I hope.

Bing today decided to pay homage to the Armistice. I don't know how to do a permalink to their page and download is restricted, so it's a snip.



© Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

'Wave' part of 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red,' an art installation pictured here at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, English.

And because it's been 100 years since that 11th hour of that 11th day of the 11th month,

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.