Tuesday, October 29, 2002
The depressing James Carroll: I know, I know, I know. I swore off writing about James Carroll. But this piece ... this piece is horrible. Starts off strong, with powerful images of innocent people facing death at the hands of vicious captors ... and then the piece veers into a moral-relativist lecture, with these lines the sickening back breaker: “The sniper in Washington, the hostage-takers in Moscow, the widow-bombers, the gas-wielding commandos, and the high-tech wizards of laser bombs above Iraq are all on the same continuum. Defense becomes offense, the protection of your children becomes the murder of another's, his threat becomes your preemption. You kill to stop the killing. Then you wonder, Are you the victim, or the slayer? But you are both.” ... Think about what he said and then read this story about this victim/slayer graduate from Boston English.
