A New Read

Thanks to a forward from Robin at Dharma Bums, I have a new book in my hands. It's called "The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq" and promises to be a valuable read. I'll be writing about it more once I get into it, but here's a foretaste from the introduction:

"I wrote this book because I want to share a lesson I learned in the desert, in the hope that it it will inform your view of the war in Iraq, of politics, of religion, of all the choices you make as a moral person. I can't bear to hear any more stories about battles and uncompromising heroes, with flags waving gently in the background. I want this book to serve as a hanging question about what it means to be an ethical solider, to live an honest life. I want to give you a military life in shades of gray, filled with doubt, moral outrage, and moral cowardice."

A Buddhist military experience? A conscientious objector at war? An unconscionable war, at that... It sounds like something all of us should read. Having read just the first few pages, I'm hooked. I won't say anything more about the book for now, but I'm sure I'll be coming back to it in these pages. For this morning, though, on with all those things that need to get done by the end of the day on Wednesday, when I leave for my teaching gig.

(Oh, by the way, a footnote to yesterday's entry on the fallibility of plans: I mentioned that I need to get my "Art of Outrage" podcast posted to Artscene Visual Radio this week. Turning on my computer yesterday, on my return, I discovered that all my Garageband sound files had disappeared. Every last one of them. If Cardozo can't help me recover them later this morning, I'm sunk. I'll need to redo hours of work and thought... See what I mean about plans? And so it goes.)