California Literary Review

We mourn, we remember, we use the site to help us understand and overcome what happened, and we press on. That’s what happened at the University of Texas. It’s what happened at Virginia Tech, where a mass shooting took place last year. It’s what happened at Columbine High School. Ford’s Theater in Washington remains an operating playhouse even though Abraham Lincoln was shot there. The Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, where Gov. Huey Long was assassinated in 1935, still serves as the seat of state government. No one would have seriously suggested levelling those buildings just because something awful happened in them. They are part of history, and history is often dark and savage. To wipe out a place merely because of a grim event is not an act of healing but an act of capitulation. Returning to Cole Hall after the massacre promises to be painful for students at NIU. But pain is a part of life that college students, like everyone, must learn to endure, preferably with courage and resolve. Restoring the building to the noble use for which it was meant — higher education — would help in that process. [Reason]

Move over ‘Soccer Mom’, ‘Alpha Mom’ and ‘Slacker Mom’. In the US, there’s a new mom on the block and she’s on a mission to save the planet. Meet Ecomom. She’s not just a little bit green – after all, we’re all a little bit green in the age of the recycling bin. She’s Green with a capital G, as in knowing-your-carbon-footprint green. [Spiked]

Growth Industry: HGH Goes Widescreen. Clemens denies taking it, Stallone says every man over 40 should consider it — is HGH the next big thing? [AlterNet]

When I first set off to interview the rank-and-file guards and interrogators tasked with implementing the administration’s torture guidelines, I thought they’d never talk openly. They would be embarrassed, wracked by guilt, living in silent shame in communities that would ostracize them if they knew of their histories. What I found instead were young men hiding their regrets from neighbors who wanted to celebrate them as war heroes. They seemed relieved to talk with me about things no one else wanted to hear—not just about the acts themselves, but also about the guilt, pain, and anger they felt along with pride and righteousness about their service. [Mother Jones]

There’s no way to put this delicately, so I won’t: America’s global image is in the crapper. Last year, the BBC World Service conducted a poll of over 26,000 individuals in the world’s 25 largest countries and found that more than 52 percent thought the U.S. had a “mostly negative” influence on the world. Fifty-three percent of respondents to a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs felt America could “not be trusted.” Which means that, on top of everything else it represents, the current presidential election is something like an ad agency review — a chance to put a set of potential stewards for “Brand America” through their paces, to see the creative and strategic directions in which they’d take our product. [Salon]