"The Unvanquished" by William Faulkner, A Wonderful Novel of The Civil War And Reconstruction!

"The Unvanquished" by William Faulkner was originally published in 1934 and has been a staple of many college classes in Southern Literature, Civil War Literature, and general American Literature ever since. It is one of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County novels and features several key figures in the saga of his mythical county: John Sartoris, John Sartoris Jr., Ab Snopes, and others. The novel covers both the period of the Civil War and of early Reconstruction. The protagonist is John Sartoris, Jr. who is about 12 years old when the novel begins and a full grown adult at the end. His slave Ringo is also a major figure in the novel. The two are just a few months different in age and literally grew up together much like brothers, but clearly also a slave owner and a slave. Their relationship is a major key to everything in the novel. They are inseparable, literally bound at the hip. That relationship, as Faulkner portrays it, is both an indictment and an apologia for the entire slave holding culture of the south. The two work together to attempt to murder the first Union officer they ever see using a musket which resides on most occasions over the mantel in the main room of the Sartoris mansion. They are still together at the end of the novel as young Sartoris goes to confront his father's former business partner and killer. The novel is the basis of a strong argument about the much vaunted code of honor of southern gentlemen, and parts of it are said to have been a fictional portrayal of some events which took place in the life of an actual Faulkner ancestor. The individual chapters of the novel, seven in all, were originally published as short stories and the book is sometimes drawn into the perpetual argument among students of literature about just where a collection of short stories with common characters ends and a novel begins. In my opinion, it is a novel and that argument should have been ceased many years ago. For an example of a collection of such short stories with common characters fails to fulfill the requirements of a novel I suggest that you read "The Hawk's Done Gone" by Mildred Haun which is a fine book but not quite a novel. You could never find two better books to read in order to fully comprehend that argument, and to help put an end to it also. As the book progresses, John Sartoris, Jr. and Ringo progress from being two boys playing war in the dust near the slave quarters to become two young southern men, both black and white, who have survived both childhood and the Civil War to become very typical white slave holding and black slave men who are still, at least in their own eyes, brothers. John Sartoris, Sr. looms over the entire novel as a larger than life Colonel in the Confederate Army and as the head of the Sartoris family although he is not present on the plantation most of the time as the novel progresses. He is both a patriarch and a symbol of the failed Confederate effort. He is a role model for his son in the most traditional of senses, and is the axis on which much of the novel moves. His mother-in-law, Granny is a major character of the novel, maintains order at home while the elder Sartoris is off at war, and is dearly beloved by her grandson, the Sartoris slaves, and most of their neighbors. She concocts a plot to use a letter signed by the commanding Union officer in the area to confiscate over two hundred head of mules, disburse them to the poor, both black and white, in the area of the plantation, and is eventually caught in the scheme along with her grandson and Ringo. Ringo is both the brains of much of the operation and a loyal servant and man Friday to his young master and companion. Drusilla, a young female distant cousin of the elder Sartoris is a young woman who loses her fiancee to the Union forces and seeks to avenge his death by utilizing her talents with both guns and horses to assist the elder Sartoris and his troops in their doomed war. Her mother uses the old southern mores about what "good women" are supposed to do and be in order to force her to marry the elder Sartoris because she has spent many weeks riding, fighting, and hiding in the woods with him and his troops as a young single woman. This is a powerful novel of the Civil War and Reconstruction by a man who lived his life in the shadow of his own ancestors who had fought and lost in the effort. It addresses multiple issues which have arisen for several hundred years in the south: slavery, male and female relationships, rich versus poor whites, Union versus Confederate, young southerners living in the oversized shadows of their elders, and the dominant question since Lee surrendered, "just how do southerners go on living after the war?"

When Impeachment Happens, It Must Be Multiple And Simultaneous!

During the so-called "Alaska Summit" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and TRAITOR Trump, it should have become apparent to most rational Americans that TRAITOR Trump is owned and controlled by Putin, cannot take any definitive action on any subject which remotely involves Russia without the approval of Putin, and will do literally anything and commit any crime in order to appease Putin and attempt to legitimize a man who has open arrest warrants from the World Criminal Court as a result of his war crimes in Ukraine. Actually Putin is the second person TRAITOR Trump has held "summits" with who has open arrest warrants from the World Criminal Court also. Various journalists from every legitimate American media company have stated clearly after that so-called summit that the event was a disaster for both Ukraine and for TRAITOR Trump. It was immediately referred to by several journalists who are experts on war journalism as a "nothing burger", an old expression from the world of Hollywood gossip columnists in the 1950's to describe an event which has no worth, no significant importance, and is of little consequence to anyone. But it also signaled once again that TRAITOR Trump will do anything to appease and legitimize Putin, will do literally anything to harm Ukraine, and will stoop to any crime which will, in his twisted brain, give him some kind of advantage over anyone alive. Sooner or later, TRAITOR Trump must be impeached, removed from the White House by military force if necessary, indicted in federal criminal courts of at least part of his recent crimes, arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, incarcerated, and left in federal prison until the day he dies before being buried beside Osama Bin Laden. But this blog post is really intended to impress on the world that simply removing TRAITOR Trump from the White House is not sufficient and could actually endanger the country and the world even more. He is surrounded and supported by a hand picked conglomearation of criminals, TRAITORS, and Russian Agents who are all equally as dangerous. There is no one in the current line of succession who is fit to serve in any position of public trust at any level all the way down to potentially becoming a local magistrate or constable. Several of them have already been convicted of crimes or accused of serous crimes including TRAITOR Trump himself who has been convicted of 34 of the 82 felonies for which he was indicted; held legally responsible for the rape of E. Jean Carroll in a monetary sense; held responsible for stealing money from a New York based "charity" and barred from being an officer of any corporation licensed in New York. For those 92 felony indictments, he was indiced in fur jurisdictions by five seperate grand juries. Charles Kushner, Jared Kushner's father, who is now the Ambassador to France has previously pled guilty to several counts of tax crimes. Peter Navarro who is not in the direct line of succession in a position which doesn't require senate confirmation was found guilty of contempt of a congressional sub poena. Kristi Noem has admitted in her autobiography to killing at least two animals, her hunting dog, and a goat which had done nothing at time she chose to shoot it after killing the dog did not fully satisfy her rage. She is in the line of succession. admittedly, Noem is in last place in the line of succession;but if everyone who is disqualified for legal, moral, or ethical reasons from succeeding an impeached TRAITOR Trump, she could be the last dog standing, if you will excuse that turn of phrase. The one person in the line of succession who is not directly under the thumb of TRAITOR Trump is Chuck Grasley who is President Pro Tempore of the Senate but also already 91 years old. If he is the only rational replacement for TRAITOR Trump, God Help Us All! Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been proven to have disclosed highly classified information to an unsuspecting journalist who had the patriotism and moral conviction to report the offense. First in the line of succession is J. D. Vance who has proven time after time that his entire life and career are built on lies, yet, if TRAITOR Trump should be impeacheed and removed after the 2026 congressional election theoretically gives the Democratic party a majority in both houses of congress, Vance would suddenly find himself in the position of power which he lusts after and proves on a daily basis he is tragically unfit to ever hold. Several years ago, he was summarily removed from the board of AppHarvest which has since failed, gone bankrupt, and been sold. There is only one remotely viable choice to succeed to the office TRAITOR Trump now holds, and that person is 91 year old Chuck Grasley. If and when the day comes, as it must, and TRAITOR Trump is impeached, removed, and criminally charged for at least part of his crimes, Grasley, must be the successor. To ensure that succession, Vance must also be impeached simultaneously with TRAITOR Trump. The Senate will find it necessary to hold the impeachment vote of Vance first, refuse to consider the possibility that the vice presidency could be filled instantly with another unfit subject, and vote to convict and remove TRAITOR Trump immediately after removing Vance. After the impeachment by a new House of Representatives majority in 2027, convicted by a new Senate majority, and removed from the White House which, based on the TREASON of January 6, will most likely require military intervention, we would be faced with the need to pray constantly that President Grasley be allowed to live and remain rational until January 20, 2029, when the new Democratic President, whomever that might be, could be sworn in.

Mass Population Movements And William Faulkner

I am in the process of reading "The Unvanquised" by William Faulkner. As I sometimes do, I found a quotation in the middle of the book which I am compelled to write about today. This is that quotation below:

"...he nor they could not have known what it was yet it was there--one of those impulses inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people at intervals and drive them to pick up and leave all security and familiarty of earth and home and start out, they don't know where, empty handed, blind to everything but a hope and a doom."

"The Unvanquised" the book from which I drew that quotation is a fairly well known book by William Faulkner which was published in 1934, minety-one years ago, long before anyone on earth imagined that Russia and Ukraine would now be more than three years engaged in a war of aggression which was started, perpetrated, and perpetuated by Vladimir Putin and Russia, no one else. As a result of that war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been forced to feel one of "those impules inexplicable yet invincible which appear among races of people". As a result, just as Faulkner in his book was describing the mass exodus of African American slaves from the defeated south after the Civil War had ended. But Ukraine is not now, and has never been defeated in the last three plus years of this war. Yes, many of their people have become refugess for a variety of reasons within the greater reason of having been faced with the possibility of death if they remained in Ukraine. They have picked up and left all security and familiarity they have ever known, started out empty handed and blind to everything except a hope of a safe future in some other peaceful country and the overwhelming and inexplicable doom they have known quite well ever since the day Putin declared his war of aggression and invaded their country. They have traveled to dozens of other countries around the globe, some simply to cross the borders of Ukraine into Poland or another much safer European nation. Others have traveled across the planet and hundreds of thousands of them have come to America over the years of war chasing that hope. From January 20, 2021, until January 20, 2025, those people who came to America had that hope while living in a country which was compassionate, welcoming, and rational in its approch to them and their forced exodus from home. Now, from January 20, 2025, their hope has been destroyed and, once again, all they can see is that doom which they fear so justifiably. America is now in the hands of the worst TRAITOR in the history of the world, TRAITOR Trump who is working daily to attempt to force Ukraine and its democratic government to surrender to their attacker and surrender much of their country, their land, and their hope to that attacker, that dictator Vladimir Putin and to his Russian Agent, the TRAITOR Trump.

I was stunned as I read that quotation above from William Faulkner and realized just how applicable it is to the treachery of TRAITOR Trump who has abandoned ever promise the United States made to the Ukrainian people and their democracy in order to support his Russian master. Just a few days ago in Alaska, the world watched as TRAITOR Trump kowtowed to Vladimir Putin and his design to destroy Ukraine and its democracy. We watched the world's worst dictator being welcomed to American soil by the world's worst TRAITOR and would be dictator, TRAITOR Trump. We watched as the two of them attempted to decide the fate of a sovereign nation and its people without a single representative of their interests in the room. We watched the attempted murder of the nation of Ukraine in order for TRAITOR Trump to appease and attempt to legitimize his Russian owner. Just yesterday, we watched the President of Ukraine being ignored by TRAITOR Trump as he disembarked from his plane at the airport in Washington, DC, after TRAITOR Trump had rolled out a red carpet for their would be destroyer and dictator in Alaska. But Ukraine does have allies across Europe in several countries, the European Union, and NATO. But can Ukraine and their supporters actually win this conference room war against them? We don't know. But what we do know that they cannot win it if the American people also surrender to Putin and TRAITOR Trump. We must not do that. We must support Ukraine and their fledgling democracy. We must be the nation our Founding Fathers intended us to be.

Let's Hold A Nationwide One Day Strike To Oppose TRAITOR Trump!

Ever since August 5, 1981, the date when Ronald Reagan was allowed by the AFL-CIO and the American people to fire 11,359 professional air traffic controllers, I have said the same thing when that subject comes up. What I said was this: "If the AFL-CIO and all the other components of the organized labor movement in America had stood up to Reagan, refused to allow the air traffic controllers to be fired, and staged a one day nationwide strike, he would have had no choice except to back down, reverse those firings, and negotiate with the air traffic controllers. His War Against The Working Class would have been dead in the water, and today America would be a very different and more successful nation. The same holds true for TRAITOR Trump and every crime he and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" in support of his TREASON have committed and will commit in the future if they are not held responsible for their crimes. If they are not held responsible for those crimes, you can bet your sweet ass that worse is on the way, already being plotted, perpetrated, and dreamed of by the worst TRAITOR The world has ever seen and the other lesser TRAITORS who support him. On No Kings Day, June 14, 2025, roughly 5million people participated in more than 2,100 hundred separate protests from sea to shining sea. But what would it have looked like if, instead of peacefully standing out in public holding protest signs and chanting slogans, those 5million of us had just waited until the following week during regular working hours from 8am to 5pm from sea to shining sea for one day and stopped working. If 5million of us had gone on strike for one 8 hour day, stopped driving trucks, delivering products, making those products, mining or manufacturing the individual components of those products, never unloaded a single ship at a single of our international ports, stopped teaching in the nation's classrooms, stopped nursing patients in our hospitals, and stopped doing whatever it is that each of us does for a living. That would change the face of the battle against TRAITOR Trump, his Russian Owner Vladmir Putin, and their ultimate goal of destroying the United States. What we need to do now is to call that one day nationwide strike, carry it out on a weekday, preferably a Wednesday so the work week is clearly broken into two disparate halves,and the general public is clearly told that it is purely and solely in protest of the crime spree being perpetrated by TRAITOR Trump and his supporters. And it should also be made clear that unless he and his entire Criminal Syndicate are removed from the halls of government that such a strike will occur at least once a month until they are gone. If one day strikes don't work, then expand them to two days, three, four, or five until the truth is realized all over the world. I am not in a position to organize and coordinate such a strike. But I will always be in a position to support such a strike by doing everything I can to promote and defend it. This is just one grandiose, but realistic, idea for saving the America most of us love. This ideas is free for the taking by anyone with a network of support large enough to bring this strike to fruition. Let's schedule it! Let's make it happen! Let's make it absolutely clear that we are tired of TRAITOR Trump, his Fascism, his TREASON, and all his crimes against this country. Please share this post with everyone you know until someone steps up to take the ball in hand and carry out the planning, scheduling, and organization to make this Strike In Defense Of Democracy a reality!

"That Far Paradise" by Gene Markey

This is the second of Gene Markey's novels I have read lately and written about on this blog. The first was "Kentucky Pride" which I reviewed at this link. This novel, "That Far Paradise" is actually a prequel to "Kentucky Pride" with its protagonist being the grandfather of "Kentucky Pride"s protagonist, Aidan Kensal. The grandfather is named General Jared Kensal, a former revolutionary general who fought for American independence and is the first Kensal to settle in Kentucky on the land which becomes the setting for "Kentucky Pride". Jared Kensal is the holder of Revolutionary War land grants for several thousand acres of land near Lexington, Kentucky, and as the novel begins is preparing to relocate his family from his Virginia plantation,along with more than fifty slaves, to a fabulous home he has built on his Kentucky land. He has deeded the Virginia plantation to his brother Carter Kensal who is a heavy drinker and man of little consequence. Jared Kensal is married and has five children with his wife Ardath who is from Old Virginia upper class stock, hates the idea of moving to Kentucky and is very far removed from any positive feelings she might have had about her husband in the early days of their marriage. The husband and wife have effectively divided their children between themselves in terms of loyalty and affection. Jared has close connections to his younger son Harry, middle daughter Lexie, and the youngest daughter who is only a young child and a minor character in the novel. Ardath has close ties to the oldest daughter and son, Elizabeth and Garland who is attempting to become a doctor. Ardath attempts persistently to control all five children and prevent them from being closely attached to their father. Like most generals in most armies, Jared Kensal is a man of his own mind and forces the family relocation to take place. As the move becomes imminent, Carter Kensal meets a British spy and his wife, Polly Blayden, who has nearly killed her husband and abandoned him in possession of a letter he has from his British commander which proves that he is a spy. I nlight of their lack of intimate relationships with their spouses, Jared Kensal and Polly Blayden are immediately attractedto each other. Polly asks to join Jared's wagon train so she can travel to Kentucky to visit her sister in Paris which was a tiny Central Kentucky village in 1794, the period in which the novel is set. Jared has put together a massive wagon train for his trip to Kentucky, comprised of his family, an old Kentucky woodsman friend, Ab Caiton, about 65 slaves of all ages, a small detachment of militia whose purpose is to provide security for the group. He has a plan for taking the train across a route which is rarely used through what is now West Virginia, down the Little Kanawha River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to Maysville, where they will go overland to Lexington through the area where in real life Daniel Boone and a party of his were engaged in the Battle of Blue Licks. Although Boone is a minor character in the novel, Blue Licks is never mentioned. The trip is an incredibly arduous effort requiring the hiring of mule skinners and ox drovers to drag the many wagons across mountains, the buying of several flat boats to haul the party, livestock, and plunder down the Ohio. It is a trip which most observers in the novel see as a doomed venture. But Jared Kensal and his team manage the feat as he and Polly fall in love, engage in a torrid affair along the way, and ends with battles with warring Indians along the Ohio, a final battle with Blayden himself, the death of Ardath Kensal. Gene Markey was a devoted student of Kentucky history during his life as the husband of Lucille Wright Markey, the owner of famed Calumet Farm in Lexington. The book is well researched with a cast of purely fictional characters, and is well worth reading. It leaves a gap of several years between "Kentucky Pride" and "That Far Paradise". It is my belief that Gene Markey had intended to write a third novel to cover the gap between General Kensal's trip to Lexington and the Civil War and Reconstruction novel, "Kentucky Pride", which tells the story of his grandson who was a Confederate officer who returns to find his plantation in Lexington has been seized by the government due to his support of the Confederacy. I fully realize that many readers will dislike the novel because of the fact that General Kensal is a slaveholder and his Kentucky woodsman friend Ab Caiton hates Native Americans and scalps a few in the course of the novel. But it is my position that fiction which is labled as "historical fiction" has a serious responsibilty to accurately represent the times which it purports to describe. Any attempts to either ignore, rewrite, or misrepresent the history being portrayed is not historical fiction. It is simply fiction, inaccurate fiction, and not worthy of an intelligent reader's time.

TRAITOR Trump's Attempted Appeasement And Attempted Legitimation Of An International Terrorist And War Criminal

This meeting in Alaska is all about APPEASING and ATTEMPTING to legitimize an INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST and WAR CRIMINAL who has an arrest warrant from the World Criminal Court at The Hague. It is also phase two of the TREASON which occurred when TRAITOR Trump in 2017 brought a Russian ambassador and a purely Russian film crew not just into the White House but into the Oval Office. There were no American media crews at that meeting. There are at this meeting, but just think for a minute that this is the military base where Russian flights into US territory are monitored and intercepted. Putin is being accorded full treatment as a foreign leader on a diplomatic mission which means he will have a full detail of Russia's finest with him. You can bet every one of them is an expert on Russian intelligence gathering practices, probably all are FSB officers. The big Q is just what will they know about that military base which they have been unable to learn from satellites and communication monitoring. He's being set up to commit further spying just as he was when the ambassador and his crew were allowed into the Oval Office.

"A Driving Tour of Elliott County Kentucky" by Sharon Boggs

This is a little book originally published by Kindle and written by Sharon Boggs, a neice of Appalachian folk artist Minnie Adkins who also lives in Elliott County Kentucky where she was a teacher for many years. The book gives a very detailed driving map of the county and includes at least a basic mention of most of the roads in the county. For myself, the best piece of information I got from the book was the story of how seven Civil War soldiers, whose loyalties were not known apparently, were murdered near Sandy Hook after the Civil War had ended. There is a state historical marker a couple of miles west of Sandy Hook on Kentucky Route 7 which I believe marks the spot where those men are buried. It is on the side of the road without a decent parking space without either parking some distance away and walking to the marker or simply imposing and parking in a nearby driveway to a home. I admit I have considered doing one or the other several times but have never done so in order to actually read that marker. The book also gives a basic explanation of the Laurel Gorge Cultural Heritage Center site which is one of my favorite hikes in Eastern Kentucky although I don't hike there regularly. There are also a large number of historical photographs of people and places in Elliott County but the reproduction quality is poor. The book also gives a basic history of the small local post offices whch used to be operarting in the county, nearly all of which are now defunct. The book is available on Amazon for $10.00. If you want to know more about Elliott County Kentucky, it could be worth your time and money.