Happy Memorial Day!

It has been a particularly unpleasant week, politics-wise. At the same time, although Americans have layered a bunch of fun activities on top of the holiday, it's supposed to be a somewhat somber occasion in which we remember America's war dead. There are actually quite a few holidays where fun has been layered on top of serious and somber, if you think about it.

As we suggested would be the case over the weekend, we are going to put aside political news for the day. Instead, we are going to have two items appropriate to the holiday, and then two items that are more on the light and fun side. We'll be back to writing about the news tomorrow, we promise.

Unmarked Graves

Reader A.G. in Scranton, PA, sent this in. As some folks may recall, A.G. is a veteran of the Marine Corps. Note that one does not say "A.G. was a Marine," as the Corps teaches that one never stops being a Marine.

In any event, we thought it was something worthy of being passed along. So, take it away, A.G. (note: PG-13 words left uncensored, for impact):

Memorial Day both is and isn't a uniquely American holiday.

It's a day set aside to honor our war dead, those buried on far-flung fields or nearer to home, in neat rows and well-manicured places, with honor.

While many countries honor their dead, most do so on important days in that nation's martial history, days of victories or of the finally coming of a long-sought-after peace.

I'm pretty certain America's day for honoring its dead is unique in that we set aside a day whose martial significance is... well, not significant at all.

What's not unique, though, in any way whatsoever, is what happened to this day we have set aside to honor veterans. We cheapened it. We monetized it. Some, of course, politicized it.

In fact, the muttered words-by-rote are heard so often and all of those jingoistic signs on businesses have become so prevalent, so common, so honestly obnoxious, so incredibly ubiquitous that the words barely even register and the signs go unseen, faded into the scenery as we drive past.

The words are almost always for the person speaking them, so everyone around them can hear how good they are to recognize veterans and to assuage whatever is sitting where the guilt that should cripple them should be, a not-at-all oddly vacant place.

"Good golly, look at her/him. They're such good people. They actually took the time to say 'thanks' to the homeless veteran they stepped over on the way into the store to buy that incredibly necessary new phone."

"Someone (else) should do something about how this country treats its veterans. They gave so much and now they're on the streets, addicted. It's shameful for (other) people to just ignore the problem."

It is. Thanks for noticing. That will mean a lot to my broken family when they get the call from the city morgue that my body was found by the tracks.

The signs are always for the purposes of showing how patriotic the owner of the car dealership is so you'll be more inclined to buy your American car from Juarez and shun that Asian bullshit built in Tennessee from the way-less-patriotic person with the smaller signs and flags down the road... who's probably some Nancy-Pelosi-lovin' homo.

"That guy at that place might not even pledge the flag with the words 'under G-d' in it every morning like I do. Why, I even heard him say 'happy holidays' to a Muslim person once, too. He hates America, he hates veterans. Oh, have I mentioned how you could have this sweet V-8 with zero down and low, low monthly payments?"

No, you haven't. I mean, yeah, thanks for the mental picture, though. That'll help keep me warm tonight. I can wrap myself in the flag to keep the wind from getting too biting and put four or five signs together to make a place to get high and die out of the way, so I'll be no bother. You're welcome for that, too. I live(d) to serve my fellow Americans.

Memorial Day's faux-patriotism isn't unique to America, though. That's a global problem. I'm willing to bet there's even some over-tariffed penguins who pretend to love their otherwise-uninhabited island in over-the-top ways. Perhaps they arrange fish into the shape of their island's flag. Perhaps they waddle around and bitch about immigrants not squawkin' good Squawkish.

"Squawk! Squawk! Cackle! Squawk!" they likely say.

Translation: "This here is mah ahland, damn it! Chilly Willy done gonna MUIGA." (Make Uninhabited Island Great Again)

"Squawk, cackle, cackle."

Yes, most penguins are dicks who love Chilly Trumpy.

I know! Right? What a bunch of assholes! And to think of all the work we've put in to warming up that cold place they have to live in. Dicks.

Before I abdicated the right to raise two incredible sons to a pretty serious heroin addiction caused by non-service-related pain and PTSD, every Memorial Day I would walk with them to the various memorials to the various war dead from the various wars that were located in Nay Aug Park, a lovely place directly adjacent to our home.

Like most memorials to the dead, to service, and to veterans they were likely introduced with tearful, somber fanfare, probably some gunshots and a rendition of "Taps," maintained for a few years, and then largely forgotten, left to the ravages of weeds, rain and wind.

To teach my sons what the sacrifices of the men and women those monuments were built for meant, we would speak of service as adults might, because my ex-wife and I always believed in treating our sons as though they were intelligent and capable of understanding complex emotions and ideas, and that was because they were.

We would pick the weeds together, polish the metal together, remove the trash, the cigarette butts, the used condoms, the spent needles, and all of the other signs of who we are and what we value as a nation together.

Across the 8 or 9 years we did that, we met one mother with a young daughter doing the same. Saw lots of people drinking and barbecuing, though. Heard obnoxiously loud music and heard the call of the dipshit, the loud, drunken yelling of a mentally deficient asswipe to his similarly mentally deficient asswipe friends three feet from him at the table.

We did see girls and, wow, my boys were the best wingmen a man could ever ask for. But that is a story about "Daddy, why did mommy have to die from cancer?" for another day.

But, I lost that right to be kind of an ass to an addiction I still have trouble understanding, that was foisted upon me by someone who lied about the drugs and murdered 10 of my 11 friends, then got a bonus for it while I met guys in prison because of that addiction who are doing life for killing one drug dealer.

That's neither here nor there, though. That's another letter.

It is in the forced abdication of my privilege of being a father where the soul of this request is to be found.

When we still honored our dead, before people stood with their heroes atop the sacred bodies of our honored dead, smiling, and gave a big thumbs up to the camera, we had well-covered columns and the perfectly aligned rows of graves marked by marble, sandstone, limestone, with names chiseled into their faces, or sometimes just a small cement slab with a metal number.

In places where the bodies were too broken to identify we give honor to a marked grave. In places where the bodies were too many or time was too precious an asset to dig them each a grave, we honor a marked grave. In places where names were unknown, the place is marked. Even in those cursed places of mass death, where the bodies of the dead remain, their graves are marked.

What we fail to honor are the millions of unmarked graves.

When I say that, I am not referring to the tens of thousands still buried in fragments beneath the old Western Front. Neither am I writing of the ten million places of battle where bodies couldn't be found or were left behind. Nor the ashes in the wind that are the spirits in the air around us of the residents of Tokyo and Dresden or the whispering echoes of those whose cautioning memories now fading around us once rose from the smokestacks above the crematoriums at Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzek, Treblinka. Nor the endless, fathomless oblivions where the sea holds her dead.

We honor the places we bury the bodies that died in service to nation in the hopes that the spirit knows our sadness and our pain, our longing for them.

But, bodies aren't the only things that die in the service to nation. Because there are no bodies to bury, because these things have no mortal vessel, because you can only touch them in ways that don't require fingers, because they are paupers, because we either don't know or simply don't care, we bury them in unmarked graves.

There are a million unmarked graves of these things with names and dates that gave their lives to service to nation, but with neither spilling blood pouring from them nor wounded, bleeding hearts beating within them near to each of you reading this.

It is not only bodies that service breaks. It is not only limbs that are lost for a nation. It is not only minds that are damaged by mere moments on a soldier. It is not just flesh that bears a bullet's piercing wound on a Marine.

There are a million unmarked graves, and each of them is open, active, massive and growing each hour. They have their own species of vultures and crows circling, pecking. They have their own smell others turn away from. Like the memorials in Nay Aug Park my sons and I maintained and honored, we care for a while, then we all but a very few forget.

In the mass graves where my marriages lie, lie at least ten million more. Long months away, long hours, low pay, poor conditions, PTSD-induced mental instabilities, young bodies and desires, temptations and traumas, the conspiracy of service that filled that grave, one left unmarked and forgotten, ten million rot beneath the two I gave, a million more heaped atop it.

In the open, mass grave wherein fitfully convulses the wounded remains of my sanity, one consumed by fits of that endless nightmare of the past and too many regrets to fail to mention with no coup de grace to end it, too, lies dark histories of the supposed cowardice of shell-shocked men, of straightjackets and drugs that hurt to take in hellish, urine-soaked places—the perfectly apt symbols of the level of the nation's concern for veterans throughout the years—and of a hundred billion dreams (those numbers from this year alone) so frightening and real the sheets on beds are soaked in sweat and the shadows of the streetscape, forest, suburban night dart hither, to, and fro with malice as they lowcrawl in to kill the dreamer of the nightmare... the former person, who now has a broken mind.

My un-trackmarked arms aren't even buried, but thrown into the pile of limbs sawn off, blown off, sheared off others outside a white tent behind the lines of battle somewhere, perhaps sold to a school for study, perhaps burned to ash to ash and dust to dust.

My family, my fatherhood, lying in a lonely place, a particularly reviled one, in a dark forest in a rainy land that no one would care to visit if they marked it, atop a million million million others with ten thousand more pushed by bulldozer into that steep and wet and stinking, fly-filled place above them.

There are others, unmarked graves are all around and near to each of us. If you look closely you can see the footpaths leading to them in broken green and brown and clear glass by the railroad tracks. If you walk the nights as I do, in stillnesses the crunching sound beneath your feet another footpath, too.

If you wander alleyways which you once owned and if you know the sounds of digging hoofs and the charging bull named Fentanyl as you wave the orange, plastic cape at it and push it up your arm because you were the champion, the Matador of the underpass arena, you know the waxed-bag highway pavement you walk along, because you once were a hitchhiker-pedestrian breathing in the smell of burning, blackened, Walmart silverware, the Bodily Warming causing exhaust fumes as others either just drove by you walking between small towns in the rain or stopped, invited you to sell yourself, and you accepted, to be dry and warm, with a sweat and semen bonus.

The unmarked grave of where a high bridge, a bottle of swallowed pills, a rope, or the 1-gun salute honors the death of another veteran by suicide is one far too big and one that simply won't stop having more and more bodies heaped atop it each day. I've fallen into that unmarked grave a few times over the years, but people keep going in after me. Leave no suffering man behind to finally die and let the hurt stop, I guess.

Thanks?

The grave that is the fullest, though, the one bulging, heaving up as the sorrows and sadnesses bloat as tears keep the groundwater level high, is one of broken, lost dreams, where ten million of mine alone are rotting. I overfilled this grave myself. Every other broken woman and man of service did, too. Unburied dreams lie all around it, just decomposing where anyone could see them if they looked.

More dreams than you know have given their lives for service to our nation. Had mine not died one cold, October night in 2006, all caught behind a slamming door and a thousand lies, you'd only know of Donald Trump as the dipshit with the bad hair from New York who makes bad investment decisions and who is prejudiced against Black people.

Well... hmm... okay, yeah... well, he wouldn't be president. That would have been me in 2016, and my first term would have begun after a landslide victory of 50 united United States and it would have been the First Lady, a girl named Alexis, who would have made it all seem a cakewalk.

Everything was easy when she was there, empowering me with her blind, determined, true belief in me.

I'm a smart person, a very smart person. So smart that I knew I didn't need help for my mental health issues. So smart I knew she could deal with me being in and out of hospitals each year and the endless suicide attempts and the long absences and the cursing, and, and, and, and, and, and, and because the love was always there between us.

So smart I knew those things, so dumb I didn't know I was wrong about them.

Each day just to awaken to her was worth ten thousand dreams of other men. To have her on my arm was to dream a million more. In her lips another ten million dreams were to be found a dozen times a day, just resting there, upon the tip of her gentle, just right, small amount of touching tongue. Her hair when wet, ten million more. Her naked form a hundred billion billion. And in her touch the dreams could only count in number miles and miles, almost, almost, almost endless, in 2-point font, Helvetica.

She, once a dream, now just a dream's cold remains, lying at the bottom, ten billion more atop it for from just one day, the worst of any day with her before the last.

Unmarked graves, you might have heard of them and shook your head in disbelief. Now you know each thing of these, where they are, around you, close, and what they hold, those things of us that died for their country, and that they're real, I hope you trust me, and that they matter to those who buried pieces of us in them, because they do for me and all of us.

Of course, please honor every marked grave. Please care for them. Please respect them, do defend their sanctity and keep clean and neat their sacred soil.

Respect them, never stand atop them, only rest your bended knees upon their verdant, springtime grasses, these watered by your tears of loss. Let smiles only come from memories of the one you loved and who you lost—not from the classless, tacky, callous, money-grubbing parents and their exploitation of graves of sons and daughters for their racist politics. Let the fingers of your hand brush tears, hold others, little more.

But, please, I make this request of you, an easy one if we are honest, but one few bother with, anyway:

Listen to the gentle winds for the gentler sobs of hurting people and hear the crunching sound of broken glass and vials underfoot, keeping time and pace with you, beneath you, staying up with you. Follow those footpaths of the dreams we lost to unmarked graves filled with them, and at that waxed-bag highway ending, look at the piles of them before you, see that place it brought you, then sit with it, do honor to it, for it, please.

Respect that so many other things we had than our bodies, beings, bones died in jungles, sands, and along those endless IED-lined sniper alley streets for so many of us, and whether it's my White House with a beauty like no other, or another soldier's small house in the country with a picket fence before it and his own beauty-girl on its front porch swing, awaiting him, losing it hurt us both the same, and if you walk those broken glass, and the crunching, waxed-bag footpaths to the unmarked graves of them, sit with them and query them, examine them in detail, tell of the places that you found them, please don't forget, remember them.

They're the unmarked graves of millions.

Mark them, please. Do so simply by remembering them.

Thanks very much for this, A.G. (Z)

Never Forget: At the World War II Memorial

As we note above, we know exactly what the purpose of Memorial Day is meant to be. That is not to say we are entirely comfortable with that, however. It is a given that those who died in service of their country should be remembered, of course. But that overlooks those who may have made it out of their particular war or police action or other conflict, but whose life was nonetheless shortened, often by decades, by their war experiences/injuries. Think of the people like (Z)'s grandfather, whose legs being shot up in World War II wrecked his circulation and overtaxed his heart, cutting 25 years off his life. Think of the people like Ira Hayes, of Iwo Jima fame, who suffered from PTSD and took their own lives, sometimes by their own hands, or sometimes, as in Ira's case, by drinking themselves to death (see above for more on this).

Then there is also the problem that people who did not die nonetheless may have sacrificed a great deal while serving. Perhaps, like Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), they suffered debilitating injuries. Or maybe, like Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), they weren't hurt or killed, but they did uproot themselves and their families a dozen or more times, as they were transferred between duty stations. And don't get us started on all the civilians who did their part, like the millions of Rosies (like (Z)'s grandmother), who riveted airplanes together during World War II.

One might observe that there is a second holiday, Veterans Day, that exists for all those other people. Fair enough, but that one still overlooks the civilians, of course. On top of that, if Donald Trump gets his way, the holiday will be rolled back to being "Victory in World War I Day," which is what it was from 1919-1945.

And that brings us to the point of this item. When Trump was popping off about Veterans Day, at the start of this month, reader

C.C. in Dallas, TX, sent us a remembrance, along with this note: "This Pacific Theater veteran (a.k.a. Dad) is why Veteran's Day will remain as it is, out of respect for all who served:"

The caption on the photo is "The Lt. Colonel on Veterans Day in 2012 at age 90 in his 40-year-old summer Air Force uniform." And here is the remembrance, written in October of 2013, that went along with it:

Imagine walking off the plane in D.C.—many people organized to greet us at the gate, but probably a thousand people just waiting for their own flights—and everyone stopping to applaud your father and his new friends, to shake their hands, to thank them for their service 70 years before.

I had the honor and the privilege of escorting my Dad and 40 other World War II veterans to Washington in October 2013 through HonorFlightDFW, to visit the memorials and participate in placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

They also had the opportunity to dance to Big Band tunes at a private concert by the U.S. Air Force Band. The men in wheelchairs joined in too, as the women in the group took their arms and swayed with the music. I think the concert took them back to another place and another time more than any other part of the trip.

The flight home was highlighted by Mail Call, always an anticipated event during their deployment overseas. Letters were received from family and friends, high school students, and grade schoolers just starting to understand the meaning of honor, service, and sacrifice. The organizers were well aware that a package of tissues in each mail pouch was a necessity.

The trip took place during the first week of the government shutdown, which also closed the memorials in D.C. We didn't have to storm the barricades at the World War II memorials—the Mississippi chapter of Honor Flight had cleared the way a couple of days before. Both Mississippi senators and many of the state's representatives were there to greet us, along with the Daughters of the American Revolution and hundreds of well-wishers. At the time, access into the memorial itself was limited to the veterans and their escorts—all these people had come out just to welcome our group. A flight delay prevented us from running this gauntlet at the time, as the wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery took precedence. It was unfortunate to disappoint everyone that had taken their time to meet us, but the ceremony at Arlington was an important moment for the veterans, and this trip was all about them. The thin crowds and light traffic from the shutdown made it easy to get around. At the various memorials, we met other Honor Flights from Nevada, Minnesota, Oregon, and Montana.

With the Park Rangers furloughed, we weren't able to learn many of the design details of each of the memorials, which would have given us a better appreciation of them. And, of course, the water features were turned off. My personal favorite was the Korean War Memorial, particularly the etched faces on the marble wall, superimposed with the reflections of visitors, making an eerie and ghostly effect. Arlington National Cemetery is always a solemn, reflective, and contemplative place.

One vet in our group was one of my high school teachers. My mind drew a blank when I saw him because his name tag didn't say "Coach."

I sat next to a recipient of two Purple Hearts on the flight home—in the Solomon Islands he caught a bullet just below his jaw which passed straight through and out his neck. Other than a little muscle weakness, he was just fine. He was later hit by grenade shrapnel and his service to the country was fulfilled, but he's still in very good shape today. There were two days full of stories like this. Although many of the group did not see combat directly, they all had stories and memories worth sharing.

Many of the guardians who accompany each veteran served in the Vietnam era and had volunteered on previous trips. I can't describe what an amazing experience it was. The group were rock stars everywhere they went. I was a sherpa. And I loved every minute of it.

Thanks very kindly, C.C.

If other readers have stories, of their own service or of others, of military personnel or of civilians who pitched in, accompanied by a photo or not, we would like to run them in June. That might have been a little far afield prior to 2025, but now that the President is considering the change to Veterans Day, these stories will serve as the counter-argument. We are given to understand, and have even had the discussion on this very site, that "Thank you for your service" makes some veterans uncomfortable. So, as a title, we have instead chosen "Never Forget," which is not only a more appropriate substitute (at least in the eyes of some vets), it's also the problem that Trump seems to be suffering from right now, in overlooking the service of everyone who did their duty after May 8, 1945.

Anyhow, if you have something that seems fitting—a story like the one C.C. just told, a biography of someone who served, a personal reminiscence of your own service, etc., please send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with the subject line "Never Forget." We shall see what kind of response there is. (Z)

It Was 21 Years and 2 Days Ago Today...

That does not roll off the tongue quite as well as the first line of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," but at least it's factually correct. This weekend, we had an e-mail from reader W.M.T. in Vienna, Austria:

Happy Birthday, Electoral-Vote.com!

Thank you for your daily service, being an island in this ocean of misinformation.

This week was tough enough that we'd actually overlooked it, so we thank W.M.T. for the kind words AND the reminder.

Last year, on the actual 20th anniversary, we had a little true/false game that was meant to illustrate how much things have changed, and how much they haven't. If we are ever going to pay that off, then this is the week.

For most of the weekend, we actually intended to give the answers and the initials/cities of the readers who got the most questions right. However, we decided it will work a little better if we just give the questions again today, and then the answers tomorrow. It will be a little fresher in readers' minds, that way. So here, again, are the questions:

1. Politics: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, the Republicans had the federal trifecta
    •   On May 24, 2004, Alberto Gonzales was Attorney General
   
   
2. Supreme Court: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, three current justices were already on the Supreme Court (Thomas, Roberts, Alito)
    •   On May 24, 2004, only one current justice was already on the Supreme Court (Thomas)
   
   
3. International Affairs: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, Kim Jong-il was still leading North Korea
    •   On May 24, 2004, Kim Jong-il was dead, and had been succeeded by Kim Jong-un
   
   
4. The News: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, The Washington Post's 1A headline was "Bush Seeks to Reassure Nation on Iraq"
    •   On May 24, 2004, The Washington Post's 1A headline was "Lehman Brothers File for Bankruptcy"
   
   
5. The Economy: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, the average gallon of milk cost $3.16
    •   On May 24, 2004, the average gallon of gas cost $3.16
   
   
6. Tech: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, Facebook was just a few months old
    •   On May 24, 2004, the iPhone was just a few months old
   
   
7. Television: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, the highest-rated program in the U.S. was American Idol
    •   On May 24, 2004, the highest-rated program in the U.S. was Seinfeld
   
   
8. Film: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, The Passion of the Christ crossed the $350 million mark at the box office
    •   On May 24, 2004, Gladiator crossed the $200 million mark at the box office
   
   
9. Music: Which of these is true?
    •   On May 24, 2004, Britney Spears, Madonna and Paul McCartney were all on tour
    •   On May 24, 2004, Michael Jackson, The Presidents of the United States of America and Johnny Cash were all on tour
   
   
10. Sports: Which of these is true?
     •   On May 24, 2004, Oriole Cal Ripken's consecutive games streak was still underway
     •   On May 24, 2004, Oriole Cal Ripken had concluded his streak at 2,632 games
    
    
11. Books: Which of these is true?
     •   On May 24, 2004, the #1 book in the country was The Da Vinci Code
     •   On May 24, 2004, the #1 book in the country was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
    
    
12. Electoral-Vote.com: Which of these is true?
     •   On May 24, 2004, our map had Michigan going for George W. Bush and Iowa going for John Kerry
     •   On May 24, 2004, our map had Minnesota going for George W. Bush and Missouri going for John Kerry

Tiebreaker Question: How many bills had George W. Bush vetoed as of May 24, 2004?

We've reactivated the quiz; the link is here. We've also set it up so that people who already submitted answers can submit a fresh set of guesses. No fair using the Internet, though—just make your best guesses! We'll leave it active until 10:00 p.m. PT tonight (Monday), and then we'll have the answers tomorrow. (Z)

Summer Reading Recommendations, Part I: Off to a Rousing Start

Last week, we asked if readers had books they might recommend for summer reading. You know, because some summer reading lists were actually written by chatbots, and include books that are very tough to read because they... don't exist. We got many responses; here's a half-dozen to start with:

E.J. in Pittsburgh, PA: In response to your request for summer reading suggestions, I'd like to recommend Marilou Is Everywhere: A Novel by Sarah Elaine Smith—a book I've returned to and thought deeply about since first reading it. Full disclosure: I've been close friends with Sarah for nearly 25 years, but I don't suggest her work out of loyalty. I do so because this book deserves far more readers than it's had.

Set in rural western Pennsylvania, Marilou Is Everywhere follows 14-year-old Cindy Stoat as she steps into the life of a missing girl, Jude Vanderjohn. It's a haunting, poetic meditation on loneliness, identity, and the quiet ways people slip through society's cracks. Sarah's prose is both lush and precise—unflinching in its portrayal of hardship, but suffused with empathy and lyricism.

In light of your commentary on AI-recommended summer reading lists, I thought it worth pointing to a book that could only have come from a singular human voice—strange, tender, and rooted in a real sense of place and pain.

Thanks for inviting readers to share what moves them. This one moved me deeply.

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O.E. in Greenville, SC: I love reading when I get the chance, and I have a wide variety of interests. As a result, I have at least four books I am reading right now, in descending order of politicalness:

1. The Radio Right: How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement by Paul Matzko. A history of how a group of far-right religious broadcasters in the 1960's sought to challenge the JFK administration, and in return, how the JFK Administration and its allies sought to challenge them. It pushes back at both the establishment view of JFK and the rise of the Religious Right at the same time.
   
   
2. Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today by Phil Tinline. A tale of how a late-1960's antiwar satire became a bestseller, and from there became a right-wing conspiracy touchstone. A fascinating tale of how hoaxes can get out of hand—and how a detailed-enough hoax can be taken as truth. (And if you are curious, the Iron Mountain record storage company once ran bomb shelters for corporations at their facilities.)
   
   
3. Warrior: Audrey Hepburn by Robert Matzen. A biography telling the story of Audrey Hepburn's final years, focusing on her work for UNICEF. While many biographers focus on her Hollywood career, this area has been overlooked, in part because she didn't seek publicity for herself. (The author's earlier book on Audrey's childhood in the Netherlands, Dutch Girl, is also a must-read.)
   
   
4. Carnage by Mark Dapin. It starts with a viral meme of an older Australian man being arrested by police (If you're familiar with "This is democracy manifest," it's that guy.) It then goes through the man's life from his criminal activities (and Nazi sympathies) to his bold escapes, to his artistic career (on stage and canvas) to the murder of his wife, and his tragic upbringing. Modern viral stories often don't do those involved justice. I'm not a fan of him, but his story is one no author could invent. (And, yes, the viral arrest was for something he didn't do.)

I hope these stories can give your readers ideas for some interesting summer reading.

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D.B. in Florence, SC: I'd like to recommend the book Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein. Klein is definitely a liberal, but he doesn't try to push any political agenda. The book discusses how and why America has become more and more polarized. I don't think you can really understand American politics without understanding the points made in this book. Politics is now closely aligned with one's identify and values. What used to be a simple political disagreement is now an entire condemnation of one's lifestyle.

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N.G. in San Jose, CA: I am reading The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. I found out about this book when I saw a dramatization at a film festival earlier this year (starring Gillian Anderson).

It is part travel book with nature writing, part memoir of a long marriage, and more. It's a nice travel book to read on the beach, but it has an edge and is thought-provoking.

Around 10 years ago, the 50-year-old author and her husband lost their home and livelihood. With no great options, they impulsively decided to hike and camp the 630-mile South West Coast Path in Devon and Cornwall, England.

The book resonates with me also because of the intractable problem of San Francisco Bay Area residents not being able to afford housing and being thrown into homelessness. Recently, many were evicted from a nearby camp and I went there to give the meager bit of help I could.

From the book: "The first few times how it was that we had time to walk so far and for so long, we had answered truthfully 'Because we're homeless, we lost our home, but it wasn't our fault. We're just going where the path takes us.' People recoiled... In every case the conversation ended abruptly and the other party walked away very quickly. So we invented a lie that was more palatable. For them and for us. We had sold our home, looking for a midlife adventure, going where the wind took us... That was met with gasps of 'wow, brilliant, inspirational.' What was the difference between the two stories? Only one word, but one word that in the public perception meant everything: 'sold'."

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J.S. in London, England, UK: I wanted to recommend two books that I found fascinating, and that greatly increased my understanding. First, Borderlines: A History of Europe in 29 Borders. It is an investigation of 29 different borders in Europe and what it's like to live near these borders and lots of questions of identity, nationality, and belonging. I imagine for U.S. readers, who have had fairly stable borders for many years, it could be a mind-opening book, as it was for me.

Second, Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization An absolutely staggering study of six materials—sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium—showing how essential they are to modern life, and how and where they come from. The path of silicon from sand to computer chip, which involves processes in many different countries, really brings home the insanity of Donald Trump's tariffs and America First policies. All of the book is mind-blowing, some of it horrifying.

Both books, while dealing with big issues, are well-written and a pleasure to read.

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S.I. in Philadelphia, PA: Since readers of the site have shown a certain amount of interest in Wagner, there might be takers for Alex Ross' fairly recent book Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music. Ross is the New Yorker's music critic, but the book is not only about music.

We will have more, and if other readers have book suggestions, there's still time to send them to comments@electoral-vote.com, preferably with the subject line "Summer Reading." (Z)

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---The Votemaster and Zenger