VIRTUE

 This morning as Bessie Smith the Rescue Dog and I rambled, we listen to “Cannery Row,” by John Steinbeck. It was perhaps my thirtieth encounter, but she likes fiction, so we reconnected. Came across a phrase I had forgotten: “Misunderstood Virtues.”

Wow. Got me to thinking. As I have said before, I’ll never understand why they say I have a derangement syndrome because I don’t think, for among many reasons, that the grifter that dishonored the military service of John McCain should even be imagined as the president of my beloved country.
Here’s the thing. I don’t honor what Lt. Col. McCain was doing when they shot him down. He was following orders. They were evil orders but that’s what his country asked him to do and he had taken that oath. For the next six years, however, he served with as much dignity and patriotism as one could ask. He was the very picture of a virtuous individual.
It’s the same with Jane Fonda. I don’t respect what she did, but she did it for a defensible reason. I hold no lingering hatred. After all, hers wasn’t the greatest sin associated with that miserable war. Trust me.
Virtues, in my opinion, are complex. That’s why we should read, and why we should think about what we read.
Today we might remember that 161 years ago, the United States Army was within a few days of ending the institution of slavery, with all its sickening manifestations, in our country. There were those among both the victorious and the vanquished who felt they were operating within the most glorious of virtues.