Recto - Verso

So you know, Recto and Verso refer to two sides of a page the right side and the reverse so to speak. I think of that when I think of confederates and their flag and stuff going on now. Frank Rich wrote about that this morning in the NYTimes and perhaps you should take a second to read it.

I'm a Civil War buff. I've read a ton about it and have thought about it as an historian which I am (of sorts - jury is still out and how good of one). I also grew up in the North where this rebellion was taught as the treason that it was.  I have also lived in border states and for a while in the South where this treason was regarded as the high water mark for personal honor.  It wasn't fought, initially, over slavery. It was fought to preserve the union.  Time and lack of historical perspective have reduced the rebellion to some sort of State's rights bruhaha which it was but only in part...and a very small part. Now we have militias springing up to defend the states against the encroaching Federals.  When wackos like Barbour of Mississippi and McDonnell of Virginia call for conferate memorial month, liberal wackos like me want to call for Rosenberg Month or Claus Fuchs month and go screaming into the night that the Japanese were honorable warriors after nearly killing my father half a dozen times.