"There are always too many people who construct their own narratives which are either at a tangent to those constructed by politicians or their agents, or which are totally inconsistent with what the state wants us to believe happened in the past."  When I read these lines in Winter's text, I automatically thought about the JFK assassination.  There are so many conspiracy theories and I'm not sure that we will ever know the truth about what really happened.  This is a great example of history being made by certain people, without allowing memory to be included.

 I think this cartoon shows how our thought regarding psychiatric disorders has evolved over time.  Now PTSD and other mental health issues are being recognized as real and we are finding and improving ways to treat these things.  I think it is ignorant to say that someone should "tough it out" or "suck it up" and that disorders such as PTSD or whatever else are not real.  No one knows what it is like in someone else's head, therefore how can you judge someone else's mind based on what you know (your own)?  It's like comparing apples and oranges.  Writers, like Hemmingway, may not have committed suicide if he had had the treatment available today.  Maybe he wouldn't have written as great of works, but was it worth him living a tormented life that eventually led to his destruction?  I definitely think people are overly sensitive and sometimes think they are depressed when they have a bad day or two, but, then again, who am I to judge?

  This is Tim O'Brien in Vietnam around 1969.  Well, he's cute...  Anyway, I like putting a face to the writing.  In the museum and in other pictures of soldiers I like to look at their eyes to try to see what they might have been thinking about.  They always seem kind of sad, hardened, scared, brave... a ton of mixed emotions.