reading John Locke's Two Treatises on Government. the 1st treatise is ducks in a barrel, taking on a fundamentalist knucklehead who claims that monarchy derives from God's gift to Adam. not a worthy opponent for JL, who has the Bible better than Sir Robert. the 2nd treatise is more usefully meaty. also reading Stephen Ambrose's book on events following D-Day. war movies in my childhood meant WW2, many of which (I didn't realize then) were propaganda vehicles made when events were yet to be settled. it's still hard to process it all, the incredible scale of it in temrs of politics and in terms of human destruction. looking on the Antietam battlefield, so lovely and peaceful now, and trying to see into the ground that held... I sound sentimental but I only mean to embrace the actuality. Ambrose is sentimental. I know his scholarship is sloppy in his race to crank out another bestseller, but he presents a good enough picture. only other book of his I've read is on Lewis and Clark. which is helpful with facts, but one should just go to the Journals. anyway, I want to be Tom Hanks someday.