BOOKS
Terzian, Philip & Lanouette, William J.
BOOKS CHARLPS W.COLSON Chosen Books, $8.95 It is certainly asign of fee times that toe principal debate about this book- if there is any at all-is whether Charles Colsou's conversion to...
...It would be well if he gave himself more time to sort things out and settle comfortably into his new posture...
...Along with our most famous assassinations are also a few we may have forgotten...
...From its opening painting of three minute-men cowering before the British, to its catalogue from America's Third Centennial Expo in 2076, the book's tour of our history is bound to give you a store of funny recollections to help you through the real drivel later this year...
...Within a few months of leaving the White House staff in 1973, the whole 'arrogant structure of the Nixonian palace crashed before Colson's feet It is, I think, a measure of the enormity of Watergate in human terms that so self-assured and one-dimensional a figure as Colson could be shaken to take the steps that he has...
...But they're minor when compared with the wealth of genuinely funny concoctions...
...Said Orwell in 1945: "Revenge is an act that you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also...
...That is, if we are putative Christians, we should, painful as it is, judge the Nixons and the Colsons with forgiveness, accepting this book, at any rate, in the spirit in which it is given...
...March's "An Impromptu Departure, after Charles Dana Gibson," shows a famous Gibson Girl plunging to her death from the Triangle Shirt-Waist Co...
...Other scenes include the Utah sheep kill, by nerve gas, after Grandma Moses...
...January's "California Ducks, after John James Audubon" shows two feathered creatures struggling with fresh coats of crude oil...
...I, for one, have an admittedly fastidious antipathy to the whole phenomenon of "born again' faith, couched as it is in simplistic terms and generally presided over by charlatans like Billy Graham...
...It's perhaps encouraging to note the decline of some forms of national exuberance, such as witch hangings, anti-Catholic riots, gangland massacres, and . violent policing of labor demonstrations...
...Can we not conceive the extent to which this corrupts the already demoralized human spirit...
...I am afraid there is some distance to go before that obtains here, but perhaps Born Again, in its artless fashion, may sense as a signpost along the way...
...But as the old ways disappear, new ones appear to replace them...
...What intrigues me about the book- aside from the few tantalizing peeps inside the White House, a note on that later-is that inasmuch as it teaches an inadvertent lesson, the lesson has gone, and will undoubtedly go, unlearned...
...20,1964 "With a $35,000 appropriation from the state treasury safely in hand, the Wisconsin Cheese Foundation starts making the 'World's Largest Cheese'- a 34,591-pound cbeddar...
...For example, on Feb...
...Of course, if Colson had practiced Christian ethics a few years earlier the whole exercise would have been unnecessary, but that is another matter...
...And for day-unlay survival there are two delightfully sardonic items in the commercial cascade that are well worth their modest prices...
...31 entry: "1901 The worst year in the twentieth century for lynch-ings ends with a tally of 130 (105 blacks, 25 whites...
...In the face of Watergate its victims have reared back and delivered in a tenor of vengeance so violent that I have come to fear them more than I ever did Richard Nixon...
...But that is not what has happened...
...Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you...
...But, Colson is no theologian, much less an intellect, and I suppose in his inelegant way he thought this was the right thing to do...
...What a carnival of pent-up hatred Washington has become, the proverbial jackboot ravaging Nixon's supine face...
...And, we close out our 200th birthday with this Pec...
...The calendar also dates the Treaty of Paris in 1784, not 1783...
...Among the notable atomic events are the deaths of three workers at a reactor, numerous mishaps involving airplanes carrying A-bombs, and an episode of radioactive rainfall over Troy, N.Y...
...Now, let me declare my prejudices: Charles Colson was one of the least worthy soldiers of that malicious army, the Nixon administration...
...now it is up to us to be magnanimous...
...As it is, Born Again is subject to the usual suspicions about motive, and the White House hatchet man of not so very long ago will have to answer charges of merchandising...
...The year begins with a note from Jan...
...And for what...
...Its prospective readers are already licking their chops in morbid anticipation...
...All academia can be proud of Aug...
...And the artistic style, while attributed to Norman Rockwell, seems much closer to Maxfield Parrish...
...Atomic power, for example, which has only been a part of our history since 1945, already rates 19 calendar entries...
...4, 1957, the day Ford introduced the Edsel...
...picking up speed in our headlong (and headstrong) rush toward the ultimate frenzy of July 4. There's no escaping it-unless you can retreat to some remote hollow and live on wild mushrooms, berries, and spring water...
...interests...
...The Peoples Bicentennial Commission is doing much to help ' us through this year's assorted official traumas...
...June's illustration of the Rosenbergs in the electric chair strikes me as needlessly blunt...
...A companion piece, the National Lampoon's The 199th Birthday Book, is an affectionate chronicle of America's foibles, from odd-ball religious sects to our fixation with the future...
...The canker has been lanced...
...Since most of us can't escape the hoopla, why not just enjoy it...
...Note: Chroniclers of the imperial presidency will appreciate the reproduction of A letter from Richard Nixon addressed to Colson in...
...It also notes that on Jan...
...Why not take the hypocrisy lor what it is, and learn to love our country despite it's birthday bathos...
...Nicaragua appears to have been the best-policed, with six invasions (1863, 1895, 1909, 1912, 1926, and 1927...
...Strictly speaking, there are more agreeable techniques for what Colson has done...
...And auto buffs will sorely recall Sept...
...28, 1938, when "Northwestern University confers an honorary degree on ventriloquist's dummy Charley McCarthy...
...What is the point of deploring the amorality of Richard Nixon while, facing him down, becoming his mirror image...
...6, 1947 Three shots are fired at Hubert Humphrey, the Mayor of Minneapolis, as he returns home after a political meeting...
...I can state with the categorical assurance of a onetime Mc-Govern voter that it was not...
...Nixon refers to his resignation and spells the word with a capital R. it is almost sad to think that such petty vanity must constitute solace...
...We have, after all, the assurance that Good has triumphed...
...Further, as declarations of faith go, Colson's is a bit too quick for comfort...
...1, 1781: "Many are wounded as mutinous Pennsylvania Revolutionary War troops at Morristown, N J., fash from their huts, seize arms, ammunition, and horses, seize six pieces of artillery, and, after subduing three regiments of loyal soldiers, march to Philadelphia to demand back pay from Congress...
...BOOKS CHARLPS W.COLSON Chosen Books, $8.95 It is certainly asign of fee times that toe principal debate about this book- if there is any at all-is whether Charles Colsou's conversion to fundamentalist Christianity was staged with an eye to a snort prison sentence for his Watergate transgressions...
...All three bullets miss their mark, and no trace is ever found of the would-be assassin.'* Our glorious past as "policeman to the world" is also celebrated, with 24 separate entries for the times that American forces were sent to "protect US...
...Consuming prodigous draughts of the Treasury to assure the aggrandisement (and re-election) of Richard Nixon, his militant dedication to dishonorable politics is well known and, for mat matter, acknowledged and analysed in this book...
...If the grace of Our lord Jesus Christ is not sought in times of personal anguish and foreboding, what purposs has it...
...The Official National Lampoon Bi-centennial Calendar is a compendium of little known or unreraembered events guaranteed to make you chuckle -or cringe-with each passing day...
...The calendar also offers a monthly tally of .assassination attempts, complete with a key to show how many victims are "killed," "wounded," or "escape unharmed...
...As with the bicentennial itself, the Lampoon's efforts stray occasionally into bad taste and error...
...But these are minor transgressions when compared with the conception and wit of the whole work...
...We are now digesting the latest (and I trust last) Washington Post revelation of the "final days" of the administration, a compendium of malice and human vivisection that borders on the sadistic...
...A decent interval might have assured his apologia a more thoughtful reception from the not-very-interested world...
...These are private matters, after all, and are best left to simmer before public display...
...This, in view of the almost universal cynicism with which bis new-found religiosity was greeted, can only emphasize the unhappy extent to which we allow secular affairs to consume us, leaving us, in the face of adversity, naked and afraid...
...And, considering our previous involvements in Lebanon (1903 and 1958) it's surprising we've shown such restraint during the most recent strife there...
...prison...
...and, indeed, may ask that even if it were, so what...
...a diagram of the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory, after Rube Goldberg...
...and Christmas Seals depicting the 1972 Christinas Bombing in Vietnam...
...It, too, has occasional lapses of good taste...
...Official National Lampoon CHRISTOPHER CERF & BILL EFFROS Vintage Books, $3.95 the 199th Birth day Book The National Lampoon, $2.95 william J . LANOUETTE Our national buy-centennial is gaining momentum now...
...The illustrations for this calendar are superbly done, taking inglorious moments from our history and re-creating them in the styles of famous, native artists...
...The calendar isn't entirely grim, however...
...You might even find that this daily digest of gloom and stupidity will actually make you glad to celebrate our country's birthday-glad, that is, that we've actually survived for two whole centuries...
Vol. 103 • July 1976 • No. 14
