Speed of Life

 by Gregg Chadwick (First Published November 11, 2010) Winslow Homer The Veteran in a New Field 24 1/8" x 38 1/8" oil on canvas 1865 Metropolitan Museum of Art Veterans Day is more than just a day off. Instead it is a time to reflect on duty, honor, service, and life. Winslow Homer's  The Veteran in a New Field  portrays a Union veteran of the American Civil War back at work on the farm. But the painting is not instantly celebratory. There are no angels and there is no parade. Instead a psychic weight seems to be guiding the veteran's scythe as it cuts the stand of grain, much like the volleys of shot and shell mowed down troops, on both sides of that brutal war. There is hope though in the warm, life giving color of the wheat, a Northern crop, and the cerulean sky. All wars must eventually come to an end. Uniforms are cast off. Homer paints the ex-soldier's jacket and canteen tossed onto the newly cut field. Life does go on. The soldier will inevitably struggle t...

"America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, because a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.  The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies."  -Garry Wills, adjunct professor of history at Northw...