Vonnegut and the Olympic Torch
Dresden and the torchlight parade
© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Sociology/torchlight.htm
04/7/08
If youÂ’re going to go looking for hope in a hopeless world, Kurt
Vonnegut is usually not the first writer who comes to mind. HeÂ’s a
funny choice, both because the term “mordant humor” fitted him like a
glove, and because he wasnÂ’t exactly noted for a hopeful tone.
None the less, I managed to find that in a brilliant piece in Salon
that my friend Jim passed along. The writer, Steve Almond, prefaces a
quote by Vonnegut relating to the vicious brutality of Americans
toward the German people, and cites it as an example of the “prophetic
role” Vonnegut played, and asks us to substitute Iraq for Germany in
the following passage of Vonnegut’s, in an essay called “Wailing Shall
Be in All Streets.” from his posthumous work, “Armageddon in
Retrospect”:
