NCR's Colman McCarthy reviews BORDERLINE

from National Catholic Reporter, June 19-July 2, 2015

Pacifism, feminism - and Catholicism

Former soldier's essays reveal a truth-seeker

Reviewed by Colman McCarthy

Borderline - Reflections on War, Sex, and Church
by Stan Goff
Published by Cascade Books

In his pre-Christian past, which is most of his life, Stan Goff was a career soldier who stoutly carried out American foreign policy by obeying orders to inflict violence on human beings in Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Haiti, and other combat zones.  In two Army tours between 1970 and 1996, the San Diego native was a paratrooper who leapt from planes more than 400 times, a sniper; and a member of Airborne Ranger  and Special forces groups.

Rorschach

This morning I did an interview with WBAI at 6:30 AM.  I will not to that again.  I am not awfully bright about a lot of things at any time of the day; but I am pretty dim about most things at 6:30 AM.

The interview was about my book, Borderline, and I had some notes with which to summarize the book itself - a Good Thing - but when it came to answering questions, I was processing things pretty ... haltingly?

Woodchuck

or groundhog... depends on where you were raised, I guess.

This is a brief post about an ear-worm.  Backstory:  I am building a community garden in an open field; and yesterday I saw a woodchuck - a teenager (yes, they are called that when the pups are about the size of a pug and begin to seek out their own spots to build burrows).  The pup was no more than twenty feet from where I was working, laying in paths and mulching beds.  The garden won't be open for business until about mid-June, but seeing a juvenile woodchuck - while charming (little, furry things are charming) - is not a good sign for a garden.  These little charmers eat like pigs (ergo, the term ground-HOG), and they love the same things we like to grow in vegetable gardens.