Maybe Robert Frost said it best:

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

Great essay, Quinn. And finished off with an ass-kicking job by Mary J. and a few Irish lads, eh? GREAT stuff! Thanks!

Communion at the wall. We should be so ashamed for what we do in our ignorance and our bigotry.

I have something to post about walls, too. Might as well do it now as later.

Very reflective post, quinn. I like.

I hope you live in a tropical climate. If not, that carport looking house you have to be living in, (under) to justify that silliness coming out of your head must get breezy in the winter months. Atoms, pshhhht

Here's something interesting about atoms, Quinn.

Turns out that, not surprisingly, there is only so much oxygen in the atmosphere. And it gets recycled, natch. And here's the thing. No matter how many walls they build, those who build them, each and every breath they take, they get at least one tiny atom of oxygen that's been breathed by Jesus or by Buddha or by Mohamed or by Hitler or by a black person or a Mexican person or an Asian or someone from Winnepeg. Or by the priest or your friend from long ago. And by the time you count up all the people who could have breathed that tiny atom before and you add it to all the other atoms in just that one breath... you, me, they who want to build walls, we're all breathing each other's oxygen. Each. And every. Breath. We. Take.

Tell that to the wall builders and those who would separate us or put anyone down.

It's really takes your breath away - when you contemplate that.

Thanks, quinn. You've got valuable oxygen and valuable thoughts to share. Whether they like it or not!

Amen.

When I was growing up, we lived in a great neighborhood. Lots of kids, places to play, woods, all that. Bullies too. One right next door. Fighting between our family/their family. Mostly kid stuff but sometimes the grown ups got involved. Like the time I hit the boy, Billy, same age as my youngest brother, with a stick. Right in the fact. Well! He destroyed our fort! The Moms got into a fight over that one. Fairly certain that argument was not G-rated.

At some point in that neighborly history, my dad built a wall. To divide the yards. Wood stumps. Carried those heavy things and made a line. Fought over the wall too, the normal neighbor stuff, where's the property line and all that. Billy's little sister, Meg, stood down in her yard and threw rocks at my dad while he did it, on her mom's orders.

15 years ago or more.

So that kid, Billy, is now my littlest brother's best friend. Has been for some time now. 10 years? Not sure. A good kid. Still a bit of a rabblerouser, but bright and a good friend. That house isn't in our family anymore, but Billy's family is still there.

Families get along now too. We laugh about the old stuff now. The stick in the fact, and the rocks, and the sand-in-the-hair, and the kid battles.

Funny thing is, I went back to look at that wall not long ago. Doesn't stand anymore. Those atoms. From the wood. Right back into the earth. Started to fall around the same time those boys hooked up. And now? You wouldn't know they ever stood, metaphorically and physically, 'cept for a few bits left over here and there.

Funny things, those atoms.

I've always loved the Atom Family. Morticia was my fave. They were different from everyone else, but somehow thought they weren't. A wall would have ruined everything!

Quinn --
About wall, or one more complex issue:
)between the US and Mexico (or any country and another; any class or another; any they-versus-us designation and another = wrong, so wrong;
2) gauzy, ephemeral architectural walls = a tangible symbol (oxymoron?) of a belief in which a positive permeability is key;
versus
3)a levee between New Orleans and the Mississippi: a retaining wall, or a barrier against annihilation; a levee meaning "to raise," to elevate, whether in the literal or figurative sense = right, so right.

None of which thoughts about walls is intended to detract from or deride your essential point, which I celebrate: "Ex Duos Unum."

About the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg-- IMO, Antoine Predock is a meglomaniac architect (is that an oxymoron?) yet -- his design for this museum is inspired.... and even enspired.

Quinn --
About barrier islands, or a softer, more permeable levee: the contrast between the approach taken by South Carolina ( at least in the past) and Florida is striking: forever, until very recently, South Carolina endorses (or endorsed) the natural rhythm of things (erosion/accretion) while Florida built bulkheads, rip-rap, blah, blah.
I have lived on the edge of both. The erosion/accretion approach is better because it is kinder and gentler -- no matter that it is not good for immediate human gratification. I would endorse it as a preferable option in every circumstance....except: then there is New Orleans, and my sentimental attachment to the city (a civilized urban plan, as well as the place where my mother was born, where my cousin lived, and where I was once young and wild) -- I admit it: all these factors sway my judgment. Although, personal sentimental attachments aside, it may be that all cities below or near sea level -- but say this category doesn't include Charleston! -- should deal with global warming realistically and relocate themselves in elevation.
BTW: Predock not withstanding, absolutely admire Applebaum.

I can see you're not into that whole brevity thing.

BTW, most of your atoms were made in a supernova. Starstuff, all of us.

Quinn, you got some things to answer for... First your geese attack an airplane then this:

The cold was the result of an arctic blast that descended from Canada....

What gives, man?

I was struck as I read this about how unique it is to have built a permeable wall. I haven't heard of many of them. Hadrian's wall wasn't permeable. Nor the Berlin wall. Nor the Great Wall of China. So, who builds a wall with, ummmmmmmm, holes in it?

Some years ago, apparently we did.

Strong enough to protect the border, it also - as Quinn points out - has allowed neighbours to touch, to talk and when desired, to extend a hand of comfort and greeting through the wall.

That's ending now.

It speaks eloquently to a shift in our American psyche and the ideological thinking of Homeland Security. Unable to conceive that some openness is necessary to create friendship, and in friendship there is protection and strength, Homeland Security is putting all their faith in the self-protection of bigger, higher walls, and in so doing, are showing the world not strength as they imagine, but fear, insecurity and hostility towards all others.

All this talk of walls, though, and I can't help but reflect that it's not the walls we build, but the walls inside us that are the hardest for us to see, or to climb over, or to tear down.

My biggest worry for Obama is that too many walls have been built, or will be built so as to wall him in, or wall him off, from the real acts of communion and compassion that will be so essential in rebuilding our confidence and the confidence of the world in America.

We need more men and women like Quinn's friend.

We need people with the willingness and courage to offer communion to others on the opposite side of a wall.

Pax.