Nov. 10, 1961, the satirical anti-war novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was published. Catch-22 is about a World War II bomber pilot named Yossarian who tries to get himself declared insane so he can stop flying bombing missions. Unfortunately, there is a regulation called Catch-22, which says that if you want out of combat duty you can't be crazy.
Heller wrote: "[A pilot] would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to." He also wrote: "But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents."
Catch-22 got mixed reviews, but it became a cult favorite. And by 1963, it had become the best-selling book in America. Vietnam War protesters began wearing pins that said, "Yossarian Lives!" The phrase "Catch-22" became a part of the American lexicon, defined by one edition of the Oxford English Dictionary as "a condition or consequence that precludes success, a dilemma where the victim cannot win."
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Just the facts: December 12, 2024, North Carolina
Our three closest neighboring Republican legislators had said they'd vote against an unfair bill to hinder the new Democrat Governor and Attorney General as part of the bill to help disaster victims (much lower than actual needs.) At present there is a super majority of Republicans in the North Carolina legislature, so they have a lot of power. On the news last night these three men were named as having voted to have the bill become law...against their own promises. This is how politics are played. Sad.
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