Tuesday, May 28, 2013
What Do I Know?
What Do I Know?
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Posted: 27 May 2013 08:43 PM PDT
"They mash in close, push and shove, grab at his arms and talk too loud, and sometimes they break wind, so propulsive is their stress. After two solid weeks of public events Billy continues to be amazed at the public response, the raw wavering voices and frenzied speech patterns, the gibberish spilled from the mouths of seemingly well-adjusted citizens. We appreciate, they say, their voices throbbing like a lovers." (p. 37) Billy, the title character of the novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is with the rest of Bravo squad ("though technically, there's no such thing as Bravo squad. They are Bravo Company, second platoon, first squad, said squad being comprised of teams alpha and bravo, but the Fox embed christened them Bravo squad and thus they were presented to the world." (p. 4))at a Dallas Cowboys pregame. Not too far into the book, I know there was some brave rescue the squad made and now they are on a two week victory lap around the US getting maximum publicity for themselves, the war, and President Bush. There's even a movie deal being worked during this chilly afternoon in Dallas. In the opening quote, they are sitting in their seats when their names are flashed on the Jumbotron. People come up to them to connect with the soldiers before they go back to complete the last 11 months of their deployment in Iraq. "No one spits, no one calls him baby-killer. On the contrary, people could not be more supportive or kindlier disposed, yet Billy finds these encounters weird and frightening all the same. There's something harsh in his fellow Americans, avid , ecstatic, a burning that comes of the deepest need. That's his sense of it, they all need something from him, this pack of half-rich lawyers, dentists, soccer moms, and corporate VPs, they're all gnashing for a piece of a barely grown grunt making $14,000 a year. For these adult, affluent people he is mere petty cash in their personal accounting, yet they lose it when they enter his personal space. They tremble. They breathe in fitful stinky huffs. Their eyes skitz and quiver with the force of the moment, because here, finally, up close and personal, is the war made flesh, an actual point of contact after all the months and years of reading about the war, watching the war on TV, hearing the war flogged and flacked on talk radio. It's been hard times in America - how did we get this way?" (p. 38) It seemed like an appropriate quote for Memorial Day, the day we honor the war dead, the idea of war and of sending soldiers around the world to protect democracy at home. Ben Fountain's novel, which looks like it's all going to take place at the football game, is starting to paint a different picture of that adoration. As the afternoon progresses, we get flashbacks to Iraq and the incident that made them heroes and gave them this two week reprieve from living on the edge of death. (Two of their squad didn't make it home alive already.) So far this book explores Americans' need to see these soldiers as heroes, their own need to fill some void in their own lives. And to fill that need, they see the soldiers into their own narrative of American greatness protected from the evil outside world by these brave soldiers. A narrative that is clearly different from the one playing in Billy's head. Here's a New York Times review - which I haven't read because I want to finish the book first - to get another take on this book. | ||
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Posted: 27 May 2013 05:32 PM PDT
We're
in LA visiting my mom, before the PATNet conference in San Francisco.
When we were here in March we arranged for a caregiver to stay with her
and we were very lucky to get someone she likes. It's good to see how
nicely they work together.
On the way we were able to get a four hour layover in Seattle and my daughter and four month old granddaughter picked us up for lunch at the IKEA which is close to the airport. So I got a wonderful dose of Vitamin Z. Except for being strapped up in the car seat, she was alert and smiley the whole time. I did manage to stop the car seat crying by rocking the car seat. And Z and I got to have our inter-generational conversation through intense eye contact, touching, babbling, rocking, and just talking, with lots of smiles and some mischievous grandfatherly advice that her mom didn't seem to appreciate. But that's between me and Z. It was very hard to say goodbye. |
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That led me to google "report abuse to blogspot" which got me a page explaining how to complain and I linked to 'legal issues' which got me a form to fill out.
That didn't take long. And I quickly got the email confirmation they received my complaint.
Hi,
Thanks for reaching out to us!
We have received your legal request. We receive many such complaints each
day; your message is in our queue, and we'll get to it as quickly as our
workload permits.
Due to the large volume of requests that we experience, please note that we
will only be able to provide you with a response if we determine your
request may be a valid and actionable legal complaint, and we may respond
with questions or requests for clarification. For more information on
Google's Terms of Service, please visit http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS
We appreciate your patience as we investigate your request.
Regards,
After I pasted what it looks like above, I saw that there was a name for the blogger posted. It looks like a kid in Thailand, so I'm going to email him too. He has a bunch of blogs listed. It doesn't look like somebody trying to rip off stuff. Not sure what his motivation is. Life is full of new stuff that might be fun to follow up on, except I don't really have time for all this. Here's the email:
XXXXXX,
I learned today that you are posting all my blog posts on your blog XXXXXXX. This is illegal - even in Thailand. I have reported this to Google.
Please remove the blog immediately.
ถา ให่มเข้เใจผาษาอัง่ดรืษฤ ตอบผาษาไทย.
Steve
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