Blogging PATNet Not Like Blogging Other Events

(l-r) Howe, Bevir, Catlaw, Stanisevski

PATNet is the Public Administration Theory Network.  It's the faculty of public administration who have more of an abstract/philosophical bent.  Someone asked if I was blogging the conference.  I thought about it.  This is a conference that always pushes my brain beyond the point where I usually stop.  It's hard work.  The panels I've been to took all my attention to catch 70 or 80% of what was being said.  I need too much time to let this stuff settle to write intelligently about things as it happens.  Plus, I need the breaks to talk with folks.

Right now the head of the Asia Foundation is talking about their work in Asia, which is relatively easy to listen to as I type.  For now though I want to just let you know about the previous session.  I got enough of my blogger mode going to take some pictures and I can tell you the paper titles.

This is the conference that kept me sane and intellectually challenged over the years.  The people here pulled me into the larger issues that underlay the everyday things.  I realize the titles in this panel are particularly abstract.  But these are important intellectual challenges that push the boundaries of what I know and force me to question what I know.  This conference is probably the basic source of the title of this blog. 

Concurrent Session II, Session #2
Friday May 31, 2013
1:00 pm

Panel: “Utopias, Pluralisms, and Modes of Inquiry”

“Interpreting Governance: On Dystopian and Utopian Modes of Knowing”
Mark Bevir, University of California, Berkeley
This paper explores the relationship between forms of knowledge and utopian and dystopian visions. I offer a dystopian view of formal and technocratic knowledge: such knowledge erodes democracy and leads to policy failure, for it privileges experts and ignores the creativity of human agents. Thereafter I turn to the type of knowledge needed to sustain a humanist democracy and the scholarly and political practices associated with such knowledge. I emphasize the importance of an interpretive social science that allows properly for intentionality, historicism, and reflexivity. This interpretivism entails a more decentred approach to public administration – and approach I illustrate by considering work on policy networks and governance. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing the implications of the argument for policymaking: practitioners should adopt: an eclectic approach to data, a suspicion of formal models and frameworks, and a greater role for storytelling.

“Ontology Beyond Typology: Pluralism, Onto-theology, and Afoundationalism in Public Administration”
Thomas Catlaw, Arizona State University
Much work in social science has elaborated the ways in which the “ontological” assumptions of a paradigm, framework, or conceptual scheme are connected to the epistemological and methodological possibilities of those frameworks. Drawing on the work of Alain Badiou, this paper argues that, by and large, efforts to typologize social scientific paradigms share an underlying commitment to ontotheology, or the utopian proposition that Being is One. This paper elaborates the various ways in which this proposition is expressed and argues that this commitment retains a stumbling block to the development of an open, pluralistic approach to social science. The paper presents Badiou’s ontology of the pure multiple as an alternative way of approaching ontological questions and to rethinking the grounds for pluralism in social inquiry."

“Khōra: An Inquiry into Polytopian Philosophy”
Dragan Stanisevski, Mississippi State University
The proposed paper examines polytopian philosophy as an envisioning of plural societies (many-places) that could be both utopian (no-place) and eutopian (good-place) (Landi, 1536, in Tucker, 2003). The paper first looks at polytopia through Kristeva’s lens as a philosophy of inclusion (1977, 1984, 1993, 1994). The paper then connects polytopian philosophy to Derrida’s (1995) discussion of Plato’s khōra. Khōra is a space that is simultaneously an evading receptacle and an erasure and as such does not give an established architecture, but it allows an opportunity to deliberatively participate in the process of co-creation of polytopian narrative(s) of societies to be (Derrida and Eisenman, 1997, pp. 35-36). Polytopian philosophy enables us to think of possibilities of better societies where differences could meet again and again without imposition of ideological absolutes (see Mannheim, 1936).

Moderator/Discussant: Louis Howe, University of West Georgia

The folks listening

Louis Howe did a great job as moderator, giving a seemingly rambling, but clearly well thought out, set of comments and reactions and questions for each presenter.  He was self-deprecating and funny in the lowest key possible way.  And as, he said, this was a really challenging set of papers. 







I don't think I can blog too much of the conference.  This is far more challenging than blogging, say, the legislature or the redistricting board. 

I Needed A Break

Last night I took a break and walked around the block and took some pictures.

 Some jade plant leaves.

 

Not sure what this flower is.  It's in a large leafy tree.  Anyone know?

A hummingbird resting in a tree.  It had been checking out the red flowers above.

An ice plant flower, mostly closed for the night.

Hibiscus

Here's The Superior Court Decision - Short and To The Point: "Poor Alaska"

Here's Judge McConahy's ruling. 

Superior Court's Redistricting Ruling

I've read the court filings and the judge's ruling.  Was the Board unfairly treated?  Or is the Board the problem?  As a close observer of the process since it began, it's my sense that Board chair tends to be fairly stubborn.  There's also a strong pressure to make sure the plan protects the Republican majority in the Senate which enabled the oil companies to get their $2 billion a year tax relief.  And the Board doesn't like anyone telling them what to do. 

The Board's attorney, Michael White's style in his briefs is confrontational.   He rarely allows for any ambiguity - his opponent is flat out wrong, his position is unquestionably right.  His response in this case wasn't much different from that.  Yet I can't help but wonder what he really thinks about his argument?  Does he really believe it?  Or are these the marching orders he got from the Board? 

The basic issues in the case were:

1.  Should the Court set a faster schedule for completing their Proclamation Plan?  (The Plan is the redistricting plan for the state.  Our 2012 elections used an interim plan that included some districts that were ruled unconstitutional.)

2.  Is the Board required to have public hearings on the final Proclamation Plan?

Others were raised in support of these, but the judge narrowed his ruling to these two questions.  In both he gave a resounding 'yes.'  Though he did not give the Board any specific timeline or deadline.

Below are just a few of my thoughts on this.  You can go to each of the four documents submitted to the court at Wednesday's post on this.

Scheduling

On the schedule, the Board's response allowed no possible other right interpretation.

“Beyond complying with the Open Meetings Act, the Public Records Act, and Article VI, Section 10 of the Alaska Constitution, the Board has the discretion to conduct its proceedings in a manner that it believes best facilitates the formulation of a new redistricting plan that is in compliance with the Supreme Court’s December 28, 2012 Order.  The Plaintiffs’ baseless arguments to the contrary have already been rejected by this Court.”

When I read this Tuesday, I thought about other situations where courts have intervened and told other agencies how to do their jobs.  School integration came immediately to mind (and Judge McConahy used that example in his ruling) as well as mandating the release of prisoners to relieve overcrowding of prisoners.  It seemed to me if the Court felt that the Board's schedule would lead to another election with an interim Plan, they really would have to intervene.



I was particularly struck by this argument by the Board:

“The Board is fully aware of its constitutional obligations as well as the deadlines it must meet in order to complete its work and allow for judicial review of that work in time to implement its Second Amended Proclamation Plan for the 2014 elections, and it will, as it has done in the past, act accordingly.”  (Emphasis added.)

REALLY?!  "As it has done in the past?"  The facts are indisputable that the Board was unable to complete its Proclamation Plan in time for the 2012 election and we had to settle for an Interim Plan which was seen as unconstitutional. 

One of the issues the Court pointedly did not rule on was the idea of waiting until the Shelby County v. Holder case is decided by the US Supreme Court.  It's nearly June and the Court will most likely decide the case in the next 30 days.  However, there is no reason that the Board has offered that to me would justify waiting.  And there seems no legitimate reason to wait.

The Hickel Process that the Court has said the Board must follow requires the Board to FIRST come up with a redistricting plan that meets the Alaska Constitutional requirements.  Then, and only then, should they consider the Voting Rights Act requirements.  They are waiting on the Shelby County decision on the hope that it will remove the requirement for pre-clearance of their plan by the Department of Justice. 

But because the Hickel process requires them to use the Alaska Constitution first, there's no reason why they couldn't have begun back in March.  Or February.  Or January.  If the US Supreme Court maintains the pre-clearance requirement, the Board would at least have done the first part of the process.  They would have created a map of the districts using only the Alaska Constitutional requirements.  The next step would be to make the most minimal adjustments necessary to also meet the Voting Rights Act.

If the US Supreme Court decision results in eliminating the need to get pre-clearance, then the Board would be done.

But this does raise other issues.  Even though they wouldn't need pre-clearance, they would still have to meet other sections of the Voting Rights Act.  But those other sections, if I understand it right, require proof of intent, whereas section 5 only looks at the outcome compared to benchmark districts from the past and doesn't concern itself with intent.  Short of documents or public statements, it's very hard to prove intent. 

Will the Board, freed of pre-clearance requirements, gut Native representation?  The Board's Response raised the issue of not having to meet the seven benchmark Native districts. Do they have some strategies for redistricting if they are free of the pre-clearance requirement?

There are no legitimate reasons to wait for Shelby that I can think of, but the Court didn't rule on these arguments directly.  But the general ruling seems to suggest he didn't think much of the Board's argument for waiting.

Public Hearings

On the second issue - whether a public hearings are required - the Board argued that while the Board hadn't decided whether to hold public hearings (where the the public can testify, as opposed to their regular board meetings where the public can attend but not talk), it was at their discretion because such hearings are not Constitutionally required.   The judge succinctly disagreed.

The Constitution clearly required the Board to have public hearings before they finalized their plan.  Since they are developing a completely new plan, even if the Constitution doesn't specifically say that "if the first plan fails they need to do public hearings again," it would seem to thwart the intent of the Constitution to not have public hearings.

Yes, as the Board argued, they had lots of public hearings already.  But not on the new plan.  And it doesn't make administrative sense to not have such hearings.  Local people can let the Board know obvious mistakes that locals see that the Board wouldn't see.  This allows a lot of simple things to be corrected.  But they might also see politically motivated quirks that the Board would rather not have people discovering.   Not having hearings increases the likelihood of court challenges.  I realize these challenges are inevitable, but there will be more issues raised and possibly more people raising them if there are no public hearings and the obvious problems aren't worked out before the Plan is final.


Conclusions

It would seem that the Board should be moving as expeditiously as possible.  They should have the first step of the Hickel process done and be waiting to do the second step - comply with the VRA - as soon as the Shelby County case is decided.

Why might they be taking their time?  To make it harder for people to see and review what they do?  That would be consistent with cutting out public hearings.  Or, as the Petersburg Plaintiffs hypothesized, to let the interim plan stay in place for the 2014 election too?

Maybe they just have a different sense of time and urgency than I have.  But when I saw their arguments, I just saw, well nothing that was a strong case.  And the judge apparently didn't either.

They also should be pursuing the idea of public hearings.  They don't have to do the ridiculous schedule of visits all over they state they did last time.  Much of that can be done through telecommunications.  And their hearings should involve much more information about the maps the Board proposes to the communities before the fact, so people can study them and make informed comments.

The Court should [showed] its impatience with the Board.  What will it take from the Board to have the Courts step in and set up their own process for getting this done?  It's happened in the past.  And this Board is being pretty confrontational with the Courts.  

Superior Court Apparently Unimpressed By Alaska Redistricting Board's Arguments

From the Fairbanks News Miner:

Superior Court judge orders Alaska Redistricting Board to get to work pronto

 From the Anchorage Daily News:

Judge scolds Alaska Redistricting Board

 

We flew from LA to San Francisco today so I haven't gotten hold of the decision yet, but you can see what the Fairbanks and Anchorage papers had to say at the links above.   And for more background and detail about the runup to the decision you can look at my previous post which gave an overview of the court filings.

Alaska Redistricting Board - Riley and Petersburg Ask For A Schedule and Public Hearings, Board Says to Court: Don't Interfere

The Alaska Redistricting Saga continues. It's a little difficult to keep up with this, and I'm not sure I have everything, but here are some court documents that have been filed recently concerning the Alaska Redistricting Board's process for creating a third, and hopefully final, Proclamation Plan (redistricting plan) for the rest of the decade.  (I said third, but I guess it depends on which ones you count. The Board references a second proclamation plan. There was the original and the amended original.  There's also the interim plan that was in place for the 2012 election.)

This post will give an overview of the four documents I've gotten hold of that were filed in May with the Alaska Superior Court.  Then I'll try to go through each of them individually in separate posts.  In the meantime I've posted all four on Scribd and for those who are impatient, and can't sleep, you can look there.  I've linked them at the bottom of this post.  

Background

Their first plan was rejected and they were told to follow the Hickel process.  That means, briefly, that they need to design a plan using the Alaska Constitution's guidelines first.  Then, if necessary, they must make the minimal adjustments necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The last plan was rejected and their next one - the Amended Plan - was also rejected, but was used, with some little changes, as the Interim Plan for the 2012 election because there wasn't enough time for another round before the election. 

In December, the Alaska Supreme Court told them that the Interim Plan that was used for the 2012 election had to be redrawn from scratch.  A couple more appeals and orders from the Court have repeated this order. 

The Board hasn't done much lately.  They had a meeting in February.  They met again in March to select a new Executive Director, but after they were forced to hand out the resumes of the candidates they decided to not hire an Executive Director.  So two plaintiffs have filed with the Superior Court to get the Board moving.


The May Court Filings in Superior Court

The original plaintiff - Riley - May 15, 2013 -  filed a motion with the Alaska Superior Court in Fairbanks

1. to give the Board a schedule that will insure that there will be enough time for Voting Rights Act clearance and for the almost certain lawsuits that will be filed to all be resolved in time for the 2014 election.  At the very latest, that means May 2014 so that the Board of Elections can do its job and so candidates will know the districts they will run in.
2.   to require the Board to hold public hearings before they finalize their plan. 

The City of Petersburg  - May 15, 2013 -  whose original filing was consolidated with Riley before Petersburg dropped out, has filed asking for the same things as Riley - a schedule and a requirement for public hearings. In addition they asked the Court to set a deadline by which the plan should be completed.

The Petersburg's motion is much longer and detailed than the Riley motion, with lots of reasons listed for each request. 


The Alaska Redistricting Board Response - May 22, 2013 - rejects the claims of both Riley and Petersburg.  The Board's two major points were:

A.  It is within the board’s authority to set its administrative schedule and the Board fully intends to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to have a final plan in place for th 2014 elections. 

1.  The Board is an independent constitutionally established entity whose administrative schedule this court has already recognized it does not have the authority to mandate.
2.  The Board has not yet actually adopted a timeline for completion of its work, but if it should follow the Board chair’s draft timeline, that timeline provides more than sufficient time for judicial review of its new plan.
3.  The Board’s decision to wait for the US Supreme Court Decision in the Shelby County Case is rational and reasonable.
4,  The Board’s second amended proclamation plan is not subject to new litigation challengers or full blown litigation.

B.  While the Board has made no decision on whether it will hold public hearings on its second amended proclamation plan, it is clear that the Alaska Constitution does not require public hearings on remand.

There are lots of details backing this up, which I'll try to outline in the following posts.

Finally,
Petersburg - May 24, 2013 - filed a reply to the Redistricting Board's response.

A.  The Board’s Authority to set its timelines
“Petersburg Plaintiffs recognize the Board’s authority to prescribe its own timeline.  However, this authority is by no means absolute and is directly limited by the Board’s obligation to comply with the Supreme Court’s Order that the final plan be adopted before the 2014 elections.”

 It goes on to raise their fear that there will not be enough time and the 2014 election will be held using the current interim plan, which, they point out, the Supreme Court has said, includes unconstitutional  districts in SE Alaska, where Petersburg is.

“B.  The Board should not postpone the Redistricing Process until a decision in Shelby County, AL v. Holder, Att’y Gen., et al., No. 12-96 (November 9, 2012)”

C.  The Board Should prepare for and expect lengthy judicial review
[The Board, in its Response, argued that “the Board’s second amended Proclamation Plan is not subject to new litigation challengers or full blown litigation.”]

“D.  Public Hearings Are Required”

[Note:  I've had trouble with the capitalization - Blogger changed all the title caps in the sections from the filings.  Further I can't cut and paste from pdf's I have.  I'll trust that this won't bother anyone too much.]

You can read each of the documents at the links below:

May 15:  Riley Plaintiffs Motion For Order Establishing Deadlines And To Holding Hearings on Final Plan

May 15:  [City of] Petersburg Plaintiffs' Motion for Adequate Timeline and Public Hearings on the Final Redistricting Plan

May 22:  ARB’s response 20 pages plus exhibits (total 36 pages)
Defendant Alaska Redistricting Board’s Consolidated Opposition To Riley Plaintiff’s Motion For Establishing Deadlines And To Holding Hearings On Final Plan And Petersburg Plaintiffs’ Motion For Adequate Timeline And Public Hearings On the Final Redistricting Plan

May 24:  Petersburg Plaintiffs’ Reply to Defendant Alaska Redistricting Board’s Consolidated Opposition to Riley Plaintiffs’ Motion For Order Establishing Deadlines on Final Plan and Petersburg Plaintiffs’ Motion for Adequate Timeline and Public Hearings on the Final Redistricting Plan

I'm Guessing It's Child Car Seats, Not 50 Shades of Gray, That's Increasing Bondage Popularity

There are articles around, like this one, that credit Fifty Shades of Gray with an increase in bondage.    But after watching my grand child being introduced to her car seat, I think there are other explanations.

Essentially, I'm suggesting there needs to be research in the correlation between child car seat restraints and the popularity of bondage.   When I first had to strap my grand child into her car seat - she hated it and I thought it was pretty restrictive myself.

My own kids weren't covered by any laws requiring them to be in such restrictive devices.  Yes, there was an infant seat, but it didn't involve their arms and legs in such a restrictive manner.

The various state laws came into place from 1978 to 1985.  If we say 1985, it means that people today, 28 and under, are the people that first grew up spending a good part of their time strapped down tightly. 

From Safe Ride News' detailed history of child car seat legislation:

1978: First child passenger safety law passed in Tennessee, requiring parents to put their infants and young children in CRS that meet the current federal standard (FMVSS 213). Becameeffective in 1979. Legislative effort begins in other states. . .

1985: Final state passes child passenger safety law. All states plus District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have requirements, but many have limitations, such as applying only to

parents or guardians or allowing lap belt use as an alternative for very young children.

All are primary laws (allowing police to stop a vehicle for the violation).

 Maybe Fifty Shades got people going, but I'm betting that book just tapped into a generation that's been in bondage since infancy. 

Blog That Reprints My Complete Posts Verbatim

I discovered a blog today that is reposting my blog's posts verbatim.  I'm not going to link there, but  here's what it looks like (just the two most recent posts with the website name removed):

 

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

What Do I Know?

What Do I Know?

---

More On Our Hero Worship of the Military 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.

Getting Some Vitamin Z on Seattle Stop 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. Z 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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Posted byXXXXXX at 3:21 AM No comments:

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

More On Our Hero Worship of the Military

"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.

[UPDATE:  I've put up a second post on the book here.]

Getting Some Vitamin Z on Seattle Stop

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.

Z

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. 

Stupid Google Tricks

First there was Weenie Google.

Next there was Epic Google.

Then Mr. Doob's Google Gravity

And now I've come across  Revolving Internet.



The links above go straight to websites, which are examples of people's humor and imagination on the theme of the basic google website.   Clever and unexpected enough, that I thought them worth a post when I first ran across each of them.  You can see my posts on the first three here: Mr. Doob's Google Gravity, Weenie Google, Epic Google,  and the Revolving Internet.