6-3-03 -- There are questions below, but first here is something I found interesting. This is a portion of the review of the Vietnam-War-oral-history Patriots which was in the last Wash. Post Book World:
It is most often the lesser-known figures in Patriots who deliver the deepest insight into the nature of this long and bloody war. The more unfamiliar they are, it seems, the more vivid is their testimony. Vu Thi Vinh, one of tens of thousands of North Vietnamese girls who volunteered to work on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, notes that they usually worked only at night and often had to subsist on "aircraft 'vegetables,' " the fungus and moss on rocks that were the only edible things left after U.S. bombing attacks. Le Cao Dai, a surgeon at a North Vietnamese army jungle hospital in the Central Highlands, talks of constantly having to move the hospital to avoid U.S. detection and of operating on patients through the night while staffers took turns pedaling the stationary bike that powered the electrical generator.
Even when the testimonies don't necessarily add much to our understanding of the war, they fascinate. Porter Halyburton, an American prisoner of war in the North from 1965 to 1973 and now a professor of strategy, tells of being shot down and finding no place to hide. His captors surrounded him and took his boots off and made him walk barefoot to the nearby village. When Halyburton returned to Vietnam not long ago, he went to the army museum in Hanoi; there, inside a Plexiglas display case, were his boots, the name visible inside. Journalist Judith Coburn describes winning a prized seat on a helicopter going into Laos and having to relinquish it to legendary war photographer Larry Burrows. ("I was, after all, only writing for the Village Voice and I was a girl and the great Larry Burrows was there.") The chopper crashed in Laos, killing all aboard.
Patriots may at first glance seem a peculiar title for a work of this kind, but one does not have to read far into the early chapters to realize just how fitting it is. People on all sides of the war -- American and Vietnamese (North and South), hawk and dove, military and civilian -- wrestled with the meaning of patriotism. Does it mean loving one's country no matter what? Does it demand unquestioning agreement with whatever one's leaders propose to do, or does it encourage dissent based on allegiance to the nation's noblest ideals? When is it a force for good, and when does it become a rallying cry for unjustifiable use of military power?
In the United States today, even to inquire as to the meaning of patriotism seems to many people, including many in the media, to be, well, unpatriotic. One contribution of Christian Appy's fine book is to move us in the other direction, to force us into precisely such an inquiry. Reading Patriots brought to my mind Edward R. Murrow's remark half a century ago, at the height of the McCarthy era: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it." Wise words then, wise words now.
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some more questions since they seemed relatively doable to most folks:
1. if you had a radio station what would it play? For example, give a typical day's/week's format. (This question might seem redundant to braveliltoaster, since she DOES run radio shows, but feel free to cut& paste from your journals, you asskicking toaster.)
2. Who/what is your favorite robot?
3. On a ten scale, zero being metaphysical disinterest and hatred and ten being metaphysical and tangible love and obsession, how much do you like sports? Has this changed from your youth? Did you ever play organized sports (this is your big anecdote chance)?
4. Do you listen to specific music during long trips? Do you have music-listening patterns/styles for long trips? (edit ps - or you can add any types of mixes, like Telesis did.)
It is most often the lesser-known figures in Patriots who deliver the deepest insight into the nature of this long and bloody war. The more unfamiliar they are, it seems, the more vivid is their testimony. Vu Thi Vinh, one of tens of thousands of North Vietnamese girls who volunteered to work on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, notes that they usually worked only at night and often had to subsist on "aircraft 'vegetables,' " the fungus and moss on rocks that were the only edible things left after U.S. bombing attacks. Le Cao Dai, a surgeon at a North Vietnamese army jungle hospital in the Central Highlands, talks of constantly having to move the hospital to avoid U.S. detection and of operating on patients through the night while staffers took turns pedaling the stationary bike that powered the electrical generator.
Even when the testimonies don't necessarily add much to our understanding of the war, they fascinate. Porter Halyburton, an American prisoner of war in the North from 1965 to 1973 and now a professor of strategy, tells of being shot down and finding no place to hide. His captors surrounded him and took his boots off and made him walk barefoot to the nearby village. When Halyburton returned to Vietnam not long ago, he went to the army museum in Hanoi; there, inside a Plexiglas display case, were his boots, the name visible inside. Journalist Judith Coburn describes winning a prized seat on a helicopter going into Laos and having to relinquish it to legendary war photographer Larry Burrows. ("I was, after all, only writing for the Village Voice and I was a girl and the great Larry Burrows was there.") The chopper crashed in Laos, killing all aboard.
Patriots may at first glance seem a peculiar title for a work of this kind, but one does not have to read far into the early chapters to realize just how fitting it is. People on all sides of the war -- American and Vietnamese (North and South), hawk and dove, military and civilian -- wrestled with the meaning of patriotism. Does it mean loving one's country no matter what? Does it demand unquestioning agreement with whatever one's leaders propose to do, or does it encourage dissent based on allegiance to the nation's noblest ideals? When is it a force for good, and when does it become a rallying cry for unjustifiable use of military power?
In the United States today, even to inquire as to the meaning of patriotism seems to many people, including many in the media, to be, well, unpatriotic. One contribution of Christian Appy's fine book is to move us in the other direction, to force us into precisely such an inquiry. Reading Patriots brought to my mind Edward R. Murrow's remark half a century ago, at the height of the McCarthy era: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it." Wise words then, wise words now.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
some more questions since they seemed relatively doable to most folks:
1. if you had a radio station what would it play? For example, give a typical day's/week's format. (This question might seem redundant to braveliltoaster, since she DOES run radio shows, but feel free to cut& paste from your journals, you asskicking toaster.)
2. Who/what is your favorite robot?
3. On a ten scale, zero being metaphysical disinterest and hatred and ten being metaphysical and tangible love and obsession, how much do you like sports? Has this changed from your youth? Did you ever play organized sports (this is your big anecdote chance)?
4. Do you listen to specific music during long trips? Do you have music-listening patterns/styles for long trips? (edit ps - or you can add any types of mixes, like Telesis did.)
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
2) Bender
3) 10^10^10^10^10 I LOVE SPORTS...
4) Dance...not too much trance...and a bit of rock.
1. Classic Rock and New Rock the uses classic stylings (e.g., the Strokes)
2. Torpor!
3. 5/10. I've played, on a team at one point or another, football, tennis, swimming, and track & field. So far, swimming is my favorite.
4. Any number of CDs we carry in the car, ranging from Squirrel Nut Zippers, to Techno, to Punk, to Samba and Capoeira music