Eh?

[copied from dland]

An exaggeration, perhaps, since the part of my hearing aid I broke today is not one of its functional parts, only the end off the ear mold that holds the thing in place in my deaf ear, but still. It doesn't really affect my hearing unless it falls off my head, which could happen. Anyway, it gave me a good excuse to make an appointment with the audiologist, since I need a new ear mold -- my, that sounds disgusting -- at the very least, but I made the appointment for a new hearing test, too, since I'm thinking that my little device may need to be re-programmed with some new test results.

Why yes, I am fascinating today. More hearing aid news.

I got a lot done today, including a new rug, although I didn't get what I expected or what I was looking for. The old rug is a braided oval, 5' x 8', navy and various other shades. What I wanted, remember, was something I could throw in the washing machine. I saw one at Bed Bath and Beyond, but they didn't have any good colors for my room. So I went to The Christmas Tree Shoppe, which had what I wanted, but too small, and I gave up, but on my way out, right near the door, they had oval braided rugs (!) slightly smaller than what I'd had but the right color, and CHEAP! So I got that. If it lasts six months it was worth it, since it cost half as much as the one I put out with the trash today after six months, and I thought that was cheap. So, rug issue resolved.

The topic for today is folk music. I was listening to the Folk playlist in the car before and realized, first, that it's a totally crappy playlist and I need to re-do it, but my attention was drawn to a particular song, The Universal Soldier, by Buffy Sainte-Marie. This is a hard-core anti-war folk-protest song, which I had just been telling K about the other other day. The lyrics are below, or at the link there, but the essence of the song is that it is each individual soldier who is responsible for war.

I remember hearing it back in the day and thinking only "Well, there's a point of view, and an extreme one, but hey, everyone's entitled." And when I was thinking of it the other day, and especially when I was listening to it before, and Buffy's rather strident treatment of it, that I decided, at last, that it's bullshit. But it wasn't an uncommon thread during Viet Nam, that somehow all those men over there could have just said no and then there wouldn't have been a war. Thank god that sentiment is no longer displayed, not now and not during Desert Storm. Maybe it was some kind of weird backlash to the way soldiers were previously seen as larger-than-life heroes, which wasn't the case either, I would imagine. But politics aside, and I've got strong politics, anyone who thinks that soldiers in any war are gung-ho life-size G.I. Joe dolls is missing the point.

(No intent to inflame here, but I'm including the lyrics. No nasty comments, if you please; I'm disagreeing with them, remember. But it's worth a look, if only for historical purposes.)

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.



WATCHING GOLDEN GLOBES RED CARPET :: ENTRY #1349