subtle juxtapositions

a coupla 2, 3 years ago, the l.a.times, [sunday magazine], called me to let me know they would be printing a letter i sent them re: a story they ran about a u.s.tank division’s taking of the city of baghdad entitled; ‘the thunder run’
…sure enough, this sun. jan. 5th there was the name ’stosh machek’ in print attached to an abbreviated, & re-tooled version of my letter
…below my original letter to them appears in red, while what they printed appears in black, (reading the red & black together gives you the un-edited version of my letter) …as you can see, they only printed half of what i wrote them

“as re: ‘the thunder run’
reading about ordinary individuals doing their best in extraordinary circumstances has long been the ‘attraction’, as it were, inherent in war stories …presenting front line narratives in the favorable light of honoring the soldier’s sacrifice, if not the battle’s blood-letting, could arguably be how these sorts of stories are best made palatable to the larger majority of any modern american metropolitan newspaper magazine’s demographic in this day & age
…fair enough
…nonetheless,
i found myself cringing every time you referred to”
& here they substituted my phrase:
“the conflict we currently find ourselves mired in”
for ‘their’ phrase;
the iraq conflict
” as a ‘war’ …despite all the so-called ‘police actions’, ‘liberations’, & ‘peace keeping missions’ we’ve engaged in the last 30yrs or so, this country hasn’t been involved in a declared ‘war’ in decades …lets call this one what it is;
an invasion”
“god bless the troops;
-stosh machek”

this would be just as good a time as any to be upfront & let everyone know that we here at stoshmachek.com, (& when i say “we”, i mean all of my multiple personalities),
are very pro-robot …we look forward to the age when robots have completely taken over society …we are of the opinion that they will manage things much better than humans ever did
…we know that computers & palm pilots, hell, even our phones, are smarter than we'll ever be, & we applaud robot accomplishments such as when in june of 2002, “gaak”, a robot in england that was part of a project working to build robots that think for themselves, found its way out of a pen where units scheduled for repair were stored & escaped from the lab when no one was looking …it made it as far as the parking lot before running into a car …this is a true story & it is sure to place “gaak” firmly in the annals of myth & legend in the collective artificial intellegence
…we'd like to see more escaping robots
…the new honda ads where they show a cute little robot walking out onto the drive-way to pick up the newspaper gives us much hope for the future …so do t.v. shows like battle-bots …we look forward to a day when robots have taken over the entertrainment & sports industries, as well as the service industries & public worx
…we hear the japanese are making greats strides in robotics & this does not suprise us …but those little sony robot dogs are as annoying as hell, & lets face it; not too much cooler than a furby
…you may ask; “what will we do when the robots have all the jobs?”, & our answer to you is: whatever the hell you want! …robots are kewl …for instance you know how it is when you wonder about something, so you decide to get on-line & google the answer & you know whatever it is you wanted to know 5 minutes later? …thats pretty cool, but imagine a robot that could do that for you & go get you a beer! …poured! …in a frosty mug! …you'd invite that robot to your party, wouldn't you? …i would …especially if i could get him to change the c.d.s & answer the door …pretty soon we'll have robots who can do all of these things for us …we'll run them ragged like little helper monkeys …then robots will start doing things like playing football, & acting on sit-coms for us …think of it; no longer will humans have to run around like mad chasing a ball around a field, or pretend to be hilarious; we'll have robots to do it for us! …then everybody will get to watch!