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Twilight: Doctors, Nurses, and Patients |
Twilight Recap: Bella is being carried by Edward to the nurse's office after nearly fainting in Biology class.
Twilight, Chapter 5: Blood Type
"So you faint at the sight of blood?" he asked. This seemed to entertain him.
I didn't answer. I closed my eyes again and fought the nausea with all my strength, clamping my lips together.
"And not even your own blood," he continued, enjoying himself.
There's a double meaning going on here, of course: to Edward, blood is perfectly common to him as his sole source of food. Even if he only feeds once a week, that means he sees and consumes blood about as often as some Americans eat pizza (including myself, since we have Pizza Weekends at the Mardoll house). So the idea of someone who faints at the sight, smell, or mere mention of blood is a novelty to him. Then, also, there's the foreshadowing that Bella is going to want to become a vampire in the very near future. She's a person who is sickened by blood, and yet wants to modify her body to the point that she can only be sustained by consuming blood on a regular basis. How will that work? Tension!
Interestingly enough, though, I think this works well with the theory of an Otherkin!Bella, if we apply the theory brought up in the comments that if vertigo can be the result of a brain saying jump!, then perhaps Bella's nausea can be seen as the result of a brain saying feed! in a seemingly inappropriate situation. I like this idea, because it fits my preference for Twilight to be less the story of a girl pursuing an unhealthy relationship with a vampire, and more the story of a girl working with and around an unhealthy relationship to become a vampire. So I'm still clinging to that.
But even though this exchange is apparently meant to be cutesy foreshadowing, I can't help but point out that Edward Not-As-Seventeen-As-He-Looks Cullen is having a really lovely time at Bella's expense and that makes him a jerk in my book. Again. Once again, this guy is a trained doctor at least two times over. I'm shocked and reviled by the idea of a doctor who is less interested in distracting the patient until a moment of pain, nausea, and faintness has passed and more interested in amusing themselves with a contemplation of the patient's unusual symptoms. Nice to see the Carlisle Compassion hasn't rubbed off on the boy genius here. If we later see a copy of the Hippocratic Oath anywhere near Edward's accolades and diplomas, I'm going to drop dead from irony overdose.
I hope -- I really hope -- that this Jerky Edward is done on purpose, that this is supposed to underscore his inability to sympathize with non-vampire people. I would actually kind of like something done deliberately like that, a concerted attempt on the part of the author to point out the complete fail of Edward and other doctors like him. If this is meant to showcase that a lifetime of medical training can be immediately undone by an all-pervading sense of contempt for other people, then well done!
But... in order for that to work, I think we'd have to see some kind of growth on Edward's part towards learning to care for all people and not just for Causes-Special-Feelings-In-My-Bathing-Suit-Area Bella. From a literary standpoint, you can't morally redeem a character by having them practice token acceptance -- their new-found compassion and sense of community has to reach beyond the one person on earth they've decided is their soul-mate, in order for it to have any real meaning.
"She's just a little faint," he reassured the startled nurse. "They're blood typing in Biology."
The nurse nodded sagely. "There's always one."
He muffled a snicker.
The nurse is trying to comfort Bella and reassure her that she's not unusual or weak to feel faint -- that this is a yearly occurrence. Edward... finds this hilarious. I don't even know why this is amusing.
This is not advanced psychological stuff here; Edward's scholastic training should have covered at least a basic introductory psychology course. Heck, even if he hasn't had a lick of psychology training, he should have at least seen a good bedside manner at work before now. Doesn't graduate training in medicine also include observation periods? Shouldn't he have at least observed and possibly helped Carlisle at various points over the last century? A huge part of medicine isn't just treating the symptoms, it' treating the source.
Bella is on the verge of fainting, and stress and tension are exactly the sorts of things that can push her over the edge into unconsciousness. Getting her calmed down as quickly as possible -- by, for example, reassuring her that her fainting is normal and won't make her a social outcast at the school and that Everything Is Going To Be Okay -- is a huge part of treating the source of her fainting, rather than just the symptoms by having her lie down for awhile. This nurse is practicing medicine, without even having touched or examined Bella. Edward, whose education supposedly surpasses this nurse's by so much, is actually hindering Bella's recovery by continuing to be a stressor in her environment.
"Just lie down for a minute, honey; it'll pass."
"I know," I sighed. The nausea was already fading.
"Does this happen a lot?" she asked.
"Sometimes," I admitted. Edward coughed to hide another laugh.
Now the nurse has noted that Bella knows more about fainting than her usual patients, and she is concerned and questions Bella as to how often this happens. Again, fainting on a regular basis is not usual and can be indicative of a serious underlying health problem. This nurse actually cares about her patient. Edward, the official doctor in the room, is still cracking up at the idea of his not-quite-girlfriend dropping like a goat at regular intervals.
"You can go back to class now," she told him.
"I'm supposed to stay with her." He said this with such assured authority that -- even though she pursed her lips -- the nurse didn't argue it further.
Oh my gosh. Nameless Nurse, you are the heroine of this novel. You reassured Bella. You tried to help diagnose her medical condition and fix it. You stood up to Edward Cullen and told him he could get his smirking butt back to class. I love you, Nameless Nurse. Someone get this woman some fanfic, stat!
Unfortunately, this is Twilight and -- as Amarie has so beautifully pointed out -- you cannot pull rank on Edward Cullen in Twilight. Edward Cullen is the absolute personification of authority: he's the whitest white, the richest rich, the most desirable male, the one with the highest education. The only authority a woman can have over Edward Cullen is the authority that he grants her out of love, the authority of Mother Esme and Wife Bella. But good on you, Nameless Nurse, for trying. Bless your heart.
It's hard for me to read this and not feel like we're reading yet another Verna scene, but localized for Twilight values. There are three people in this scene: Nurse, Bella, and Edward. Edward, as an educated white male, is asserting his privilege by consistently snickering and treating the entire situation as comical to him. But who is he snickering at?
Ultimately, I think the answer to that question is that he is snickering at them both. I think Edward's obvious contempt throughout this scene is an invitation for one of the other players to join him in his privilege at the expense of the other. The Nurse is being offered the chance to join in with a little wink-wink-nudge-nudge with Edward and smirk at how weak and helpless Bella is. Just imagine! Fainting at the sight of blood! We educated professionals know better! Edward and the Nurse would never faint at the sight of blood. Let's collectively dismiss Bella by sneering at her.
Or, alternately, Bella can join in with Edward and direct his mocking at the Nurse. So serious! Doesn't she already know that Bella is fine because if there was a real need to be worried, Bella would know, as would the highly educated Edward? So solicitous! Aren't her attempts at comforting Bella so generic, so canned, so boring-banal-adult? And -- not to be mean, but let's all be honest here -- so uneducated! Do school nurses even have degrees? Edward has at least two. Let's bond by snickering over the Nurse.
Edward is offering these two women a choice: they are unprivileged compared to him, but they can join him in his privilege, but only by putting down the other one. He's comfortable in his divisiveness -- even if both women reject him and stand against him, he's still the figure of authority here because this is the world of Twilight. The Nurse has no power to send him out of her office because he can claim with authority that a male teacher told him to stay with Bella. Bella has no power to send him out of her presence because his beauty and glamor undermines any conviction in her "no"s.
A major problem with Edward is that when he laughs, he laughs from a position of power. Good humor is about poking fun at the oppressors, and about using the power of laughter to undermine toxic social structures. Laughing at people who are under you, simply for the fact that they have less power, less education, worse health, or are more vulnerable than you isn't humor. It's mockery.
And it's only funny if you buy into the idea that people who aren't Edward deserve to be mocked.
87 comments:
Hmm, I love the smell of Edward hate in the morning.
I still can't believe that this guy is supposed to be the essence of male desirability. Unless he caters to women with a humiliation fetish? Help me out here.
I mean just damn, what a Jackass. Not that Bella is much better. She has contempt for almost everyone who is not a sparklie-poo as well. She just doesn't spend as much time and effort on being a dirk (a mix between a dick and a jerk. My own word. Patent pending).
So it would seem that according to Twilight, its not a problem to have overweening contempt for those around you. Its only a problem if you have contempt for the wrong, special people.
Also, this probably belonged in the last thread, but I am kicking myself I didn't write in there.
See, you were talking about how Twilight reinforces toxic narratives in our culture. It strongly reminded me of a time when my older sister was waxing rhapsodic about the scene where Jacob demands to know if Bella has any feelings for him and she demurs and then he forces a kiss on her. Of course, this being Twilight, Bella likes it afterwards.
The thing is, my sister earlier shared something that happened at college, where a guy she had no feelings for forced a kiss on her. It was quite unpleasant, to say the least. When I reminded her of this, she was like, "well, yeah..." with that hidden "but" unsaid.
So in other words, my sister was willing to indulge in the "hotness" of Jacob's assault on Bella while having experience that directly contradicted such a notion. She was willing to believe Twilight over her own lying eyes. - 1/07/2012 9:31 AM
- chris the cynic said...
Very minor thing as Twilight goes, but it really stands out to me that Edward is lying when he overrules the nurse in her own office with the authority of Mr. "wtf why does the incredible hulk get to overrule the nurse on medical issues when his cover is as a science teacher" Banner. Mr. Banner has no idea that Edward is there and we've already seen Edward as completely dismissive of Mr. Hulk's authority because he overruled Banner to send Mike back to class.
By the Lords of Kobol, what the hell is Cullen's problem? I haven't had a day of medical education in my entire life, and don't have any plans to (maybe dentistry in the future) but even I'm vaguely aware that it's probably not a good idea to snicker, mock and belittle the patient in front of her goddamn face.
It's at least as bad witnessing his crap as realizing in a visceral way that he will never be effectively stood up to by anybody in the entire damned series. (People like Hero Nurse try, but, being both a minor NPC, a school nurse, and a -woman-, most critically, stand no chance against his Sex Appeal.) Especially his primary victim, Bella. You'd think that, being wish fulfillment fantasy, you'd see the main character standing up to her bully at some point and telling him to frak himself, but no, she just eventually gets married to him.
It's not even like that was SMeyer's message; she's probably so frakked that she can't even see nine-tenths of the problems you, in particular, have outlined so well. It's the same kind of 'are we in the same species?' moment of complete alien thought that you get when you see Left Behind II: Tribulation Force mention casually, in the opening, how every child in the world has vanished and then proceeds to show us a world fundamentally unchanged by the Event at all.
(Speaking of sociopathy, don't go thinking Bella is good merely because she has just cause as far as the eye can see to hate this lump of sparkling marble and contempt.Our main topic today is aforementioned lump, however.)
(Even if this was meant to cater to a dominance or humiliation etc. desire in some fashion, it is still a complete failure. Fantasies are Fine, no matter what they are, being fantasies, but there's a way to do things and there's a way not to do things.) - 1/07/2012 11:21 AM
- Kit Whitfield said...
She just doesn't spend as much time and effort on being a dirk (a mix between a dick and a jerk. My own word. Patent pending).
Also a Scots word for a long dagger. FYI. - 1/07/2012 12:17 PM
- Kit Whitfield said...
I think the positive explanation for Edward's behaviour here has to do with genre expectations.
This is a wish-fulfilment romance rather than serious literature, and isn't intended to be anything else. In a romance, there are a couple of things applicable to this situation that you can rely on:
1. The hero and heroine have an instinctive intimacy even when they're at odds.
The fact that Edward is laughing at both women in the situation implies that he has (or at least thinks he has) an understanding of the situation that's beyond theirs. Since the situation concerns her, the idea that he has an understanding that eludes even Bella can be read as a promise that he'll do the 'understanding her better than she understands herself' thing later on. It doesn't really work if you read the scene too carefully, but if you're just skimming it, the knowing laugh up the hero's sleeve is a familiar marker of alpha-maledom and prospective matehood. Margaret Mitchell was a master of it,* and Gone With The Wind is such an influence on romance that, while I'm no romance buff, I have the impression that the mocking-yet-accepting laugh is a trope romance readers can quickly recognise. It's rather awkwardly applied here, but a wish-fulfilment reader is probably going to read it as a general signifier rather than a detailed piece of psychology.
2. Real suffering only happens about relationships.
The heroine can suffer anguish because her (former, unworthy) partner left her, leaving a broken heart that the hero will mend. She can suffer anguish because she's realised the loves the hero but thinks she's lost him. She can suffer about other things too - but those sufferings only really exist to propel the plot. If they were serious enough that love wouldn't cure them, the romance would be a downer and fail to deliver on the promise of its genre. The upshot is that only romantic problems can be really serious, because they're the only serious problems that a new and better romance can fix.
Hence, Bella's suffering here is implicitly understood not to be a serious matter. She herself speaks of it more in terms of irritation and embarrassment than any deeper emotion, and this is because she's reacting to the scene with a certain amount of authorial knowledge: she herself is sort of aware that only romantic problems are worth her taking seriously. Add to that the fact that she has a kind of compulsion to martyr herself, which goes with the basic assumption that unpleasant experiences don't matter when they happen to her.
When you put all that together, and Edward's laugh is a laugh of understanding, leavened by the fact that her suffering isn't - in this kind of book, can't be - serious.
*I feel that every time I mention her name I must stress that her racism was appalling and I do not wish to endorse it in any way, shape or form. - 1/07/2012 12:31 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
This. We had a dog named "Dirk". (He was going to be Hellsing, but then we got him and he wasn't a Hellsing, he was a dirk.)
There's also Douglas Adams' lovely "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency". Although Dirk Gently kind of is a mix between a dick and a jerk, come to think of it...
A "kirk" is a Scottish church. I sometimes wonder if there's some etymological relation between dirk and kirk. Probably not. - 1/07/2012 12:37 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
*I feel that every time I mention her name I must stress that her racism was appalling and I do not wish to endorse it in any way, shape or form.
I understand. :)
There seems to be a strong correlation with racism in romance novels* that we've been talking about lately. You and others have noted the contrast between the cool in-control lover and the hot passionate "love chooses for me" lover who is frequently of dark skin. And I'm still reeling from your excellent point that imprinting is basically what Edward/Bella have, but with a very different word and connotation and that changes EVERYTHING. Very fascinating.
(* The Occam's Razor explanation, of course, being that we are in a racist society and that seeps over into our literature, rather than, say, there being something inherently wrong with romance as a genre.)
I think it's interesting that "your pain is not serious and therefore is amusing" would be a source of relief. It makes sense in my head, but not so much for me in practice -- I'm one of those "touchy when hurting" people and if I thought someone was laughing at me in a moment of physical weakness, I wouldn't find it endearing. But, as I say, from an intellectual approach I see where it could be a source of relief in the "if it was serious, I wouldn't be laughing, so you're fine" kind of way... - 1/07/2012 12:44 PM
- chris the cynic said...
How do you think your first point relates to how much the text repeatedly drives home the fact that Edward doesn't know. So many of Edward's interactions with Bella so far have been characterized by his frustration at his total lack of ability of understand what is going on. We will learn later that this lack of understanding is due to the fact that he cannot read her mind this meaning that Bella is the one person on earth he understands least of all. Or, at least, if not the one person on earth she is definitely the person Edward understands least of all of the people he has ever met in his entire life.
I ask because I don't think you're wrong (I know about as little about romance as a genre as it is possible to know so I'm completely ready to believe there are conventions I know nothing of) but it seems like if the genre is setting us to believe that "The fact that Edward is laughing at both women in the situation implies that he has (or at least thinks he has) an understanding of the situation that's beyond theirs," the text itself is fighting against it because it keeps on coming back to the fact that Edward doesn't understand Bella and is aware to the point of frustration of his lack of understanding.
So I'm wondering how you see those two things interacting. - 1/07/2012 12:46 PM
- Kit Whitfield said...
And I'm still reeling from your excellent point that imprinting is basically what Edward/Bella have, but with a very different word and connotation and that changes EVERYTHING. Very fascinating.
Er, did I say that? Are you sure credit doesn't belong to someone else there? - 1/07/2012 1:00 PM
- Kit Whitfield said...
The Occam's Razor explanation, of course, being that we are in a racist society and that seeps over into our literature, rather than, say, there being something inherently wrong with romance as a genre.
I don't feel that I'm enough of an expert either in the romance genre or in racism to say anything definitive here. I would speculate, though, that romance deals in archetypes, particularly those that influence sexual fantasy, and the line between archetype and stereotype can be very thin... - 1/07/2012 1:06 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
*double checks*
Sorry, you're right, looks like that was hapax. I do apologize, I've done that several times this month and there's no excuse for it. I need to track the threads more carefully. - 1/07/2012 1:07 PM
No problem. I got the compliment of being considered clever enough to have made a point I wish I'd thought of, then I got to show off my shiny probity about taking credit. Works for me. ;-)
Now, where did she say this? I'd like to read it... - 1/07/2012 1:27 PM
"So it would seem that according to Twilight, its not a problem to have overweening contempt for those around you. Its only a problem if you have contempt for the wrong, special people."
I have this problem with Andrew Greeley's Nuala Anne McGrail novels, which I enjoy greatly as mind candy but...oh Lord, the problems with them. The books are narrated primarily by Nuala's adoring husband, Dermot, who thinks of her as an Irish warrior goddess. She is a Mary Sue character of epic proportions, and the surest sign of someone's deep and true evil is for them to not like Nuala Anne, or criticize her, or any of her children, in any way. Such a person is not just mistaken, not just jerks, once a person has suggested that, say Nuala isn't a very good singer they are capable of pretty much any evil. And not just in Dermot's mind--the plot will bear this out.
At the same time, Nuala is allowed to 'defend' herself by unloading with both barrels on a mentally ill relative, (her primary symptom being that she criticizes Nuala's parenting), and this merely brings on a great breakthrough where this woman agrees to finally seek counselling.
I love the books, but this factor makes me nuts. - 1/07/2012 1:40 PM
"Margaret Mitchell was a master of it,* and Gone With The Wind is such an influence on romance that, while I'm no romance buff, I have the impression that the mocking-yet-accepting laugh is a trope romance readers can quickly recognise. It's rather awkwardly applied here, but a wish-fulfilment reader is probably going to read it as a general signifier rather than a detailed piece of psychology."
I think Janet Evanovich does it in a much more appealing way. Than Myers, I mean, not Mitchell. - 1/07/2012 1:46 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
It's in the Toxic Societies thread from last week, but alas I can't get the permalink on my phone. It's in her post about words and how humans get one word and animals get another.
My brain decided that you had learned that while writing/researching your werewolf novel. My brush is slippery like that. O.o - 1/07/2012 1:48 PM
@Ana "Kirk" derives from the same basic word as 'church'--the Swedish word is kyrkan, the German is kirche, and so on. "Dirk" they seem unsure about, but they think it may be from a German word which also means 'dagger'.
- chris the cynic said...
Hapax's comment is here, if I got the linky thing right.
- Ana Mardoll said...
My BRAIN. "My brain is slippery like that." Dang you, auto-correct...
- chris the cynic said...
I didn't notice it didn't say that until you pointed it out.
- Ana Mardoll said...
Ha. Normally I try to ignore my typos, but that one sounded uncomfortably like a euphemism. Or a new internet meme. :P
- chris the cynic said...
I could see it being a way to apologize for painting someone with the wrong brush. Sort of something to go alongside the idea of painting with too broad a brush, in this case the brush is the right size but it ended up in the wrong place, because your brush is slippery like that.
Given some effort we could possibly immortalize your typo as a figure of speech. - 1/07/2012 2:24 PM
- Brin Bellway said...
Given some effort we could possibly immortalize your typo as a figure of speech.
It'd be a bit harder to work in than "otherwordly", I think, but doable.
(An otherwordly thing is a thing that can't be described well in English, so here are some loanwords.) - 1/07/2012 2:43 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
I authorize any and all to make sense of my typos. I'm a genius retroactively!
And I love the kirk/dirk information, thank you Makabit! Learning! - 1/07/2012 3:10 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
Also, yes! That's the one. Thank you, Chris.
I am quite aware that dirk is a word for a dagger. Words can have multiple meanings. Hush y'all.
- chris the cynic said...
I authorize any and all to make sense of my typos. I'm a genius retroactively!
Will does that to me occasionally. He was quite taken with "one word currency" and "deitary concerns". - 1/07/2012 3:24 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
Chris, I realize this doesn't mean much in January, but that was nevertheless the best thing I've read this year. I'm reblogging that RIGHT NOW.
- chris the cynic said...
Thank you. On all counts.
Chris: Ha, that's awesome. Also, food! I want food. But not bread, because it goes stale so fast and I live alone so when I get it I have to pretty much just eat bread until it gets all hard or green.
In other news, I've been missing Edward criticism. Between not focusing on Edward last week, and not criticizing Aslan much, I've missed the reminder of what an inappropriate pudding head our hero is. - 1/07/2012 5:02 PM
- Silver Adept said...
We're not even halfway through this book, and I'm running out of words in any language to describe what kind of person Edward Cullen is. Of course, if you have a few in other languages that I don't have, I'd be more than willing to throw them at him at this point.
Edward continues to laugh while the Heroic Nurse is concerned about her. If I recall correctly, it's Alice with the foresight abilities, who would be in a much better position to say "It won't be a problem. But you really should have doctors examine to see whether you have an inner ear blockage. Might save your life." and have a chuckle at the nurse that's trying to do it the old-fashioned way.
Unless, that is, Edward Cullen finds the idea of caring for someone to be funny/laughable, because in his infinite wisdom, agelessness, and ability to read minds, he's taken a long view that consists mostly of "People are dumb, panicky creatures and you know it." Or has seen his fair share of people professing concern while being resentful, bored or elsewhere in their thinking.
That suggests that, perhaps, every time Edward laughs, it's because he's reading a mind or that he's heard something like that before in his life, and that what's going on mentally is very different than what's going on physically. It makes Edward more of a cynic (but really, no less of a jerk). Of course, if we had a more assertive protagonist, she could angrily confront him about it and ask what was so damn funny, but our Isabella is too awestruck by his beauty to stay mad at him for long, or to carry a coherent thought. And thus, Jerk Cullen is allowed to get away with being a jerk yet again, even though he should theoretically be concerned about the woman he's supposed to be in love with. (He is in love with her at this point, yeh?)
And the nurse, as a school official, should be able to say, "Cullen, she needs to rest. Get. Out. Wait in the anteroom if you have to, but right now, get out of here." And if Edward were in the slightest interested in the masquerade of being a high schooler, he would go. This being Twilight, however, where we've established that the Cullens are Super-Special Snowflakes that nobody, not even Charlie Swan, dare say or do anything to cross, of course, the whims of a seventeen year-old (and his flimsy excuse) over-rule the nurse who theoretically has more experience than he does.
The worldbuilding, it is full of holes that cause caverns of Fail. - 1/07/2012 5:07 PM
What an insufferable jerk Edward is. And what a missed opportunity. Wouldn't this be the perfect chance for him to demonstrate some genuine concern for someone who's obviously in distress, thus showing Bella there's depths to his character behind the obvious jerkiness? I mean, it would be an easy, cliche way to do it (strong man "rescues" weak woman), but it would be better than this.
Otherwordly is a wonderful term that I am definitely going to have to remember.
Personally, I think "jick" makes a better dick-jerk combination than "dirk." Jick just sounds like a swear word to me. - 1/07/2012 5:40 PM
Edward being amused by Bella's suffering would be - kind of - salvageable if he'd been established as someone who was amused by his own suffering. People have a tendency to default to what they prefer, if they don't have any other information. And Edward can't read Bella's brain and find out how she prefers to be treated when she's suffering, so... he defaults to his own preference. Laugh at suffering and it diminishes.
A good writer then salvages it more by either having Bella and Edward bond over his having gotten it right. Or over him having gotten it wrong. (This, in my head anyway, involves him sharing some amusing story about how he got hurt some time and made all sorts of bad jokes about it to the medical people/his family while they were treating him. Of course, this requires him to be able to be hurt. At the risk of sounding sadistic*, it's so much easier to humanize people who can be harmed - injured, humiliated, saddened, what have you. It's hard to relate to people who are untouchable because we aren't.)
Except we haven't gotten that characterization.
The more I think about it, the only consistent thing about Edward's character is that he's a jick. No, wait, I'm not sure even that's been consistent. Wasn't he all sympathetic to Bella's pain at having come to Forks? Why was that worth sympathy, but her fainting at the sight of blood is funny?
*Granted, I might be a smidge sadistic. - 1/07/2012 7:38 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
The more I think about it, the only consistent thing about Edward's character is that he's a jick. No, wait, I'm not sure even that's been consistent. Wasn't he all sympathetic to Bella's pain at having come to Forks? Why was that worth sympathy, but her fainting at the sight of blood is funny?
Can we make it fit the up-thread theory that Emotional Pain Is Real but Physical Pain Is Not? - 1/07/2012 7:41 PM
Kinda. I hesitate because fainting doesn't really involve pain. That's not to say it's all fun, sunshine, and puppy dogs, but it doesn't hurt. (And I was quite capable of dropping like a goat for fifteen or so years of my life. Experience, I haz it.) Okay, feeling queazy isn't pleasant, but it still seems a world away from pain. Mostly, it's just drattedly inconvenient.
Emotional Sensations Are Real but Physical Sensations Are Not? Except then they spend all that time sniffing each other. Hmph. - 1/07/2012 7:53 PM
- chris the cynic said...
Was he sympathetic? I remember him being confused about it, having a powerful need to know, jumping to incorrect conclusions, and finally saying that he assumed she suffered more than she let on, but I don't remember any thing that really seemed like sympathy. More like he saw her as a puzzle in need of solving with "You put on a good show, but I'd be willing to bet you're suffering more than you let anyone see," being his solution.
Soon afterward we get this:
"Am I annoying you?" he asked. He sounded amused.
Which doesn't really sound like sympathy to me, it seems more like same old Edward.
I have the independent film channel on free preview at the moment. Today I saw a movie called D.E.B.S. It is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination and I'm sure any close reading would find all kinds of problems. One doesn't even have to look that close, when one of the leads wants to see the other she breaks into lead B's room while lead B is sleeping (wow, sound familiar? did not think of that before) and eventually, after lead B points a crossbow at her, ends up getting hold of the crossbow and using it to make lead B come with her. There are so many problems with that that I'm not even going to try to address.
But the reason the movie worked is that there was a definite sense that Lead A and Lead B liked each other. The love at first sight that was going on in all its extremely problematic glory actually seemed to involve genuine affection and that allowed me to forgive massive heaping problems with everything else. (The fact that it was a comedy helped too.)
I wish the same thing could be said about most of the friendships in the movie (one of them I could believe was an actual friendship, the others not so much.)
Anyway, the point in bringing up this movie is that it really drove home for me how little it takes to make me, personally, accept a romance. If Edward and Bella actually showed some sorts of signs of caring about each other I think I'd have little problem letting everything else slide. The problem is, there's really no indication these two even like each other. In fact, they seem to actively dislike each other. - 1/07/2012 8:07 PM
Was he sympathetic?
Sounds like I misremembered. Right, then, Edward's only consistent characterization is that he's a jick. And hoo boy is he.
I have trouble remembering exactly how things went in Twilight because I just can't relate, attach, whatever the right word is to either Bella or Edward. Without any kind of emotional investment, my brain keeps marking it for deletion. I don't know if it's bad writing, exactly, or if I am just completely and utterly not the target audience. (Well, I know I'm not the target audience, as I'm not and have never been a teenage girl.)
Actually, I think I'm rather put off by the subgenre Twilight belongs to. I tried to read The Hollow (http://www.amazon.com/Hollow-Trilogy-Jessica-Verday/dp/1416978933) which I'd heard a few good things about, but I couldn't get into it. I don't want to read about girl falls for mysterious boy and investigates mysterious stuff. Something about a person falling in love with an unknown quantity just puts me off. I'd much rather read about an ordinary girl falling for an ordinary boy while they investigate mysterious stuff together. (Replace with two girls, two boys, etc.) Romance must involve togetherness to appeal to me. - 1/07/2012 8:21 PM
- chris the cynic said...
("It's OK if he's demeaning--Edward was! Guys are like that. Doesn't mean they don't love you").
Oh, god. I had hoped that that wasn't happening.
I have never heard anyone feel obliged to mention, when talking about, e.g., Homer or Wilkie Collins (now there's a pair that doesn't belong in the same breath!), that they don't endorse the sexism.
It definitely can be strange coming from a position of working with things like Homer and Vergil and Petronius and Juvenal to hear people feel the need to distance themselves from authors for problematic things. Homer is full of misogyny and slavery and think what they did to the cyclops. I'm not saying Polyphemus was a great guy but they came into his house, stole his stuff, and eventually blinded him and killed all his beloved sheep while escaping retribution by the power of puns. And they were the good guys.
Yet I've never seen people feel the need to mention that they don't support the values in these things.
That was an honest question, by the way. I cracked open the book to get accurate quotations, but I didn't reread the whole conversation with an eye towards whether or not he was sympathetic. And even if I had done that I'd be open to the possibility I just missed it. - 1/07/2012 11:11 PM
Now hang on, there, it sounds like you're misrembering the story. Odysseus and his men went into Polyphemus' cave and ate some of his food, but they brought a gift, so no real foul there. When Polyphemus comes back, Odysseus claims hospitality. Hospitality, at the time, is a really big deal, tied closely in to piety. Instead of granting the hospitality, Polyphemus kills and eats two of Odysseus's men, then seals the rest inside his cave. Later on, he kills and eats four more of the men. When they blind him, they're just trying to get out of his cave alive. And they don't kill his sheep, they just use them to escape.
So Polyphemus is pure villain from beginning to end, and Odysseus never commits any real wrong during that episode.
Also, is Homer full of misogyny and slavery, or does he just present the world as he knew it? Even a modern writer is going to present the ancient Greek labor force as slaves, because that's what they were. There's a world of difference between showing heroes with slaves in a time of slavery, and putting in some kind of thematic content arguing that slavery is a wonderful institution and slaves are absolutely thrilled with their lot. - 1/07/2012 11:38 PM
"Also, is Homer full of misogyny and slavery, or does he just present the world as he knew it? Even a modern writer is going to present the ancient Greek labor force as slaves, because that's what they were. There's a world of difference between showing heroes with slaves in a time of slavery, and putting in some kind of thematic content arguing that slavery is a wonderful institution and slaves are absolutely thrilled with their lot."
I can't read the end of the Odyssey where Odysseus murders the slave women who have been sleeping with the suitors. That seems to me to go beyond 'the world as Homer knows it' simply into sadistic exertion of power against people who are reminder of his shame, and can't fight back.
That said, I think writing about American slavery, not that many years later, is dicier, and Mitchell, in particular, is politically complicated in so many ways. It's different, somehow. You end up fighting with her more. - 1/08/2012 1:09 AM
Given that I don't have a copy of the book at hand, that's far more than I can do. I feel reasonably safe extrapolating from what you quote that he was, in fact, a jick through the whole conversation. (Maybe I shouldn't.)
I've read Twilight once. And have been reading Ana's posts. And, like I said, the book didn't have good mental stickage. It's easy to confuse what a conversation should have been (or was meant to be, but didn't quite manage) with what it was. I think we're supposed to view him as sympathetic to her in that conversation, but that's very different from him actually being presented as sympathetic to her. - 1/08/2012 1:37 AM
- Kit Whitfield said...
I personally feel Margaret Mitchell is a case worth pointing out because, unlike Homer or Collins, she's still fairly current and is often read as a straight romance by her fans. Heck, she was on my school holiday reading list when I was thirteen, and I read the book and totally missed the racism. (Which is extremely embarrassing to admit, but true nonetheless. She's good enough to put one over on the naive white reader.) In addition, while Homer and Collins and lots of other writers displayed some bigotry, Gone With The Wind is practically a tract about why a lifestyle based on slavery is the best way to be and good black people agree. It doesn't just display racism in its writing; it promotes it.
Plus, I'm white, so I don't feel it's my place to take it as read that I don't endorse or fail to notice the racism; plenty of white people do. If a man talked about One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest purely as a political piece of heroism without mentioning the sexism, for instance, he'd make me feel wary of him, and I don't want to do that to anyone else.
I don't feel comfortable mentioning her without condemning the racism. Others may differ, but I just don't like to.
Incidentally, I went away and read the old thread, which I'd dropped out of and missed some great stuff. And I read Amarie's piece. And Amarie - wow, you're good. I hope this isn't patronising, but from the viewpoint of a slightly older woman, I really wanted to say that you're a smart and special young woman and I hope you cherish and value yourself as you deserve. - 1/08/2012 3:19 AM
- Silver Adept said...
@Inquisitve Raven:
That's more like it! It gets Edward out of the room, it keeps confidentiality, it exposes the shenanigans going on...it's what should be going on. Even if from Bella's perspective, she doesn't see all of what's described there, there's also an opportunity for her to sigh and explain to the nurse that she's been fainting for a very long time, and that there's something about low blood iron or something, and it's all in her medical file that should be at the local hospital, and really, she'll be fine in just a bit.
...this says something about Twilight, or the class of people commenting here, or both, that such problematic scenes can be easily rewritten so as to make both logical sense and to provide more interesting details to the reader, doesn't it? - 1/08/2012 3:23 AM
- Ana Mardoll said...
Inquisitive Raven, that was so awesome. If nothing else, the threat of the Feds should worry him because they're under orders to not draw legal attention to themselves. Rewrite Win!
I agree totally. Homer lived in a world in which slavery was a given. Curiously, that didn't prevent the Homer of the Iliad from having sympathy with slaves--when Achilles commands keening for Patroclus, Homer makes a point of mentioning that the enslaved women dutifully mourned, ostensibly for Patroclus, but each actually for her own sorrows. And of course Andromache expects to be made a slave and knows what that means (although Homer, or possibly Hector-as-presented-by-Homer, glides over the sexual part of it.
Entirely agree that American slavery (slavery by colonial powers in the Americas) is much more fraught, and slavery in areas associated with/controlled by/in the traditional purview of the U.S. is even more fraught because of the insistence upon high ideals. Mitchell should have known better. Heck, Thomas Jefferson should have known better. - 1/08/2012 8:31 AM
You would, I think, enjoy Zachary Mason's Polyphemus chapter, "Blindness," in his Lost Books of the Odyssey.
- Ana Mardoll said...
I dunno, if I came home to find a bunch of guys had broken into my house and were eating my food (or my pets -- are the sheep food or pets or both), no amount of "Look, we brought you a Limited Edition Jackass DVD!" would cool me down. :/
@Makabit, I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates that bit in the Odyssey. The killing of the servant girls bothers me so much because there's such a privilege gap. I hate hate hate that so many people think it's okay because they were "collaborating" with the suitors. Privilege Does Not Work That Way. - 1/08/2012 8:37 AM
I've posted too many times in a row already, but I had to come in once more to add that that's brilliant! Absolutely perfect. BTW, Dorothy Dunnett does a brilliant job with a similar scene: the male lead, Lymond, takes his injured beloved, who is not yet aware that he's in love with her, to a place where she can receive medical attention; Dunnett makes his dismissal by the caretaker a sensitive and meaningful part of the story. But then, Dunnett is an excellent writer.
- chris the cynic said...
Now hang on, there, it sounds like you're misrembering the story.
Odysseus comes in, takes Poly's stuff, and then decides to stick around to see what else he can get by claiming hospitality. You're right that hospitality was a big deal and Odysseus was within the bounds of that as a Greek, but Poly shows up and says, basically, "Dude, I'm not Greek. This is how we deal with thieves here."
Odysseus's men asked him to leave before Poly got back because they were well aware of what they were doing, Odysseus was sticking around because he wanted more stuff. Yes, he was hoping to get that stuff according to the rules of hospitality as they existed in his far away homeland of Ithaca but he wasn't there and his attempt to impose his culture upon Poly involved trespassing and theft. Now death by dinner is a horrific punishment for those things, but Odysseus is definitely the invader. - 1/08/2012 9:20 AM
Again, it goes back to the hospitality thing. At that time, it would be perfectly normal to have some food while you waited for the master of the house to return.
And yes, the killing of the servants is repugnant to us, but it's not shocking for the time. And it's not specifically misogynistic, because "disloyal" servants of both genders are executed. - 1/08/2012 9:31 AM
In the Odyssey, there really aren't other cultures. It's ancient Greece everywhere they go. Polyphemus knows the rules of hospitality, he just disregards them.
- Ana Mardoll said...
As we have discussed, multiple times on this blog, there is a great deal of difference between writing something historical and writing something fictional. It may not have been "shocking" for the time for the slave women to be murdered, but it was still a creative choice the author made. The fact that it may or may not have fit the time period does not mean that we cannot critique / criticize it.
A great deal of words go into the point that the slave women are being killed for their "disloyalty" of sleeping with the men. This is misogynistic. If male slaves are also killed in the story, their deaths do not erase the misogynistic nature of the text. They just add a new layer of Fail. Two Fails do not cancel each other out. - 1/08/2012 9:39 AM
- chris the cynic said...
IMO, the Homer of the Iliad is much more sympathetic to the female slaves than is the Homer of the much more domestic story, the Odyssey.
I wonder if that might be because of the difference in how the men were interacting with the slaves during the war. Achilles would have been, basically, a kid when he went off to war. He would have grown up with the women he knew falling into two categories:
1 His mother, who isn't even human.
2 Slaves.
If he was going to fall in love with a woman, it was going to have to be a slave. If anything on the Greek side was going to involve women, they were going to be slaves. One would guess that that would result in slaves being thought of in completely different ways during the Trojan War than they were before or after when people were at home. Homer was good enough at characterization that he probably wouldn't miss that even if he did have very unsympathetic views of the slaves he encountered in his daily life. - 1/08/2012 9:40 AM
- Ana Mardoll said...
*brain explodes*
OK, possibly you aren't aware that *ANCIENT GREECE* comprised multiple cultures? :/ - 1/08/2012 9:40 AM
- Ana Mardoll said...
Good point. Though I have always felt that the Odyssey is a little less understanding of women. It seems like 90% of the women we meet in the Odyssey are obstacles to Odysseus getting back home, and usually of a sinister bent. Of course, I suppose 90% of EVERYTHING in the Odyssey is an obstacle to him getting home, but the women tend to fall into unfortunate stereotypes, iirc.
I think GeniusLemur is talking about what is happening within the story. You're talking about our view from outside. Which is pretty much what you said in your comment of ... um, well, Blogger lists it as "four minutes ago," which isn't going to be very helpful in about, oh a minute or so. Anyway, it's the point about the difference between our understanding of history and our understanding of fiction. I'd just add that, from the story's internal perspective, there are multiple cultures, but the rules of hospitality are absolute: Odysseus is no anthropologist, nor are his men. The men want to leave because they suspect they are in a barbarian place, where the rules don't apply, and besides, giants are scary, not because they're aware that different cultures may have different rules and those rules must be respected. Polyphemus is as bound by the rules of hospitality as any Greek is. That he is inattentive to them just shows that he (and, as we learn, his culture) is wrong, wrong, wrong. From the perspective of the Odyssey.
BTW, the slave women get a voice in Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad. Wonderful book.
But about that, some of the male slaves who cooperated with the suitors are spared because it's recognized that they did so unwillingly. It's Telemachus who insists on executing all the maids who slept with the suitors, and he makes no mention of a possible distinction between those who might have cooperated willingly and those who might not.
Chris the cynic is right that Odysseus acts like a jerk in the Odyssey, and particularly in the Polyphemus episode. I'm not sure Homer intends us to think otherwise. But the jerkitude isn't where a modern writer would put it. - 1/08/2012 9:59 AM
- chris the cynic said...
Which is something I probably should have said, but I was mostly thinking it on a scale of, "Well there's Athens and Sparta and Ithaca and Crete over here, and then there's Polyphemus and the other cyclopes way over there. Such that the differences between the cyclopes and Odysseus make the differences between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians looks small in comparison."
Anyway, good point. - 1/08/2012 10:06 AM
Yes, but I simplified to streamline the post. In both the Iliad and the Odyssey, there are certain baselines that seem to be in place everywhere, and that's what I meant by "ancient greece." For instance, Polyphemus is supposed to be an uncivilized giant living in Sicily, but he acknowledges the same gods as Odysseus and speaks the same language (and remember, the rules of hospitality are at least semi-religious). In the Trojan war, both sides fight using the same tactics and weapons, and nobody ever needs a translator.
Besides, if you want an example of Odysseus being a jerk, look to the story of Palamedes. Odysseus tries to weasel out of going to war by faking insanity, and Palamedes, who was sent to get him, proves he isn't. Later on, during the war, Odysseus frames Palamedes for treason. - 1/08/2012 10:10 AM
- chris the cynic said...
The men want to leave because they suspect they are in a barbarian place, where the rules don't apply, and besides, giants are scary, not because they're aware that different cultures may have different rules and those rules must be respected.
I don't exactly disagree with this, but I don't think ... um, how do I say this.
I think that "they suspect they are in a barbarian place, where the rules don't apply," means that "they're aware that different cultures may have different rules," I don't see the two things as in opposition.
I definitely agree that respecting Polyphemus's culture's rules was not on the men's list of things to do, they were afraid and acting in their own self interest. If they'd wanted to respect him and his culture they would have stayed out in the first place until they found out what he thought was ok. - 1/08/2012 10:14 AM
- Ana Mardoll said...
Besides, if you want an example of Odysseus being a jerk, look to the story of Palamedes. Odysseus tries to weasel out of going to war by faking insanity, and Palamedes, who was sent to get him, proves he isn't. Later on, during the war, Odysseus frames Palamedes for treason.
In the tradition I'm familiar with (not going to look it up, because I'm lazy), Palamedes "proves" Odysseus isn't insane by placing his infant son in front of Odysseus' plow. He's basically telling Odysseus that if he wants out of this stupid, pointless, costly war, he'll have to do it by killing his son in front of Palamedes.
So my heart doesn't really weep for Palamedes. :/ - 1/08/2012 10:16 AM
- Ana Mardoll said...
I think that "they suspect they are in a barbarian place, where the rules don't apply," means that "they're aware that different cultures may have different rules," I don't see the two things as in opposition.
I don't really grok a difference between those two things either, so you're not alone. "Primitive barbarian culture not like ours" is still a different culture. (And probably less primitive and barbarian when one takes off the privilege googles. I mean, really? His culture is primitive because he doesn't welcome people who have robbed him? There goes all of Texas down the barbarian culture pipe. Not that that's maybe the best counter-example, ha.) - 1/08/2012 10:17 AM
- chris the cynic said...
If you want Odysseus being a jerk look to Sophocles. In the Philoctetes he's a complete jerk with basically no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And that's without even having an opportunity to show his misogyny (there are no women on the island where it takes place.)
@Inquisitive Raven - Brilliant! That scene is exactly how it should (and in the real world, would) go down. Since when does anyone (unrelated, not a guardian, not in a capacity of chaperone for an intimate exam, no consent asked of patient for the person to be there, just a random dude) hang around with a patient when they have been brought for medical care? Privacy, confidentiality, farewell, this is Twilight/the Twilight Zone!
Yeah, that's about right, but Palamedes was just doing his job. He was told to bring back Odysseus, and he did. It was Odysseus who wanted out of the solemn oath he took (and the ancient world in general was really big on keeping oaths) because it was personally inconvenient. No one involved in the Trojan war was happy about it, but they'd taken the oath.
I'd compare Homer's Trojan war to World War I: a conflict over a comparatively trivial cause that pulled everyone (mostly unwillingly) in, followed by massive amounts of death and suffering. - 1/08/2012 11:04 AM
That would be another spot that Edward could demonstrate genuine concern/compassion if he actually had any.
"Sir, you'll have to leave."
"I just want to be sure she's all right."
"Sir, you have to leave."
"All right. Bella, do you mind if I wait outside for you?" - 1/08/2012 11:11 AM
- Ana Mardoll said...
I'm not sure how to respond to this post. Maybe I'm just cranky today, but you seem to think that you're telling me something I don't already know. I know that Palamedes was following orders; I don't agree with him following an order that was clearly unethical. I know that the generals were following their oaths; I don't agree with them following oaths into a situation that was a vast stupid waste of life. That's my opinion. It may even be the opinion that the oral tradition meant for us to take away, but meh there are good arguments on either side.
The tone you've taken on this subject seems to be kind of a lecturing one -- although, again, this may just be me being in a mood -- and I'm confident saying that most of the people you're engaging with already know quite a bit about the topic. So I'm not sure what you're trying to communicate, my apologies. - 1/08/2012 11:18 AM
He was told to bring back Odysseus, and he did
Which he surely could have done by just loudly reminding everyone in the vicinity that Odysseus had sworn the oath and then dragging him onto his ship, feigned madness or no feigned madness, in the hope that the prospect of being dragged before all the kings of Greece in such a humiliating way would call Odysseus' bluff. (Also, putting your host's baby son in front of his plough has got to be an abuse of hospitality, whether you think he's mad or not.) Palamedes apparently decided that drama was more important than ethics. - 1/08/2012 12:10 PM
I didn't intend to come across as pedantic, and I'm sorry if I did.
- Ana Mardoll said...
It was probably just me being cranky on a Sunday. Thank you, though. HUGS ALL 'ROUND.
Thank you! I think the "ancient Greece" part of the thread has played itself out. As an alternative, there's my 11:11 post about how the scene could have been better.
The ancient Greeks may have expected the basic rules of hospitality to be the same around the Mediterranean; the historian Herodotus presents evidence that they were in force in (part of) Egypt at the time of the Trojan war. Basically, when he went around doing research for his book, he visited a particular town in Egypt where local tradition held that Paris and Helen stopped for provisions on the way back to Troy. The local ruler found out who they were, and that they were carrying a bunch of valuables stolen from Menelaus, and proceeded to take both Helen and the valuables into custody until such time as Menelaus could come and get them, and for good measure gave Paris a lecture on how the sacred rule of hospitality isn't just a one-way street.
Then, of course, Herodotus is left with the problem of explaining why the Greeks spent 10 years besieging Troy if they were just out to get Helen back, but he kinda handwaves that by saying the Greeks didn't believe the Trojan protests that she was in Egypt, and pretends not to notice they could easily have sent one or two guys to Egypt to find out. It's one of the frustrating things about Herodotus that he accepts stories like this at face value and never seems to wonder if there might be some larger social or economic reason why a war was fought, or a dynasty fell. - 1/08/2012 12:55 PM
Quite possibly, that was the only source he had, so anything else would be pure guesswork.
- chris the cynic said...
It's been a few months, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Herodotus just go with, "This is the story as the Persians tell it, it's not told that way among the Greeks," for that whole section of the Histories? I seem to remember everything on the Trojan War, Medea, and whatshername before that being told in indirect speech. Accusatives and infinitives everywhere, hardly a finite verb to be found.
If so then there's not a lot of reason for him to try to make the story make sense, he's telling the other side's version of it. It's probably better if it has holes. - 1/08/2012 1:35 PM
I think we're saying pretty much the same thing, just from different perspectives. We agree that Odysseus' men recognize that there are different cultures. The immediate cause of Odysseus' problem is a failure of what is sometimes called the sociological imagination: specifically, in this case he takes the rules of his culture as absolute and expects to impose them on someone of another culture. Whew! Glad we don't do that nowadays! [/sarcasm]
I see it has been suggested that the thread has played itself out, and I'm happy to leave it there. (Also, I don't want to get embroiled in L'affaire Palamedes, or, in U.S.mediaspeak, "Palamedesgate.")
(I'm joking, of course. The U.S. media doesn't refer to it at all because (a) "Palamedes" is a foreign person with a foreign (i.e., not English, Irish or Scottish) name and (b) he wasn't sleeping with a Kardashian.) - 1/08/2012 5:57 PM
Did I mention that I got the full "saga" at Half-Price Books, bundled for clearance at $5? It was the only way I would pay for them, but now I get to follow along, and there are a couple of things that struck me about the nurse and the way she's described.
When Bella and Edward enter the office - "The grandmotherly nurse looked up from her novel, astonished, as Edward swung me into the room...."
The 'nodding sagely' in agreement with a student's statements....
Calling Bella "dear" and "honey"....
Bowing to a student's 'authority' about whether he should be allowed in the room ( which has already been discussed per privacy issues & male dominance)....
Item 1: I get the feeling we're supposed to see the nurse as someone who isn't expecting any health issues, ever - 'astonished' at the sight of an ailing student entering a place of medical treatment, really? Startled, maybe even surprised, if she were really engrossed in her book (for some reason, I suspect we're supposed to imply a romance with a lurid cover) but I can't see a realistic reaction as astonished. Then there's the fact that she's allowing herself to become so involved in the book as to be surprised at an interruption - now, I can't say I've never been guilty of reading fiction at work, but never to the point where I let it take my entire concentration.
Items 2 & 4: Edward is apparently so knowledgeable and has such an imposing presence that fully established medical professionals bow to his expertise. There's no reason a licensed, trained nurse should allow any seventeen year old high school student to dictate terms of patient care, regardless of how well-informed he may be; although he might reasonably be expected to have picked up solid first aid skills from his father, he isn't presenting himself as exercising any such skills in his handling of Bella. I get the feeling that he sees the nurse as incompetent, that he knows she doesn't know what to do, and is enjoying her posturing.
Item 3: Without the other cues this would be easy to accept; the nurse is trying to help Bella feel better, make her comfortable, and reassure her that she will be cared for. With the other implications, it just seems to me to present the idea that the nurse is unused to handling medical emergencies, that Edward can read in her mind that she's just 'bustling' around to look busy, and to reinforce her character as a folksy, 'grandmotherly' type - comforting, but ineffectual.
What I was trying to write, and gave up on after reading Inquisitive Raven's re-write (very nice use of HIPAA!) was a scene where the nurse would pick up on the vibes between Edward and Bella, firmly but politely direct him back to class, and then offer Bella some pamphlets on unhealthy relationships and the state hotline number along with the cold washcloth. - 1/08/2012 10:26 PM
- Ana Mardoll said...
I wholeheartedly agree -- or, I should say, I do think Edward sees the nurse as incompetent and I think the text wants us to believe that too, because Edward = Authority. I had to really push back against the cues you pull out in order to get my NO, SHE'S HELPING, YES SHE *IS* interpretation. I'm not sure if that makes it a good deconstruction or a lousy one, but I couldn't bear another incompetent school official. o.O
'astonished' at the sight of an ailing student entering a place of medical treatment, really?
I haven't read these books myself, but the bit you quoted looks to me like the nurse is meant to be astonished at seeing an ailing student being physically carried in by another student, not astonished at seeing an ailing student per se. - 1/09/2012 11:33 AM
- Silver Adept said...
Or, perhaps, the nurse is surprised at seeing one student bringing in another student who is in need of attention and nobody has thought to call down and warn her that they're coming. Once she assesses that things are not dire, she calms down some, but it could very well have been that Isabella was coming in with a deep laceration of some sort - she doesn't know because Mr. Banner hasn't called down to say she was coming. He'll probably get an earful for it later, or worse, depending on how much the principal wants to make a point.
"The grandmotherly nurse looked up from her novel, astonished, as Edward swung me into the room...."
IMO, the reason the grandmotherly nurse is astonished is (first) because she doesn't expect to see Bella with Edward, since Edward is out of Bella's league, and (second) because she doesn't expect to see Edward at all, since (despite the report that they all suffer from some ill-defined condition) none of the Cullen kids ever get sick, and thus are total strangers to the nursing station. Edward chuckles because he's aware of the nurse's astonishment and of all the reasons for it, and, also, because he's aware of the many layers of Wrong in which both the nurse and Bella are involved. Edward is privy to insider knowledge, IOW, and his possession of that knowledge causes him to feel smug, which, in turn, causes him to chuckle and preen and to start to boss the nurse around. (This is typical behavior for Edward, who has no doubt been warned many times not to underestimate humans by his father, Carlisle. To no avail.)
S. Meyer's characterization of Edward is consistent and really pretty good, it's just the way both she and Bella instruct us to feel about Edward which boggles the mind. Edward, considered strictly in his capacity as Edward, is almost pathetic, and yet we're supposed to take him seriously as a savior figure and as Bella's vehicle into the transcendence of perpetual youth and infinite money. Not that perpetual youth and infinite money aren't tempting, but Meyer seems to expect us to think what Bella thinks, which is that they're holy. Yikes. Imagine what Carlisle's Dad would have had to say about that... - 1/09/2012 1:10 PM
Hey there, everyone! :D
I just wanted to say that I like/agree with pretty much what everyone said here. I apologize that I don't really have the time/brainpower to add more. Gracious, work and school together can be exhausting, I've realized. LOL!
But, I love you all and keep up the good work! Edward Hate for the WIN!!! :D - 1/10/2012 5:33 PM
- Inquisitive Raven said...
Thanks to everyone for the accolades. I'd definitely call it a case of "write what you know."
Lemme put it this way: I got my EMT cert pre-HIPAA which took effect while I was on a medical leave of absence from the fire company. When I came back, they wouldn't let me on the ambulance until I'd passed a test on it.
Presumably, every practicing health care professional in the US at the time had to pass a similar test. Since then, well, if nursing classes are organized anything like my EMT class, legal rights and responsibilities are one of the first things covered, and anyone going into health care in the US would cover HIPAA in that unit. And then there's the paperwork. Anybody who's had any contact with the health care profession in the US since 1996, including patients would have encountered the paperwork if only because the first time one sees a doctor in a new medical system, or gets a prescription at a new pharmacy, one has to sign a document stating that one understands one's privacy rights. If one needs to actually transfer records from one health care provider (or insurer) to another, HIPAA provides for a standardized release form (these kinds of releases existed before HIPAA, but I suspect that they weren't quite so standardized). I find it difficult to believe that Smeyer never dealt with the health care system between 1996 and the time she wrote these novels, yet here Edward completely ignores the confidentiality rules and gets away with it.
Well, I didn't let him get away with it, and I have to say that if the nurse in canon let him get away with it, then his low opinion of her competence is justified.
@Ana: My nurse leaned on the Federal law by way of emphasizing that she didn't invent the rules, she just has to follow them. She's also rather pissed because she's having to waste time on this jerk instead of helping her patient. I also expect that she's going to want to arrange for a special assembly or whatever Forks High does by way of an inservice equivalent in a week or two on How To Behave When Dealing With The Health Care System. Until Edward pulled this stunt, it never occurred to that she might need to. It especially didn't occur to her that a doctor's kid would need that particular lecture. She's also going to have a word with Banner about Edward apparently hijacking Bella from her original escort. Bella's speaking up in that scene is based on the idea that she can speak for herself if she's not looking at Edward's face, and right then she's staring at the ceiling.
@Bekabot: Carlisle's Dad? Huh? What's he got to do with anything? - 1/11/2012 7:23 AM
- Brin Bellway said...
Carlisle's Dad? Huh? What's he got to do with anything?
Carlisle's dad was a pastor and monster-hunter. - 1/11/2012 11:57 AM
"Carlisle's Dad? Huh? What's he got to do with anything?
Carlisle's dad was a pastor and monster-hunter."
And an Anglican possessed of strong Puritan sympathies. If Bella's attitude with regard to many of these questions seems close to blasphemous to me, imagine how it would have looked to him. - 1/11/2012 12:06 PM
- Inquisitive Raven said...
Y'know, it occurs to this former EMT that Edward sitting in the nurse's office while she takes Bella's history just might qualify as a HIPAA violation. Which gives the nurse the perfect excuse to kick him out.
Nurse Keefer was taking inventory when the two students arrived, the boy carrying the girl in his arms. "What seems to be the problem here?" she asked.
"She's just a little faint. They're doing blood typing in Biology class." Odd, per Herriot's Law, it was usually a boy who had trouble with the blood typing lab. Still you treat who you get, not who you expect. She nodded.
"There's always one." The boy muffled a snicker, and ignored her glare.
"Just lie down, honey; it'll pass," she said, pointing to the cot. She snagged a blanket from a cabinet.
"I know," sighed the girl. Now wait a minute. Patients do not usually know that unless they've either had a lot of these episodes, or extensive first aid training. Keefer didn't remember seeing this young woman before, but there was a new student in school. Best to get a history.
"Does this sort of thing happen a lot?"
"Sometimes," admitted the patient. Behind Keefer, the young man coughed. She spun around and glared at him. She'd expected him to leave as soon as she took charge of the patient.
"You can go back to class now." She told him.
"I'm supposed to stay with her," he said firmly.
"According to who? Mr. Banner?" asked Keefer as she placed the folded blanket under the patient's calves to elevate her legs.
"Yes." He replied.
"Is Mr. Banner, a medical professional?"
"Well, no." he admitted.
"Well, I am, and I have certain rules I have to follow. One of them is protecting the privacy of my patient. Your part in her treatment ended when you delivered her, so unless you're a relative, you should leave this office."
From the cot, the patient said, "He wasn't even in the lab when I started feeling sick. Mr. Banner sent someone else with me."
"Oh really?" said Keefer. "All right, mister. Out, NOW!" She pointed at the office door.
The boy refused to budge, a smug expression on his face. Something tugged at Keefer's memory. "You're one of Doctor Cullen's kids, right?" He nodded. "Did your dad ever talk to you about patient confidentiality? Do you want me to call the hospital and explain to him that you're violating a patient's privacy rights? Do you want me to interrupt him at work, so he can explain the Federal rules regarding such matters?"
With the question about confidentiality, the smug look vanished. When she started talking about calling Dr. Cullen, he started to slump. "No, ma'am."
"Then get out of here. And if you ever accompany a patient in here again, you're to leave as soon as you've delivered your report. Clear?"
"As crystal," he muttered, then slouched out of the office.
She closed the door behind him, and turned to her patient,"Right, now that he'd gone, how are you feeling, and can you explain when this has happened before?" She got out her clipboard and started taking notes.
Of course, the poor nurse doesn't know there's no such thing as confidentiality where Edward's concerned, and she thinks he's a 17 year old kid and therefore not medically qualified. OTOH, Edward knows she's telling the truth about the rules, and even if she's bluffing about calling his father, he has to act like he doesn't know that if he doesn't want to blow his cover. I figure she's pissed enough at him to at least leave a message for Doctor Cullen explaining what his son's been doing. - 10/31/2012 12:09 PM
- chris the cynic said...
It probably comes as no surprise that I disagree. It's the same language everywhere they go, it's the same gods everywhere they go, but it isn't the same culture.
Polyphemus, the Sirens, the Lotus Eaters, Scylla, these things are not, in my opinion, to represent Greek culture gone wrong. They're meant to represent alien ideas. (Alien ideas that then reflect back on Greek culture gone wrong.)
One thing that probably is worth noting is that Homer didn't just make stuff up. We don't know what came before Homer because it doesn't survive, but he was almost certainly working with oral traditions. The fact that Odysseus came back all alone, for example, was probably a part of the oral tradition and thus probably something that Homer had to have if he was going to avoid having people say, "I'm telling you, you're messing up the story, now get it right!" to him. So he deals with that by saying that the men brought it on themselves (the schmucks.) Of course, for all we know that was part of the oral tradition too.
Somehow I doubt that, "He killed all the disloyal female slaves, and by disloyal I mean they had sex with the big scary armed men," was an integral unavoidable part of the oral tradition so it doesn't really apply here, but in general it is worth pointing out because what Homer was doing shared some elements with writing history. And we've discussed before how a lot of what we have from the Ancient Greeks resembles fan fiction in the way it was made (though then we were talking about tragedies.) - 10/31/2012 12:09 PM
Janice Radway makes the point that some of what (at least some) romance novels do is reinterpret male behaviors that normally seem rude, inconsiderate, demeaning, etc., as the result of the man's (sometimes undeclared) love for the woman. I'm getting the impression from listening to young women who read the Twilight series that that is at least some of what they are getting out of it ("It's OK if he's demeaning--Edward was! Guys are like that. Doesn't mean they don't love you").
As Kit has noted, it also follows its romance ancestors (Mr. Rochester, after all, delighted in playing tricks on Jane) in presenting the man as more knowledgeable, more in control. Mitchell herself was married to a man who was said to be the model for Rhett ("Red" Upshaw).
@Kit: I feel that every time I mention her name I must stress that her racism was appalling and I do not wish to endorse it in any way, shape or form.
Those who deal regularly with American literature take it as given that lots of it contains really ugly racism and that we can appreciate what is good or even just noteworthy about a piece of literature without overlooking or approving the racism. I have never heard anyone feel obliged to mention, when talking about, e.g., Homer or Wilkie Collins (now there's a pair that doesn't belong in the same breath!), that they don't endorse the sexism. I mention this only to assure you that if you don't put in the codicil every time, I at least won't assume you're a secret supporter of the Old Confederacy. :-) And I suspect I am not alone in that. - 10/31/2012 12:09 PM
Startled, maybe even surprised, if she were really engrossed in her book (for some reason, I suspect we're supposed to imply a romance with a lurid cover) but I can't see a realistic reaction as astonished.
And now, for some reason, I really want the nurse to have been reading ATLAS SHRUGGED. Her astonishment would stem from the expectation that she would contribute to the degradation of society by enabling the parasitical neediness of the weak.
If she were an admirer of Ayn Rand, it would also explain her deference to Edward. the very acme of the angular, hard-edged domineering male sociopath.
"Who is Edward Cullen?" - 10/31/2012 12:09 PM


text:
Chapter 6
Jesus heals on the Sabbath—He chooses the Twelve Apostles—He pronounces blessings upon the obedient and woes upon the wicked.
1 And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.
2 And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the asabbath days?
3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;
4 How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the ashewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?
5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the asabbath.
6 And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered.
7 And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him.
8 But he aknew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.
9 Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?
10 And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
11 And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.
12 And it came to pass in those days, that he awent out into a mountain to bpray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
13 ¶ And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he achose btwelve, whom also he named capostles;
14 Simon, (whom he also named aPeter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew,
15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphæus, and Simon called Zelotes,
16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas aIscariot, which also was the traitor.
17 ¶ And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judæa and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;
18 And they that were vexed with aunclean spirits: and they were healed.
19 And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went avirtue out of him, and bhealed them all.
20 ¶ And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye apoor: for yours is the bkingdom of God.
21 Blessed are ye that ahunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall blaugh.
22 Blessed are ye, when men shall ahate you, and when they shall bseparate you from their company, and shall creproach you, and dcast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
23 aRejoice ye in that day, and leap for bjoy: for, behold, your creward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
24 But woe unto you that are arich! for ye have breceived your consolation.
25 Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.
26 Woe unto you, when all amen shall speak bwell of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
27 ¶ But I say unto you which hear, aLove your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
28 Bless them that curse you, and apray for them which despitefully use you.
29 aAnd unto him that bsmiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that ctaketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.
30 aGive to every man that basketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35 But alove ye your enemies, and do good, and blend, hoping for nothing again; and your creward shall be great, and ye shall be the dchildren of the Highest: for he is kind unto the eunthankful and to the evil.
36 Be ye therefore amerciful, as your Father also is bmerciful.
37 aJudge not, and ye shall not be judged: bcondemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be cforgiven:
38 aGive, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same bmeasure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the ablind blead the blind? shall they not both fall into the cditch?
40 The disciple is not above his master: but every one athat is perfect shall be as his master.
41 And why beholdest thou the amote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
42 Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
43 For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt afruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
44 For every tree is known by his own afruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.
45 A good man out of the good treasure of his aheart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the bheart his cmouth dspeaketh.
46 ¶ And why acall ye me, bLord, Lord, and cdo not the things which I say?
47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and adoeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
49 But he that aheareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
WASHINGTON - Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information, senior Navy officials said yesterday.
Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations, one official said.
The SEALs are alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called Medal Of Honor: Warfighter.
Each of the seven received a punitive letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Those actions generally hinder a military member's career.
The deputy commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not offer any details.
"We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as sailors in the United States Navy," Rear Adm Bonelli said. He alluded to the importance of honouring nondisclosure agreements that SEALs sign.
He said the punishments this week "send a clear message throughout our force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability".
The two main complaints against the SEALs were that they did not seek the permission of their command to take part in the video project and that they showed the video designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit, said a senior military official. The official was briefed about the case but was not authorised to speak publicly about it.
SEALs, including some of those involved in the bin Laden raid of May 2011, have been uncharacteristically prominent in the news this year.
Mr Matt Bissonnette, who participated in the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but later retired from the SEALs, wrote a firsthand account under the pseudonym Mark Owen, but he landed in hot water with the Pentagon even before it was published in September. The Pentagon accused him of disclosing classified information in violation of the nondisclosure agreements he had signed as a SEAL. He disputes the charge.
The SEAL mission to capture or kill Laden, while stunningly successful, encountered a number of unexpected obstacles, including the loss of a stealthy helicopter that was partially blown up by the SEALs after making a hard landing inside bin Laden's compound.
The head of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm Sean Pybus, responded to the Bissonnette book by telling his force that "hawking details about a mission" and selling other information about SEAL training and operations puts the force and their families at risk.
SEALs, both active duty and retired, possess highly sensitive information about tactics and techniques that are central to the success of their secret and often dangerous missions overseas. That is why they are obliged to sign nondisclosure agreements when they enter service and when they leave, and it is why the Pentagon seeks to enforce such written agreements.
The punishments were first reported by CBS News. AP


text:
Lessons in Wildlife Management
Initially, wildlife management in the United States was skewed toward protection.
- In the early 1900s, for example, wildlife managers attempted to preserve a mule deer herd in the remote Kaibab Plateau of Arizona. Hunting was banned, and predators were destroyed. The result was severe overpopulation, habitat destruction, and mass starvation. The Kaibab Plateau was opened to hunting in 1929, which brought the population into balance with the habitat. Today, a large, healthy herd of mule deer inhabits the area.
- Around the same period, a similar event took place in Pennsylvania. Deer had been brought into the state after the native population was thought to be extinct. With most of the predators eliminated and little hunting allowed, the herd grew out of control. As the food supply dwindled, thousands of white-tailed deer starved to death.
- From these hard lessons, wildlife managers learned that there is more to conservation than just protecting wildlife. They discovered that nature overproduces its game resources and that good wildlife management yields a surplus that can be harvested by hunters.
The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation
In the first two decades of the 20th century, sportsmen from the United States and Canada developed a set of guiding principles for managing wildlife resources. Called the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, these seven principles provide the foundation for the success of fish and wildlife conservation in North America.
- Fish and wildlife are public property. The government holds them in trust for the benefit of all people.
- Wildlife cannot be slaughtered for commercial use. This policy eliminates trafficking in dead game animals.
- Wildlife is allocated by law. Regulations determine how wildlife resources are managed, including hunting seasons and bag limits.
- The reasons for killing wildlife must be valid. Wildlife shall be taken by legal and ethical means, in the spirit of "fair chase," and with good cause. Animals can be killed only for legitimate purposes—for food and fur, in self-defense, or for protection of property.
- Wildlife is an international resource. As such, hunting and fishing shall be managed cooperatively across state and province boundaries.
- Science plays a key role in managing wildlife. Wildlife populations are sustained and scientifically managed by professionals in government agencies.
- Hunting, fishing, and trapping shall be democratic. Every citizen in good standing—regardless of wealth, social standing, or land ownership—is allowed to participate in the harvest of fish and wildlife within legal limits.


text:
HY35W Turbo Dodge Truck Chrysler Bus Cummins ISB Diesel Engine 3599811 4035044
SKU: F3599811This is a TURBOTURBOS REMANUFACTURED TURBOCHARGER. This is an exact, direct fit replacement turbo.
Fits the following:
Part Number: 4035044
Interchangeable Number: 3593075, 3593076, 3599810, 3599867, 4033667H, 4044050, 4044051H, 4089392, 408939200, 4089392NX, 4089392RX
OEM Number: 3599811, 4033667, 4044051, 4955452, 5086863, 5086863, 5086863AA, 5086863AB, R5086863, R5086863AA, R5086863AB
Turbo Model: HY35W-E7765AX/P09TXX35, HY35W
Year: 2003-04
Engine: ISB, 6B MY03
Engine Manufacturer: Cummins
Fuel: Diesel
Angle α (Compressor Housing): 225°
Angle β (Turbine Housing): 165°
Actuator: 3597785
Back Plate: 3530923 (3530923H)(1154351300)
Bearing Housing: 4031486 (4040124)(Oil Cooled)(1154035450)
Compressor Wheel: 3532309 (Ind. 56.03 mm, Exd. 76.6 mm, Trim 5.84, 7+7 Blades, Super Back)
Heat Shield: 3519302 (1152301340)
Repair Kit: 4031484 (1154351751)
Turbine Wheel: 4035271 (Ind. 65.5 mm, Exd. 57.96 mm, Trim 10.4, 12 Blades)(1154351435)
Wastegate Settings (Lift Rod): 0 mm
Wastegate Settings (Pressure): 1.750 bar
2003-04 Dodge Truck with Cummins ISB Engine
Chrysler Bus with Cummins ISB Engine
*Important* Please use the above information to determine if the part(s) in this listing fit your vehicle. The most reliable way to make sure the model of turbo is finding the part number from the nameplate of your old turbo.
Ask us about this product:
Core Rebate Offer
Although it is not required, we would like to request that you return your old assembled core back to us. We may rebate up to 10% of the purchase price depending on the condition of your core.
A return shipping label will be provided upon request. Cores must be returned within 60 days of the purchase date. Please allow up to 3 business days for us to process your refund.
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Not all items include a Core Charge or Core Deposit Policy. Please read item description carefully to see if item includes one.
There is a core charge which has been included in the price, it means if you DO NOT have or will not send us the original part, we will not refund the core charge. You will be charged at the time of purchase, and will be fully refunded once your old re-build able core is received.
This item requires an additional refundable amount in addition to the purchase price. We cannot ship your part until the core deposit is paid. We will refund the core deposit back to you once we receive your old re-build able core.
Cores must be returned within 60 days of the purchase date. Please allow up to 3 business days for us to process your refund.
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Each new or remanufactured turbocharger, component, and kit is warranted to be free of manufacturer's defects for 1 year from the date of purchase. All units returned to TurboTurbos for warranty consideration must be shipped freight prepaid. Collect shipments will not be accepted. If your warranty is approved, we will refund the cost of return shipping.
New or remanufactured OEM turbocharger, component, and kit sent in for warranty consideration often require us returning the unit back to the original manufacturer for processing. We cannot be held responsible for turnaround times in these instances. The final decision will be made by the manufacturer.
All used turbocharger, component, and kit come with no warranty. They are sold *AS IS* unless stated otherwise.
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TurboTurbos will replace or refund at its discretion any TurboTurbos brand product that proves defective in material or workmanship under normal installation, use, and service.
Our warranty DOES NOT cover any damage or malfunction due to improper installation procedure, misuse, neglect, unauthorized disassembly or alteration, or externally induced physical damage.
Our warranty DOES NOT cover the damage to the turbo caused by unjustifiable modifications such as high performance, or use in racing sports vehicles.
Our warranty will only cover the product itself; it will not include expenses related to installation labor, third party inspections and testing, damage or failure caused on other parts.
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Returning UNINSTALLED parts will be treated as a standard return and subject to a 15% restocking fee. You must also select to either replace or exchange within 30 days of purchase. Please note that the customer is responsible for the cost of return shipping.
Returning any INSTALLED parts will result in no refund, no exceptions. We will arrange to get you a replacement part if by mistake the wrong part is sent. If you feel the part has failed after installation you must send it back for warranty processing. Please contact us for further information on our warranties.
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Transit time does fluctuate depending on your location. International customers are responsible for all taxes, duties, or other additional fees associated with the delivery.


text:
Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski told a news conference in New Orleans the well was not producing at the time and no oil was leaking. A small amount of oil spilled from the rig when workers using a torch cut into a 75-foot-long, 3-inch-wide line on the platform. Cubanski said a sheen one-half mile long and 200 yards wide was reported in the area.
"It's not going to be an uncontrolled discharge from everything we're getting right now," Cubanski said.
The fire had since been extinguished, said Coast Guard spokesman Drake Fore. He said Coast Guard aircraft and boats were searching for two missing people. Nobody was believed killed in the fire.
Taslin Alfonzo, spokeswoman for West Jefferson Medical Center in suburban New Orleans, said four injured workers were brought to the hospital in critical condition with second- and third-degree burns over much of their bodies. Three arrived by helicopter at 9:55 a.m. and one by helicopter at 10:10 CST.
Two were sent by ambulance to the Baton Rouge Burn Center. Two others were to be sent later. She could not release identities or any other information.
The production platform owned by Black Elk Energy is about 25 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La. The Coast Guard said 26 people were aboard the platform at the time of the explosion.
The platform is for oil production from an established well, unlike the Deepwater Horizon rig, which was drilling an exploratory well for oil giant BP in mile-deep water when it blew up and triggered a massive oil spill in 2010. That site is well to the east of Friday's explosion.
Cubanski said the platform appeared to be structurally sound. After the April 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, that rig burned for about 36 hours before suffering structural collapse and sinking to the Gulf floor.
The Black Elk platform is in 56 feet of water. Cubanski said 28 gallons of oil were in the broken line.
The Coast Guard got the call about the fire at 8:42 a.m. CST.
A federal official in Washington said a team of environmental enforcement inspectors was flying to the scene.
David Smith, a spokesman for the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said the team was dispatched from a Gulf Coast base by helicopter soon after the Coast Guard was notified of the emergency. Smith said the team would scan for any evidence of oil spilling and investigate the cause of the explosion.
Black Elk is an independent oil and gas company headquartered in Houston, Texas.
The company's website says it holds interests in properties in Texas and Louisiana waters, including 854 wells on 155 platforms.


text:
Makes at least 24 small donuts
- 3/4 cups soy milk
- 1 1/4 oz vegetable shortening
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp warm water
- 1 tbsp ground flax seed
- 2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
- 11.5 oz all purpose flour
- canola oil for frying
1. Heat soy milk, shortening, salt, and sugar in the microwave, or on the stove, stirring regularly until shortening melts. Set aside.
2. Whisk flax into water. Let sit a few minutes, then whisk again until thick. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix together yeast and flour. Add soy milk mixture (making sure it is between 95 and 105 degrees F) and flax mixture. Mix together into a rough dough, then knead for about 5 mins until smooth, adding more flour or more water as needed to make a nice soft and tender dough.
5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spray with oil.
6. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 3/8" thick. Cut out 2" circles with a biscuit cutter, then cut out a 5/8" centre (or use a donut cutter. I cut the end off a kid's medicine syringe. It was the perfect size and I use the plunger to push out the dough). Dough scraps (and holes) can be re-rolled and cut. Place on prepared baking sheet, spray with oil, and cover. Let rise for 1/2 hour.
7. Heat oil to 350 degrees. Fry donuts in batches (30-60 seconds per side) until golden, drain on paper towel or paper bags, then let cool on wire rack. Let fully cool before glazing.
For the glaze, I used this recipe, subbing margarine for butter and soy milk for milk. This recipe makes a lot, so cut it in half.
The donuts (glaze and all) freeze and thaw very well. Place on a sheet pan to freeze. Once frozen, they can be placed in a bag and they won't stick together.


text:
Christmas decorations have come a long way, even since we were younger. It's perfectly normal to see a Christmas tree decorated in glitz and glam. No matter what your style, THE PETAL PUSHER FLORIST has the right Christmas accessories for you!
Whether you need a centerpiece for your holiday party, a wreath for your front door, or even help decorating your Christmas tree, we do it all. Don't hesitate to give THE PETAL PUSHER FLORIST a call for all your Christmas needs.