Figured out how to blog.

I wish to apologize to the young woman for my unthinkingly rude challenge to her father’s quality of memory, it was as if I was calling him a liar.

What I should have said is that Lembeke’s argument in his “Spitting Image” is not that every alleged instance of spitting was false but that the totality of such numbers of reports, taken together, has become more of an urban legend than anything resembling historical and empirical reality (b/c of total lack of evidence from newspapers and television reports, police records, etc, total lack of any documented evidence – where and when -- of a single instance of spitting). What he concludes is that these men felt spit upon, when they came home, felt used and discarded. No parades was the least of it.

I also wish to thank the young woman for taking back the nationalist/patriotic card, tearing it to pieces, and throwing it away. I have not been witness to such a generous, gate-opening move in a long time, especially coming after what she had every right to think of as an insult to her father.