Word: tedium
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fact, the tedium of the coverage is part of its attraction; it gives a context and a pace to all the war developments. Something important could happen at any moment (although it almost never does) so that even if this embedded war coverage is just another distorted view of combat—as so many pundits maintain—there is no denying that this coverage feels more convincingly realistic than any prior war reporting...
Whether it is the lumbering siege of a military complex or the brisk advance of a convoy through the desert, these uncut broadcasts are the most compelling when they show the tedium of war. All the networks carried live footage of the Third Infantry’s advance up the Iraqi highway on the first day of the conflict, even though it was no more captivating than watching rush hour traffic. But I stayed tuned because I wanted to see where the rubber meets the road, where the high drama of politics and war is translated into action...
...meek. One day last week a platoon with the 101st Airborne spent the morning learning how to treat massive chest wounds. But even as the soldiers were taught the grim procedures for stopping acute blood loss--apply a tourniquet first; administer fluids afterward--they suffered more from the anxious tedium of waiting for war. Some of the guys got into a separation-of-church-and-state debate; others complained about missing March Madness; some looked forward to this week, when the ammunition arrives and live-fire training begins. The most interesting discussion was about whether snipers should shoot the wild...
...dynamics between the various Transformers are handled in a credible fashion that restore realism to the most unrealistic scenarios. This not to imply that action is given short shrift, for the fighting is frequent and furious. Nor does the action serve some obligatory masturbatory fix; he cleverly avoids the tedium that accompanies extended battle scenes by subordinating them to the plot. The novel maintains a fantastic tension throughout, with just the right number of pauses to let the reader catch his breath. The tone is spot-on; the ever-present sense of doom hovers cloudlike throughout, as befits a novel...
...BILL MAULDIN, who died last week at 81, created an unlikely and imperishable pair of American icons. These unshaven, hollow-eyed, grimy World War II infantry dogfaces appeared in the pages of the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, fighting not just the Germans during the Italian campaign but also tedium, wet socks, lousy K rations and their commanding officers. G.I.s everywhere laughed, or nodded in rueful recognition. Mauldin combined the satiric eye and brush of a Daumier with the ear of a Ring Lardner. He captioned a drawing of a sergeant addressing his bedraggled men: "I need a couple guys...