Oy, Been a crazy couple of weeks. Annoying feature of Typepad No. 37: HTML tags left open in comments cannot be closed in subsequent comments. They can only be closed by the host/editor reopening the original comment and adding the closing tag, and if said host/editor is away from the computer for several days the comments can turn into one giant bold-cased italic. Sorry about that. (Since the italics carry over into the following comments, doesn't it seem logical that... Read more
It seems that if you mock the president, he will pretend that you're actually mocking the troops, even though he knows you're not. This latest Lack of Perspective Extravaganza tells us that: 1. John Kerry can't deliver a joke and George W. Bush can't understand one. 2. Bush is thin-skinned, petulant and disingenuous. 3. Bush is more interested in attacking his critics than he is in trying to find some less-than-eternally-disastrous solution for the Fiasco he has created in Iraq.... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 228-231 Now is the moment I've been waiting for. Here comes the much-anticipated, elaborately set up scene in which the Steeles attend the evening service for "the disenchanted and the skeptics," where the Rev. Bruce Barnes, speaking for the authors, will justify and defend the theology of Left Behind. This is exciting. Here it comes: Chloe had gone with [Rayford] to the church meeting for skeptics the night before, as she promised. But she had left a... Read more
everyone is, everything is broken "Pilgrimage," R.E.M. "Pillar to Post," Aztec Camera "Pineapple Head," Crowded House "Pink Cashmere," Prince "Pink Houses," John Cougar Mellencamp "Pink Moon," Nick Drake "Planet Telex," Radiohead "Please Don't Go," Violent Femmes "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want," The Smiths "Please Send Me Someone to Love," Fiona Apple Re: "Please Don't Go," Brian Ritchie rules. Listen to "Pink Houses" and then listen to Mellencamp's revisiting of the same theme in that song of... Read more
U.S. Col. Harry Summers to North Vietnamese officer: "You never defeated us in the field." North Vietnamese officer: "That is true. It is also irrelevant." That story gets repeated a lot as a reminder of what war is not. It is not a sporting event in which the winners of various battles are awarded points, and the team with the most points wins. Dick Cheney doesn't know this. "Keep in mind," Cheney told NPR yesterday: "We've never been defeated in... Read more
From 2002 through 2005, Kevin Tillman served as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan and in Iraq. He enlisted along with his brother Pat, who gained national attention for walking away from a lucrative job as a professional football player with the Arizona Cardinals in order to serve his country. Kevin Tillman was, like his brother, a professional athlete — a third baseman drafted by the Angels organization. Pat Tillman was killed in 2004 by friendly fire in Afghanistan. His brother... Read more
I used to work for a nonprofit outfit that the grant-writers referred to as a "capacity-building institution." We didn't do much ourselves, in other words, we mainly tried to get others to do things. Or, again in the parlance of our grant-writers, we sought to "inform, inspire and equip" others to act. Specifically, we wanted them to act to help the poor and the powerless. Mainly, we put out a magazine, for which I was a writer and editor. Our... Read more
The royal orphanage was overwhelmed, understaffed and underfunded. The king did what he could, but there was a war on and the royal treasury wasn't exactly overflowing. The barons and dukes and other landowners were willing to fund the royal army, but they tended to grumble when it came to contributing for the care of street urchins and the children of serfs. One day a wise sage, one of the king's trusted advisors, made what he thought was an important... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 227-228 Buck Williams sat near an exit at JFK Airport reading his own obituary. As first sentences of chapters go, that's not bad. It'd be better, of course, if Buck had done even a half-convincing job of faking his own death — if he hadn't immediately called his closest relatives to assure them that he wasn't, and if he weren't sitting there, in public, out in the open, waiting for his closest friend and work colleague to... Read more
We have bought from the brokers who have broken their oaths "Only in Dreams," Weezer "Only Once," Maria McKee "Only the Strong," Midnight Oil "Only Trust Your Heart," Astrud Gilberto "Only Us," Peter Gabriel "Ooh Child," Beth Orton "Opportunities," Pet Shop Boys "Optimistic," Radiohead "Orchid Girl," Aztec Camera "Orphans of God," Buddy & Julie Miller Read more
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