Occupational Hazards

Good article at Slate on “How the Pentagon forgot about running Iraq.” It again lays ultimate blame for the whole post-war Iraq mess on the unbearable lightness of Bush’s intellectual capacity:

The intellectual qualities Bush lacks—historical knowledge, interest in the details of policy, and substantive (as opposed to political) judgment—might well have prevented the quagmire we're facing in Iraq right now. A more engaged president—one who understood, for instance, the difference between the Sunnis and the Shiites—surely would have asked about Plan B.

(Found this via Josh Marshall.)

6:29:45 PM      trackback [] 

Blogging for dummies
There’s a good article in a recent issue of The Seattle Times on Movable Type’s new TypePad blogging software. TypePad is aimed at the new blogger, and the article introduces the wonders of blogging to the uninitiated:

For those unfamiliar with Web logs, you're missing a transformational medium in the evolution of communications. Blogs are the digital equivalent of the diary, the journal, the personal perspective, the self-advertisement, the insider commentary, the literary monograph, the family photo album, the home movie. Which is to say, they aren't any one of those things specifically, but they provide a global electronic venue for all of them.

I tried TypePad recently and liked it, but I couldn’t get it to do certain things I’m now comfortable doing with Radio. However, if I were starting out with my first weblog and I had no technical interest or ability whatsoever, I’d probably opt for TypePad.

4:28:40 PM      trackback [] 

Wondering Minstrels

I just found this Wondering Minstrels site, which is a collection of poetry (existing, not original). They have a poetry-by-email service: “Along with the poems we send personal commentaries, critical analyses, poet biographies, historical asides, trivia, links - basically, anything that catches our fancy.” The main page is here, and the list of collections is here.

The link I had went directly to Anna’s collection. I clicked on D.H. Lawrence because I did a great semester on him in college, and found this gem:

Intimates

Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.

   I handed her the mirror, and said:

Please address these questions to the proper person!

Please make all requests to head-quarters!

 In all matters of emotional importance

please approach the supreme authority direct! --

     So I handed her the mirror.

And she would have broken it over my head,

but she caught sight of her own reflection

and that held her spell bound for two seconds

               while I fled.

              -- D.H.Lawrence

9:16:09 AM      trackback []