1) This is getting a little six degrees of separation since I am now commenting on a commentary on a commentary about a book I have no intention of reading . . . inhale . . . but Ambivablog has an inspiring, optimistic, well-written take on yet another fool with utopian ideals. Now, if you comment on that post here, you will be commenting on a commentary about a commentary about a commentary on a book. And Kevin Bacon will show up at your house and mix you a martini.

2) Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye is cranking out foreign policy posts someone ought to be paying him for. I'll call your attention to this one, but scan up and down the page. This blog's on fire.

3) My guy Alan Stewart Carl is writing with the kind of thoughtfulness and gravitas I so carefully avoid:

But today, after nearly a month of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, it is Hezbollah who claims victory. And now we see the future. Weaker nations and peoples have learned that it is futile to directly attack stronger nations and peoples. Instead, they wage battle through the asymmetry of terrorism. But because a terrorist organization follows no international laws and has no boundaries or government, these groups never have to surrender. As long as one man with a camcorder claims to be the representative of the group, the group survives. And, in the new paradigm, survival is victory.

Read it all. Or read most of it, the skip ahead. That's what I do.

4) He's pissing me off, but this is the kind of post Callimachus does better than anyone. In a topical piece on Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, he provides this terribly moving quote on the display of Brady's often graphic battlefield photos:

[Visitors crowded the gallery in] hushed, reverend [sic] groups … bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men's eyes…. We would scarce choose to be in the gallery when one of the women bending over them should recognize a husband, a son, or a brother in the still, lifeless lines of bodies that lie ready for the gaping trenches.

5) Finally, for my fellow heathen, Dwindling in Unbelief racks up God's kill count, and contrasts it with Satan's. Thank to the always entertaining and often brilliant Uncredible Hallq for the link.

This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on Monday, August 14, 2006. You can leave your response.