A Grand Illusion

Christopher Hitchens writes his own Sontag obituary.

Her influence on me was subtle and formidable. Disgard her novels as curiosities; I will pass over her infamous remarks on the 9-11 attacks. Just buy Against Interpreation or Styles of Radical Will.

One task [of the intellecutal], is to promote dialogue, support the right of a multiplicity of voices to be heard, strengthen skepticism about received opinion. This means standing up to those whose idea of education and culture is the imprinting of ideas (”ideals”) such as the love of the nation or tribe.

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

Francis Fukayama reviews Timothy Garton Ash’s “Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West,” which, in the spirit of Robert Kagan’s useful “Of Paradise and Power”, argues that the sociopolitical and cultural differences between the EU and America may be permanent and irreconcilable. Link. Fukayama writes:

But the perceived legitimacy of the American role depends entirely on its being successful. You will be regarded as a leader if you break Serbian power without suffering a single casualty; you will be regarded as an arrogant unilateralist if you fail to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or get bogged down in a guerrilla insurgency. For Tony Blair, the cost of being associated with George W. Bush has been so high as to put into question the ability of any future British prime minister to be so protective of the “special relationship” with the United States.

Due to some technical difficulties this post will show up as an Andy post. It was actually posted by Alfred.

They’re Barbie doll bland and as interesting in conversation as their male counterparts. In short: unboyfriendable. Link.

A Grand Illusion is curious. Which of these women would you rather boink? I know that each one them is repulsive in myriad ways, but you know, if you had to choose.

Ann Coulter

Condoleezza Rice

Phyllis Schlafly (left)

Shemane Nugent

Laura Schlessinger

Michelle Malkin

Monica Crowley

I direct you to a very good post on the subject on Alas, a Blog.

I direct you to a very good post on the subject on Alas, a Blog.

In PDF. Notice how the FBI carefully differentiates between their procedural limits, which they say they never breached, and the much looser ones of the president’s executive order.

Is it wrong of me to think this might be a good idea?

It is time for the adoption of the sarcasm point. Why the sarcasm point? We have a mark that conveys that we mean or know something. We have one that says it with volume and force! We have one that communicates that we don’t know something, don’t we? We need one more: to do for language what shade did for drawing, what color did for television, and what eyebrows did for expressions—introduce finesse.

Don’t knock it until you’ve seen it in action:

Believe it or not, the world we’ve landed in is not only more image-obsessed than we’ve ever been. It’s also more text-based than ever. We finger-type and we thumb-type. We e-mail, we IM, we blog. And the forms cannot contain the content. There’s a dastardly disconnect. Among other things, it makes Dave Barry columns somewhat difficult to read. Someone must step into the sarcasm chasm¡

I’m serious¡ See, there are people who are relentlessly sincere. So, what are they supposed to do when they’re trying to sound a bit bitter? Suppose you’re IM’ing that oft-earnest friend you have, and he writes: “I need to go to church tomorrow and confess the jealousy in my heart.” You forget—have you ever heard him say nice things about God or do the opposite? “Wait … do you really?” “Sorry. I mean, I need to go to church tomorrow¡ To confess my jealousy¡ And the fact that I just renewed my subscription to Maxim¡” “Oh. Me too. Only as a Jew, I must do these things in synagogue¡”

I’m going to start using this sarcasm point–as an experiment. I’m serious. Notice the lack of sarcasm. Man, this is great¡

Anyway, for those who are technically challenged: alt+173.

The WP finally buys Slate:

Weisberg pronounced himself “delighted” with the move. “Microsoft has been a great place for us for the last 8-1/2 years,” he said, but “it was a tough place to develop our business because it wasn’t a media company and doesn’t want to be a media company. They’re really big and we’re really small. The joke was always that we’re almost a rounding error, but a rounding error probably exaggerated our status.”

The WP finally buys Slate:

Weisberg pronounced himself “delighted” with the move. “Microsoft has been a great place for us for the last 8-1/2 years,” he said, but “it was a tough place to develop our business because it wasn’t a media company and doesn’t want to be a media company. They’re really big and we’re really small. The joke was always that we’re almost a rounding error, but a rounding error probably exaggerated our status.”

…but I still don’t buy it.

I think I heard on CNN this morning that the Mosul attack was some kind of artillery barage. I forget the actual military term. But the NYT article, which is unusually vague, makes no mention of it:

A powerful explosion ripped through an American military base in northern Iraq today, causing many casualties, the American military said.

A short announcement from the military said the explosion occurred at noon Iraqi time near the city of Mosul, scene of raids by insurgents on police stations in the past six weeks.

Bull Moose has the most eloquent post to date on the Vietnam connection:

And as days pass, Donald “I don’t do condolence letters”Rumsfeld bears a striking resemblance to Robert Strange McNamara. Moreover, the current Texan in the White House also clearly sees the light at the end of the tunnel. The Moose agrees with those who believe that the primary difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that the latter is far more strategically important. America can’t afford a failed state in that critical region. Let’s hope that this time history does not repeat itself as tragedy or farce.

Christopher Hitchens wrote up Eleanor Agnew’s “Hippies,” a memoir in which the author analyzes how world-historic events turned into iconography suitable for Madison Avenue marketers. I like the modulated irony of his conclusion:

Meanwhile, though, the anti-globalization movement has started to reject modernity altogether, to set its sights on laboratories and on the idea of the division of labor, and to adopt symbols from Fallujah as the emblems of its resistance. Conservatism cannot and does not, despite itself, remain static. It mutates into something far more reactionary than anything from which the hippies were ever fleeing.