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Rusted by tears

by Mark Gisleson

Josh Marshall says Bremer got in trouble for endorsing a very bleak CIA report on the prognosis for the occupation. As Chinua Achebe wrote, "when things fall apart..." Via Steve Gilliard, here's a good Jonathan Landay story on that report.

The Hindustan Times reports that Chandrika Kumaratunga, the President of Sri Lanka, has made yet another overture to the Tamil minority. Here's hoping that Kumaratunga achieves a lasting peace, and that it serves as an example to the Indians of how to deal with their Muslim minority. [OK, here's where you the reader writes in to tell me I don't know squat about the situation in Sri Lanka. I hope this is what it appears to be, but I'm ready to stand corrected if there's something more cynical going on.]

Meanwhile, new Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has "pledged" to end the chaos in the Palestinian territories. I'm not quite as hopeful about this development.

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One quick business item: Wal-Mart didn't meet Wall Street's forecasts, but Twin Cities based Target did. At the risk of sounding like a homer, I'm glad. I despise Wal-Mart's anti-union business model, and as a resume writer I'm very familiar with Target's business practices. In my book, Target's pretty much OK. I wouldn't want to work for them, but to be fair, I probably could if I made a serious effort to apply. The fact is, there aren't many employers who'll give a middle aged fat guy with a pony tail a second look. The Target store in your neighborhood might not be quite so open minded, but the corporate folks are pretty friendly. Credit the influence of the Dayton family, one of the more progressive clans involved in the big box retail scene.

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Meant to run this sooner but kept getting sidetracked. Gar Smith at The Edge outlines in some detail Col. Sam Gardiner's analysis of the lies told by the White House to achieve their goal of war on Iraq. Lots here, and it's all damn good stuff that you can use to turn your average warblogger's arguments into Swiss cheese.

The warbloggers, by the way, are still having a hard time holding it together. Lt. Smash, a popular but bellicose "shut the fuck up" kind of guy is feuding with "Tom Tomorrow." Read in order: TT • Lt.S • TT

It's hard to do when you're on the receiving end, but my advice to other webloggers would be to ignore the flailing about coming from the online right. It's like watching a dinosaur die: stand clear, and don't take anything T-Rex has to say personally. Via Eschaton, Jesse at Pandagon sums up the problem of trying to talk to these people, while Tallahassee yanked some patriotically incorrect folks from their Veterans Day parade.

On a related note, thanks to everyone who wrote in about yesterday's post. As any writer will tell you, some of your best stuff comes in the heat of the moment (often the more you put into a piece, the worse it becomes). Yesterday's was written and edited in about half an hour, but it had been building up over the course of months.

Not that you asked for it, but here's an example of what happens when you try too hard:

We are not so much a nation as a fetish post, with each nail a grievance that further splits the wood and distracts from the other nails, all rusted by tears and burnished from the rain of global change. Nails we once hated are now just other nails, but the hammer of God, in a different light, has come to look like bad Greek mythology.

This makes sense to me, but I've always thought of poetry as a pretty poor device for delivering political commentary. Believe it or not, I've been saving that in my Wes Clark file. Don't worry, I won't make you read that again.

Hopefully some more later, but maybe not. I'll be on vacation the week of Thanksgiving, and I've got a lot to get off my plate before I wander off to the sunny clime of south Ohio to catch up with some friends and do some sightseeing.

Posted by Steve Perry at November 13, 2003 11:44 AM

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