I’ll be out of the office until after Memorial Day, so readers of Channel Surfing will have to forgive me if I can only offer occasional, sporadic updates of the blog over the next week. I’ll make an effort to get to it every day, but I have no idea whether I’ll have regular access to a computer.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog
E-mail me by clicking here
A bad head cold has kept me from running the last few days, so nothing to report. It’s a bit disappointing, of course, given the way the week started. I had hoped to get in 20 miles for the week. I should be back on the road next week.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog
E-mail me by clicking here
I’ve held off on this, but I have to agree with library supporters: The library is too important to close.
Proposing its closure is foolish.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog
E-mail me by clicking here
What’s interesting about this David Brooks op-ed is that it sums up something that we should have known before going into Iraq — and is part of the argument made by Jonathan Schell in his book The Unconquerable World, which came out shortly after 9/11.
One of the points he makes, referring to the nonviolent revolutions in Eastern Europe, is that the nexus between political and military power is fraying, expecially when large states are forced to confront smaller, committed groups. Schell focused his argument on revolutions and the use of alternatives to violence — rightly, I think, linking that approach to the most successful topplings of despots (as in Eastern Europe).
I think, though, that the use of nontraditional or assymetrical warfare — while not to be condoned — fits within his thesis. The days of the big nation-state riding in and remaking smaller nations in its image are long gone (the history of the second half of the 20th century is all the proof we need).
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog
E-mail me by clicking here
So much for the notion of compromise:
Democratic congressional leaders on Friday offered their first major concessions in a fight with President Bush over a spending bill for Iraq, but the White House turned them down.
In a closed-door meeting with Bush’s top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they’d strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals.
But no agreement was struck.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog
E-mail me by clicking here
Hank Kalet 