Moments

Rachel and I made a couple of trips to the bookstore today. She loves the bookstore, and kept asking what the elevator is called. (Remember, she's only 15 months old). She was equally fascinated by the conveyor at the cleaner's; it is always a plus for her when I am picking clothes up rather than just dropping them off.

I am making Norwegian whole wheat bread tonight, and it is going to keep me up. The dough is quite stiff, so it needs extra time to rise. I kneaded to Beethoven on WGMS, and my father did a nice tribute to Olympian Paul Hamm later in the evening.

Accounts of Kerry's Service Flawed

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete (washingtonpost.com)

An investigation by The Washington Post into what happened that day suggests that both sides have withheld information from the public record and provided an incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, picture of what took place. But although Kerry's accusers have succeeding in raising doubts about his war record, they have failed to come up with sufficient evidence to prove him a liar.

It may be comforting that the Post has not been able to prove Kerry a liar, but the results of the newspapers investigation have a disconcertingly tentative and ininconclusive tone. What seems clear, however, is that the disgruntled veterans who are attacking Kerry are far more upset by what he did after the war than by anything he did during the war.

America's Preferred Form of Invidious Distinction

Harvard, Princeton Tied in News Rankings (washingtonpost.com)

Perhaps a playoff is in order. For the second straight year, Harvard and Princeton share the top spot in the controversial U.S. News & World Report rankings of "America's Best Colleges."

Yale is number 3, and the University of Pennsylvania is number 4. Harvard had nothing to say for itself (but is no doubt secretly chagrined over having to share the glory with the pumpkinheads.)

Swift Boat Veterans Fast and Loose with the Truth

Records Counter a Critic of Kerry (washingtonpost.com)

In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.

But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."

Greek Examples

If one were looking for inspiration to try to get into better shape, watching the men's gymnastics competition would not be a bad start. It's no wonder that the Greeks, with their admiration for the human form, were the orginators of gymnastics.

Congratulations to gold medal winner Paul Hamm, the comeback kid.

Cow Moo Me

We took Rachel to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair for the first time this past weekend. She liked the cows, loved the rabbits and chickens (particularly the roosters), was ambivalent about the pigs (but liked the piglets), and was frightened by the sheep. To which I can only say, Ba!

Good Girls Do?

Blog Interrupted (washingtonpost.com)

When Jessica Cutler put her dirty secrets on the Web, she lost her job, signed a book deal, posed for Playboy -- and raised a ton of questions about where America is headed.

Cutler apparently first started her blog so that her girlfriends could keep her sexploits with six "boyfriends" straight. She described her affairs to her friends for laughs.

In addition to an unashamed promiscuity, Cutler, according to the Post, has also casually experimented with a wide range of illegal substances, is chronically unable to keep a job, and was "inaccurate" on her resume about such details as whether she had actually graduated from college.

The Post's interest in the story — apart from its obviously titilallating details about sex in corridors of power — seems to be based on the question: "Is this the new norm for young women today?" The Post suggests, citing Naomi Wolf, that sexual liberation and the push for equal rights have led to a commoditization of sex among young women that apes the worst of men's traditional attittudes.

The story also has a moral: don't write anything on your blog that you would not want your boss, your significant other, or your parents to read.

Racial Profiling

IsThatLegal?

Interesting discussion of the fallacies underlying Michelle Malkin's new book justifying the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Makeover

We hired our neighbor, who is a landscaping genius, to make over the beds around our house, and the result is remarkable. My small contribution (apart from a sizeable financial investment) was to festoon the yard with soaker hoses to water the new plants.

I also received a long awaited copy of the third volume in Michael Holroyd's biography of George Bernard Shaw. I couldn't resist skimming the pages, which only confirmed how thoroughly crazy Shaw became in his later years.

Could we say more?

Chatological Humor* (washingtonpost.com)

Apparently, we haven't quite got our stuff together yet. I hope you all saw the stories today that these alerts were based on pre-9/11 information. I believe it is currently a federal offense to make fun of our government, so I won't. I am staunchly behind our Secretary of Homeland Security and his aides, Cocky Locky, Goosy Poosey, and Henny Penny.

Thanks to Gayle for the pointer.

Painful Truths

Security Alert (washingtonpost.com)

It is important that prominent Democrats such as former governor Howard Dean refrain from observing, as Mr. Dean did, that "every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism," because that would imply that no terrorist threats, however serious, should be taken as such.

The Post stops short of saying that Howard Dean is incorrect in his assessment. Rather, it seems the Post editorial board does not think that telling the truth is prudent in this instance — a novel position for a newspaper.

Rememberance of Things Past

Beowulf is a poem that is doubly poignant. It is a poem of a lost people (Anglo-Saxons) in a lost language (Old English), about a doomed hero (Beowulf) of another lost people (the Geats). In that sense, the poem should appeal with double force to any Romantic.