shorts and a halter, eh?

Another stupid sports writer who doesn't get it

On top of all the other idiocy in this piece, the sentence "I love the equestrian events as well, although riding around 30-odd years ago on a big placid mare in the summertime wearing shorts and a halter doesn't really make me a candidate for dressage" really springs out. No matter how you diagram this sentence, either the horse was wearing clothing or the author was engaging in some early pony play.

This is why you have editors--to stop you from looking this stupid. This is why you should listen to them.

once again demonstrating...

... that there are far too many interesting people writing things to be able to read them all.

I know I've vexed some of my friends by simply not having time or patience for the daily soap opera of "ur dum!/weer smartz" that is part and parcel of American partisan politics (at the grassroots and in the blogosphere--my impression is that many actual politicians don't have much time for it either, because they know that they do actually need to *work* with their opponents on a daily basis). I confess I did get sucked into it during the presidential campaign, but these days I usually resist the allure of whatever the latest they said/we said "scandal" is and try to scrabble my way to at least a little perspective.

And one of the reasons that I don't want to spend too much time reading the latest screed on how evil "they" are is that there are so many things being thought and written that have some *depth* to them. And so many small bits of news that are important to me that I might miss if all I'm doing is being outraged about something a junior congressman (R) from Pennsyltucky said (deliberately, in front of the cameras, so as to stoke up his campaign contributors).

Things like Jimmy Carter resigning from the Southern Baptist Church.

Or an essay on Things You Should Not Say if you want to work in foreign affairs in the US (I know I violate at least half of these on a regular basis).

Or that yet another brave soul speaking out against the Putin regime has been murdered.

Or a an interesting blog on cartography.

Where, oh where, is the time to absorb it all?

(no subject)

yet another interesting piece

This time an article by Stephen Coll, former foreign correspondent for the Post and holder of a pile of awards for outstanding journalism, on how it is that al-Qaida is such a failure but still manages to stay in the game.

and a fascinating series on what happened in a small Afghan village last summer, but more importantly why and what did we learn from it (being revisited now because it appears the Army is finally try to do that second part however unwillingly).