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Karl Marlantes on C-Span
I've mentioned several times my enthusiasm for Matterhorn, a novel of Vietnam by my long-ago grad-school friend Karl Marlantes. I caught him on CSpan just now, in an hour-long interview you can see...
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Six Ways of Looking at the Nook
Barnes and Noble announced today that it was introducing a WiFi-only version of its e-reader, the Nook, for $149. It has also reduced the WiFi+3G model to $199, from $259. The Amazon Kindle is $249....
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Foxconn Suicides, E-Reader Price Wars: Think About It
Over the past two months, the Western media have probed the stories of the apparent wave of suicides at Foxconn, the gigantic electronics maker in southern China. Over the past month, most Western...
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Obama Has to Fire McChrystal
It is not about Afghanistan policy -- although, of course it's about that too, with McChrystal as the face and mind of the strategy Obama bought into at the end of last year.It's about civilian control...
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Two Reactions on Civil-Military Relations
In response to this argument that President Obama must fire General McChrystal, two reader responses. First, from someone I know to have a long military background:I don't know the circumstances of the...
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Guest Post: David Rothman on the iPad Stimulus Plan
Below, a guest essay by David Rothman, of the Teleread site and the DC roman-a-clef The Solomon Scandals. David was one of the journalism world's earliest adopters of computers and related technology....
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Completing the Thought About McChrystal: Remember James Mattis
I have no idea what Barack Obama will do at tomorrow's meeting with Stanley McChrystal. On what I think he should do, see here. But to complete a thought not addressed earlier: the strongest argument...
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The Only Thing I Will Say About the World Cup
Landon Donovan played his schoolboy soccer at the public schools of Redlands, California. Previously in the Sporting Greatness for Hometown Public School Personages category: Brian Billick's coaching...
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On Obama's Removal of McChrystal
Three quick points about his speech this afternoon (previously this item yesterday): 1) I thought Obama's presentation of the decision was exactly right in both tone and substance. Firm but not...
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The Only Thing I Will Say About the Isner-Mahut Marathon
(Previously in this vein, World Cup category.) Last summer my wife and I went to the Legg-Mason tennis tournament in DC, early in the week's play. By far the best part of seeing any pro tennis...
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Security Theater Goes To Asia
As mentioned before, my usual theory is: if it's already on the internet, you don't need me to tell you about it. Herewith an exception for a report from my friend and Atlantic contributor Adam Minter,...
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More on Seeing Big Servers in Person
That's tennis-type servers, not network-type. Previously here. A reader who has seen Wimbledon matches in person, as I have not, writes:I would say that your viewing of Isner actually understates the...
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"We Will Break Your Teeth": The Prospect in Afghanistan
I have never been to Afghanistan. In that I am like most Americans -- and virtually all Americans who are not part of the military (or contractors etc).Therefore when I hear and read reports about how...
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The Glamorous Life of a Journalist, Cont...
From the inbox just now: Previously in the glamorous life series here, here, and here. To head off a little freshet of peeved mail I got last time: I am not, in any way, at any time, complaining about...
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On Weigel v WaPo, Today's Inside-the-Beltway Journalism News
Normally it's not my place to weigh in on an issue lighting up the blog world. But because this is emerging as an unexpectedly polarizing moment in conceptions of journalism in general, web-based...
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One Company Saw The US-Ghana Matchup Coming
Not everyone in the U.S. foresaw three months ahead of time that the American team would be meeting the Black Stars of Ghana in the World Cup round-of-16. But one major American airline did! I found...
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Another View of "We Will Break Your Teeth"
Yesterday I mentioned William Dalrymple's report on resentment of US/NATO troops in Afghanistan. An American enlisted man now serving there writes back:Having just read this morning's post regarding...
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Pushback on "Tribalism"
After quoting a reader's comment last night, I signed off by saying, "Another way to put this 'nationalism without a state' is of course 'tribalism,' a great blight domestically and...
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The Wonderful Self-Loathing of the English Fan
I feel bad for the English soccer/"football" team, but their travails are worth it for the response they evoke in the UK press. We have a nice, wry local sample here in Clive Crook's column. But for an...
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One More View of "Breaking Teeth" (Afghanistan)
Previously here. As mentioned earlier, I don't know enough about Afghanistan to oversee an ongoing debate about the trends and evidence there. But after an initial dispatch saying there was no hope,...
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