hello.

"The announcement today that the United States will take part in two sets of talks between Iraq and its neighbors, including Iran and Syria,represents a major shift in President Bush’s foreign policy..." _NYT

I don't know what will happen, but I think this, not the surge, represents Iraq's best chance at stability ( Read more... )

I was lazily clicking through the news, when I came across the following item in Dan Froomkin's White House Watch. This is from the National Press Club last night:

One topic that came up, not surprisingly, was bloggers. The liberal ThinkProgress blog has a video excerpt of that exchange ( Read more... )

at the mall my boss was an older woman named jeannie, who wore rose-colored lenses to protect her eyes from the white light, beaming through the skylight four levels above, glittering in the fountain, flashing in golden handrails and diamond rings. that white light, it could blind you. we worked in a cramped little concierge desk, giving out ( Read more... )

The rain comes loud on the city. From inside the car, the windshield is a moving impressionist painting, a blurred representation of the world beyond it. In the moment before the wipers click to life, it's completely abstract. Only color and feeling, sprays of red and yellow, green light, countless shades of grey. formless rivers of electric ( Read more... )

this morning i woke up and ran for the first time in five years. i pulled on my varsity shorts and an old race t-shirt, ratty shoes that used to belong to someone else, and i went as if i had no choice, as if it should have been obvious for the past five years that i could do this any time i wanted. it was jarring at first, clumsy. heavy legs, ( Read more... )

In the forest, the trees are three times our age. Four o' clock sunlight bursts through the canopy and explodes into amber fireworks. Overlapping fractal mosaics, a three-dimensional negative space line drawing of an unforgettable fire, mirrorball patterns across the underbrush. Slowly, it changes shape in the passing afternoon. Slowly, it drifts ( Read more... )

it would seem that, from a purely military standpoint, one would want one's force to be more fluid, constantly adapting to the changing nature of the conflict.


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WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 - A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks...The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first ( Read more... )