Whitman boys.

THE GREAT THING ABOUT THE WEB is not the growing transition of all the mainstream news sources from paper to ‘net, but the availability of amazing new sources of information that most of us would never see otherwise. Take this speech by Ret. Gen. Anthony Zinni. Check these pungent excerpts:

“We are great at dealing with the symptoms. We are great at dealing with the tactical problems—the killing and the breaking. We are lousy at solving the strategic problems; having a strategic plan, understanding about regional and global security and what it takes to weld that and to shape it and to move it forward. Where are the Marshalls today? Where are the Eisenhowers and the Trumans, that saw the vision and saw the world in a different way; and that understood what had to be done and what America’s role is?…

“[Our men and women in uniform] should never be put on a battlefield without a strategic plan, not only for the fighting—our generals will take care of that—but for the aftermath and winning that war. Where are we, the American people, if we accept this, if we accept this level of sacrifice without that level of planning? Almost everyone in this room, of my contemporaries—our feelings and our sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam; where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice. We swore never again would we do that. We swore never again would we allow it to happen. And I ask you, is it happening again? And you’re going to have to answer that question, just like the American people are. And remember, everyone of those young men and women that come back is not a personal tragedy, it’s a national tragedy.”

THOMAS FRIEDMAN HAS ANOTHER GREAT COLUMN TODAY over at the Times, this one titled “Connect the Dots.” Friedman is the best mainstream columnist working today on Middle East issues, and he more than makes up for in insight what his prose lacks in glide. An excerpt:

“Here is the Bush war on terrorism: Preach free trade, but don’t deliver on it, so Pakistani farmers become more impoverished. Then ask Congress to give a tax break for any American who wants to buy a gas-guzzling Humvee for business use and also ask Congress to resist any efforts to make Detroit increase gasoline mileage in new cars. All this means more U.S. oil imports from Saudi Arabia.

“So then the Saudis have more dollars to give to their Wahhabi fundamentalist evangelists, who spend it by building religious schools in Pakistan. The Pakistani farmer we’ve put out of business with our farm subsidies then sends his sons to the Wahhabi school because it is tuition-free and offers a hot lunch. His sons grow up getting only a Koranic education, so they are totally unprepared for modernity, but they are taught one thing: that America is the source of all their troubles. One of the farmer’s sons joins Al Qaeda and is killed in Afghanistan by U.S. Special Forces, and we think we’re winning the war on terrorism.

“Fat chance.”

OKAY, OKAY. Jack figured that if I could type all this into an email to him, then I could damn well post it:

So I get on the 33 bus going home last night and drop into the last twelve pages of Neal Stephenson’s
old eco-thriller, Zodiac. At the next stop, someone in a suit gets on next to me, so I glance up. Sten! Abbreviated transcript:

MW: Sten! You normally ride the 9. What gives?
ES: Just going down to Old Town.
MW: Sten, you’re my prisoner for five stops then. Get Saltzman off the pave-the-reservoirs kick.
ES: Um, why?
MW: Because Saltzman is saying “we’ve made this decision, and we’re just going to see it through.” You, Sten, know that there is an intrinsic value to process, and right now, the people who vote for you and Saltzman are feeling like you’re not even paying lip service to process. [note–I did not say that process in PDX is mostly lip service anyway.]
ES: Well, I agree with you. The paving of the reservoirs originally came up on my watch, and we did process at that point and nobody was interested. Now everybody’s interested.
MW: The public may be flaky, Sten, but if people want process you’ve got to give it to them.
ES: I think we’ve got to open the issue back up. Reservoir paving is a two-sided issue on its best day and a mistake on its worst. I think based on what I learned when I was in charge of the Water Bureau that we have to do something about the reservoirs, that’s clear, but the public has to understand why. Here’s my stop.
MW: Later, Sten.

Only in Portland.

On that same topic, sweetie urban planner Trina said later, “People don’t want the reservoirs paved because they’re pretty. Solution? Cap the reservoirs and put a reflecting pool over it. There–you didn’t even have to pay me a million bucks for a design fee.” Never mind the weight of the water, honey…

CRIKEY! Haven’t posted forever! But I did succeed in buying a house, trying a couple of cases, and kicking miscellaneous ass. I’ll try to be better.