Rodent Regatta

Some things happened to us on September 11, 2001:

• 08:46am American #11 hit the north tower in New York
• 09:03am United #175 hit the south tower in New York
• 09:37am American #77 hit the Pentagon in Washington
• 10:03am United #93 hit in a field outside Shanksville

After the towers fell, we listened to a great speech . Then, we decided to visit Afghanistan and Iraq. We also formed a commission which wrote a report. Perhaps it needs another chapter or an appendix.

Or, as Mark Helprin wrote so well in this week’s Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required), perhaps we need to do something more:

Perhaps this and previous administrations have had an effective policy just too difficult to comprehend because they have ingeniously sheltered it under the pretense of their incompetence. But failing that, the legacy of this generation’s presidents will be promiscuous declarations and alliances, badly defined war aims, opportunities inexplicably forgone, ill-supported troops sent into the field, a country at risk without adequate civil protections, and a military shaped to fight neither the last war nor this one nor the next.

Mr. Helprin, a Journal contributing editor, is Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute and Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Hillsdale College. He is the author, most recently, of “Freddy and Fredericka” (Penguin, 2005).

Intellectual consistency is not all that common. Causes we believe in strongly often cloud our ability to think critically. When that happens, we suspend critical thinking and intellectual consistency. Once our emotions take over, we’re in an area we don’t understand.

Read on...

The clock is running since the Gulf landfall of Hurricane Katrina. Elapsed time is now—at this writing—showing 102.75 hours. That’s four days, six hours and forty five minutes.

Read on...

Fox News continues to slip badly. Too focused on the pretty, energetic personalities, they are losing the opportunity to be a serious news organization. McNews is what I’m seeing.

In the midst of coastal devastation from Hurricane Katrina, a “breaking news bulletin” full of all the bombastic sound effects and throbbing music just showed waves crashing in—wait for it—wait—yes, Jackson, MS.

Katrina has clearly done damage. I’m relatively certain the Gulf Coast has not receded to Jackson.

As long as a simplicity circle doesn’t become a track around which rats race, the concept sounds rather appealing. However, the real win in the whole notion goes something like this:

“I save half my pay,” she said. “So for every month I work, that’s one month I won’t have to work.’’—Ann Haebig