On Don Imus’s program this morning Andy Rooney, CBS News curmudgeon, confirmed the observation I made here that part of the problem that Big Media is having is due to the corporatization of the media and enormous cutbacks in the numbers of reporters, copywriters, and editors. According to Rooney CBS, NBC, and ABC have staffs a third the size they used to and a mere handful of reporters overseas.

Bloggers aren’t pushing Big Media aside. They’re filling the void left by Big Media abandoning the field.

To the best of my knowledge there was no Mr. Asphalt. Nor was there a Mr. Blacktop. But there was a Mr. John Loudon McAdam and he was born on this day in Ayr, Scotland in 1756. And he’s the one who developed the process of covering roads with a layer of crushed stone to improve their durability and improve the ride. You see up until that time people riding in carriages, coaches, and wagons were subjected to jolting, rocking, and even bodily injury caused by the deterioration of the road.

We’ve come a long way since then. Our roads are macadamized. And we have machines (called automobiles) to jolt us, rock us, and cause us severe bodily harm. That’s progress for you.

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.
Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

This post is my response to Jeff Jarvis’s Issues2004: Iraq post. I probably need to start with some background.

I opposed the Gulf War. My reasoning was quite simple: I didn’t believe that either the U. S. government or the American people would have the stomach for our military to do what needed to be done to remove Saddam Hussein and I believed that freeing Kuwait without removing Saddam Hussein was not worth going to war over. Whether merely freeing Kuwait was worth going to war remains debateable. But I was clearly right about not having the stomach to remove Saddam Hussein.

I opposed the war in Afghanistan and I have to admit that our efforts there have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. My concern was that we would meet with the same level of resistance as had the British and Russians before us with similar results. But we adopted a completely different and, in my opinion, brilliant strategy. We went in with a small force and, essentially, put it at the disposal of the warlords opposed to the Taliban. The Taliban was removed from power and has been successfully kept from power. The force that we have left in Afghanistan is just large enough to keep the Taliban from returning to power without provoking a defensive response from the Afghan people.
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There’s an old joke which you may have heard before. I may even have mentioned it from this blog. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A man drives up to the general store somewhere in rural Maine. He asks the elderly Down Easter sitting on the front porch of the store how to get to town X. After thinking the subject over for a few moments and entering into a few false starts in giving the desired directions, the venerable Mainster tells the puzzled tourist: “You cahn’t get the-ah from he-ah.” You can tell how old that joke is because there aren’t many general stores anymore, we have cell phones and GPS, and what with TV, radio, and the general invasion of outsiders into Maine it’s getting harder and harder to find anybody who talks that way anymore.

To me our health care system is a lot like that story.
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Well, thank heavens for Jeff Jarvis! Jeff’s blog, Buzzmachine was one of the very first I put on my list of daily reads and I’ve read it daily every day since then for quite a while now. Now Jeff is doing something I’ve been longing to see all year. He’s the first Top 100 blogger to launch a serious discussion of issues in the upcoming presidential election. His first segment was health care and it’s here. Today his subject is the war in Iraq and that’s here.

Although Jeff is very clear in articulating his point-of-view, he’s doing it in quite an objective, goals-oriented, don’t-toe-the-party-line kind of way. It’s a discussion I’ve been wanting to have for a long time.

I’m a bit behind the curve on this but I’ll jump in and post my observations on the issues he raises as time allows.

UPDATE: My take on Health care, Iraq, Homeland security

UPDATE: Linked to Beltway Traffic Jam

Carnival of the Liberated, a selection of links to interesting posts by Iraqi bloggers (and edited by Your Obedient Servant) is up on Dean’s World.

I don’t add to my blogroll too frequently. IIRC the last addition was Alice in Texas. But I enjoy reading Between Hope and Fear so much and find his thinking so interesting and thought-provoking that I’m adding him to my blogroll. Check him out.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was one of the most quotable people in the history of the English language. Here are a few of his choice comments:

“Language is the dress of thought”
Johnson: Cowley (Lives of the Poets)

“Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
from Boswell’s Life of Johnson

On second marriages: “The triumph of hope over experience.”
from Boswell’s Life of Johnson

“Exercise!! I never heard that he used any: he might, for aught I know, walk to the alehouse; but I believe he was always carried home again.”
Piozzi: Anecdotes

He was also reputed to be the ugliest man in London. G. K. Chesterton (another of the most quotable speakers in the history of the language) on being asked to portray Dr. Johnson in the Christmas panto noted that he didn’t know whether to be complimented or insulted.

Samuel Johnson was born at Litchfield, Staffordshire, England, on September 18, 1709.