READ THIS; YOU WILL WEEP

You may not like the N.Y. Times. I'm certainly not enamored of them. However, my take is they were far too willing to follow the lead of this group of criminals and thugs who occupy the White House currently. I think "the" paper acted as a shameless apologist for numerous oversights, mis-statement, lies, and negligent acts - far too many to find it within myself to easily forgive and forget.

Nevertheless, there is a book review appearing on their website I think everyone should read, especially if you never read the book. The book in question is titled "Fiasco", by Thomas E. Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post, and the review itself is plenty damning of the Bush administration and virtually every (wrong) move they made from the runup to the blundered execution of the war in Iraq.

Here's a quote from the review, which can be located here:

"Mr. Ricks’s narrative is based on hundreds of interviews and more than 37,000 pages of documents, and many of the book’s most scorching assessments of the White House and Pentagon’s conduct of the war come from members of the uniformed military and official military reports.

"An after-action review from the Third Infantry Division underscores the Pentagon’s paucity of postwar planning, stating that “there was no guidance for restoring order in Baghdad, creating an interim government, hiring government and essential services employees, and ensuring that the judicial system was operational.” And an end-of-tour report by a colonel assigned to the Coalition Provisional Authority memorably summarized his office’s work as “pasting feathers together, hoping for a duck.”

"Mr. Ricks writes in these pages as both a reporter and an analyst, and many of his findings amplify observations made by other journalists and former insiders in earlier books: namely that the Bush White House routinely ignored the advice of experts (be they military, diplomatic or Middle East experts); that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s determination to conduct the war with a light, fast force had crippling consequences for the American military’s ability to restore law and order in post-invasion Iraq; and that infighting between the State and Defense Departments, between civilians at the Pentagon and the uniformed military, and between the military and the Coalition Provisional Authority severely hampered the making and execution of United States policy."

THANK YOU - I THINK

So what is it with Thank You cards? When did they become de rigeur . . . a fixture of every child's birthday and gift-giving Winter solstice celebration?

My daughter celebrated her 5th birthday recently and we had a party for over twenty children and adults. We provided entertainment for the children, lots of food and drink for everbody, really nice loot bags for the kids, a large cake, and a pinata filled with lots of candy. My wife spent around a week's worth of her spare time researching and purchasing everything necessary to make the kids feel special. This included purchasing inexpensive cowboy/cowgirl hats and bandanas, as the party was held at a nearby farm where the kids could feed animals and enjoy some really fun and clever rides. I spent a good 10 - 15 hours running around and picking up things and making arrangements. We really wanted everyone to have a good time.

Now comes the aftermath. My wife is not the best at sending out Thank You cards, and I have virtually no experience doing it at all. I mean, isn't it against the law for men to do this kind of thing - no matter how sensitive they are? So . . . here it is, a couple of weeks later and the cards she took the time to purchase are still sitting on the table . . . in their original box. They're taunting me. Like chocolate in a candy dish, I sometimes hear them calling out my name.

Isn't a sincere "Thank You" at the party's end enough for everybody? I don't know; maybe she feels better about not doing it than I do, but why do I have this sinking feeling we must carry some sort of guilt because we have yet to send a hand-written, personalized note written by us as though it was our child channeling Emily Post or Martha Stewart?

Here's an example of a Thank You we received the day after a 5-year-old's birthday party:

Thank for coming to my birthday party. I was really happy you could be there. The Spiderman backpack will be really useful next year in Kindergarten to carry my laptop as I'm learning how to post covered calls without the help of my broker.

Now how are we going to follow that?