Vietnam Redux?

From a recent  column of George Will in the Washington Examiner:

It is difficult, and perhaps unwise, to suppress this thought: [Gen. Stanley] McChrystal’s disrespectful flippancies, and the chorus of equally disdainful comments from the unpleasant subordinates he has chosen to have around him, emanate from the toxic conditions that result when the military’s can-do culture collides with a cannot-be-done assignment. In this toxicity, Afghanistan is Vietnam redux.

George Will is a pretty smart guy. He even wears bow ties. This is very worrisome.

Good Stuff from the Gazette

Feeling much better after 3 days of diverticulitis, a kind of inflammatory bowel disease lite, I got up early Sunday morning, and was further revived by some good news in the Gazette.

Donna Healy, one of my favorites, writes about snowflakes here. She doesn't mention that old wives tale about no two snowflakes being the same. How can they know? Some good pictures of snowflakes too from Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist  who specializes in snowflakes. That is one of them to the left. I didn't know they could be so large and so beautiful.

Jim Gainan shows he has more to say about life and living than just making our gardens more attractive here. What an asset to our community.

Ed Kemmick, in his usual wry clever way, has a long article on obituaries worth reading here. When you turn to the obituary page— you all do, don't you?—you find at least a couple of interesting lives well chronicled. And moreover, the Kemmick article mentions an obit written by Sue Hart, professor of English at MSUB: I wonder, how exactly do we get Sue to write our obit? Hmm? As the time gets nearer, I wouldn't mind taking a course in how to write a decent obituary. Any others?

The Op-Ed page has George Will on it, almost always worth reading. And finally, the letters to the editor section, not usually one of the Gazette's high points, has a couple of interesting letters. What the heck: buy the paper.

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All Is vanity.

That nasty, mean-spirited George Will. I thought guys who tied their own bow ties were always kind and sympathetic and told the truth. Well, a .333 batting average is not bad.