November 2009
11 posts
October 2009
25 posts
4 tags
“It was Nick Lemann who said I shouldn’t write about my kids, especially as...”
– - from Home Game by Michael Lewis
My mind drifted to this quote just now because I chanced upon the Twitter feed of a guy I’ve “known” since he was a little kid — purely from his dad’s lovely book about their family life. Seeing his Twitter was oddly unsettling.
Why?...
Update to my Matthew Hoh post
Wednesday, during a Washington Post online chat that I didn’t see until almost a full day after I wrote a post about Matthew Hoh and his resignation over Afghanistan strategy, a reader from D.C. asked Hoh about the same basic idea I highlighted. The exchange went like this:
Washington, D.C.: Shouldn’t you have known before going to Afghanistan that the war was pretty intractable? I...
After Matthew Hoh, I still want a time machine for...
I’m pretty pissed off right now.
It makes less than zero sense to me that Matthew Hoh’s resignation as “the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province” seems to be swaying sensible people from Christopher Buckley to Garrison Keillor to Andrew Sullivan. We all, naturally, have heard of Zabul province. We all, naturally, had heard of Matthew Hoh long before the Washington Post...
2 tags
Jonathan Lethem and the Bartender (Seattle,...
“The bartender …”
Up on a small stage in Ballard where bands usually play, novelist Jonathan Lethem has just solicited questions from a contented audience at the Sunset Tavern. Lethem sees a lithe arm held high out in the shadows where the stage lights don’t reach. The arm belongs to a woman whose name will turn out to be Holly. Holly is standing behind the bar.
...
Afghanistan. Afghanistan. Afghanistan.
I’m in the middle of watching this 90-minute lecture that Michael Semple gave at Harvard’s Carr Center. Actually, I’m not “in the middle.” Just 10 minutes in, really. It’s looking very promising. Semple, among other things, has a splendid Sam Beam beard that needs to be seen to be truly believed. Also Rory Stewart, the author of a great great great book about...
“… one of the advantages of good bad writers is their lack of shame in...”
– from George Orwell’s “Good Bad Books.”
“… the key to understanding a blog is to realize that it’s a broadcast, not...”
– from Andrew Sullivan’s “Why I Blog.”
I’d say more, but — those last two photos notwithstanding — I think I’m lifeless at the bottom of the Great Blog Lake.
Why "Global Pedestrian"? →
My foreign-policy blog for Big Think has a new look and an actual name now. This link will lead you to a post in which I explain where the new name comes from and what to expect from the blog.
An excerpt: “Global Pedestrian will be my immobile, imperfect attempt to seek out the sort of details, insights, acquaintances, and empathy that come when you forsake the automobile and move through...
5 tags
Watch© 2009 David Quigg
My new HuffPost: "After the Peace Prize, Give War... →
The Inherent Hilarity of Pizzle →
Somehow I reached the age of 37 without ever hearing the word “pizzle.” Today, I had the life-changing pleasure of being part of a group of four — me, my wife, my daughter, my son — that learned the word all together when our dog picked up a pizzle from a display at the pet store. Predictable hilarity ensued. When a word like pizzle rhymes with a word like sizzle, there is...
2 tags
“The hotel should never have been built where it was. That was the first mistake,...”
– This passage from Haruki Murakami’s Dance, Dance, Dance just made me laugh out loud as I drove around and around Ballard looking for a parking space before giving up and driving on to Fremont. All for coffee. I drove in the name of speed. Next time I’ll walk in the name of speed.
Ample...