The winners are in for this week's Watcher's Council:
This week's winner was Andrew Olmsted : The Peace Myth Inhis first win as a member of the Council, Major Andrew Olmsted writes about what he considers the mistaken idea that peace is the normal condition of mankind, and relates this to our situation in Iraq. Congratulations, Major! Well done..
In second place was Soccer Dad: Baker's bad recipe a fine essay in which Soccer Dad wrote about James Baker and the ISG buying into the fallacy that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were `solved' that the problems of Iraq and elsewhere in the region would magically disappear. A great examination of a really stoopid premise by Soccer Dad.
For non-Council Post the winner was Winds of Change.NET: The clash of convictions and the remaking of the world of wars in which this blogger examines the idea that `the outcome of modern wars is decided in the mind.'
Second Place was a tie between The Indepundit and my own nominee, CQ.com: "Democrats’ New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda"
A complete list of the votes can be found atthe site of our fearless leader, Watcher of Weasels
Hearty Kudos to all the winners.
i don't know who this olmstead guy is, but i took a read just because ff said so.
ReplyDeletei'm sure he's a lot smarter than myself and is more worldly as well.
he's got his opinion.
this is mine.
there are words and phrases that give structure to essays. just as mr. olmstead used the tom kelly example to preface his essay, he then moved into the body of his essay, and like authors have done forever a preamble phrase is used to usher in the body of the text.
to digress, the most famous example of this is the use of three small inoculous words that, used alone are insignificant, but when used in just the right manner:
we the people
take on a significantly profound stature.
it was this that came to mind, after i read the beginning of mr. olmstead's essay, expecting him to move into historical events in our past, relating them to present day, that i came across this passage:
If the Bible is to be believed,
this caused the eyes to hit the return mode several times at the comma. a statement like that can only serve one purpose from this readers perspective, at every turn and comment the rest of the essay:
what is this guys motivation, what "is he" saying behind what "he is" saying. and is he saying what he means to say. the use of a phrase like that, imo, is very distracting.
of course, anyone would say that is due to a christian bias on my part. and he/she would of course be correct.
i was of course, expecting something different, a comparison in history, from the essay as to a re-hash of previously written texts and essays.
in conclusion, mr. olmstead's conclusion is a pipe dream. looking for a known quantity, as tom kelly's shortstop should be, in the mid-east is a mirage.