The Instapundit points out this idiotic cartoon equating the events of September Eleventh with the measured and moral US response in Afghanistan. It asks "And then what?" But apparently whoever wrote it didn't pay any attention to the news last year. So I thought to catch them up.
Let's see, the US waited a month to decide exactly how to respond, and then they carried out a campaign that was remarkable in its timing, precision, and concern for civilians on the ground, and then the little girls went back to school, and the women went back to work, and the rape houses were closed, and the "Friendship Bridge" to Uzbekistan was reopened, and the aid workers were able to bring in food, and the children were finally vaccinated, and the refugees returned home, and the US Army built hospitals, and Afghans could sing and fly kites again, and a Loya Jirga was finally convened after twenty years, and a president was chosen, and the Taliban stopped butchering 1,500 Afghans a month, and then movies were shown again, and the Sufis were allowed to practice their form of Islam once again without fear of torture, and they started playing soccer in the stadium again instead of blowing women's brains out there, and the terrorist camps were destroyed, and Al Queda plans to attack more civilians were disrupted, and America became a lot safer and so did Afghanistan.
What'd I leave out?
Rather bizarre article in the New York Tmes today about people who work with technology yet seem very self-satisfied about the way they limit their use of electronic devices at home. According to the article these technologists
don’t just buy a cellphone, a hand-held computer or a laptop. They choose and weed, according to how they want electronic objects to shape their lives and according to the personal image they want to project.Doesn't that imply that they are in fact much more dominated by their electronic gadgets than other people who merely use electronic devices for their intended purposes without regard for whatever "personal image" such use projects? Case in point, a Mr. Chris Rettstatt who
spends the better part of his days sending e-mail, composing electronic documents, sending instant messages, monitoring chat rooms and developing Web pages. Yet he is acutely aware of the way technology shapes who he is. He doesn’t own a laptop, for instance, because “I don’t want to be the type of person who works on planes and in hotel rooms,”
Someone really needs to show the man how to turn a laptop off. I myself have chosen laptop ownership, but I've thus far avoided the compulsion to use it in a plane or hotel room. But that's not even really the point. Rettstatt wants us all to know that he doesn't want to be seen as someone who uses his laptop on a plane. We also learn that he "rides his bike to work and makes his own homemade bread and jam." Why is this news? Who cares what a bunch of self-absorbed people believe about what their product selections say about themselves? The fact that they think so much about such matters says more about them than they can possibly imagine. Someone really needs to inform him that "who he is" has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he owns a laptop.
Further, why is the reporter so surprised that people who work with technology think about it way too much? And why does she allow Mr. Rettstatt's statement that “there’s something about working with technology that makes people want to become Quakers,” to stand? That's patently ridiculous! I know many many people who work in technology, and none of them have ever shown any Friend-ly inclinations. In terms of aesthetics, Mr. Rettstatt might have meant the Shakers, but it remains a vast overstatement to claim that all people who work with technology share his strange preoccupation with personal image. Defining oneself by what gadgets one does or does not carry is so very September Tenth.
I was so pre-occupied Thursday with studying for that horrid exam and trying to put to rest crazy rumors that I was really Janeane Garofolo, I only just now noticed that I was linked from "Best of the Web," as well, for my transcript of the Baghdad Boys below. No wonder my traffic was up! And perhaps that's how I came to the attention of a certain Freeper. At last, it all makes sense. It was a perfect storm-- of unique visitors to the site!