BHL

Um...hi. I've never done this before. A blog, that is. I barely have enough discipline to clean my house or do my laundry in a regular fashion. But this seems like it could be a cool thing to do while I'm working and there's nothing coming in.

What's been interesting to me lately? NPR. There's a fantastic show on WNYC hosted by Brian Lehrer in the morning that everyone should listen to at least a few times if they can. (Brian has his own blog! Check it out.)

This morning Brian was talking to Bernard Henri-Levy, who was speaking with great candor about the war in Iraq (I love how people are finally starting to do that!) and the deluded concept of war in the western worldview—how we see it as cause for heroism, courage, etc. He's been in war zones that get little to no attention in the west, places like Sri Lanka, Sudan. Leave it to the French to be the only ones to be unafraid to tell it like it is, and say so with passion. On the show, he sort of lost control in a tirade about how out of touch people who romanticize war are and how sick the constant killing really is and called those who start these wars "bastards"! It was exciting to hear. Yay, BHL!

One of his books:

Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

http://www.semcoop.com/detail/0971865949

Wow. Here's a totally different perspective from the Guardian: Bernard Henri-Levy as media whore:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,977498,00.html

Any way you slice it, fascinating guy.

PS: My other fascination of late: revisiting the book On Writing Well by William Zinsser.