Wednesday, October 01, 2003 :::
 
An interesting blog...Francis Fukuyama weighs in on the side of the angels...a fan of Allen Drury's pays him a nice compliment and has yet another interesting blog...

A Mind That Suits is being picked up by some blogs to which he has no connection that he is aware. This is very flattering, and, in searching back from the referral page, he has found some congenial souls. One with the cuts-either-way title of One Good Turn caught his eye this morning, and he found yet again a site with whose author he apparently agrees on many things. (A Mind That Suits has never met anyone who agrees with anyone else 100 percent of the time.) The site's owner also has a good eye for news items, so stop on in and give Eddie's page a good once over.

This morning, the indispensible Wall Street Journal ran a very serious piece by Francis Fukuyama. You may remember that Prof. Fukuyama, who worked on the policy staff of the State Department under Bush I, became famous with a post-Cold War book called The End of History and the Last Man, in which he declared world history to be over, liberal democracy having won. The howls of protest from (generally older) historians caused him to seriously look at the world again and conclude "well, maybe not." He wrote one grim book about what we are doing to ourselves called Our Post-human Future: The Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. And his writing on foreign policy has become very clear-sighted about our enemies.

His article was on our misbegotten policy in Iraq, and entitled in "Nation Building Lite." A Mind That Suits was first off the mark with the phrase "Liberation Light," of course, but admits the cheesy spelling is funnier. A Mind That Suits, although a middle-aged bachelor, buys almost no prepackaged food, unless it is made from grapes and comes in a bottle. So he kind of forgot the funny way to spell it. Prof. Fukuyama is a very educated man, and gives a very good critique, from an unimpeachably conservative perspective, of the war plan.

He is giving voice to complaints that this lifelong conservative heard on the ground, but never from conservative journalists until just this month. One suspects the editors were keeping doubtful conservatives from publishing, unless they had contracts that forced editors' hands, as with the irrepressible Bob Novak. It was a pity, and now it is a little late in the day.

Hats off again to the editors at the Journal, who decide which Op-ed piece to feature on their free site, OpinionJournal. It is a wonderful site, that fully rewards daily visits, but, again, this morning, the best op-ed in the print version is not the one that was selected. Surely if you do not subscribe you can find a coyp in the boss's wastebasket by noon. A Mind That Suits only has one subscription--the Journal--and cadges that almost equally indispensible newspaper from the leftside fo the tracks, the Washington Post, from metro seats and empty coffeehouse tables. 35 cents a day adds up.

Friend Greg over at A Dog's Life had some very complimentary things to say about Allen Drury, who as regular readers know was the uncle of A Mind That Suits. His blog is also interesting because he is a scientist or chemical engineer (I am not sure which), and his blog is thus saved from the usual obsession with politics that afflicts most of us, this blogger included.


Moreover, he and his wife show Borzoi (Russian Wolfhounds) from their kennel, Soyara--hence, the name of his blog. As with horses, of course, show dogs have to have unique names. Greg paid my uncle the compliment of naming a pup that was born with different coloration than its siblings after one of my uncle's most famous books.

But the dog's day-to-day name is Rufus.

This answered a question that had been buzzing about in the back of this blogger's head: could a dog possibly respond to "Here, Soyara's A Shade of Difference!!!" Well, no, naturally enough. They need short clear sounds, such as the ones they make themselves.

And A Mind That Suits is honored that a show dog from a distinguished kennel is named after A Shade of Difference. If you find an original edition in a used bookstore, the dramatic cover showing the UN and its famous pendulum is by Allen Drury's sister, who happened also to be the dear mother of A Mind That Suits. It is one of her strongest works, and she was a strong painter....

Something similar about horse psychology was, I thought, well displayed in Seabiscuit. His jockey never called him "Seabiscuit," just something normal (I think it was "doc" or "boy.") The horse of course was more concerned with the presence of his favorite human than the name.

So, too, in running, just galloping along with a bunch of horses was insufficient to get Seabiscuit to show what he was made of. However, put him head to head with just one horse, and a killer will-to-win kicked in with a fury, leaving the offending competitor well back.

No more blogging today...rough seas ahead...or rather, a full day

Have a good one...

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 10:52 AM


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What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.