micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links

Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm.

Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net.

Holmquist's full archives are listed here.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)

Aljazeera.Net English
AlterNet (War on Iraq)
Alternative Press Review
Always Low Prices -- Always
Another Irani online
antiwar.com (blog)
Asia Times Online
Axis of Logic
Baghdad Burning (riverbend)
BBC News
blogdex.net ("track this weblog")
bobanddavid.com
BuzzFlash
The Christian Science Monitor (Daily Update)
Common Dreams
Cryptome
Cursor
Daily Rotten
DefenseLINK
Democracy Now
The Drudge Report
Eat the Press (Harry Shearer, The Huffington Post)
Empire Notes (Rahul Mahajan)
frontpagemag.com (HorowitzWatch)
globalsecurity.org
greenandwhite.com
Guardian Unlimited
Haaretz
The Independent
Information Clearing House
Informed Comment (Juan Cole)
Iranians for Peace

Iraq Dispatches (Dahr Jamail)
Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation
Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report (Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice)
MetaFilter
MLive
Mr. Show and Other Comedy
The Narco News Bulletin (blog)
NEWSMAKINGNEWS
The New York Times
Occupation Watch
Political Theory Daily Review
Press Action
Project Syndicate
Raed in the Middle (Raed Jarrar)
random-abstract.com
Reuters
Salon
The Simpsons Archive
Simpsons Collector Sector
Slate
Sploid
Technorati ("search for mth.blogspot.com")
thi3rdeye
United States Central Command
U.S. Embassy Baghdad, Iraq
venezuelanalysis.com
War Report (Project on Defense Alternatives)
The Washington Post
Wildfire (Jo Wilding)
wood s lot
www.mnftiu.cc (David Rees)

Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development)

Thivai Abhor
As'ad AbuKhalil
Ken Adrian
Christopher Allbritton
Alli
Douglas Anders
Mark W. Anderson
Aziz Ansari
Atomic Archive
Bagatellen
James Benjamin
Elton Beard
Charlie Bertsch
alister black
Blame India Watch
Blixa
Blog Left: Critical Interventions Warblog / war blog
Igor Boog
Martin Butler
Chris Campbell
James M. Capozzola
Avedon Carol
Elaine Cassel
cats blog
Jeff Chang
Margaret Cho
Citizens Of Upright Moral Character
Louis CK
Les Dabney
Dack
Natalie Davis
Scoobie Davis
The Day Job
Jodi Dean
Dominic Duval
Steve Earle
Eli
Daniel Ellsberg
Tom Engelhardt
Lisa English
Faramin
Barbara Flaska
Brian Flemming
Joe Foster
Yoshie Furuhashi
Al Giordano
Glovefox
Rob Goodspeed
Grand Puba
Guardian Unlimited Weblog
Pete Guither
The Hairy Eyeball
Ray Hanania
Mark Hand
harveypekar.com
Hector Rottweiller Jr's Web Log Jim Henley Arvin Hill Hit & Run (Reason) Hugo Clark Humphrey Indri The Iraqi Agora Dru Oja Jay Jeff Lynne d Johnson Dallas Jones Julia Kane Blues Benjamin Kepple Ken Layne Phil Leggiere Brian Linse Adam Magazine Majority Report Radio Marc Maron Josh Marshall Jeralyn Merritt J.R. Mooneyham Michael Scott Moore Bob Morris Bob Mould Mr. Show and Tell Muslims For Nader/Camejo David Neiwert NewPages Weblog Aimee Nezhukumatathil Sean O'Brien Patton Oswalt The Panda's Thumb Randy Paul Rodger A. Payne Ian Penman politx Neal Pollack Greg Proops Pro-War.com Pure Polemics Seyed Razavi Rayne Simon Reynolds richardpryor.com Clay Richards Mike Rogers Yuval Rubinstein
Steven Rubio
Saragon Noah Shachtman Court Schuett The Simpsons Archive Amardeep Singh Sam Smith Soundbitten Jack Sparks Ian Spiers Morgan Spurlock Stand Down: The Left-Right Blog Opposing an Invasion of Iraq Aaron Stark Morgaine Swann Tapped (The American Prospect) tex Matthew Tobey Annie Tomlin Tom Tomorrow The University Without Condition Jesse Walker Warblogger Watch Diane Warth The Watchful Babbler The Weblog we have brains Matt Welch
Alex Whalen
Jon Wiener
Lizz Winstead
James Wolcott
Wooster Collective
Mickey Z

Friday, April 04, 2003
 
Self-indulgent non-title

Lots of things have happened on April 4. A few of them are memorable. Elmer Bernstein (1922), David Cross (1964), Hugh Masekela (1939) and Muddy Waters (1915) were born on this day as was a certain Micah Timothy Holmquist (1977).

Yep today is my 26th birthday.

Unlike 365 days ago, I don't have anything profound to say. (Yes I called what I wrote then "profound." This morning I was quite surprised by how much of my development as a person was included in that entry.) The past 12 months haven't been more bad than good, but I am still alive and I have wished for the "courage" to kill myself enough times to know that just being alive is an accomplishment for me.

Thank you for reading.

***

Hendrik Hertzberg's "Collateral Damage" is the most interesting commentary I've read on the Operation Iraqi Freedom. Hertzberg once was Jimmy Carter's David Frum but he doesn't cut anybody any slack in this piece.

"Collateral Damage" is from the April 7 issue of The New Yorker, which also features Seymour Hersh's "Best-Laid Plans," which is fascinating even if the skepticism expressed in it about the U.S. military's ability to take over all of Iraq with ease doesn't appear the most relevant today. Prompted by Hersh's article, newyorker.com is featuring Peter J. Boyer's "A Different War," which appeared in July 1, 2002 issue of the print magazine and takes a look at a split between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's milieu and Army brass. That former wants the U.S. to emphasize air power in military campaigns while the latter for reasons involving both inertia and principle thinks it is a mistake to not consider ground troops to be at least as important. Hersh has been talking to high level military sources for over two decades, but I wonder how many of the anonymous sources that he gathered for "Best-Laid Plans" were prompted to talk to him because of this split. A philosophical dispute over tactics is just as likely to prompt members of the argument that is on "the losing end" to be overly pessimistic and skeptical as it is to inspire them to tell hard truths that they would otherwise have kept silent.

The April 7 issue also features a dispatch from Baghdad by Jon Lee Anderson. The piece is interesting but not terribly so. I'm mentioning it mainly as a way of recommending Anderson's 2002 book The Lion's Grave, which has a lot excellent reportage about modern Afghanistan.

***

Geraldo Rivera appears to be just a skinnier version of Saddam Hussein.

In the Department of Things I find Laughable, Reuters writes, "British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday the United States had absolutely no plans to attack Syria and Iran, which have been warned by Washington over their alleged involvement in Iraq."

In the next paragraph we see that Blair is denying gravity or, to use Reuters' exact words, "In an interview with the Arabic service of BBC World Service Radio, Blair also said it was every bit as important to make progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as it was to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein."