Two things:
1. My obsession with with this insane Iraq war. I read oodles about it in the press and online in blogs and e-zines. I have read Cobra II, Fiasco, The One Percent Solution, Nemesis, and other books.
2. My obsession with really fine writing. I taught writing and legal writing for over 25 years and am constantly lamenting the fact that no one understands when to use "which" and when to use "that" [restrictive and non-restrictive clauses?], or when to use the objective vs. subjective case, e.g. "he writes better then me [eek]."
Hence, I was blown away by this article from Salon, which is actually the commencement address that Mark Danner wrote and delivered to Department of Rhetoric at Zellerbach Hall, University of California at Berkeley, on May 10, 2007. The writing is masterful yet exquisite (I had to look up the word "synecdoche") and the content is one of the best summaries of the Iraq fiasco that I've ever read. It's a bit long, but take the time to check it out. Leave a comment with your thoughts.
A perfect nexus of two of my obsessions.
~ tom
2 comments:
Hey man, As always digging your latest posts, and this Salon reprint of the graduation speech was right on, though I suspect a little too clever for a lot of folks. I must admit, I'm not as much of a stickler for the old rules for writing, I like the go with the common usage and sometimes make up your own thing. But you know me.
Thanks for the Salon link. Regardless of the quality of writing, the content of this piece is almost totally unavailable in any daily newspaper or tv newscast. And for this I give the Devil his due, there isn't anyone in the media who either is too scared to write like this or too eager to be on the winning side, with all the cushiness it provides.
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