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Instructions for use: Blather, wince, repeat

Celebrating 11 years on the Web!
On the air since May 9, 1995

**Home of the Cloth Monkey Rants**

"Monie a saig darg we twa hae wrought
And wi' the weary warl' fought!
And monie an anxious time I thought
We wad be beat!
Yet here to crazy age we're brought
Wi' something yet"

The latest rant:  "Paintballs vs. No Balls" (June 29, 2001)

**I saw the Pentagon attack on September 11, 2001.  
Read my account here.**

Your Webmaster at the mighty Wurlitzer

In Memoriam:  Michael Kelly

Michael Kelly, the Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large and Washington Post columnist who abandoned the safety of editorial offices to cover the war in Iraq, was killed while traveling with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

He was one of the few Washington Post columnists who made sense on a daily basis, and the paper is the worse for his death.

I have saved the following quote from his February 13, 2002 column about the "Bush Doctrine" for combating terrorism.  Not only do I agree with it, but it's a fantastic piece of writing. 

I would argue that Bush's new doctrine is as good as doctrine generally gets -- necessary and workable, although not perfect. The chief points for the "axis of evil" doctrine may be seen in considering the chief points against it:

• It is "simplisme." It is simplistic, or simple-minded, as the French foreign minister, whose name is Petain or Maginot or something, sniffed last week. C'est vrai. It is indeed "simplisme" to pick fights with evil regimes just because those regimes want to kill you or enslave you or at least force you to knuckle under and collaborate in their evil, when one might choose the far safer and far more profitable path of shrugging one's shoulders in a fetchingly Gallic fashion and sending one's Jews off to the camps, as one's new masters in government request.

On the other hand, as the foreign minister might have noticed, the French may today enjoy springtime in Paris without the annoying sounds of jackboots all over the place, and the reason for that was the simple-minded determination of the British, the Russians and the Americans to fight the Nazis and to die by the millions, in order to make the world safe for, among other creatures, future French foreign ministers. "Simplisme" works. Against evil, it is the only thing that does.

Rest in peace, Michael.

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