GINA COBB

Author Madeleine L'Engle Enters a Wrinkle in Time

An amazing author has just stepped into eternity:

HARTFORD, Conn. - Author Madeleine L'Engle, whose novel "A Wrinkle in Time" has been enjoyed by generations of schoolchildren and adults since the 1960s, has died, her publicist said Friday. She was 88.

L'Engle died Thursday at a nursing home in Litchfield of natural causes, according to Jennifer Doerr, publicity manager for publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The Newbery Medal winner wrote more than 60 books, including fantasies, poetry and memoirs, often highlighting spiritual themes and her Christian faith.

Although L'Engle was often labeled a children's author, she disliked that classification. In a 1993 Associated Press interview, she said she did not write down to children.

"In my dreams, I never have an age," she said. "I never write for any age group in mind. When people do, they tend to be tolerant and condescending and they don't write as well as they can write.

"When you underestimate your audience, you're cutting yourself off from your best work."

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite books.  I still have the battered paperback I acquired as a child, and I can't wait to share it with my chldren. 

In L'Engle's novel, a "tesseract" was a wrinkle in space and time -- a means of traveling long distances instantaneously by bypassing the space inbetween.  Although the term "tesseract" has a different meaning in geometry, L'Engle's use of the concept of a wrinkle in time illustrates her writing style that refused to condescend to children.  As a result, her work is fascinating to young minds -- and enjoyable for adults as well.

A Wrinkle in Time isn't just an interesting children's science fiction/fantasy story.  It's also a story about exceeding what seem to be the ordinary human limits of our lives.  Better yet, it's a story about one of the most powerful forces in the universe:  a family's love.

L'Engle leaves a fine legacy.

Quote of the Day

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 

(Psalm 139:7-10)

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Photo: Romeo Koitmäe

If Al Qaeda Is "Evolving," Why Can't America's Iraq Strategy Evolve Too?

Here's what passes for the conventional wisdom on Iraq:  The war was badly planned and therefore is failing miserably.  As a result, America's only option is to fold up the entire operation and slink away, leaving the Iraqis to whatever bloodbath awaits them.  We've reached the point of no return; the war is irretrievably lost; and no amount of rethinking or redoubling of effort will make any difference.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda's early losses in the war on terror, including the deaths of major leaders such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and possibly Osama Bin Ladin himself, are completely irrelevant, since Al Qaeda is "evolving" constantly and is planning mass casualty attacks on the U.S.:

Al Qaeda terrorists are rebuilding their capabilities and continuing to plan mass-casualty attacks inside the United States, according to an intelligence assessment made public yesterday.

"We assess [al Qaeda] has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in ... Pakistan [tribal areas], operational lieutenants and its top leadership," according to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a consensus analysis of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

"Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here," the report stated.

Retired Vice Adm. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence whose office produced the NIE, said the United States will face a "persistent and evolving terrorist threat" in the next three years.

The seven-page public summary of the classified report said the United States is in a "heightened threat environment."

"They're working as hard as they can in positioning trained operatives here in the United States," Mr. McConnell said. "They have recruitment programs to bring recruits into [the tribal] region of Pakistan [who] could come to the United States, fit into the population and then use some of the training that they receive in the Pakistani area for explosives and so on."

Is the contrast between the defeatism of the media in viewing America's chances in the Iraq war and the endless optimism for Al Qaeda's chances stark enough for you?

Al Qaeda remains a threat because it is "continuing to plan" further attacks and "will intensify its efforts" and its members are "working as hard as they can."

But when it comes to the Iraq war, working harder, intensifying efforts, rethinking, and continuing to plan are off the table for the United States.  The only option we have is to rip our leaders from limb to limb, metaphorically speaking, for having started the war.  Since things look bleak now, they're going to stay that way no matter what America does, and its only option is to turn tail and run.

Don't tell me we've tried long enough and hard enough in Iraq and there's no point in continuing any longer.  Nonsense.  Al Qaeda's attacks on the U.S. predate the Iraq war, but nobody seems to be pulling out a stopwatch and insisting that Al Qaeda's chances of striking a mortal blow at the U.S. or the West are forever lost.

What a fitting metaphor is Harry Reid's surrender slumberthon in the Senate tonight.  Harry Reid knows how to lose a war he has already declared lost.  The solution is quite simple:  Lie down, accept defeat, and make no effort to prevail.

In the real world, the margin between victory and defeat is rarely great, but the outcome matters a great deal.  The margin of victory usually turns on one thing:  motivation.  If we are motivated to win; if we are determined; if we are constantly "rebuilding our capabilities" and "continuing to plan" and "intensifying our efforts  and "working as hard as we can," then there are very few forces on earth that can stand in our way.

By the same token, if we are frequently announcing that we've already lost and that our cause is hopeless, and holding slumberthons to protest our own nation's continued effort to prevail, then we certainly can bring about our own defeat.

Update:  Today brings a stunningly important speech from Senator John McCain (via Captain's Quarters):

Mr. President, we have nearly finished this little exhibition, which was staged, I assume, for the benefit of a briefly amused press corps and in deference to political activists opposed to the war who have come to expect from Congress such gestures, empty though they may be, as proof that the majority in the Senate has heard their demands for action to end the war in Iraq. The outcome of this debate, the vote we are about to take, has never been in doubt to a single member of this body. And to state the obvious, nothing we have done for the last twenty-four hours will have changed any facts on the ground in Iraq or made the outcome of the war any more or less important to the security of our country. The stakes in this war remain as high today as they were yesterday; the consequences of an American defeat are just as grave; the costs of success just as dear. No battle will have been won or lost, no enemy will have been captured or killed, no ground will have been taken or surrendered, no soldier will have survived or been wounded, died or come home because we spent an entire night delivering our poll-tested message points, spinning our soundbites, arguing with each other, and substituting our amateur theatrics for statesmanship. All we have achieved are remarkably similar newspaper accounts of our inflated sense of the drama of this display and our own temporary physical fatigue. Tomorrow the press will move on to other things and we will be better rested. But nothing else will have changed.

In Iraq, American soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are still fighting bravely and tenaciously in battles that are as dangerous, difficult and consequential as the great battles of our armed forces’ storied past. Our enemies will still be intent on defeating us, and using our defeat to encourage their followers in the jihad they wage against us, a war which will become a greater threat to us should we quit the central battlefield in defeat. The Middle East will still be a tinderbox, which our defeat could ignite in a regional war that will imperil our vital interests at risk there and draw us into a longer and far more costly war. The prospect of genocide in Iraq, in which we will be morally complicit, is still as real a consequence of our withdrawal today as it was yesterday.

During our extended debate over the last few days, I have heard senators repeat certain arguments over and over again. My friends on the other side of this argument accuse those of us who oppose this amendment with advocating “staying the course,” which is intended to suggest that we are intent on continuing the mistakes that have put the outcome of the war in doubt. Yet we all know that with the arrival of General Petraeus we have changed course. We are now fighting a counterinsurgency strategy, which some of us have argued we should have been following from the beginning, and which makes the most effective use of our strength and does not strengthen the tactics of our enemy. This new battle plan is succeeding where our previous tactics have failed, although the outcome remains far from certain. The tactics proposed in the amendment offered by my friends, Senators Levin and Reed – a smaller force, confined to bases distant from the battlefield, from where they will launch occasional search and destroy missions and train the Iraqi military – are precisely the tactics employed for most of this war and which have, by anyone’s account, failed miserably. Now, that, Mr. President, is staying the course, and it is a course that inevitably leads to our defeat and the catastrophic consequences for Iraq, the region and the security of the United States our defeat would entail.

Yes, we have heard quite a lot about the folly of “staying the course,” though the real outcome should this amendment prevail and be signed into law, would be to deny our generals and the Americans they have the honor to command the ability to try, in this late hour, to address the calamity these tried and failed tactics produced, and salvage from the wreckage of our previous failures a measure of stability for Iraq and the Middle East, and a more secure future for the American people.

I have also listened to my colleagues on the other side repeatedly remind us that the American people have spoken in the last election. They have demanded we withdraw from Iraq, and it is our responsibility to do, as quickly as possible, what they have bid us to do. But is that our primary responsibility? Really, Mr. President, is that how we construe our role: to follow without question popular opinion even if we believe it to be in error, and likely to endanger the security of the country we have sworn to defend? Surely, we must be responsive to the people who have elected us to office, and who, if it is their wish, will remove us when they become unsatisfied with our failure to heed their demands. I understand that, of course. And I understand why so many Americans have become sick and tired of this war, given the many, many mistakes made by civilian and military leaders in its prosecution. I, too, have been made sick at heart by these mistakes and the terrible price we have paid for them. But I cannot react to these mistakes by embracing a course of action that I know will be an even greater mistake, a mistake of colossal historical proportions, which will -- and I am as sure of this as I am of anything – seriously endanger the people I represent and the country I have served all my adult life. I have many responsibilities to the people of Arizona, and to all Americans. I take them all seriously, Mr. President, or try to. But I have one responsibility that outweighs all the others – and that is to do everything in my power, to use whatever meager talents I posses, and every resource God has granted me to protect the security of this great and good nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. And that I intend to do, Mr. President, even if I must stand athwart popular opinion. I will explain my reasons to the American people. I will attempt to convince as many of my countrymen as I can that we must show even greater patience, though our patience is nearly exhausted, and that as long as there is a prospect for not losing this war, then we must not choose to lose it. That is how I construe my responsibility to my constituency and my country. That is how I construed it yesterday. It is how I construe it today. And it is how I will construe it tomorrow. I do not know how I could choose any other course.

I cannot be certain that I possess the skills to be persuasive. I cannot be certain that even if I could convince Americans to give General Petraeus the time he needs to determine whether we can prevail, that we will prevail in Iraq. All I am certain of is that our defeat there would be catastrophic, not just for Iraq, but for us, and that I cannot be complicit in it, but must do whatever I can, whether I am effective or not, to help us try to avert it. That, Mr. President, is all I can possibly offer my country at this time. It is not much compared to the sacrifices made by Americans who have volunteered to shoulder a rifle and fight this war for us. I know that, and am humbled by it, as we all are. But though my duty is neither dangerous nor onerous, it compels me nonetheless to say to my colleagues and to all Americans who disagree with me: that as long as we have a chance to succeed we must try to succeed.

I am privileged, as we all are, to be subject to the judgment of the American people and history. But, my friends, they are not always the same judgment. The verdict of the people will arrive long before history’s. I am unlikely to ever know how history has judged us in this hour. The public’s judgment of me I will know soon enough. I will accept it, as I must. But whether it is favorable or unforgiving, I will stand where I stand, and take comfort from my confidence that I took my responsibilities to my country seriously, and despite the mistakes I have made as a public servant and the flaws I have as an advocate, I tried as best I could to help the country we all love remain as safe as she could be in an hour of serious peril.

Returning from the Land of Endless Work

I'm finally returning to the real world after having worked 33 hours in two days.

Yep, that's a lot.  Do the math.

So, what did I miss?

Islamic terrorists are still working overtime with threats and propoganda/coded messages.  I'm with Ed Morrissey on this one:

So what's new? Jihadis have been making these threats since the 1990s. Most of them turn out to be busts or vaporware altogether. Other times, the threats meant nothing until after the attacks. We have to remain vigilant at all times, regardless of whether the Dadullahs of the world decide to shoot their mouths off to willing journalists.

Better yet, let's drop a Tomahawk on Dadullah's camp next time he pops his head up for his 15 minutes of Western fame.

On the plus side, the stock market seems to be doing fine. 

Why can't more headlines be as quirky and charming as this one?

Clever Apes Recreate an Aesop Fable

And here's another terrific piece, but with the wrong headline:  How the world would thrive without mankind.

I expected to find a self-loathing story about how humans should just improve the world by dying off, but it's not really about that.  It's a serious glimpse into mankind's lasting legacy on earth and in the solar system and universe.  If you can get past the first paragraphs without taking offense, the rest of the piece is fascinating.

Six-and-half billion - and rising. That is how many humans crowd our Planet Earth. And there is no doubt that we are wreaking terrible damage on our world.

So much so that scientists talk about the "Anthropocene" - the destructive Era Of Man.

Our gases are polluting the atmosphere and warming the skies. Our chemicals taint the seas and the rivers; our farms and cities gobble up the landscape, pushing flora and fauna aside like sand before a bulldozer. Our green-and-blue world is still beautiful, but it is far from pristine.

Our mark is everywhere.

But just imagine what would happen if we were all to disappear, each and every one of us, tomorrow. That's right - think what would take place if every single man, woman and child were to vanish off the face of the Earth in an instant.

That is the bizarre premise of a new book which speculates what would happen in the days, months, years and millennia ahead if homo sapiens - surely the most extraordinary species ever to have evolved - were suddenly to be swept away.

The author, Alan Weisman, of Arizona University, does not speculate on the cause of the disappearance; this is immaterial, as this is not a book about the end of the world but about an imagined beginning - the beginning of The World Without Us, the title of his book.

The results of this huge thought-experiment are both fascinating and surprising. Fascinating for what they tell us about the impermanence of the works of man, and surprising for the simple reason that it soon becomes clear that our world would carry on regardless, indifferent to our demise.

In fact, the first things to happen after the disappearance of humanity would be very dramatic - and destructive.

Within a week, the emergency fuel supply to the diesel generators that circulate cooling water around the world's 441 operating nuclear reactors would run out.

After that, one by one, the reactors would overheat, burn, melt and in some cases explode. Several hundred Chernobyl disasters would play out, simultaneously, across the deserted world. Huge quantities of radioactive material would be released into the air, rivers and oceans.

What effect this would have on animal and plant life is unknown.

But much to everyone's surprise, the flora and fauna around the Chernobyl disaster site has thrived. The ecologist James Lovelock, a pro-nuclear Green, argues that wildlife, by and large, does not notice radiation.

Certainly, from then on, planet Earth would probably give a sigh of relief at our passing, as a spectacular environmental recovery would begin to take place. Quickly, the oceans would cleanse themselves; similarly the air, the streams and the rivers. In a remarkably short time, Mother Nature would reassert herself over her old dominions.

In the new, human-free world, a few species would do badly - the rats, cockroaches and starlings that cling to our coat-tails would suffer. So would cows, sheep and other farm animals. The human head-louse would become extinct within a year, and HIV would vanish.

In Africa, an orgy of feasting would take place as an exploding lion and leopard population guzzled its way through the continent's millions of cattle, no longer protected by the herdsmen's spears and guns.

It gets even more interesting from there.  Read whole article here. 

If you want to buy the book, here's the link at Amazon.

Congressman Who Stashed Cash in Freezer Gets Committee Appointment from House Dems

How bizarre.

Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson, who stashed $90,000 in cash in his freezer and who is facing a federal corruption probe, will get a seat on the Homeland Security Committee.

Do the leaders of the Democractic party in Congress have no shame?

Never mind. 

Their actions speak much louder than words.

O.J. Simpson Book Cancelled

In a stunning turnaround, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. has announced that O.J. Simpson's book "IF I DID IT" will not be published and a related T.V. special will be cancelled.

"I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project," said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman. "We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson."

It is heart-warming to see compassion for the victims of this crime trump celebrity-worship this time.

Now if O.J. Simpson truly wants to stop running and confess, he'll have to find a better way -- preferably one that doesn't further torment the victims of this crime or Simpson's own children.

O.J. Simpson Still Running

He's not running with the football anymore.  He's not riding in a white Bronco with a gun to his head.  He's not in a courtroom running from justice.

But O.J. Simpson is still running from the truth.  He's still running from demons.  He's still running to make a quick buck ("for his children").  He's still running against the slide into obscurity.  He's still running from a twinge of conscience.  He's still running from a certain look on his childrens' faces.  He's still running from that voice that tells him there's just no point anymore.

And Judith Regan is running right there alongside him, publishing his new book "IF I DID IT."

But, in fairness, she has an explanation; and it's not entirely specious.  Regan rightly points out that confessions are often oblique.  She argues that this is O.J. Simpson's confession.

If you still think O.J. Simpson was innocent, this book makes no sense.  Why would an innocent man write a book fantasizing about how he might have killed his murdered wife Nicole and a decent man named Ron?

If your intuition told you all along that Simpson was guilty, this book makes perfect sense.

Have the Media Proven Ann Coulter Right?

Newsmax.com makes a pretty good argument that the media have proven Ann Coulter right:

In her book, Coulter writes that ever since Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Channel broke the monopoly on the news and the floodgates opened, the leftist media and the Democrats have been trying "to re-create a world where they can hurl slander and treason without anyone arguing back –- they needed a doctrine of infallibility” that would prevent critics from answering back, leaving their fallacious doctrines unchallenged.

"They would choose only messengers whom we’re not allowed to reply to,” she writes. "That’s why all Democratic spokesmen these days are sobbing hysterical women. You can’t respond to them because that would be questioning the authenticity of their suffering.”

Among them, Coulter writes, are "people with "absolute moral authority” in the words of Maureen Dowd describing Cindy Sheehan -- Democrats with a dead husband, a dead child, a wife who works at the CIA, a war record, a terminal illness or as a last resort being on a first-name basis with Nelson Mandela.”

And so we get the likes of the "Jersey Girls" exploiting the deaths of their husbands on 9/11, Sheehan exploiting the death in Iraq of her son to attack President Bush, Joe Wilson, Rep. John Murtha and other untouchables. To challenge their assertions is blasphemy and "over the line.” And an assault on the "sacred.”

Read it all.

In all fairness, Ann's message that the left is using "untouchable" victims as "human shields" to try to promote inherently bad ideas could probably have been delivered more gently -- with kid gloves. 

But if Coulter had delivered her message mildly, would anyone have listened?

How to Put Your Writing Career Into Overdrive

For writers and aspiring writers, Jeffrey Yamaguchi at 52 Projects has "Simple Things You Can Do Right Now To Jumpstart Your Writing Efforts."

Cathy Seipp Reviews Cindy Sheehan Book "Dear President Bush"

Cathy Seipp has a few words to say about Cindy Sheehan's new book Dear President Bush.

Army of Davids Reviewed

TigerHawk has an excellent review of Glenn Reynolds' new book, An Army Of Davids.

Oprah Shows Some Courage: Admits Was Wrong About Frey

Once again I admire Oprah Winfrey.

She had the courage to admit that she was wrong to defend James Frey after learning that his supposedly autobiographical book "A Million Little Pieces" contained a number of lies and fabrications about Frey's life, as discovered after a little investigation by The Smoking Gun website.

Oprah intially stood behind Frey after his memoir was exposed as partly fictitious, telling Larry King that the book still retained its "underlying message of redemption."

Yet Frey's deception was not excusable.  It was not excusable as an artistic device, because truth packaged as fact is a lie, as Richard Cohen argued in the Washington Post.  The deception also was not excusable in the service of a so-called "message of redemption." When an author takes license with the truth for the express purpose of making his life of addiction more interesting, that doesn't help anyone.  All it does is to have the opposite effect.  It unduly romanticizes addiction by making it a more exciting story than it really is.  The boring misery that was Frey's actual life of addiction wasn't the stuff that best-selling books are made of.  Nor should it be.

In acknowledging that she made a mistake, Oprah showed what she is made of.  She showed intellectual honesty and strength.  These are some of the characteristics that have helped Oprah Winfrey achieve greatness.

Fiction Packaged As Fact Is a Lie: Common Sense About "A Million Little Pieces"

What to make of a writer lionized by Oprah Winfrey for his heart-wrenching autobiographical account "A Million Little Pieces," only to find out that, based on a little investigation by The Smoking Gun website, several of the facts in the book are actually fiction? 

And what to make of it when Oprah Winfrey still stands behind the author, James Frey, after his memoir is exposed as partly fictitious, telling Larry King that the book still retains its "underlying message of redemption"?

Richard Cohen has it right in the Washington Post:  Frey's deception isn't something that can nor should be rationalized away.  "Fiction packaged as fact is a lie."

Lying is not a virtue.  It is a vice.

Nothing a liar says can be accepted as truth without independent verification.  That is a waste of everybody's time.

What good is an "underlying message of redemption" when the author takes license with the truth for the express purpose of making his life of addiction more interesting?  How does that help anyone?  If anything, it has the opposite effect:  It unduly romanticizes addiction by making it a more exciting story than it really is.  Apparently the boring misery that was Frey's actual life of addiction doesn't sell.  Nor should it.

If Frey had an artistic vision that included spinning fables about his own life, then the time to explain that his memoirs were partly fictional was when he first began promoting the book, long before The Smoking Gun uncovered the truth.  That Frey remains unrepentant and tells Larry King he would do the same thing all over again is not to his credit.

When we lionize liars, we will get more of the same.  Much more. 

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Hat tip to Lucianne