Sherry Chandler

Christian Wiman in Poetry for December 2006:

Seamus Heaney has noted that if a person has a single poem in his head, one that he returns to and through which, even in small ways, he understands his life better, this constitutes a devotion to the art. It is enough. And in fact I find that this is almost always how non-specialists read poetry – rarely, sparingly, but intensely, with a handful of high moments that they cling to. The emphasis is on the memorable individual poem, and poetry in bulk is rarely memorable.

Article online at Poetry Daily.

Here’s something we should worry about, I think:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — The expansion of the Pentagon’s presence in American embassies is creating frictions and overlapping missions that could undermine efforts to combat Islamic radicalism, a report by Congressional Republicans has found.

As the Pentagon takes on new roles collecting intelligence, initiating information operations and conducting other “self-assigned missions,” the report found that some embassies have effectively become command posts, with military personnel in those countries all but supplanting the role of ambassadors in conducting American foreign policy.

“Self-assigned missions?”

You really should read this article. It tells us that the Department of State is being starved of money and the Department of Defense is more and more running our foreign policy. It is the legacy of Donald Rumsfeld, true, but also of Bush who appoints (or creates) weak and compliant Secretaries of Defense.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a retired Army colonel who is a professor of international relations at Boston University, said the report provided further evidence that American foreign policy was becoming “progressively militarized.” He said a warning in the report that the secretary of state could lose primacy over American foreign policy decisions in some ways had already come to pass.

“That horse has already escaped from the barn,” he said. “The secretary of state enjoys no such primacy. The Pentagon has the money and calls the shots.”

One of the reasons the United States has not suffered coup after coup as many South American countries have is that we have always been very careful to preserve the civilian nature of our government.

When your Department of Defense has more money than some countries and your Department of State is starved, then your domestic tranquility is in danger.

That’s one of the problems with having a toy soldier for President.