Sentential Links #186

Linkage time! Get yer linkage here!

:: Americans just don't realize how big a deal this is for the rest of the world.

Might it be that our definition of what constitutes peacemaking is too insular and narrow -- too exclusively Western -- too lacking in shalom?

:: But this prize isn't about political partisanship inside the U.S. Again, it was a clear signal from an old friend.

As usual, though, America is too obsessed with itself to notice. (Both of these links via Sean.)

:: The key to understanding McCain’s strategic “thought” is that he loves war. Whichever war the United States of America seems mostly likely to start on any given day is the war he wants to start. Whichever war the United States of America seems mostly likely to escalate on any given day is the war he wants to escalate. The entire rest of his erstwhile worldview will just revolve around that. (A lot of people seem to love war, and I find it maddening. I'm no dove-like peacenik myself, but it has struck me as incredibly odd that for years, our national discourse has treated the people who constantly agitate in favor of war as the solution for nearly any foreign policy problem as the "serious" people. "War is serious, therefore someone calling for it must also be serious," goes the logic, and it's extremely foolish.)

:: The argument for giving Obama a Nobel Prize is that America is important enough and Republicans are bad enough. (Or, as he put it in comments to the Matthew Yglesias post linked just above: This is where you can build a pretty powerful case for Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Keeping this man [John McCain] from controlling the US military was a gigantic service to world peace.

:: Bottom line: you care about your kids? Don't feed them Nutella and toast every day for breakfast. (Er...OK. But who does that? I've never even tasted Nutella. We use good old peanut butter here. And the breakfast of choice for The Daughter these days is a single egg and a slice of cheese on a toasted multi-grain English muffin.)

:: I now present you with a seventeen year old rant about my time at Taco Bell, written today from the perspective of me in 1992. (God in Heaven, that brings back memories. Working in corporate restaurants is just like that; just change the name in Shamus's post and you've got what it was like at Pizza Hut, or McDonald's, or anywhere else. This reminds me of many sanctimonious lectures we managers would receive from the Area Managers at Pizza Hut when they'd come round. Ugh.)

:: For in playing, or writing, or drawing, or simply talking oneself deep into the world of a popular artwork that invites the regard of the amateur, the fan, one is seeking above all to connect, not only with the world of the show, comic book, or film, but with the encircling, embracing metaworld of all those who love it as much as you do.

More next week.