Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 4 September 2004
About three doses of Augmenten into a 10-day antibiotic regime and I feel about 5000% better. Sinus infections are like fevers: they race upward until you are bedridden, but when theyíre broken, they disappear in terms of major symptoms literally overnight.
This is good, because I have promised Mark Anderson I would pen a special issue letter for his online distribution and they pretty much want it no later than Monday. By then, all the head fog will be gone, plus I should be pretty pumped from the biggest exposure on cable TV that I have ever received: almost 6 hours tonight on C-SPAN. Thatís right, the first showing of the 2:40 brief will be at 8pm, prime time as promised by Mr. Lamb himself, with the repeat following almost immediately (there will be a short 15-minute pair of speeches in between the two showing of my brief at National Defense University speech last June 2nd, one by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the second by a congressman at the American Legionís recent national convention).
Hereís the official listing pulled from www.cspan.org:
08:00 pm2:40 (est.) Speech, The Pentagon's New Map, National Defense University, Thomas P. M. Barnett , U.S. Naval War College
10:42 pm0:17 (est.) Speech, American Legion Convention, American Legion, Christopher H. Smith , R-NJ Richard Myers , Joint Chiefs of Staff
11:03 pm2:41 (est.) Speech, The Pentagon's New Map, National Defense University, Thomas P. M. Barnett , U.S. Naval War College
Itís good they mentioned the Naval War College, because I donít use NWC imagery or logos on my slides, although I do reference the college up front in the talk quite a bit.
I prefer having both showings on Saturday rather than having the second on Sunday afternoon, which was the plan until very recently, because I donít think anyone is watching on Labor Day Sunday afternoon. This way, people who surf and bump into the brief during the first showing, can catch it again if intrigued.
Anyway, the way I look at it, itís like CSPAN has given me their entire prime-time and late-night Saturday night lineup, and no matter how you slice it, almost six hours on cable delivered nationally is a good thing. My only fear is how well the CSPAN cameras were able to track both me and the slides, but when I talked to the head camera guy after the presentation, he seemed very happy with the capture, so Iíll just have to hope for the best.
Needless to say, Iím psyched, and Iím trying to talk my kids into watching it with me on the big screen TV in the basement. They probably will, since Iím taking them to the movies (Hero) and the beach (after 5pm mass). But I know they wonít last for two long. At two hours and 40 minutes, I am one long movie, but that only makes getting on CSPAN in this very long format all the better, because now I have the best version of the brief down on tape, available for people to buy if they really want to (although it would be nice if I got a cutósay, I donít exactly remember signing anything!).
I really have to thank Paul Davis of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (which is where the brief actually takes place at NDU) for the length of the brief. He set this whole thing up so I could brief the entire class at ICAF before they graduated. Later, he said the only complaint from the students was that they didnít have me at the start of the year instead. So, this year, thatís exactly what weíre going to do: I will brief the entire new class at ICAF on the 14th of September. I will also be briefing the entire class of the Naval War College on the 7th, and the entire Air War College class in early November. Makes you wonder what the Army War College has against me . . . oh yeah, the Sys Admin force.
Got some stories to blog today, plus the letters to the editor in the September issue of Esquire regarding my June article, ìMr. President, Hereís How to Make Sense of Our Iraq Strategy, but before I go on to those, let me say that I caught Arnold Schwarzeneggerís speech to the Republican National Convention on CSPAN this morning as I was folding laundry after mowing the lawn and I must say, that man is some fabulous political theater. The Dems are lucky he canít run for president, because he has good content, delivers it extremely well, is photogenic and popular as all get out, and heís just plain entertaining like neither presidential candidate this year can ever hope to be. As a Democrat, I would seriously consider voting for him for president (he canít run because the Constitution bans Americans of foreign birth from national office), and that makes him awfully potent as a campaign asset for the Republicans (heís a real stealer like Reagan was).
First Iíll comment on the Esquire letters:
The letters keep pouring into Esquire on ìMr. Presidentî article
ìBridging the Gapî in ìThe Sound and the Fury,î Esquire, September 2004, p. 49.
Then on to todayís small catch: