In light of these strains, now is an opportune time to examine the system's performance and consider how it can continue to reinvent itself.

A Patent System for the 21st Century

Clearly the author of "The Great Gatsby" came to Hollywood with too much ammo of the literary and intellectual sort.

Or a sword. A sword would also work. But it must be very, very sharp.

Fitzgerald as Scribe Among the Glitterati

Here's Principal Skinner, channeling McLuhan: "To be honest, I'm surprised and saddened. Eeh -- no, not saddened -- what's the word? Ah, yes, delighted!"

The sudden outpouring of inside details in books about the Bush administration is all the more remarkable because of the administration's previous success at controlling the flow of information to the press about its workings. It is a phenomenon that is creating an unusual reversal in which books -- the musty vessels traditionally used to convey patient reflection into the archives -- are superceding newspapers as the first draft of history, leaving the press corps to cover the books themselves as news.

Books offer greater prestige or more favorable context. Convention accords hardbound volumes a greater authority than even the most meticulously prepared newspaper or magazine articles. And changes in the media landscape enable the contents of a book to reverberate widely and persistently, even if no one reads it.

Your weblog is just another cog in the machine. If LiveJournal and Blogger are the coal mines and steel mills of the 21st century, then what is MemeStreams? The IMI logo is ambiguous, but it's clearly polluting the atmosphere.

Tina's mom: "I love your weblog!"

Why Books Are the Hot Medium

An interview with Tina Fey.

My mom is very, very dry. If she's out and she sees a woman in a reeeeeally ugly hat, or a crazy ugly Christmas sweater, my mom will go out of her way to be like: "I love your sweater! That is be-autiful! Where did you get it?"

Back in high school, I would try to control people through shame. I only learned how to stop doing that like two years ago.

On TV, I'm used to writing within boundaries, but the standards are tougher in the movies. The things they made us take out of the movie are definitely said on TV. The rule we go by in TV is if a little kid wouldn't understand it, it's probably OK. But they said "absolutely not."

-- Why do men like mean girls?
-- Some people confuse meanness for passion.

So, will the DVD be unrated?

If this film flops in theaters, can we attribute it to a lack of guns?

Frozen hot dogs are no substitute for cold steel.

The New Queen of Mean

Picture Lindsay Lohan saying to Lacey Chabert: "Get OUT !?!"

Or, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as Elaine Benes, to Jerry Seinfeld, with a light touch of physical violence for added effect.

Your choice.

In an article in the spring issue of The National Interest, the former president of the liberal Carnegie Endowment for International Peace weighs the costs and benefits of both staying and leaving. Of course success with a policy is always better than failing. But he concludes that a US pullout wouldn't be crippling, partly because it's so uncertain that staying would achieve any of the goals the Bush Administration has laid out.

3,431 words about foreign policy, and four of them are "Saudi Arabia." Here's to progress!

The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto

I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: John Kerry is to international relations as Nick Carr is to information technology. Discuss.

Iraq policy is now increasingly a response to developments on the ground there and the vagaries of our domestic politics. Ending the Arab-Israel conflict would have far more influence on transforming the Arab world than creating a new Iraqi government.

Knowing what we now know about Iraq, one could make the argument that we would have been better off if we had spent only a fraction of the hundreds of billions our Iraq venture will end up costing us in bribing Arabs and Israelis into a settlement and enforcing it.

The best that can be said with some certainty is that to stay or leave Iraq is going to be messy, costly and engage our energies and public discussion for a long time to come.

Here is the full text of the article by Morton Abramowitz that was mentioned recently.

Does Iraq Matter?

The best chief of intelligence is one who has the personal confidence and trust of the president, but who delights in telling the inner circle what it does not want to hear. This relationship can be sustained, of course, only if the president likes to have his thinking challenged and his job complicated -- something more common among intellectuals than among politicians.

The New Politics of Intelligence

Sandy Berger puts Musharraf on notice. He also manages to write more than 6,200 words about foreign policy without a single one of them being "Saudi".

Although the United States has never enjoyed greater power than it does today, it has rarely possessed so little influence. We can compel, but far too often we cannot persuade.

The Bush administration has gone badly wrong in applying its "with us or against us" philosophy to friends as well as foes. Put simply, our natural allies are much more likely to be persuaded by the power of American arguments than by the argument of American power.

The United States must re-engage in what the rest of the world rightly considers the cornerstone of a lasting transformation of the Middle East: ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Afghanistan, with Pakistan, remains a frontline battleground in the war on terrorism. A new administration will have to overcome this ...

In North Korea, we must be prepared to take yes for an answer.

Since the Cold War ended, we have witnessed two generations of military reform. The war on terrorism will require a third military transformation. At heart, this effort will be an intelligence challenge.

In Asia, a tectonic geopolitical and economic shift is taking place. But the US remains strangely disengaged.

All terrorism is evil, but not all evil is terrorism.

Whoever is president, we will need to rely most often on persuasion, not power, to achieve our goals.

Step 1. Win White House.
Step 2. Establish Palestine.
Step 3. Oust Musharraf.
Step 4. Kill Bin [Laden].

In short, the theme is that the US should strive to "Win Over All the World" rather than "Win, All Over the World."

Might I suggest, as soundtrack while you read, the Beatles classic "All You Need Is Love"?

Applied Memetics as Foreign Policy

A $25 billion market value would instantly make Google worth more than Lockheed Martin, the big military contractor; Federal Express, the package delivery service; or Nike, the sports clothing maker.

If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone.

Rich to Get Richer if Google Goes Public

And what is the Bush strategy? Let's go to Mars. Hello?

Losing Our Edge?