Watcher’s Council Winners for September 1st, 2006

For once, I’m doing my Council post on time. Not that it’s a virtue on my part; the Baron wrote a VBA macro for Word that permits me to extract automatically the whole of the Watcher’s page with all the links intact. As Jinnji would’ve said (back during her sabbatical, when she had the time to hang out here), this is “kewl.”

Gates’ Empire and Apocalypse took first place this week, but barely.

Following closely behind, in a tie for second place was Soccer Dad with Targeted Killings, Moral Consideration. It’s the first time I’ve seen Israel’s legal code laid out, describing the strict parameters for taking action against known killers who are harmful to the state. Too bad America hasn’t the spine or moral fortitude to put such a discussion on the table.

The other second place winner was a moving description by Joshua Pundit, titled Meanwhile, in Darfur... It’s demoralizing when you face what the nattering nabobs choose to ignore while they rail on about Bush and the criminal gang. Meanwhile, whole groups of people are being systematically murdered. Here is a counter-example to the “if-it-bleeds-it-ledes” dictum. Probably one of the unwritten rules is that if Africans - anyone besides Archbishop Tutu and Mr. Mandela, who have icon status - bleed, who cares? What a skewed moral compass the media has devised for itself.

The non-Council posts are always a cornucopia of reading pleasure. No superstars were nominated this week, so it was a level playing field. And an entertaining one.

Kobayashi Maru won first place for Check or Checkmate? Death by Cop on the Global Stage. The Watcher broke the tie for first by choosing this essay.

I’m glad I don’t have to make his choices, because the post which tied for first is utterly hilarious.

A Shrewdness of Apes wrote a perfect parody of Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell — When Teaching School Is Like... A Divine Comedy — as they exist in high school. This is required reading for anyone who is struggling to get an adolescent through school, or anyone who has to deal with them. I copied it to send on to a few such people myself. I do hope it manages to escape the blogosphere and make it to the wider world.

Special honorable mentions for deserved bashes to the execrable old grey doxy go to Blue Crab Boulevard for All the News That’s Fit to Blackout and to Villainous Company for NYTimes Watch: It’s Not Easy Being Blind. The definitive book listing all the crimes of The New York Times has yet to be written. When it is finally done, it will either be in ten volumes or it will take two strong men to carry it across the room.

Another post which deserves attention is Publius Pundit’s Walking Among the Tent Camps. Great pictures of his travels through Ukraine and a plea to help fund his journey. Things aren’t going well there.

For further enlightenment go to The Watcher’s Place.

See you next week, with my miraculous macros in place.