Mark Danner, Joan Didion.

Our dear friend RJ at the Daily Blague suggests two New York Review articles; our NYRB not yet having arrived, I had to print them off the computer to read them.

Mark Danner discusses the Downing Street Memo, and reprints it in full. "Still, for those interested in the question of how our leaders persuaded the country to become embroiled in a counterinsurgency war in Iraq, the Downing Street memorandum offers one more confirmation of the truth. For those, that is, who want to hear."

Two weeks after he wrote the article, the full text of the Downing Street Memo, which, as I pointed out previously, is nowhere near as long as the Starr Report, has still not been reprinted by the Times, or, as far as I can tell, by any other major U.S. paper. Newsweek, however, is dutifully taking dictation from Larry Di Rita. Mission Accomplished!

The other article suggested was Joan Didion on Terri Schiavo. That article annoyed me, but I'm not doing well at explaining exactly why, so I won't discuss yet. Maybe it's just because it's the end of May and I've had to put the heat on, and my tomato seedlings are huddled underneath a Reemay blanket, soddenly awaiting spring so that they can be planted.