My most recent weekend column used a tale of good-natured jealously toward a fellow alum of my high school to get into a comparison between Operation Rio Grande and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Really. It makes sense.
— Operation Rio Grande could drag out — unsuccessfully — like Operation Iraqi Freedom — George Pyle | The Salt Lake Tribune
Fred Kaplan graduated from the same high school I did, got fired by the same newspaper company I did and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, like I was. ... (OK, so, a few years before that, Kaplan was part of a Boston Globe team that actually won a Pulitzer. Not the team in the movie “Spotlight.” The team that covered the nuclear arms race. So I’m reminded of what Katherine Hepburn said to Jane Fonda when Hepburn won her fourth Oscar, “You‘ll never catch me now!”) So all that is why I read Fred’s Pulitzer-nominated book, “The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War.” I’d recommend it even if it hadn’t been written by a fellow Salt Hawk. ... The story of how the tactics and strategy of counterinsurgency rose and fell in the American military during conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan should have special meaning to the folks in Salt Lake City who are arguing about the best way to deal with the mess of homelessness and drug-dealing in the Rio Grande neighborhood. Because the chances that Operation Rio Grande could still turn out like Operation Iraqi Freedom are very large indeed.
Since then:
— Ben McAdams says Salt Lake County can pay for Operation Rio Grande without a tax hike — Jennifer Dobner | The Salt Lake Tribune
“This was a tough budget,” said McAdams ... “Ensuring that we have the resources we need to keep the people of Salt Lake County safe is what we‘ve prioritized to the exclusion of almost everything else.”
And:
— David Petraeus: White House Is Wrong, Generals Are ‘Fair Game’ For Criticism — Mary Papenfuss — HuffPost
Retired Gen. David Petraeus on Sunday shot down the White House position that it’s “highly inappropriate” to questions a four-star general. Not only are generals “fair game,” but the military is “fiercely protective” of Americans’ right to criticize them, he insisted. “I think we’re all fair game,” Petraeus said on ABC’s “This Week.” He added: “We, in uniform, protect the rights of others to criticize us … we are fiercely protective of the rights of our Americans to express themselves, even if that includes criticizing us.” Petraeus’ slam was a response to a warning by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week that it’s “highly inappropriate to debate” a four-star Marine general. The press secretary’s comments came after reporters questioned her about the veracity of a statement made by White House chief of staff and retired four-star general John Kelly.
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Meanwhile, back in Iowa, it seems that another high school classmate of mine has made good.
— Wendy Wintersteen named Iowa State’s new president — Kathy A. Bolten and Linh Ta | The Des Moines Register
Wendy Wintersteen, 61, dean of Iowa State’s agricultural college since 2006, was unanimously selected by the Iowa Board of Regents as the institution’s new president. She will be the first woman to hold the job in Iowa State’s 159-year history.
That’s the good news.
Wintersteen’s candidacy was not without some controversy. She is seen by some in Iowa as loyal to large corporate agricultural businesses that they believe contribute to water and air pollution in the state. Some also have criticized her for failing to do much to halt the Iowa Legislature’s de-funding this year of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.
Hmmm. Maybe she should read another book by another Hutch High alumni.
— Big agriculture’s big lie — Ira Boudway | Salon
A Kansas editor says our assembly-line approach to growing our food is actually contributing to world hunger — and explains why buying local and buying organic is so important. ... In “Raising Less Corn, More Hell,” Pyle has collected the various strands of the long-standing case against industrial agriculture into a compact polemic or — perhaps more fitting for the work of a practiced editorial writer — into one long, impassioned Op-Ed.