I never could get into Updike, since his upper middle class amoral narcissistic characters had little in common with people I know (My neighborhood resembled the Burg of Janet Evanovich more than the hoity toity suburbs of Updike).
So I'll probably not bother to read his book. Indeed, my response to the news resembles this remark:
I hate to be snide, but shut up, Updike. The world doesn't need another "more sympathetic and loving portrait" of a terrorist. I mean, cripes, in just the past year or two, we've got Syriana, Munich, the Hamberg Cell, Paradise Now, The War Within. The "sympathetic portrait of a terrorist" is now cliche.
Actually what few have pointed out is that terrorism, even suicidal terrorism, is not new.
And the best portrait of the whys is found in a 1951 book...called the true believer.
And what books am I reading right now?
Hirsi Ali's biography and Evanovich's latest potboiler.
I like to keep things balanced...
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UpDATE: Canadian terror arrests has links to terror arrests in several other countries.
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Update2: DonStuber Fisks NYTimes politicized editorial
Instapundit says: Look, this is a serious matter. But the gleeful piling-on -- and there's a lot of that, as Surber demonstrates -- makes it seem less serious, not moreso. Those who would reduce war crimes to mere partisan footballs are not manning the bulwarks of moral seriousness, however much they might adopt that pose.
I recommend this column by Mark Steyn, too: "A superpower that wallows in paranoia and glorifies self-loathing cannot endure and doesn't deserve to." I could say the same thing for alleged "flagship" media operations.
Dr Sanity has several posts on the narcissism of the Anti War movement...it could be summarized as the quote the Anchoress uses "it's about ME ME ME"
Well, it could be worse. Instead of reliving their youth by protesting the last war, they could be taking over Namibia in the name of loving poor people...
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