Link Salad, the Pull Me Back In Edition
-- Obama's Way - Fred Kaplan, Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2016
"The tragedy of Obama’s presidency is that, from the beginning, he has wanted to shift away from the stagnant battlefields in and around the Middle East and devote more attention to the Asia-Pacific region, with its prospects for dynamic growth, trade, and, in the form of China, an expansionist power that needs to be at once contained militarily and lured into the global economy. This focus on Asia came to be called the “pivot,” or “rebalancing,” but Obama had recognized its appeal and discussed it as far back as his 2008 presidential campaign. He understood, and still does, that this is where the United States’ future interests lie-but the never-ending crises of the ancient world keep pulling him back in."
-- The Easiest Way to Lose 125 Pounds Is to Gain 175 Pounds - Bill Barnwell, Medium, Jan. 5, 2016
"Outside of a few short sparks of self-assessment which never lasted more than a couple of weeks, I spent those twenties in a fog. I’d fall asleep and wander into a dream where I was some younger, thinner version of myself, recognize how much better I felt, and then wake up to reality, like some sort of phantom appendage in reverse. The writer side of me consciously wished for some moment of clarity that sliced through everything and made it obvious that I needed to change, but that really wasn’t the case. Not that it stopped me from trying to manufacture one. I’d wake up the day after the Boston Marathon and decide that I was going to fix myself and somehow run a marathon one year later, despite the fact that I lacked the stamina to run around the block. I would take a meaningful life event - like the time a drunk driver totaled my car in Vegas - and try to use it as an anchor for change and a narrative into a new life. They served as neither."
"The tragedy of Obama’s presidency is that, from the beginning, he has wanted to shift away from the stagnant battlefields in and around the Middle East and devote more attention to the Asia-Pacific region, with its prospects for dynamic growth, trade, and, in the form of China, an expansionist power that needs to be at once contained militarily and lured into the global economy. This focus on Asia came to be called the “pivot,” or “rebalancing,” but Obama had recognized its appeal and discussed it as far back as his 2008 presidential campaign. He understood, and still does, that this is where the United States’ future interests lie-but the never-ending crises of the ancient world keep pulling him back in."
-- The Easiest Way to Lose 125 Pounds Is to Gain 175 Pounds - Bill Barnwell, Medium, Jan. 5, 2016
"Outside of a few short sparks of self-assessment which never lasted more than a couple of weeks, I spent those twenties in a fog. I’d fall asleep and wander into a dream where I was some younger, thinner version of myself, recognize how much better I felt, and then wake up to reality, like some sort of phantom appendage in reverse. The writer side of me consciously wished for some moment of clarity that sliced through everything and made it obvious that I needed to change, but that really wasn’t the case. Not that it stopped me from trying to manufacture one. I’d wake up the day after the Boston Marathon and decide that I was going to fix myself and somehow run a marathon one year later, despite the fact that I lacked the stamina to run around the block. I would take a meaningful life event - like the time a drunk driver totaled my car in Vegas - and try to use it as an anchor for change and a narrative into a new life. They served as neither."