Unless I missed the memo, I had no idea that The New Yorker was running a couple blogs on its web site until I stumbled on George Packer’s blog, “Interesting Times,” this morning. There are only two posts so far, one on June 15 and one on June 18, but it’s worth a bookmark nonetheless.
True to form, the very first sentence contains a reference to that blogger’s favorite, Leo Tolstoy, in reference to the insurgency in Iraq: “At the point in “War and Peace” when the French are retreating from Moscow and the Russians, far outnumbered, are harassing their lines in small-unit ambushes, Tolstoy pauses to discuss insurgency, which he calls “partisan warfare.”
Good stuff. Even better is Dan Baum’s riveting “New Orleans Journal” blog, which he stopped updating on June 1, but which still reads as a fantastic first-person take on the city and its people. Maybe the magazine should have promoted the blog a little more while he was updating it, but do take a look.
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.