2011

President Obama, in what was obviously a carefully choreographed move, did not himself announce the beginning of the bombing. Indeed, when the news was announced by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Obama was on an uncanceled trip to Brazil.

Obama's brief statement from Brasilia referred to a "broad coalition" that "brings together many of our European and Arab partners." He said he had authorized "military action in Libya in support of an international effort." Obama used the words "international" and "coalition" a total of ten times in a statement that lasted just three minutes.

The grandstanding was left to Sarkozy, who had ordered French planes to make the first flights over Libya -- before U.S. aircraft got involved. "Along with our Arab, European and North American partners, France has decided toraced through Pearl Cleage's latest novel, Till You Hear From Me (One World, 2010) yesterday, without being fully conscious that I was doing so until I realized I had only about a dozen pages to go. That's normal for me with Cleage ever since I read her first novel. What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was about a woman who returns to her Michigan hometown when, after living a fast-lane life in Atlanta for several years, she discovers she's HIV-positive. In Michigan she recovers a sense of purpose and even finds love. One of the things that stuck with me after my first reading was this list on page 158:

Every man, free or not, should know these things too. (I don't pretend that I do.) But