Tao Perl Ching

Like many other kids in college, I went through a phase where I immersed myself in Asian philosophies, searching for a better Way. As it turned out, I was a little too much enamored of ego and excess to make much of a go of it, but reading the Tao Perl Ching — The Scripture of the Way of Perl has led me to rethink a few things. What doesn't work for me as a person might indeed work for me and my software.

Style vs. Substance

In today's New York Times we're told that Democrats are divided over the issue of whether Defense Secretary Rumsfeld should stay or go:

On Sunday, Democrats also seemed divided over Mr. Rumsfeld. Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who are the senior Democrats on, respectively, the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, blamed the White House for problems in Iraq, saying they saw no need to remove the defense secretary if the president's policies remained the same.

"If I thought a change at the top of the Pentagon would change the policy of this administration, I'd be all for it," Mr. Levin said on "Meet the Press."

But Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a Democrat who serves on the Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Rumsfeld should go. He complained that the defense secretary's "management style is more corrosive than constructive," and said Mr. Rumsfeld's remarks to the guardsman were emblematic of his "disdainful, dismissive" style.

But I don't see why we have to choose — both sides are right. Getting rid of Rumsfeld won't alter the Bush administration's policies on Iraq or anything else; on a substantive level, nothing will change. And I have to admit that I'm enjoying watching Rumsfeld squirm a little as his stylistics, much vaunted a couple of years ago, are revealed to be nothing less than gross insensitivity. But style does matter, and our troops deserve better than to be led by such an obviously incompetent jerk.