Some Things Are Like This and/or Not Like That

Scott Eric Kaufman,"The increasingly forgettable work of Malcolm Gladwell," Edge of the American West, 12 October, tackles the analogy offered in Malcolm Gladwell,"Offensive Play," New Yorker, 19 October, between dog fighting and football. If Gladwell's analogy is forgettable, are these other current offerings memorable and/or persuasive?

Jeffrey J. Williams,"Student Debt and The Spirit of Indenture," Dissent, Fall, 2008, and Mike Konczal,"Student Loans are the New Indentured Servitude," Atlantic, 12 October.

David Greenberg,"The Old Soldier Hasn't Died," Slate, 9 October, sees General Stanley McChrystal as like General Douglas MacArthur.

If not Greenberg's Korea, the Afghanistan is Viet Nam analogy was renewed by Peter Spiegel and Jonathan Weisman,"Behind Afghan War Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages," WSJ, 7 October. It explored conflicting advice offered by Gordon M. Goldstein's Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam and Lewis Sorley's A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam. The discussion continues at Eric Ethridge's"The Vietnam War Guide to Afghanistan," The Opinionator, 12 October.