BETTER THAN BLOGGING: My daughter, who is now sleeping the sleep of the justly tired 6-year-old, and I went to a carnival tonight. We ate pizza, rode rides, ate caramel apples (well, she did; I passed on that one) and generally had a wonderful time. Then home to read several chapters from Prince Caspian (having done the Harry Potter series together twice, we’ve moved on to Narnia) until she fell asleep.

Now I’m curling up with Max Boot’s new book on small wars, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. I ordered it from Amazon Monday, and it arrived today. The book looks good, and Amazon rules: I had tried to order it from Borders but they were saying it would take two weeks.