I don’t remember exactly what links I originally followed last week to get there, but once I stumbled into the Wide Awake Cafe I knew it was a place I’d want to come back to often. Proprietor Laura Lee Donoho stands ready to help visitors wake up and smell the coffee, writing on any number of topics (warning: cat blogging), but with more than a little focus of late on military matters where she has some family history. In fact, she had the best post I read today about the Richard Belzer-Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen showdown on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, using her personal experience to compare the education of “ignorant” soldiers and officers with that of junior college drop-out Belzer.

What uneducated soldier in Iraq? The lowliest private has been through training that is challenging both physically and mentally. Most NCOs in the military have graduated college. All high ranking officers are constantly educating themselves not only through the military but academia. A vast majority of the officer corps have completed at least one Masters Degree. The military services encourage and in fact require the members of the military to pursue higher education. It makes for a sharper edged military. For example, my husband, a United States Military Grad has not one but three Masters Degrees.

What really makes her blog a comfy place, however, are the great graphics. This is one of the most inviting and distinctive-looking blogs I’ve seen in more than a year of cruising the blogosphere. (This is a good opportunity to say that it is refreshing to see more and more creative designs showing up online. People, let’s put those tired Blogger templates back in the toy box and graduate to something more reflective of the personalities that make up this wild world.)

Anyway, stop by the Wide Awake Cafe and see what’s on the menu; I’m pleased to add her to my blogroll menu as well.

Update:

It looks like Hugh Hewitt has stopped in to the cafe for a cuppa as well. I sure hope there’s room for everybody.

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