PowerPoint

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Military Intelligence

“WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.

“‘When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,’ General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter.

“The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“‘PowerPoint makes us stupid,’ said Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander....”

—Elizabeth Bumiller, reporter, “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Powerpoint,” The New York Times, April 26, 2010 URL
(Thanks to alert WORDster Alexandra Halsey)

Editor’s Note: Next slide, please. Best comments on yesterday’s WORD: Cabbagehead
• “The Brussels sprout is a cabbage designed by the European Commission.” —Neil
• “I think Twain misspoke. Romaine is cabbage with a high school education. Chard is spinach with a college education. Rapini is broccoli with a master’s. A pearl is a grain of sand with at least three Ph.Ds.(I guess that makes the oyster a university.)” —Alexandra

Today’s PeezPix: Murres Surfing
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