1) I was struck traveling on Wednesday by how many uniformed soldiers clotted my planes and the airports, and how young they were. (A couple of reservists were carrying skateboards.) It put faces to all the TV talk about our "brave young men and women in uniform." Not in itself an argument about Iraq/Afghanistan, but a human factor I'm sure President Obama considered during his "dithering" over more troops.

2)  Watching "CNN Heroes" out of the corner of my good eye, I again marveled at the Zen-like paradox behind tributes like this. Good Samaritans do good things with no thought of recognition, so then we recognize them.

3) As a fan of regional differences, I was thankful this morning to see (and hear) that the staff at a Starbucks in my home town of Pittsburgh seemed less haughty and less pretentious than their fellow baristas in D.C., NYC and L.A. No Steelers jackets though.