April is the... month

April is National Poetry Month.

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Given my own interest in both poetry and intelligence, I'd like to echo David Brooks' challenge to the Intelligence Community in yesterday's New York Times. Brooks spoke in favor of the "generalist/humanist approach" of scholars using "their knowledge of history, literature, philosophy and theology to recognize social patterns and grasp emerging trends" -- and concluded:

I'll believe the intelligence community has really changed when I see analysts being sent to training academies where they study Thucydides, Tolstoy and Churchill to get a broad understanding of the full range of human behavior.

Exactly. That, indeed, is why the HipBone analytic method uses quotes and anecdotes rather than quantities and statistics to model the complexities which beset us.

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For those who would be interested in further pursuit of these matters, I'd recommend Anthony Judge of the UIA's extraordinary paper, Poetry-making and Policy-making: Arranging a Marriage between Beauty and the Beast.