Etta James, born Jamesetta Hawkins January 25,1938
Wednesday, January 25
Tuesday, January 24
Gutter Balls
Wow, where did Norah go?
Is there possibly some cosmic significance to the fact that David Kamp, who reviewed Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man for the Times was also the reviewer of A Million Little Pieces?
There's your premise in a nutshell: assertive, opinionated Vincent, best known as a contrarian columnist for The Los Angeles Times, goes undercover as a man to learn how the fellas think and act when them pesky broads ain't around.
Hold it right there. Norah Vincent is assertive, "opinionated", and a "contrarian" the way McDonald's is a fast "food" "restaurant". That is, she's the one-out-of-three which disproves any claim to the other two. Being a lesbian doesn't make her tired "I'm a libertarian with very little use for civil liberties" schtick any fresher. As far as I can tell, it's just what makes it marketable. It sure isn't her prose stylings.
(Here's a little secret for ya. Aside, perhaps, from the Young, Dumb, and Full of Cum crowd that no self-respecting "fellah" wants to be around unless he's a) one of them, and b) dead drunk, we pretty much think and act exactly the same whether the pesky broads is or ain't around. Have any of you broads noticed a particular layer of masculine refinement you imagine comes off when you're not around? Really? Because the only Behavior Formerly Known As Stag I know of is the occasional kneeing each other in the testicles, which is another strike against Norah. But thanks, David, for droppin' in t' th' Beverly Hillbillies dialect.)
And how much longer, O Lord, do we have to endure this contrarian crap? (And isn't it time we start insisting that anyone so-called demonstrate a smattering of familiarity with the arguments they're being contrary to?) The only thing that distinguishes Norah Vincent's work from any of the hackery at the Corner is that she's apparently capable of satisfying a woman.
Okay, enough about Norah, because no amount of money could possibly get me to feign interest in anything she has to say, and God knows I'd never review a book I didn't read and make Kathryn Jean Lopez cry, but apparently being a White Heterosexual Male who supports civil rights for Non-Whites and the Differently Oriented makes me a contrarian, so here's some opinionated assertiveness: being a Lesbian in 2006 does not make you de facto interesting. On the other hand, being a self-promoting Camille Paglia impersonator makes you recursively, almost vertiginously, boring.
Though not, it seems, to David Kamp:
But "Self-Made Man" turns out not to be what it threatens to be, a men-are-scum diatribe destined for best-seller status in the more militant alternative bookstores of Berkeley and Ann Arbor.
See my earlier piece, "Can We Stop With the Contrarian Crap Already?"
Though there's plenty of humor in "Self-Made Man," Vincent - like her spiritual forebear John Howard Griffin, the white journalist who colored his skin and lived as a black man in the South for his 1961 book "Black Like Me" - treats her self-imposed assignment seriously, not as a stunt.
Honest to God. Y'know, if it weren't for the internets and the large number of very smart young people I read and converse with on a regular basis, I would really consider simply willing every white person born in America after 1970 back to Alabama 1955 and make them tour the place like a zoo before allowing them to return, assuming they could pass a quiz.
In fact, that tears it. I'm switching over to Andrew O'Hehir's "My life as a man" in Salon (you know the drill if you want to read it):
I'd be surprised if these culture-war ideas about the ingrained and inflexible nature of gender weren't views Vincent has long held, and which she summons up at the end of "Self-Made Man" to explain, and depersonalize, the pain and difficulty she experienced as Ned. Vincent's compassion, sympathy and friendship for the men Ned bowls with, works with and drinks with are real; the last thing you can call her is a man-hater.
Okay, sure, I've got plenty of other stuff to call her. And if someone will do me the courtesy of diagramming that first sentence maybe we've got another point of agreement. I'm pretty well convinced that the idea of Homo americanus bowlaramus as a basically swell guy with bedrock values an' all that is a long-held view of Norah's, at least in print. In fact, I'd be shocked to learn she'd come up with something, I dunno, contrarian in her little experiment.
Which I'm here to tell you she might, in the event she meets some. Let's just say I'd make it even money the gang at The Smoking Gun has picked up a copy of the book. Because, look, I'm not sure what passes for quasi-Neanderthal in New York. And I guess we'll never quite know:
In the wake of recent publishing news, and considering Vincent's refusal to name names or identify places (not even cities, or states, or regions of the country), I suppose one has to ask whether the details of Ned's life are invented or embellished. It makes me profoundly uncomfortable that "Self-Made Man" is so thoroughly unverifiable, but I don't think it's a con job. Vincent's moments of sharpest perception -- into the intricacies of male camaraderie, or the dreary, mutually hostile gamesmanship of heterosexual dating -- feel unfakable, and if she were making it all up the material would probably be both more explosive and less ambiguous.As opposed to predictable and stilted. Let's give the woman some credit.
I wasn't accusing Kamp earlier of missing anything in the Frey book he should have caught, because, again, not only have I not read it, but nothing whatever could get me to read one of Oprah's recommendations, to the extent that I'm considering forgetting I've read Faulkner and One Hundred Years of Solitude now that I've learned she's profaning real literature. But it seems that he ought to be the one mentioning it, certainly if O'Hehir does. And if that earlier experience doesn't make us a bit less credulous than we were, maybe a glance at that picture would do it.
C'mon. Stage makeup works on the stage, sometimes. If a disguise is convincing you'd imagine it would be even more so in a reproduction of a reproduction of a photograph. We've even heard of gaydar out here in the vast emptiness between the oceans. Do you think we imagine it to be the exclusive province of homosexual males? Pah. To begin with, let's just ignore the stylistic points. She looks like k.d. lang made up for an Ed Wood film. Maybe it's different on the coasts, but out here, where we get sunlight, a man's beard does not end at his jawline. In fact, you might try this if you're not repulsed by the idea: choose a clean-shaven man over twenty-five at random and look at him. Even one with Miami Vice stubble. A few years of shaving chews up the neck. You can't fake that anymore than you could fake the hands of a master carpenter. But Norah fools the Quintessential Troglodyte Trio--the plumber, the appliance repairman, and the construction worker who welcome a hapless non-bowler onto their highly competitive squad:
Her bowling chapter ("Friendship") is a mini-masterpiece of sympathetic reporting, and there's no question that it took enormous courage for this New York lesbian intellectual to walk into a highly competitive bowling league somewhere in the American heartland, one of the most male of all male sanctums. Ned completely sucked as a bowler, and as Vincent ruefully admits, by the standards of this working-class environment, even the butchest woman in drag comes off as a girlie man.(By the way, could we have oh, maybe, a century where the Coasters either find out what they're talking about or shut the hell up about Middle America? Lots of women bowl. Lots.)
So, three regular Joes in a highly-competitive league take an inexperienced gutter-baller under their protective wing. Maybe--but not in any highly-competitive league I've ever known.
Ever, uh, been to a bowling alley? They're brightly lit. Two four-man teams on two lanes take up all the seating. But nobody notices that the new guy just stepped out of a dinner theatre production of Victor/Victoria.
Ever, uh, do any bowling? Full-court hoops it ain't, but it is athletic. Men generally use 16 pound balls. They're not light, not when they're lugged around and hurled over the course of thirty frames in a night.
Ever, uh, play sports? American men grow up throwing and catching balls. My sister is a superb athlete. She played baseball in the backyard with my Dad and me her whole life. My dad was a bowler, and we grew up doing that too. But her arm mechanics are not a man's. The best women bowlers might be able to fool a man who pays some attention. But someone who just picked up a ball for the first time? Prove it.
Norah eventually owns up to her teammates. So why, exactly, has she "changed the names of the characters and obscured the locations to protect the identities of her subjects"? Why do so regardless? Did they sleep with her thinking she was a man? Did they reveal some deep-seated Red state male fear of being fooled by a New York lesbian intellectual in drag? Ever watch the way people behave when they know they're on teevee? Christ, these guys would be braggin' all over town how they were in a book.
If the males sound like stereotypes, check out the women she dated:
the 30-ish single women Ned dates in the "Love" chapter come off as aggressively hostile and profoundly confused creatures -- on one hand, they want sensitive men capable of emotional communication, while on the other they want a take-charge guy who can pay for dinner, open doors and then, a bit later, "pin them to the bed." Wounded in previous relationships, they transformed each new man (even when he wasn't a man) "into the malignancy they were expecting him to be," thereby fueling a "self-perpetuating cycle of unkindness and discontent."
Boy, I bet you weren't ready for that bit of contrarian insight.
Is there something here that couldn't have been written without the masquerade? Is there anything that sounds like genuine insight from a successful charade? Maybe the Smoking Gunsels will tell us; I'm not buying the thing to find out. But, Norah Ned, if you make it back to the heartland, the lane fees are on me.
Monday, January 23
No Fighting In The War Room
David Brooks, "Hating the Bomb", January 22.
Every so often reading Brooks I'm reminded that the Russians hurling a tin can into space in October, 1957, split the country into two partisan camps: those who flew into a screaming panic at the sound of a discouraging word, and those who didn't. Unfortunately, then as now, the former frequently includes people with their hands on the national purse strings or New York Times columns.
It's amazing how, back when we lived with the real threat of Global Thermonuclear war, we did so. Not that we weren't given to panics, sabre-rattling, bad decisions (the atomic-powered bomber, anyone?) or outright bullshit for domestic consumption (phony "missile gaps" and "Soviet superiority in land-based missiles"), but we carried on as though our cherished Us vs. Them was so vital that the danger was an acceptable, if unfortunate, by-product of that weltanschauung. Now everytime somebody says something we don't like we pull the bedclothes over our heads.
By the way, in case I don't get around to mentioning it, this column is dishonest, and Brooks has fallen in love with the whole "conservatives vs. the administration" thing on the grounds that it distances him from the disaster in Iraq.
Got that? This is notyour father's GOP the Republican party of twenty-five minutes ago. This one wants to work with Europe and the U.N., who are, of course, just dying to approve, and sign on as sidekicks of, some more U.S. adventurism in Oil Land the Middle East, if only we'd sweet talk 'em some first.
Let's face a fact or two here, just for the novelty of it. Everybody in Washington knows John Murtha was right. We don't have the troops to invade Iran, or anybody else with something resembling an army, without a massive, multi-year rebuilding program. That would include a draft, and it would include some serious tax increases. When you've named me the "conservative" with the honesty and guts to stand up and say that--and get Murthaed for his trouble, ending the Presidential bid Brooks mentions for Democrats but not McCain--I'll listen.
Absent an invasion force our pre-emptive options are limited. We can try air strikes. We can let the Israelis try air strikes. If the Iranians were unaware of this before we invaded Iraq, they certainly know it now.
And let's review our Current Events, shall we, class? "Pre-emption" and "appealing to Europe and the U.N." are, if not mutually exclusive, certainly a complicated juggling act. As we saw with our phony U.N. consultation in February, 2003, the Pre-emption boys tend to have minimal patience.
Forgive me, but Ivo Daalder, frequently mentioned as a possible national security advisor, or even Secretary of State, in a DLC cabinet, is not a disinterested observer. That's not to say he isn't speaking the truth as he sees it, just that Brooks and I have very different notions of what constitutes a good wet dream.
A DLC President faces the same issues a Pre-emptor does, with or without emphasizing military action. You wanna keep throwing around military threats you're gonna have to rebuild the Army, pronto. The smoke and mirrors that are so effective domestically don't impress the international community quite so much. Not any more, they don't, thanks in no small part to the war-sanctioning votes of Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh.
Leave us remember, anytime Mr. Brooks quotes his pals in the administration, his "Multiple Reality Syndrome" piece last month, where he told us how he'd often walk away from conversations with administration officials on Iraq "feeling my intelligence had been insulted," despite the fact that all he wrote about in that period was how honest and candid they were.
I'm not really interested in uplifting tales of the sudden lucidity experienced by habitual drunkards after they've lost everything. Tell it to Oprah. "Blustery threats sound good, but we have to govern?" When does that start?
As always, Brooks' third-chair-trombone insights into Bartok's String Quartets are remarkably convincing, but they'd be even more so with, I dunno, some evidence. No lack of names in the first three, after acknowledging that Bush administration officials do not, in actuality, have names. None here. I'd like to know who's saying "Iran should have as much right to the bomb as everyone else does," thereby implying that they think a nuclear-armed globe would just be a minor irritant? I'm not surprised that these people would be talking to Brooks in private; private is where they ought to be talking to someone like Brooks who imagines the potential for military disaster shouldn't shape your thinking. My problem is that wherever it is they're holding these conversations seems to provide insufficeint nursing care and inadequate security.
Two things should be noted here, on the grounds that our earlier little excursion into fact was rather satisfying. One is the Cuban Missile Crisis Dilemma. A moment's reflection will tell us that Russian missiles in Cuba were a political dodge. They couldn't be used. Either the missiles in Cuba would have been fired first, which would have meant immediate retaliation against Cuba and the assumption that the Soviets were about to fire theirs, or the Soviets would have had to launch first, in which case we would have destroyed Cuba in a minute. An Iranian nuke program suffers from the same problem. They can launch against a much-better armed Israel, and say their prayers, or they can hand some off to the Global Terrorists, in which case they won't be destroyed until several seconds after one gets used. As with Cuba, nukes are a bargaining chip and they're a defensive move against vastly superior forces. As such they're a sound argument for the use of diplomacy, international co-operation, and a dedicated seach for peace in the Middle East. And as such, it's much better to confuse the issue in public if you're not really in favor of those things.
Second, I suppose it's just an unfortunate coincidence for Bobo, but on the same day his column comes out the Washington Post reports that our latest intelligence review puts the Iranians ten years away from getting a bomb, which brings us in line with British and Israeli estimates. The Post, not having Brooks' entrée into the upper reaches of anonymous Bush administration officials, seems to imagine this "contrast[s] with forceful public statements by the White House."
The Iraq debate split the country into two partisan camps, but the Iran debate is much more complicated. It's opening up a rift between conservatives and the Bush administration. It's dividing Democrats into rival factions: those who can contemplate the eventual use of force against Iran and those who can't.
Every so often reading Brooks I'm reminded that the Russians hurling a tin can into space in October, 1957, split the country into two partisan camps: those who flew into a screaming panic at the sound of a discouraging word, and those who didn't. Unfortunately, then as now, the former frequently includes people with their hands on the national purse strings or New York Times columns.
It's amazing how, back when we lived with the real threat of Global Thermonuclear war, we did so. Not that we weren't given to panics, sabre-rattling, bad decisions (the atomic-powered bomber, anyone?) or outright bullshit for domestic consumption (phony "missile gaps" and "Soviet superiority in land-based missiles"), but we carried on as though our cherished Us vs. Them was so vital that the danger was an acceptable, if unfortunate, by-product of that weltanschauung. Now everytime somebody says something we don't like we pull the bedclothes over our heads.
By the way, in case I don't get around to mentioning it, this column is dishonest, and Brooks has fallen in love with the whole "conservatives vs. the administration" thing on the grounds that it distances him from the disaster in Iraq.
It's an anguished debate because all the options are terrible. But this will be the major foreign policy controversy of the 2008 presidential election, and you can already see four different schools emerging:Pre-emptors would work with Europe and the U.N. to step up pressure on Iran.
THE PRE-EMPTIONISTS John McCain and most American conservatives believe the situation reeks of Nazi Germany in 1933. An anti-Semitic demagogue is breaking treaties and threatening to wipe Israel off the map. The madman means what he says and can't be restrained by normal economic or diplomatic incentives....
Got that? This is not
Let's face a fact or two here, just for the novelty of it. Everybody in Washington knows John Murtha was right. We don't have the troops to invade Iran, or anybody else with something resembling an army, without a massive, multi-year rebuilding program. That would include a draft, and it would include some serious tax increases. When you've named me the "conservative" with the honesty and guts to stand up and say that--and get Murthaed for his trouble, ending the Presidential bid Brooks mentions for Democrats but not McCain--I'll listen.
Absent an invasion force our pre-emptive options are limited. We can try air strikes. We can let the Israelis try air strikes. If the Iranians were unaware of this before we invaded Iraq, they certainly know it now.
And let's review our Current Events, shall we, class? "Pre-emption" and "appealing to Europe and the U.N." are, if not mutually exclusive, certainly a complicated juggling act. As we saw with our phony U.N. consultation in February, 2003, the Pre-emption boys tend to have minimal patience.
THE SANCTIONISTS Democratic presidential contenders like Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh have begun hitting the Bush administration from the right. But as Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution notes, this is not just campaign posturing. Centrist Democrats also believe Iranian nukes are unacceptable. Such nukes would set off a regional arms race. They would lead to Cuban missile crisis standoffs in the world's most unstable region. If Iran completes its program, that would completely delegitimize the international system.
The Sanctionists don't rule out a pre-emptive strike, but they don't emphasize it. Instead, they say the U.S. should be directly involved in negotiating with Iran...
Forgive me, but Ivo Daalder, frequently mentioned as a possible national security advisor, or even Secretary of State, in a DLC cabinet, is not a disinterested observer. That's not to say he isn't speaking the truth as he sees it, just that Brooks and I have very different notions of what constitutes a good wet dream.
A DLC President faces the same issues a Pre-emptor does, with or without emphasizing military action. You wanna keep throwing around military threats you're gonna have to rebuild the Army, pronto. The smoke and mirrors that are so effective domestically don't impress the international community quite so much. Not any more, they don't, thanks in no small part to the war-sanctioning votes of Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh.
THE REFORMISTS Oddly, the Bush administration finds itself on the cautious, noninterventionist side. Bush officials have been walking away from broad economic sanctions and pre-emptive strikes (while not formally ruling them out). Blustery threats may sound good, they say, but when you are governing you have to consider the consequences; you have to hold the global coalition together; you have to make sure Iran isn't provoked into really dismantling Iraq.
In all my conversations with with senior administration officials, I have never heard them be so cautious about what they can know and tentative about what they can achieve....
Privately, some administration officials believe there is no way to prevent Iran from getting the bomb; we might as well try to make the regime as palatable as possible.
Leave us remember, anytime Mr. Brooks quotes his pals in the administration, his "Multiple Reality Syndrome" piece last month, where he told us how he'd often walk away from conversations with administration officials on Iraq "feeling my intelligence had been insulted," despite the fact that all he wrote about in that period was how honest and candid they were.
I'm not really interested in uplifting tales of the sudden lucidity experienced by habitual drunkards after they've lost everything. Tell it to Oprah. "Blustery threats sound good, but we have to govern?" When does that start?
THE SILENT FATALISTS Mainstream Democrats have been remarkably quiet on this issue. Their main conviction is that American-led military action would be disastrous. This shapes their definition of the problem. A nuclear Iran may no be so cataclysmic, they privately say. Why shouldn't Iran have as much right to the bomb as any other nation? The regime may be nasty, but it's containable with deterrence and engagement.
These liberals argue that if we weren't in Iraq, we'd have a lot more freedom to act against Iran, though you could also say the crisis would be worse if Saddam were still in power.
As always, Brooks' third-chair-trombone insights into Bartok's String Quartets are remarkably convincing, but they'd be even more so with, I dunno, some evidence. No lack of names in the first three, after acknowledging that Bush administration officials do not, in actuality, have names. None here. I'd like to know who's saying "Iran should have as much right to the bomb as everyone else does," thereby implying that they think a nuclear-armed globe would just be a minor irritant? I'm not surprised that these people would be talking to Brooks in private; private is where they ought to be talking to someone like Brooks who imagines the potential for military disaster shouldn't shape your thinking. My problem is that wherever it is they're holding these conversations seems to provide insufficeint nursing care and inadequate security.
Two things should be noted here, on the grounds that our earlier little excursion into fact was rather satisfying. One is the Cuban Missile Crisis Dilemma. A moment's reflection will tell us that Russian missiles in Cuba were a political dodge. They couldn't be used. Either the missiles in Cuba would have been fired first, which would have meant immediate retaliation against Cuba and the assumption that the Soviets were about to fire theirs, or the Soviets would have had to launch first, in which case we would have destroyed Cuba in a minute. An Iranian nuke program suffers from the same problem. They can launch against a much-better armed Israel, and say their prayers, or they can hand some off to the Global Terrorists, in which case they won't be destroyed until several seconds after one gets used. As with Cuba, nukes are a bargaining chip and they're a defensive move against vastly superior forces. As such they're a sound argument for the use of diplomacy, international co-operation, and a dedicated seach for peace in the Middle East. And as such, it's much better to confuse the issue in public if you're not really in favor of those things.
Second, I suppose it's just an unfortunate coincidence for Bobo, but on the same day his column comes out the Washington Post reports that our latest intelligence review puts the Iranians ten years away from getting a bomb, which brings us in line with British and Israeli estimates. The Post, not having Brooks' entrée into the upper reaches of anonymous Bush administration officials, seems to imagine this "contrast[s] with forceful public statements by the White House."
Friday, January 20
Safety Equipment Required
Roy at alicublog staked out the territory. I was too busy to get at it last night, but there's enough here (warning: Mrs. Instapundit site) to keep a dedicated team of insanity miners busy for years.
Puppet Theatre
Olbermann, last night. For those times when one terrorism expert just isn't enough.
Expert #1
Name: Steve Emerson
Graphic: "NBC News Terrorism Analyst"
Day Job: Head of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, author of American Jihad: Terrorists Living Among Us, "spellbing" speaker [per the Harry Walker Agency]
So Why the Truce Business? Keith Asks:
"[He] (bin Laden) wants to appear reasonable. He feels he has the ability to appeal to half the American public. And so he thinks that if he talks about a truce, and appeals to what their sense of the truce is, he can basically sew a tremendous amount of dissention in the American body politic."
Comments, Mr. Riley?
Where does that "half" business come from? Do you really imagine that 50% of the American public is going to be swayed by something in a bin Laden tape? And hasn't Bush been doing a bang-up job of sewing dissention in the body politic these last thirteen months without any help? Why waste a perfectly good audio tape?
Bio:
"• Foremost Terrorism Expert
Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security and considered one of the leading world authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing and operations. He now serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project, one of the world's largest archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups." [Harry Walker Agency]
Achievements:
• Won Polk award for his documentary "Jihad in America" (PBS).
• Best-selling author
• "Mr. Emerson is recognized as having been the first and only terrorist expert to have testified and warned about the threat of Islamic militant networks operating in the United States and their connections worldwide. He specifically warned about the threat of Osama Bin Laden's network in pioneering Congressional testimony delivered in 1998. " [Harry Walker Agency]
Slight Omissions:
Was dropped by CBS after he said the Oklahoma City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because it was carried out "with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible."
Told CNN the Yugoslavs were the likely suspects in the 1993 WTC bombing.
Said TWA flight 800 was brought down by a bomb.
Principal hounder of Sami Al-Arian.
Multi-million dollar suit against John Sugg (who calls Emerson a self-styled terrorism expert" and "a pseudo-journalist") and FAIR over an article which was highly critical of him was dismissed when he couldn't prove any of his charges. "He ran, " Sugg said.
Bravery Under Fire:
Claims to have received death threats. "Mr. Emerson now lives under false cover in the United States." [Harry Walker Agency]. A CBS "48 Hours" segment showed visitors to the Investigative Project's headquarters being blindfolded before being led through the building. Yet he still shows up at NBC and Fox studios. We could use a man like him in the military.
Anything To Add, Mr. Riley?:
Yeah, even forgetting the "pseudo", the world's top terrorism expert is a journalist?
Expert #2
Name: Ben Venzke
Graphic: "Terrorism Expert"
Day Job: CEO of Tempest Publishing and its intelligence group Intel Center
So Why the Truce Business? Keith Asks:
"It's al-Qaeda giving an opportunity to whatever its targets may be, in this case the United States, the opportunity to change, the opportunity to follow their advice, and what it does, it allows them after an attack, if there's a mass casualty event, many Muslims or other Arabs killed, it gives them the opportunity to say, 'Look, we gave them a chance to change, we gave them numerous opportunities, we can't help it if they don't follow our advice.' And then they move forward and execute an attack. So it fits into the justification and warning process for attacks."
Comments, Mr. Riley?
Yeah, I haven't been able to find out just what makes Mr. Venzke a "terrorism expert"; he's edited a book for first responders and co-wrote The al-Qaeda Threat: An Analytical Guide to al-Qaeda's Tactics & Targets (Tempest Publishing), but that "mass casualty event" and the repeated inability to come up with a synonym for "opportunity" suggest he trained as a teevee meteorologist.
Available in the Lobby: The Intel Center's catalogue includes five pages of Terrorism DVDs ("Raw Terrorist Video Indexed and Formatted for Briefers, Analysts, Operators and Trainers"), audio enhanced in Dolby™ Digital, for $39.95 each. Or get the complete set of 24 for $1,015, a savings of over $23! Or, if you've happen to be a military, law enforcement, or intelligence agency in the US or allied country, why not spring for the government restricted set, 30 quality titles for only $1,315?
Slight omission: The name of Mr. Venzke's co-author is left off The al-Qaeda Threat page, though he wrote the blub himself.
Guest Blogosphere self-correcting function: In November, doorguy at Kos asked just what sort of outfit openly advertises itself as "doing support work for the intelligence community"?
Mr. Riley, you look as though you have something to add?:
Yeah, well, aren't we spending enough on Homeland Security that military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies can get their DVDs for free? Or, like, swap 'em out with each other?
Expert #1
Name: Steve Emerson
Graphic: "NBC News Terrorism Analyst"
Day Job: Head of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, author of American Jihad: Terrorists Living Among Us, "spellbing" speaker [per the Harry Walker Agency]
So Why the Truce Business? Keith Asks:
"[He] (bin Laden) wants to appear reasonable. He feels he has the ability to appeal to half the American public. And so he thinks that if he talks about a truce, and appeals to what their sense of the truce is, he can basically sew a tremendous amount of dissention in the American body politic."
Comments, Mr. Riley?
Where does that "half" business come from? Do you really imagine that 50% of the American public is going to be swayed by something in a bin Laden tape? And hasn't Bush been doing a bang-up job of sewing dissention in the body politic these last thirteen months without any help? Why waste a perfectly good audio tape?
Bio:
"• Foremost Terrorism Expert
Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security and considered one of the leading world authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing and operations. He now serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project, one of the world's largest archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups." [Harry Walker Agency]
Achievements:
• Won Polk award for his documentary "Jihad in America" (PBS).
• Best-selling author
• "Mr. Emerson is recognized as having been the first and only terrorist expert to have testified and warned about the threat of Islamic militant networks operating in the United States and their connections worldwide. He specifically warned about the threat of Osama Bin Laden's network in pioneering Congressional testimony delivered in 1998. " [Harry Walker Agency]
Slight Omissions:
Was dropped by CBS after he said the Oklahoma City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because it was carried out "with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible."
Told CNN the Yugoslavs were the likely suspects in the 1993 WTC bombing.
Said TWA flight 800 was brought down by a bomb.
Principal hounder of Sami Al-Arian.
Multi-million dollar suit against John Sugg (who calls Emerson a self-styled terrorism expert" and "a pseudo-journalist") and FAIR over an article which was highly critical of him was dismissed when he couldn't prove any of his charges. "He ran, " Sugg said.
Bravery Under Fire:
Claims to have received death threats. "Mr. Emerson now lives under false cover in the United States." [Harry Walker Agency]. A CBS "48 Hours" segment showed visitors to the Investigative Project's headquarters being blindfolded before being led through the building. Yet he still shows up at NBC and Fox studios. We could use a man like him in the military.
Anything To Add, Mr. Riley?:
Yeah, even forgetting the "pseudo", the world's top terrorism expert is a journalist?
Expert #2
Name: Ben Venzke
Graphic: "Terrorism Expert"
Day Job: CEO of Tempest Publishing and its intelligence group Intel Center
So Why the Truce Business? Keith Asks:
"It's al-Qaeda giving an opportunity to whatever its targets may be, in this case the United States, the opportunity to change, the opportunity to follow their advice, and what it does, it allows them after an attack, if there's a mass casualty event, many Muslims or other Arabs killed, it gives them the opportunity to say, 'Look, we gave them a chance to change, we gave them numerous opportunities, we can't help it if they don't follow our advice.' And then they move forward and execute an attack. So it fits into the justification and warning process for attacks."
Comments, Mr. Riley?
Yeah, I haven't been able to find out just what makes Mr. Venzke a "terrorism expert"; he's edited a book for first responders and co-wrote The al-Qaeda Threat: An Analytical Guide to al-Qaeda's Tactics & Targets (Tempest Publishing), but that "mass casualty event" and the repeated inability to come up with a synonym for "opportunity" suggest he trained as a teevee meteorologist.
Available in the Lobby: The Intel Center's catalogue includes five pages of Terrorism DVDs ("Raw Terrorist Video Indexed and Formatted for Briefers, Analysts, Operators and Trainers"), audio enhanced in Dolby™ Digital, for $39.95 each. Or get the complete set of 24 for $1,015, a savings of over $23! Or, if you've happen to be a military, law enforcement, or intelligence agency in the US or allied country, why not spring for the government restricted set, 30 quality titles for only $1,315?
Slight omission: The name of Mr. Venzke's co-author is left off The al-Qaeda Threat page, though he wrote the blub himself.
Guest Blogosphere self-correcting function: In November, doorguy at Kos asked just what sort of outfit openly advertises itself as "doing support work for the intelligence community"?
Mr. Riley, you look as though you have something to add?:
Yeah, well, aren't we spending enough on Homeland Security that military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies can get their DVDs for free? Or, like, swap 'em out with each other?
Thursday, January 19
Happy Birthday
Dolly Rebecca Parton: born January 19, 1946
All right, there was an internal debate at BLTR over that picture, but I'm using it for a point of sorts, which is as good an excuse as any. We try to keep the Lileksian hilarity to a minimum here.
That's Dolly from the old Porter Wagoner Show, where she got her Big Break. We used to watch the thing for its mockery quotient: the faux Down Home set, Porter in his sequined Nudie suits and white Duck's Ass hair, and...Dolly, five feet of the what-the-hell is that? They did a can't-miss commercial for Breeze laundry detergent. Breeze came with a towel in every box. A washcloth in the smallest, up to a beach towel in the Jumbo Economy Size. People told me there wasn't much soap left in the box after you tugged the premium out.
Dolly was priceless. After Porter displayed the towel, Dolly elaborated: "A candy-striped towel!" Only with her accent it was more like "caindee stropped talle." "But you can't buy 'em," says Porter. "Ah cain't bahum?" she replied, momentarily nonplussed.
We never paid attention to the music. But then one day Dolly got a spotlight. She sang "Jolene." What a freakin' voice! How'd I miss that? And she wrote the damn thing, too, a remarkably good storyteller number in complete contrast to the dreck Wagoner usually did.
I never underestimated Dolly after that. I rooted for her. Still do. I was even glad when her pop dreck went platinum. Even Kenny Rogers couldn't change that. (Although Kenny's rehabilitated himself on Reno 911 lately.) Not to say I bought any, but still.
And Dolly had the smarts, and the gall, to tell Colonel Tom where he could insert his demand for 50% of the publishing rights to "I Will Always Love You" in exchange for Elvis recording it. (That was Elvis' standard deal, apparently. Great racket. The Colonel screwed him, and he and the Colonel screwed Arthur "Big Boy" Cruddup.) So she, not Lisa Marie, got the dough when Whitney hit with it.
Dolly, dammit, if all Christians were like you the world would be a much better place.
James Lileks in the Amazing Battery-Powered Foaming Bowl-a-Rama
Y'know, I will gladly leave the analysis of James Lileks' Third-Chair-Trombone-With-Asperations-To-First-Chair-By-Senior-Year political and cultural observations in the capable hands of Pepper and TBogg, but this was too good to pass up:
TBogg's commenters had had plenty of fun psychoanalyzing Lileks need for a battery-operated foamy wand, so we don't have to go there. At least not directly. Instead I recalled the first time I'd seen that thing advertised, and how I immediately wondered what sort of maroon would get conned into buying an electric toothbrush for his toilet.
Now I've got my answer.
I'm not claiming any prescience about that gizmo; I gave up imagining I could point to the moment when the cultural/commercial auger struck the bedrock of stupidity many moons ago. Had it become the One Item on Everyone's Christmas List I wouldn't have been surprised. But what exactly was going on behind that fivehead of Jimmy's that caused him to shell out money to be a beta tester for the thing?
I think Camus said somewhere that America was the only culture which tries to prove that Life is not ultimately a tragedy. To which should to be added that we're the only one that routinely tries to cover the existential stench of death that hovers over every moment with a Glade Plug-In County Potpourri air freshener.
This is not just something that suddenly dawned on me. I remember back in 10th grade the audible gasp of my classmates when a Psych 1 & 2 student giving a report noted that prior to 1950 most Americans had no idea what deodorant was. I think they had visions of people dropping down dead on the sidewalks from B.O. I'm pretty sure I was the only one in class whose immediate reaction was "Cool!" I attend to the daily requirements of American hygiene standards. I do. That has never included aftershave or cologne. I buy my wife expensive perfume because she knows a drop is better than a half-cup. I have no idea what goes on in the heads of people so drenched in smelly stuff you can't breathe within five yards of 'em. Sexual asphyxia? Gangrene?
And the toilet thing. Toilet mints on a little wire hanger, which I think must have gone the way of rotary phones, okay. You have to clean a toilet, like anything else. Blue water never disturbed me, though I never found the Tidy-Bol man quite the font of hilarity they did on the Carson show. It was with the sudden nation-wide concern over Getting Under the Rim when I began to feel the national psyche had taken an unfortunate and possibly dangerous turn for something already so fragile. A few years ago, at the urging of commercial hucksters the, well, odd psycho-sexual obsession with excretory functions and their aftermath suddenly, um, exploded in a frenzy of ergonomically correct, uh, rim fixation. Suddenly every container of toilet bowl cleanser was shaped like a novelty Chianti bottle, and any new toilet brush came with a greenstick neck fracture. Get Under There! The Rim! You never noticed the Rim before? Your Family is at risk because of You! What exactly was lurking under there that was so important? That couldn't be eradicated with conventional weapons? How were you coming into contact with it, exactly? It reminded me of a bit by the late, lamented Dennis Wolfberg, that weird and wonderful hybrid of Robert Klein and Gilbert Gottfried (whose voice and inflections so matched Gottfried's that the first time I heard him, before I realized how funny he was, I thought he was a bad impressionist). Speaking of teaching sixth grade sex ed in the Bronx, he said he was told to answer all student questions truthfully and in detail. One of them was, "Is it true you can catch VD from kissing a toilet seat?" "Kissing a toilet seat? Young man, if you go around kissing toilet seats, getting VD is the last thing you should be worried about."
Rest in Peace, Dennis.
I don't know how to put this delicately. I shit there. It's how I was taught. All this time I've assumed everybody else did too. As such I expect the thing to be a toilet. If I was that concerned about it I'd put a cut flower arrangement in the bowl and build an outhouse.
This really came to a head (sorry) in the aftermath of 9/11. Remember in the months that followed all the Norman Rockwell advertisements, four generations in lambent light sitting down to some tomato soup? Soviet-heroic pans of cops and firemen doing nice, normal things, followed by Old Glory and a wholesome message like "Velveeta. We're Proud To Be Part of the American Grilled Cheese Experience."? The culture gurus and advertising swamis who told us that this was the face of the new, post WTC, irony-free environment? (They were, if I'm not mistaken, the same people who insisted that Silverado would usher in a rebirth of the Western, or Chicago presaged the return of the Big Movie Musical.) My personal favorite was the T.G.I. Friday's clone chain O'Charley's, which added the tag line, "The American Grill with the Irish Name," like they were afraid of losing business in some 9/12 IRA backlash.
Well, sometime after the Iraqi cakewalk got left out in the rain, I noticed a new trend in bathroom advertising: Daddy had made a big stinky mess. Call for mom, bring out the air freshener or the scented toilet paper or whatever. There were at least three of them. I wasn't quite convinced there was a semiotic message at work, at least not a conscious one, and I didn't want to make too much of it. But then these were the very people who eighteen months earlier had shown pictures of Dad breathing freedom air on a small but friendly and regular Maple Street. Who could say for sure?
As I thought back on it I became convinced of one thing: over the past couple decades it's become clear that America's collective subconscious is now more trustworthy than the things it blurts out in public conversation.
Back to that toilet brush thing: if Lileks had just said he bought the damn thing, maybe with an appropriate What Was I Thinking?, I'd have just chuckled at him. Winguts like Lileks are now stuck defending the second coming of the Robber Barons and the Panglossification of American commercial culture as if they can't see it any other way, as if they're not allowed to recognize that the one thing we're really good at these days is finding attractive, up-to-date packaging for the Same Old Useless Shit. That's doubly inexplicable in Lileks, with his flair for comically anachronistic advertisements. But it's that "I thought it rotated!" that really floored me. For what reason, exactly? So you wouldn't have to apply any arm strength? Or even look Down There? Just release the Hounds of Hygiene? From a man who's made a few shekles ridiculing the poshlost tastes of days gone by, how strongly does this resonate with leftover 50s Mass Futurism? It's like the atomic can-opener of the war on toilet terror.
I picked up a cartridge for the Clorox Foamy Wand, or whatever it’s called – it’s a toilet brush that spews bowl cleaner at the touch of a button. I bought the item under the impression that the brush revolved. It did not. My disappointment was keen. Sharper than a daughter’s tooth, it was. But a few months ago I made my peace with the device and restocked the foamy tubes. Today I saw the unit on “CLEARANCE,” which is distinct from “SALE.” If it’s on CLEARANCE it’s on the way out. Do I stock up on foamy tubes and hold out, or just buy one and deal with the product’s end when the day comes?
TBogg's commenters had had plenty of fun psychoanalyzing Lileks need for a battery-operated foamy wand, so we don't have to go there. At least not directly. Instead I recalled the first time I'd seen that thing advertised, and how I immediately wondered what sort of maroon would get conned into buying an electric toothbrush for his toilet.
Now I've got my answer.
I'm not claiming any prescience about that gizmo; I gave up imagining I could point to the moment when the cultural/commercial auger struck the bedrock of stupidity many moons ago. Had it become the One Item on Everyone's Christmas List I wouldn't have been surprised. But what exactly was going on behind that fivehead of Jimmy's that caused him to shell out money to be a beta tester for the thing?
I think Camus said somewhere that America was the only culture which tries to prove that Life is not ultimately a tragedy. To which should to be added that we're the only one that routinely tries to cover the existential stench of death that hovers over every moment with a Glade Plug-In County Potpourri air freshener.
This is not just something that suddenly dawned on me. I remember back in 10th grade the audible gasp of my classmates when a Psych 1 & 2 student giving a report noted that prior to 1950 most Americans had no idea what deodorant was. I think they had visions of people dropping down dead on the sidewalks from B.O. I'm pretty sure I was the only one in class whose immediate reaction was "Cool!" I attend to the daily requirements of American hygiene standards. I do. That has never included aftershave or cologne. I buy my wife expensive perfume because she knows a drop is better than a half-cup. I have no idea what goes on in the heads of people so drenched in smelly stuff you can't breathe within five yards of 'em. Sexual asphyxia? Gangrene?
And the toilet thing. Toilet mints on a little wire hanger, which I think must have gone the way of rotary phones, okay. You have to clean a toilet, like anything else. Blue water never disturbed me, though I never found the Tidy-Bol man quite the font of hilarity they did on the Carson show. It was with the sudden nation-wide concern over Getting Under the Rim when I began to feel the national psyche had taken an unfortunate and possibly dangerous turn for something already so fragile. A few years ago, at the urging of commercial hucksters the, well, odd psycho-sexual obsession with excretory functions and their aftermath suddenly, um, exploded in a frenzy of ergonomically correct, uh, rim fixation. Suddenly every container of toilet bowl cleanser was shaped like a novelty Chianti bottle, and any new toilet brush came with a greenstick neck fracture. Get Under There! The Rim! You never noticed the Rim before? Your Family is at risk because of You! What exactly was lurking under there that was so important? That couldn't be eradicated with conventional weapons? How were you coming into contact with it, exactly? It reminded me of a bit by the late, lamented Dennis Wolfberg, that weird and wonderful hybrid of Robert Klein and Gilbert Gottfried (whose voice and inflections so matched Gottfried's that the first time I heard him, before I realized how funny he was, I thought he was a bad impressionist). Speaking of teaching sixth grade sex ed in the Bronx, he said he was told to answer all student questions truthfully and in detail. One of them was, "Is it true you can catch VD from kissing a toilet seat?" "Kissing a toilet seat? Young man, if you go around kissing toilet seats, getting VD is the last thing you should be worried about."
Rest in Peace, Dennis.
I don't know how to put this delicately. I shit there. It's how I was taught. All this time I've assumed everybody else did too. As such I expect the thing to be a toilet. If I was that concerned about it I'd put a cut flower arrangement in the bowl and build an outhouse.
This really came to a head (sorry) in the aftermath of 9/11. Remember in the months that followed all the Norman Rockwell advertisements, four generations in lambent light sitting down to some tomato soup? Soviet-heroic pans of cops and firemen doing nice, normal things, followed by Old Glory and a wholesome message like "Velveeta. We're Proud To Be Part of the American Grilled Cheese Experience."? The culture gurus and advertising swamis who told us that this was the face of the new, post WTC, irony-free environment? (They were, if I'm not mistaken, the same people who insisted that Silverado would usher in a rebirth of the Western, or Chicago presaged the return of the Big Movie Musical.) My personal favorite was the T.G.I. Friday's clone chain O'Charley's, which added the tag line, "The American Grill with the Irish Name," like they were afraid of losing business in some 9/12 IRA backlash.
Well, sometime after the Iraqi cakewalk got left out in the rain, I noticed a new trend in bathroom advertising: Daddy had made a big stinky mess. Call for mom, bring out the air freshener or the scented toilet paper or whatever. There were at least three of them. I wasn't quite convinced there was a semiotic message at work, at least not a conscious one, and I didn't want to make too much of it. But then these were the very people who eighteen months earlier had shown pictures of Dad breathing freedom air on a small but friendly and regular Maple Street. Who could say for sure?
As I thought back on it I became convinced of one thing: over the past couple decades it's become clear that America's collective subconscious is now more trustworthy than the things it blurts out in public conversation.
Back to that toilet brush thing: if Lileks had just said he bought the damn thing, maybe with an appropriate What Was I Thinking?, I'd have just chuckled at him. Winguts like Lileks are now stuck defending the second coming of the Robber Barons and the Panglossification of American commercial culture as if they can't see it any other way, as if they're not allowed to recognize that the one thing we're really good at these days is finding attractive, up-to-date packaging for the Same Old Useless Shit. That's doubly inexplicable in Lileks, with his flair for comically anachronistic advertisements. But it's that "I thought it rotated!" that really floored me. For what reason, exactly? So you wouldn't have to apply any arm strength? Or even look Down There? Just release the Hounds of Hygiene? From a man who's made a few shekles ridiculing the poshlost tastes of days gone by, how strongly does this resonate with leftover 50s Mass Futurism? It's like the atomic can-opener of the war on toilet terror.
Wednesday, January 18
Yeah, But It's No Travelgate
His lips are movin' again.
White House Silent on Abramoff Meetings
By Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The White House is refusing to reveal details of tainted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's visits with President Bush's staff.
Abramoff had "a few staff-level meetings" at the Bush White House, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday. But he would not say with whom Abramoff met, which interests he was representing or how he got access to the White House.
Since Abramoff pleaded guilty two weeks ago to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion charges in an influence-peddling scandal, McClellan has told reporters he was checking into Abramoff's meetings. "I'm making sure that I have a thorough report back to you on that," he said in his press briefing Jan. 5. "And I'll get that to you, hopefully very soon."
McClellan said Tuesday that he checked on it at reporters' requests, but wouldn't discuss the private staff-level meetings. "We are not going to engage in a fishing expedition," he said
But that's not a "fishing expedition": it's a request for specific information. A fishing expedition is when...wait, who'm I talking to?
Them! Them!
Mail's here!
Believe I've mentioned before that we get some organization's magazines in an ever-revolving carousel of double-digit IQ nausea (okay, I actually read Rolling Stone, but only in the john). The name on the subscription tag doesn't provide enough information to track the owner down, there's no way to figure why our address would repeatedly turn up as theirs, and the mailman won't take 'em back. That was established when we were getting six TV Guides™ each week; he told me I could go to the Post Office and fill out a form. But driving to the local Post Office is a daredevil act, caught between elderly 15-mph-with-the-wrong-turn-signal-flashing motorists and two nearby sidestreets where shortcutting maniacs routinely blow the stop signs. I've had three very near misses. Besides, after the second one started arriving it got to be fun, in a perverse sort of way. But then, we're a perverse sort of couple.
Last week brought the bonanza of all time: Us Weekly, the celebrity rag for those who find People a bit stuffy. I meant to report on it at the time, but my wife managed to lose it some where. So I confiscated this one.
Sad to report, but Us, which really deserves an exclamation point, is something of a disappointment on the only magazine rating scale that means anything: there's no letters column. My lonely search for a TV Guide™ replacement goes on. So here's a quick rundown on Tinseltown anyway; just don't get too attached:
COVER: Lindsay Confesses Extreme Diet Dangers.
Some underage talent sausage who's been operating in public for far too long with or without adult supervision couldn't handle fame, and now we're supposed to be concerned. But then I guess if you read Us you probably are.
PULL QUOTES:
"You have to hit rock bottom sometimes to get yourself back up to the top,"-Lindsay
"She's not letting herself worry about weight anymore.
-Lohan's mom, Dina. In what I can only hope was a letter from prison.
SIDEBAR:
Is Peer Pressure To Blame? Thoughts from Dr. Joel Jahraus, eating disorders expert.
COVER ALSO-RANS:
Angelina: Her Big Secrets
Jessica: Crying As Nick Parties
SPLIT!: Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe.
HOW FAR INSIDE CAN RILEY GO?
Well, there's a two-page spread to start things off called "Red Carpet", which features six celebs in J. Mendel eveningware. The last one is Lauren Bush, whose gown and hair were both applied by pitchfork. But I didn't notice her on the first pass.
This is followed by a single page of three celebs in coats, who were rated by "100 people in NYC's Rockefeller Center." I'm hoping they were tourists. Managed to turn the page.
Then, some red meat, and a page with actual words: "Loose Talk: What The Stars Said This Week". A page too far, as it turns out:
"I was sick of me. But I'm over that now. I'm ready to return to your TV 24 hours a day!" -Justin Timberlake, On why he took a break from recording.
Look, I didn't get this old without learning anything, so I was careful to read the thing while lying on a futon, with no glass or sharp objects nearby. The spinning sensation abated in a couple of minutes, and by the time five had passed, and I'd tossed down some Booker Noe's, I was even able to wonder why Justin Timberlake's presence would be required at one of his recording sessions.
You're probably ahead of me at this point; I shouldn't have had that drink. It steadied me enough to flip the page, where I found "Hot Pics!" (I guess they save the exclamation points for inside.) Suitably warned, I pulled my sweatshirt sleeve over my hand before I handled any. Our first hottie was Sienna Miller, "munch[ing] on honeydew melon Jan. 9 on the Louisiana set of her upcoming Andy Warhol flick, Factory Girl, in which she plays 1960s drug addict Edie Sedgwick." 1960s drug addict! They said it like it's a bad thing, when the truth is there isn't a single celebrity in the damn magazine who wouldn't be improved by a serious scag habit.
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