A Web Geek Takes Off His Mask

Paul Ford is profiled in the New York Times, which tells the story of how he went from Ftrain.com to novel writing.

Bookshelf talk

Books recently finished, bought, borrowed, or browsed:

Gary Benchley, Rock Star by Paul Ford. Paul's breezy first novel about an ambitious indie rocker trying to make it in the big apple is a wiseguy kind of funny, hip to the silly pretensions of post-adolescents longing desparately for idolization. If you don't see a lot of yourself in Gary Benchley, you're not really being honest with yourself!

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton. Just got it and am enjoying as much as the other book by de Botton I've read to date: Status Anxiety. His style shuttles between Roland Barthesish dilettantism, PBS documentary lucidity, and stoic self-help advice. At times, it's an awkward blend, but there's a light irony laced throughout, which keeps it entertaining, bouncy, even syncopated. And he's really making me want to read Proust, which is all to the greater good. Proust, like Guinness, is good for you.

All in the Timing by David Ives. I've taught his play "Sure Thing," which always rouses the sleeping giants when we perform it in class. Ives's absurd, snappy skits and one acts are stoked with outrageous wordplay. I thought I might want to assign more of his plays for my Intro to Lit classes as a tonic for the dark and serious dramas we always read, but I'm not sure there's enough in there that's usable for classroom purposes. Would be great in an acting or humor writing class though.

The Iliad by Homer. I'm reading the new Penguin Classics translation by Robert Faigles, and it's great. Probably the most readable verse translation I've come across: well paced, dramatic, and intense. This is a candidate text for Intro to Lit. too. With the Iraq war in our faces, the parallels to Troy might be easy to draw. The Iliad, after all, is the greatest anti-war war story out there. Achilles and the other larger than life heroes interest me too. I think there might be modern analogues there as well: so many isolated primadonnas, mopey movie stars and sulking athletes. It's lonely at the top. And then there's Helen of Troy. All that love, passion, jealousy and beauty. It's tempting, especially since I can't settle on a novel, much as I'd like to do one.

Scooter, you're doin' heckuva job

Note: My Media Ethics students asked me to contribute an op-ed to the campus newspaper, and this is what I came up with:

Truth Decay: drilling into the CIA leak investigation

After a two year grand jury probe over who leaked a covert CIA operative’s identity to the press, Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff. In a dramatic press conference Friday October 28, Fitzgerald charged Libby with perjury, issuing false statements, and obstruction of justice. Karl Rove, top political advisor to President Bush and mastermind of Bush’s ascent to power, is also a target of the investigation and may face indictment.

The story has set Washington a-buzz, but does this have anything to with the rest of the country? Some background might help explain why the answer is yes.

In 2002, the Bush administration was revving-up a public relations juggernaut to rally support for regime change in Iraq. The most compelling rationale for war was the claim that Iraq had been developing weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons). Vice President Dick Cheney, the cheerleader-in-chief of the effort, and other prominent administration officials repeatedly insinuated that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium (a necessary ingredient for nuclear bombs) from the African nation Niger. The allegation resurfaced in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech. Iraq had also obtained aluminum tubes, which could be used as centrifuges in building nuclear bombs. Another suggestion was that the UN inspections process wasn’t working. In short, the argument went, Iraq was an imminent threat to the Middle East and the United States itself. A preemptive war was needed before we saw the “smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud.”

There was a slight problem with these assertions. Most of them weren’t true. Some were badly distorted. The administration based its allegations on forged documents, murky intelligence, and a willful blindness and deafness to dissenting opinions (e.g. elements in the CIA, the UN inspectors, “old Europe”). The Bush administration was dead-set on going to war, facts be damned. To quote a British government account (the infamous “Downing Street Memo”): “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC [National Security Council] had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.” And so the president got the war he wanted so dearly. In the spring of 2003, the United States invaded and occupied Iraq. The rest, as they say, is history.

This is where the CIA leak investigation comes in. In the early months after the invasion, some questions began to nag the administration. Where were the weapons of mass destruction? How could our intelligence be so wrong? By July 2003, former ambassador Joseph Wilson went public with an op-ed piece in the New York Times declaring that the CIA had sent him on a mission to Niger to check out the story that Iraq had been seeking to purchase uranium. Wilson found there was nothing to the claim and reported as much to the CIA. Apparently, the White House never got the memo, or never read it.

Politically, this was a direct challenge to the Bush administration’s central claim that Iraq posed an imminent danger to national security. White House officials immediately spun into hardball mode. Sources inside the White House started talking to reporters on background, whispering that nobody knew much about Joe Wilson, and besides, his wife Valerie Plame, who worked at the CIA, played a role in getting him sent to Niger. Shortly after that, conservative columnist Bob Novak “outed” Valerie Plame in a newspaper column, blowing her cover. The CIA was not happy. Blowing an agent’s secret cover is not a nice thing to do and puts operations and people at risk.

A federal investigation of the leak followed, which brings us to the present. We now know that Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and others allegedly knew a lot more about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame than they originally let on.

Fitzgerald’s indictment of Libby establishes that Libby knew in May 2003 that Joe Wilson was sent to Africa. By the middle of June, Libby also knew that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and had some involvement in planning her husband’s trip. Libby was directly involved in meetings discussing how to handle press reports concerning the matter, and as early as June 23, 2003, he was talking with New York Times reporter Judy Miller about Wilson and his wife. On July 7, Libby told the White House press secretary that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA.

But when Libby was questioned by the FBI, he told them he had first heard that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA from reporters and that he never discussed Wilson’s wife with Judy Miller. In layman’s terms, this is called lying.

When under oath to the grand jury, Libby repeated his lie about learning of Wilson’s identity from reporters, and that he couldn’t recall having heard of Wilson’s wife before talking with reporters. According to the indictment, these misleading and false statements impeded the investigation’s ability to determine the truth. In legal terminology, this is obstruction of justice.
Libby promptly resigned his White House post upon being indicted, and it is unclear at the time I am writing whether “Bush’s brain” Karl Rove will be indicted as well. Apparently, the White House hasn’t been entirely truthful in dealing with this matter.

The Libby indictment exposes how those in power tend to operate; thinking themselves above the law, they see the truth as something malleable, something to be managed through tight message control.

But the truth is real. It has real consequenes. Over 2000 American soldiers have lost their lives in war based on questionable premises. Over 14,000 troops have suffered debilitating injuries. These are facts that can’t be wished or photo-opped away.

If you really value the truth, if you think that wars should be based on facts not wishful thinking, if you think that political criticism should be countered through evidence and reasoning not through ruinous smear tactics, then you ought to be watching this case carefully, because nothing will stop the powerful from distorting the facts to suit their ambitions, until the people hold them accountable.

saturday random ten

Don't Give That Girl a Gun - Indigo Girls

Until the End of the World - U2

One More Time - Procol Harum

Let's Go Away For Awhile - The Beach Boys

Stop and Smell the Roses - Mac Davis

Don't Leave the Light On Baby - Blle & Sebastian

Dream Angels - Brian Wilson

Blue Boy - Joni Mitchell

Turn Around - Nanci Griffith

Sean's Theme - Sean Lennon

Harriet, you did a heckuva job....

Harriet Miers's blog comments on her pullout.

American torture state

Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division
at Human Rights Watch.

Newspapers channel Bush

Facing South discovers that a bunch of newspapers across the country are running identically worded unsigned editorials in favor of President Bush. Surely, this must be a coincidence.

Let the opposition research begin...

What to do when your right-wing brothers are facing imminent prosecution? Smear the prosecutor! Right wingnut publication Newsmax.com is asserting that Patrick Fitzgerald is really a partisan Democrat in Independent sheep's clothing:

Born of working class immigrant parents and raised in heavily Democratic Brooklyn, New York, Fitzgerald was educated in liberal bastions like Amherst College and Harvard University.

Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.... The column tries to make the case that a dropped wiretapping investigation by Fitzgerald of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's campaign is somehow analogous to Plamegate. What a reach.

Candy Cane Dungeon

One of many incredible photos of abandoned sites at opacity.us. This chilling, creepy shot is a basement playroom at the infamous Pennhurst State School. Happy Halloween....

Brownie, you're still doin' a heckuva job

The Carpetbagger Report: Mike Brown is still on the FEMA payroll. He's "working from home," and his contract was extended another month. Wonder-fucking-ful.

US Department of Justice, Office of Special Counsel

Patrick Fitzgerald's new website went live today. Can indictments be far behind?

Friday random ten: 10/21/05

Walk on By - Dionne Warwick

Middle of the Road - The Pretenders

Surf Jam - The Beach Boys

Be Thankful For What You've Got - William DeVaughn

Romance in Durango - Bob Dylan

Long Tall Sally - The Beatles

A Heart Needs a Home - Richard Thompson

I Wish I Was in New Orleans - Tom Waits

Something to Fall Back On - Todd Rundgren

Bad Side of the Moon - Elton John

Public supports universal healthcare

WSJ / Harris Pol says 75% of America supports universal coverage, 96% favor medicare, 87% favor international HIV prevention and treatment, 70% support embryonic stem cell research. This is an across-the-board repudiation of conservative health care priorities.

Deconstructing Judy

CJR tries to crack "the judy miller code". The sage wisdom from Scooter's epistle about aspen trees turning in clusters with deep running roots is rich fodder indeed. What CJR notes is that Judy may be telegraphing some signals herself. Do they really think we're THAT stupid?

random ten 10/14/05

Now More Than Ever - Chicago

Alice - Tom Waits

You Really Got a Hold on Me - The Beatles

Veenaa-Murali - Ravi Shankar

The Rocking Surfer - The Beach Boys

The Chalet Lines - Belle & Sebastian

Libera Me - Sam Phillips

Grace Darling - The Strawbs

The Couch - Alanis Morissette

Pavanne - Richard & Linda Thompson

Ibsen, Straight No Chaser

Pajama Guy takes issue with Hilton Als at the New Yorker, who would rather see Ibsen productions populated by male dwarves and six feet tall women.

Samsung Admits to Price Fixing

Stuff this one in the overfilled corporate ethics folder: Samsung Admits to Price Fixing - Los Angeles Times.

Ministry of Propaganda, US style

America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed -- Parts 1 - 4

How to use Word

Things twice blog has some basic yet wise advice for users of MS Word: depend on styles and templates for your formatting needs.

US Blocks UN Briefing on Atrocities in Sudan

t r u t h o u t reprint of Reuters story: Ambassador Bolton blocked a U.N. envoy from briefing the security council on Darfur. Bolton says we need more action, less talk. Last time I checked, a diplomat's job is to talk, to inform, to brief, to discuss, to deliberate, to negotiate, to conduct diplomacy. One anonymous quote tells it all: "'He's playing into the hands of people who don't want to do anything,' said one council diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to irritate Washington."

New Orleans Environment Watch

New Orleans Environment Watch is keeping an eye peeled on the toxic dangers in the Big Easy. Government at all levels -- local, state, federal -- is reaching astonishing levels of negligence and moral corruption. How can you encourage people to come back home when home has been turned into a supersized superfund wasteland? Hey Nagin, this is first of all a health and environment crisis, not a business opportunity. Evidentally, government has bargained away its soul. After a generation of rollback, we have forgotten the proper role of government. Instead, the motto is "profits before people." And where oh where is the federal leadership? Zzzzzz.....

Gore on the death of the public sphere

Cogent Al Gore speech at t r u t h o u t : The Threat to American Democracy.

friday random ten - 10/07/05

Estampes -- II. La Soiree dans Grenade - Debussy

Wrong 'Em Boyo - The Clash

How Is It (We Are Here) - The Moody Blues

First Breath - Richard Thompson

Sitting On Top of the World - Bob Dylan

Big Hat, No Cattle - Randy Newman

Party Girl - U2

Meet Me in Heaven - Johnny Cash

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Bob Dylan

Happy Christmas & Give Peace A Chance

Gary Benchley, Rock Star

My buddy Paul Ford's first novel Gary Benchley, Rock Star, is now out, just published by Plume. Paul, we're thrilled for you, and I'm going to be picking up the book this week. You rock, Mr. F-train dude!!

Random ten, Sat. 10/1/05

Gone (New Mix) - U2

Temporary Like Achilles - Bob Dylan

Hang 'Em High - Booker T and the MG's

Busy Bodies - Elvis Costello & the Attractions

Once in a Very Blue Moon - Nanci Griffith

Pocahantas - Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Shower the People - James Taylor

Peaches & Cream - Beck

Fugitive Kind - Paul Westerberg

Good Shepherd - Jefferson Airplane