The Bigger Bang

This fall I picked up my first Steven Hunter novel, Hot Springs. I'm a snob when it comes to thrillers -- I only read Elmore Leonard and Alan Furst -- but I loved his column on the DC Sniper a few years ago. As a gun enthusiast, he wrote a smart piece on what we know about the sniper who terrorized Washington DC after 9/11: he was a good shot but not a great shot; he chose stationary targets and he was stationary himself when shooting. It was the best kind of article: you were instantly smarter after reading it and couldn't wait to parrot some of the best lines to family and friends.

Hot Springs is about Earl Swagger, a former Marine who is recruited to clean up the Arkansas hot spot after the war. It's hard to read the book and not see a young Nuck Nolte -- tall, haunted, and ready for action -- in the role. It's hard to think who could do this right now becuase we're in a weird era of action stars: could Will Smith or Colin Farrell play a man who has seen too much on Iwo Jima? Who has the square jaw these days? No one comes to mind.

One thing about Hunter is he knows guns. He writes about Colts and Brownings the wat James Joyce wrote about Dublin and John Updike wrote about housewives in the 60s. Hot Springs -- read it now.

Closer But No Cigar

Yuk yuk yuk. Rented Mike Nichols' Closer from the library the other day and semi-enjoyed it. It was billed as Carnal Knowledge for the new millenium and it's true that it's about some spectacularly good looking people leading miserable lives. I guess Clive Owen's character is Jack Nickolson's woman-hater but Owen was more of a softy. He at least has feelings beyond self-pity, which seemed to be the fuel for Julia Roberts' adulterous photographer and Jude Law's pathic obituary writer/novelist. Natalie Portman played a fragile and elusive stripper -- she seemed to realize how lucky she was to be in the movie. Rent it for the cool photography and Clive Owen's randy doctor. His online sex chat with Jude Law is worth the rental price.

Outrageous 2006 Predictions

This isn't going to be a good year for Hillary Clinton. Sure, she'll be re-elected to the US Senate from her home state of New York without breaking a sweat, but 2006 will be the year the anti-war faction becomes a full-fledged wing of the Democratic Party.

They may make up one-third of registered Democrats and they won't be searching for third party candidates like Ralph Nader. Instead, they'll stay inside the old party and shun anyone who voted for the war. This is bad news for Hil, who stands by her vote. Even if she switches sides and deamnds that the troops come home now, it will be seen as too calculated.

So who runs? Russ Feingold is on everyone's lips and Al Gore seems poised to think about this seriously. I see Howard Dean throwing his hat in the ring after he steps down from the party leadership role this year. Paging Dr. Dean.

Satellite Radio Days

The media have discovered Howard Stern again the week before he says farewell to terrestrial radio and starts his new gig at Sirius, the satellite radio station. The coverage has been glowing and there are a few interesting things to note: it seems like each interviewer from the mainstream media asks the same question: doesn't the FCC cencorship implore you to be more creative? Stern refuses to see how he can be more clever and I loved one complaint he made to Newsweek: the threats of hefty fines have forced him to curtail his show. "I haven't had a porn star on the show in six months!"

Two installments on The Today Show, a glowing profile on 60 Minutes, two pages in Newsweek plus cover stories in New York and Esquire. If I were the editor of a magazine that covered this story, why not write the non-Howard profile? Interview Opie and Anthony on Sirius' competitor XM? Ask them about what Stern can expect. Did they drop off the media radar because practically no one has satellite radio? Will his contract depend on signing up new subscribers? Is the freedom all that wonderful when you have fewer listeneers? Does the joy of using the F word fade after a while?

And another story idea: I want to go over to satellite and listen to Stern and his two channels but the company isnt making it easy for me. Why? The handheld Sirius devices are ugly and expensive. $349 for a lousy looking handheld? Why don't they hire the guy who designed the iPod and get him or her to work on a snazzy handheld version? To make matters worse, XM has a handheld device that costs $149.99 and isn't too bad looking. Hmmmmm. XMmmmmmmmm.

Giving One Pinter Pauses

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

Ah, the words of a Nobel winner. Yassir Arafat? Jimmy Carter, you ask? No, the man of letters, Harold Pinter and winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature. If the Swedish Academy wanted to praise an artist's work while smashing the US in a single choice, they could not have done better than old Mr. P.

Of course, not every decision and policy of the US has been successful or 100 percent noble but the playwright's screed begs the question, if we are such vile scum, why is the United States still standing? The biggest guns? The old USSR had some heavy artillery and yet it fell to the wayside after 80 or so years of torturing its citizens. The empty promise of the American Dream? Not so empty because people are dying to come to this country each and every day. The NYTimes Magazine had a fascinating article about 30 year-old Jordanian man. He was conflicted: does he travel to the US and work for Microsoft or does he join the Jihad? Decisions, decisions.

Pinter sees the US' glass not only as half empty but the liquid stale and putrid as well. This is one odd switch between the Neocons and the New Left: The Neocons are now the pie-in-the-sky dreamers (the Middle East can support a democracy!) while the New Left are the sticks in the mud. Ask many Lefties about deposing Saddam and trying to establish a democracy and someone will soon say, 'some people cannot be run by a democracy.' Imagine if Dick Cheney said, "some people cannot operate a VCR."

(Yes, yes, a VCR and a democracy are two different things but just because a people do not have experience with free elections does not mean that they naturally want a vicious dictatorship.)

It's a shame that Pinter cannot see the good that America has done to for the world: we share our technology and hope; we want democracy to flourish and we have a nasty habit of liberating people from the vice of fascism. This last fact misses the ailing Pinter, who, if the Americans had not joined the fight in WWII, would certainly have a Nazi swastika on the corner of his typewriter paper when he wrote his first play in the early 1960s.

Congratulations to Harold Pinter. Brilliant playwrite and a perfect dupe of the Nobel Committee.

Murtha of a Nation

Rep. John Murtha intrigues me. His background is heroic, his idea for pulling troops from Iraq is suicidal but his role in Hilary's future is interesting. After a few months of Cindy Sheehan's shaming of the president, her dingbat idea is catching fire. Even Republican Senators are wondering that three years of a shooting war is too much for a country to bear, even though casualties haven't reached the levels of the morning of D-Day. How, one has to wonder, does the junior senator from New York handle this growing anti-war spasm?

Hillary Clinton, an anti-Saddam hawk, cannot be happy. She has heard the intelligence report since the mid-90s, she has sat on intelligence committees, and met with hindreds if not thousands of soldiers, reservists and airmen in her tour of military bases in New York. How does a neocon - yes, a neocon - convince the anti-war, bring them home, no blood for oil Left that she is their chice for the White House in '08.

Easy: she can't. Expect Hillary to go to the other side to join Sheehan, Murtha and countless other senators and representatives from both the right and left who have lost their stomach for the war. It's over. Expect to see politicians on listening tours so that they can vote to bring the troops home.

The O'Hara Factor

English Major Bears His Soul: I've tried to read Appointment in Samarra at least three times and I couldn't make it past the third page. I hate to admit this but I am a font queen -- if the book is ugly, the font too small and the paper too ugly, I usually give up. And because most of John O'Hara's work is out of print and only promoted in a poorly packaged collections, the publishers are practically daring readers to discover this amazing writer. Appt in Sam is well worth the wait and is designed for readers who have lived a little. I've heard and read several critics say it is the true Jazz Age novel instead of The Great Gatsby and they are right. Appt in Sam is about class, drink and desperation while F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about longing, true love, and limitless wealth -- all things teenage future English majors dream about. Talk about playing to the back row. If there is a list of great American novels, Appointment in Samarra should rank between Couples by John Updike and The Human Stain by Philip Roth.

I'm Famous! (and kidding, if you're humor-impaired)

This is me, on the 'perils' of gay marriage. Enjoy

Syrup Blogging, Baby

Last Friday, co-workers mentioned a terrific smell wafting through our SOHO office while they worked late the night before. Like maple syrup or fresh pancakes, they said. The NY Times even had a short, only-in-New York story the next day but there might be something serious at work here.

All last week, workers at Grand Central Terminal had their smell detectors out and running. These are long, thin aerials that hang from the entrance ways to the lower section of GCT, on the subway platforms and even on small carts in the middle of the main floor. What for? They track a colorless and odorless gas that officials release to test the flow of air where thousands of people walk through each hour. So if Al Queda releases a poison gas, the people in charge can see or predict where the gas will flow.

Why not test the release of a gas outdoors and check the log of phone calls to 911? No need to make it smell like rotten eggs -- which might panic the public -- but something homey and re-assuring.

Me, I like cinnamon.

Un-Savvy Boob

Yesterday was a good day to be a reporter. Instead of writing or editing a story about trading platforms, networking or asset management, I wrote a breaking news item about a strip club. Why? The CEO of networking firm Savvis is disputing a credit card charge at a strip club to the tune of $241K.

The editor of our sister newsletter asked me to write it up so I went to work. I called Savvis three times for comment plus I sent an e-mail to the communications director. No reply.

I then called Scores, the high-end strip club that gets tons of publicity as Howard Stern's favorite place to blow off steam. I interviewed Lonnie Hanover, the club's publicist, and he couldn't have been nicer or more professional.

My favorite reply came when I asked how many dancers entertained the Savvis party of four back in October 2003. He said that he didn't recall but that "there were so many."

Sadly, my fellow editor removed one from my story, which went like this:

"On the morning the story broke, Savvis had yet to add a link to the NY Daily News story on the firm's In the News section on the company Web site."

Here's the Yahoo News story. Waters should cover it in our December issue.

Miller's Crossing

Yesterday's four-page autopsy of the Judith Miller affair was odd. It felt like a hit piece from the very beginning with an anecdote about one of the Times star reporters getting her facts wrong. The first paragraph has Miller misspelling Joe Wilson's wife's name as Valerie Flame. Nice anecdote but it subtly shows that some in the Times newsroom would like Miller gone, thank you very much.

The piece seems thorough in nailing Dick Cheney's chief of staff as the official leaker of Plame's identity but that Miller and others were told she was an analyst and not an operative. If that's true, then no crime was committed. Just DC gossip.

But what of Miller -- does she leave the Times? They certainly cannot fire her even though her reporting on WMD was erroneous and boosterish. She went to jail for 87 days, for goodness sakes. As much as they'd like to dump her, that's no way to treat a lady.

Network News

Okay, I bought a home networking kit at the height of summer and after three, maybe four attempts, it is now finally working. I'll spare you the gory details but I am now typing this from my kid's PC. Wireless, baby! After the Motorola techie helped me set-up the network and set-up some security, I asked the wrong question.

"So, I can share files between the two PCs, right?"

"Well, no sir. You'll have to call Microsoft for that."

"But it's a home network. You should be able to share files, right?"

"This unit is only for sharing Internet access. Microsoft will help you with file sharing."

Great, now they tell me. Still, it is pretty neat.

Somebody Stop Me

I am in the Ft Lauderdale Airport waiting for my flight and I have no book with me. A book dilemma this profound should be making my hands shake. Actually the book I finished -- The Other Hollywood: An Oral History of the Porn Film Industry -- is in my garment bag in the hull of some 757 and I have nothing to read. Nothing. I was going to bring a paperback but nothing appealed to me. Gods and Generals? The kid is a decent writer compared to his dad, who wrote The Killer Angels but this sequel is just leaden. Junior's book on the Mexican-American war was much better but the name escapes me.

So do I buy a book? The selection is awful, all Grisham, Grifton, Steele and Patterson. I feel my brain shrinking just looking at the covers. The bookstore does have the new Zadie Smith but I doubt I can justify $25 for a new book. I loved her White Teeth -- just amazing even if it was a touch over-praised -- and this one has received glowing reviews as well. If it were in paperback, I'd scoop it up.

Maybe I'll just tap out some notes for my novel. I have an idea about a guy who gets a vasectomy and it launches the mother of all mid-life crises. Not based on personal experience but I see a slim, comedic novel about a happily married man with three different girlfriends. Who has the time for this much madness? Me, I hope to have the time to write the damned thing. How's this for a title: Snip.

Snip by Phil Albinus. I like that.

Henry Frickin' James

As an English major, I had no guilt about skipping over the works of Henry James. I tried to read The Bostonians and settled on the movie for an exam back in he late 80s, and more than a few critics write that James was an acquired taste.

So it's odd to report that I have read Daisy Miller and Washington Square and have my sites set on The Wings of the Dove. To bone up on my James -- you said bone up -- I have been reading Colm Toibin's The Master, the recent novel about James living in Europe around 1896. It's a fine novel once you realize there is absolutely no action. Zilch. Instead, you get to see an artist search for his stories and attempt to live his cloistered, stuffy life.

I only wish it came with hyperlinks. Toibin goes through James' life and offers episodes where real life inspires novels and stories. Thank to the Barnes & Noble introduction to Daisy Miller and Wings, I have a decent sense of his life and literary output but it would be great if I could click on a word, a name or a passage and be able to read where this fits in the writer's life and cannon. That would be neat.

One enterprising editor/publisher should release an annotated copy of this novel with information on James and his works. Think of it like the director's commentary on a DVD.

The Wings of the Dove, on deck after The Master.

Raunch Dressing, Not on the Side

The review of Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs in today's NY Times Book Review triggered some thoughts. Levy expands her New York Magazine article on the rise of Girls Gone Wild, magazines like Maxim and Stuff, and porn stars appearing everywhere outside their movies on regular shows and music videos as if it were normal. Well, according to Levy, it is normal: America has been pornified.

Jennifer Egans' review mentions one omission of the book's argument and might have missed another. Egan says Levy spends scant time on Madonna, who turned sex into self-empowerment ever since 1984. That's sad. Because the singer/video star has done a lot to move the ball down to the end-zone. No one exploits me but me, was her mantra. (Or is that womantra?) Also, I wonder if the young's acceptance of this lite porn stems from the shrill, humor-free days of the late 80s and 90s when people were politically correct to a fault.

I took three feminist courses at SUNY New Paltz in 1988-89, and these were deadly serious areas unless you were mocking men. So far, so shrill. After the Anita Hill hearings, lawyers and human resource consultants entered the fray. Telling a woman she looked nice in a sweater could be a litigious offence and the days of humor were over. I sat in on my share of HR seminars on how to be a sensitive co-worker and managers. Thank goodness the Internet boom rolled around so we could concentrate on making money.

Egan's review does not mention the feminist left's melding with the Christian right in its views on pornography. Even though both sides have different views on modern women -- kitchen vs. the board room -- they could both easily hate Hugh Hefner, Howard Stern, and even Victoria's Secret. Like the flimsy bras in the pages of those monthly catalog, something had to give.

The so-called third wave of feminists hated Christian prudes and the smelly feminists of yore. Howard Stern was a free-speech liberator, Hugh Hefner made sure his Playmates were treated well, and a whole raft of magazines from London came in with bad jokes and pics of models and actresses in bra and panties. Where was the victimization? Jenna Jamison looked healthy, drug-free and all-American to most people.

The Man Show debutted and rose in the ratings around the time that America read The Starr Report and expressed shock and acceptance. Bill Clinton looked like a serial humper from Day One and besides, the economy was roaring. Why jinx it? The Man Show was fighting against the notion that being a guy had been a bad thing for more than a decade. Pictures of cleavage, bodily function jokes and reviews of beer seemed almost elevating back then. It was.

There is a downside, though. I like my subscription to Stuff and one day would like to write captions for those magazines, but why is it so hard to find clothes for my daughter that doesn't like the laundry pile from a Vietnamese brothel? Does my listening to Stern and Opie and Anthony's antics mean that my daughter has to dress like a hooker?

Parenting Chronicles - Volume XII Chapter XXXVII

Driving back from my nephew's party on Long Island, Nora complained that she had to go the bathroom. She was whining and in deep distress that she might wet her pajamas and car seat. We were on the Sprain Book parkway, probably the darkest busy road in lower New York - no lights but the full moon. Again she said she had to go and bad. It was going to be a disaster.

I spotted some lights behind some black trees and got off. Couldn't name the town but there was a gas station nearby. We ran in and asked for the bathroom key.

We have no key, the attendant said. "I asked the owner four times and he won't drive the key over."

We left for McDonalds, which was down the road from the gas station. I backed into the guard rail that protects the pump and made sure I didn't hit a Lexus or that gas was puring out of the stall.

Nora was crying and moaning.

But when we pulled into the McDonalds' parking lot, she started to giggle. "I have to tell you guys something," she said between laughs.

Regina knew the answer but I was already unbuckling my seat belt.

"I PEED my car seat!" she squealed and out came peals of laughter.

I got out to check the back of the minivan -- perfectly fine in the parking lot light.

Back in the car, the two boys are asleep and Regina and Nora are laughing at her accident.

We drove home and she relieved herself like a racehorse outside the car door. More giggles.

Good times.

Falconer

Before leaving for Lake George, I looked for a book to take with me. It had to be slim, smart and I didn't mind if it was something I had already read. I brought John Cheever's Falconer, which is supposed to be his great novel. That's not much of a stretch because he will always be known as a short story writer thanks to his epsiodic novels. All in all, Falconer was good, if strange. It definitely probably read better when it came out in the mid-70s and if I remember the glowing reviews, it might have been over-praised for two reasons: Cheever had finally quit the sauce and delivered a full-length novel that didn't read like a collection of short stories. It was compelling and it was always nice to be in the hands of a writer who knows what they're doing. The scene where Farrugt realizes that he has beaten his drug habit without even realizing it -- the prison medical team had been feeding him a placebo -- was wonderful and quiet in this loud rambunctious novel.

Lake George, Late Summer

After two weeks of humid weather, high temps and some awful news from New Orleans and Mississippi, it's great to be back at Lake George with the family and Regina's sister, her two nephews and one girlfriend. The weather has been amazing and we spent the day switching between the pool and then to the lake and then back to the pool again.

This morning, Regina took Nora and Timmy to the local pancake house while I watched Matthew swim in the pool. While he was wading in the whirlpool, a plane flew overhead at around 150 feet. Then a helicopter flew along the lake at seagull altitude. If that weren't entertaining enough, I saw an Indian with full headgear and war paint in a canoe by the motel's dock. He lifted his musket and BOOM fired into the air. The ducks in the water didn't seem to like the entertainment. The Indian then chatted with a few people on the dock before paddling off.

Tonight we played miniature golf. Nora and I both had a hole in one -- the triumph of luck over skill!

Speaking of skill, both Nora and Matthew can doggy paddle like champs. It's been a good summer.

Hillary -- Too Conservative?

Cindy Sheehan's main target just might be Hillary Clinton and not W. The grieving mother of a fallen Iraqi soldier has stepped to the head of the line of the anti-war movement and she could be the face for this growing and passionate crowd. And the people behind her -- Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, Air America, et al -- realize that for every person who agrees with them, three people are repelled. Cindy is the face of this movement, which could break big.

Why is this bad for Hil? Easy: the anti-war left won't vote for another Washington candidate who supports the war. Liberating 25 million citizens from a brutal dictator and building a democracy in a region that only knows theocrats and dictators isn't worth the lives of US soldiers to these people. If this movement gains momentum, the next Democratic candidate had better be against the war from the beginning. Paging Dr. Dean.

Sheehan has incredible stamina. She has turned her grief into a megaphone against this president, but so far, the mainstream media's coverage has been fawning. She will have to either stand by or explain her remarks that her son died for Israel, OBL is an alleged terrorist, and the war in Afghanistan was a mistake too. If she loses the loony left-speak -- seriously, can anyone stand next to Michael Moore and not spout this paranoid nonsense? -- she could be the Martin Luther King Jr of the antiwar crowd. With a book tour, a glowing documentary, honorary Ivy League degrees and the money of Lefties, she could win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Instead of the man who liberated the Iraqis and tried to bring democracy to the oppressed.

Not Very Christian

It's been a pretty bookish summer, so far. I've knocked off John Updike's Marry Me, Alana Feurst's The Polish Officer, Elmore Leonard's Toshamingo Blues, as well as Gore Vidal's Julian and Henry James' Daisy Miller. The last two were startling. Julian was terrific though not nearly as great as I, Claudius but as the young emperor who tried to bring back Hellenism while his nation was in the throes of Christianity, he made some strong arguments for his faith. I've made a point of not reading James and I don't feel bad about my decision at all. After finishing Daisy Miller, however, I can't wait to go onto Washington Square and then onto Portrait of a Lady. I also have my sights on The Wings of a Dove because I loved the film version with a rather nekkid and racktacular Helena Bonham Carter. Man, I am so deep.

For the Birds

Nora and I checked out March of the Penguins and had a nice time yesterday. Didn't love it but liked it enough. Some of the shots were gorgeous and I kept seeing the closeups of the emperor penguins in my dreams last night. It's amazing that this movie is the sleeper hit of the summer and is beating out flops like The Island, Bewitched and the Jessica Simpson Daisy Dukes film. Although the music and photography are fine enough, Penguins feels like a well-made documentary that would play in the multimedia room of a big city aquarium. You can imagine it playing on monitors while kids run from bench to bench and tired mothers change diapers and nurse their newborns.

After the movie I bought Nora a $4 slurpee and asked her what she thought of the movie.

"Short," she said.

That's my girl.

The Updike Summer Book: Marry Me

Every summer I read a novel or short story collection from John Updike. A new work usually appears in the fall so it's always nice to have a novel I haven't read for a decade back in my hands. I chose Marry Me, his romance from 1976, the year he married his second wife, I believe. This is a virtual companion piece to Couples, his sprawling book about affairs in tiny Tarbox. While Couples needed a scorecard to keep track of the, well, couples, Marry Me has only four people, Jerry sleeping with Sally while married to Ruth who has a brittle affair with Sally's Richard. Got that? It's set in 1962 but the people seem oddly ahead of our generation of adults. They sat down, hashed out the affair over drinks, went to partiesm etc. Today, there would be slashed tires, threatening emails and "no she didn'ts" yelled at the top of their lungs.

I've reread Couples, A Month of Sundays, The Centaur and the novel that actually improved the second time, the brilliant Rabbit Is Rich. Like that installment, Marry Me held up even better than the first time I read it.

On deck: Gore Vidal's Julian, Anne Tyler's When We Were Married, and James Salter's Light Years.

Matthew, On a Tear

It's been a good few weeks with Matthew, the four-year old master of his universe. His therapies are going nicely and he is responding more and more lately. He categorized some cards in a different colors and he is repeating more words. This morning he called me Dada to my face -- this might be the first time in more than a year that I heard this. Words cannot describe how much I missed that. Yesterday, he called Regina 'Mommy' when she asked him if he wanted to play downstairs. I may be supersitious but I woneder if this has to do with his diet. Getting an autistic child to eat anything substantial is a chore and he only likes chicken in the form of Wendy's chicken nuggets and from the local Chinese place. Everytime we have one of these boosts in word skills, it seems to coincide when he is enjoying protein. I'll never forget the week he ate scrambled eggs for an entire week -- it felt like he added a dozen new words to his language list.

Tim the one year-old is happy to prove that he is more like his older sister Nora than the Mighty Matthew. He can say dada, mama, baba for bottle and hi, which he does with a wave. Oh, and he clearly knows the meaning of the word No, especially when he hits he offswtich on the power strip for the TV. So far, he big trouble in a little package.

More Chainsaw Guitars, Please

Bob Mould is back with a new album Body of Song and he brought his guitars with him. I haven't bought a Mould record in ages and I always meant to pick up his electronica album although friends warned me off. Even in his so-so records, there's still some great fret work and plenty of painful lyrics for the morbid English major in me. Body of Song marries his buzzsaw guitar with some tasteful bloops and beeps and the result is quite warm. If I had a convertible, I'd blast this entire record while driving up Route 9 and over the Bear Mountain Bridge with a kid in the baby seat.

And for such a notorious sourpuss, Mould sounds happy these days. The titles aren't as dour as those from Beaster or Hubcap, and he has done a ton of radio interviews where he sounds like he's in a good space: out, happy, creative, and at peace with his place in rock history. Get Body of Song, play it loud.

And checkout his Boblog and also this killer interview on Minnesota Public Radio. Your computer's sub-woofers will appreciate the workout.

Growing On Me

The Will Farrell epic Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is all over HBO and it is growing on me. We rented it last fall and it was stupid and immediately forgettable. Now that I've seen it three times this weekend, it's becoming a better movie. Nora caught the anchorman rumble with cameos from Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller and a surprisingly un-annoying Tim Robbins. Wilson gets his arm lopped off in a fight and now Nora says, "Man, I didn't see that coming." It's good for a goof.

Mr. Roberts

Nothing to add to the commentary but isn't it funny that Bush's bold, thinking-outside-the box-choice was a 50-year old white guy?

He'll be approved with minimal fuss, if the Rove-hungry Dems are smart. Oh, and I love this picture. Man, have I been there, except for the President nominating me on TV and all.

London

It's been more than one week since the wave of bombings in London. I saw the reports on TV while dressing for work that morning and I immediately hoped that no one in the London office was hurt. When I made it into the office, the quiet and stillness was like a brick wall. Right, I thought, this could be very bad. I opened my e-mail and saw a message from the HR director in our London headquarters stating not to panic and all Incisive Media staffers were safe and accounted for. I then tried to call my co-worker, who was out that day but the lines were down. It was like the first week when I started at RiskWaters after 9/11: the sad blanket that covered us all. Thankfully, my reporter was safe and sound.

News reports now say that the bombers were not only suicides but were British-born. London is now the first European city to be the victim of suicide bombers. We can only hope that this does not become a trend there, here or anywhere else.

No Drama Queens

The press and the Libs want to get Karl Rove so bad that they are starting to get sloppy. Recently, NY Senator Chuck Schumer held a press conference attacking Rove and the White House for the leaking of Valerie Plame's name to the press. So far, so goo. The Dems are keeping the message clear and uncluttered. In other words, no John Kerry droning. But then Joe Wilson, Plame's blow-dried husband, took the podium to demand Rove's resignation. Uh boy. I hate this guy and Tucker Carlson nailed it when he called Wilson a drama queen.

If the Dems want to fail -- like they always seem to want to do -- they will keep Wilson on-camera yammering away about himself and his wife. Remember: This is not about them, although it kinda is. This is about the leaking on a CIA agent's identity for political payback. Keep the self-aggrandizing Wilson away from the cameras because he elicits no sympathy and wins no friends in the undecided column. He loves his victimhood too much to make things easy for the Dems.

Mickey Kaus, my favorite skeptic, asks one important question: Is Wilson partly to blame for his wife's outing? If you're married to a spook, should you accept an assignment to go to Africa and then blab about it in a New York Times Op Ed piece? The sooner the Dems realize that Wilson is a D lsit celebutante -- his memior is 528 pages long! -- and keep their message simple, the better.

Rove revealed the name of a secret agent -- YES!
Rove revealed the name of a CIA agent who was married to that whiny guy who loves to have his picture taken in Vanity Fair and goes on The Daily Show and Meet the Press and ...

Judith Miller in Chained Heat

This is a rude question to ask but is Judith Miller an ass? The reporter for the New York Times is going to jail - Jail! The big house. The stony lonesome -- to protect a source that she never called and never wrote about! It's pretty clear that the source is a member of the Bush White House -- my guess is Scooter Libby, the chief of staff for the vice president -- and this person tried to kill two birds with one stone: Take down whiny diplomatic asswipe Joe Wilson and someone from the media elite. And after all the heavy-lifting she did for the WMDs-littering-Iraq stories she wrote before the war.

Judy, Judy, Judy: liberal reporters hate you and conservatives all know you were set up. Speak, already!

If that weren't enough, "secret" agent Valerie Plame looks none-the-worse-for wear in the pages of Vanity Fair and at a recent book signing in Georgetown. I hope Plame and Wilson's smiles warm you during shower time.

Not On My Watch

A good if somber speech from the president last night from Fort Bragg. If you told George W. Bush on the deck of the aircraft carrier two years ago that he would have to convince his fellow Americans that the war is still – still! – worth fighting, he and his staff would be dumbfounded. Still, it was impressive when Bush ticked off the countries from which the insurgents are flowing: Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. If only this president could bring down the boot on the Saudis to clean up their backyard or lose their pampered status but this is the tragic blind spot of this president. Although there is good news in Iraq, the carnage from the insurgency drowns it out. One part of the speech struck a wrong note: for some reason, I hate when politicians give out web site addresses. It seems jarring and not very presidential. And why does the America Supports You Web site seem like a Band-Aid on a major chest wound? Does this administration think that we need more yellow ribbons on the back of SUVs? Clearly, we need more troops, better armor, a secure Iraqi border and some better PR. And don’t forget luck.

Run, Katie, Run

Attention all People, US magazine and In Touch staffers: don't make any vacation plans for the last weekend of the summer.

With a psycho-boyfriend melting down before our very eyes, Katie Holmes is going to cancel her engagement to Tom Cruise and head for the hills. The bug-eyed Runaway Bride from Georgia can breathe easy as every tabloid and infotainment show calls the overwhelmed actress the New Runaway Bride when she comes to her senses and flees for her life. Her publicist will announce that the engagement is off on the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend and although Katie and Tom remain friends, she is enjoying some quiet time in the Rain Forest or serving as a medic in Iraq.

You have been warned: Labor Day weekend. Get those photographers and cheesy headlines ready.

Must-Watch Character: Drama

There are quite a few pleasures on HBO's feather-light sitcom Entourage. Along with a never-ending parade of lithe LA beauties, Jeremy Piven's Raptor-like agent Ari, there is Kevin Dillon's Drama. Dillon plays the older and slightly more experienced actor brother to the main star's Vincent. Drama came to Hollywood sooner, landed some roles on a grade-C cop show and is now struggling to find work and not appear to glom off his red-hot younger brother. You can see the frustration and the sheer desperation in his eyes, his walk and hear it in his voice as he tries to revive a mediocre career that might be replaced with a new job that could easily be titled "trim coordinator." He is desperate and charming: during one episode he was convinced he wasn't getting roles because he has skinny calves. For the rest of the show, he checks out every waiter/surfer/gym trainer for their leg muscles.

Kevin Dillon's Drama. Funny and one character that makes me smile when he walks on screen. Check out Heaven Help Us from a billion years ago to see this guy in action.

Game Rover

Did Karl Rove play the Senate and House Dems like a piano with his speech in NYC the other day? He told the conservative audience that while conservatives wanted action after 9/11, some liberals wanted to offer therapy, self-reflection and lay the blame with the US. A sweeping generalization but not without a grain of truth, all in all.

Senate and House Dems responded with indignant fury at the Bush Mastermind's remarks and demand Rove's resignation. In their outrage, they remind journalists and their constituents that they voted for the war on terror, the liberation of Iraq and their support for the men and women in uniform.

Brilliant, Karl.

Got Clipboard?

Scene: Lafayette Street on a sunny spring day at lunchtime.

Characters: Phil, co-worker Rob, Environmental Guy and Cute Environmental Gal both holding clipboards.

Action: Phil and Rob walk down Lafayette Street to buy some lunch. Nice, earnest-looking Environmental Guy holding clipboard asks about our concerns for the environment.

Phil: I HATE the environment. Pave it right now.

Environment Guy: (Laughs and lets Phil and Rob pass by).

Phil and Rob buy their lunches at separate stores and Phil returns to the office alone.

Cute Environmental Gal: (Pointing to Environmental logo on her chest) Hi, can I ask you to --

Phil: Sorry, baby. I say pave the environment.

Cute Environmental Girl looks at Environmental Guy in disbelief.

Environmental Guy: That's the guy.

Now with More Gay Banter!

I have a gay co-worker who believed that after the 2004 election, he was a marked man. Chalk it up to a close race and disappointing results for his column, but he was genuinely scared for himself and all gays everywhere.

I have no fears for gays. If you compare the current state of gay-rights affairs with American history, this is 1962. Back then, it was a few months before Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today, the religious right is working hard and fast because it realizes that time is not on their side. Older Americans with a distaste for gay rights are growing older and dying off while younger and more tolerant Americans, who have lived with the notion of gay rights, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Tom Cruise/Ricky Martin/Ellen Degeneres/Al Franken are no longer shocked by the sex lives of their fellow Americans. The Christian Right fully recognizes that the party is almost over.

Case in point: I read a workbook to my daughter during Black History Month about Rosa Parks. When I read the passage that black people weren't allowed to sit next to whites, Nora's face crinkled in disbelief. It made no sense to her at all.

In 10 years, the anti-gay rights foes will be geezers in their wheelchairs complaining about the air conditioning and the loud music in the nursing home. Trust me on this.

Can This -- or Any -- Marriage Be Saved?

The New York Times Magazine had an interesting and respectful profile of Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. If the same magazine ran this piece two years ago, he would have been photographed with the standard greenish, up-from-the-swamp lights the art directors usually reserve for religious, red state conservatives, that the same magazine has used in the past. I still remember one profile of a religious midwestern family the magazine profiled a decade ago -- the photographer shot them like freakish cadavers in a Diane Arbus portfolio.

One passage of the profile struck me of the Catholic senator. The author asked him about if his marriage was threatened by gay marriage and he immediately answered "yes." I was disappointed when then the reporter didn't use a simple follow-up question: why?

Why is Santorum's marriage and my marriage, for that matter, threatened if a gay couple are also joined in wedlock? Why? How is my 13-year union in any way diminished?

Perhaps it's because a club becomes less exclusive when anyone can join, but I am not so sure. I think marriage is a civilizing and settling institution and whether or not two men or two women get married, who the hell cares?

On the other extreme, I feel a couple who live together and have kids without getting married is far more destructive to my family and community than Steve and Jerry who might want to live next to us. The couple who shack up are far-more destructive to my family's sense of marriage, commitment and love than a pair of female gym teachers.

Now that that's settled, the pro-gay marriage folks have to answer one question: If gay men and women can marry, then why can't I marry another woman or my sister or my first cousin?

Two questions to think about...

Let's Get Clinical

Is a movie any good if you would rather watch it again with the sound off? We saw Kinsey last night and although it was quite good, I can't wait to re-watch it with the director's comments on. Liam Neeson and Laura Linney are quite good as Prock and Mac, the married couple who helped shepard post-war America into the sexual revolution. Some conservatives complained that the film didn't make any value judgments on Kinsey's research into sex offenders but the scene with William Sadler as a spectacularly repellant subject nailed it for me. Writer/director Bill Condon also helmed Gods and Monsters, a wonderful picture of 1950s Hollywood through the eyes of the director of The Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man. Condon reminds me of Paul Schrader in that he creates these little worlds that we think we know and then shines a light on the people inside. Definitely check out Kinsey for the smart direction, Frederick Elmes' stirring cinematography, and the stellar performances from Neeson, Linney, Peter Sarsgaard, and a priggish John Lithgow, who sounds like a methodist Foghorn Leghorn. And keep an eye out for recovering actor Chris O'Connell and Tim Hutton, who borrows Sean Penn's mustache from The Falcon and the Snowman.

Armageddon Impatient

It looks like there might be a compromise in the Republican threat of using the nuclear option when it comes to the Senate filibuster. Damn those moderate Republicans and sane Democrats. They are hatching a plan where Dems will approve a vote for some conservative judges if the Republicans promise not to us the NucOp every again. What's going on, people? Shut the Senate down!

The only people who would notice a Senate-free country would be Chris Matthews, the senators themselves, and the liberals who think that the government needs to grow. (I am including the Bush White House in this group, who will go down in history as Big Government Conservatives.)

With the Senate shut down, the member of this august body (Ha!) will be free to explain why this move is such a sad day for the nation. But life will go on, people will wake up and go to work, movies will arrive and leave our local multiplexes, days will pass into months and no one will really notice. If there is another attack on US soil or the Social Security checks stop coming, the senators will have some hard questions to answer. They will have to explain why the Democrats fought to keep the rules as is (sounds conservative, no?), while the Republicans sought to bend the rules in their favor (a liberal notion, donchya think?).

If the senate shuts down in the summer, does it really matter?

More Die of Heartbreak

Saul Bellow passed away today at the age of 89. The dean of American letters, followed by John Updike and Philip Roth, wrote some of the best post-war fiction but I seem to have only read his minor works. I've read his two early works The Victim and Dangling Man, which he says helped him to write his masterpiece The Adventures of Augie March. I hate to admit that I've only read about one-seventh of that book and it's on my To Read list, alongside Moby Dick and Madame Bovary. I read and enjoyed Herzog and wondered what the fuss was about Humboldt's Gift. Frankly, I enjoyed the sterile The Dean's December, which I read in a cramped Book of the Month Club edition with a small type on lousy paper, and the bitter Mr. Sammler's Planet than the exhausting and pointless Humboldt.

Oddly, one of the Bellow books I truly enjoyed was More Die of Heartbreak, which I read as a lifeguard at a retirement community and was the first book that signaled that the writer was growing old and his powers might be fading. I still remember passages and bits of dialogue. I loved the scene where the botanist who marries into a wealthy family realizes that his wife might not be the perfect match when he admires a plant that always sat beside her in their grand dining room and discovers that it is plastic. Nice.

I have read a good portion of Augie March but I remember Martin Amis' introduction where he advises the reader to stop looking for the Great American Novel -- this is it, he says. I'll read it and also finish the last hundred pages of Henderson the Rain King -- I think I read that Jack Nicholson was once set to play the violinist/pig farmer who goes to Africa to find his calling -- to complete my Bellow chase. I also have to re-read Herzog but if I return to More Die, I am almost certain it won't live up to my original enjoyment. Books are like flowers that way -- walk away and the petals fall.

I read the NY Times obituary and they didn't mention Bellow's work to champion William Kennedy. Legend has it that Bellow liked the Albany novelist's books and demanded that his publisher buy and distribute Kennedy's most recent work about a bum who tries to confront his ghosts in a lousy working-class city north of Manhattan. The book was Ironweed.

Saul Bellow is dead. John Updike and Philip Roth have just moved up a wrung.

A 600-Foot Tunnel?

If the Holy See had not passed away this weekend, I can not think how the recent attack on the notorious Abu Ghraib prison would not be at the top of the news hour. Now, the headline in the New York Times is "Second Attack On Iraq Prison in 48 Hours." This time, a tractor driver blew himself up and wounded half a dozen Iraqi civilians. This follows a well-coordinated and very ballsy attack on the prison known for torture by the hands of unsupervised US soldiers and over-eager intelligence officers.

The details of the recent story are startling. "Last week, prison officials discovered two tunnels at Camp Bucca, one of them 600 feet long, dug by prisoners in a failed attempt to escape."

Either the insurgency needs to liberate a few prisoners for a much-needed infusion of talent or the prison itself has become synonymous with the hatred at the American occupation and its attempts to create a democratic Iraq. Either way, it's clear that the prison is a true hotspot and needs help. I hope someone at the Pentagon is ramping up the security.

Happy Jo Moore Day

If you're a business executive or a government official with bad news to deliver, I'd wait until Friday. With the entire news media focusing on Rome for the Pope's funeral, you might not get a chance to release and bury any bad news until, oh, when a new pope is chosen in a few weeks! Mickey Kaus of Slate calls it Jo Moore Day, after the British official who sent out an e-mail on September 11, 2001 suggesting that the tragic day would be a fine time to release any bad news. Poor kids not getting their free breakfasts? Utility companies dumping toxins into the river? More unchecked illegal aliens in the country than ever before? Release those pesky reports on a bad or busy news day and your front page story will be reduced to a few paragraphs in the next day's weekend edition. We all read the Saturday paper, don't we?

Kaus says Sandy "These documents would look nice in my boxers" Burger knew what he was doing when he plea-bargained on Friday.

Pope John Paul II

I remember back in 1979 when the Vatican announced that an unknown cleric from Poland would be the next Pope. It was odd because we had just named a new Pope a month before. I even remember joking with my eighth grade friends about the new one that was in the process of being elected. He better outlast the last one. Maybe two months, we said. Later at mass, I remember the young hotshot priest of the church reading some one-liners delivered by the new Pontiff to his adoring crowd. The attendees of the five o'clock mass in St. Joseph's chuckled at the mild jokes of the new Pope. Maybe he'll be special, I remember my mom telling me. She was amazed that a non-Italian was now the leader of the church, the first one in more than four hundred years. Now the talk is the new Pontiff will be either an Italian or an African in order to shore up the church's base. I still think we might see a cardinal nominated from South America because that seems to be the real strength of the faith. This will be an interesting few weeks.

Life Serial

It's been an exhausting week in this "culture of life." A woman in Florida who has lived in a vegatative state for more than a decade and a half survived thirteen days without food and water. Similarly, a priest in Rome is living out his final hours after enduring Parkinson's, a tracheotomy, kidney failure and the lingering effects of an assassin's bullets. People have an amazing capacity to hang on and to fight for life. Throughout the entire Terry Schiavo debate, I wondered what would be the harm in allowing her to be fed and cared for by her family. Her husband reported that she said that she would not want to be kept in this condition but according to a few press reports, he shared this confession years after her condition became clear. Would erring on the side of life be that awful?

And now the Pope. Those close to the holy father said he wanted to show the dignity of suffering and surrendering oneself to Christ. Fine. Catholic leaders lead by example. They have to be better, stronger, wiser and more devout than the rest of us. That is their role. And I found it oddly moving to see the Pope -- a man who recognized the evils of communism alongside Reagan and Thatcher -- submitting himself to God's brutal plan.

It's been an exhausting few weeks and death has been busy. All we can do is pray and look forward to spring. Life marches on.

The Pie of the Beholder

Good for William Kristol. The editor of The Weekly Standard was speaking at Earlham College when a student walked on stage and pelted him in the face with an ice cream pie. According to the press reports, Kristol wiped his face, walked back to the microphone and said "Just let me finish this point" to a round of applause. And good for the members of the audience that jeered the pie thrower, a fellow student at the Quaker college, and good for one of the questioners who, though he didn’t agree with Kristol’s neocon views, apologized for his fellow student’s thuggish behavior.

I guess we should be surprised but this episode proves something I’ve felt for a while: the left hates debate. Like extreme members of the right, the anti-Bush left hates opposing views and feels so threatened that they often adopt the tactics of the enemy they despise. Maybe it’s the campus echo chamber where liberal views are the norm and any hint of an opposing idea is poison. It has to be especially confusing and infuriating when the Bush Doctrine -- democracy good, dictators bad -- is working and gaining traction on the Middle East.

When the topic turns to Bush, their minds and judgment shuts down. For a smart bunch of folks, they are quick to equate a pre-emptive war against a brutal dictator with the fascists who shoveled six million Jews, gays, gypsies and physical and mental defectives into the ovens in the 1940s. Nazi is the new “N” word. The 26 million Iraqis who can now choose their own government? It doesn’t hold a match to the dozens of prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib. Libya, Syria and Egypt promising to get their houses in order and adopt more democratic measure? It doesn’t mean a thing unless Germany and France are on board.

Just like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, the left is reduced to watching history happen without them. No wonder they’re frustrated.