Spies like us

Finished Journey Into Fear after putting it down for a few weeks. This tight little thriller truly gathered steam in the second half and I should have stuck with it. Eric Ambler has a high rep as an espionage writer but he should be taught as a prose stylist. There is no flab to his writing whatsoever. Instead of assigning some navel-gazing novel to writing students, they should read one of his between war noirs and learn what can be coneyed in as few sentences as possible. No wonder modern day Alan Furst reveres the man, even mre than the more-respected and mainstream John Le Carre. By all means, read Journey and then pick up Epitaph for a Spy and A Coffin for Dimitrios.

Surge protector

Despite a so-so performance from Gen. David Petraeus, you have to wonder if he even had to testify. He didn't exactly sell the war to Congress this week but the Democrats do not have the votes to bring the troops home. The best they can do is to vote cut funding and there is no way they will ever do that, even if the mouth-breathers from The Daily KOS and MoveOn.org are screaming for a complete retreat. A vote to cut the funding would damage the Democratic party for a generation.

Bush's midweek address was muted and bluster-free. He is clearly talking about success and not victory these days and that may be the best we can hope for. His speechwiters have clearly wised up. Even with Petreaus' inability to convince Congress that the surge is working and America is safer, the preseident started the week with a gift. MoveOn.org paid for a full-page ad in The New York Times with a headline accusing the general of betraying the nation. Ah, red meat for the pro-war right, right on time. Nicely done, MoveOn-ers. Well played. Even John Kerry couldn't endorse this tripe.

Bush in Iraq and failure on the left

Okay, I like it when President Bush visits the troops in Iraq. I know that everyone thinks that these visits are a publicity stunts and hollow photo-ops and this is the closest he ever got to dangerous military service, but it works for me. Sue me. When he visited the troops years back on Thanksgiving, some lefty critics said he was photographed holding a plastic turkey. Of course, of course. The entire visit was as fake as that synthetic fowl because this is a phony war. Even the smiles are staged, maaaaaaaan. Whatever.

I am awaiting Gen Petreaus's report to Congress on September 11th about the success of the Surge. I bet he'll say that it has worked in some areas that show real improvement yet Iraq remains a dangerous and unstable place. He will ask for more time for the surge and some on the Left will bellow for his head. How can there be improvements if all the news is bad? Admitting any improvements might mean that the surge is working and that they just might be wrong in the long run.

The failure of democracy in Iraq and with it the entire Bush Doctrine is their gospel now. Failure is their only goal.

Owen, Owen, Owen

It's been a summer of some spectacular celeb meltdowns from Paris in Jail, Britney Goes White Trash, Yo and Lindsay Cokes Up and Crashes Her Car. All very entertaining and so far harmless -- of the three 'ladies' only Lindsay has any talent but has she done anything interesting since Mean Girls? Paris and Britney will go on and on, I am sure, but Lohan actually has to be insurable for a movie to get financing. Robert Downey Jr is a much better bet than LaLohan these days. .

But Amy Winehouse and Owen Wilson? Talk about a pair of despair. Winehouse is the smoky popstress with the ratty beehive and her slo-mo decline just sad because she has a nice set of pipes. Despite a killer record with a nice single -- Rehab -- she seems hellbent on the coke/heroin diet that has turned her into a cadaver recently. I saw one pic of her from a year or two back when she had some weight on her frame and she looked terrific. Rocking, even. Now, she is stick-thin, covered in bruises and looking like she is trying to fit into a balso wood coffin.

Then came word last week that the Golden Guy from the new wave of funny guys tried to commit suicide because of heroin use and depression. This one is just baffling. Wilson seemed smart enough to know that this is all a game and he was the master at it. He made funny movies that made people smile and when he entered a scene onscreen, he was Mr Good Time. Now, it's going to be hard to watch The Wedding Crasher, Zoolander or even watchable dreck like Starsky and Hutch without thinking this guy wanted to off himself when he was on top.

Amy and Owen, come back. It's not that bad, dammit.

I hate when that happens

So you're driving to the local convenience store while on a camping trip and a group of Amish girls kidnap you and throw you in the back of their horse-drawn buggy. It's one damned thing after another.

History Boys

A charming little movie based on the play by Alan Bennett. A class of young men are taught by a pair of teachers thanks to schoolmaster's best attempt to get them into Oxford or Cambridge. One teacher is a beloved classics professor who recites yards of poetry, prose, lines from films and snippets of song. He is a fat letch but the kids all have his number. He is teaching something to love -- history and the English language. A new, much younger prof is hired to help the boys enter college at any cost. He urges them to think differently and to take the opposite tack in an argument. A useful skill to have but he doesn't care if the students have any passion for th topic or if their new position is wrong or even offensive. In fact, the more jarring the opinion, the better. Who cares if it's wrong to argue about the evil in the Holocaust, just make the argument to get the grade.

Despite being about 10 minutes too long, the movie still works. Although I wish that I had seen the play. I was in London last year and it would have been the highlight of my trip but sadly, the film had already been made. Maybe we can see the revival on Broadway one day.

Who knows, maybe it's playing in English in Frankfurt. I'm going for a few days at the end of the month. Yeesh.

Reminding ourselves to remember

An interesting article in today's NY Times about the upcoming anniversary of 9/11. What is the right way to remember that day, the reporter wonders and asks a few people. One person thinks the ceremonies of reading the names is overdone and says he finds the grief exhausting. A woman who lost her firefighter brother in the attacks says that six years since the event has ben a 'blink of an eye' for her and her family. I can sympathize with both people. The event has become smaller for people and the politics surrounding it has only diminished the event. Some see it as a reason for getting the country into a misguided and mismanaged war. Some even share theories that the attacks were known about in high circles if not planned from the Oval Office. (That this is the same administration that couldn't send ice or water to New Orleans two years ago escapes these eager theorists).

My company lost 16 people on that day. Last year, I was frankly surprised that there was no mention from the managers in New York whatsoever about the day and the people we had lost. We did hear about a moment of silence at the London office but nothing from the managers in New York. Odd, even a bit chilling but I can understand -- for the two senior managers at the time, the events of that day were too close.

Maybe I'll donate money to honor those who were lost. Perhaps I'll have the guts to thank the policemen and women for protecting me and my commuters in Grand Central every morning. I do know I won't forget that day. Even now, when I see a perfectly blue sky on a day of wonderful weather, I still think about that morning when three thousand Americans died in 90 minutes. That will be my tribute always.