Word of the day: Rowdy-sheeter

I ran across this word in a news article posted on Bangalore Buzz, a news aggregator that has been an invaluable resource for me as I research Bangalore for a novel. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The murder of Palani, 40, a rowdysheeter, while undergoing treatment at HOSMAT hospital is the latest in a chain of events that began some years back.

Most gang-wars began due to turf control of cable operations.

According to police, the gang wars started following the murder of Rahim Ali, a rowdy-sheeter and a cable operator in Fraser Town police station limits a few years ago, and still continue in Viveknagar, Girinagar and Banashankari.

Rahim Ali was murdered by a gang on contract given allegedly by D D Ravi and his brother Umashankar over cable operations....

Notice the two different spellings: rowdysheeter and rowdy-sheeter. And entry for the first usage points to this entry for the second, hyphenated use of the word, which it defines as "a person with a criminal record; a hardened criminal."

I still don't know what "cable operations" refers to.

Bangalore, words, slang, Indian English

OMFG Barry Bonds in drag OMFG

Starting their spring training experience off with a bang, the Giants put on a satire of "American Idol," and playing the part of Paula Abdul was Barry Bonds in full drag. Priceless pictures.

Now a quiz:

With this episode, who or what phenomenon has jumped the shark?
A. The game of baseball
B. The "American Idol" phenomenon
C. Paula Abdul as a celebrity
D. Barry Bonds as a Vant-To-Be-Alone diva
E. Drag as a phenomenon
F. Brokeback Mountain

Barry Bonds, American Idol, drag

What are you working on? : Sage Vivant

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers talking about their current projects: Sage Vivant, whose nonfiction book Your Erotic Personality is based on years of work writing erotic stories on order by private clients.

writers, Sage Vivant,erotica writers

Frederick Busch

While many blogs are noting the death of sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, I mourn the passing of novelist Frederick Busch, whose 1996 novel Girls I really liked.

Focus on the Fundies: Sen. Sam Brownback

Jeff Sharlett interviews Sen. Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.), a possible candidate for president in 2008 on the Republican far right. The article (a "rough draft" of his recent Rolling Stone piece) is hard to excerpt, but the impression one gets is that of a sincere, very religious crypto-fascist.

One day, the man who came up with Bill Frist's plan for a "nuclear option" with which to blast away Democratic resistance to right-wing judges stops by (Brownback's Senate office). He's there on behalf of the NFL. I'm invited into the meeting, but I can't tell you what the NFL wants, because it's a secret. Then there's an archbishop from the Sudan, a reasonable and wise man, but the conversation turns strange when Brownback's staff starts sifting language, talking about planes that fly by night, if you know what I mean, which would be something, because I don't. Well, I eventually found out, actually, but again, I can't tell you -- it's a secret.

Just like most of what's said by the ambassador to the Vatican from a certain foreign nation who has been brought around by a Christian conservative lobbyist to talk about "religious liberty." ...

At the end of the article, Sharlett notes lobbyists and constituents alike have to pay a minimum of $2000 just to talk to their senator, but Brownback doesn't take the checks himself; a staff handles it all with discretion, freeing Brownback himself to wax sentimental:

One night he calls me around 10:30, for a literal heart-to-heart. It's been a long day for the senator, what with the Alito hearings, but there are some thoughts he wants to share. About hearts. He never has to wonder what God wants for the nation, because God has already written the answer on Brownback's central organ. Mine, too, and yours also. "Everybody has a good heart," he says, by which he means that everybody has an inner fundamentalist, waiting to come out and embrace "moral values."

Sharlett's RS piece is more explicit:

In (Brownback's) dream America -- the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise -- the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all.

Jeff Sharlett, Revealer, Sam Brownback, Republicans, fundamentalists

No Mars bars, either

After blogging four weeks ago about a NASA bedrest study -- they put people FOB for 90 days to see how astronauts might react to long spaceflights -- I got comments from someone who's actually in the study. Her blog, Stardustholiday, features posts about the meals and the annoying sound of another subject's constant TV noise (somehow I don't think that's going to be a problem on interplanetary flights) and a countdown clock that says it's 76 days until she can get up.

And no, to answer my question, they don't give them Mars bars.

NASA, bedrest study, research studies, Mars

Early books

I'll just let the Guardian's own subhead do the work: "Alaa al-Aswany is a successful Cairo dentist -- and a bestselling writer. Now his blockbuster novel The Yacoubian Building, which strikes at the political corruption and moral hypocrisy of today's Egypt, has been made into an acclaimed film." Interview by Rory McCarthy.

Picked almost at random, but sounds really cool anyway: White Ghost Girls, about Hong Kong teen sisters in 1967. Sounds a bit forced, with the girls kidnapped by Maoists at one point, but I'm still entraced by the idea of a book written about Hong Kong teenagers in 1967. Author Alice Greenway will read, with bestselling author Kiran Desai, in Seattle this week: Elliott Bay Books, 101 S. Main, at 7:30 pm Wednesday.

Jhumpa Lahiri on dual cultural identity

In a special issue of Newsweek on modern India, author Jhumpa Lahiri writes about "her two lives":

According to my parents I was not American, nor would I ever be no matter how hard I tried. I felt doomed by their pronouncement, misunderstood and gradually defiant. In spite of the first lessons of arithmetic, one plus one did not equal two but zero, my conflicting selves always canceling each other out.

Lahiri's most recent novel The Namesake continues selling well in hardback; it was number 594 today, 17 months after its release.

Sex Pistols to Rock and Roll Hall: Fuck Off

Told they had been chosen to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Sex Pistols (or whoever or whatever is standing for them these days) replied in a manner befitting their punk image:

Next to the SEX PISTOLS[,] rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain.

Link courtesy Huff Post. Of course, the Sex Pistols themselves were pretty much a put-up job, but despite their Monkees-like provenance*, they did manage to influence a generation. See the Wikipedia entry for a picture of an Aug. 29, (1976?) poster for a gig featuring the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Buzzcocks. Wow.

*From the Wikipedia entry:

Under McLaren's guidance, the band was initially influenced in part by the simple, chord-based style of The New York Dolls and The Ramones. McLaren had given guitarist Jones the Les Paul guitar used by NY Doll Sylvain Sylvain, and the torn-shirt, spiked-hair look of Richard Hell, then bass player for Television. All of these figures were pioneers of the New York City punk, and later new wave music, scene. Rotten and his circle of friends (coincidentally all also called John) walked into the arrangement already possessed of a similar style -- a grunged-out version of the 'soul boy' fashion affected by fans of Roxy Music. McLaren also claimed that he wanted the Sex Pistols to be "the new Bay City Rollers".

The new Bay City Rollers. Heh. This BBC page says of the Rollers -- tongue planted firmy in stiff upper lip -- "We will never see their like again."

Sex Pistols, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,Bay City Rollers, punk,rock music

What are you working on? : memoirist and novelist Anne Mini

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers talking about their current projects, Anne Mini, whose memoir of growing up as the daughter of Philip K. Dick's second wife has been held up by the Dick family estate.

writers, Philip K. Dick,Anne Mini, memoirs

Fan appreciation day

Galleycat posts from the New York Comic-Con, with excellent pictures and news of the state of the industry. Among the artifacts are a Danish flag being signed by famous artists to raise money for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund -- something to do with those now-infamous cartoons. (They're just cartoons, people. Lighten up.)

A California "artist" who promised to give away ten-dollar bills to passersby "got spooked at the size of the crowd" and fled, leaving a lot of angry poor people.

"This is messed up," said Brian Boykin, who said he was going to use his money for a hot meal. "That whole time we sat listening to him, thinking we would get money -- and then nothing."

Barry Bonds showed up at spring training a few days ago a year older and no lighter, but he can still swing the bat, and that's all that counts for some people.

Finally, courtesy Michele Richmond's Sans Serif, the news that Laura Albert will continue writing as JT LeRoy, with Last Gasp to publish "LeRoy's" latest book, to be titled Labour. There truly is no such thing as bad publicity.

Michelle Richmond, JT LeRoy,Barry Bonds, Comic-Con

Kate Braverman on warpath

Novelist Kate Braverman, whose memoir Frantic Transmissions To and From Los Angeles has just come out, visits her former home of Los Angeles tonight. The LA Times interviews her, including her rant about how unappreciated she is down there. (Link courtesy Publishers Lunch.) Read this interview on Bookslut and you'll get the true Braver flavor.

Kate Braverman, writers, Bookslut

Multiple universes

Quantum theories suggest the possibility of an infinite amount of simultaneously existing universes -- sure, that's old hat to Wesley Crusher. But this story in New Scientist suggests this might lead to sudden destruction of our -- "the" -- universe, or:

Or it could be more peaceful, where you're simply converted into somebody who remembers stuff from the large world.

I'll take the latter possibility.

The article goes on to say that the scientist quoted, Robin Hanson of George Mason University, "has not worked out exactly what happens."

In other science news, researchers report sex with another person is 400% better than sex with yourself. Hmm, I think a lot of people would say "That depends."

It's Bad Behavior Friday™!

Police in the depraved region of Clear Lake, Texas were searching this week for a missing Pentecostal pastor and a 14-year-old girl who were each seen in their respective beds 9 miles apart. Nine miles is nothing down there in the Houston suburbs; you barely get your air conditioning cranked up before you get nine miles.

SFist has a nice story about a stupid criminal who messed up the address he was sending his marijuana to, but carefully wrote his own return address on the package, making it easy for police to hunt him down like ... well, I would say a dog, but dogs are smarter than that.

In a continuing story of fraud and fakery in SF, four people were indicted yesterday in a strange case that involved fake clinics billing medicare for fake treatments, mostly to poor immigrants. This is different from the case of the phony doctor who gave fake exams to immigrants as part of their green card application process, a story that broke late last week.

And in New York, everyone is agog over the body parts theft case in which a dentist masterminded a four-year scheme to steal bone marrow from corpses and replace the missing bones with plastic piping. That's why I use the word "mastermind." You know what I wonder? Where'd the PVC pipe come from? Something tells me one of the plotters has a relative in hardware.

Gee, we got through a whole week without any new fake writers. But I'm still optimistic; it's only Friday morning.

Clear Lake, Texas, Bacliff, League City, fakes, frauds

Just another day in America ·

Here's the cover of the latest New Yorker -- thanks to Marilyn for pointing it out.

Funny, yes, but I thought it was also poignant because of another news story today: Last High-Profile Tiananmen Protestor Released After 16 Years. Some guy was jailed after throwing paint on a portrait of Mao in 1989; he is said to have gone insane after being tortured. More than 16 years later, he gets out, having spent nearly half his 38 years in a dungeon.

But in the U.S., we practically french-fried Cheney for shooting some guy in a hunting accident -- so much so that the victim apoligized to the guy who shot him! And God yes, it was fun.

Punishment for Yu Dongyue for spattering Mao's image with paint? 16 years of torture. Punishment for Jon Stewart for mocking our leaders? He gets to host the Oscars. Is this a great country or what?

The New Yorker was, of course, where Annie E. Proulx's short story Brokeback Mountain was originally published in, what, 1997. (The author discussed the story behind the story in the Advocate back in December.)

The current issue also has a new John Updike story, if you please.

New Yorker, Cheney, Annie E. Proulx, Yu Dongyue

Adventures in Photoshop, no. 4

Embarrassed Russian authorities quickly removed posters commemorating the country's Defender of the Motherland Day when someone realized the posters prominently featured a warship from the... uh, US Navy. Specifically, the USS Missouri, site of the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII and decommissioned in 1992. Notice the "63" painted on the bow and compare with this picture.

Want to see other images celebrating this holiday, also known as Army Day? Why you can send one as a postcard!

Lit up ·

Today's literary links:

From Slushpile, a link to What To Do When Your Book Is Getting Zero Publicity.

Galleycat reports, from the NY Post, that James Frey's book contract has been cancelled, as sales of A Million Little Pieces of Bullshit passed three million. I don't suppose that counts copies returned by readers who claimed they were hoodwinked. I saw a pony-tailed blonde straight girl reading a copy in a Starbuck's on Union St. the other day -- a fake blonde reading a fake memoir while drinking crappy coffee. But you expect that kind of thing on Union St., which is sort of like L.A. with jackets.

Miss Snark with good advice, as usual:

I'd pitch an agent over an editor any day of the week. First, if you have an agent, you won't need to know what an editor wants; your agent will know. An agent gets you access to editors, one editor does not get you access to an agent.

books, publishing, James Frey, Miss Snark,book publicity, Cow Hollow

The other red meat

Remember a few years ago when the Nat'l Cattleman's Beef Association ran those commercials featuring the slogan "Beef -- it's what's for dinner!" with visuals of hearty Americans enjoying hearty meals? They used as music "Hoe-Down" from Aaron Copland's "Rodeo," and I used to complain to Cris that a whole generation of Americans would now be thinking of that composition as "the beef music." (I Googled "copeland rodeo" and this was the top result -- a post from a guy who thought the same way. But that's only because I misspelled "Copland.")

Then today in the Leah Garchik column in today's SF Chronicle, this squib (bottom of column):

After Sunday's San Francisco Ballet performance of "Rodeo," Jeff Diver heard one woman tell another, "I liked the 'Brokeback' piece."

Yes, everything remotely related to cowboys is now immediately thought of as gay. This is an improvement, since anything remotely related to cowboys used to be a cigarette ad.

beef, cowboys, Brokeback Mountain, Aaron Copland, Rodeo, Leah Garchik

What are you working on? : novelist Vanessa Place

Just posted in my series of interviews with fascinating writers working on cool projects, novelist and criminal appeals lawyer Vanessa Place, whose previous work Dies, a Sentence was a 50,000-word single sentence, and whose current work centers on ekphrasis, writing "cohabiting" with visual art.

writers, Vanessa Place,oulipo

The Soy Luck Club

A 19-year-old Indian-American's breakthrough debut novel garnered a rumored half million dollar advance for a chick-lit book oriented (ha!) to young women who are westernizing as fast as they can. Of interest is the fact that the youth's original manuscript was "much darker" until "17th Street Productions, a so-called book packager that specializes in developing projects in young-adult and middle-grade fiction" such as Sweet Valley High, the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series, etc. got their hands on it. Check out their website and then, quick, brush your teeth.

Can you say "sellout"? On the other hand, can you say "all her student loans paid off and a nice down payment on an apartment in Manhattan"?

Miss understanding

Sometimes the kids at BoingBoing -- one of the best blogs ever, and source of almost endless amusement and inspiration -- get just a wee bit carried away. After someone sent in a photograph labelled MISS COMPUTER 1973 of a middle-aged woman in a 1970s-era data center, BoingBoinger Xeni J. published it with the plaintive headline "Miss Computer 1973 -- Who is she?"

After a failed guess that the woman was COBOL pioneer Grace Hopper, another reader suggested :

My guess is it is not MISS Computer as in a beautiful woman, but M.I.S.S. Computer as in a form of Materials Inventory Support System. The photo is of the computer system and the woman just happens to be standing there.

Oh... never mind! But let's give credit to the site for allowing the original misunderstanding to remain visible along with the clarification -- because without the misattribution, none of it would make sense anyway.

I guess it's all just wishful thinking. The world of IT was incredibly male-dominated in the 1970s and it would have been a miracle if they'd designated a middle-aged female brainiac as "Miss Computer." If they had chosen a "Miss Computer" at all -- and there were women in CS departments, if not very many -- it probably would have been some undergrad babe. Where are their photos? I want to see the real CS co-eds of 1973!

A sure sign of the apocalypse

Here's an article from the Houston Chronicle about... I still can't believe it... something original and cool happening in... [slaps forehead]... Houston!

A clandestine posse of female "Montrose hipsters" -- the Montrose being the only thing Houston has ever had like a hip neighborhood -- go on guerilla knitting expeditions. They knit sleeves around the trunks of trees. They knit little covers for car antennas. Wild!

That a man's speech should exceed his grasp, or what's a metaphor?

I do understand that every day over there is like walking up a mountain with bricks in your backpack, and when something starts the beasts not just growling but flinging themselves against their cages, I feel bad about that, and it's not a good day for him.

-- Mary Matalin quoted in yesterday's NYT on the trials and tribulations of being White House press sec'ty Scott McClellan

Being the press spokesman for an administration whose whole existence is based on lying and cheating? Yeah, that must suck. Being one of the reporters who has to deal with him? That must be worse.

Mary Matalin, Scott McClellan, mixed metaphors

What are you working on? : writer Doug Nufer

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers about their current projects, Seattle writer Doug Nufer, whose work takes after the Oulipo movement.

Doug Nufer, writers,Oulipo

Create in me a clean heart

Susan Henderson, who was kind enough to submit to my interview project, refers to me in her blog as a "gentle interviewer." Ha, she hasn't seen me drive. But if we take my mad driving out of the picture, and also grade on a curve the sarcastic comments I make in this blog (like calling the Vice Presidential shootee a "freakin' dope") I am sort of mild. Sometimes I wonder if my writing is the worse for it.

Anyway, she wants me to take part in one of those internet games of "tag" where you answer a series of questions. I am loathe to to spend too much time on that, but I would like to mention a bunch of my favorite books, which is one of the categories.

"Moving On" and "All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers" by Larry McMurtry
"The Age of Reason" by Jean-Paul Sartre
"The Thurber Carnival" by James Thurber
"My Mother: Demonology" by Kathy Acker
"Trout Fishing in America," "In Watermelon Sugar," and "Sombrero Fallout" by Richard Brautigan (a reviewer on Amazon.com remarks that the latter book prefigures the work of Haruki Murakami, and that's an excellent call)
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe
"The Wild Iris" by Louise Glück
"A Bend in the River" by V.S. Naipaul

That's just what comes to mind. I could go on, but you get the picture -- my tastes were formed in the 60s and 70s. You want something more current? How about Philip Roth's "American Pastoral"?

I'll let the other questions go for now; forgive me.

What are you working on? : writer Michelle Richmond

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers about their latest projects, Michelle Richmond, who is putting the finishing touches on a new novel.

She says, "The novel is, in large part, about memory, so I studied up on various theories of memory, how the brain stores and retrieves information, how that information may be lost and altered."

Michelle Richmond, writers,San Francisco writers

Scary straight girls

Galleycat published a bit about a book launch and ran a picture of five, count 'em, five straight-girl chick-lit novelists with fixed teeth and straight hair. The longer you look at that picture, the more it's like one of those logic puzzles:

The only one with a small rack is standing by the one with a headache.

The one with the biggest smile is also left-handed, and she's dressed the sluttiest.

Two of them are wearing green, and one of the green-wearing girls was the featured author.

And so on. Is it possible that they all have naturally straight hair? Ach.

Cheney shooting victim 'sorry for Cheney'

The guy Cheney shot left the hospital today, saying he was "deeply sorry" for all the pain Cheney had been through.

You read that right -- he feels sorry for Cheney!!

Further damaging his chances for a lawsuit against the Vice President, 78-year-old Harry Whittington said, "Accidents do and will happen and that's what happened. ... We all assume certain risks in what we do, in what activities we pursue."

Freakin' dope -- no wonder he got shot.

Whittingon, Cheney shooting

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! ·

You take your laughs where you can find them. Yesterday I hooted at Dear Abby because of the revelation that the Alzheimer's Association has little cards available which read:

The person with me has a disease called Alzheimer's or a related disease. Please be kind and understanding. Thank you.

Naturally I thought how fun it would be to carry those any time you go to dinner with your parents -- whether they have Alzheimer's or not.

And think of the variations. Imagine going on a date and handing your waiter a little card that says "The person I am with is an asshole who I'm going to break up with during dinner. Please serve him the stalest piece of Tiramisu you have. I will make sure you still get a good tip."

Or this: "The person I am dining with ran out on the check the last time we went to a restaurant. Please watch him like a hawk, and if he gets up 'to go to the bathroom,' follow him closely."

But the real joke in that Dear Abby was the person who wrote "I work as a server in an upscale restaurant..." and then signed her letter Nancy in Huntsville, Ala. I wonder what the "upscale restaurant" in Huntsville is like.

In Peshawar -- I'd rather eat at an upscale restaurant there -- a "cleric" issued a fatwa on irreverent Danish cartoonists, promising a $1 million bounty. You know what? I don't think they have a million dollars. And I love this sloppy use of the term "cleric" -- either the reporter can't be bothered to learn the man's title, or he doesn't think Western readers would understand it anyway. So, you know: a loud, bearded guy in a turban.

In Israel, cartoonists have launched a response to the Iranian cartoon response to the Danish cartoons. If you're keeping score at home, an Iranian newspaper two weeks ago decided to have a contest for Holocaust-mocking cartoons, apparently not understanding that Jews are masters at self-mockery.

Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, from Tel-Aviv, Israel, has followed the unfolding of the "Muhammad cartoon-gate" events in amazement, until finally he came up with the right answer to all this insanity -- and so he announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest -- this time drawn by Jews themselves!

"We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!" said Sandy. "No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!"

Alzheimer's Disease, cartoons, Israeli cartoon contest, Holocaust cartoons

Comedy today

Really fun thing on SFist -- an "interview" with cartoonist Julia Wertz who draws the whole interview in comix form. Which came first, the Q and A or a commision for a whole strip? Who cares, it's funny.

Meanwhile, down in the desert, it's Jerry vs. the Shrieking Closet Door. Yes, when you open your closet, all kinds of things from the past are liable to appear.

SFist, Julia Wertz,comix

That'll be the day

Here's a nice big, very pedestrian article about book publicity in Poets and Writers. Specifically, it's about how publicity is done at major publishing houses.

Reading this article gave me a nose-to-the-window feeling, like yeah, I know this is sort of how it happens but I somehow can't see all that publicity machinery happening to me. I felt like a 14-year-old reading an article about race car drivers -- I might get to drive a car some day, but I ain't never gonna drive an Indy car 200 mph.

This Poets and Writers article basically assumes you're the author of a nonfiction book that's about to be released by a major publisher who is probably going to get you some decent press -- maybe not the Today Show, but you've got a good chance of a review in the NYT Book Review, several major daily newspapers, and some NPR stations, if not Fresh Air. You probably live on the east coast already, you have friends in the media who will help out... yeah, whatever.

When I see how people on my level -- well, really, the level above me -- actually bust their asses to get a little press for their books -- talented people like Katia and Martha -- an article like this is like reading science fiction. All these publicists supposedly coordinating mailings and tours -- yeah, I'm sure that happens to somebody.

Previously: New techniques in book marketing and publicity
Mystery author pretends to shun publicity
'Publish and Perish' piece distresses some

book publicity, publishing

All about my friends

My pal Katia Noyes is interviewed on Libertas, a U.K. lesbian website, by Lucia Pajon. They call her book one of the best novels of 2005. Amazon.com agrees, putting it on their best lesbian/gay books list. Check out Crashing America.

writers, Katia Noyes, lesbians, queer literature

Willie Nelson: 25 years ahead of his time

In 1981 Willie Nelson recorded a song about gay cowboy romance titled "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)." On Valentine's Day, it was played on radio for the first time, on the Howard Stern Show. "The song's been in the closet for 20 years," Nelson said. "It's time for it to come out."

Nelson is 73 (CMT bio page), and has been married to his fourth wife since 1991.

Willie Nelson, country music, Howard Stern, gay cowboys

Secret agents ·

Galleycat alerts readers to a resource I hadn't known about, Agent Query, a site designed to expose agents to writers and separate the scam artists from the reputable agents. Looks like they intend to give Publishers Marketplace a run for their money, at least when it comes to the information on agents.

literary agents, writers, Galleycat, Publishers Merketplace

Fun with Google Maps

I love the animated gif on the left side of this bike shop page, showing their location in Manhattan by zooming progressively in from space. Scroll down halfway and look in the left column to see it.

What are you working on? : poet and translator Liz Henry

Just posted in my continuing series of interviews with writers about their works in progress, poet and rebel translator Liz Henry, who in addition to her main work on 20th C. Latin American poets:

The other thing I'm doing, I guess, that's new: "Bother to refute patriarchy." There's naming the problem, right? Then, sort of proving that patriarchy exists and finding annoying examples of it. Then kicking its ass point by point. Then building feminist alternate canons, i.e. doing something positive, and coming up with new vision, new theories, etc. as a critic.

Rocks, she does.

See all the interviews here.

Liz Henry, translation,Latin American Literature, feminist writers, womens studies, poets

Valentine's Day for all

Who's the executive director of the national office of the Metropolitian Community Church, the nation's largest gayische Protestant denomination?

Cindi Love.

The church sponsors an annual Valentines Day campaign in which same-sex couples march down to their local city hall and ask for -- and are usually denied -- marriage licenses. That only reminds one of the mad events of February 2004, when thousands of gay couples streamed to San Francisco's City Hall. The dramatic events began as just another annual symbolic ask-and-be-denied event -- until SF Mayor Gavin Newsom shocked the nation and ordered the county clerk to begin giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

But not everyone was ecstatic about it -- not even all queer people. My recent interview with Meredith Maran gave me the opportunity to uncover her April 2004 piece in Salon in which she wondered "Why wasn't I hopping aboard the lesbo love train?" despite living and raising a child with her same-sex partner.

gay marriage, Gavin Newsom, Meredith Maran

Writing and deadlines

A friend wrote:

Dammit, I always do this when I write. I start out with a good idea/concept/message, then I trail off into something else.

I replied with a thought that I'll expand here.

Going off on tangents is not necessarily a bad thing, since sometimes the tangent turns out to be the thing even more worth writing about than your original idea. There have been many times I thought I wanted to say something about Point One, and wrote four or five paragraphs that eventually petered out into pointless babble -- but by that point I realized that Point Two is even better and now that I've cleared my throat, so to speak, I can get on with it. And I wind up writing something that would be much better than if I stuck with Point One.

Other times -- especially if I'm on a deadline and I have to write about Point One -- after that first hour of inconclusive mess I can sometimes take a break, cross out most of what I've done so far, re-attack it by reminding myself of the value of the original idea, and then get it done.

That's really the way I wrote that essay in October, the one I read at the Litquake event*. After an hour I was ready to give up, but because of the deadline I got back in the box and tried again. So sometimes deadlines are a good thing.

* That essay was then accepted for Best Sex Writing 2006 -- you can already pre-order the anthology, which is due out in June from Cleis Press and which will feature me, Susie Bright, Stephen Elliott, and many others.

sex writing, essay writing, Cleis Press, Susie Bright, Stephen Elliott

Forward into the 21st century

Mr. Gilmore's books fall into a growing genre known as street lit. With titles like "Push," "Topless" and "Platinum Dolls," they are saturated with sex, violence, gangsters and drug dealers and take place in prison and on the mean streets of New York City. He began writing them while serving a sentence for check-cashing fraud in federal prison in New Jersey. When he was released in 2003, he walked out with 30 completed manuscripts. So far, he has had about a dozen printed. He aggressively markets and distributes them on the buses to prison, sidewalks, the Internet and in small bookstores.

And as he told the bus passengers, he signed a four-book contract with St. Martin's for a sum in "the low six figures," said Monique Patterson, a senior editor there. Ms. Patterson said the decision to sign Mr. Gilmore was not only a recognition of his proven ability as a storyteller and potential as a stylist, but also an indication of large publishing houses' surging interest in street lit.

From a NYT article on the progress of "street lit."

Previously: African-American authors' obsession with sex, drugs, etc. might be just a phase

writers, street lit, African American fiction

Block that metaphor

"This is exactly the kind of project that brings people out of the woodwork like sheep."

-- Sarah Weinman, Galleycat

What are you working on? : writer Meredith Maran

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers on their current projects, an interview with memoirist Meredith Maran, tackling a novel for the first time. "I started with some very vague ideas -- feelings, really -- then opened the chute, let the horses out, and started galloping around the landscape."

Meredith Maran, writers

Bangalore sites

For more than a year I've been trying to write a novel set in Bangalore -- the southern India city that has been utterly transformed in the past ten years or so by foriegn firms' "offshore" offices and "call centers" -- without actually having had the pleasure of visiting it. In fact, I've never been to India at all; the closest I've been is Hong Kong.

One of the most helpful websites I've found is Bangalore Buzz, which aggregates (collects) news articles about Bangalore from several local, national Indian, and foreign newspapers. This site has been utterly invaluable. The articles describe the economic and socio-cultural scene, with particular attention paid to just the aspects of Bangalore I want to know about: the disruptions caused by the overwhelming changes in the city.

Then today I found something totally great: a blog about potholes in Bangalore. The potholes, road problems and infrastructure problems are emblematic of the changes in the city, as far as I can tell.

Finally, I noticed the other day that the satellite function of Google maps has recently published a much more detailed satellite view of Bangalore. Without a map it's pretty hard to fingure out what's what, but I can compare it to other online maps and find a few things.

Bangalore,
urban infrastructure,
potholes,
writing

A liberal is a conservative who's been harassed by cops

Salon's Ask The Pilot columnist gets detained by cops at two different airports for the vague crime of taking photographs. Apparently there are some things you're "not supposed to" take pictures of -- but no one can say what those are.

Last night on MSNBC's "Countdown," there was this exchange:

Host Keith Olbermann: We have talked before, with deep sadness, about the politicizing of counterterror measures here. You have just put this into a political context. My stomach is queasy as I ask this. In the context of this today, and what you have seen, are we far enough removed from that component of the novel "1984," the part where the government turns a kind of terror faucet on and off to scare the public into acquiescing to whatever it wants to do?

Author Gerald Posner: Lookit, I'm afraid we are, unfortunately, at that point, where we are in a real war, there's no question about it. We have fundamentalists out there who would love to kill more innocent Americans in vast numbers. They'd love to pull off a weapon-of-mass-destruction attack. But at the same time, the government is also very effective, the Bush administration, at using terror as a political weapon and making sure that it does turn on the fear spigot when it wants to and turn it off at other times.

Countdown, Olbermann, Posner, security measures, airports, Ask the Pilot

Suicide of the week: man in jet lavratory

A jet was diverted to a nearby airport after it was discovered that a man hanged himself in the lavratory.

WTF? I suppose he tied something around his neck from the coat hook. But either he was extremely determined, or -- my guess -- it was an accident. Something tells me he went in there to masturbate and went too far.

Points subtracted for inconveniencing lots of other people, for making a mess, for embarrassing your loved ones, and most of all, for not intending to commit suicide in the first place.

Previously: Suicides from a popular Cleveland bridge.

suicide, autoerotic asphyxiation

Today's dumb book deals

Once in a a while it's encouraging to look at the Publishers Marketplace list of book deals -- they post two or three dozen every day, that's how many writers are buying champagne on a daily basis (the rest of us just drink cheap wine) -- and see how much ridiculous crap out there is actually getting published.

Encouraging because, if they publish stuff like this, it's only a matter of time before they publish my novel):

Founder and Executive Director of the CIO Collective Stuart Robbins's GRID COMPUTING, a survival guide to our next technology platform for executives and IT professionals, written in fictional form and showing how we need to change ourselves in order to improve our information systems, to Sheck Cho at Wiley, by James Levine at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).

He's Executive Director of a CTO group -- doesn't that sound like the blind leading the blind -- and he's written up his vision for the future "in fictional form." This is part of a long-standing trend in business books in which egomaniacal suits, stuffed to the gills on business plans and reports which are largely fictional, as well as bad thrillers consumed in business class on long flights, get the notion they can write a story. Which is nice, since they probably can't write business English in the first place, and can't be bothered to check facts. So let's just write our bogus future vision "in fictional form"!

Cue Mr. Spock moaning "PAIN.... PAIN..."

Kathleen McGowan's The Magdalene Line, three thrillers that fictionalize her two decades of research into a gospel written by Mary Magdalene, beginning with her originally self-published THE EXPECTED ONE for publication in August 2006, to Trish Todd at Touchstone Fireside, in a major deal, for seven figures...

Hmm, more non-fiction masquerading as fiction. Did you notice this book was originally self-published? If her book is anything like her utterly horrid website, I think I would rather have it dropped on my head from the Hollywood sign than read it.

Finally:

Twenty-year veteran of the Port Authority Police Department and night commander of the WTC Rescue and Recovery Operation William Keegan with Bart Davis's CLOSURE: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery Mission, about the nine months Keegan and his men spent grappling with shattered concrete, twisted steel, body parts, grief, and political pressure....

Notice all the stuff there about the long and gripping resume of nominal author Keegan and then, slipped in like a piece of chopped liver, "with Bart Davis." Well, it's a good bet your typical Port Authority cop might find it hard to write a birthday card, much less a memoir cashing in on people's fading memories of nine eleven, so you bet there's a ghost writer.

writers, book deals

"What are you working on?" : M.J. Rose

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers about their current projects, author and book publicity maven M.J. Rose, who is at least as famous for her Buzz Your Book classes as she is for her fiction.

M.J. Rose, writers, book promotion

Possible "What Are You Working On?" future interviewee

There's a woman named Janice Erlbaum whose memoir Girlbomb is about to be published to a certain amount of promotion and fanfare. Her nervous blog, which makes her sound halfway between a debutante and a basket case -- and I mean that in a good way -- has been narrating her anxiety as she waits for her carton of author's copies to arrive. (Today they did.)

Like many bloggers, she has fun checking out the stats logs that include the search phrases that somehow landed people on her site, and yesterday she posted an entry about one such phrase -- BOOKS ON HOW NOT TO KILL YOURSELF -- and decided it would make a great title for her next book.

If she's looking at her stats, it's a sure thing she Technoratis herself, so Ms. Erlbaum, if you'd like to join the other writers who have answered the question "What are you working on?" I'd love to have you. Meanwhile, I pre-ordered your book a month ago.

And as long as we're at it, some of the search strings that led to my blog recently were:

voice of the martyrs scripture balloons
lesbianswearingcloaks
plaid new york peggy millard
louis coprophilia french
psychedelic playlists

Janice Erlbaum, Girlbomb, writers

The virgin's cervix, and other problems

Courtesy the Chr. Today weblog, a story about retired Catholic priest who was punished for mentioning Mary's reproductive system in a Christmas Eve sermon. The 77-year-old priest said he was trying to make congregants understand the reality of Jesus -- whom Christian doctrine asserts was both fully human and fully divine -- when he said "When the baby Jesus came out (of Mary), he was a man, just like us."

The Chr. Today blogger seems sympathetic to the notion that parishioners could find the notion shocking -- again, part of standard doctrine -- that baby Jesus came out of a vagina, but "at what stage does attempting to maintain "good taste" in church cross over into a problematic denial of the earthy, physical realities of life?"

Cris was asking me just the other day -- really! -- about the doctrine of the virgin birth and whether I believe it. Do I believe Mary was not impregnated by a man? Not really -- but I also don't really care. What I do find much more compelling and more central to my faith is the point that the old priest was trying to get at: Jesus' birth was human, bloody, like other births; Jesus came out of a real woman's vagina.

Chances are you lend no religious or historical credence to these ideas, but even as a metaphor or symbol, the notion that of a real, human birth is more compelling than that of a "virgin birth."

Back now to the 21st century: Religious right-winger Ralph Reed's Senate campaign is in big trouble because of his well-documented ties to Jack Abramoff. On Friday the AP reported that 21 of Georgia's 34 GOP state senators urged him to withdraw from the primary. Reed is one of the main implementers of the GOP's winning strategy of manipulating conservative church-goers into becoming conservative voters; he headed the Christian Coalition. Thank God some people are not so utterly consumed with greed for power that they can ignore Reed's association with the criminal Abramoff.

Christianity, BVM,Ralph Reed, Thomas J. Quinlan

Buy new Krugle

Some of the names of products revealed at a tech industry even called Demo 2006:

Vizrea
vSee
MooBella
Ugobe
Blurb
Digislide
Zingee
Multiverse
Krugle
Riya
Kosmix

"Ugobe"? "Krugle"? Clearly we have run out of letters, suggestive syllables and things that sound like something cool in some vaguely southern European language (as in cars named "Elantra," "Cressida," and "Azera").

You know what the problem is? Domain squatting. Speculators have scooped up all the ___.com names in the English language.

See for yourself -- just type any word in your browser, add ".com" and see what you get. Let me know if you find any words that haven't been taken. (However, "dumbassname.com" is still available.)

Your reading assignments

I'm in a giddy mood for no reason, so if the following seems a little loopy, that's why.

First thing, read yesterday's Fishbowl NY interview with NYT reporter Warren St. John, whose dogged reporting on the JT Leroy hoax culminated in Monday night's web posting of the final nail in the JT Leroy coffin -- Geoffrey Knoop confirming earlier reported details of the scam. St. John (who resembles a young, extremely good looking version of Warren Beatty) says reporting on the fast-developing story was "exciting, frustrating at times, a little scary."

Then, even if you aren't a fan of science fiction, check out Liz Henry's feminist review of a sci-fi novel. She's a wonderfully clear writer, and I love all the far-flung connections she makes to other works. Her website features more pointers to her thoughts and words.

Here's an interesting news article, courtesy the "Shelf Awareness" bookseller newsletter, about a federal case striking down the sales tax exemption on sales of the Bible and other religious texts. One of the parties to the suit was a seller of "metaphysical" books who thought the practice of not charging sales tax on the Bible discriminated against other faiths.

Finally, in a turnabout, after I interviewed Susan Henderson for my "What Are You Working On?" project, she asked me a couple questions about the project. (Scroll down on that page to where it says BLOG.)

Liz Henry, Warren St. John, hoaxes, JT Leroy, Susan Henderson, writers

What Are You Working On? : author Susan Henderson ·

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers about their current projects, author Susan Henderson, writer of short stories and a recently completed novel.

I found this interview interesting because henderson mentioned that she had, until recently, "concealed" her life as a writer from many people who knew her. She speaks about this concealment and about ending it.

Susan Henderson, writers

Hoax's End

BREAKING: Geoffrey Knoop -- whose half-sister Savannah Knoop was revealed last month as the public face of "JT LeRoy" and whose girlfriend Laura Albert was the prime suspect as author of the JT LeRoy novels and hoax -- has come forward to confirm details of the hoax.

Knoop's confession included the detail that the controversy -- overshadowed by the James Frey imbroglio -- had broken up his 16-year relationship with Albert, and "If you're feeling more and more suffocated by the complications and lies, it's not worth it."

hoaxes, JT Leroy, Knoop, literary hoaxes

Behind the scenes of This American Life ·

I'm interviewing a writer named Susan Henderson for my What Are You Working On? series, and noticed on her web page an interview with a writer named James Spring about how he got a piece on This American Life, the great PRI radio show. Scroll down on her page until you see the italicized sections -- it's pretty interesting. Who knew how complicated it was?! Though I have a feeling that once you're David Sedaris or Sarah Vowell you pretty much get a pass on all that.

Update: Susan's interview

This American Life, Susan Henderson, james Spring

Today's fake: porn model fakes her own death ·

Through a totally random chain of clicks, I discovered this great post: Karen Palm Lying Little Bitch, on the blog of... let's see... some porn actress who calls herself Audrey.

According to "Audrey," this person "Karen Palm" faked her own death in order to rip someone off, though exactly how this was supposed to be accomplished is not really explained -- something about "a plan to have her site taken out of the web, but still keep the money from the shoots."

I'll bet Violet can explain the scheme, and along the way she'll probably be able to inform us whether these girls are big stars or total unknowns or what. Because if you're a total unknown and you fake your own death, that's just too pathetic to be believed.

But not as pathetic as the guy whose letter to Salon's agony aunt columnist was printed today -- he's glad an anti-depressant took away his libido because now his wife can't jerk him around anymore by withholding sex. If that's how he feels on an anti-depressant, imagine what a waste of space he was before he started taking it!

hoaxes, models , Celera

Spy on your loved ones, part XL ·

Everything's XL today, including the waistlines of Americans recovering from endless rounds of chips and dip.

TMN had a link to this alarmingly understated Guardian story: How I Stalked My Girlfriend. All it took was access to her cellphone for a few minutes, registration on a website, and a few pounds sterling, and the author could track his girlfriend's movements -- or rather, those of her cellphone -- through a GPS-enabled website. But for those of you drooling at the idea, the author "sensibly" doesn't provide the website's URL, so we have to find it ourselves.

Or maybe Google can help... eh, yeah. Three seconds later, here we are: followus.co.uk.

cell phone tracking, GPS, spying, stalking, privacy

What Are You Working On? : author Matt Briggs ·

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers about their current projects, Clear Cut Press author Matt Briggs, novelist and short story writer.

Matt Briggs, Clear Cut Press, writers

Publishing alert

A new work by me is available through Lulu, an internet POD service.

My friend Marilyn [blog | interview], who runs the Erotic Authors Association website, asked some members for unpublished works she could put out to support the EAA.

I promised her a work I started more than ten years ago and never really had much of an excuse to finish until now. I had shown her part of it several years ago and at that time she said "No one will ever publish this!" because it involves a topic, sex between teenagers (hello internet search engines!) which publishers shy away from. So it's only fitting that she publish it finally.

I finished the piece a week ago and she put it up on the Lulu site today. So here it is: Lesbian Camp Girls. (I used a pseudonym for this piece, a practice I've eschewed in the past but which I decided to do now for various reasons.) It's an affectionate tribute to, and parody of, the pulp porn of the 1970s, which was raunchy and no-holds-barred while at the same time sort of sweet and naive in a certain way. It's four bucks, and if you're a fan of my work I promise you won't be disappointed.

Previously: Entries from Nov. 1997 and Jan. 1998 in which I mention working on "Lesbian Camp Girls."

Finally, a link to the cartoons themselves

Got your satirical drawings of Mohammed right here:

http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3182

About as cruel and controversial as the movie parodies in MAD magazine.

Mohammed cartoon

Today in history: 'The day the music died'

Feb. 3, 1959: Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper Killed in Iowa Plane Crash

Today's fakes

Galleycat yesterday and today has news of:
- the latest on the Nasdijj scandal
- the Snake Is Totally Tail children's book ripoff
- the Frey fray

And that's just Galleycat. Meanwhile Rick Moody (who is definitely the real thing) talks with The Independent about his latest, The Diviners, drawing attention to the fact that one of the main plot points involves a Hollywood hoax.

And also in The Independent, a newly skeptical interviewer grills Augusten Burroughs, whose tsuris-filled memoirs are said to mirror his tsuris-filled real life. Uh-oh... any red flags there? Jury's still out. Compare this Oct. 2004 interview by Rachel K-B with this Nov. 2005 profile in Salon by Priya Jain, the latter piece having been written after the JT LeRoy hoax had begun unravelling.

Gee, with our country embroiled in a war over totally invented reasons, I wonder why we're suddenly obsessed with hoaxes and frauds these days. Must do some thinking about that!

literary hoaxes, James Frey, Nasdijj, Rick Moody, Augusten Burroughs

Finally, they're mad at someone else

I experienced a moment of dislocation when I saw those pictures of demonstrators burning the Danish flag.

You know what I wonder? Where the hell did they get all the Danish flags? I have no trouble believing they have their own American flag factory to turn out all the U.S. flags they have to burn at their constant demonstrations, but how did they turn on a dime like this and suddenly haul out a bunch of Danish flags to burn, trample upon, use as buttwipes, etc. Are their manufacturing facilities that flexible? Maybe Palestine's going to be the new manufacturing superpower!

Unnoticed irony: today is the feast of St. Ansgar, the patron saint of Scandanavia.

Denmark, Danish flag, Mohammed cartoon

Dept. of I Don't Know Whether To Laugh Or Cry

Arab activists are hopping mad -- literally! -- over a Danish cartoon that they say insults Islam. This morning, on the ever-helpful NPR, I heard the cartoon itself described for the first time: it depicts the prophet Mohammed wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb.

Okay, that's both offensive and funny. But the real satire-is-dead moment came when the protesters were joined by the infamous suicide bombing group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

Mohammed cartoon, Islam

Al Jazeera office about to be inundated by blank books

In a misguided but helpless gesture, some bloggers have come up with a way to "support" a captured American journalist: send lots of blank books to the Qatar office of Al Jazeera. The hapless Arab journalists are then supposed to "convey" a message to the woman's captors.

First, I feel sorry for the poor admin at that office who has to open all those packages and store all those blank books -- of all sizes -- until they figure out what to do with them. But mostly, I can't figure out what practical purpose this could accomplish.

Let's suppose the Qatar office of Al Jazeera does exactly what they're asking them to do: It broadcasts a news story that says, "We received all these blank books with a message about freeing Jill Carroll. We appeal to our brothers to release her." Then what happens? Nothing that wouldn't have happened before, but the Qatar office of Al Jazeera now has a storage problem. Perhaps they'll donate these books to a school or something.

But a bunch of Americans did something, that's the important part!

Jill Carroll, Al Jazeera, blank books

Misc. Dept.

It's that time of the week for utterly unfocused links.

Courtesy Metafilter, here's How to win the New Yorker caption contest every time. I know my NYer cartoon-posting friend Marilyn will appreciate it.

StarryShine on Nan Talese as she appeared on Oprah last week:

She's freaky lookin' huh? what do you think her surgeon has done to her to make her look like a fetal alcohol syndrome victim rabbit hybrid? how could he do that to her and still be board certified?

Emphasis mine -- perhaps this is what Bush had in mind in the SOTU when he mentioned "human-animal hybrids." (Of course, Bush didn't coin the phrase; a quick Google shows it's been around for at least five years.)

Speaking of t-shirts, Cindy Sheehan wasn't the only one thrown out of the SOTU for wearing a message t-shirt -- also ejected by Capitol police was Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Young of Florida -- Republican chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee -- who wore a t-shirt reading "Support the Troops -- Defending our Freedom."

Capitol police chief Terrance Gainer apologized to both women and -- perhaps anticipating an ACLU lawsuit -- admitted the policy police were using was overly vague.

Nan Talese, New Yorker, SOTU, human-animal hybrid

Now that's what I call overkill

The fantastically brutal nature of the following crime is so off the scale it approaches mythic status. It's like something out of either "Silence of the Lambs" or Greek mythology.

James Yang, 30, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in Oakland County Circuit Court in 2001 after he beat his mother, Kazuyo Yang, 58, to death with a chair leg, crowbar, hammer and iron weights in their Troy home. He used a hacksaw to cut off her face and then ate her eyes.

Yang, who has schizophrenia...

You think?

"What are you working on?" : author Cecilia Brainard

Just posted in my series of interviews with writers about their current projects, Philippine-American writer and teacher Cecilia Brainard, author of both fiction and memoir about the Filippina and Philippine-American experience.

Cecilia Brainard, Philippine-American writers, ethnic studies

SF Bay Guardian: undermine this

As the classified advertising revenues of newspapers, both daily and weekly, continued to be undermined by free or cheap internet sites like Craigslist, old-style media analysts are clutching their heads. It's one thing for the internet to steal readers from print-and-ink publications, it's another to steal their classified advertisers, who historically provide a huge part of a newspaper's revenue.

Now the SF Bay Guardian, an independent alt-weekly, is attempting to undermine the competition by planting doubt about Craigslist founder Craig Newmark's motives and "community building" rhetoric.

Obviously the Bay Guardian, and every newspaper, has a vested interest in defending its classified advertising, so one question is, who covers this story? Old-media outlets like the Bay Guardian who haven't figured out how to make money off their websites? New-media outlets who have no sympathy for the 20th century types?

Tim Redmond's piece in the SFBG makes a good point: Newmark's touchy-feely rhetoric should be questioned, along with his motives. And yes, it should be recognized that Craigslist is a for-profit company. But so is the Bay Guardian. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle dark gray to me.

And by the way -- just do a Google News search on the string "Classified advertising," and you'll immediately see stories reporting financial results from several newspaper chains that say classified advertising is up recently. What are the SFBG's figures? Who knows, it's not a public company. But maybe not so great, if they're resorting to attacking Craig Newmark instead of his company.

Craigslist, Craig Newmark, Tim Redmond, newspapers, advertizing

Is it safe?

Bush's wiretapping defense can be boiled down to:

"No, I'm not above the law, because what I'm doing is legal, because we have to do it to defend America, because America stands for freedom, except for people who want to hurt us."

Or at least that's what it sounds like. Take this appearance when Bush visited Kansas State Univ. on 23 Jan 06:

Let me talk about one other program -- and then I promise to answer questions -- something that you've been reading about in the news lately. It's what I would call a terrorist surveillance program. After the enemy attacked us, and after I realized that we were not protected by oceans, I asked people that work for you -- work for me, how best can we use information to protect the American people? You might remember there was hijackers here that had made calls outside the country to somebody else, prior to the September the 11th attacks. And I said, is there anything more we can do within the law, within the Constitution, to protect the American people. And they came back with a program, designed a program that I want to describe to you. And I want people here to clearly understand why I made the decision I made.

First, I made the decision to do the following things because there's an enemy that still wants to harm the American people. What I'm talking about is the intercept of certain communications emanating between somebody inside the United States and outside the United States; and one of the numbers would be reasonably suspected to be an al Qaeda link or affiliate. In other words, we have ways to determine whether or not someone can be an al Qaeda affiliate or al Qaeda. And if they're making a phone call in the United States, it seems like to me we want to know why.

This is a -- I repeat to you, even though you hear words, "domestic spying," these are not phone calls within the United States. It's a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process. We briefed members of the United States Congress, one of whom was Senator Pat Roberts, about this program. You know, it's amazing, when people say to me, well, he was just breaking the law -- if I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress? (Laughter and applause.)

It wasn't quite as clear last night, but I wanted an excuse to post that great comix cover. (Graphic from this page; see also this full story, Spy Smasher Visits The Dentist -- "an official war comic.")