Archives for June 2006

It’s not just a fortress in Baghdad: The Green Zone is a metaphor for America itself. Our Mr. Fat Backside on down. We needed no reminding. You probably don’t either. But Tom Engelhardt’s Doug Ireland for pointing the way to it on

Flagged by the staff wiseass: Are you a true believer? Do you just know deep down in your black Wal-Mart socks that every word of the Bible is the absolute literal truth and nothing dare be doubted and anyone who thinks that God is merely an ambisexual omniblissful bloom of moist divine nondenominational honeydew melon […]

In from Joe Lauria in The Washington Post. In the matter of the Karl Rove non-indictment, there’s this promised follow-up about Leopold. (Not satisfactory, in my opinion.) But for truthout’s editors this is

Bullshitter-in-Chief are still shitting us. But of course you’d never know that from this morning’s lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal. It rails against Congressman Jack Murtha, who wants an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The editorial also claims, “President Bush’s surprise visit to Baghdad did a lot to assure Iraqis about U.S. resolve.” […]

Try this: “Guy [the main character in a new Neil LaBute play] cauterizes himself against pain, in large part through language, a sort of semantic jujitsu that obfuscates his emotional reality and keeps him firmly within the parameters of his own narrative.” (Italics added.) I prefer critics who write in plain English, especially when they’re […]

Necrophilia Variations”: Mikey Houellebecq would be jealous … heh? Postscript: And

Ouch! “Karl Rove Won’t Be Charged in CIA Leak Case.” So says a WashPost headline. And here’s I don’t think so. (He’s the freelance who written here, “I wouldn’t bet against him on the Rove indictment,” despite my “News Junkie”), keeps getting in his way. Wish it didn’t.

Is my boat comin’ in? Have a look at What I really love — besides the pleasure he got from “Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice.” When he insists “art is about appearances, not reality,” I’m convinced. What impresses me most about Kyle Gann’s writing in general, apart from the consistent clarity and the […]

Reality Studio? (Don’t answer that.) The site is dedicated to Burroughs scholarship, and so rich in related material it’s dangerous. You can end up doing nothing all day but read it. For instance, have a look at this “Everything Is Permitted — Nothing Is True.” Which brings to mind this question: What would the millions […]

If you weren’t paying attention, you missed it. OK, you didn’t miss it, my staff of thousands did. “It” is the little documentary Council on Foreign Relations for a “special screening.” (Better late than never.) A. Q. Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan’s A-bomb, who set up a global rogue network that effectively privatized nuke […]

Stanley Weintraub’s review of two books, “The Forgotten Fifth,” in this morning’s Washington Post. The review itself is routine, less interesting than the The Staples piece, focusing solely on “Rough Crossings,” is more specific and literary (recalling, for instance, “the contradiction cited by Samuel Johnson, who inquired … of the Americans in 1775: ‘How is […]

THE COPYCAT AND THE ORIGINAL CAT. The New York Times story, which appears on the NYT Web site with the partial headline