{"id":627,"date":"2006-05-09T10:19:37","date_gmt":"2006-05-09T14:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp\/2006\/05\/paul_ford\/"},"modified":"2006-05-09T10:19:37","modified_gmt":"2006-05-09T14:19:37","slug":"paul_ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/2006\/05\/paul_ford\/","title":{"rendered":"PAUL FORD:"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE MOST RADICAL WRITER IN AMERICA<\/B>
\n

If I were lucky enough to be teaching a Freshman expos-lit course, I’d bring this in (from 5\/02\/06):
\n


\nAbu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, released a video
\nin which he showed his face and claimed that the Bush Administration had
\nlied about its military victories. “America,” said Zarqawi, “will go out
\nof Iraq, humiliated, defeated.” The United States announced that it
\nwould free 141 of the 490 “enemy combatants”
\nat the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba because they do not threaten U.S.
\nsecurity after all. In Dahab, Egypt, three bombings killed 30 people,
\nand in Baquba, Iraq, about the same number of people died in fighting.
\nPresident George W. Bush pointed out that not drilling in the Arctic
\nNational Wildlife Refuge was depriving the United States of one million
\nbarrels of oil per day, and it was reported that Iraq’s oil production
\nhad dropped by one million barrels per day since the U.S. invasion. In
\nNew York City tens of thousands of people marched against the war in
\nIraq, and in Washington, D.C., five members of Congress, all Democrats,
\nwere arrested outside the Sudanese embassy for protesting the genocide
\nin Darfur. It was revealed that in 2005 the FBI had, without court
\napproval, obtained from bank and credit card companies and telephone and
\nInternet companies information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal
\nresidents. Iran, under criticism for its nuclear program, accused the
\nUnited States of using “illegitimate and open threats to use force
\nagainst the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Scientists in Florida were
\nworking to improve a “brain port” device that will allow soldiers to
\nperceive things through their tongues. New construction began at Ground
\nZero.
\n


\nA Quebec family was offering a reward for their mother’s head, which had
\nbeen hacked from her corpse a year ago. “Each morning,” said one family
\nmember, “when we get up, we ask ourselves: ‘Where is the head? Will it
\nshow up on our lawn one morning?'” Chinese bra producers were offering
\nlarger sizes to meet increased demand, China announced that it would ban
\nheavy snorers from its army, and a Chinese man used eBay to buy an old
\nMiG fighter jet to decorate his office. It was reported that lobbyists
\nhad once provided former (now imprisoned) Representative Randy “Duke”
\nCunningham with free limousine service, free access to hotel suites, and
\nthe services of prostitutes; it was also reported that the limousine
\nservice that was used to ferry the prostitutes had received a contract
\nworth
\n$21 million from the Department of Homeland Security. The Louisiana
\nstate senate approved a bill that bans abortion except when the
\nprocedure can save a woman’s life; an amendment to allow exceptions in
\nthe cases of women who have been raped or are victims of incest was
\ndefeated. It was reported that the Vatican might permit people with AIDS
\nto use condoms, if they are married, although abstinence would still be
\npreferred. A Vatican official also called on Catholics to boycott the
\n“Da Vinci Code”
\nmovie. In Singapore an 18-year-old man, ashamed of his small penis,
\ncommitted suicide by jumping from a building, and President Bush named
\nTony Snow, a Fox News host, as the new White House press secretary. The
\nU.S. military, short of buglers who can play taps at military funerals,
\nwas waiting for an order of 700 automated $500 digital bugles. After
\n15,000 tries a California scientist was able to teach starlings some
\ngrammar.
\n


\nA farmer in Brazil pleaded guilty to killing a 73-year-old nun; the
\nfarmer had been paid by two ranchers to shoot the nun after she
\nattempted to stop the ranchers from clearing a section of rainforest.
\nThe Mexican senate passed a bill legalizing the possession of small
\namounts of marijuana, opium, cocaine, and heroin; President Vicente Fox
\nwas expected to approve the bill. In Loreto, Mexico, a 17-year-old boy
\nwas killed at a horse race when he attempted to stop a horse from
\nreaching the finish line by jumping in front of it, and in Denver,
\nColorado, a 17-year-old boy on his first bucking bronco ride was killed
\nwhen the horse rolled on top of him. “It was,”
\nsaid his mother, “his first and last ride.” A couple in Milford
\nTownship, Pennsylvania, were suing a veterinarian for faking the death
\nof their dog and then giving the dog to someone else. A wheelchair-bound
\nwoman in Florida, who refused to put down a knife and a hammer, died
\nafter being tasered by policemen, and a Liverpool, England, man was
\nsentenced to 100 hours of community service for getting drunk and
\nsinging “YMCA” on a flight from Florida to Manchester while his wife
\nwept and comforted their three children. “He makes no excuses,” said the
\nman’s lawyer, “for his loutish, idiotic behavior.” Jane Jacobs and John
\nKenneth Galbraith died. Twenty percent of U.S. teenagers admitted to
\nhuffing household products in order to get high, and Keith Richards fell
\nout of a coconut tree.
\n


\n— Paul Ford
\n<\/A><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE MOST RADICAL WRITER IN AMERICA If I were lucky enough to be teaching a Freshman expos-lit course, I’d bring this in (from 5\/02\/06): Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, released a video in which he showed his face and claimed that the Bush Administration had lied about its military victories. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}