Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Tell Me When It's Over, #19: Nancy Hogshead-Makar



we head to the pool for our first Tell Me When It's Over with an Olympic gold medalist.
there will be more.

the last book I ever read (Man Hunt, excerpt seven)



from Man Hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen:

In the past, General Pasha, the Pakistani intelligence chief, had requested of his American counterpart, Panetta, that if the CIA didn't trust the Pakistani government or military with some matter of great import, to tell at least him or Kayani or President Zardari, so that the Pakistanis would be able to save face by truthfully saying they had been informed. A soft-spoken, mild-mannered man of five foot seven, with deep black circles around his eyes, reflecting many sleepless nights, Pasha had played a key role in getting the CIA contractor Raymond Davis released from prison, negotiating directly with the victims' families so that they would accept the "blood money" for Davis's release. After the bin Laden raid, Pasha felt that the relationship with the United States was broken beyond repair.

This sentiment was shared in the U.S. Congress, where there was widespread outrage that bin Laden had been hiding in Pakistan, a country that had received billions of dollars in U.S. aid since 9/11 (never mind that most of this "aid" was in fact compensation to the Pakistan military for mounting military operations the U.S. had demanded it undertake against the Taliban along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border). Representative Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, said publicly, "I believe that there are elements of both the [Pakistani] military and intelligence service who in some way, both prior and maybe even current, provided some level of assistance to Osama bin Laden." Rogers offered no proof for this assertion, and the U.S. intelligence community's assessment within weeks of the Abbottabad operation was that there was, in fact, no official Pakistani complicity in bin Laden's sojourn in Abbottabad and that nothing in the treasure trove recovered from his compound provided any proof that bin Laden had support from Pakistani officials. Still, Rogers's view that the Pakistanis had helped shelter al-Qaeda's leader was commonplace both in the halls of Congress and in the U.S. media.

Monday, July 30, 2012

the last book I ever read (Man Hunt, excerpt six)



from Man Hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen:

The Christmas Day plot made the stakes all the higher for the CIA officials who knew of the Jordanian doctor and his promises to execute the first high-level penetration of al-Qaeda since 9/11. However, no one at the CIA had met Balawi, and pressure was mounting to get some Agency eyes on him. That task fell to Jennifer Matthews, the CIA station chief in Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, who had worked for the bin Laden unit almost from its inception. Matthews arranged for the Jordanian doctor to slip over the border from Pakistan's tribal areas to meet with her and a considerable team from the CIA. Determined that this first meeting with the golden source be warm and friendly, Matthews did not have Balawi searched when he entered the CIA section of Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost on December 30, 2009. She had even arranged for a cake to be made for Balawi, whose birthday had been only five days earlier.

But there was to be no opportunity to celebrate. As he met with the CIA team, the Jordanian doctor began muttering to himself in Arabic, reached inside his coat, and then detonated a bomb that killed Matthews, a forty-five-year-old mother of three, and six other CIA officers and contractors who had gathered to meet him. It was the deadliest single day at the Agency since Hezbollah blew up the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983, killing eight CIA employees. The doctor from Jordan had not been spying on al-Qaeda's leaders; he had, in fact, been recruited by them.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

The 49ers, #103: Benita Fitzgerald Mosley



In early 2010, Rob Trucks began a series of conversations with 49-year-old Americans. For eighteen months, until the eve of his own 50th birthday, Trucks interviewed over 200 men and women. This is one of those interviews:

Benita Fitzgerald Mosley won three consecutive NCAA outdoor championships in the women’s 100 meter hurdles while at the University of Tennessee, where she graduated with an Industrial Engineering degree in 1984. That summer she became just the second American woman to win Olympic gold in the event. She has worked in as an engineer, with Special Olympics, in cable television and currently serves as the Chief of Sport Performance for USA Track & Field. She has seen The Sound of Music several times. We spoke on February 16, 2011, before she celebrated her 50th birthday that July.

* * *

I’ve been claiming 50 all year. And I say that by telling people I’m turning 50. I’ve been telling audiences that when I speak, to not let it be a secret and just let it out. Because it blows my mind. And so probably all of 49 I’ve been thinking about it.

I’ve known it from the time I turned 49, that this is my last year of my 40s. And I’ve been looking at other women that are in their 50s and kind of gauging do they act differently? Dress differently? Is it time to cut my hair? You know, all those things to try to prepare myself. Should I wear this? Should I act like this? You know, should I not tell people? Tell people? And I thought, Well, I’m more in the public than most 50-year-olds, and it’s kind of hard to, you know, keep it a secret. So I just decided to embrace it and claim it.

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Friday, July 27, 2012

the last book I ever read (Man Hunt, excerpt five)



from Man Hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen:

Hanging over the veteran members of the team was the knowledge that some of their number could have done more to avert the 9/11 attacks. Certainly the general perception among the public was that there had been some kind of intelligence failure at the CIA. In fact, the intelligence community had done a thorough job of warning the Bush administration of the likelihood of some sort of large-scale anti-American attack during the spring and summer of 2001, as demonstrated by the titles and dates of reports the Agency generated for policymakers: "Bin Ladin Planning Multiple Operations," April 20; "Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack," May 3; "Bin Ladin's Network's Plans Advancing," May 26; "Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent," June 23; "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real," June 30; "Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays," July 2; "Bin Ladin Plans Delayed but Not Abandoned," July 13; and "Threat of Impending al-Qaeda Attack to Continue Indefinitely," on August 3. Of course, the CIA did not predict the time and place of al-Qaeda's looming attack, but that kind of precise warning information happens more often in movies than in real life. If there was a fault, it was the failure among key national security officials in the Bush administration to take the CIA's warning seriously enough.

But if there had not been an intelligence failure at the CIA, there had been a major bureaucratic failure, though it became clear only in the years after 9/11. Members of the Agency had failed to "watch-list" two suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, whom the CIA had been tracking since they attended a terrorist summit meeting in Malaysia on January 5, 2000. The failure to watch-list the two al-Qaeda suspects with the Department of State meant that they were able to enter the United States under their real names with ease. Ten days after the Malaysian terror summit, on January 15, 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar flew into Los Angeles. The Agency also did not alert the FBI about the identities of the suspected terrorists, so that the Bureau could look for them once they were inside the United States. An investigation by the CIA inspector general--published in unclassified form in 2007--found that this was not the oversight of a couple of Agency employees, but that a large number of CIA officers and analysts had dropped the ball. "Some fifty to sixty" Agency employees read cables about the two al-Qaeda suspects without taking any action. Some of those officers knew that one of the al-Qaeda suspects had a visa for the United States, and by March 2001 some knew that the other suspect had flown to Los Angeles.

The soon-to-be hijackers would not have been difficult to find in California if their names had been known to law enforcement. Under their real names they rented an apartment, obtained driver's licenses, opened bank accounts, purchased a bar, and took flight lessons at a local school. Mihdhar even listed his name in the local phone directory. It was only on August 24, 2001, as a result of questions raised by a CIA officer on assignment at the FBI, that the two al-Qaeda suspects were watch-listed and their names communicated to the Bureau. Even then the FBI sent out only a "routine" notice requesting an investigation of Mihdhar. A month later Hazmi and Mihdhar were two of the "muscle" hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 that plunged into the Pentagon, killed 189 people.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

the last book I ever read (Man Hunt, excerpt four)



from Man Hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen:

On January 4, 2002, at President Bush's vacation ranch in Texas, Michael Morell had the delicate task of informing Bush that it was the CIA's assessment that bin Laden had fought at the Battle of Tora Bora and survived. Bush was incensed at this and became hostile, as if Morell himself were the culprit.

Two and a half years later, during a close election race, Democratic nominee John Kerry made a campaign issue of whether bin Laden could have been finished off at Tora Bora. The notion that there had been a real opportunity to kill bin Laden at that point was a "wild claim," Bush said, and Vice President Dick Cheney termed it "absolute garbage." Nevertheless, from the totality of the available accounts, it is clear that when presented with an opportunity to kill or capture al-Qaeda's top leadership just three months after September 11, the United States was instead outmaneuvered by bin Laden, who slipped away, disappeared from the American radar, and slowly began rebuilding his organization.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

the last book I ever read (Man Hunt, excerpt three)



from Man Hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen:

Mullah Omar's delusional fanaticism was entirely predictable. When he came to power, he anointed himself the "Commander of the Faithful," a rarely invoked religious title from the seventh century, suggesting that he was the leader not only of the Taliban but of Muslims everywhere. To cement his status as a world-historic Muslim leader, in 1996 Mullah Omar had wrapped himself literally and metaphorically in the "Cloak of the Prophet," a religious relic purportedly worn by the Prophet Mohammed that had been kept in Kandahar for centuries and had almost never been displayed in public. Taking the garment out of storage, Omar ascended the roof of a building and draped the cloak on himself before a crowd of hundreds of cheering Taliban.

The Taliban leader was barely educated and determinedly provincial; in the five years that he controlled Afghanistan, he rarely visited Kabul, his own capital, considering it to be a Sodom and Gomorrah. Other than the Taliban's Radio Sharia, there was no Afghan press to speak of, and so Mullah Omar's understanding of the outside world was nonexistent, a stance he cultivated by assiduously avoiding meeting with non-Muslims. On a rare occasion when he met with a group of Chinese diplomats, they presented him with a small figurine of an animal as a gift. The Taliban leader reacted as if they handed him "a piece of red-hot coal," so strong was his ultrafundamentalist aversion to images of living beings. In short, Mullah Omar was a dim-witted fanatic with significant delusions of grandeur who believed he was on a mission from Allah. The history of negotiations with such men is not encouraging.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

the last book I ever read (Man Hunt, excerpt two)



from Man Hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen:

To his followers bin Laden was truly a hero, someone who they knew had given up a life of luxury as the son of a Saudi billionaire. Instead, he was living a life of danger and poverty in the service of holy war, and in person he was both disarmingly modest and deeply devout. Members of al-Qaeda modeled themselves on the man they called "the Sheikh," hanging on his every pronouncement, and when they addressed him, they asked his permission to speak. His followers loved him. Abu Jandal, a Yemeni who was one of his bodyguards, described his first meeting with bin Laden in 1997 as "beautiful." Another of bin Laden's bodyguards characterized his boss as "a very charismatic person who could persuade people simply by his way of talking. One could say that he 'seduced' many young men."

Monday, July 23, 2012

the last book I ever read (Man Hunt, excerpt one)



from Man Hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen:

From the day that President George W. Bush took office, January 20, 2001, every morning, six days a week, CIA official briefed the president about what the intelligence community believed to be the most pressing national security issues. Reed-thin and in his early forties, Morell spoke in terse, cogent paragraphs. On August 6, eight months after Bush was inaugurated, Morell met with the president at his vacation home in Texas to tell him of the CIA's assessment that bin Laden was determined to strike inside the United States. This briefing was heavily colored by the fact that Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian on the fringes of al-Qaeda, had recently pled guilty to charges that he planned to detonate a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport in mid-December 1999. The August 6 briefing noted that the FBI had come across information indicating "preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." After the briefing, Bush continued to enjoy the longest presidential vacation in three decades.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

The 49ers, #62: Daniel J. O'Donnell



In early 2010, Rob Trucks began a series of conversations with 49-year-old Americans. For eighteen months, until the eve of his own 50th birthday, Trucks interviewed over 200 men and women. This is one of those interviews:

In November of 2002 lawyer Daniel J. O’Donnell became the first openly gay man elected to the New York State Assembly. The older brother of entertainer Rosie O’Donnell represents the 69th District, primarily comprised of the 40 blocks between 85th and 125th Streets on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the neighborhood where he has lived with partner John Banta for over 20 years.

At the time of this interview, O’Donnell had run unopposed in his last two elections and assumed a leadership role in the attempt to pass the Marriage Equality bill in Albany. The Marriage Equality Act has since been signed into law and O’Donnell and Banta were married in January, 2012. O’Donnell, whose friends call him Danny, has read John Kennedy O’Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces at least twice. We spoke in his district office on November 12, 2010, five days before his 50th birthday.


* * *

I would say that I was mildly to strongly depressed in the last few days about this looming day. My mother died at 39, and so I didn’t like turning 40 either. But it seems almost like borrowed time. It's time that I don't know that you’re supposed to have. My mother didn’t have it.

It's not really a rational thing. I do know that the life expectancy of an American male is 77, but that's an emotional response. I guess if you were somebody who had alive, active parents when you turned 50 as some of my friends do, then 50 may not seem quite as old as it does to me . . .

Thanks for stopping by.

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Friday, July 20, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt eight)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

Years ending in eight have an outsize role in Czech history. Charles University was founded in 1348; in 1618, Habsburg emissaries were thrown from the castle window, triggering the Thirty Years’ War; in 1848, the first pan-Slav congress convened in Prague; the Czechoslovak Republic was founded in 1918; Munich occurred twenty years later. In its first three months, 1948 would earn a place on the less fondly remembered side of that list of milestones. In January, my father went to Prague for a consultation with Beneš. Having witnessed the cutthroat proclivities of Communist leaders in Yugoslavia, he hoped to find the president fully aware of the danger that democratic forces faced and in possession of a clear strategy to fight back. When he entered Beneš’s office in Hradčany Castle, he was greeted by an intellectually alert but ill man. Beneš had been a major world figure for three decades and the leader of his strife-torn land for a dozen years. The stroke (or strokes) he had suffered caused him to drag one leg slightly but did not prevent him from striving to work, as he always had, twice as hard as other men.

For four hours on January 12, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, the president and the ambassador reviewed the world situation, with the former exhibiting his characteristic doubts about the West but now reserving his strongest criticism for the aggressive policies of the Soviet Union. My father finally succeeded in shifting the discussion to his own primary concern: the internal situation in Czechoslovakia. Was Beneš prepared to defend the Constitution against the Communists? Did he have a plan for uniting the democratic forces? Did he realize how extensively Gottwald’s men had infiltrated the army, police, trade unions, media, and even the Foreign Ministry?

Few words could have been more alarming to my father’s ears than the Panglossian ones offered by Beneš. “As much as I am pessimistic about international developments,” he said, “I am calm about the internal situation. The elections will be held in the spring. The communists will lose and rightly so. People understand their policy and will not be duped. I just don’t want them to lose too much. That would arouse Moscow’s anger.”

Thursday, July 19, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt seven)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

In October 1942, the Korbel household was transformed by the arrival of Kathy, my baby sister. I was no longer the center of attention, but that was fine with me. The month before, I had reached a whole new level of accomplishment: enrolling as a kindergartener in the Kensington High School for Girls, about a ten-minute walk from our apartment. As required by the dress code, I wore a gray tunic and pleated skirt topped by a cherry red blazer and beret with an accessorized gas mask.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt six)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

Winston Churchill was stately, plump, and sixty-five years old. He had held virtually every important official position except those of prime minister and foreign secretary. In so doing, he had attracted acclaim and derision in roughly equal measure. The two-time prime minister Stanley Baldwin once observed:

When Winston was born lots of fairies swooped down on his cradle with gifts—imagination, eloquence, industry, and ability. Then came a fairy who said, “No person has a right to so many gifts,” picked him up and gave him such a shake and twist that with all these gifts he was denied judgment and wisdom.

In 1915, as first lord of the admiralty, Churchill had presided over the disastrous British attack on the Gallipoli peninsula in the Dardanelles. In the twenties, as chancellor of the Exchequer, he had overseen damaging reductions in the British defense budget. In the 1930s, he had railed against Gandhi and staunchly opposed loosening the imperial rein in India. Churchill could always be counted on to defend freedom with matchless tenacity—provided those exercising it spoke with the right accent and had the proper skin color. Yet for all his faults, the new prime minister would quickly validate the views of those who believe that when history most requires it, Fate lends a hand.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt five)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

At the end of November, the Soviets sought to secure their northern flank by invading Finland, hoping to replicate their partner’s Blitzkrieg tactics and conquer their peace-loving neighbor in two weeks. Thousands of tanks charged across the border, only to be slowed by forests and swamplands. The gutsy (and angry) Finns, with their white camouflage uniforms and skill at cross-country skiing, were able to harass the invaders and inflict heavy casualties. Lacking an effective antitank gun, they invented a means of attack—consisting of a bottle of flammable liquid and a match—that they named after the Soviet Union’s foreign minister: the Molotov cocktail. The invasion dragged on for four months before the overstretched aggressor and the outnumbered defender agreed to an armistice, Finland survived but with the loss of a tenth of its territory and 30 percent of its economic assets.

Monday, July 16, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt four)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

Four days after German troops entered the Sudetenland, Beneš abdicated; two weeks later, he left for London. His successor, Dr. Emil Hácha, a sixty-six-year-old former Supreme Court justice, was in poor health and greatly preferred art to politics. Reluctantly, the cautious jurist tried to steer his government of holdovers, second raters, and collaborators in a direction that would pacify the Germans while still preserving national independence. It was a hopeless task.

The Sudetenland is commonly understood to be the northern slice of the country, but under Munich, it was far more than that. As defined by the agreement, the occupied areas extended along the entire western border and also the southern edge most of the way to Slovakia. On the map, the occupied region resembled an open mouth poised to swallow what little remained of T. G. Masaryk’s democratic republic.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Talking about Moonrise Kingdom



I interviewed musical supervisor Randall Poster (Boys Don't Cry, The Savages, I'm Not There, Revolutionary Road, Up in the Air, Hugo, The Hangover Part II and every Wes Anderson movie since Rushmore, including their latest, Moonrise Kingdom) for Rhapsody.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

The 49ers, #151: Linda Somers Smith



In early 2010, Rob Trucks began a series of conversations with 49-year-old Americans. For eighteen months, until the eve of his own 50th birthday, Trucks interviewed over 200 men and women. This is one of those interviews:

Linda Somers Smith, a lawyer and distance runner, lives in California. She won the 1992 Chicago Marathon and ran in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games as a member of the United States track team and has seen Bride of Frankenstein several times. We spoke on May 1, 2011, six days before her 50th birthday.

* * *

I’m actually letting my husband put a party on for me, which sounds kind of weird, saying “actually,” but I just don’t like kind of celebrating myself, so I don’t want parties. I don’t plan parties. I’ve never really had a birthday party, but this year I’m letting him and some friends do a big party for me.

I’m sure other people feel this way too but, you know, when I was young 50 was ancient and dead . . .

Thanks for stopping by.

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Friday, July 13, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt three)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

Neville Chamberlain had assumed the responsibilities of prime minister in May 1937. His policy, which combined appeasement with rearmament, aimed to restore confidence in European security. Sixty-eight when he took the job, Chamberlain has spent much of his career in the shadow of his father, a wealthy industrialist, and of his brother, who had served as foreign secretary. Now, late in his life, he rose higher than either. He was fortunate to live in an era when one could thrive in politics without liking people; his primary passions were music, gardening, and the relentless pursuit of fish.

Chamberlain was a practical, business-oriented man, supremely confident in his judgments and disdainful of critics. He did not believe that war was a solution to any problem and felt sure that all intelligent men would conclude the same. He had the ability, usually valuable but in this case treacherous, of being able to put himself into the shoes of another. He could readily understand Hitler’s resentment off the peace treaty and his accompanying desire to restore a measure of German might. Chamberlain could also be philosophical about the fϋhrer’s coarse rhetoric and bullying, which he ascribed to poor breeding. However, the prime minister could not imagine anyone intentionally causing a second world war. In Chamberlain’s universe, people might be flawed, but they worried about their souls and did not set out to do monstrous things.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt two)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

In June, Masaryk met Wilson at the White House. As a child, I had been taught to believe that the two presidents warmed to each other immediately, but there is always a risk of friction when two professors are given the chance to compare brains. Wilson admitted to Masaryk that, as a descendent of Scots Presbyterians, he had a tendency to be stubborn. Masaryk found the U.S. president “somewhat touchy.” Both wished to talk more than to listen. Masaryk outlined the case for independence; Wilson discussed the Czechoslovak Legion’s ongoing battle with the Russian Bolsheviks. Whether or not the two men enjoyed each other’s company, the results from Masaryk’s perspective were satisfactory. Within days, the State Department declared that “all branches of the Slav race should be completely freed from Austrian rule,” and in September, the United States formally recognized Masaryk’s National Council as a belligerent in the war. These steps, coupled with Wilson’s image as the instigator of a new and more honorable global order, would make the American president a hero throughout Czechoslovakia and add unprecedented luster to his country’s international reputation.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

the last book I ever read (Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter, excerpt one)



from Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948:

Oddly, the individual who would do the most for Czech independence—and also much to fight anti-Semitism—was the son of a Roman Catholic Slovak coachman. Tomáš Masaryk was born on the seventh of March 1850; he grew up speaking the local dialects but was instructed by his mother, a Moravian, to count and pray in German. As a youngest he was trained briefly as a locksmith, then a blacksmith. Years later, he recalled the skills demanded of a nineteenth-century boy: how to whistle, run, swim, walk on his hands, ride a horse, climb a tree, catch beetles, kindle a fire toboggan, walk on stilts, throw snowballs, skip stones, whittle, tie knots of horsehair, use a jackknife, and fight “all kinds of ways,” adding, “I can’t say what sort of life the girls lived, since we had nothing to do with them.”

When young Masaryk was not otherwise occupied, he was studying. A local priest taught him Latin and recommended that the boy be sent to school. While earning his way as a tutor, he ascended the academic ladder. In 1872, he graduated from the University of Vienna; four years later he earned a PhD in philosophy and moved to Leipzig, where he attended lectures on theology. Having met one challenge through meticulous study, he moved on to the next, borrowing from the library a stack of books about the psychology of women. Thus prepared, he met Charlotte Garrigue, a young American blessed with find auburn hair, a talent for music, and an independent mind. At first, she responded reticently to his courtship and left to vacation at a spa. Masaryk followed her there in a fourth-class railway car, took her for long walks, and soon won her over. The couple married in March 1878 in Charlotte’s hometown of Brooklyn, establishing not only a matrimonial connection but an international one between the people of the Czech lands and the United States. In a sign of respect rare then and since, Masaryk adopted Charlotte’s last name as his middle one. They had four children, the youngest a boy named Jan.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

the last book I ever read (Lizz Free or Die, excerpt six)



from Lizz Winstead's Lizz Free or Die: Essays:

It was the early ‘90s, and what he did was journalism. Or at least what seemed to replace most of it. Daytime TV was wall-to-wall talk shows: Maury, Springer, Oprah, Montel—a new one seemed to crop up every week. It felt like the network overlords found a way to add more hours to the day to subject us to more of these freak fests. It was hour after hour of parading the wretched refuse of America on national TV for the purpose of making a generation of mindless couch enthusiasts feel just that much better about themselves.

It was a bad time, that dark period in daytime talk before the invention of the DNA tests that finally classed up the Maury Povich show.

Monday, July 9, 2012

the last book I ever read (Lizz Free or Die, excerpt five)



from Lizz Winstead's Lizz Free or Die: Essays:

Some of the questions I get asked the most about doing stand-up comedy are: How can you stand in front of people and tell jokes? What if you bomb? What if people hate you? Do you ever get afraid?

Fear of performance failure comes from the false premise that there is some way of writing or telling a joke that everyone will love and that somehow you should try to figure out that technique before you start. I can’t control what people like; I can only control what I want to say and how I want to say it.

Think about it: There are people who hate chocolate and puppies and sex. And you know how I feel about babies.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

The 49ers, #7: Ron Darling



In early 2010, Rob Trucks began a series of conversations with 49-year-old Americans. For eighteen months, until the eve of his own 50th birthday, Trucks interviewed over 200 men and women. This is one of those interviews:

When Ron Darling made his first start for the New York Mets on September 6, 1983 (a well-pitched 2-0 loss to the Phillies), he became the first Yale University alum in 23 years to reach the major leagues. His 13-year tenure also included stints in Montreal and Oakland, a Gold Glove Award in 1989 and a World Series ring from the Mets’ last championship in 1986.

In 2006 Darling returned to the Mets as part of the Gary (Cohen), Keith (Hernandez) & Ron television broadcast team and won a “Best Sports Analyst” Emmy. He turned 50 on August 19, 2010.


* * *

I’ve had to stop at least four different [people], from my wife to my mother to brothers, who are trying to set up a 50th birthday party. And I’m lucky. I have the excuse that I work in the summer. I tell everybody that I really don’t want to do anything, and the more I say, “No,” the more I question that maybe there is some significance to this. Maybe turning 50 is more significant than I think. If I’m saying, “No,” to everybody, then it has to be something different in my mind.

I think the countdown started, for me . . .

Thanks for stopping by.

This offer is no longer available in the State of New York and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

May we suggest The 49ers interview with Alison Bechdel at Jezebel?

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Friday, July 6, 2012

the last book I ever read (Lizz Free or Die, excerpt four)



from Lizz Winstead's Lizz Free or Die: Essays:

I had not yet learned to swim, but I had no concept that this was a problem. Mom never mentioned that if something bad happened to the old rubber tube, I would need to swim. I had no concept that anything bad could happen. Mom’s lap felt like the safest place on earth, and that feeling of safety because the foundation of my fearlessness. Unbeknownst to her, because she never mentioned drowning, tube malfunction, or motorboat decapitation, I didn’t know I was supposed to be scared.

And in a nutshell, that is why I dove into everything headfirst. By some fluke, my folks forgot to ask me the question most crucial to ensuring a lifetime of self- doubt: “What if you fail?” Then as now, I looked at life’s challenges as dares rather than uphill battles, and consequently the results of this glaring parental oversight led to a lifetime of me torturing them with my chronic pluckiness.

Mine was not a noble courage; it was more like courage by omission. This turned me into a Wile E. Coyote of sorts, my roadrunner being the dreams I had. I was like the coyote in that when I wanted something, I just went for it. I chased it as fast as I could without thinking of ramifications. The difference between me and ol’ Wile E. is that when I’m in hot pursuit of my roadrunner and end up off a cliff, as I hover over the chasm, I simply never think to look down, because my parents forgot to tell me to. So instead of plunging into pain and failure, I just run to the other side of the canyon and figure out a new route to reach my goals.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

the last book I ever read (Lizz Free or Die, excerpt three)



from Lizz Winstead's Lizz Free or Die: Essays:

I pulled a small mirror from my purse. It was worse than I could have imagined. Every zit I had tried to cover up was a neon spot on my face. I looked like a teen runaway pinball machine. How was I to know Clearasil was a glowing agent, and that the second I neared the dance floor, trying to impress guys from other schools, I turned into a Lite-Brite board?

Then I really freaked out.

How many times had this also happened to me at Spencer Gifts?

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Tell Me When It's Over, #18: Ed "Cookie" Jarvis



if it's the Fourth of July (and it is), it's time for another Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.
to commemorate we offer our first Tell Me When It's Over without a ball.
there will be more.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

the last book I ever read (Lizz Free or Die, excerpt two)



from Lizz Winstead's Lizz Free or Die: Essays:

All my crazy dreams for the future were always a source of bewilderment to Mom. I think because she simply loved being a mom, so she couldn’t imagine why her youngest daughter wanted to complicated her life by fantasizing about something else. She never discouraged me from pursuing the things I was interested in, like becoming an altar boy on my way to the priesthood, for example, but when I hit the roadblocks that slammed into my psyche, she never really understood how bad my internal injuries were. Because they weren’t her roadblocks, and because she loved her life, it baffled her when I couldn’t find comfort in her world. She saw my pain as an unnecessary burden—on me and on herself.

Yes, she always hugged me during the disappointment, but she couldn’t fathom why I chose things that seemed so hard. So confusing. So exhausting. Why didn’t I take that energy and play house, then when I got older, find the right guy, get married, have some kids, and channel my creativity through them?

She was completely comfortable with the power structures she had in her life. The certainties of marriage, and family, and the church imposed clear roles on her, because none of those roles blocked her from her path.

That was her path. And even decades after I spied on my sisters at our bedroom door, she still worried about me, because I chose a life of great unknowns. Being a wife and mother, the fallback Ginny Winstead hoped her youngest daughter would eventually embrace, was no longer an option for me. I would not watch my kids in school plays, watch them play basketball, or watch them dance at halftime at a football game.

The key word here is watch.

Monday, July 2, 2012

the last book I ever read (Lizz Free or Die, excerpt one)



from Lizz Winstead's Lizz Free or Die: Essays:

Exploring fear as a commodity is not a new idea. I just never understood why it worked.

If the idea of God is such a good one, why keep selling me on the bad parts? I don’t see McDonald’s ads trying to entice me by saying, “If you eat here every day, you will slowly clog your entire arterial system with a sludge that will lead you to morbid obesity and premature death.” No, the McDonald’s executives are apparently smarter than the leaders of a centuries-old religion. They show me hot, glistening fries, and I succumb.

Truth be told, I am not inspired to embrace beliefs that terrify me. The hands, the crucifix, the deep red bleeding heart embedded with thorns that hung next to the kitchen door--none of these symbols motivated me to do one good thing in the name of anyone.

And, really, why would I? I won’t even go back to a store if the clerk treats me like shit.