thisiswhatyoushalldo

The story so far. Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, can’t get a publisher in the United States to publish her book because her book and her works haven’t been sanctioned by the government. Apparently the Treasury Department, through the Office of Foreign Assets Control has decided to enforce an obscure 1917 law (Trading With the Enemy Act) that prohibits American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval, or pay a $1 million fine.

This is a huge uphill battle for the esteemed Solicitor General to argue before the Supreme Court. And no, this issue is not up before the Supreme Court, not yet. But it will be, it will be.

My dear, dear Patricia Shcroeder and the American Booksellers Association is spearheading a class action lawsuit made up of publishers, authors, booksellers and readers demanding this practice cease.

This thing will be before the esteemed solon of nine faster than you can rig a voting machine in Ohio. And the US Treasury Department will lose. I suspect even Scalia won’t be able to defend this one.

But what is shuddering to me, what makes my blood really boil is that the government, in the year 2004 is even considering this.
At the beginning of the last century a book was censored – banned in Boston as they say. It couldn’t be published in Great Britain and booksellers who sold it in America were fined and thrown in jail. The case went before the courts and low and behold the government was told that no, our goverment can’t dictate what can and can’t be read. The book – Ulysses, by James Joyce and the rest is history (see below. And for those of you who can’t scroll down the two inches to the previous post – Ulysses was declared the best work of Fiction in the English language for the previous century.)

Have we learned nothing? Apparently not.

The New Year is right around the corner and time to set some goals and refocus on some interests. One thing I want to do is do more reading – good, real reading, not magazines in the john, not tons of internet chatter but instead spend some time with some good books. The Top 100 English Novels of the 20th Century is a good place to start.
I haven’t read Ulysses – I own it and it sits nicely on a shelf. Maybe I will bend that spine. The Great Gatsby is a phenomenal book. I have read it a few times and will probably make a stab at it this year as well. Hmm, more Joyce. Ah, but then we get to Lolita. What a great book. Nabokov is a god and his wordsmithing is so precise and amusing that you can’t put this book down. You find yourself savoring every single word, phrase and paragraph. It gets a revisit this year as well.
Hmm, Darkness at Noon. I am not aware of this one. It goes on the list.
This is a nice list. Compelling and modern. Oh look, James Dickey’s Deliverance made number 42! This book consumed me one hot summer. Forget the movie and Ned Beatty and pick up this epic “Coming of Age” novel.

There is something decadent and escapist about reading good books. Enveloping yourself in an author’s world and letting the narrative and characters consume your dreams for a few short weeks.

I can’t wait to get started.

Drudge is reporting that is the case:

“Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints�aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson �wardrobe malfunction� during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS� were brought by the PTC (The Parents Television Council) , according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners� statements.)”

This group is pretty right wing fundamental Christian and is using existing law and policy to ensure enforcement of a strict Victorian code. Notice the action alerts at their site spelling out what shows or episodes to focus on each week. And the letters they suggest are turning up at the FCC, word for word and used to initiate formal complaints and penalties. Fox recently paid a huge fine based on one of their “Action Alerts.” Buzzmachine has filed a Freedom of Information request and can trace the FCC fine of Fox to three people – three different letters, sent in mass, over and over and over again. It is kind of outrageous.
It seems The Parents Television Council are the ones in charge and have appointed themselves as the grand inquisitor.

Tuesdays with the Colonel

I guess the greater part of my Army memories revolve around just living and traveling in Germany and Europe. Small town boy getting down in G-town. Stuttgart, Germany is located in Southeast Germany near the Swiss border. It is about the size of Denver and the automotive manufacturing capitol for Germany. Mercedes Benz corporate headquarters as well as plants making VWs and Audis all occupying office parks and factories . Denver’s light rail train system is made in Stuttgart and that train line stretches for miles and miles and makes this scatter shot city of Stuttgart and its surrounding boroughs easily interconnected and efficient. Don’t forget German efficiency. It really is a marvel to drive and travel in Germany. It seems as though the car and the road are such a natural part of their world that their coexistence is second nature. The politeness shown by the drivers is unlike anywhere else I have been. Big traffic circles with lanes and lanes of cars and not even a honking of the horn to voice any displeasure. Strict adherence to even the simplest traffic laws like lane changing and traffic lane merges makes the whole system work like the cliche’d clockwork we have all be told.
One of my responsibilities while stationed at Kelly Barracks was to share in driving our Colonel around. He preferred to travel in a “CUTV” or in civilian terms, a specially outfitted Chevrolet Blazer, painted in camouflage and equipped with all sorts of radio and telecommunications equipment. It stood out on the Autobahn like a fresh, swelling bruise on Whitney Houston’s face. And because of the Colonel’s rank and responsibilities, I had to take an “offensive” driving course where I was taught some terrorist avoidance skills and how to do some cool things to a Mercedes Benz on a closed track. I was taught how to make wicked fast turns; how to turn the car around with just the emergency brake; how to roll a car and land it on it wheels successfully; how to handle a car or van traveling at high speed on ice and snow and how to drive pretty damn fast on open terrain through a slalom course of pylons.
I never had to use any of those skills but the training was helpful, as I tended to party and drink pretty hard in those days and then crawl into work with a terrific hangover and no sleep. Driving around Stuttgart on autopilot was pretty simple after having advanced driving skills training. I remember once, driving back from Muenchen (Munich) in VW bus full of field grade officers. I had been up for about 28 or 30 hours at that point as part of a field training exercise. Driving the officers back to Kelly Barracks, I must have drifted off to sleep about two or three times – once Major G____ tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was okay to drive! But they seemed to trust me as no one took me from the wheel and we arrived at the base safe and secure. I ended up working about ten more hours for a grand total of nearly 45 hours straight without sleep. To this day that is a personal record and I really don’t think I am up to breaking it any time soon.
One thing though, I never drove on off duty. I never took the time to get a European driver’s license or a car for off post shenanigans. This probably saved my life and kept me out of jail. I used the bus system and the train system to get virtually anywhere I needed to be on off duty hours and have a stable of good solid friends and roommates with cars for those trips into town with the gang. But the trouble those trips caused is a different story all together.

And in sad news out of Florida, two teens were arrested after they reported their pot stash was stolen and they needed it back so they could sell it. Ah, youth.

From February 1985 until February 1988 I spent my time in US Army. The decision, you would think, didn’t come lightly, but in fact that wasn’t the case. The decision came quite lightly and in fact was a bit of a lark. I was out of college for about a year, having taken time off to earn some dough and decide what I really wanted from life. I had gotten into a very minor scuffle with the law involving a fake ID and a rather rude bar bouncer (and former family friend.) I was working at Safeway at the time and had no real direction in my life. While at the court house resolving the fake ID charge I was approached by an Army recruiter. Well several months later and two Army recruiter’s later, I decided why the Hell not, lets join the Army, get some money for college, see the world and all of that.

I enlisted as a clerk typist and was slotted to serve as a clerk in the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg. That meant after basic training and my occupational specialty training, I was supposed to go to jump school in Fort Benning, Georgia and then serve out my time as a parachuting clerk. I wasn’t sure of all the particulars but I imagine it involved jumping out of an airplane with a typewriter and a pencil. Well two weeks into jump school I began to get second thoughts. I had made one jump out of a plane and realized that this was shear nonsense. There is really no reason to be jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.
I made the decision to quit jump school and see what else the Army had to offer me. I had to go stand in front of a captain’s desk and humble ask to be relieved of my training responsibilities. I was chastised and told my Army career would be ruined because of my decision, but since I really never intended on making the Army a career, I wasn’t overly concerned. I was sent to an admin office and new order were generated for me and I was then hastily shipped off to Germany and eventually landing in Stuttgart, Headquarters and Headquarters company of the US Army VII Corps, the Fighting Jayhawks, the corp most famous for its raid/landing on D-Day in Normandy and a major European command headquarters. I smirked and remembered my conversation with my bitter jump school captain about how disastrous my Army career would be. So far, things were looking real good. Once at VII Corps, I was shuffled around for a bit, kind of like going to a job fair as the many powers at be decided where to assign me. I was snapped up by sergeant First Class Iris Gil de Lamadrid, a fiercely proud and foul mouthed Puerto Rican woman from Brooklyn. She was so cool and tough. She took to me instantly. My new Army job would be as clerk/admin to the Corps G3, Col. John H. Meyer.

This is the first in a series of my Army stories. I had the privilege of serving in one of the weirdest and off beat Army headquarters that I have ever heard about. After leaving the Army and congregating from time to time with other vets, I quickly learned that I wasn't in the same Army as everyone else. I hope to share some of these stories here on Tuesdays.

When Blogger added the next blog button at the top of the blogspot page, I wasn’t exactly enthused but have recently recanted and find myself loving this roulette wheel of blog dom (doom?) that is the [Next Blog] button.

Two recent finds from a spin of the ol’ wheel:

National November Bloggers Month A blog dedicated to writers participating in the National November Novel Writing Month and are publishing their novel online.

Query Letters by managerguy, a “Hollywood insider” who gets tons of badly written screenplay query letters and movie treatments a month and has taken the unselfish act to publish them online for all of us to share in the horror that is the Hollywood studio movie machine. There is some real gold here. (this was on Metafilter yesterday as well, but it wasn’t how I stumbled upon it. The inter-web is a small world after all.)

Now don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of crap to be found via the Next Blog button and apparently, Blogging is very popular in Argentina and who the hell knows what those kookie kids are talking about. But patient clicking of the button will turn up some gems, that is certain.

On the road and away from the computer until Friday or so. Have a great holiday and please fell free to enjoy the beer and sandwiches.