Over at The Atlantic, I throw rocks at Force Protection Condition Alpha:
Thanks in large part to the hapless, ineffective, counterproductive, and embarrassing work of the Transportation Security Agency, Americans have grown accustomed to “security theater.” The National Threat Advisory scheme at Homeland Security is equally nebulous, if not outright bewildering. Blue alerts? Yellow alerts? Orange alerts? Is there a difference, and which is the bad one? When does one duct tape his or her windows and parcel the cyanide tablets?
Read the rest here.
I’m delighted with the fantastic job the publishers did on the cover. I think they really captured the feel of 1930s crime pulps, with a dash of Golden Age science fiction thrown in.
Authors have very little control over the covers of their works, so it can be a real nail-biter waiting for that final product. I am very fortunate. The book will be out later this week. More to come…
You might notice an Upcoming Events tab atop this page. I’ll keep it updated as media events are scheduled for the release of Red Planet Noir.
Tonight, I’m doing a podcast interview for adviceradio.com. The call-in line is 800-405-6425, and the show starts at 7:00pm Central. (That’s 5:00pm Pacific and 8:00pm Eastern.) The host, Megan Willingham, and I will be discussing my book. If your buzzword bingo card has the words Chandler, Heinlein, Editing, and Rejection, you’ve probably got a leg-up on the competition. It’s tempting to launch a scathing assault on the Oxford comma, but that probably wouldn’t be the wisest use of my time.
UPDATE: For those who caught the interview, adviceradio.com was having terrible switchboard issues, which is the reason I was so frequently cut off. The host was unfailingly kind and gracious, but I am disappointed that things didn’t go according to plan. I stumbled on the very first question (the easy one: tell me about your book!) because I’d been disconnected twice before I could answer. Nobody every accused me of grace under fire. Anyway, I did my best under pretty lousy conditions, and I think Megan Willingham and her producer did a fine job covering for me as well. Still, it’s kind of embarrassing to have been placed in such a losing situation.
I’m grateful to Megan and adviceradio.com for having me, and hope we can do this again soon under better circumstances.
UPDATE 2: I’ll be back on December 2nd. Synchronize your watches!
Over at The Atlantic, I throw rocks at the C.I.A.
In 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem had been in power in South Vietnam for nine years. The Kennedy administration inherited him from Eisenhower. Former Secretary of State John Dulles called Diem “the best available man.” Diem’s leadership was ever tenuous, his successes promoted beyond their merits, his failures epic in scope. In the end, however, it was his oppressive and corrupt brother that proved his undoing, and the Kennedy administration sanctioned a C.I.A. coup that found Diem and his brother in the back of an armored personnel carrier, and on the business end of semi-automatic rifles.
How the Company has evolved. These days, they reveal allies carefully cultivated, but no longer desirable, to be U.S. stooges, and engineer elections.
Read the rest here.
Google Wave
My tech column for The Times of Southwest Louisiana is up, wherein I discuss my experiences with Google Wave. (No, my account did not include invites. Yes, I will share them when they’re made available.) The article can be found here in an embedded, Byzantine PDF form. Because it was edited for space, and because there’s a lot of interest in the topic, I’ve reproduced it below. A snippet:
Composing messages in Wave, however, is like walking on a tightrope, as the recipient can see your messages as you type them. Every backspace, every deleted clause, every corrected typo, and every toned-down rewrite. (Who among us hasn’t written a stern rebuke to a correspondent, only to delete the letter, and respond with a simple, “Thanks for your suggestion.”)
Real time message streaming is not new. Indeed, it’s very, very old. Hardened computer geeks will recall the BBS days, where such was common place. College students of the 90s will recall ICQ, the first mainstream instant messenger, which operated similarly. But that paradigm died as technology improved and the tension of livewire messaging became obvious. Do you know how much profanity can accidentally be typed from innocuous words? After a week on Wave, I do. Have fun messaging Grandma.
The entire review is available after the jump: read more…
Over at The Atlantic, I discuss what happens if we leave Afghanistan.
At the assessment’s most dire, General McChrystal is unambiguous: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (next 12 months)–while Afghan security capacity matures–risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
It is a sobering statement in an unflinching report. While nobody ever expected a Taliban surrender treaty signed on some battleship in the Indian Ocean, who would have accepted on September 12, 2001 that we might eventually pack our thermobaric pressure bombs and Ranger battalions and call it a day? Professor Rory Stewart declared Afghanistan “the graveyard of predictions.” How else to explain our $500 billion defense budget bested by an enemy whose weapons are built from rusted Soviet ordinances and empty cans of Coca-Cola? Who would have known that the lessons of Vietnam and Somalia would result in yet another conflict where, at best, we “learned lessons”?
Read the rest here.
Supplementary read: Commander’s Initial Assessment (pdf)
Update: Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard offers kind words of agreement.
Update: Andrew Sullivan offers thoughtful disagreement.
Update: Wherein I spin my own wheels. At the newly-minted Atlantic Wire, Mara Gay compiles essays from David Brooks, Pat Buchanan, Oliver North, and your humble correspondent, as examples of the argument that withdrawal from Afghanistan would “[accomplish] the reverse of the ‘domino theory.’”
Due Date.
A chilling example of civilization rotting from within, from the LA Times:
In a dramatic move, the Philadelphia Free Library System announced today that it will close all branch, regional and central libraries as of Oct. 2. There will be no book loans, no classes, no programs for seniors or children, no outreach to the community, no more community meetings at library locations. Starting today, the library began truncating its loan period.
Why?
Pennsylvania has yet to pass a budget for this year, and the Philadelphia Free Library is just one of the institutions and services caught in the deadlock.
Confirmation from Library Journal.
More stomach-turning details are available on the library website. They are also imploring patrons to take political action.
Philadelphia Citypaper has more.
Maybe they’re meant as warnings of what’s to come if Mayor Nutter’s taxes aren’t implemented — if Harrisburg doesn’t warm to the idea — and nothing more. Maybe they’re meant as the harbingers of doom they appear to be, and things are as bad as they seem.
Background: The Pennsylvania House has passed a bill. It’s in the Senate’s hands, now.
The saddest statement of all, from The Philadelphia Inquirer: “The notices also say that all material will now be due Oct. 1 and that nothing can be borrowed after Sept. 30.”
UPDATE: Issue resolved. The doors will remain open. But the very thought of public libraries being used as a budgetary pawn should give everyone pause. It is an affront to the egalitarian ideal, if not an outright assault on intellectualism and democracy. Libraries are the vanguards of a free society and the mobility of the classes. This was not and is not a Philadelphia issue; it was a civilizational issue. Now that our politicians have tipped their hand, we must remain vigilant. They will do it again.
George Carlin once spoke very powerfully on the subject, and I offer the video here.
(Photo from Philebrity.)
Bridge of Sighs
First off, in no way is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
(In my fantasy world, bar fights are, indeed, started over such things.)
Onto the book club discussion questions. These questions came from here, which claims they were provided by the publisher. Just so we’re clear, I didn’t write them, and Knopf, if you want to sue someone, sue them. Not me. I have no money. Seriously.
Also, please note that I answered these questions twice. This weekend, I wrote thousands of words in response to these uncharacteristically good questions (they deserved it, as did the novel), clicked “Save Draft,” and was taken to the WordPress login screen. Yes, all of my work was lost. So these are less-detailed responses written on-the-fly. If you want to really talk about the book, give me a call or buy me a cup of coffee.
Away we go…
1. Bridge of Sighs alternates two narratives: Lucy’s first-person memoir and the story of Robert Noonan. What are the advantages of this structure? How does it affect the way plot unfolds? Does it influence your impressions of the main characters?
Lucy is an extraordinarily sentimental narrator. He is a soft man, and oftentimes echoes his father in naivety. That said, he is, if anything, honest, and coupled with his sensitivity to Thomaston and its inhabitants, he paints a very warm portrait of a town that others might draw in chiaroscuro. (Noonan among them.)
The alternating narratives serve to constantly revitalize the story. It is compelling to watch the dueling points-of-view inch ever closer together, until the novel’s satisfying conclusion. It’s worth noting that the third-person vantage frequently reflects Lucy’s memoir through a glass, darkly, and adds a sinister richness to what might otherwise be a sappy recollection.
I would agree that this style does influence the reader’s impression of the main characters. By Lucy’s own account, he’s intelligent if hapless, while Noonan is saintly and looming. Meanwhile, Noonan’s (and later Sarah’s) viewpoints portray Noonan as deeply flawed and profoundly angry, and Lucy to be an “innocent” (to use Mr. Berg’s term) in need of constant protection.
More after the jump: read more…
Over at The Atlantic, I discuss General Stanley McChrystal’s long awaited assessment of the war in Afghanistan. A snippet:
General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, seems to think likewise. His much-anticipated assessment of the campaign does away with the counterproductive strategies of old, of bombing runs and door-kicking–”disruptive operations”–and emphasizes a sort of armed humanitarianism built upon strong relationships with the local populace. In large measure, the operation becomes a civil affairs mission, and focuses on the doctrine of Military Operations Other Than War. As McChrystal states in his recently issued ISAF Commander’s Counterinsurgency Guide, “Earn the support of the people and the war is won, regardless of how many militants are killed or captured.”
Read the rest here.
Highly recommended supplementary reading: ISAF Commander’s Counterinsurgency Guidance (pdf)
