drat fink

less filling

"Miller is a star, a diva. She wrote big stories, won big prizes. Long before her WMD articles ran, Miller had become a newsroom legend—and for reasons that had little to do with the stories that appeared beneath her byline. With her seemingly bottomless ambition—a pair of big feet that would stomp on colleagues in her way and even crunch a few bystanders—she cut a larger-than-life figure that lent itself to Paul Bunyan–esque retellings. Most of these stories aren’t kind. Of course, nobody said journalism was a country club. And her personality was immaterial while she was succeeding, winning a Pulitzer, warning the world about terrorism, bio-weapons, and Iraq’s war machine. But now, who she is, and why she prospered, makes for a revealing cautionary tale about the culture of American journalism."

mayer weiner

jane mayer/new yorker/chalabi

this weak

zinni v. perle on stephanopoulos

making a dent

wired article about nick denton.

so thats what you do

turns out my neighbor isnt just the long haired guy i smirk at in the hallway, he directs theatre, in this case, childrens theatre, and in minnesota. last time i checked, minneapolis was not the last stop on the L. but look how its paid off -- thirty seconds of airtime on the news hour. and theres probably some residual benefits from working with kids and being a positive influence on society, but i cant think of any offhand.

hopelessly tivo-ted

another tivo success story today. was able to watch andy roddick fall apart on the clay at the french open and lose to a short freedom-hating frenchman. i believe it is because he dumped his anamatronic barbiedoll girlfriend mandy moore. all 10 american men have been eliminated in the first two rounds. interesting factoid. serves coming off the clay are 20% slower upon reaching the baseline than on grass.

also recorded fmr general zinni with tom clancy as escort on charlie rose. he rocked. should rumsfeld resign -- yes, wolfowitz --yes, feith -- yes. stopped short at cheney.

out of the way

"The political split in the US over outsourcing notwithstanding, till very recently the fund-raising and vote-seeking campaign for the Republican Party was done partly out of India. And this was handled by two call centres located in our own friendly neighbourhood in Noida and Gurgaon."

youve blogged a long way, baby

"Two years from now—give or take—Elizabeth Spiers, the founding editor of the gossip Web sites Gawker and The Kicker, will publish her first novel. Around the same time, Glenn Reynolds, who writes the political Web log Instapundit, will also have a book in stores. So, too, may writers from the blogs Hit & Run, The Black Table, Dong Resin, Zulkey, Low Culture, Lindsayism, Megnut, Maud Newton, MemeFirst, Old Hag, PressThink, I Keep a Diary, Buzz Machine, Engadget, and Eurotrash. Suddenly, books by bloggers will be a trend, a cultural phenomenon. You will probably read about it in the Sunday Times. And when that happens the person to thank—or blame—will be Kate Lee, who is currently a twenty-seven-year-old assistant at International Creative Management."

piece of cakewalk

laura rozens blog - war and piece

tag, youre it

"Shock and awe were what our military promised the Iraqis. And shock and the awful are what these photographs announce to the world that the Americans have delivered: a pattern of criminal behavior in open contempt of international humanitarian conventions. Soldiers now pose, thumbs up, before the atrocities they commit, and send off the pictures to their buddies. Secrets of private life that, formerly, you would have given nearly anything to conceal, you now clamor to be invited on a television show to reveal. What is illustrated by these photographs is as much the culture of shamelessness as the reigning admiration for unapologetic brutality."

free for all

"Helpful Farber-Invented Tip: there's an easy work-around for pulling up old Times articles if they're within the frame that the Link Generator has them. Go to the abstract of the article; copy the headline; drop it into Google (carefully putting it within quotation marks); pick up the original URL from Google, drop it into the Link Generator."

via digby

dupes!

so funny it hurts.

silence is golden (gotta be applebees!)

"The Brooklyn-based orchestral pop ensemble The Silent League originated as the solo identity of singer/pianist Justin Russo (Mercury Rev, Hopewell, Grand Mal) in the late nineties. While a keyboardist with Mercury Rev in support of the critically acclaimed albums "Deserter's Songs" and "All Is Dream," Russo was secretly stealing away every available moment to write and record his own fragile, epic, and highly personal statement: "The Orchestra, Sadly, Has Refused." The resulting debut record by The Silent League -- hailed as a "a masterful blend of sepia-toned chamber pop and sunny-sinister piano balladry" (Bang Magazine), "impressive" and "heavenly" by the Village Voice -- features performances from friends and allies Sam Fogarino (Interpol), Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiack (Mercury Rev) and Bill Whitten (Grand Mal)."

mp3 breathe

serious shrinkage

i have really failed myself at strategic planning. thank god i am nowhere near the pentagon when decisions are being made. not that i could do any worse. do republican politicians have any shame?

speaking of shamelessness, i have purchased a new tv and have just had installed directv. my strategic failure was not getting three tvs hooked up for free instead of two. my neighbor is taking one line (thats legal right, like file sharing) but at the moment i have two lines hooked up. so while my new tv is hooked up in the front room, im currently watching tv2 in the back room. just this morning i put my computer monitor on the middle shelf of a metroshelving unit (which is an upgrade from the box (that jim claims is his) was on). i have the tv on the shelf above it as i type from the reasonable comfort of a late 80s cheap leather scandanavian recliner. had i been shameless like a republican, i would have ordered all three and not considered that it was at all odd to have three hookups for this size apartment. of course the guys installing it could care less and i forgot what whores americans are for tv. probably wasnt unusual at all. i asked him if he had directv. he said that he had three cable hookups that were all illegal. land of the free, home of the brave.

maybe some french kicks one more time

better never than late

why would i ever tell anyone who is chronically late to take their time in coming over? what sort of temporally challenged masochism am i practicing?

street scene

"Mike Skinner, the musical mastermind behind The Streets, once again melds hip-hop, dub, ska, UK garage beats, and his unique rhyme style to deliver a sound like nothing else. Instead of the snapshot imagery of the last album, "Original Pirate Material," "A Grand..." is one continuous narrative, following Skinner through a day of victories, defeats, and battles. "On the new album Skinner steps away from scene affiliations and into more exploratory spaces. The result actually comes off more genuinely hip-hop than his debut…A 'Grand' suggests that Skinner is less England’s Eminem that its Beck, someone whose distinctive way with sound, song, and gesture is as much a part of his voice as his lyrics. A rap Ulysses."

mp3 fit and you know it

luz vargas

"LU has found a niche between avant garde exploration and post-punk firepower. Still eschewing lyrics in favor of intricate guitar and keyboard melodies, "Share the Load," their second full-length release, transpires in movements. The first three tracks could each be singles in their own right. In fact, "A La Casa" was culled for Teenbeat Records' 2004 sampler. The next three tracks slow the tempo and darken the mood with dub-influenced reverbs and negative space. Then it's a return to a bump and grind mix of metronomic rhythms and angular guitar, suggesting a perforated future threatening to tear itself apart. On the whole, "Share the Load" is more contemplative and exploratory than LU's debut. It is road trip music for the rail commuter; liberation doled out one station stop at a time; furniture music taken outside of the house."

mp3 a la casa

little green men

"Eighty-one times a year, sometimes more, Rich Maloney and Chris Elias spend four hours together in a dark, long, narrow room, perhaps five feet wide by 40 feet deep, with a sloping ceiling just high enough to walk under. It is, to be sure, an unusual place to report for work, but Rich and Chris have two of the best jobs in baseball. They are the men who work behind Fenway Park’s hand-operated scoreboard."

whats happening

"It's taken more than 50 years of TV evolution, but the prime-time rerun is rapidly becoming an endangered species."

brat worst

"And then there was this split ballot, comparing the George W. Bush presidencies failures in distinct areas. The George W. Bush presidency is the worst since:

“In terms of economic damage, Reagan.

In terms of imperialism, T Roosevelt.

In terms of dishonesty in government, Nixon.

In terms of affable incompetence, Harding.

In terms of corruption, Grant.

In terms of general lassitude and cluelessness, Coolidge.

In terms of personal dishonesty, Clinton.

In terms of religious arrogance, Wilson.”

when the reunion?

i listened to about 30 seconds of the new morrissey and i thought he could really use a better producer. if only he would get stephen merritt to be jack white to his loretta lynn.

"MORRISSEY His new album, "You Are the Quarry" (Sanctuary), demonstrates more than ever that the best lyricist in rock, Morrissey, still surrounds himself with dull musicians incapable of properly filling out his introspective kitchen-sink dramas. Plodding generic rock 'n' roll accompanies "Where taxi drivers never stop talking, under slate-gray Victorian sky: Here you'll find despair and I." At this level of lyric artistry, these warmed-over arena rock backdrops are a waste. One longs to lock him up for a year with, say, the pop orchestra the High Llamas, so lyrics like "I've been dreaming of a time when to be English is not to be baneful, to be standing by the flag not feeling shameful, racist or martial" can be matched by equally thoughtful arrangements."

goodliness is next to godliness

the morning news awards for outstanding achievement (online) in the field of excellence.

well behind the curve

im late to this one but just in case you missed it, heres the start to the washingtonienne story. the pages cache can be accessed here.

is that a chalabi in your pocket?

"BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 20 — American soldiers and Iraqi police today raided the offices and home of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi politician once favored by the Pentagon, and removed computers and documents."

stroker ace

electroclash may be doa but miss kitten bleeps on. some cuts streaming plus one download from the soon to be released cd, I Com.

dog-earred coping

touch and go is rereleasing the first cd from singer/songwriter nina nastasia.

mp3 stormy weather from dogs

!!!

is it a good thing if something reminds you of Big Audio Dynamite? im sure there is a hipper corollary.

mp3 hello? is this thing on? from (forthcoming) louden up now

lion tamer

new cd with attendant website from pedro the lion.

mp3 discretion from achilles heel

hack license

"You might take this all as a joke," he said, "but perhaps it is not entirely absurd. It may be the explanation for why the world we live in is so weird. On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine being, but by a physicist hacker."

cuff daddy

i think they chose this picture because it looks as if rumsfeld has been handcuffed and arrested.

general dismay

"I'm privileged to spend a good bit of time with our military officers, from generals to new lieutenants. And I have never seen such distrust of a public official in the senior ranks. Not even of Bill Clinton. Rumsfeld & Co. have trashed our ground forces every way they could. Only the quality of those in uniform saved us from a debacle in Iraq.

Of course, those in uniform don't get to pick the SecDef. And they continue, as they always will, to loyally carry out their orders to the letter. But to be effective, a SecDef must be respected. He doesn't have to be liked. But, especially in wartime, he must be trusted.

Rumsfeld has failed the most important test of all.

Clinging to power isn't a mark of strength, but of weakness, arrogance and brute obstinacy. Rumsfeld has wounded our military and sent our troops to die for harebrained schemes. In place of sound plans, he substituted political prejudices. Election year or not, he has to go.

It's time to bring integrity, mutual respect and a focus on the realities of warfare back to the Pentagon. The White House has Sen. McCain's phone number."

never the twain

this mark twain quote is eerily prescient.

beck to the future

beck live at coachella 2004.

depressing read

"While I conceive of this blog as a journal, I have no interest in recounting day to day activities; rather, this is an online space for my thoughts on depression and literature. My hope is that, in assembling an honest account of my depression and by providing relevant excerpts from writers’ autobiographies and psychiatric literature, I can offer readers moments of identification that undermine the loneliness and shame of mental illness. And I suspect that blogs can contribute to the public discourse on depression in ways that more traditional representations of depression can’t; since a blog is continually updated, its representation of depression is less likely to hide or mitigate contradictions and ambiguities, and more likely to challenge practiced wisdom and “pop psychology” simplifications."

via large

laugh now

armchair generalists

Sep. 30, 2002

(flashback)

"McDermott also said on "This Week" that Bush might mislead Americans about the threat Iraq poses, comparing the situation to misleading statements by President Johnson about the Vietnam War.

"It would not surprise me if they came with some information that is not provable," he said. "I think the president would mislead the American people."

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe responded that Bush has made a "very clear case" regarding Iraq's actions.

"The American people know he hasn't misled anyone, and the American people know he won't mislead anyone," he said."

chain gang

"But General Taguba said that he did not conduct his investigation any higher in the chain of command than General Karpinski, leaving open the possibility that responsibility for the failure in leadership went higher than General Karpinski."

and now for something...

"He's had success against me? You must be smoking Kool-Aid," said Bonds, now 9-for-30 against Leiter. "What success have you been reading? I don't fear no pitcher, dog."

joe schmoe

"This is the sort of subject-changing our parents try to wean us from when we're in grade school. (Okay, I did that. But look what Tommy did!) And of course there's the side-issue that Lieberman is playing to the notion that there's some sort of 'they did this to us and now we did this to them' issue here. And (how many times does it have to be said?) these folks in Abu Ghraib weren't the 9/11 planners.

Nothing Lieberman said is untrue precisely. It does set us apart from fascists and mass-murderers that Americans are outraged by this and that there will be investigations and accountability. But talk about defining deviance down!"

read em and weep

"Bush has other pressing reasons to keep Rumsfeld. Who would replace him? The Pentagon would be thrown into turmoil. By the rules of succession, the deputy secretary of defense would step up as acting secretary. But the deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, has even less credibility on Capitol Hill. In fact, Rumsfeld's entire inner circle is tainted—if not by the Abu Ghraib scandal, then by the controversies over the Iraq war and the "stovepiping" of false intelligence that led up to it. Confirmation hearings for a new secretary would be a golden opportunity to revisit each of these controversies in great detail, with an election just months away."

(two must reads in slate today. whats wrong with them? kaplan is consistently good.)

stop hitting yourself

"Closely related to this aggressive ignorance is a third feature of Bush's mentality: laziness. Again, this is a lifelong trait. Bush's college grades were mostly Cs (including a 73 in Introduction to the American Political System). At the start of one term, the star of the Yale football team spotted him in the back row during the shopping period for courses. "Hey! George Bush is in this class!" Calvin Hill shouted to his teammates. "This is the one for us!" As governor of Texas, Bush would take a long break in the middle of his short workday for a run followed by a stretch of video golf or computer solitaire."

kostars

"And of course about sex and cars, about the affection in breaking the boredom as well as being young and disco-punk-cool at the Umeå club Elvira in the 1980’s. From a purely scientific point of view, the rescue operation is conducted so that the water level in your hearing system is restored, which occurs as soon as you have modified your CD player with “KoKoMeMeDaDa”. The roar will pass and be replaced by small purling streams of swells and ringing. Thereby, a broader awakening of waterpower also appears that will, in the long run, be able to support more and more liberated amplifiers and music computers.
From the beginning to the end, “KoKoMeMeDaDa” is an angel of mercy of sound. The sound of pop in the cracks of the earthquake."

animated video blossom from kokomemedada

balls also to the wall

"The higher ups, on the other hand, appear to have realized fairly quickly that exposing the abuses at Abu Ghraib would draw global attention to the entire system - Gitmo, the prisons in Afghanistan, their entire kinder, gentler gulag archipelago. So it looks like they adopted a strategy of letting the CID investigations run their secret course, while allowing Taguba's report to sit on the bureaucratic shelf.

The photographic evidence, however, couldn't be controlled -- the gang should have seen that from the start -- and somebody (Taguba?) became so angry about the way the report was being buried that they leaked it to Sy Hersh. The stonewall crumbled."

familie affair

"On "Brother is to Son", all the special-ness that the full band brought to previous Danielson albums is fully present. The earnest vocal chirp of head Danielson himself is still there, not to mention the empassioned and punk-inspired hard strum of his acoustic guitar. He still leads his folk jamboree through the familial boy-girl harmonies as the banjos, bells, piano keys and jaw harp all teem with kinetic energy, like a deconstructionalist jug band led by a man who follows in the bold footsteps of Sun Ra, Don Van Vliet and Johnny Lydon as a truly original art terrorist."

mp3 things against stuff from brother is to son
mp3 daughters will tune you from brother is to son

the unicorns

"In that sense, they rival The Shins, or The Magnetic Fields, or any of the innumerable indie touchstones, but what truly sets Who Will Cut Our Hair apart is the near-total absence of traditional verse/chorus/verse framework in their songs; to nail beautiful, memorable lines with such remarkable ease is a feat unto itself, but to do so in essentially formless compositions is a different class of achievement entirely. Songs shift effortlessly from segment to segment, never relying upon the crutch of repetitive composition to create the illusion of a powerful hook. That's not to say that motifs aren't revisited throughout a song, but elementary concepts of A-B-A structure are abandoned in favor of brilliant, sprawling whole-song compositions."

mp3s tuff ghost and les os

of of

"Of Montreal's long-out-of-print, high-ticket-eBay-item album "Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse" is now available through Polyvinyl as a re-issue. Prior to "Satanic Panic in the Attic," "Coquelicot's..." concept, arrangements, and artwork (a whopping sixteen page booklet featuring paintings by David Barnes) was described as Of Montreal's most ambitious album in terms of scope and quality."

reissue mp3 good morning mr edminton
new mp3 disconnect the dots

depeche mood

"Musically, (Patrick) Wolf sees himself as a 21st Century folk artist, which includes playing viola, accordion, and ukulele as well as his trusty laptop by his side. With laptop, the folk artist can go ANYWHERE and record, from a city squat to a forest cabin. The result is a mixture of haunting melodies, beautiful strings, glitch core beats, cut up field recordings, and passionate singing and lyrics. His musical influences include: Joni Mitchell, Meredith Monk, The Pixies, Vashti Bunyan, Chet Baker, Lucia Pamela, Pierre Boulez, PJ Harvey, Osvaldo Golijov, Digital Hardcore Recordings, Bjork, Clara Rockmore, John Cale and Nico."

streams london calling 2003

some total

more instudios from seattles kexp

the shins
iron and wine

short wave

throwing muse kristen hersh gets in touch with her inner cobain with her 50 Foot Wave project.

mp3s live in studio at KEXP seattle, wa

rat race

"Formerly known as Cherry, this NYC duo is already familiar to hipsters from touring with Interpol. (In fact, Interpol's Paul Banks occasionally guests on guitar.) Ratatat's founders, Mike "Snake" Stroud and Evan ''E*Vax" Mast, have been making music out of a Crown Heights apartment in Brooklyn since 2001, their unique sound born of a combined love of Jay-Z, The Rolling Stones, Timbaland, and Beethoven. Mike is one of New York's best guitarists and has spent his time touring the world with Ben Kweller and Dashboard Confessional; Evan has been producing music as E*vax for the past few years. Now back in their bedroom studio, the pair have made a sing-along record, just without words. While dance music is trying to re-invent itself and rock is returning to its roots, Ratatat seem to make a happy mess in both fields."

mp3 seventeen years

magic acts

"One of the advantages of being almost as tall as Muggsy Bogues is being able to sneak to the front pretty easily even in a packed house - and I must say that the kids there to see Mira and and the other "complicated" bands on the bill were amongst the nicest I've ever come across. To the music - White Magic sounds kinda like what Qix*o*tic would be if it was just Mira's parts. She plays both the keys and guitar and performs each song with a depth and poignancy that echoes 'White Rabbit" under water on shrooms in December. Well, to me at least."

mp3 one note from through a sun door

lali lali lali

new lali puna streaming and quicktime vid

zip it up

"When you listen to the wonky and warm harmonies found throughout Joy Zipper, you might be reminded of the first stirrings of a good trip (that slight, buzzy bump of well being and of everything just beginning to detach). And then you learn and understand that LSD was the key to much of Vinny's writing, on this five-years-in-the-gestating, two-years-in-the-making home project. "My father died when I was five, and I accepted it," says Vinny. "But acid freed my mind during a very depressed period of my life, and now it's great to be rid of it and pass it on to other people. The music isn't as morbid as some of the words. I've constructed a false reality around the subject. It's a lot like Long Island itself, with its beautiful lawns; when there is a lot going on unseen." Hence the reason why this cartharsis doesn't seem much like a burden at all."

mp3 check out my new jesus

autoban

"2 years ago I first heard the crude home made recordings of Devendra Banhart, then a homeless, wandering, neo psych/folk hippie artist and musician, not yet 21 years old. We released these recordings on YGR because we'd never heard anything quite like them, ever. His voice - a quivering high-tension wire, sounded like it could have been recorded 70 years ago - these songs could have been sitting in someone's attic, left there since the 1930's. The response was astounding . Devendra soon moved here to NYC (from SF), where he lived in squats, couch-surfed, and finally found himself a home (very recently), suddenly riding a tidal wave of press acclaim, 3 or 4 US tours, tours in Europe, a special feature on NPR (for God's sake) – in short, a seismic shift in his fortunes. He's the most genuine, least cynical and calculated artist I've ever known, and he deserves every bit of the good things now coming his way. He's also one of the most innately talented, magical performers I have ever heard. Period. He GIVES. This kind of generosity and breadth of emotion is all too rare these days. Whether the songs are pained, twisted, whimsical, or even sometimes weirdly silly, aside from being fantastically musical and expertly played, they are also utterly sincere, and devoid of a single drop of post modern irony. In short, he's the real thing."

mp3 the body breaks from rejoicing in the hands

chew on this

"If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols or candy-based metaphors for carnal acts, it's in."

major booty

get your bootleg on

mp3sus

mp3 laden blogs

fluxblog
said the gramophone
mystical beast
stereogum
the suburbs are killing us
moistworks
teaching indie kids...
the tofu hut
nevercamehome
chromewaves

hear me out

radio.blog looks pretty cool (upper right corner).

state flowers

""It's politically incorrect for me to say so," he added, "but when all you use is a stick, you're not going to get very far." He used the example of Pakistan. "The problem is, you sanction Pakistan, you lay all this stuff on Pakistan, the Pressler Amendment, and so forth, and then all of a sudden Pakistan does a nuclear test in '98. But if you stay involved with them and you keep working on them and you keep at it, over and over and over again, keep seeing what's successful and what's a failure and emphasizing what's successful, doing more of it, and quit doing what's a failure, then you can make more progress than if you just sanction somebody and walk off and say, 'That's it, I'm not dealing with you anymore.' "

"It hasn't worked in Cuba for forty years," I said.

"Dumbest policy on the face of the earth," he said. "It's crazy.""

free to be

more revealing than funny, former senator and 9/11 commissioner bob kerrey on the daily show.

take on me

lou reed takes a walk on the nasty side w/run dmc.

hey webjay

webjay - listener created playlists of mp3s on the web

coachillin

the pixies live at coachella (1er mai 2004) (save as...rename jpeg to mp3)
radiohead at coachella (same as above)

via large

idol chatter

i almost made this joke about dylan. guess it might not be a joke for long.

college entrance exam

"In the case of Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, electors will be named by each state's political parties. But Ralph Nader is running as an independent. When he petitions to get on the ballot in each state, he must name his own slate of electors. While he is free to nominate a distinctive slate of names, he can also propose the very same names that appear on the Kerry slate.

If he does, he will provide voters with a new degree of freedom. On Election Day, they will see a line on the ballot designating Ralph Nader's electors. But if voters choose the Nader line, they won't be wasting their ballot on a candidate with little chance of winning. Since Mr. Nader's slate would be the same as Mr. Kerry's, his voters would be providing additional support for the electors selected by the Democrats. If the Nader-Kerry total is a majority in any state, the victorious electors would be free to vote for Mr. Kerry."

balls to the wall

more ny mets blogs

flushing local
shea hot corner
jeremey heit
always amazin
yanks, mets and the rest
mets forever

over mediated

media news blogs

paid content
cable newser
lost remote

press passe

another nick denton enterprise -- defamer

culture schlock

"In February 2004 I posted a challenge on the Get Your Bootleg On forum to all-comers to take a track each from the seminal Clash LP London Calling and bootleg it. That is, remix it, add to it, subtract from it - put your own tributary spin on it. Within hours all 19 tracks had new masters (and mistresses), each charged with the task of making that track their own."

l(oser). ron?

"Ribisi was in the audience earlier this month for Beck's set at a benefit concert at the Knitting Factory in Los Angeles, joining with the couple's fellow Scientology pals Juliette Lewis, Danny Masterson and Erika Christensen.

The newlyweds' honeymoon won't last long. Beck is due to head back into the studio, and the just-about-bursting Ribisi is expecting the couple's first child in May."

via aeki

clinton gore news network

al gore -- media mogul?

gouge away

finally getting through daniel ellsbergs memoir about the pentagon papers. heres a conversation between kissinger and nixon upon its release. how great is it to have those audio tapes?

one bit of trivia i just picked up was that neil sheehan, ellsbergs contact at the new york times, actually stole a copy of the papers from ellsberg. ellsberg had let sheehan read everything but only selectively released pages to the times until they had assured him the papers would receive the type of coverage he hoped to garner. ellsberg only mentions this anecdote as an aside at the end of a chapter with no editorial remarks so ill assume for the moment that it ultimately made no impact on their subsequent release. but i wonder what was sheehans ultimate motivation? maybe he was worried the times wouldnt print it and he would lose access to the documents. or maybe he thought that ellsberg could be arrested by the fbi at any moment and the documents would be lost. guess we will have to wait for neil sheehans memoirs to find out. meanwhile, heres an interview with sheehan.

wholesome american values

"This basic cluelessness explains a great deal, I think. It allows Americans to continue drawing a sharp distinction between their traditional domestic institutions and norms (pluralistic, legalistic and at least nominally democratic) and their behavior abroad (brutal, authoritarian, and, at its worst moments, downright fascistic.) It's a kind of imperial adaptation of what historian Pierre van den Berghe labeled 'herrenvolk democracy' -- in which egalitarian norms within the privileged class or race are combined with paternal and/or repressive treatment of subject peoples."