A FIELD OF DARKNESS, Cornelia Read

Former Debutante Madeline Dare has gone decidedly downscale. She's living with her inventor husband in crumbling Syracuse, New York, writing food articles for a local rag, and wanting desperately for them to be anywhere else. Then one of her in-laws finds a clue that implicates Madeline's favorite cousin in a decades-old murder, and her seemingly dead-end life starts getting considerably more interesting than she wished for.

This is one of those books that I love so much, I end up accosting people on the street and pressing it into their hands. The plotting is superb, much more assured than one would expect from a first time author. The twists and red herrings are deftly mixed in to keep the reader guessing without feeling confused during the journey and used at the end.

It's the quality of the writing, however, that really makes this book special. I fell in love with Madeline's voice from the opening sentences ("There are people who can be happy anywhere. I am not one of them.") And it just keeps getting better. Cornelia Read has a flair for the compact: the quickly sketched but perfect descriptive phrase; the snarky aside tossed off so quickly it almost seems like a throwaway until you get it and laugh with delight; the one seemingly trivial detail that causes a character to suddenly spring to life in the reader's imagination.

A Field of Darkness is an amazing debut. Check it out.

Congressman Ozzy?

Latest Newspaper Column:

The members of the incoming Democratic majority in Congress are not without some bad baggage from their pasts.

Congressman Alcee Hastings of Florida recently was passed over for the Intelligence Committee chairmanship he'd expected because of his impeachment back in the '80s for bribery and his removal from his position as a federal judge. One of the people who voted for his impeachment was incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, so it's perhaps not surprising that she wouldn't stick Hastings in one of the most security-sensitive positions in the House.

But perhaps the new congressman with the most egregious act in his past is John Hall of New York's 19th District.

What did Hall do that was so terrible? Three words: "Still the One."

You remember "Still the One"? The insanely bouncy and smarmy little '70s tune by the band Orleans? Maybe this will refresh your memory: "You're still the one who can scratch my itch. You're still the one and I wouldn't switch." As a member of Orleans, Hall wrote both that tune and their equally hideous follow-up single, "Dance With Me" ("I want to be your partner, can't you seeeeee ").

It's dreck like that that makes me wonder how I made it through the Seventies with my sanity intact. (Actually I do know, but my parents read this column, and I'm not sure if all the applicable statutes of limitations have run, so let's just drop the subject for now, shall we?)

Well, Hall's a bit older now, with a lot less hair than he sported in the '70s. He's shaved his beard and gotten all serious. Even so, when the very liberal Hall ran for Congress in the usually Republican N.Y.-19, very few people gave him much of a chance against the well-funded six-term incumbent Sue Kelly.

Then something happened. Several things, actually. Growing unease about Iraq. Duke Cunningham. Jack Abramoff. The Foley page scandal. Suddenly, it wasn't the greatest time to be a Republican incumbent.

Hall kept the pressure on by talking about Iraq and asking pointed questions about Kelly's membership on the House Page Board. Kelly tried to fight back by publishing fliers showing Hall half-naked with his bandmates on the cover of their "Waking and Dreaming" album, one of the most horrifically misconceived album covers of all time.

None of it worked. Hall won by 4,300 votes. Maybe if Kelly, instead of concentrating on the album cover, had actually published some of Hall's lyrics, like "Fantasy/could never be so killing/I feel free/ I hope that you are willing," she'd have had a better chance.

So now what? Will other rockers decide to try for higher office? After all, if the actor whose major claim to fame before entering politics was acting in a movie called "Bedtime for Bonzo" can achieve the presidency of these United States, what's to stop, say, Ozzy Osbourne from running for Senate?

Oh, sure, he's a little addled, but have you heard some of the stuff that comes out of the mouth of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)? Who can forget the shot of Stevens -- the head of the Commerce Committee, mind you -- standing in the well of the Senate bellowing, "[The internet] is not a truck! It's a series of tubes!" And let's face it, in Strom Thurmond's last couple of terms, he appeared to have roughly the cognitive ability of quartz.

No, if there's one thing recent history has taught us, it's that severe brain damage is no disqualification for the U.S. Congress. Now, I know Ozzy's British. But people have overcome worse handicaps to serve in politics. Or maybe I'm just pushing this because I really would like to see the look on Nancy Pelosi's face when Ozzy finishes off a rousing speech on the House floor by chomping the head off a bat. Hey, a man can dream.

But let's face it, Congressman Ozzy's unlikely to happen. What's more likely is that we'll get somebody like, say, Bruce Springsteen.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Bruce's music, especially the rockers. He puts on one of the greatest concerts I've ever seen, and he's one heck of a songwriter. But Bruce has this regrettable tendency to suddenly up and decide that he's this generation's answer to Woody Guthrie.

Sometimes he can pull it off, as on a few of the tracks of his recent "Seeger Sessions" collection of folk standards. But when he starts crooning something like "We Shall Overcome," you just want to take him by the shoulder and go "Bruce. Dude. No. Just....no."

Still, Bruce has that populist, friend-of-the-working-man thing going on. I suppose we could do worse, even if there's little chance of bat-munching from Congressman Springsteen, the honorable gentleman from New Jersey.

What the heck. I'd even vote for him, except I'd have to move to Jersey to do that. And the chances of that are about the same as my chances of buying "Orleans' Greatest Hits."

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage. He says he might also be persuaded to vote for Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders.

Give Me a Break

Remark By Webb Arouses Passions:

Okay, a little background if you haven't heard the story. At a White House reception for the newly elected members of Congress last week, Preznit George Dubbya Bush walked up to Senator-elect Jim Webb and asked "So, Jim, how's your boy?"

Now, if I, like Webb, had a son serving in Iraq, a number of retorts would have come to my mind, such as:

"In the goddamn quagmire you stuck him in, you arrogant ass."

Or:

"Unlike your worthless drunken hell-spawn, volunteering to serve his country".

You get the idea.

But Webb was politer than I would have been. "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," he answered.

Bush decided he was going to push a little harder:"That's not what I asked you," he said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb responded.

From the reaction of the Washington chattering class, you'd have though Webb had spat in the face of the Dimwit-in-Chief.

George Will was the first to get all prissy: "Webb certainly has conveyed what he is: a boor. Never mind the patent disrespect for the presidency. Webb's more gross offense was calculated rudeness toward another human being -- one who, disregarding many hard things Webb had said about him during the campaign, asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another."

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. God forbid that anyone should engage in "calculated rudeness" to a man who'd said, in so many words, that if you vote for people like James Webb, terrorists win.

Then Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell chimed in: 'I understand having a child over in harm's way in Iraq. You take the situation over there much more personally,' McDonnell said. 'The problem for Mr. Webb is he's got to learn a little bit better about having a sense of decorum. To be an effective U.S. senator, you have to deal in a collegial manner.'"

As the kids on the Internets say, O RLY? Is this the same collegiality Vice President Dick Cheney showed when he told Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy to fuck himself?

I've got news for you, Mr. Will and Mr. McDonnell: civility flows both ways. After six years of being called traitors and terrorist sympathizers, I hope you'll understand if some of us don't get the fucking vapors because a newly elected Senator who was accused by Republicans of writing child pornography doesn't bow down and kiss Bush's ring.

Frankly, it's about the time someone gave the Boy in the Bubble a little reality check. The problem with this so-called "civility" is that sociopaths like the current crew in the White House manipulate it so you'll give them a pass on their rotten behavior. They count on you not making a fuss.

Well, news flash. Fusses are about to be made.

Does. Not. Compute.

The U.S. government agreed yesterday to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by an Oregon lawyer who was arrested and jailed for two weeks in 2004 after the FBI bungled a fingerprint match and mistakenly linked him to a terrorist attack in Spain.

Under the terms of the settlement filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Portland, the government also issued an unusual apology to Brandon Mayfield for the "suffering" caused by his wrongful arrest and imprisonment. It acknowledged that the ordeal was "deeply upsetting" to Mayfield and his family.

Mayfield will be able to continue pursuing his legal challenge to the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, which was used to obtain his personal records while he was under investigation.

The payment is a clear embarrassment for the FBI, which arrested Mayfield as a material witness in May 2004. FBI examiners had erroneously linked him to a partial fingerprint on a bag of detonators found after terrorists bombed commuter trains in Madrid in March, killing 191 people. The bureau compounded its error by stridently resisting the conclusions of the Spanish National Police, which notified the FBI three weeks before Mayfield was arrested that the fingerprint did not belong to him.

Now wait a minute. All people arrested as terrorists are guilty, right? They have to be. That's why we can torture them to get them to confess to being terrorists. I mean, if not every person detained for terrorism is really a terrorist, then we might accidentally torture an innocent person...and worse, an innocent person might confess to get them to stop hurting him.

So Mayfield must have been guilty, because he was arrested.

But if the FBI paid him this settlement, then the FBI made a mistake. But the anti-terrorist agents of the FBI can't make a mistake because if they make mistakes...then..innocent people......might...


*HEAD EXPLODES*

Kick-Ass Chick of the Day

cbs2.com: (CBS) PALM SPRINGS, Calif. A murder suspect armed with an Uzi sub-machine gun led police on a high speed car chase through Palm Springs and a foot pursuit thereafter before being detained, police said.

The pursuit ensued about 4 a.m. when a silver Pontiac Grand Am with a burned out license plate lamp tried to elude a pursuing police car on Palm Canyon Drive, according to a Palm Springs Police Department statement. The pursuit reached speeds of 70 mph.

After making a U-turn on Bogart Trail, the Pontiac sped through residential streets, 'often on the wrong side of the roadway,' according to the statement.

A flat tire forced the suspect and his accomplice to abandon the Pontiac in the 2800 block of Palm Canyon Drive and flee in opposite directions.

The pursuing officer, with one year of experience on the force, chased the driver, identified as Jason Lee Gillespie, 29, of San Diego, and grabbed him as he attempted to scale a wall. Police noted that the officer is a 5-foot-2 woman and the suspect is 6 foot 5 and weighs 235 pounds.

A backup officer arrived as the woman yanked the suspect off the wall. That was when police noticed Gillespie had an Uzi strapped to his shoulder. The suspect was disarmed and detained without a shot fired.

Heh. Absolutely bad-ass. I do loves me some tough girls.

Thanks to alert reader Stephen Blackmoore for this one.

That'll Buy a Lot of Copies of "My Pet Goat"

New York Daily News - Home - W library in record book: WASHINGTON - He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign - an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library.

Eager to begin refurbishing his tattered legacy, the President hopes to raise $500 million to build his library and a think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Bush lived in Dallas until he was elected governor of Texas in 1995.

Heh. Considering not only how willfully non-literate (as opposed to illiterate) Bush is, but also his well-known penchant for secretiveness and obsession with never letting any information out, just what are they going to put in this library? Well, let's see....

The legacy-polishing centerpiece is an institute, which several Bush insiders called the Institute for Democracy. Patterned after Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Bush's institute will hire conservative scholars and "give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President's policies," one Bush insider said.

If actual conservatives do write papers and books there, they won't be favorable to Bush. "Bush=conservative" is the biggest lie told by this Administration, and that's saying something.

So who pays for this?

Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry as potential "mega" donors and are pressing for a formal site announcement - now expected early in the new year.

Oh boy! Maybe Syria will pony up a million or two!