 |
|
|
In Paperback
Now! Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl: A Nancy Chan Novel by Tracy Quan 0-609-81010-3 In Japanese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Hebrew and... Read an excerpt |
|
|
| Monday, June 10, 2002 Write A Letter Seems I've been living in my own world here... which is nothing new, of course. I woke this morning to discover (courtesy of the New York Times) that there is a Blogger Rift -- and I have no idea which side I'm on. Neither a 9/11 pundit nor a professional programmer, I feel soooooo marginalized by this latest trend war!! The teaser in my Times email suggests that Weblog veterans are angered by the notion that Blogs are "inherently political." The idea being that "war-bloggers" are the only ones with political fixations? Surely not. For the first time in years, I feel I've been ricocheted back to junior high school, as in: Where do I belong?? (I may find some answers next week at Idea City.) In the meantime, there must be other blogger-citizens who belong to neither camp. You might consider writing a letter to the Times and telling them you exist! Email: letters@nytimes.com or cybertimes@nytimes.com Thursday, June 06, 2002 FBI: Hard At Work in New Orleans? Yes, I've been AFB (Away From Blog), reading about, what else, the shortcomings of the FBI. Opinions vary on the reason for these shortcomings and even on their nature. Sunday was an especially good day for reading about the Feds. According to the Washington Post, a New Orleans brothel was attracting FBI surveillance before September 11 -- and continued to captivate these valiant snoops both during and (get this!) after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. "Hour after hour, month after month, 10 agents recorded" the telephone activity at an upper Canal Street brothel -- sometimes as many 90 calls per day! All in a day's work? Those of us who have worked know that way too many of those calls could have been telemarketers, sex cranks and lame enquiries -- but still, that's a lot of phone calls. And a lot of federal agents. The U.S. attorney in New Orleans would have us believe that this FBI time-sink was a valuable use of federal money and personnel. But, says Adam Nossiter of the Post, "The keen interest of the federal government in prostitutes, in pre- and post-Sept. 11 America, has baffled the local legal community." Meanwhile, back at Newsday, my New Orleans-bred pal Ellis Henican weighed in this week on the notorious FBI blunder that caused an Egyptian student's 31-day ordeal of terror. How many FBI agents were involved with that particular misuse of federal resources? According to one of my loyal readers, Max Weber has an explanation for this sorry state of affairs: "The principal product of hierarchical organizations is careers." In case you're wondering.... Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49210-2002Jun2.html Newsday: http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen022728125jun02.column?coll=ny%2Dnews%2Dcolumnists |