Mr. President, Meet the Press — Al Hunt, Wall Street Journal
Author Archives: FmH
G.I. George, action president!
![//salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/09/12/g_i_george/story.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/09/12/g_i_george/story.jpg "Pants on Fire")
“The forthcoming President Bush aviator doll is a satirist’s dream. But are Americans still too frightened to laugh at their leader?” — David Hyde, Salon
General to Join the Field
“A source close to Wesley Clark rates the probability that Clark will run for president at ’90 percent.’” — Joe Conason, Salon
Coolest thing in the Universe revealed
“A tiny cloud of sodium atoms has been chilled to within half a billionth of a degree of absolute zero.” New Scientist
Are You Too Stupid to Surf?
“A lot of the bad things that happen online are preventable. Intelligent use of the Internet is the answer. But there are plenty of dopes out there who don’t have a clue. Should we require Internet users to be licensed?” Wired News
High-Tech Heroin
Richard Forno: “Dostoevsky once wrote that ‘in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, ‘Make us your slaves, but feed us.’ His prophecy is relevant when examining the modern Information Age — a dark, corporate-controlled society predicted by such artistic legends as Bruce Sterling, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and William Gibson – and is the focus of this article.”
RIP ‘Dr Strangelove’
Also abit belated, I wanted to note (with a sigh of relief?) ‘father of the H-bomb’ Edward Teller’s death at 95. The physicist was a Hungarian whose flight from Hitler may have shaped him into an incessant proponent of an endless destabilizing arms race; he was considered a dangerous hawk even by most of his nuclear-weapons-development cronies. His star remained prominent with rightwing American administrations; most recently, he helped to persuade Reagan to commit to the harebrained Starwars scheme that lives on as the current administration’s National Missile Defense strategy. To be fair, he regretted the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, favoring inviting the Japanese to a cautionary demonstration explosion first.
Iran’s nuclear deadline
After traces of weapons-grade uranium were found at a civilian nuclear facility, suspicion mounts that Iran has a covert nuclear weapons program in violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Under heavy US lobbying pressure, the 35-nation governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency gives Iran an Oct. 31 deadline to suspend uranium enrichment activities, allow weapons inspectors open access, and reveal the extent of their weapons program or face UN sanctions. The Iranian representative walked out of the Vienna meeting in protest and speculation is that Iran could quit the IAEA or abrogate the NPT. Bush gave his by-now tiresomely familiar signals that the US will take action against any nation he construes as a threat to us and the US is repeating the same mistake it made with Iraq in asserting that Iranian noncooperation with the inspection process will be seen automatically as an admission that it has something to hide. In essence, US bullying could turn the second most worrisome nuclear proliferation hotspot — along with North Korea — into another pariah outside the framework of international dialogue, fulfilling the prophecy of demonizing them with the moronic Axis-of-Evil® designation.
There is far more support in the international community and the IAEA for concern about Iran than there was about Iraq, given the far more credible evidence.
For six years the reformist government led by President Mohammad Khatami has tried to defuse Washington’s bid to isolate Iran by courting Britain and other European states. But European governments grew increasingly frustrated with what they considered Iran’s evasive attitude towards the IAEA and its contradictory explanations about its nuclear activities.
The failure of conciliation from Khatami’s government may strengthen the hand of Iranian hardliners. With the US having ‘cried wolf’ in Iraq, does this scenario make it more or less conceivable that we would circumvent diplomatic solutions and again take unilateral preemptive military action? US troops are already spread thin being bogged down in Iraq; could the urgency of action against Iran become the face-saving pretext to extricate American forces from the Iraqi morass and leave the country to its chaotic fate as we have done in Afghanistan (or force the UN in as reluctant humanitarian peacekeepers despite the world community’s reluctance to respond to the current US invitation to participate)?
Surprisingly, Russia supported the IAEA resolution despite perceptions that siding with the US would jeopardize its lucrative nuclear development contracts with Iran.
Senate Votes to Block Proposed Overtime Change
I wanted to celebrate, belatedly, this important potential defeat for Republican domestic policy and the dysadministration’s allies in big business. “The Republican-led chamber approved a Democratic amendment that would derail a proposed expansion of overtime exemptions for white-collar workers under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. The vote was 54-45. Yet the final fate of the Bush administration proposal remained unclear, as it still faces a number of procedural and possible legal twists and turns.” Reuters
I have been following this issue through the eyes of the nurses with whom I work as close colleagues and who are directly threatened by the proposed rule change. They are in particular jeopardy because of the nationwide nursing shortage. Rapacious corporate healthcare employers would have no disincentive against compelling them to work overtime on the cheap to fill accumulating holes in nursing coverage. In a recent interview on NPR, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao had the unmitigated double-speaking gall to say this rule change was merely a clarification and was for the protection of American workers. The House still has to consider Bush’s attack on overtime pay. Here is a site sponsored by the AFL-CIO seeking your support to defeat the Republican measure; it will fax your US representatives on your behalf.
‘What do you think God made the DELETE key for?’
CNET (formerly Wired) tech writer Declan McCullagh wants to spam-proof his Politech mailing list, so suggests he will start obfuscating the email addresses of his correspondents. Net luminary John Gilmore responds:
Have we
reached a Brave New World in which we all start rewriting online
history to suit today’s prejudices? That sounds like what you propose
for the Politech archives.
For the record, please keep my email address intact in the Politech
archives. I don’t want my communications to be “obfuscated” in the
historical record.
Unwanted communications would exist even if every “spammer” was flayed
and burned at the stake.
He suggests that the only answer is to filter your email. “It’s the only viable solution because only the recipient knows what they are interested in.”
The anti-“spam” crowd seems to think
that there is a category of communications that NOBODY is interested
in, and that therefore should be suppressed. That is obviously false
with regard to commercial spam, or the “spammers” would not persist in
sending it, since they wouldn’t make any money from it. Since some
people ARE interested in it, it’s our job (if we choose to accept it)
to create a cheaper way for senders to reach those people — cheaper
than sending a copy to all of us as well as the recipients who desire
it. We cannot compel people to stop communicating, unless we break
the basic foundations of our free society. Good luck at finding a
cheaper way; my efforts are going into reducing the cost to recipients
of unwanted communications, rather than the cost to senders.
He is also not impressed with Declan’s groaning over the volume of spam he receives, and Declan’s suggestion that he might have to change email addresses. For one thing, he points out that the load from bounced virus-forgeries using one’s email address as a ‘spoofed’ return address will soon drop off if it hasn’t already [Will it ?? — FmH]. In any case, he seems to be saying, learn to live with a terrible and worsening signal-to-noise ratio in your email, there’s no way around it.
Gerard van der Leun jumps in on Gilmore’s side:
The Zero-Spam Tolerance cult is just another manifestation of the Nanny Culture where individuals want someone, somewhere (aka “The Government”) to solve their quite stupidly simple and simply stupid problems by “passing a law,” “making a regulation,” and then “enforcing it” across the World Wide Wimpdom. This from a group of users who can actually go in and wade through the process of correcting the Windows Registry? Simps and weaklings the lot of them. Cowboy up, dudes and dudettes!
Indeed, the flaming anti-spammers are more and more looking like online’s version of the real world’s envirowhackjobs who need to torch anything on the landscape that doesn’t map to their fantasy of a perfect humanity free world. “Oh, if only there were no SPAM what a bright cyberworld this would be! EXterminATE them!”
Everybody who is spending endless cycles on SPAMrage needs to step away from the keyboard, take some Tantric breaths and ask themselves…
Two questions:1) Just how much easier do SPAM filters have to be for you to use them, First Grade or Kindergarten?
2) What do you think God made the ‘Delete’ key for?
I tend to agree that the only legitimate point at which to stop spam is with the enduser. This is from both a practical and an ideological perspective; as van der Leun reminds us, Gilmore said, “”The Internet interprets censorship as system damage and routes around it.” Certainly, email communication is not what it was two years ago but, then, what is? I have a couple of good trained filtering watchdogs sitting between my email account and my eyes, which are taking care of around 90% of the unwanted mail I get; for the rest, the face of the ‘delete’ key on my keyboard is fading from wear. But I also think that having harvestable email addresses unobfuscated on my website had made me a marked man, and I have recently expunged them all as best I can. (You might notice that the Enetation commenting system, if you are concerned, disguises your email address.)
Ingeniously Simple:
Mailinator: “Have you ever needed an email .. NOW? Have you ever gone to a website that asks for your email for no reason (other than they are going to sell your email address to the highest bidder so you get spammed forever)?
Welcome to Mailinator(tm) – Its no signup, instant email. Here is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or talking to your favorite insurance salesman. Whereever you are, someone (or some webpage) asks for your email. You know if you give it, you’ll be spammed. On the other hand, you do want at least one email from that person. The answer is to give them a mailinator address. You don’t need to sign-up. You just make it up on the spot. Pick jonesy@mailinator.com or bipster@mailinator.com – pick anything you want (up to 15 characters before the @ sign).
Later, come to this site and check the email for that account. Its that easy. Mailinator accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No signup, no personal information, and when you’re done – you can walk away. The emails will automatically be deleted for you after a few hours.”
Lost in Production
A reissue of Thelonious Monk’s Underground reveals the great album it should always have been: “Until a few weeks ago, many jazz critics would have ranked Underground among Thelonious Monk’s least significant albums. Now they should consider placing it in his top tier. Released in 1968, Underground is one of the last recordings Monk made before slipping into the decadelong hibernation that preceded his death in 1982 at the age of 64. The album was never taken very seriously, in part, I suspect, … [<a href=”“>more].” — Fred Kaplan, Slate
‘Our best and only hope’
A letter from New York writer Liz Gilbert originally posted on Sept. 12, 2001 at Gargoyle:
“It is late now, almost dawn, and I should go to sleep. I don’t know what more I can do tonight except what I have done all day — continue to believe in God, continue to believe in New York City and to steadfastly refuse to hate. Something unthinkable has happened here to our humanity, but all I saw on the streets today was calm, compassion, perserverance and resolve. What I will try to remember most from September 11, 2001 is this moment. I was in line to give blood. Someone from the hospital came out and made a loud request that anyone with O-positive or O-negative blood would please step forward. ‘We need your blood,’ said the nurse. ‘We need you.’ The message shot back through the crowd and the masses stirred and from within the ranks of us emerged these universal donors. One at a time they pushed forward — a young black man, a professional-looking Asian woman, an old man in a yarmulke, some hispanic students, a city bus driver, etc. With reverence, we all parted to let them pass. They seemed for that moment to be the most important people in New York City. They shared nothing in common with one another except the same blood. A blood that can save any life because it does not discriminate. A universal blood. What runs through their veins is our best and only hope. God bless them.”
And here were my first thoughts in this weblog in reaction to the World Trade Center attack two years ago:
Just some thoughts…
Last weekend I saw Apocalypse Now Redux, and the intensity of its searing images, which indeed had been with me since first seeing the film on its release day in 1979, had a renewed presence, just in time for its phantasmagoria to fuse with current events. Apocalyptic, indeed. I’ve been going through the motions of my day at the hospital today in a sort of half-reality, after being at home this AM watching events unfold on live TV until I realized I didn’t want these images played and replayed in front of my three-year-old daughter. There’s something comforting about being in a profession like caring for urgently sick patients which has to go on no matter what else is happening in the world; most things would seem so irrelevant for now. When I was able to connect with my wife, I broke down and sobbed, barely able to catch my breath — “My God, what kind of world do we live in??” Does today mark a sudden sea change, after which the world will be forever different? On the other hand, as horrible as this attack has been, people in many parts of the world live in daily fear of terrorism no different in horror if different in magnitude and drama. Welcome to the real world, U.S.? Get used to the post-traumatic scarring of our collective psyche by the eruption of events that shred the fabric of predictability and control with which our lives have been woven.
Many of us are probably thinking similar things. In a way, I’m surprised that this didn’t happen sooner. The methodology used in this terrorist attack appears to be exactly that publicly blueprinted years ago. Pundits talk about the rude awakening from “America the safe”, “America the invulnerable”, cushioned by our enfolding oceans, but our vulnerability to domestic assault and the indiscriminacy of targeting the general population have long been expected. It should not shock us either that it was so easy to carry out four simultaneous hijackings in the face of “airline security measures” (I concede, of course, that we don’t know if further actions, beyond these four, were thwarted today…). I’ve long suspected that we treat mostly our own anxieties and discourage only threats from the frivolous or erratic unbalanced with our x-rays and metal detectors. Turnover among security personnel is amazingly high and compensation amazingly low; the airline companies give the contracts to manage their gate security to the lowest bidder. Security checks are only as good as the vigilance of those conducting them, and subject to the predictable human frailties of diffidence, wavering attention, disinvestment, burnout, and arbitrariness. Lord, I was harrassed when my son and I visited the Statue of Liberty this spring because of a folding knife in my backpack!
I fear that today’s events may not be the culmination, but only the opening volley, in fact. Can we rest assured that the organization and discipline, the zeal and the impunity of such attackers won’t translate into a CBW or suitcase-fission weapon attack? Friends of mine here in Boston cautioned me not to be too comfortable drinking from the water supply today. I dismissed that as histrionics at first, but is it really unrealistic?? And then: we’re likely to wake up in a world tomorrow in which objections to the unprecedented crackdown on our civil liberties we’re likely to face will be about as popular as pacifist conscientious objectors were after Pearl Harbor.
So what can we do, if we live in a world of such terror? If you’re in New York — or even if you’re not — think about giving blood, now if ever… Two of the hijacked flights originated here in Boston. Soon enough, I suppose, it’ll be clear whether I or my friends and immediate community knew anyone on those flights and can be of personal support. Professionally, I may also be able to be useful if there is a need for specialized disaster response counselling for the families and friends of victims here, which is something I’ve trained and volunteered to do. Nowadays, however, the airlines usually bring in their own teams rather than use those, like mine, that are community-based. Barring that, all I can think of has been to take deeper breaths, think for an extra moment before I act, cultivate my compassion and caring, work for peace and justice in small and, if ever possible, larger ways, and raise my children to do so… although with no naive illusions. I have more of a sense now than perhaps ever before of belonging to a nation, a community… of victims. But it’s a cautious, wavering sense of belonging. I can only echo the sentiments of others that, as a nation, we had better think carefully before we decide if, and how, to address our collective thirst for vengeance — especially after hearing the news of Palestinians dancing in the streets rejoicing at these events. The rabid anti-Muslim hysterics are about to begin… Did you notice how ready the news anchors were to give credibility to scurrilous reports that Islamic groups had claimed responsibility?
Readers of FmH know my feelings about B— and his minions, and it goes without saying for me that the ignorant fundamentalist ideologues ought not to be in charge of this show at a time like this. Let’s remember that they didn’t have the country’s mandate to govern in the first place. Although it is customary to say that we all must pull together behind our Administration in a show of strength and unity at such a time of national crisis, if there were ever a time to remind them, and the world, that they do not speak and act for me in perpetuating the hatred by seeking unmeasured Biblical retribution, this is it. After Gandhi, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” Our adamant collective anger will make this an unpopular stance, I know…
I usually like to buff, finesse, and worry my public thoughts into polished form; not good at off-the-cuff ruminating. But I needed to put down some of the inchoate, complicated feelings and reactions fresh. I know my first impulse was to go offline and run and turn on CNN when I learned about this in the morning, as I said in bold type below. It doesn’t seem easy to follow fast-breaking news by point-and-click. Nevertheless, the thoughtful reflections on today’s horror of many of the webloggers I follow (see sidebar) are worth reading.
Mostly, right now, my heart is with the families of the victims of this carnage…
The Knockoff Pullover
Snopes, which does a wonderful job countering modern multimedia credulity by debunking urban myths, thinks the one about being raped or robbed after a traffic stop by an unmarked car in an isolated area is credible enough that you should not pull over until you are in a lighted populated area. You should also call 911 and have them verify that their patrol cars are in the area.
In 1996 Governor Pataki issued an executive order to prevent unmarked New York state police cars from stopping motorists for routine traffic violations, citing “a growing number of cases around the country in which criminals trap their victims by posing as police officers.” If he’s worried about it, you should be too.
[via Rebecca Blood]
Test for near-death visions
“Many patients whose hearts have stopped beating claim to have hovered above their bodies and looked down on themselves as others worked to resuscitate them. Mainstream scientists believe these visions are a fabrication of the mind. Dr Peter Fenwick, from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, plans to test this view at 25 hospitals across the UK.
He wants to place suspended pictures from the ceilings of accident and emergency units that only someone high up in the room will be able to see. Patients that survive cardiac arrest will be interviewed to see if they have had an out-of-body experience and whether they saw the pictures.” BBC Fenwick is a neuropsychiatrist in London with a background in epilepsy research and treatment and an abiding interest in anomalous experiences like the NDE (near-death experience). The alterations in consciousness and subjective experience during certain epileptic states have, in my opinion, much to do with anomalous experience, although most epilepsy specialists stay away from “flaky” topics scrupulously. Another psychiatrist who considers the anomalous is VM Neppe of the Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute, to which my very first weblog entry in November 1999 pointed.
A Computer Banishing Ritual
A Spell to free oneself from Excessive Computer Enchantment:
Many good folk have found themselves ensnared in a growing web of computer generated artifice and glamoury. While computers are sometimes a useful tool, one must take care to have a healthy relationship with them. If you have found that they seem to be draining your time and energy away, or slowly invading your soul, then this spell is for you. If you are seeing pixels, icons, and dialog boxes in your dreams, it may already be too late, but give this spell a try anyway.
Scroll reveals Proverbs 32 woman was a lazy bum
“Archaeologists and scholars say a scroll unearthed in present-day Palestine is a long lost chapter of the ancient book of Proverbs. The so-called ‘thirty-second chapter’ reveals that the industrious woman portrayed in Proverbs 31 was a myth, albeit a cruel one.
‘This is a day of liberation,’ said Jennifer Scorgan, the speaker at a women’s retreat in Ohio, when news about the discovery filtered in. The meeting was interrupted to make the announcement, and women burst into tears, then stood on their chairs and cheered.” Lark News [via walker]
Presidential Character
![[Image 'sesame-bush.jpg' cannot be displayed]](sesame-bush.jpg "'...serious policy initiatives...'")
“…Other wrong turns, however, were chosen because of a fundamental flaw in the character of this White House. Despite his tough talk, Mr. Bush seems incapable of choosing a genuinely tough path, of risking his political popularity with the same aggression that he risks the country’s economic stability and international credibility. For all the trauma the United States has gone through during his administration, Mr. Bush has never asked the American people to respond to new challenges by making genuine sacrifices.
(…)
Mr. Bush is a man who was reared in privilege, who succeeded in both business and politics because of his family connections. The question during the presidential campaign was whether he was anything more than just a very lucky guy. There were times in the past three years when he has been much more than that, and he may no longer be a man who expects to find an easy way out of difficulties. But now, at the moment when we need strong leadership most, he is still a politician who is incapable of asking the people to make hard choices. And we are paying the price.”
What’s next? Time to dump your wallet
Mike Cassidy: “I’d love to embrace the future, but honestly I’m too busy dealing with the present.
I’m a freak in Silicon Valley, I know. This is Tomorrowland, a place where every other brain is focused on what’s to come.
Me? I’m still trying to figure out how we got to a place where 135 people can run for governor, where a man called Dr. Phil becomes the arbiter of our nation’s mental health and where it’s most hip to join a cell-phone-arranged “flash mob” for a brief and inexplicable public demonstration. (Is this, by the way, how we got 135 candidates for governor?)
Let me back up for a minute. I’ve been reading the news magazine published by the AOL-Time-Warner-CNN-Atlanta Braves company. (Remember when Time magazine was a product of Time Inc.? Simple, wasn’t it?)
Anyway, Time devoted most of a recent issue to “What’s Next?” It’s a valuable exercise. At the very least, knowing what’s coming provides us with time to figure out how to avoid it.” Mercury News via Interesting People
They Live!
A San Francisco investigative reporting team gives the Voight-Kampff Test to San Francisco mayoral candidates: “The only reliable method that we know of for sniffing out replicants is the Voight-Kampff Test, created by Phillip K. Dick in his book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and later used by Harrison Ford’s character, Deckard, in the film Blade Runner. The test uses a series of questions to evoke an emotional response which androids are incapable of having. By the candidates’ responses to this line of questioning, we feel we can say with some certainty whether or not they’re replicants. However, we’re stopping short of recommending that you vote for them or not. After all, though a replicant mayor may be more likely to gouge a supervisor’s eyes out with their thumbs, they have another quality that could be great in an elected official: a four year life span.” The Wave [via the null device] Ought to be a required part of standing for office…
Related: Zombie infection simulator.
The Fourth World War
“While everyone was preoccupied with the fireworks, Washington has quietly deployed thousands of agents in a secretive struggle that may last a lifetime.” Globe and Mail via CommonDreams
Trademarks are clues to Harry Potter’s future:
“They sound like Harry Potter titles, they look like Harry Potter titles, but unless you are JK Rowling, the schoolboy wizard’s creator, you had better not think of using them as Harry Potter titles.
Harry Potter and the Chariots of Light, Harry Potter and the Mudblood Revolt, Harry Potter and the Alchemist’s Cell and Harry Potter and the Quest of the Centaur have all been registered as trademarks with the UK Patent Office.
The names were taken by a company which shares an office with the London lawyers of Warner Bros, the studio which makes the Potter films.
One possibility is that the titles are on a shortlist of possible names for the forthcoming books and have been registered to prevent other companies cashing in on the huge merchandising potential of the Potter books and films.” The Scotsman However, one fan commented on a Potter website that “lame and cheesy” titles like these are just a way of keeping fans guessing.
City of Ghouls
Another fascinating item cribbed in its entirety from acb:
“A criminologist attempts to explain why Adelaide has so many bizarre murders. Allan Perry, a criminologist from Adelaide University, claims that the Snowtown killings and other crimes are symptomatic of a malignant subculture that exists in South Australia, and that Adelaide is a social hothouse that breeds psychopathic killers:
‘We’re seeing a sub-culture which has arisen out of family breakdown, economic deprivation, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment,’ Mr Perry said.
That could also explain the Adelaide tradition of breaking into the zoo and mutilating the animals.”
When you think about it, it makes sense that variations in social conditions would propel locales at differing rates toward the dystopian future. I’m sure American readers can think of examples closer to home.
‘Urban Equivalent of a Crop Circle’?
Via boing boing: Mysterious ‘Toynbee tiles’ with cryptic graffitti have been spotted inlaid into the asphalt of city streets in more than twenty American cities since the late ’80’s. A reporter who stumbles upon one (forgive me) at a Kansas City intersection does some investigative work on the messages, which involve historiography, the planet Jupiter, Kubrick’s ‘2001’ (his daughter says Kubrick was unaware of the phenomenon) and some nasty ideas about Jews and journalists. Speculation, but nothing probative, about what they might mean. The Kansas City Star Among other things, he discovers a web site devoted to the tiles, with a database of known sightings. I’m disappointed; they range up the Eastern seaboard but not as close to me as New England, as well as the Midwest and two South American cities. Has any FmH reader seen one? If you discover a Toynbee tile not noted in the database, the author asks that you contact him.
Moving works of art:
Also via boing boing, a collection of the artist’s kinetic optical illusions. Have your eye drops ready; you will have to stare.
Precis of Bush’s 9/7 Speech:
Via Billmon:
“‘Iraq is now the central front in the global war against absolute evil, but it’s not so important that we have to roll back any of my tax cuts, send more U.S. troops to Iraq or do anything else that might make swing voters slightly less likely to vote for me next year. Thank you and God Bless America.'”
John Kerry and… Moby???
Kerry gets in tune for Moby gig. The guitar-playing senator shares a bill with Moby tomorrow night in Boston, raising funds for Kerry’s presidential bid. Moby feels Kerry has “the best chance of beating George Bush”; he also expresses the optomistic hope that Kerry is better than Bill Clinton was on saxophone. Boston Globe
R.I.P. Warren Zevon 1947-2003
![[Image 'Zevon.jpg' cannot be displayed]](Zevon.jpg "Warren Zevon, 1995")
Jon Pareles’ NY Times obituary: Wry Singer and Songwriter Dies at 56:
Warren Zevon, a singer and songwriter who came up with hard-boiled stories and tender confessions of love, died on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 56.
The cause was lung cancer, which was diagnosed last summer.
Mr. Zevon had a pulp-fiction imagination that yielded songs like ‘Werewolves of London,’ ‘Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,’ ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’ and ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.’ They were terse, action-packed, gallows-humored tales that could sketch an entire screenplay in four minutes and often had death as a punch line. But vulnerability and longing were also in Mr. Zevon’s ballads, like ‘Mutineer,’ ‘Accidentally Like a Martyr’ and ‘Hasten Down the Wind.'”
…
When his cancer was diagnosed, Mr. Zevon was the first to recognize that songs like “My Ride’s Here,” about a hearse, had become self-fulfilling prophecies.
“I keep asking myself how I suddenly was thrust into the position of travel agent for death,” he said last year. “But then, of course, the whole point of why it’s so strange is that I had already assigned myself that role so many years of writing ago.” He allowed a camera crew from VH1 to make a documentary during the recording sessions for his final album.
“The Wind” has death-haunted songs like “Prison Grove” and “Keep Me in Your Heart,” as well as a version of Mr. Dylan’s song about a dying sheriff, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” But songs like “Disorder in the House” and “Dirty Life and Times” maintain Mr. Zevon’s old sardonic humor.
While he was recording the album, Mr. Zevon said he was planning to write goodbyes to people and to make one other point: that, he said, “This was a nice deal: life.”
Sleep well… Readers can go further (much further) with Craig’s singluar tribute
![//graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/09/05/magazine/07food.184.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/09/05/magazine/07food.184.jpg "Bread Alert!")
“The Atkins diet has triumphed, the French diet guru Michel Montignac is in resurgence and ”low carbs” has become the mantra (or is it war cry?) of the fit and fabulous. So in a clever bit of adaptation, bread, once the benign starter to every restaurant meal, has migrated to the other, more sinful side of the menu. It has become dessert.” An ![//i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/US/West/09/03/drill.head.ap/story.drill.xray.jpg' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/US/West/09/03/drill.head.ap/story.drill.xray.jpg "I needed this like a hole in the head.")
