Category Archives: Personal

Yo, Lee: David Yepsen says “Hey”

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Above you see David Yepsen and me, looking relieved and happy that we’re done with our panel presentation at the Senate Presidents’ Forum in Key West over the weekend, and that it went well. Funny how those kinds of things — just talking — can take a lot out of you.

It was an honor to meet David, the legend of Iowa political journalism. And of course when we met, he asked after another legend of political journalism, a man whom everyone knows — and, more remarkably, everyone likes and respects — my longtime friend and colleague Lee Bandy.

I’m lucky to have worked with both Lee and the Tennessee legend, John Parish. And while it was brief, I was honored to share the panel with David Yepsen, who is now director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute (he left The Des Moines Register about the same time I left The State), Saturday. And to get to know a couple of political pros I had not met before, who also served on the panel: First, John Marttila, longtime friend and ally of Joe Biden ever since he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. John continues to be a senior political adviser to the vice president. From the Republican side, we had Mike DuHaime, who ran Chris Christie’s successful run for governor of New Jersey in 2009.

We had a great discussion, both during the panel and at meals and events before and after.

What did I say during the presentation? Well, not anything I haven’t shared here. I essentially scrapped my prepared remarks, as mentioned previously — which is probably a good thing, because things flow better when I’m winging it. But preparing — not only the writing, but all the conversations I had with top Republicans in SC, right up to a couple of minutes before the program — did help me get my thoughts in order. Hey, if I hadn’t made all those panicked calls Friday night and Saturday morning after seeing those poll numbers, I wouldn’t have known to call Romney a “Plastic Banana Rock ‘n’ Roller,” which still cracks me up — the idea of Romney as ANY kind of rock ‘n’ roller, actually.

Anyway, I’m back from Key West. And it’s going to be a busy week…

Mike DuHaime (or the back of his head, anyway), David Yepsen and John Marttila, during the panel discussion.

That plastic banana rock ‘n’ roller Romney is letting me down

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Drat.

To borrow from an SNL skit, this is something you can put under the heading of White People’s Problems.

While others at this conference were out playing golf and having fun, I was sitting here in my room in this Key West resort overlooking the aquamarine water, sweating away over my presentation for the panel discussion tomorrow.

In their longest form, my notes were 1,825 words in length, so I pared and whittled, and got it down so it glittered and shone.

And the upshot? After all the hemming and hawing GOP voters have done over the last few months, Romney has it sewn up.

But then I started looking at these polls Gingrich has been touting today:

ICYMI: Recent Polls Show Newt as

Clear Conservative Alternative in SC

Three recent polls show Newt Gingrich emerging as the clear conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in South Carolina.

An American Research Group (ARG) poll shows Newt Gingrich closing the gap with Mitt Romney to just four points in South Carolina, while support for Rick Santorum has collapsed from 24% to just 7% in 7 days.

The results: Romney 29%. Gingrich 25%. Paul 20%. Perry 9%. Santorum 7%. Huntsman 1%. Other 2%. Undecided 7%.

These polls reinforce trends that show Gingrich emerging as the clear conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in South Carolina.

·     Evangelical Support. Gingrich has a commanding lead among evangelical Christians with 40% support compared to Governor Perry with 15% in second.

·     Tea Party Support. Gingrich leads amongst supporters of the Tea party 28% to Governor Romney’s 24%.

Meanwhile, Governor Romney is losing his support amongst independents to Ron Paul, suggesting that the Governor’s support amongst independents is not strong, and would be lost to President Obama in the general election.

Poll Results: http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres2012/primary/rep/sc/

This poll from ARG echoes the findings of two other recent polls.

An Insider Advantage Poll from January 11th shows Newt Gingrich in a statistical tie with Governor Romney with 21% support to the Governor’s 23%.  Rick Santorum has faded to 14% support, with Ron Paul at 13%, Jon Huntsman at 7% and Rick Perry at 5%.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2012/InsiderAdvantage_SC_0111.pdf

A Rasumussen Poll from January 12th also shows Newt Gingrich well ahead of Rick Santorum and Ron Paul with 21% support compared to their 16%. The poll results are available here.

###

And I started to fret. Gingrich has mo.  Here we have all these pols from all over the country ready to hear me in the morning, and what if I make a prediction that was completely off? David Yepsen is here. Today, a guy with PBS was asking me on the phone, “Who is the David Yepsen of South Carolina.” I resisted the temptation to say, “You’re talkin’ to him, baby!”

In any case, the actual David Yepsen (he’s the Brad Warthen of Iowa) is here, and I’m about to make a fool of myself in front of him.

So I started making phone calls to Republicans whose judgment I trust in South Carolina. And the very first one I reached said there’s no way this thing is sewn up, that there’s movement and Gingrich is impressing people.

He said he suspects Romney is going to fail in South Carolina for the same reason he failed with our voters four years ago.

Why is that, I asked?

“Because he’s a plastic banana rock ‘n’ roller.”

What does that mean, I croaked?

It means South Carolinians look at him and see a phony.

Oh.

Anyway, I’m scrapping my presentation for tomorrow. I’m going to wing it. Here’s hoping my “winging-it privileges” haven’t been revoked.

Remembering the Air Florida crash in D.C.

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When I was traveling with Howard Baker in Iowa in 1980, before the caucuses, it looked like we were going to be iced in at Dubuque. We had flown in earlier in the day. I had been in the second plane, with a couple of guys from an NBC crew. It was a four-seater, and flying in from Des Moines, the pilot only had a tiny patch of windshield, about the size of my hand, that he could see through by constantly squirting alcohol on it. When I got out of the plane, I was trying to button my trenchcoat when the wind caught it like a sail and I started gliding across the frozen tarmac.

Later, I was scheduled to fly back to Des Moines in the “big” plane, which wasn’t all that much bigger, with Baker. We waited in the tiny general aviation terminal for more than an our while the wings of our plane were deiced, then deiced again, and again. Finally, we got in and took off. Someone told me that they only let us go because it was Sen. Baker.

Two years later, I realized that the aviation officials had done us no favors letting us go. I had no idea how very dangerous ice on the wings could be. Until the Air Florida crash.

In the end, SC Republicans vote for the ‘boss’

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Thought I should share with you this story by my friend and former colleague Aaron Sheinin, writing in the Atlanta paper. I think this is officially the umpteenth story about South Carolina to put “down and dirty” in the headline.

Here’s the good part:

Brad Warthen, who spent 22 years writing and editing political news at The State newspaper in Columbia, said South Carolina voters are typically “boring” when it comes to presidential contests.

“Even though we are the state that seceded first and would do it again and all that kind of stuff, there is this anti-establishment, anti-government, hyperindividualism thing, but when it comes right down to it, we kind of vote for the ‘boss,’” said Warthen, now a public relations executive who still writes about politics on his personal blog.

The 2012 cycle seemed different, though, until about mid-December, Warthen said. Perry leaped to the top of the polls after joining the race in August. Then it was Georgia’s Herman Cain who enjoyed front-runner status while Gingrich held that role from late November through mid-December.

“Finally, it’s like, ‘Oh, well, we know we’re going to nominate Romney, let’s just get on with it,’” Warthen said…

After I gave that “boss” quote to Aaron, I told him I had been about to say, “in the end we kind of vote for the massa,” playing a bit on our history. But I had decided against it, partly because people might have found the reference confusing. He said he thought that was a good call.

(Here’s what I was thinking when I thought of “massa.” I was thinking of all the poor whites who got suckered into fighting the Civil War by the massas back then. Nowadays, while those same whites’ descendants love to get excited about fringe candidates, particularly the ones who appeal to their sense of personal freedom — which was the same thing the slaveowners played on in 1860 — in the end they go with the candidate who looks most like the master of the plantation. See? People wouldn’t have gotten all that. They would have thought I was saying something about black voters, and gone, “Huh?”)

Greetings from way, way, WAY on down South

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I’ll be missing the craziness in SC the next day or so, as I’m in Key West talking about it.

You know how the Tea Party and the Occupiers get really worked up about the coziness between politicians and corporations? Well, I’m at the nexus of that. Or one of the nexuses. Or nexi. Or whatever.

Or at least, that’s what the protesters would probably say.

I’m at the Senate President’s Forum, where top officers from state senates across the country get together with corporate types and talk politics. So far, I haven’t met any of the participants, as the first event is tonight. I’ve never attended anything like this before; it promises to be interesting. I’ll tell you what it’s like. (Our own Senate president pro tem, Glenn McConnell, isn’t coming. SC is to be represented by Tom Alexander.)

I’m here to participate on a panel discussion about the presidential election. I’ll be joined by David Yepsen, former chief political editor at The Des Moines Register (somewhere, there are senior political editors who still have newspaper jobs, but I seldom run into them) and now director of the Paul Simon Institute at Southern Illinois University; John Marttila, President of Marttila Communications; and Mike DuHaime, Managing Director, Mercury Public Affairs and former Chief Strategist for Chris Christie’s successful gubernatorial campaign.

My job, of course, is to explain politics in the state that everyone is watching this week.

I need to write some opening remarks, which I worked on a bit on the plane this morning, but have only roughed it out. When I get it written, I’ll share it with y’all.

I’ll also be doing some walking around. This is my first time to Key West.

Hey, Burl: I’m reading Black Ocean now…

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Back on a previous post, Burl asked me whether I’ve ever read a book he sent me a year or two ago — which has weighed on my conscience ever since, sitting there among all the others I keep meaning to read.

Well, as it happens, that was one of the “two or three” books I was reading and rereading over the past week. Now, I’ve set the others aside, and have just started to get serious with Black Ocean.

I’m only on page 88, but I have some observations already (just to prove to Burl that I’m reading it).

One is that I’m enjoying watching familiar people pop up in the book. I felt foolish for not realizing who “Ed Burroughs” was until he mentioned his “ape-man.” But  then, how would I have known before that? I then checked Wikipedia, and found that the real-life Burroughs was, indeed, in Hawaii at the end of 1941.

Then Sammy Amalu’s name cropped up, which was really weird, because something — I forget what now — a page or two earlier had caused me to think of Sammy, then Google him on my iPhone. I think the thing that made me think of him was a mention of pidgin. And I thought I remembered that Sammy used to hold pidgin in great disdain and refuse to speak it to anyone. (By the way, Burl, did you and Sammy work together?)

Then there was a passing reference to “the Kanahamoku brothers.” Well, I know who one of them was.

I’m sure there are loads of other references that I’m just not getting, because I only lived in Hawaii for a little over a year — things that Burl will get because he has spent most of his life there, as both a journalist and historian.

This weaving of real and fictional characters is reminiscent of the style of Harry Turtledove, who dares to make historical figures main characters in his works of alternative fiction. Burroughs, for instance, is already playing a role as significant as that of Col. Leslie Groves in Turtledove’s Worldwar series.

Oh, did I mention, to those of you who don’t know? Black Ocean is a novel with the premise that the Americans attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, at which time the islands were controlled by the Japanese.

The second thing I’m noticing is that, at least at the outset, Black Ocean is both very much like, and very much unlike, Len Deighton’s SS-GB.

Both are set in 1941. Both take place on islands that, contrary to history, are in Axis hands at that time. Another way that they are alike is that Tad Morimura — a Honolulu policeman who now works for the Japanese — is investigating a death (actually, several) that will run him afoul of the Japanese military, the deeper he goes. In SS-GB, Douglas Archer is a renowned Scotland Yard detective who is now working for the German SS (the Germans having invaded England and won the war). He, too, is looking into matters that will get him into serious trouble with the Nazis (or the English resistance, which seems to pose just as much of a threat to him).

But the differences, so far, are more noteworthy than the similarities.

To begin with, I don’t know what’s happened that changed the direction of history. I thought, for a moment, that when Morimura was explaining to a Japanese Army officer the history of the Hawaiian royal family’s relationship with Japan, that there would be a clue — but I don’t know enough about Hawaiian and Pacific history to know where things diverged, other than that the princess Kaiulani (whom I had to look up, even to know who she was) survived her youth to become an aging queen.

By contrast, I knew from the very beginning what had happened in SS-GB. It was what everyone had feared — Hitler had not squandered his opportunity to invade, and had prevailed, well before the Americans could get into the war.

This makes me much more comfortable with the Deighton book than I am so far with this. And I find myself wondering, is this my own Anglocentrism? Am I more comfortable with it simply because I feel so much more comfortable with British history and culture? There’s no doubt that I’m better able to identify with the characters and understand where they are coming from — how they feel about the German occupation, and how conflicted they might be carrying on with their jobs under such domination.

Whereas, with Black Ocean… I don’t really understand where anyone stands. But I reject the idea that this is because of my own Western frame of reference, or (more disturbingly) that I simply understand and care more about the concerns of Anglo-Saxons than about the Japanese and Filipina and other ethnic characters in the book Burl sent. I really think it’s because the author, Rick Blaine, is being so coy with me as a reader. Yes, a man of Japanese ancestry (although he grew up in Hawaii) like Morimura is going to have an even more nuanced relationship with the Japanese authorities than the thoroughly English Archer did with the Nazis, if only because the Japanese, apparently because of their own racist assumptions, trust him more.

But there’s more than that. Blaine has really muddied the waters. In Deighton’s book, ordinary Englishmen chafe as you would expect them to at the Jerry yoke, griping openly when only their countrymen are around. But in Black Ocean, the locals take Japanese control of the islands more in stride, even alluding to “patriotism” in terms of being loyal to the current order.

A lot of things make sense, such as the Japanese military’s attempt to pin a murder on American provocateurs, or preparing the islands’ defenses. Other things don’t, such as… the journalists at the Star-Bulletin (Burl’s paper) in many ways have to deal with the hassles of occupation — tapped phones, and pressure to cover things a certain way. But beyond that, they seem to (thus far) assume more freedom than you would think they would have under this regime. For instance (SPOILER ALERT!), why would the Japanese assassinate the newspaper’s publisher, apparently not for playing ball, and no one at the paper, initially at least, suspect their hands in the killing? So far, the folks at the paper seem to assume a cocoon of invulnerability like you would typically find at an American paper, not at a paper in a place under the control of Japanese imperialists (but then again, I do know so little about how the Empire of Japan would have related to local media, and I still don’t understand the nature of the Japanese presence).

So what happened, and when did it happen, and how did it happen? I suppose I’ll have to keep reading to find out.

A closet looms before me, demanding order

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First, I should send a probe to Jupiter, to investigate the closet just like this one that has been found there...

I told my wife that today, since I’m off from work, I would clean out my closet. My rather complex, deeply messy, walk-in closet that doubles as a dressing area.

But it’s already mid-afternoon, and there are so many other things that need doing:

  • I’ve been neglecting the blog this week, and need to get back up to my usual pace of posts (why is that harder to do when I’m NOT working?)
  • I need to clean out the In boxes of both my blog and ADCO email addresses. Nearly a day’s work right there.
  • I have several good books I asked for, and received, for Christmas.
  • I have a vast number of books I’ve asked for, and received, for previous Christmases and birthdays and Father’s Days, and I really should read those, with theoretical time on my hands.
  • Then there are the comfort-reading books that I’m currently re-reading (either two, or three, depending on how you count them), and shouldn’t I finish them before starting something new?
  • My wife is out of the house this afternoon, and there are a couple of movies I’ve been wanting to watch but that she wouldn’t want to see.
  • I could even (but I admit, this is reaching into the realm of the radical) get a jump start on my New Year’s resolution to exercise by walking around the neighborhood.

And still the closet wait. Looms, actually. It stands there exactly like the monolith in “2001,” which I tried rewatching (I had not yet seen the Blu-Ray version I received for my birthday more than a year ago) last night (no one would make a movie today that requires the viewer to wait that long for something to happen).

That describes it perfectly. It stands there, fraught with meaning, with eerie music rising in the background. If I enter it, will I go on a psychedelic, mind-blowing, existential trip through space and time like the astronaut Dave in the movie? Dare I risk it?

It’s not so much the stuff hanging in there that intimidates as it is the landfill of junk piled on the floor under those things, and the rat’s nests of junk jammed onto the shelves above…

And still it looms…

My (successful) Quest for George Smiley

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Outside Smiley's house on Bywater Street. No need to knock. George knows I'm here. And where's he going to go? It's a cul de sac. It's over, old friend.

I’d been holding this back for when the movie comes out, but now that it’s passed me by (although I look forward to its being at the Nickelodeon next month), I am much embittered and have decided to go public with the whole story — the Official Secrets Act be damned. See how they like it when it’s all laid out in the papers. Perhaps I’ll go with The Guardian; that should sting. Let Parliament launch an inquiry. Let them connect me to the notorious Rebekah Brooks, for all I care. (After all, I’ve done a freelance job for that same outfit, in the time since they cast me out.) I’ve been a good soldier, put in my time, watched and waited. All for naught. Here’s my story…

As you know, I went to the UK a year ago, ostensibly as a tourist. That wouldn’t fool a real professional, of course, but one keeps as low a profile as one can. I have my own tradecraft for this sort of thing — I make a big splash, publicize my whereabouts… what spy would do that?

It’s worked so far.

My mission — to find the Circus, and more importantly, George Smiley himself.

It was quite a challenge. George hasn’t been seen since 1982. And the original location of the Circus, now that MI6 has the River House (all mod cons, as Bill Haydon would say), is shrouded in service legend. It’s not something you’d assign to some probationer straight out of Sarratt.

First, we spent a couple of days settling in, establishing patterns. One assumes that tiny Toby Esterhase‘s lamplighters are everywhere, so you need to paint them a picture, let them get complacent. This we did — from Heathrow to Swiss Cottage (the very spot where General Vladimir would have been picked up as a fallback, had he not been killed on Hampstead Heath), then all over the city on the Tube, aimlessly. Trafalgar Square, St. James’s, Fortnum’s, Buckingham, the Globe, the Tate, the Cabinet War Rooms, the Tower, hither and yon in the City.

Finally, at the end of our third full day, after night had fallen, we ambled up Charing Cross Road, affecting to be interested in bookshops. We almost missed it, but then there it was — the Circus itself. There was the Fifth Floor, and even Haydon’s little hexagonal pepperpot office overlooking New Compton Street and Charing Cross. Quick, I said, get the picture. It took a couple of tries, the way these things do when you need to hurry. Thank heavens for our “tourist” cover; it excuses all sorts of odd behavior. Then on up the street, and an hour or so of browsing at Foyles to check our backs. Found a couple of decent-looking biographies of Lord Cochrane, but didn’t buy one. (They had shelf after shelf of naval history; it went on and on.) Then we wandered about in the West End, to clean our backs as much as possible, before heading back to Swiss Cottage.

One thing down. Hardest part to come.

By this time, I had decided not to risk the actual modern HQ of the SIS. Mix fact with fiction like that, and it’s like mixing matter and antimatter. Could blow you clear across the universe, or at least to Brixton, and who wants to go there, really? That’s why they put Scalphunters there.

We played tourist for another day. Then another. The Sherlock Holmes museum. A side trip to Greenwich, to stand astride the Meridian, and see the coat Nelson wore at the Nile. Back into town for the British Museum.

Then, it was our last day in London. Had to go to Oxford the next day, and check on Connie. Connie is high-maintenance. So it was do-or-die time. We opted to do.

We thought that twilight would be the best time to descend on George. Vigilance is low. Everyone’s tired then; time for tea and meet the wife. So we went to that general part of town. Spent several hours at the Victoria and Albert. Loads of statues and the like.

We took the Tube to Sloan Square, a good half-kilometer from Bywater Street, and went the rest of the way on foot. We entered the cul de sac as night descended (which it does before 4 p.m. at that time of year). There wasn’t a soul on the narrow street. Everything went smoothly. When we got to the part where Smiley lives, I tried to throw the watchers off by shooting pictures of houses other than his. In a way, though, they were all relevant. George lives at No. 9, of course. But the 1979 TV series was shot at No. 10. And No. 11 has a Banham security system, which the book describes as being on George’s house. No. 9 has an ADT system.

Anyway, after doing what I could to distract any lamplighters in the vicinity, I had J (her workname — best watcher in the outfit, is J) quickly shoot a happy snap of me in front of No. 9. She was a bit nervous, because there were lights in the basement-level windows. She said people who lived there would wonder what we were doing. I muttered no, they wouldn’t: “They know exactly what we’re doing.” The thing was to get it over with quickly, so we did. Given the hurry we were in, I’m struck, as I look at the image, by how placid and dispassionate and, well, Smileyesque I look in the image. Like I was channeling him in that moment.

Then, it was back out to King’s Road and back to the Underground as fast as our legs would carry us, trying not to show that our hearts were pounding like Peter Guillam’s when he stole the Testify file from Registry that time. I was getting too old for this, I knew. As I looked up at the Christmas lights in the trees on Sloane Square, they were as blurry as the stars in a Van Gogh.

I can hardly remember the next couple of hours, but I can’t forget the stroke of luck that befell us later. Nothing short of a miracle, it was.

We had decided to case Victoria Station and its environs, because we knew we had to catch a coach there for the trip to Oxford next morning, and it’s good tradecraft to reconnoiter these things ahead of time. We got a bit turned-around there, and ended up touring the whole station before we discovered that the coach station was on the next block. On one aimless pass through the vicinity of the ticket windows, I looked up and there he was. George himself. Right out of the first paragraph of this passage:

He returned to the railway station… There were two ticket counters and two short queues. At the first, an intelligent girl attended him and he bought a second-class single ticket to Hamburg. But it was a deliberately laboured purchase, full of indecision and nervousness, and when he had made it he insisted on writing down times of departure and arrival: also on borrowing her ball-point and a pad of paper.

In the men’s room, having first transferred the contents of his pockets, beginning with the treasured piece of postcard from Leipzig’s boat, he changed into the linen jacket and straw hat, then went to the second ticket counter where, with a minimum of fuss, he bought a ticket on the stopping train to Kretzchmar’s town. To do this, he avoided looking at the attendant at all, concentrating instead on the ticket and his change, from under the brim of his loud straw hat…

Apparently, our appearance at Bywater Street had sent him on the run, but we had stumbled into him anyway. I left him alone, except for grabbing this picture. You doubt that’s George Smiley? Look at this picture, and this one and this one, and then tell me that. ‘Course it was him. Stuck out a mile.

But now that I’d found him, what was the point? He was just my old friend George. I could hear Toby’s triumphant voice in my ear: “Brad! All your life! Fantastic!” But I ignored him. I got the picture, and moved on. I didn’t even look to see whether he had left Ann’s lighter on the floor.

My mission had been accomplished, and then some… Why did I not exult? All I felt was the urge to polish my glasses with the lining of my tie. But I wasn’t wearing a tie…

The way we were — or the way I was, anyway

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On a previous post, Bud made the observation that Hillary Clinton “seemed much more presentable 4-5 years ago.” (In Bud’s defense, it was one of our distaff contributors who brought up the subject of the secretary of state’s appearance.)

I responded, “All of us were more presentable 4-5 years ago.”

In support of that proposition, I share these photos of myself that I ran across recently, and which made me smile in remembrance.

They are a tad older than four or five years. They were taken in June 1985. I’m not sure why they are Polaroids. Maybe one of our photographers was experimenting with that as a way of checking the image before capturing it on 35mm film. Remember, in the days before digital, you didn’t know know exactly how the image would turn out until you developed it later.

In any case, the occasion for these images being taken was that it had just been announced that I would be leaving The Jackson Sun to become news editor of the much-larger Wichita Eagle-Beacon.

Something about my manic grin caused Judith, one of my best friends at the paper, to assert that I looked like I was telling my new publisher at The Sun what he could do with my old job. (Alas, my relationship with him was not nearly as positive as the one with his predecessor, Reid Ashe, whom I mentioned in my last post.)

I don’t know what I said to that. I think I just smiled — a particularly cocky, self-assured smile.

Just an interesting, semi-seasonal image

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On Sunday, my youngest grandchild had her 2nd birthday party at The Columbia Marionette Theatre. I liked the above image I shot when she and a friend were exploring backstage. Then I shot another, with the hanging marionettes above, which I think was better-framed, but lacks the kinetic element of the little intruders in the puppet kingdom.

I couldn’t make up my mind, so I gave you both.

You’re wondering about the huge figure that looks like a malproportioned cross between a Madonna and Child and a Pietà. That’s part of a set of figures owned by a local church, which the Marionette Theatre is refurbishing. It’s what makes the image.

On the whole, it’s slightly more… disturbing… than your usual holiday image. Maybe it’s that scary guy on the throne up above the huge Madonna. Maybe it’s the shadows. What do you think?

Gimme my Tinker, Tailor! Right now!

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To my considerable outrage, I just realized that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will NOT be opening tonight at a theater near me.

I’ve been waiting for this thing for a year — it’s the only movie I’ve been eager to see in much longer than that — and the release date has been put off again and again, and I was all ready for it to finally come out on Dec. 9… and it can’t be found.

I read that it was released in the UK three months ago. This is insane. I mean, I’d love to go back to England and see it, but that’s not really an option for me at the moment. I don’t hop the pond that often. It’s sort of a once-in-a-lifetime thing. So far. (I saw “The King’s Speech” at a theater in Oxford the night it opened in England — which, weirdly, was a week or so after it opened back in the States.)

Oh, well… in lieu of that, I’ll share with you this note I wrote today to my friend Hal Stevenson, before I realized the movie wasn’t being released here. Hal recently told me that he had read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold recently, and wanted to know more about le Carre and his work. Since I’m a huge fan (of his early work, anyway), I promised to share some thoughts on what else he might want to read. It’s not brilliant, original literary criticism (I call le Carre’s most acclaimed novel “awesome,” dude), but it gives you an idea to what extent I have been thinking about and eagerly anticipating this non-event.

So I share this now with you as well, as I contemplate going home and watching the original BBC series of “Tinker, Tailor,” which I own on DVD. So there, Hollywood…

Hal,

I haven’t forgotten to write to you about John le Carre..

It’s fitting that I do so today, since the new movie, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” comes out tonight.

I believe you said you had read The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Well, that was an awesome book. As literature, it’s pure and clean and complete. If you’ve read that, you’ve read THE quintessential Cold War novel. You could stop there, if you wanted to. But who would want to?

I don’t think le Carre has written anything technically better than that novel. But he’s written stuff I enjoyed more.

The Alec Leamas novel is cold, and hard. It’s like a diamond. I can find no fault with it. But while I think it speaks profoundly to the human condition, some of his other novels are… warmer. They let you care about the characters more, get into them more.

For instance, George Smiley appears in The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, but as a peripheral character. And he comes across as a sort of reluctant agent of the cold pragmatism of Control, who duplicitously sent Leamas on this suicidal errand.

After that, le Carre decided to be more generous to Smiley. He had already been the protagonist of le Carre’s two books before The Spy Who Came In From the Cold — Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality. Those were short murder mysteries in the Agatha Christie mold. That Smiley worked in intelligence was almost incidental.

But Smiley comes to full-blown life in the trilogy that begins with Tinker, Tailor. That’s the start of what has come to be known as “The Quest for Karla.” Here are some brief thoughts on the three books:

  1. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – At the outset of this novel, George is already in retirement, against his will. He and the head of “the Circus” (le Carre’s euphemism for MI6, based in its supposed location near Cambridge Circus in London), known only as Control, were both canned after an operation blew up disastrously. But a Foreign Office official comes to George with evidence that Control was done in by a mole (this novel is responsible for that term entering the language) who had insinuated himself to the very top of the Circus, and was actually running the whole show now on behalf of Moscow. Smiley begins a process of backtracking through his own life and career and former colleagues as he sets a trap for the mole, unofficially, from the outside. The mole, it is known, is the agent of Karla, a mysterious figure who sort of runs his own show deep within the KGB. Karla is Smiley’s lifelong nemesis, sort of his Moby Dick. Smiley doesn’t know who the traitor is until the end – beyond the fact that it will be one of his closest associates, someone he’s known and trusted his whole adult life. The novel is about these relationships, and what they mean to Smiley, as much as it is about spies. That’s a hallmark of le Carre’s work.
  2. The Honourable Schoolboy – This second novel in the trilogy is very different from the other two. It’s sweeping, and adventurous and cinematic. The ironic thing about it is that it’s the only one that hasn’t been made into a movie (or, more accurately, TV series), even though it reads most like a movie script. It takes place after Smiley has exposed the mole, and turned the Circus inside out. George has been brought back officially into service to head the new, demoralized Circus. Trying to build the agency back up and get some decent intelligence coming in, Smiley pursues a trail of money that should lead to a top Soviet agent – another of Karla’s hand-picked people – in Hong Kong. Lacking professionals on staff he can trust, he sends an old freelance hand – a journalist named Jerry Westerby, who is sort of a half-amateur gentleman spy – to track down this second Karla agent. Westerby does so against the background of exotic locales. You get the sense that le Carre was trying to be a sort of Hollywood version of Joseph Conrad here. There is action, to an extent that is unlike le Carre, who tends to be more cerebral. On the whole, the novel isn’t as satisfying, since it’s more about Westerby and his conflicts than it is about Smiley and the characters you’ve come to care about in Tinker, Tailor.
  3. Smiley’s People – This one is everything The Honourable Schoolboy wasn’t. It’s like a reunion from the first book, and is the climactic act in Smiley’s lifelong contest with Karla. At the outset, George is in exile again from the service after the fiasco in Hong Kong. But an old Russian general, who had spied for Britain in Moscow, has been murdered in London. The Circus doesn’t want to be caught within miles of the general or his old émigré friends, and asks George to come in quietly, unofficially, and lay the general’s affairs to rest – tie up loose ends, pour oil on the waters. George discovers that the general was killed because he had possessed a secret that could be Karla’s undoing. And he spends the rest of the novel making the rounds of old friends, pulling together the strands of a noose around Karla’s neck. But as he gets closer, he comes to doubt whether that’s even what he wants to do.

Moral ambiguity is Smiley’s constant companion. He’s a good and decent man who finds himself doing abhorrent things in the service of his ideals. That is a theme in everything le Carre writes, even when Smiley doesn’t appear.

And he does NOT appear in subsequent novels, except in retrospect in The Secret Pilgrim. That was OK (as were A Perfect Spy and The Constant Gardener), but here are what I think are the best of le Carre’s post-Smiley novels:

  • The Russia House – The protagonist is so much like Jerry Westerby that it’s like le Carre saw this novel as a do-over, an attempt to get that character right this time. An amateur is recruited to act on behalf of British intelligence to make contact with a source at the heart of the Soviet nuclear weapons program – a source that insists upon dealing with no one else. But can the agent himself be trusted? And is the source for real?
  • The Night Manager – This is one you can read and enjoy without having read any other le Carre novel. It stands alone, like “The Spy Who Came In From the Cold,” but its tone is the opposite. There’s nothing cold about it. It’s very human. The protagonist is an ex-commando who, for very personal reasons, offers his services to the government to get close to, and bring down, “the worst man in the world” – a billionaire British arms dealer who sells to anyone with the right price. Not to be a plot spoiler, but it’s more of a feel-good book than almost anything else le Carre has written – sort of the opposite of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold in that regard.

I probably like those because I have pedestrian tastes. They’re not as dark as some of le Carre’s critically acclaimed work — certainly not as dark as The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. By comparison, these are sentimental, but I like them.

Well, that’s an overview. I hope you’ll read some of these; I’d enjoy discussing them with you…

Alec Guinness as George Smiley. Is Gary Oldman as good? WHO KNOWS? YOU CAN'T TELL BY ME!!!!

He’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays

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Just to cleanse the spiritual palate, brethren, I invoke Brother Tull to share with us a musical interlude.

This song has been running through my head a good bit lately. (Seeing “all the bishops” — or at least, all the Anglican clergy — lined up and harmonizing at Jason’s ordination the other day was but one instance in which it has come to mind.) You may find that interesting, in connection with my outrage at the tawdry way Rick Perry is trying to wind God up and make him toddle across the room, beating a toy drum that says “Perry for President.”

Perry’s message, considered most charitably, is after all that God has a place in the public square. He’s not supposed to be kept in a steepled ghetto. God is for every day, not an hour on Sunday.

I agree with that with all my heart and soul. God, properly considered, is for every day, every moment. (For that matter, it’s not for us to say what God’s for; it’s up to us to figure out what WE’RE intended for.) That’s one reason I like this song.

But I would submit that that includes the moments in which you try to exploit God to your own ends. You don’t wind him up then, either. Rather, you endeavor to alter yourself to fit His expectations.

This is a tough thing to talk about because we’re not supposed to judge, either — are we? So people get away with some really horrific stuff, because who are we to say? If another man testifies that this is how he experiences God, who are we to condemn?

And so people get away with all sorts of stuff, and if we protest, we are painted as being one of those who wants to keep God in a box.

And there are such people. Good, well-meaning people, quite often — although they are confused. They confuse the First Amendment with Jefferson’s views (when he wasn’t involved with it), and then go the further step of assuming that a ban on establishment of religion by Congress implies that we individual citizens (and that includes officeholders) are not supposed to talk about religion in the public sphere.

They are wrong. And their wrongness is all the more wrong because they create a space in which someone like Perry can construct a lie about a “war on religion.” And everything just gets worse. They are wrong, and he is wrong, and I suppose I’m wrong, too, for judging both.

But I feel better when I listen to the music. Don’t think you have to turn up your speakers when it starts out so soft. It builds.

Cousin Jason becomes Father Jason

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Bishop Mark Lawrence leads the congregation in applauding the new priest. Jason may be wary of pride, but that's all right -- we'll be proud for him.

Normally, I wouldn’t share something this personal, except it made news.

I spent Saturday driving with my mother and her older brother to Conway and back, where her younger brother’s son, Jason Collins, was being ordained as an Episcopal priest.

Here’s where I could say all sorts of things about this not being the same as a real priest, because real priests don’t have a wife and children and Jason does, but let’s not get all technical. I’m proud and happy for him, and pleased to call him “Father” even though he wasn’t born until I was almost 18.

The reason I post about it here is that it was news in those parts. In fact, it made the front page of The Sun News, on account of Jason’s prominence in the community:

CONWAY — Jason Collins wasn’t sure he wanted to be interviewed for this story.

He didn’t want readers to think it was his prideful narrative of a journey from the secular world to the faith-based world. He was afraid people would think he was boasting, that he was telling a story of how remarkable he is for having done what he’s done.

But the story is his journey, as Collins knows well. And he hopes readers will finish it with the knowledge that everyone’s life can be transformed through God and Jesus Christ.

Collins, a former Conway city planner, is being ordained today into the Sacred Order of Priests at a 3 p.m. ceremony at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Conway…

It was a wonderful ceremony, very moving. The bishop was there (of course; else there’d be no ordination) as well as a whole mess of priests, friends and relations. Jason’s wife and two children were involved integrally involved in the proceedings, and all of us felt privileged to be there. Even though I was tempted, as a Roman, to erupt in a loud “ahem!” when the bishop charged him with words attributed to St. Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons.”

But Jason is now officially a priest in the one holy catholic and apostolic church, and none may say nay to that. Not around me, anyway.

This is one customer satisfaction survey I’ll be sure to take the time to fill out

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Just got this email, following up on my adventures earlier in the week:

Dear Brad,

Recently, you contacted our online customer service group for assistance. We are conducting a study that will help us evaluate and improve our levels of customer service, and would like to include your opinions. The survey will only take a few minutes, and will help ensure that our customers receive the best possible service.

Please take a moment to tell us about your experience. You can be assured that your responses will be used only for research purposes, and will be held in strict confidence.

We value your input, and thank you in advance for your participation.

Click here to take our survey

Sincerely,
Toys”R”Us / Babies”R”Us!

I’m saving this for tonight, when I have some time to spend on it. I hope there’s an essay question on it…

How’s Cyber Monday going for you?

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For my part, I’m still fighting the battle of the children’s picnic table. I told you about what looked like a happy ending here. And right about that time, I received the following notification:

This is a notification-only email. Please do not reply to this message.

Dear Brad Warthen,

Thank you for ordering from us. Your order number is [bunch of numbers] and has been successfully placed. You’ll soon receive additional emails regarding your order as it is processed.

Here is a review of your order.

Store Pickup summary

The Ready for pickup email typically arrives within 2 hours. Orders placed near or outside store hours may require additional processing time. If you have selected someone else to pick up your order, they will also receive a copy of the Ready for pickup email which provides detailed instructions on what is required to pick up the order….

And so forth and so on. Triumph, right?

But then at 1:33, I got this:

This is a notification-only email. Please do not reply to this message.

Dear Brad Warthen:

Thank you for shopping at Toys“R”Us and Babies“R”Us.

Unfortunately, we were unable to fulfill your order # [same bunch of numbers]. As a result, your order has been cancelled. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your cancellation, please contact Customer Service 1-800-ToysRUs (800 -869-7787) for further assistance.

Order Date: 11/28/11

I’m steeling myself to make that call now.

In spite of this unreality, I’m told that we live in a brave new world of blissful online shopping, and today is that world’s High Holy Day. There are many stories out there celebrating it, such as this one:

A Shopping Day Invented for the Web Comes of Age

Cyber Monday might have started as a made-up occasion to give underdog e-commerce sites jealous of Black Friday a day of their own, but it has become an undeniably real thing — surprising even the people who invented it.

Last year, for the first time, the Monday after Thanksgiving was the biggest online shopping day of the year by sales, and the first day ever that online spending passed $1 billion, according to comScore, a research company that measures Web use.

This year, with a record-breaking Black Friday — shoppers spent $816 million online, 26 percent more than last year, in addition to spending more offline — online retailers are gearing up for Monday to once again be their best of the season…

Yadda-yadda, yadda-yadda, yadda-yadda. I remain less-than-favorably impressed.

Happy Thanksgiving, Richard — and everyone

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Once upon a time there was a thing called newspapers, and Richard Crowson is my oldest newspaper friend. One of his first published editorial cartoons illustrated a column I wrote for the editorial page of the journalism department lab paper at Memphis State University in 1975. I already knew Richard from working with him at the MSU library.

A couple of years later, Richard joined me at The Jackson Sun, where we worked together for close to a decade, Richard as the editorial cartoonist.

Then, in 1985, I persuaded him to come out to Kansas, where he eventually became editorial cartoonist of The Wichita Eagle. A couple of years after that, I left to come here. Richard stayed.

Richard, being a talented editorial cartoonist, was laid off from his job about six months before Robert Ariail and I were.

Anyway, I only possess a copy of one of his cartoons, the one above from 1982. It’s my favorite. Sorry that the perspective is a bit askew. It’s too big for my scanner, and I had to shoot it with my camera at an angle to get the reflection off the glass of the frame.

Enjoy.

Oh, another thing about Richard. He’s not only a great cartoonist; he’s probably the most talented picker I know — of any stringed instrument you care to name, as long as it’s used in the production of Bluegrass. The first thing Richard did when he arrived in Wichita was go out and buy several second-hand kitchen chairs for his apartment, for his fellow pickers to sit on once he found some. Which he promptly did.

Below, you see him at left with the rest of The Home Rangers, “Kansas’ Premier Cowboy Band.”

Finally, my important discovery is recognized

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For a second there, I almost deleted the comment and reported it as spam. Usually, when someone comments on a really old post, that’s what it is.

But I hesitated, and followed the link provided, and was happy to find that finally, an authoritative source had confirmed the validity of my important discovery of the actual site of the fictional Championship Vinyl.

You have to read High Fidelity to fully understand the importance of my discovery. Watching the movie is OK, but since it transports the shop to Chicago, no serious Hornbyologist would give it the time of day as a source of valid information.

I’m the one who crossed the ocean, left my wife asleep at our hotel in Swiss Cottage, crossed London in the Underground and searched the vast reaches of Islington alone, without a guide beyond the cryptic words of the novel itself, and found the hallowed spot.

And no one has fully recognized me until now, as DellaMirandola writes:

Thank you for this important discovery. I’ve just written about it here:http://thehornseyroad.blogspot.com/2011/11/championship-vinyl.html

Yes, there’s a bit of tail-chasing solipsism or some other fancy word going on here, in that the site in question is citing me as the source of truth without reference to the external world, and I’m citing him in return as the confirmation, but let’s leave that to the nitpickers. The bottom line is, what could be more expert on the validity of a find on the Hornsey Road than a website called The Hornsey Road? I ask you…

And that worthy author could hardly have been more definite:

In High Fidelity, Rob Fleming’s record shop is just off the Seven Sisters Road
This proves conclusively that it’s on the southern stretch of the Hornsey Road.

I am covered in glory. I don’t even care if there’s any money attached.

So now, I have another thing to be thankful for today.

Ring the Salvation Army bell…

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I just figured out why I’ve had one line from an old Simon and Garfunkel song running through my head all day:

Hear the Sal-va-tion Ar-my band…

It’s because, in a few minutes, I have to go

Ring the Sal-va-tion Ar-my bell…

This is a major service project of the Columbia Rotary Club. Fellow Rotarian Boyd Summers and I have signed up for the noon-2 p.m. slot today in front of Green’s liquor store over on Assembly. Come on by and see us on your way in to obtain your favorite adult beverages. Or on the way out. Either way, leave money in the bucket.

And while you think about whether you want to do that, listen to The Bangles’ relatively decent cover of the song in question, so that you can have the frightening experience of having your mind on the same wavelength as mine. Or listen to the original. I actually prefer the original, but since it’s a video, I figured The Bangles were easier to look at.

Ironic lyrics to hear on a day like today. But you can pretend there’s a hazy shade of winter out there, to get yourself in the mood for the holidays. Yeah, I know it’s not easy when you’re sweating…

On the spot while it’s hot, ‘bogging’ away

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Note the camera held high in the right hand. Note the digital recorder with Moleskine notebook held in left hand. Note the dramatic profile. Note the bow tie. That's my Hound Dog tie. It's my favorite.

My friend Kristine Hartvigsen shared this photo on Facebook last night, with the simple caption, “On the job. Read about this in his blog.”

Jack Gerstner responded, “i wonder what brad does now, other than bog?”

I do indeed have boggy days, but yesterday was fairly dry.

But occasionally, I suppose it’s good to remind y’all that the reason I don’t post a tenth as much as I’d like is that I’m also director of communications and public relations at ADCO.

What does that mean? Well, different things.

Yesterday, for instance — hours before the Occupy Columbia thing pictured above — I attended a meeting over at 2020 Hampton with Richland County Administrator Milton Pope and a number of his department heads. ADCO is working with a couple of consulting companies, Cadmus and Genesis Consulting, to help Central Midlands Council of Governments come up with a sustainable energy plan for the Midlands. We were briefing the Richland folks on where the project stands, and seeking their input on the next stage of it.

This morning at 11, I have a phone conference about that project. Before and after that, I’m working on copy for web pages for another client, intended to tell parents what to look for in a good childcare center.

This afternoon, I’ll be over at Bobby Hitt’s shop. Commerce has asked a number of firms in the advertising/marketing/PR world to work together to help Commerce with a branding project, something that promises to be pretty exciting, and which I hope to learn more about today.

And when I get a minute — between ADCO stuff, nights, weekends — I bog.

Anchors Aweigh: Bud and his son, the sailor

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Last night, Bud wrote this:

Brad and I have gone round and round on US military deployments over the last few years. Yet I can fully understand with a son in the naval resere how the sound of anchors away can stir up some goose bumps. With a son in the naval reserve I can attest to how inspiring those dress white uniforms are.

And he also shared this with me via email (along with the picture above):

All this talk of dress navy white uniforms reminded me of this special occassion recently at my son’s graduation from the Great Lakes training center.  That was a very special week that I’ll never forget.  Seeing my son grow up and my second grandchild come into the world.

Congratulations to Bud on having both a new sailor, and a new baby, in the family. And may his son have smooth sailing wherever his voyages take him.