Old Cedar Bridge Funding
Saturday, January 27th, 2007Our legislature is going to consider funding to repair/replace the bridge, an important link in local cycling routes. If you’re not familiar with it…
Archive for January, 2007
Secret History of the CIA
Saturday, January 27th, 2007WifERob and I saw The Good Shepherd a few weeks back. While I’m not so doctrinaire in my reading habits as Smithers, I do enjoy my history studies and this movie rekindled my interest in our clandestine service, CIA.
I did some research on the screenplay (original, by Eric Roth), and its historical basis is largely two books: a biography of James Jesus Angleton, longtime CIA director of counter-intelligence, and The Secret History of the CIA by Joseph Trento. The latter is a compelling narrative compiled from some interviews of agency, mi6 and kgb alums (esp Angleton), and information from press accounts and declassified documents.
I sent off Smithers with this book for the long flight to France. I know he’ll enjoy the read.
This book really made me angry, exposing CIA’s impatience, ignorance of other cultures and overreaching arrogance. Great attributes for Hollywood drama or Greek tragedy, lousy for spycraft. Good way to get ass-humped by the competition, which is every country in the spy game. The result was an abject failure by our spy service, an organization full of careerists punctuated all too often by double agents and moles.
Secret History also exposes how the CIA leadership was able to leverage Red paranoia and dirty secrets about politicos into unknown/unauthorized covert missions, funding largesse and a cultural narrative that omitted or overlooked most of their excesses and failures.
It left me wondering which I like least: the loose-cannon CIA of the Cold War:
NSC 10/2 directed CIA to conduct “covert” rather than merely “psychological” operations, defining them as all activities “which are conducted or sponsored by this Government against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and executed that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.”
Carte blanche through deniability, More here…
or the CIA of recent memory that gets rolled by Feith and the OSP:
But Drumheller says many CIA analysts were skeptical. “Most people came to the opinion that there was something questionable about it,” he says.
Questionable? Then wouldn’t it be the agency’s duty to America (which I love, Jim) to stand up and call bullshit on the neo-con plans for Iraq?! ”No, let’s see what these nutjobs want to do and strand a Rummy-lean fighting force in multi-vector urban combat hell for years.” Our national shame, condemning our brothers and sisters to the twilight of Reason. March on, WifERob!!!!!
Other nice tidbits: you’ll find out that the paper of record was complicit in many CIA failures (which makes this horseshit NY Times review of Good Shepherd, parroting the official Agency line on Angleton, doubly ironic, as in meta-metacritique rendered as Sulzberger valentine: ”I *heart* my access to power.” sorry, I digress); also a pretty compelling theory of JFK’s assassination involving Kremlin intrigues and a justifiably grumpy Castro, so Byzantine it rings exactly true given the Agency’s Secret History.
Something not seen everyday
Saturday, January 27th, 2007
Something not seen everyday
Originally uploaded by smithersmpls.
We visited Benard Hinault’s personal mechanic from back in the Gitane/Renault and La Vie Claire days. He took us down in the basement to show us something we might have found interesting.
From the floor, behind a pile of ski stuff he pulled out a trophy. We read the inscription on the trophy:
“Benard Hinault - 1985 Giro d’Italia”
It was the victors trophy that Hinault was given on the podium of the final stage of the ‘85 Giro after winning the overall race.
An amazing piece of history stored in some dudes basement in Lyon France.
(sent wireless via Treo 650)
Old Lyon main street
Saturday, January 27th, 2007
Old Lyon main street
Originally uploaded by smithersmpls.
(sent wireless via Treo 650)
EPO contest concludes
Friday, January 26th, 2007Mike wins, hands down.
Once the aliens found our perfect match on earth we were sent down in a freezer suit case and thrown into the back of a junkie Toyota, and that’s were we waited for our owners.
I’m not knowing what he might be meaning, but his huge crushing writing habits can be scaring the scotterobinator and sometimes the fearing is the exciting for us.
The truth: When the EPO came back, I stared at it for awhile. For a couple days. Then I took the shuttle over to the specialty pharmacy and explained what EPO abuse is in sport, active black market, etc. Kind of read them the riot act, a bit over the top since I was probably the last person in the organization they should have sent it to, free and clear. And how could they have known? I told a few friends, had some laughs about it.
Mike, let me know which prize you want, and where I can drop if off.
My Favorite TC Bike Shops, Part I
Friday, January 26th, 2007In 1988, I was a nearly penniless college student in St Paul. I rode a bit and badly wanted a new bike to replace my high school bike. I’d ridden the Takara all over the Twin Cities, with plenty of commuting between Mac-Groveland and DT Mpls. On weekends I would ride or walk over to Grand Performance and drool over the racing bikes.
I immediately liked GP; it reminded me straightaway of University Sports in Duluth from my childhood. This is to say that the shop was barely that, but rather a littered clubhouse with a cash register. Complete stranger to merchandising. And no concession to recreational riders. So it was clear to me that whenever the staff had the choice between riding and cleaning/organizing, they made the right choice. It felt good just being there.
I’d already surveyed the neighborhood shops and wanted what GP had going on. Including the gruff disdain for the clueless. So I kept going to GP and looking at the bikes, then I’d linger over the cheapest racing frame that would fit me - a mentos-colored, lightly-used 58cm Somec with heart-shaped fork crown engravings and lug cutouts. Whenever one of the folks would ask if they could help me, I’d say no thanks, then buy a tube or toe straps and be on my way.
I kept up this pathetic behavior for a few months, slouching in and hoping that it would still be there or the price would have changed. One day, a slow Autumn day at the shop, someone surprised me as I was gazing up at this frameset, “Would you just make me an offer already?”
I turned and looked at him, agape. I’m sure it had never occurred to me that the price could be negotiable, or that they had noticed and remembered my attention. I don’t know if he understood yet that I couldn’t afford it, but he learned fast enough. I explained that college was working overtime to keep me destitute and I was just hoping it would be around long enough for me to save the money. He introduced himself as Dan, and asked me how much money I had. I told him, a little more than half the marked price. I think I looked the part (I’m positive) and he said OK. I knew he was the owner, and I think I visibly melted when he said OK. But he didn’t think it was the right size for me.
I knew my size. I told Dan the size I rode, and he wanted to make sure. So he gets out the fit kit and tells me to take my shoes off. I knew about the fit kit, but had never seen it, and was totally impressed. And he’s fitting me for a nearly free frame?
He measures me up and decides that I’m a little small for a 58cm frame (57cm top tube). I insist that it’ll work. Dan relents, then asks if I have what I need to build it. The frame/fork had a headset, and I had a crank and bb and tools so I was covered there. My Takara had Dia Compe 500G brakes, and I was going to use those but Dan laughed and said “If you’re going on rides with us I want you to be able to stop the bike.” He ended up giving me his Shimano 600 brakes and training wheels, with decent tires. He asked about other stuff I might need, but the charity angle was getting out of hand and nobody needed to see me cry that day.
I walked in expecting to kill a few minutes daydreaming and walked/stumbled home with a frameset, wheels and brakes. I hurt from the happiness, giddy FOR MONTHS.
My college riding buddies took me for a minor celebrity: “He talked to you?!!”
I rode that bike for years, till I got hit by a car. Then I had Terry Osell replace the crumpled top and down tubes and rode it for another couple years. Sentimental. Another driver finished my beloved Somec, which was starting to show cracks anyway.
I ended up working in the Bianchi biz and seeing Dan quite a bit. I told him this story once and he didn’t remember it, so maybe it wasn’t an isolated example.
I think Dan’s great. When I worked the biz and talked to folks in the East Metro, I sent them all to Dan. Still do. Some people confuse Dan’s shop and SPBRC. I don’t.
Music Friday: Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall
Friday, January 26th, 2007Dateline: 1938
Players: Count Basie, Gene Krupa, Artie Shaw, Harry James et al
Carnegie Hall is a bastion of high-art pretense, home to classical music and opera. Benny Goodman, flush with popular music success, takes the stage with his orchestra before enthusiastic sold-out crowd.
I know that now. I picked up this record when I was 22. I’d seen a movie with a friend, and one scene opened with rolling drums and the craziest horn music I’d ever heard. I didn’t recognize it but he knew it well: “Benny Goodman.” I watched the credits: ’Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)’. First jazz record I purchased.
I immediately recognized tracks from watching PBS documentaries. I’ve read and watched a bit of 20th century history; for me the recording functions as more of an atmospheric. I listen and imagine clanking down the street on a streetcar, tipping my fedora in the store before picking up a can of pomade. I think of of it as the soundtrack for that era.
There are excellent tracks, namely ‘Swingtime in the Rockies’ and ‘Dizzy Spells’; ’Sing Sing Sing’ was written by Louis Prima but re-arranged for big band, the original no longer recognizable here. Liner notes are great, from the period.
Audiophile warning: One overhead mic and two side mics, that’s it. Wired out to a sound truck in the alley, which had PHONE LINE connection to recording studios at Columbia and CBS. On-site engineers couldn’t control levels??!!
And there’s at least one clunker on the record: ‘Loch Lomond’ Martha Tilton’s vocal stylings are self-satisfied, cloyingly precious. Why arrange a traditional Scottish ballad around sweet crooning? But the majority of the two-disc set is a triumph.
But Store - Nevers France
Friday, January 26th, 2007
Originally uploaded by smithersmpls.
Typical French spell butt wrong.
(sent wireless via Treo 650)
** Time edited **
