The Associated Press is reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney shot and wounded a fellow quail hunter today with birdshot. There was no word on whether the hospitalized victim was seeking expanded congressional oversight of domestic surveillance.

George C. Dalmas III, 44, a “mid-level administrative employee” of the CIA has been charged with 17 burglaries after police found “a stunning trove of cash, jewelry, antiques, license plates — and bags filled with more than 1,000 women’s undergarments“* in his home, according to an article in The Washington Post on Wednesday.

* Emphasis Mine

Hello my little forest friends. These are the books currently on my “to buy” list. Some of them are brand new; others have been on the list for a year or more. I’m interested in thumbnail reviews and suggestions for alternate titles from you geniuses.

“Within the Walls of Tyre” (Short Story), by Mike Bishop
Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell, by Pat Murphy
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, by Daniel C. Dennett
Engines of the Night, by Barry Malzberg
Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, by Eric Foner
Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain
Legion Of The Lost: The True Experience of an American in the French Foreign Legion, by Jaime Salazar
Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
Stone Garden, by Molly Moynahan
The Bounty, by Caroline Alexander
Travels Along the Edge, by David Noland
Truths of History, by Mildred Lewis Rutherford
Working, by Studs Terkel
Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit, by Laura Penny

The Stonehead News theme song, Easter Island Head, by Throat Culture, is now available in MP3 format on my User Profile Page (beneath the “Home Office” picture).

Thanks again to for the, ahem, heads up.

Byron Calame, Public Editor
The New York Times

Dear Mr. Calame:

Regarding David Brooks’ column, “Multiple Reality Syndrome,” in the December 4, 2005, Times, I have a question: is there a point at which a writer’s fawning advocacy for an administration crosses the line from journalism to propaganda? I know this issue is much on the minds of editors and ombudsmen lately, with the Times’ Judith Miller and the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, as is the use of anonymous sources that spin a story favorable to the leaker’s interests.

Mr. Brooks today tries to assume the mantle of objectivity about the conduct of the war in Iraq, but soon slips into his accustomed role as the Bush administration’s unctuous Ganymede with this quote:

“…a bewildered newcomer to the Bush administration interrupted an interview to ask me why I thought there was such a big difference between the probing and realistic President Bush he would see in the Oval Office, and the pat and repetitive Bush he would see at press conferences and on TV.”

Well gosh!

I don’t believe the anonymous staffer’s posture of naiveté, nor do I swallow Mr. Brooks’ uncritical acceptance of it. Moreover, though it’s taken five years, we’ve now seen enough instances of President Bush forced off-message by substantive questions to know that his is not what you would call a nimble intellect. The GOP’s message, that the president is a closet genius with an Eisenhower’s grasp of the war, is now laughably at odds with Mr. Bush’s observed performance in the conduct of the war and his explanations of that performance to the American people. Valiantly as he may try, Mr. Brooks can no longer rescue the president’s reputation with a judiciously chosen blind quote.

Which leads me back to my original question. Is this Mr. Brooks’ way of holding the powerful accountable? Is this afflicting the comfortable? Is the role of a journalist–even an op-ed columnist–to blandly dispense administration talking points? To be sure the left has its partisans on the op-ed page of the Times, but it seems to me they hold Democrats’ feet to the fire with far more regularity than their right-wing counterparts do to Republican officials. No one was tougher on Bill Clinton than Maureen Dowd, to cite but one example. How much misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance does it take before Mr. Brooks’ dewy-eyed billets-doux to the GOP are moved from the op-ed page to a lonely hearts column?

Sincerely,

Robert J. Howe
Brooklyn, New York