Saddam's Left Hand

I finally purchased the July issue of GQ (yes, the one with Jessica Simpson on the cover), featuring Lisa DePaulo's mesmerizing interview with the Pennsylvania National Guardsmen who supervised Saddam Hussein. Specialist Sean O'Shea summed it up best when he wrote in his diary, "Part of me wanted to punch him in the face. Another part wanted to know what was going on in his head." And while the former didn't happen, O'Shea and his fellow soldiers learned more than they ever imagined from this bloodthirsty, megalomaniacal dictator.

Some highlights:

"Never Froot Loops. Saddam loved Raisin Bran Crunch, but sometimes they'd run out. It was one of the few times Sean ever saw him defeated--when he'd bring him the wrong cereal. 'No Froot Loops!' Saddam would say."

"And his favorite food was ... Cheetos. He was nuts about Cheetos. One of the guardsmen turned him on to them, and before long he would get grumpy if they ran out.... Then one day they gave him Doritos instead, and Saddam never went back.... He'd eat a family-size bag of Doritos in ten minutes.... When they'd give him a bag, he'd smile, thank them profusely, and retreat to a corner of his cell. Then he'd sprinkle a few drops of water into the bag and eat."

"His English kept improving, and he liked to tell jokes. There was one about a sheep and three men. 'You couldn't always understand him,' says [Specialist] Jesse [Dawson], 'but he was laughing, so you'd start laughing, too."

"When Sean told him that Reagan had recently died after a long battle with Alzheimer's, Saddam got quiet for a minute, then said, 'Yes, this happens.'"

Saddam has been working on his memoirs as well as his poetry. But when he translated it from Arabic into English, it didn't always make sense. Said Corporal Jonathan Reese, "It would be like, 'There's a blender in the street.' And we'd be like, 'Beautiful!'"

But perhaps the most disturbing detail, which seems to go against Saddam's germaphobic tendencies, is that he apparently doesn't use toilet paper: "He wiped with his left hand and had a hose next to the toilet that he used to wash himself off."

Being in Saddam's presence--even as the men reminded themselves constantly of what he did to his people--it became hard to avoid a conversation with him. (Hermann Göring was supposedly the same way in prison.) According to the soldiers, Saddam still believes he is president of Iraq and is waiting to return to his palace. He's in for a rude awakening.

When He Sits Around the House...

As I ate my sandwich of pastrami, cole slaw, and Russian dressing on a sub roll with a side of Cheetos and a Diet Coke, I read the Washington Post story about John Keitz, the 39-year-old man from Dundalk, Maryland, who has been bed-ridden for about seven years. Keitz weighs 625 pounds.

The profile, by David Montgomery, is, well, engrossing. Keitz had always been a big guy, weighing 100 pounds even in first grade and 250 pounds at age 18. (He believes his morbid obesity stems from a bad metabolism and not simply large portions.) As Montgomery explains it:

He lies on his front, because if he were to lie on his back, rolls of flesh would press on his windpipe and suffocate him. His head never touches sheet or pillow. At night, his left cheek nestles upon a soft white pile of shoulder and breast meat.

The last time Keitz stood, he was in the midst of preparing a mac 'n' cheese dinner for himself and his wife Gina. Just as he was slicing the Velveeta, it happened.

Keitz knows what people think: "How could someone get so fat? How could someone allow himself to be bedridden for seven years? How is it someone his size has sex?" (Okay, that last question was mine. And based on a friend's account of an obese couple she knows well, I do know how it works, the details of which are not suitable for publication under any circumstance.)

The story of John Keitz is a sad one. Yes, he has lost some weight--he once weighed 781 pounds--and he is trying to literally get back on his feet. But he still has a long way to go, and must simultaneously battle diabetes, arthritis, and sleep apnea. Let's hope David Montgomery does a follow-up next year.

The Great Raid

Last Friday I had the opportunity to catch a screening of The Great Raid, about the liberation of a Japanese-controlled POW camp in the Philippines during World War II. (I'll have a more extensive review of the film when it comes out August 12.) But in the meantime, let me just say this is a movie you should not miss. Based on the books The Great Raid on Cabanatuan and Ghost Soldiers (the latter of which I reviewed), The Great Raid is one of those powerful reminders of human sacrifice and, in particular, the sacrifices made in the Pacific campaign. Americans and Europeans are very much used to films treating the Holocaust such as Schindler's List and Life is Beautiful, but are seemingly not as well acquainted with similar instances in the Far East. The Japanese still have a difficult time coping with atrocities such as in Nanking and the Bataan Death March in the Philippines.

The Great Raid does not flinch in its portrayal of horrific crimes committed by Japanese soldiers against both the innocent and Allied prisoners. In fact, I contemplated walking out after the first three minutes, which showed actual black and white footage of the death march. (Full disclosure: My father, who was just a boy during the war, was almost executed by the Japanese.) But luckily my emotions settled down and became downright numb after experiencing Connie Nielsen's acting job. There also seems to be a deficiency in character development--most likely because there are too many characters to cover. The music tends toward the overly dramatic and sweeping when silence could've been more effective.

On the plus side, James Franco has finally got himself a solid role and Filipino actors are given their due. Credit should also be given to the Japanese actors who no doubt made a courageous decision in accepting the roles of ruthless killers. And who knows if the film will ever be shown in Japan? (Thanks to its distributor, Miramax, the movie should get some good press stateside.) Unlike The Thin Red Line, there are no moral ambiguities here. It is quite clear the occupying power did some really bad things.

The Great Raid will help spread awareness of the valor of Americans and Filipinos alike and, again, remind us of that terrible price of freedom.

Break Me a Fucking Give, Part II

In case you're late in getting to this week's New Yorker, you're in for a ride. David Remnci, unsurprisingly, has a brilliant Talk of the Town item on Mike Tyson. And then there's Anthony Lane.

I've been reading Lane's very excellent book, Nobody's Perfect and i thought, for a moment, that I had figured him out as a writer, that I was beginning to be able to pick out the seams. Bugger that.

Lane reviews Yes, and insipid looking movie starring Joan Allen.

He reviews it in verse.

By the end, we know what Potter hates:

Bigots, God, and the United States,

And Anglo-Saxon men in suits and ties

Who seem unable to control their flies.

And here’s the hook: I guess it could be worse,

But—brace yourself—the whole damn thing’s in verse.

Rhyming couplets, five-stress lines, the lot:

A Michael Bay production this is not.

“Do make yourself at home. Come; sit by me,

Something to drink? Perhaps you’d like some tea.”

You may get off on this enthralling stuff,

But after half an hour I’d had enough.

I have a secret hunch that Potter knows

Her tale is skimpy; that is why she goes

For multiple dissolves, CCTV,

And endless slo-mo: all the devilry

That smart directors use to fill the time—

Think George Lucas, minus droids, plus rhyme.

Whenever you feel the urge to make fun of Tina Brown, count ten. And remember she's the one who plucked Lane out of obscurity for the New Yorker.

The Liberal Briar Patch

Expanding on the Law Jedi's observation about Karl Rove's latest statement, HughHewitt.com has the goods from Ken Mehlman: A long, damning list of statements from MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, and George Soros underscoring exactly Rove's point.

As a factual matter, this is an open-and-shut case.

Here's where the Rove trap is sprung: Democrats as a whole, did not behave like the far-left establishment in the aftermath of September 11. Democrats acted like pretty much everyone else in America.

It was the far left--the group which has hijacked American liberalism--that reacted with such sourness. But in the intervening years, the far left has somehow convinced us that they and the Democratic party are one in the same--all numerical and electoral evidence to the contrary.

To be sure, Republicans have tried to help sell this notion, but now it seems that the Democratic party itself confused as to who it really is. Rove has just goaded them into self-identifying with a bunch of nuts who really don't represent the party's mainstream.

I mean, do Democrats want to keep losing elections?

P.S. Thanks to Al for catching my Freudian slip.

And Another!

Also, I notice that Danny Glover has a new blog up at National Journal's Tech Daily, called Beltway Blogroll. It should be a great contribution.

Two Welcome New Additions

I've been very remiss in not noting the two biggest--and best--additions to the web in a very long time.

The first is 610 WIP. After years of waiting, Philadelphia ex-pats can now get 610 on their desktops. It's only the best radio station in America. Go ahead, give it a listen. Just not during Howard Eskin's show. If only 610 could replace him with Tony Kornheiser . . .

The other new site--and this will be of much greater interest to most of you--is FaithAndJustice.org, a very smart project being run out of the University of Chicago by a group of liberal students interested in taking religion seriously, instead of using it as a punching bag. I'd be surprised if anything but good comes from their experiment.

Another Rove Trap?

The Law Jedi thinks that Rove has set a trap for Democrats--and that they've taken the bait by reflixively identifying themselves as "liberals."

You Think You're Tough?

Via another Daily Standard comes this story:

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A 73-year-old Kenyan grandfather reached into the mouth of an attacking leopard and tore out its tongue to kill it, authorities said Wednesday.

Peasant farmer Daniel M'Mburugu was tending to his potato and bean crops in a rural area near Mount Kenya when the leopard charged out of the long grass and leapt on him.

M'Mburugu had a machete in one hand but dropped that to thrust his fist down the leopard's mouth. He gradually managed to pull out the animal's tongue, leaving it in its death-throes.

"It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop chirping," he told the daily Standard newspaper of how the leopard came at him and knocked him over.

The leopard sank its teeth into the farmer's wrist and mauled him with its claws. "A voice, which must have come from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand in its wide open mouth. I obeyed," M'Mburugu said.

As the leopard was dying, a neighbor heard the screams and arrived to finish it off with a machete.

This goes right up there with the Russian in North Carolina a couple years ago who scared off a shark by beating it with his severed arm.

Klein Watch

Television's biggest jerk is now moving the goalposts. After claiming that his mismanagement of CNN would pay dividends in a year, he how says the network will have to wait 18 months to harvest the fruits of his genius.

Ah, Jon Klein. Maybe we won't be able to properly appreciate his greatness until he's gone.

Score One for Horowitz

A group of colleges and universities today released a statement proclaiming their commitment intellectual diversity and freedom of political conscience in the classroom. This is response to David Horowitz's push for an Academic Bill of Rights to ensure and these and other rights. Inside Higher Ed—an excellent resource on the academic scene—has the story here.

Is "Redskin" Pejorative?

Just came across an interesting article, from the American Indian perspective (sorry to be so PC), concerning the ongoing litigation over the Washington Redskins name. Harjo et al had persuaded three trademark judges on the substance of their grievance in 1999; in 2003, a district court overturned their finding. This article cites some detective work by Geoffrey Nunberg of Stanford on the point.

Suzan Shown Harjo

Mr. Excitable

It's not a Magpie Watch, but it's pretty great. Best of the Web has a nifty little selection of Andrew Sullivan quotes about torture, under the headline Mr. Excitable.

Before we happily close the case on the missing boy in Utah, now found and with his family, we should give pause and thank God for returning him alive after those grueling four days ... that he no doubt spent aboard an alien spacecraft.

You think I'm joking? Let's look at what we know so far. According to the fittingly named Forrest Nunley, who found 11-year-old Brennan Hawkins, he "turned a corner and there was a kid standing in the middle of the trail...." As if he was just dropped off. The boy said he ate and drank nothing for those missing days. The aliens do not know what we eat or drink! Summit County sheriff David Edmunds also said Brennan "was in no mood to give us a lot of details..." That is because he has no details to report. They wiped his memory! Almost immediately after getting his necessary human nutrition, Brennan then "wanted to play a video game on one of the searchers' cell phones." Just like with a Speak & Spell, he was obviously using the phone to communicate with his new masters. Authorities also described the boy as delirious. Wouldn't you be after visiting Alpha Centauri?

More Michael Schiavo

The Law Jedi makes an important point about Michael Schiavo:

Michael Schiavo lists her date of death as the date of her collapse on February 26, 1990, and that she finally met peace in 2005, after being "peacefully" dehydrated to death, of course. So is Michael admitting that the few years he kept her alive in order to collect on a medical malpractice verdict was a deliberate denial of peace to make some money? And just so it's clear, you get more money if the person is alive and incapacitated than if they are dead, because you can recover the future costs of care, which are exorbitant, especially when you promise that you will completely rehab the patient.

The final line on the marker states "I Kept My Promise." But to which promise is he referring? The one mentioned above that he made to the jury which was the basis for their award? The promise to remain faithful to her in sickness and in health? All that twaddle about love, honor, cherish? If anyone has a clue which one of those, or any other I may have missed, was kept, please let me know so that I can appropriately credit him. . . .

But it a fitting epilogue to this very sad story. Because Terri's story was never really about her. It was, like this marker, about Michael Schiavo. Terri was unloved in health, abandoned except for her financial value to Michael in sickness, a memorial to Michael's neglect in her decline, and a snicker to her family who loved her in her death.

The Schindlers need not visit the gravesite where their daughter's ashes lie and where a cruel marker mocks the open wounds of their hearts. Terri is not there. She is elsewhere. Far from the grasp of the man whom she condescended to marry.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

Our good friends at Davids Medienkritik, the indispensable blog for "politically incorrect observations on reporting in the German media," will be demonstrating next Monday, June 27, at Lafayette Park, across from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The reason for their assembly is Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's visit to Washington where he will be meeting with President Bush as well as business leaders. How very typisch of Schröder, in the heat of an election, with his approval ratings below 30 percent, and critics charging him with anti-American and anti-business rhetoric, that he would now come to meet with Bush, emphasize the need for transatlantic cooperation, and speak to those heartless capitalists. Davids Medienkritik isn't fooled either. And while the focus of the demonstration will be "against anti-American bias in German media and politics and for German-American friendship and cooperation," it would also be a fitting sendoff.

The latest issue of GQ features a fascinating story by Lisa DePaulo about the National Guardsmen who recently guarded Saddam Hussein. In the excerpt, we learn the ex-dictator is a fan of Ronald Reagan ("Reagan and me, good") and dislikes both Bushes ("The Bush father, son, no good"). Clinton was just "okay." But perhaps most interesting is Saddam's dislike of Froot Loops (maybe he's an Apple Jacks guy) and a love for Doritos (I'm guessing Cool Ranch).

Michael Schiavo

Patterico has a soul-shaking post on Michael Schiavo's continuing campaign against his former in-laws. Do not follow the link if you're already having a bad day.

Pop Quiz: Sullivan or Kos?

Who says:

It is this administration that has brought indelible shame on America, it's people like Dick Durbin who prove that some can actually stand up against this stain on American honor and call it what it is. Good for him. Thank God for him.

Andrew Sullivan or Markos Moulitsas?

Surprise!

Behind the Scenes with Matthew Lesko

You know Matthew Lesko, the guy with all the question marks yelling about free money from the government. Dave Jamieson has a fantastic profile of him in the Washington City Paper this week.