we are real


david berman, technology, in the new edition of Soft Targets journal.

* The first issue of Soft Targets journal looks outstanding, featuring color and B&W artists from inside and outside the galleries, including Walid Raad, John Tremblay (Paula Cooper Gallery), Whitney Bedford(D’amelio Terras), Jason Fox (Feature, Inc.) Harun Farocki, and musician/artists D.C. Berman and Mick Barr. Interspersed with these artists and others are critical pieces by Jason Smith, Joan Retallack, and Wayne Koestenbaum; short fiction from Benjamin Weissman, Rachel Kushner, and multidisciplinary artists Stanya Kahn and Harriet “Harry” Dodge; and poetry from Dennis Cooper, Linh Dinh, Catherine Wagner, Carla Harryman, Matthew Rohrer, Martha Ronk, Mohammed Bennis, Dennis Phillips, Ben Lerner, and Lara Glenum, among others. Also included are several new translations, found images, contributions from the Office of Force Transformation and the Apocalypse de Saint-Sever, a License to Live mail-in insert, Treaty with France, and a mini-CD by NY sound artist teleseen affixed to the inside back cover.

Check the website for ordering information.

* the rude pundit:

"The resignation of CIA Director Porter 'Motherfucker' Goss is enmeshed in the mystery of a power struggle with John 'the Aforementioned Motherfucker' Negroponte, wrapped in Duke Cunningham's bribery scandal - now featuring Goss's third in command, 'Dusty' Foggo, covered in a sticky secret sauce that might just be spook and legislator spooge, involving a nine-fingered CIA agent with the easy-to-remember nickname of 'Nine Fingers,' hookers, and poker (or maybe, more appropriately, 'poke-him' parties). Considering how sleazy, cynical, and contemptuous of the nation the whole thing seems, the Rude Pundit wouldn't be surprised to learn that Nine Fingers lost his tenth digit in the particularly tight anus of a Shanghai prostitute. As far as potential scandals go, the whole thing is sweet-smelling enough to make you salivate like sniffin' Granny's boysenberry pies on a window sill.

"So now Bush gets to nominate a new Director of Central Intelligence, and he chooses Gen. Michael Hayden, one more motherfucker for the round table of motherfuckers. The quick rogue's gallery portrait features Hayden, as head of the NSA (a job that makes one a motherfucker by definition), carrying out and defending warrantless spying on Americans, missing little things like 9/11, and, in a precious moment, chastising a reporter for saying that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution says that 'probable cause' must be involved in securing a warrant for search, which it does, which Hayden denied it did, which, you know, explains a fuck of a lot. (By the way, what is it with Republicans only paying attention to parts of the Amendments, like the whole 'well-regulated militia' thing in the Second Amendment? No wonder they're such bad fucks that they require hookers to get them off - good fucking requires nuance and attention to the full act, not dull head banging.)"
...
"This morning, National Security Adviser Stephen 'Yep, He's a Motherfucker' Hadley was on CNN calling Hayden 'an independent thinker. He has been not -- has not been shy about expressing his views.' Yet Hadley contradicted himself not a moment later when he said, '[Hayden] will view himself rightly as working very closely with Ambassador Negroponte to carry out the President's agenda.' A few minutes before, on Fox 'News,' Hadley was even more blatant: 'He's committed to the President's agenda.' Shouldn't the Director of Central Intelligence be committed to getting the right intelligence, no matter what the agenda? For if one is committed to an agenda, then one will make the 'facts' suit the agenda, and who knows what could happen if the CIA did that. We might go to war based on a false premise that intelligence was manipulated to prove...oh, shit, right."

--- related: Molly Ivans on
the best little whorehouse in Washington. excerpt:

"I don’t care what anyone smoked 20 years ago, I approve of those who boogie till they puke, and I don’t care who anyone in politics is screwing in private, as long as they’re not screwing the public.

"On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much. Any journalist who claims Hookergate is not a legitimate scandal is dead—has been for some time and needs to be unplugged. In addition to sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, Hookergate is rife with public-interest questions, misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, and many splendid moral points for the children. Recommended for Sunday school use, grades seven and above.

"But for starters, let us consider the unenviable record of Porter Goss at the CIA. From the beginning of his tenure, Goss has been criticized for politicizing the agency. He brought a bunch of political hacks with him for staff, one of whom turns out to be the poker player called 'Nine Fingers.' And in the end, he was probably fired for not having politicized the agency sufficiently.

"What is the point of politicizing an intelligence agency? So the CIA officials would get a report from some agent in Iraq saying, 'Looks bad.' The first thing they’d ask was, 'Is this agent a Republican or a Democrat?'
...
"Next, we need to contemplate sincere, old-fashioned, non-ideological greed, theft and bribery. In the beginning, there was only Duke Cunningham, the high-living, fun-loving super-patriot congressman from San Diego. His yacht was called The Duke-Stir, and he had nice taste in 19th century French commodes. While we all are happy to see our elected representatives enjoying themselves in Washington, that’s real people’s money. Actually, the yacht and commode were paid for by defense contractor Brent Wilkes (keep an eye on that player). It was people’s money that paid for the defense contracts Wilkes allegedly bribed public officials into landing for his clients.

"The former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin—that would be the DHS equivalent of a police department’s internal affairs chief—tried to blow the whistle on shady contracts at DHS and instead was thrown overboard himself. Folks, we’ll never get government straightened out again if we don’t keep the IGs strong and independent.

"If the Bush administration continues to fall apart at this clip, I think we’ll be grateful for incompetence as an excuse."

* Hunter S. Thompson on George W. Bush:

-- "He knew who I was, at that time, because I had a reputation as a writer. I knew he was part of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He had no humor. He was insignificant in every way and consequently I didn't pay much attention to him. But when he passed out in my bathtub, then I noticed him. I'd been in another room, talking to the bright people. I had to have him taken away." -on meeting George W Bush at Thompson's Super Bowl party in Houston in 1974

-- "Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his son out to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no particular order, and he is no fun at all."