Ignatius J. Reilly's New Orleans

Image from Wiki.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, is a splendid and hilarious novel. I can think of few books that evoke the heart, and soul, and eccentricity, and absolute craziness that is New Orleans. Ignatius J. Reilly is an unforgettable character. I know exactly what he means when he says, as he's traveling to Baton Rouge on a Greyhound bus, "Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins." I have been living in the wasteland for close to 50 years, and I have never grown accustomed to the place. It's true. I can't help it.

Don't misunderstand me. I've had a good life, a privileged life. I love my family and friends. I have not been sad for the close to 50 years I've lived away, but dammit, I have missed New Orleans. You see, for me, there really isn't any other place to live. Unlike Reilly, I love traveling to other places, but New Orleans is home.

Toole, the author of "Confederacy", committed suicide at the age of 31. His distress over not being able to get his novel published led to despondency over that and perhaps other things, and he took his own life.

After he died, his mother, Thelma Toole worked tirelessly to get the book published. In the end, she was able to convince the novelist, Walker Percy, to read the manuscript. Percy recognized the genius of the work and convinced Louisiana State University Press to publish it. I believe this was the first publication by LSU Press to make the best seller list. They raked in a load of money on the book.

En passant, a friend of mine went out with Toole a few times. She said he was very quiet and introverted. I met him a couple of times, but he went by the name of Ken Toole, and I did not make the connection between him and the author of the book until many years after the book was published, long after I read it.

If you haven't read the book, you could think about giving it a look.

UPDATE: Here is a link to Walker Percy's Foreword to A Confederacy of Dunces.

Fats Gets The Gold

Image from More Things.

From the Associated Press via NOLA.com:

By STACEY PLAISANCE
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Twenty of Fats Domino's gold records lost or destroyed during Hurricane Katrina have been reproduced and were presented to the 79-year-old Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer at a French Quarter nightclub Monday.

Domino was all smiles, saying repeatedly "thank you, thank you" to a crowd of about 100 friends and family. Also present were some of the city's most noted musicians, including Irma Thomas, Charmaine Neville and guitarist and singer Deacon John.

Among the gold-plated records Domino lost when Katrina flooded his 9th Ward home on Aug. 29, 2005 were "Going to the River," "Blue Monday," "Valley of Tears," "Blueberry Hill," "Whole Lotta Loving" and "I Want to Walk You Home."

....

Domino also was recognized Monday by the Recording Industry Association of America with its "American Music Legend" award, making him only the second artist to receive the honor — the first being Johnny Cash about a decade ago.

"It's not an annual award," said RIAA spokeswoman Laura Doud. "It's to award those elite artists whose imprint on American music is undeniable and invaluable."

Yo, Fats! I nearly wore out my feet dancing to Fats' songs in the fifties.

He lost everything in Katrina, including his beloved piano. Click on the picture and check out his cool sofa.

Al Barger at MoreThings.com says this about using pictures from his site:

It's usually considered bad form to "steal bandwidth" by using images from other people's server on your own pages. It's best all round to copy them to your own server, though I'm not sweating it. But if you use something directly off my server, I'd DEFINITELY appreciate a courtesy link.

That's nice.

Of the many songs of Fats' that I like, this one is special to me - especially since Katrina:

From "Walkin' to New Orleans"

It's time I'm walkin' to New Orleans
I'm walkin' to New Orleans
I'm going to need two pair of shoes
When I get through walkin' to you
When I get back to New Orleans

Luiz From Rio

In the center of the picture is Luiz, with a priest and a young girl from the parish of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) in Rio de Janeiro. Luiz is an aspiring priest in the Anglican/Episcopal Church of Brazil, now serving as an intern in the church, which is in one of the most dangerous slums in Rio.

The name of the slum is Cidade de Deus (City of God). I have no doubt that God makes his dwelling amongst the poor people of the slum.

May God bless Luiz and all those in the parish who serve God's beloved in the City of God.

Luiz's blog is The Wandering Christian.

In Memoriam - Hunter Horgan

From the Daily Comet, August 10. 2007:

By RAYMOND LEGENDRE -- THIBODAUX -- The Rev. Hunter Horgan spent a considerable amount of his three years as pastor of St. John’s Episcopal Church providing counsel to both parishioners and strangers when life dealt them hard blows.

Ironically, those who knew him best believe his love for helping others through difficult times may have opened the door for his death and a mystery that has lingered since.

Horgan’s beaten body was discovered Aug. 13, 1992, inside St. John’s church hall. It’s been 15 years since life dealt Horgan the cruelest of blows. Those he once comforted have found only emptiness from the situation as the years have passed, and his murder remains unsolved.

Though police say they have come close to finding his killer, no arrests have been made. With the anniversary of Horgan’s death nearing, Thibodaux Police Chief Craig Melancon said he considers the case one of his department’s highest priorities.

Still, Horgan’s family remains uninspired by the results yielded by Thibodaux Police.

"They have a 15-year track record of losing seasons," Horgan’s brother, Porter, said.
....

Horgan, a native of Meridian, Miss., who grew up in Hammond, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education from LSU in 1968 and earned a master of divinity, four years later, from the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va.

He arrived at St. John’s in 1989 as a supply pastor. Soon after arriving, he became the church’s full-time minister.

"He was easy to talk to and his door was always open to anyone who wanted to talk," said Murray Dennis, a church member since 1980.

"I admired him very much," parishioner Katherine Bourgeois added. "I thought he was a fine man."

Horgan and his wife, Marda, had a son and a daughter and three step-children. The pastor lived in an apartment in Thibodaux, while his wife stayed in Metairie. Their plan was for her to move to Thibodaux after their final child finished high school. She never got the chance.
....

Recently, the Thibodaux Police Department began conducting fresh interviews. It is also reevaluating forensic evidence taken from the scene using modern DNA technologies, Melancon noted.

"We feel like we’re moving in the right direction, but we’ve felt like that before," the police chief said.

"I believe we’ve come very close in the past," he continued. "For us to take the case to court, it has to be more than a hunch."

Porter Horgan argues that Thibodaux Police missed their opportunity to make an arrest long ago by failing to interview the proper individuals and evaluate the right evidence. One year after the crime occurred, the family hired a private investigator from Baton Rouge.

"We were amazed they didn’t interview certain people of interest," the minister’s brother said, declining to elaborate.
....

The Thibodaux Police Department’s use of psychic Sylvia Browne, best known for her appearances on TV’s "The Montel Williams Show," also drew Porter Horgan’s ire. The California-based psychic was paid $400 for one half-hour reading in 1997, Martin said, noting that most of the department supported the idea, as did then-Mayor Warren Harang.

"The Thibodaux Police Department is lost," the minister’s brother said. "I don’t think they could track an elephant in fresh snow."
....

This Sunday, St. John’s Episcopal Church won’t have a big ceremony to honor Horgan. To do so, church pastor the Rev. Ed Robertson said, would be too painful. Instead, Horgan’s name will be mentioned when church members say a prayer remembering their departed loved ones.

"The fact that it’s a case that’s never been solved leaves it as an open wound," Robertson said.

Have you guessed that this is my church? I was not a member when the murder occurred, but since mine is a small town, everyone in the vicinity was shocked and grieved. I can only imagine what it was like for the church members and for the family of Hunter Horgan.

I have the sense that something was amiss with the police investigation from the beginning. With the body being moved by the killer from one area of the parish hall to another and the car taken and parked elsewhere, it would seem that there would have been evidence left at the scene or in the car.

A few years after this tragedy, I made my decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church. Within a few months, I had visited St. John on several Sundays. I liked the rector, I loved the liturgy, and I already knew many of the church members. I had tentatively decided to make the church my home, but the murder was a hurdle that I had to get past. For a while, I was a little spooked each time I went into the parish hall. I never asked in which area of the parish hall the priest was murdered, because I did not want to know. This newspaper account gives more details than I ever knew before.

I'm over all that now. I hardly ever think about it, until the anniversary comes round. The congregation came through the ordeal wonderfully well. The church could have fallen apart. They were a close-knit group, and when trouble struck, they stuck together. God was surely with them. The authorities in the diocese stepped in quickly with help and support.

I admire the priest who answered the call to be rector after the murder. It could not have been easy to keep the thoughts of the tragedy out of his mind. He helped the congregation through a tough time, stayed for eight years, and broke the curse, you might say.

Fr. Horgan's family is not pleased that the crime remains unsolved nor with the actions of the police department, and I don't blame them. What can you say of using psychics to solve crimes? That both the mayor and the police chief promoted a scheme like this is incredible.

I had met Fr. Horgan a few times, and he seemed like a kindly man. The unsolved crime does leave an open wound.

May God grant healing and peace to Fr. Horgan's family, to our church family, and to all who knew him and loved him.

Why Did We Vote For Democrats?

From E. J. Dionne's, column, Why The Democrats Caved in the Washington Post:

Shortly before noon last Saturday, about 20 House Democrats huddled in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office to decide what to do about a surveillance bill that had been dumped on them by the Senate before it left town.

Many of the Democrats were furious. They believed they had negotiated in good faith with Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. They sought to give the Bush administration the authority it needed to intercept communications involving foreign nationals in terrorism investigations while preserving some oversight.
....

At one point, according to participants in the Pelosi meeting, the passionate discussion veered toward the idea of standing up to the administration -- even at the risk of handing President Bush a chance to bash Democrats on "national security," as is his wont.

Several members from swing districts -- including Reps. Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Patrick J. Murphy of Pennsylvania -- expressed openness to having Congress stay in town to fight if important constitutional issues were at stake.

But that did not happen. The Democrats voted to give Bush the bill that he wanted, and then left for a month-long recess.

According to this article, also in the WP, by Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick:

The bill would give the National Security Agency the right to collect such communications in the future without a warrant. But it goes further than that: It also would allow the monitoring, under certain conditions, of electronic communications between people on U.S. soil, including U.S. citizens, and people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States," without a court's order or oversight.

That means that the Bush administration is allowed to spy on its own citizens without oversight. The secret FISA court is, in itself, constitutionally questionable, but even that supervision is gone with the bill that passed.

The administration said that its bill is aimed at bringing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 into step with advances in technology, primarily by restoring the government's power to gather without a warrant foreign intelligence on targets located overseas.

Because the law has not kept up with advances in telecommunications, McConnell said in congressional testimony, the government "is significantly burdened in capturing overseas communications of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside the United States."

One would think that the same advances in telecommunications available to potential terrorists would make it easier and faster to communicate with the FISA court judges to quickly obtain a warrant whenever necessary.

Civil liberties and privacy advocates and a majority of Democrats said the bill could allow the monitoring of virtually any calls, e-mails or other communications going overseas that originate in the United States, without a court order, if the government deems the recipient to be the target of a U.S. probe.
....

In place of a court's approval -- which intelligence officials worried might come too slowly -- the NSA would institute a system of internal bureaucratic controls.

Yes, of course, bureaucratic controls. That's the answer. The technology won't allow quick action by FISA court judges, but that same technology will allow rapid flow of information through the bureaucracy. Tell me another one.

Here's how the bill will work:

Under the administration's version of the bill, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general could authorize the surveillance of all communications involving foreign targets. Oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, composed of federal judges whose deliberations are secret, would be limited to examining whether the government's guidelines for targeting overseas suspects are appropriate. The court would not authorize the surveillance.

The surveillance will be authorized by that sterling example of probity, Alberto Gonzales, and Mike McConnell, who seems to take orders directly from the White House.

The bill's six-month sunset clause did not assuage some critics.

"I'm not comfortable suspending the Constitution even temporarily," said Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), a member of the House intelligence committee. "The countries we detest around the world are the ones that spy on their own people. Usually they say they do it for the sake of public safety and security."

The six-month sunset clause doesn't assuage this critic either.

Back to E. J. Dionne:

The entire display was disgraceful because an issue of such import should not be debated in a political pressure cooker. It's not even clear that new legislation was required; [Rep.] Holt, for one, believes many of the problems with handling interceptions involving foreign nationals are administrative in nature and that beefing up and reorganizing the staff around the FISA court might solve the outstanding problems.

Tough Broad Don't Like "Yellow"

From the AP via Yahoo News:

SEATTLE - A woman attacked a karaoke singer belting out Coldplay on Thursday night, telling him he "sucked" before she pushed and punched him to get him to stop singing, bar staff said. The man was singing "Yellow" when it happened.

"It took three or four of us to hold her down," bartender Robert Willmette said.
....

Patrol officers and detectives then arrived at the neighborhood bar and blocked off the street, which inflamed the woman's rage even more, a police report said. Before police could handcuff the woman, she headbutted the off-duty officer at least twice.

I thought Seattle folks were nice people. I guess the rain and lack of sunlight gets to them sometimes.

Keep The New Orleans Brand Out There

My man Oyster from Your Right Hand Thief is on the story of Mayor Ray Nagin's chronic foot-in-mouth disease. Responding to a reporter's question about whether the city's high murder rate hurts tourism in NOLA, Nagin answered:

"Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword. Sure it hurts, but we have to keep working everyday to make the city better,"

To which Oyster replies:

Splendid. If we had fewer bullet-riddled young men bloodying the streets, the "New Orleans brand" might suffer. People around the country might be less sympathetic to our needs if we had a mayor and police chief who knew how to curtail the highest murder rate in the country.

Yo, Oyster!

Nagin spends a lot of time away from New Orleans doing fund-raising, instead of staying home and finding solutions to the problems in his city, of which he is the mayor. Fund-raising for what? A possible run for governor? That's all we need. Nagin using his "branding" expertise to "benefit" the whole state.

Many New Orleanians and lovers of New Orleans will be relieved when Nagin's term in office is over. But the reporters and bloggers will surely have much less material to work with. They might even have to scrounge for stories.

Feast Day of St. Clare Of Assisi

Image of St. Clare and St. Francis, her mentor, in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, from Christus Rex.

Padre Mickey has a beautiful post on St. Clare of Assisi.

The Order of the Poor Clares, a contemplative and mendicant order, had a convent in New Orleans. I remember them going from door to door begging, as I was growing up.

UPDATE: I just now got around to reading from the Lectionary for the feast day, and I could not resist adding these beautiful words from the "Songs of Songs":

Song 2:10-13

My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
for now the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today....

No, no, no! This is not another quiz. I am not Mexico.

50 years ago, well, maybe not 50, maybe 49. And maybe not today, but sometime in the summer of whatever year, long ago, my friend M and I decided to spend 18 days driving around Mexico. Our starting point was New Orleans, and the endpoint was to be Mexico City. I had no car, so we were driving M's car, which was not new, but it was in good condition.

Since M did not want to do all of the driving, she decided to teach me how to drive right before the trip. All of this happened rather quickly, and it seems that there was barely enough time for me to learn enough to pass the driver's test, before we were off. Looking back the scheme sounds like risky business. At the time, parts of the Mexican highway system were known to have pretty bad roads. Our parents were not thrilled with our idea, and they would not have been surprised if we had never returned. There were stories floating about of tourists disappearing in Mexico, never to be seen again. Two women in their early twenties, driving to Mexico without a man to protect them was not their idea of a safe trip.

Since M's father belonged to AAA, we told them where we wanted to go, what cities we wanted to visit, and that we did not want to travel the same road twice. They mapped out the trip for us. I'm looking at an old atlas, and I see the roads we took. Before we left M's father taught us how to change a tire. It was a good idea, but what a joke - for me, anyway. I'm not at all good at that sort of thing.

We had a flat tire before we got to Lafayette, Louisiana. Fortunately, we did not need to use our newly acquired tire-changing skills, because four college boys stopped and changed the tire for us. We were to have four more flat tires during the trip.

On we went to San Antonio, Texas, where we spent the night with my uncle and his wife, before taking off the next day for Laredo, where we crossed the border. We drove into the Sierra Madre Mountains as we approached Monterrey, which was exciting to me, since I had never seen mountains. Before long, we were in the big city. Some areas that we rode through were kind of rough looking with what we called "gauchos" loitering about the streets. We were crass and not PC at all back then. We called the country folk in Mexico "peasants".

I had not done much city driving, so I was a little uneasy at the wheel in the city. At one point, as we searched for our hotel, M was screaming at me, "Alto, alto!" and I was not paying attention. You see, I was the one who "spoke Spanish", not M, and, in the rush of the moment "alto" was not registering as "stop". Once the dangerous moment passed without serious consequences, I said to her, "Here, you drive. Why on earth didn't you say stop?" The sign said "Alto", so that's what she screamed out.

We made our way to the hotel, and I don't remember much about the city other than that I was pleased to get to the hotel. I suppose we walked around a bit and had supper, but my memory of the rest of our time there is gone. I tried to reach M today to see if her memory was better than mine, but I believe she is traveling.

Next morning, we headed for San Luis Potosí, passing through Saltillo and Zacatecas. We traveled through dry desert areas. I remember seeing the dust devils, the little whirlwinds dusting up the sand. Before long one of them passed over our car, and I was shocked that it shook the car so. I viewed them with a lot more respect after that.

We came upon a car with US license plates, which had struck a pedestrian on the road. The place seemed deserted, with no sign of housing nearby, but "peasants" were converging on the scene on foot. I could not figure out where they were coming from. I'm ashamed to say that we did not stop to see if we could help. We had been warned so many times of the perils of being abducted that we were afraid.

I look at online pictures of San Luis Potosí, and nothing seems familiar. We must have been in a hurry to get to Mexico City. I believe that was where we drove into a service station, and the attendant told us we had another flat tire. We had him fix the tire, and, once again, we did not have to use our lesson from M's father.

Guadalajara was our next destination. I liked the city and our hotel a lot. The climate was wonderful. I remember thinking that I wouldn't mind living there. We stayed there two nights, and washed some clothes in our hotel bathroom, because they'd have two days to dry. The clothes dried overnight, much more quickly than we thought.

We visited nearby Tlaquepaque, which today seems to be a major shopping center. In the quaint old town area, authentic Mexican arts and crafts were on display for sale. I wonder if we went there to shop. I believe we went to visit the historic area and to see the crafts. We were not traveling with lots of extra money for shopping. What we had was for expenses of the trip. I don't remember buying anything there. I think we were intent on getting to el Distrito Federal.

We were advised not to drink the water and not to eat uncooked fruits and vegetables while we were in Mexico. We drank Cokes and a Mexican beer which I enjoyed, Carta Blanca. I Googled the beer, and it is still sold today. We eventually forgot about the warnings for fruits and vegetables and ate them with no worse results than a mild case of Montezuma's revenge while we were in Mexico City.

I wanted to go to Guadalajara because of a song about the city that I liked at the time, not the Elvis version, a Spanish version. Yes. We went to Guadalajara because of a song. I remember the city as having avant-garde architecture. I know our hotel was modern. One of the elevator operators at the hotel was a gorgeous young man about our age who enjoyed having a mild flirt with us each time we used the elevator, and we flirted right back. Although he spoke English, I boldly tried out my high school and college Spanish with him. One morning, as we were in the elevator on our way out, he inquired of us, "Planta abaja?". I answered, "Si", having no idea what the words meant. He could have said, "Do you want to have sex?" for all I knew, and I answered yes. He asked in English, "Do you know what that means?" I was honest enough to answer, "No". He said it meant "ground floor". It was a funny moment, and we all enjoyed a laugh. I have forgotten a lot of Spanish, but I've never forgotten that phrase.

Another phrase - or sentence which I have never forgotten is, "La tubería de gasolina se gotea." Yes, the gas line of the car sprang a leak somewhere along the way in an area where no one spoke English, and I believe that it was in Guadalajara that we were told, as we drove up to the hotel, that we had our third flat tire. Again, we escaped having to change the tire ourselves.

In whatever city we visited in Mexico, if we had time, we generally headed for the Roman Catholic cathedral, because it was usually old and located on a historic square. Here's a link to a picture of the cathedral in Guadalajara from Wiki. I don't remember it, but I believe we must have gone there. What a travel reporter I am!

We left Guadalajara and headed for Mexico City through the mountain roads which led there. We came to dread seeing the road sign CAMINO SINUOSO accompanied by an s-shaped line. The curves were sometimes unbelievably frightening. The Mexican drivers whipped around the curves rapidly and sometimes in the middle of the road, having to do last minute adjustments to avoid collisions. Remember that I had just learned how to drive. We were both crazy.

At one point we could see the road where we were headed on the side of a nearby mountain. M must have been driving, because I was watching with alarm, as two buses approached from opposite directions. The mountain roads were narrow. The buses inched past each other, slowly, slowly and at one point part of the rear wheel of one of the buses was partially off the side of the road. They made it safely past each other, and I, and I'm sure all the people in the bus on the outside, breathed a sigh of relief. I told that story later, in Mexico City, and the response was that, indeed, buses did fall off the mountains roads from time to time.

Not much of a travelogue, is it? Mostly about us and the car, yes, the car, and the car story is not over yet. This was my first trip on my own. I hadn't traveled much before at all, having gone only as far as the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the summer. This trip was an adventure for me. I loved being on my own in another country, with an opportunity to practice my very poor Spanish skills. The Berlitz phrase book was a godsend, as it seemed to address most of our needs. At least, I had some notion of pronunciation and was able to make myself understood on most occasions.

I'm going to make this a two-parter, for it's getting long. To be continued....

Cheney Urges Strike On Iran

From McClatchy, by Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef:

WASHINGTON — President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.
....

Behind the scenes, however, the president's top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn't clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.

Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence.

I give McKlatchy immense credit for airing the voices of dissent to the maladministration's finger-pointing at Iran. The Bush maladministration continues to give out misinformation concerning the extent that the leadership in Iran gives help to the insurgents. But they continue to support Prime Minister Maliki, who is Shiite. The Iranian leadership is Shiite. What can Bush and Cheney be thinking? They have enabled the strengthening of the relationship between the leadership of Iraq and Iran, by not pressuring Maliki to give the Sunnis a greater stake in the future of Iraq.

I hope that the members of Congress, now in recess, are keeping a sharp eye on this situation.

Juan Cole at Informed Comment has this to say:

In other words, the US military is playing a dangerous political game of attempting to undermine al-Maliki's diplomacy with Iran and to alienate the Sadr Movement from him altogether (it has already suspended membership in his government). For more on the timing of (surely overstated) US military announcements implicating Iran so as to undermine talks with Tehran by US and Iraqi diplomats, see Bill Beeman's comments below. This is not the proper role for generals, and it is shocking that Amassador Ryan Crocker and Secretary of State Condi Rice allow it to go on.

I can't seem to link directly to Cole's post on Wednesday, so if you want to read the quote at his site, you must scroll down from today's post to the Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2007, post.

Before the invasion of Iraq, we were fed the Bush maladministration's deceptive and inaccurate line on Iraq, and now they are doing the same thing with Iran. It is vital that we pay better attention to the dissenting voices this time around.