Posted: Sat, 02 Jun 2007
Janet Maslin feasts on Newt Gingrich’s latest book:
Although the book has two authors, it could have used a third assigned to cleanup patrol.
This is not a matter of isolated typographical errors. It is a serious case for the comma police, since the book’s war on punctuation is almost as heated as the air assaults it describes. “One would have to be dead, very stupid Fuchida thought,” the book says about the fighter pilot Mitsuo Fuchida, “not to realize they were sallying forth to war.” Evidence notwithstanding, the authors do not mean to insult the fighter pilot’s intelligence — or, presumably, the reader’s.
Some of these glitches are brief, while some are windier. The long ones are particularly dangerous. Here is what happens when James Watson, an academic and a decoding expert who is one of the book’s cardboard Americans (as opposed to its cardboard British and Japanese figures), has lunch:
“James nodded his thanks, opened the wax paper and looked a bit suspiciously at the offering, it looked to be a day or two old and suddenly he had a real longing for the faculty dining room on campus, always a good selection of Western and Asian food to choose from, darn good conversations to be found, and here he now sat with a disheveled captain who, with the added realization, due to the direction of the wind, was in serious need of a good shower.”
Never mind what’s going to happen to books during the digital explosion of all media.
What’s going to happen to my beloved English language?
Will Joe Scarborough officially become Morning Joe? How long will Dan Abrams be able to do double duty as host of a one-hour program and general manager of MSNBC?
When will the preening, hideously arrogant not-team-player John Roberts get the boot from CNN, where he manages to step on everyone's lines and toes? (They have edited the transcript *** to remove the offending words, but this morning he was so eager-beaver to report a trend and to show off his superior but irrelevant knowledge that he made Christiane Amanpour cringe when he lumped in Syria's Assad, who happens to be an ophtalmologist, with the medical-professional terrorists responsible for the latest British terror incidents. She said pointedly [I'm paraphrasing]: "Let's leave Assad out of this one."])
On Hamas TV, who will replace Farfur, the Mickey Mouse lookalike, now that the character was killed off—as in "martyred"—for Palestinian children's viewing pleasure?
The Hamas-affiliated al-Aqsa channel aired the last episode on Friday, showing the character, Farfur, being beaten to death by an "Israeli agent".
"Farfur was martyred defending his land," said the show's presenter Saraa. …
In the final broadcast an actor said to be an Israeli agent tries to buy the land of the squeaky-voiced Mickey Mouse lookalike.
Farfur brands the Israeli a "terrorist" and is beaten to death.
Sheesh—even Tony Soprano got a reprieve. I guess there's no Palestinian David Chase.
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*** This is what's left in the transcript of the chat between Roberts and Amanpour this morning:
ROBERTS: Hey, thanks, Kiran. And good morning to you.
We've been following breaking news all morning long here in London. Seven suspects now in custody, and CNN is reporting that two of the suspects, the ones who smashed that vehicle into the Glasgow airport on Saturday afternoon, appear to have been the same ones who planted the bombs which failed to go off here in London on Friday.
Joining me now with more on all of this is our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour.
And Christiane, are we learning, even though we don't know the names and police aren't telling us about that or their nationalities, are we learning anything more about these suspects?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically two more, according to police in Glasgow, have been arrested. They are 20 and 25 years old, according to one wire report. That brings, as far as we know, seven people in custody.
According to our Paula Newton at Scotland Yard, at least two of those who were in custody are medical workers, one of which may have been a medical doctor actually practicing here. So, implying that one of the lines of inquiry the police are following is that this could be some kind of network of medical professionals, which is extremely unusual.
ROBERTS: Is this something that we've never heard of before?
AMANPOUR: I don't recall it. You've been reporting, and we know that the Ayman al-Zawahiri, the godfather of al Qaeda, is a doctor, but I don't recall such a focus being put on a group of specifically medical professionals in some kind of terrorist attack like this.
ROBERTS: Do we know anything about nationalities? Yesterday police in Scotland were very firm in saying they are not Scottish.
AMANPOUR: Yes. And others have said they're not homegrown. In other words, maybe they're not British at all.
What we've been hearing — and again, the police are very careful not to — they're just not telling us about nationalities at the moment. But the buzz has been that they are of some kind of varied Middle Eastern origin. And right now I'm trying to track down one floating piece of information in the atmosphere about one of them who was arrested on the motorway yesterday who may, in fact, be a doctor from a specific country in which I'm trying now to track that down.
ROBERTS: Let me ask you this question. Why are British officials so tight-lipped with this information? In the United States we would have learned a lot about these suspects by now.
AMANPOUR: Well, I guess it's ongoing, their investigation. They don't want to prejudice — and the laws here are a little bit different in terms of public disclosure than they are in the U.S., even in court cases and trials.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, we do hope to hear more about them.
