all-american recreation? (hint: all we sell is fun)

the interview: Amenah al-Bayati

Toddler Returns to Iraq After Life-Saving Surgery

“America has culture and I want it all in a handbag,” said two-year-old Amenah al-Bayati, who recently returned to Iraq from the United States, where doctors at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital corrected her congenital heart defect.

Ms. al-Bayati’s doe eyes are as disarming as her speech is invigorating. When she talks with you, you feel privileged, delighted by the honor she’s granted you. Yet you remain alert, guarding your words, careful not to impart your own views without equanimity, and most important of all, self-scrutiny. When you strike a resonant note with her, the eyes flash, their vigor palpable. Should you not share her presence, as was the case when a dog named craig interviewed her by phone, no bother; her voice, too, perks. She is one of those singular personalities so defined even her most mundane moments sketch the rudiments of a caricature (the better rudiments, the best rudiments). Holly Golightly had it before that young writer fell of his horse and the veil was lifted, as did every one of Ms. Dorothy Parker’s New York socialites (as well as Ms. Dorothy Parker). But Ms. al-Bayati’s liveliness is not a decorative foil. She bristles just as readily at an offending phrase, staid as she is to her convictions, keen as she is in defending them. Her quips are at turns cutting and generous. She lapses into silence only to hear the question clearly. Then she springs into her response like the lure from the starting gates at the racetrack.

Ms. al-Bayati requested she be allowed shared editorial responsibilities of the final version of the interview. a dog named craig granted her request given the circumstances that occasioned the interview (see previous post).

She was quick to identify the original article’s shortcomings as they appeared in the New York Times, Monday, March 10th, 2008. She was eager to take command of the interview to emend several claims made by Times reporter Erica Goode. Once she returned her draft, her eagerness only intensified in effect on the page, which was marked up on all sides, from top to bottom, with arrows and Xs and added interjections and, occasionally, a “No, no, no, this is not what I meant at all.”

Mlle. al-Bayati

I shudder when I think of the type of editor who permits such guesswork to be printed on their pages. [Reads] She is still ignorant of how ruthlessly death stalks her country, indeed. Was she speaking of my country or her own?

a dog named craig

You mean America?

Mlle.

What other country is there, dear? Of course I mean America. Don’t you read the papers? Check the stations? Whether she’s our best friend or the whore to our men, and naturally the one can be the other you know, you’ll get your fill of her no matter where you look.

Interviewer

You said “she.” Does Iraq think of America as being a “she.”

Mlle.

America the beautiful? I would say so. I can’t speak on behalf of all of Iraq, though. In fact, I would never dream of it, on principle. But I certainly think of a woman when I think of America. Motherly? I wouldn’t go so far. That word always brings to mind a corpulent figure, soft and tender. You know, headscarves and aprons? They’re not so different. That is, until someone shows up with a camera …

Interviewer

Meaning: Hollywood?

Mlle.

That would be the safe bet. But you can’t avoid cameras today, can you? Not unless you’re truly an abomination or prepared to be seen as one. Funny that all you have to do to be seen as reprehensible is not want to be seen. But just look at that photo for the article. My mother. My teddy. And me. You had some soldiers blurred in the background, too, for safe measure, I suppose. And you know where that was taken? In the transport plane. Why they couldn’t have sprung for a commercial jet is beyond me. But there we were in the belly of an Osprey. Me with my floral pins — chintzy little things for the pictures, but they insisted. And my mother with her headscarf. If you look closely you can see the one soldier wearing his helmet (or is it a she? you can't tell these days and the photo doesn't help any). Just the one. Must’ve needed protection from something. God knows what though. We were miles in the sky. Not even a draft disturbed us.

Mlle. al-Bayati with her mother on their return trip to Haditha, Iraq in March.
Photo Courtesy of Eros Hoagland, New York Times

Interviewer

Then how do you explain “patriot” and “patriarch”? These words that are so commonly used to describe America and Americans.

Mlle.

Convention.

Interviewer

And when you say “whore” …

Mlle.

Again, convention. Do we have to reexamine the language — again? The only thing that sort of critique creates is problems. Take for example the governor, what’s his name, from New York?

Interviewer

Spitzer.

Mlle.

Right. Eliot Spitzer. Now, what he did is one thing. But look at all the knitting and picking, the deconstructing that followed. If that weren’t the hounds. One headline I read in the Times: “Postfeminism and other fairy tales”. And all for what? A couple of pictures. Of course she’s a woman. America’s a woman. The importance isn’t a matter of gender. Male or female. That might not be as important. What is important, whether male or female, matriarch or patriarch, is that America and every other nation is, what’s that word? Heterosexual. Straight as the path to the Promised Land. It’s just recently that they’ve become self-conscious of how they wear their sexuality. The ‘70s, wasn’t it? My United States history isn’t what it should be. Anyway, now that all the attention is on the man, who’s to care about the woman? Who’s going to care about America? The men. They do still run the country, don’t they? Or, maybe America’s just confused. I’ll grant you that, too. Maybe, as that charming writer of yours once said, Truman was his name, Truman Capote, maybe she is a bit of a dyke herself, America is. Everyone is: a bit, he wrote. That never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on. Now he was a smart man, even if he was a bit … corrupt. Who isn’t? What a wonderful word, in any case. Corrupt. Has the sense of an earthquake to it, doesn’t it? And who doesn’t secretly hope for that once in a while, when no one’s reading their mind?

Interview

You have a devilish tongue, don’t you? Where was it during the Times interview? What happened then?

Mlle.

What did happen with the Times interview? You’d think I was mute, wouldn’t you? Well, as the story goes, I was recovering. I was tired. You lie on the operating table and bare your heart to strangers and tell me, when it’s all over with, that you aren’t exhausted. That, followed by the flight. Twenty-plus hours. Not that I wasn’t willing to speak my mind. I always am. But I suspect the reporter knew the story she wished to tell as soon as she was handed the press release. The typical human interest piece. Sounds so officious: “human interest.” Sob and soar is what it comes down to. Sweeps the reader right of her feet. So of course when the story came out you couldn’t find someone on my side that was surprised by the drivel she wrote. These reporters, I swear, they’re so unpracticed in matters of civility. You’d think they’d have encountered something of the cosmopolitan mindset in their profession, not that there’s much to be said of it, of cosmopolitanism, that is. I’ve no apprehension toward the profession, you know, in general.

Interviewer

You read that story and you see who she talked to and it’s more of the usual. Three men. Did you see that Clooney movie, Three Kings? It was directed by the same guy who did I Heart Huckabees, David O. Russel.

Mlle.

I haven’t seen the first one, but Huckabees has a certain charm. Kind of a frat pack for the absurd, which I can’t say is exactly my taste, but what more can be said of taste that some critic hasn't already said? As for the article, yes, I know. The men spoke; the women had their picture taken. The reporter interviewed my father, a political man. He was imprisoned, as she wrote. But her remark, that I “was too young to understand the politics that briefly landed [my father] in jail,” is a bit presumptive, wouldn’t you agree? Anyone who claims to understand the politics of multi-national capitalism, along with the conflicting factions and infighting in a place like Iraq is, pardon the expression, an idiot. More of the absurd, I suppose. She talked to the Marines major, too. Major Kevin Jarrard. And finally, the doctor, a kind man, really. All three were kind men, for what it’s worth.

Interviewer

So what about the reporter’s opening remarks? We mentioned them briefly at the beginning of the interview.

Mlle.

Remind me again, darling.

Interviewer

“She is still ignorant of how ruthlessly death stalks her country.” She being you.

Mlle.

Yes. The insistence on ignorance, if anything, is wishful thinking. No one in Iraq is still ignorant of how ruthlessly death stalks their country. I don’t know that anyone ever was ignorant of that. To be still ignorant? Foolish, but hopeful. I don’t blame the reporter, necessarily. Bless her, her heart’s in the right place. We often seek even narrow avenues down which respite might reside. Isn’t that so? With our heads habitually down, we yearn to stumble across an overlooked fissure, not because we want proof that the land is breaking — and that we ought to, once and for all, abandon it — but because from within the dark cracks we believe a fertile lot may yet emerge. It is slight, the room for opportunity is, but it is still there.

Interviewer

Would you like to return to America?

Mlle.

Naturally. I spent my entire time in a hospital, surrounded by its white walls, listening to the cardiogram and the mannered speech of doctors and nurses in purposeful dialogue. But I want its leisure. I want its color. America has culture and I want it all in a handbag. Only an American would confuse what it is to be American. I am in love with America’s boredom. I am in love with its excess. I am in love with America’s prosperity, and its despair. You know, a dog named craig, I’m two years old and I spent two months in America without laying a foot on its hot black pavement. I didn’t see buffalos or a single open air stadium and with a heart like mine, I wasn’t about to taste its burgers or fries. But I will, and when I do, I’ll fly commercial. I’ll strip its malls bare. I’ll fall in love with a man named Dave or Jim, or maybe a woman. Why not? I’ll get there yet. In time. I’ll shake hands with Tiffany, and when I do, you’d better have your cameras ready.

Unbecoming: toddler wronged by another libelous reporter

details

The New York Times – International – [A8] – Tuesday, March 10, 2008
[FOUND AT: Willey Hall Skyway, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $11.50

Toddler Returns to Iraq After Life-Saving Surgery

Amenah al-Bayati is two years old. She is from Iraq. She carries a teddy bear and sits on her mother’s lap every chance she gets. She is a toddler, and following an operation at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Tennessee to fix a congenital heart problem, she is healthy. What Amenah al-Bayati is not is ignorant.

From Haditha, Iraq, Ms. al-Bayati teaches us a lesson in diplomacy.

It was late in the morning the day after Ms. al-Bayati returned to Iraq from the United States that she phoned a dog named craig.

“These reporters, I swear, they’re so unpracticed in matters of civility,” Ms. al-Bayati said, nearly breathless. “You’d think they’d have encountered something of the cosmopolitan mindset in their profession, not that there’s much to be said of it, of cosmopolitanism, that is. I’ve no apprehension toward the profession, you know, in general.”

Journalists, take notes: Amenah al-Bayati is cute, healthy, and NOT "ignorant." "These reporters, I swear, they're so unpracticed in matters of civility," Ms. al-Bayati said to a dog named craig over the phone last week. Photo Courtesy of Eros Hoagland, New York Times

Ms. al-Bayati’s doe eyes are as disarming as her speech is invigorating. When she talks with you, you feel privileged, delighted by the honor she has granted you. Yet alert you remain, guarding your words, careful not to impart your own views without equanimity, and most important of all, self-scrutiny. When you strike a resonant note with her, those wide eyes alight and you can sense their vigor, sidelong though your perspective may be. Should you not be in her company, her voice, too, perks; she is one of those singular personalities so defined even her most mundane moments sketch the rudiments of a caricature (the better rudiments). Holly Golightly had it, as did every one of Ms. Dorothy Parker’s New York socialites, including Ms. Dorothy Parker herself.

But Ms. al-Bayati bristles at an offending phrase, staid as she is to her convictions, keen as she is in detecting an affront and defending her name against it.

And so, when a dog named craig read the profile the Times did on her trip to the States, we weren’t surprised by her call, which came not long after we finished reading the article. Her severity was cutting and deserved. Her portrait, as drawn by reporter Erica Goode, was only cutting.

We’re working on transcribing the full interview, which Ms. al-Bayati approved of with a characteristic quip: “I hear her name, the reporter’s name, I mean, is “Goody.” Well, that partially explains it, doesn’t it? Ought to be “Good.” But that’s your job, isn’t it, a dog named craig? Make it good, make it right.”

Ms. al-Bayati asked to review the final transcript for “purposes of clarity, accuracy, and delicacy.” Once she lets us have it back, we’ll have it for you.

Mano a mano: you show us yours, and we'll build you ours

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The Irish Times – Weekend Edition – World News [12] – Saturday, March 1, 2008
[FOUND AT: Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $3.75 | Total Cost: $10.25

Gazprom's tower to soar over city of Peter the Great (Subscription Required)

Irish Times reporter Daniel McLaughlin’s chest hair must be dense and abrasive, that is, if it is anything like his rhetoric.

Prior to last week, a dog named craig had never read The Irish Times. We’re from Minneapolis, Minnesota. We’ve never had reason to. After having done so, our impression of the reputable Irish daily is unflattering. We appreciate the expansive 15-inch broadsheet, and we’ll give it another try some day, if only because its overwhelming breadth calls to mind our father cracking the Sunday papers in his rocker at the fireplace, back before declining profit margins sent the industry to the cutters. He would periodically break from his silent reading to quote a passage to the family. From the floor, we would look up toward his widespread arms, the paper held stiff like a cape caught on the drying line as the winds pull at it. That paper was the only thing that dwarfed him, so you can imagine the impression it had on us. Immensity is a rare phenomenon that we believe to be a matter of perspective, both in the optical sense and in the sense of one’s subjectivity. A broadsheet can be immense to a dog named craig, while, say, a commemorative tower can seem, at least from afar, pithy, a minor detail.

For now, that is exactly the grievance we have with one of The Irish Times’ reporters, Daniel McLaughlin. And by association, we have a grievance with the paper at large. His talk about the Gazprom tower is tall, his critique of it short. We sense insecurity. But first, the man behind the words.

Mr. McLaughlin’s author photo is impressive considering his trade. He’s not modeling for Fendi, but his eyes smolder all the same, and his smirk is a knowing one, even more so than your typical smirk. It’s almost smug. And his hair. We see Hugh Jackman, circa the Wolverine days, taped to Mr. McLaughlin’s bathroom mirror, consulted each morning before dashing off to the newsroom. But that much is easily forgiven. a dog named craig appreciates a confident, informed reporter. And we’re not opposed to the mindset that an inner confidence sometimes grooms an outer confidence. What we do not appreciate, is an apparently confident and informed reporter. Which Mr. McLaughlin certainly is. His author photo is all appearance, which we do not say to be confusing, nor do we suppose we inadvertently come up short in our analysis by having stated the obvious. Mr. McLaughlin may be a striking reporter, but he is a duplicitous reporter. The truth is in the fine print, and Mr. McLaughlin’s print is fine indeed. What it needs to be, however, is refined, at least as refined as his look. That or he ought to state his intentions plainly. You see, Mr. McLaughlin is a chauvinist. His article, “Gazprom’s tower to soar over city of Peter the Great,” bursts at the margins with Freudian slips.

Gazprom’s 119 billion barrels of oil ranks third in the world behind Saudi Arabia (263) and Iran (133), and Gazprom, feeling cocky, is determined to erect a 67-floor tower on UNESCO-sanctioned territory in St. Petersburg. The tower is controversial, and Mr. McLaughlin addresses its many detractors — UNESCO has cautioned the city that building the tower will compromise its world-heritage status; leading Russian architects have decried against the project; and St. Petersburg’s 5 million people seem to want nothing to do with the thing.

And yet, a dog named craig detects Mr. McLaughlin might be dealing out the backdoor. He almost comes off as an earnest critic, until, nearing the end, he exposes himself.

Mr. McLaughlin ends his article with a comparison of former president Vladimir Putin and his successor, Dmitry Medvedev. While Mr. McLaughlin seems to subtly criticize Gazprom’s phallus, his discussion of Putin is telling.

“[Putin] has stopped at nothing — not the jailing of critical tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, not the dismemberment of his Yukos oil firm and its purchase by state companies, not even the emasculation of civil society and curbing of free media — to restore political and financial power to the Kremlin and the resurgent security services,” writes McLaughlin.

There you have it. The McLaughlin plan to a better Russia in three easy to follow steps:

1. Jail
2. Dismember
3. Emasculate

Castration complex for the post-Soviet generation. Oedipus, a dog named craig welcomes you to the era of multi-national capitalism.

But if these guys are the fathers, who’s the mother?

“Oh, we’re well aware of the scandalous relationship Putin and Medvedev are carrying on with one another,” the world says. “But two fathers?! Aghast!”

Something tells us Mr. McLaughlin’s brawny chest wants nothing to do with that. He chose his words accordingly.


[COMING SOON] a dog named craig talks with 2-year-old Amenah al-Bayati of Haditha, Iraq about the New York Times' condescension, what some are calling "slanderous and inconsiderate" declarations in an article on her, following a successful operation to correct a congenital heart defect. The operation took place in the United States, and despite her integral role in what is being seen as an important act of diplomacy, the Time's still referred to her as "not aware of her good fortune ... ignorant."

"I appreciate everything America did for me. Really, from the bottom of my heart," Amenah said to a dog named craig with a wink at the pun. "But honestly, The New York Times could have extended some of its generosity. I feel used, to be honest. 'Ignorant?' What's that about?"

We'll have the full interview with Amenah soon.

A slight of hand — rapidly, repeatedly, and for an uncomfortably long time

details

The New York Times [NYT] – Science Times [D5] - Tuesday, March 4, 2008
[FOUND AT: Vending machine at 4th and 14th, Outside the Kitty Kat Klub and a Bruegger's Bagels in Dinkytown, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $6.50

Shudder the thought: How could this have happened?

a dog named craig never wanted things to come to this. We hoped to be above this kind of thing. No, we hoped the New York Times was above this kind of thing. Unfortunately, we were mistaken.

We leafed through the first four pages of the issue — devouring the scientifically enlightening stories of hyenas’ social lives and bats’ flight habits and the ongoing push from Bill and Melinda Gates (yes, that Bill Gates) to “eradicate” the malaria virus — feeling unusually assured that maybe, just maybe the crippling world of modern science was turning a new, positive broadleaf. But, sure enough, sigh-ence eventually proved to be as exasperating as it sounds, yet again.

After reading (raptly) about the vertical gusts bats create for themselves with their membranous wings so they can, among other things, drink sugary fluid, this headline shrieked from the first page of the Health section Tuesday:

A One-Eyed Invader in the Bedroom

In an accompanying photo illustration, an outmoded television set hangs in front of a young boy. His back is to the reader; presumably, he is staring at the television and his consciousness is off doing something else. He’s partially dissolved and glowing faintly blue, most likely from the television’s phosphorescent cathode rays (which always glow faintly, and often faintly blue). The television has knobs instead of buttons, or, even more here and now, L.E.D. lights, though it looks like a PlayStation Portable from a distance.

The article details “some estimates” that have concluded that “Children with bedroom TVs score lower on school tests and are more likely to have sleep problems,” and that “Having a television in the bedroom is strongly associated with being overweight and a higher risk for smoking.”

Not exactly what a dog named craig expected after reading the headline. No surprises, children with televisions in their bedroom tend to become physically and socially unfit adolescents. The hypotheses for why the bedroom television ends in prematurely distended navels, boy breasts and, ultimately, lips that pucker up for an all-natural American Spirit every half hour, also left a dog named craig wanting: Children with televisions in their bedroom tend to eat more snacks while watching that television; they also tend to sit or lay or hang off the edge of their twin-size mattress — totally immobile — for extended periods of time while eating those snacks and watching that television. Understandable.

But we read on, sure that the article intended much subtler side-effects to bedroom TV consumption, and lo-and-behold, it did, at least for little French boys:

“In a study among French adolescents, boys with a bedroom television were more likely than their peers to have a larger waist size and higher body fat and body mass index,” wrote Times sigh-ence columnist, Tara Parker-Pope.

That description is equally suited for 85-97 percent of all American males, ages 28-40, with personal computers and high-speed internet access in their bedrooms, which is exactly the kind of “One-eyed Invader” a dog named craig envisioned from the outset, not that we wanted to.

And so, parents, future parents, and concerned members of the sigh-entific community, if you want to make sure the only rosy cheeks on your children are the ones on their downy faces, you know what you ought to do. Ditch the television, and get them a Nintendo DS.

The only thing worse than being ashamed of the overweight, seven-year-old son watching High School Musical 2 in the room down the hall, is being ashamed of the overweight, 37-year-old son Googling Vanessa Hudgins in the room down the hall. And that, a dog named craig suspects, is the real fear behind this study, and especially this headline.

an indefinite Kenyan almost gets what's coming to him in Somalia, but some barnyard animals get it instead

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The New York Times [NYT] - Front Page [A9] - Tuesday, March 4, 2008
[FOUND AT: Vending machine at 4th and 14th, Outside the Kitty Kat Klub and a Bruegger's Bagels in Dinkytown, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $6.50

U.S. Forces Fire Missiles Into Somalia At a Kenyan

If you do not believe in Murphy’s Law, then you have obviously never been A Kenyan in Somalia.

a dog named craig’s favorite part of Dr. Strangelove appears toward the end. After releasing the jammed hatch of a B-52 bomber, that lonesome cowboy, Major Kong, rides a missile down to Earth and on to victory, sort of. He howls. He yee-haws. He waves his hat. And he shrinks. By the time he gets to Earth, he is tiny and the bomb is huge. Shortly after, the world is destroyed. It’s a mighty undertaking for a lonesome cowboy, the kind of undertaking a dog named craig suspects a lonesome cowboy dreams about:

[A flocculent haze obscures the following events without rhyme or reason] A lonesome cowboy squats before a small fire somewhere in the southwest corner of the United States. The arid steppe native to the area bristles around him. Beyond the bristling steppe it is dark, and beyond the dark there is more bristling steppe, though the lonesome cowboy has no way of knowing this. When he looks up from his fire, he sees only the darkness. He is totally oblivious to the second ring of bristling steppe that squeezes the darkness between itself and the first ring of steppe that he is totally aware of. He is also barefoot. His boots sit stock-stiff and upright off to the side, next to his booze jug, so if he wanted to find the second ring of bristling steppe he would have to slip his boots on first. But he doesn’t. Partly because he doesn’t know it exists, but more because the lonesome cowboy wants more than a second ring of steppe. He heats a can of watery beans over the open flame and as he waits for the gravy to sizzle he closes his eyes: Whew, I sure could do for myself a mighty undertaking, seeing as I’m out here all alone. Then he opens his eyes and eats the beans with a spoon he digs out of his back pocket. He doesn’t even wipe the spoon off on his knee first. He just scoops the beans out of the can and sticks them in his mouth. He’s clean shaven. A horse lies next to him. Behind him. On top of him. He is the horse. He’s been a horse all along. He gallops away into the second ring of steppe. He passes through the darkness without even noticing. He leaves his boots to collect dust with the old booze jug, which is now an atomic bomb, and always has been. He whinnies.

Living the dream. Major Kong on his way to creating a new frontier, formally known as the planet Earth. Photo Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

***

Someone once told a dog named craig Major Kong’s ride was a metaphor. But a dog named craig has never been very handy with metaphors, so for the longest time we didn’t believe it. And then today we paged through the papers, and sure enough, we found something that reminded us of Major Kong; although, the first time we read it, we weren’t sure why it reminded us of Major Kong. You have to remember, a dog named craig doesn’t spot metaphors as well as, say, Agent K and Agent J spot them. (As aliens who come from marbles. That is: Other. Marbles.) But we’re improving. Today is proof. Here is what we saw:

U.S. Forces Fire Missiles Into Somalia At a Kenyan

There is this Kenyan, a Kenyan, who is wanted by the F.B.I. His name is Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan “is wanted by the F.B.I. for questioning in the nearly simultaneous attacks in 2002 on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and on an Israeli airliner taking off from there.” He is “a known Al Qaeda terrorist,” according to Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon Spokesman in Washington. He is a “terrorist target,” according to the Defense Department. He is a “terrorist operative,” according to the Pentagon (including but not strictly according to, Bryan Whitman). He is 28 or 29 years old, according to the New York Times. And he is a Kenyan, according to the headline. He is Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. Trouble follows him, though some would say, he is trouble, and his reputation precedes him.

The missiles that hit southern Somalia were Tomahawk cruise missiles, big fat ones. The New York Times says there were at least two of them, though we know better and soon you will too. This was around 3:30 a.m. or, about the time a lonely cowboy was probably falling into another R.E.M. cycle.

“Residents reached by telephone said that three civilians were wounded, and that the only other casualties were three dead cows, one dead donkey and a partly destroyed house,” wrote New York Times reporters Jeffrey Gettleman and Eric Schmitt.

As it just so happens, a dog named craig saw the whole thing, seated, as we were, at a particularly advantageous location.

The submarine surfaced and sat there for a while, looking as if it exited the metro at the wrong stop and had to check its map. Then a fat wad of white smoke billowed just above the lost submarine, and a white tube with red fins burst through the smoke and arced up and over the water. It flew silently for a distance before hurtling into a small village in southern Somalia, as the article said. The three cows had just finished grazing together, and were walking single-file back to their lean-to. They bounced off the ground like popcorn and landed on their sides. The donkey was harnessed to a cart, staring at a pair of flies dueling above a fence post. The donkey was summarily bisected upon impact, halved with surprising precision, given the chaos. The dueling flies took immediate notice, ceased fighting, and each gobbled up a separate half of the corpse — in its entirety. (The donkey's owner reported it missing, and the news reporter reported it dead. Both were correct.) The house was minding its own business, which it had done throughout its existence and would continue to do, despite the attack. As papers would write of its foundation and infrastructure, though they may very well have been speaking of its spirit: it was damaged, but not destroyed. The three civilians did not know any of the cows, or the donkey, although one of them lived in the polite house, which the attack had revealed as possessing a character of great nobility. At the time, the man who lived in the house was asleep. Two others were passing by. The one was escorting the other home after a friendly chat that went much later than either had expected. They were laughing loudly, disregarding the hour.

When the missiles hit, a dog named craig saw the tiny village light up, once, twice, a third and fourth time (we counted four). And we heard a crack. The whole thing, from where we were, was as if someone had plugged an electrical cord into a sleepy socket — a crack, a fizzle, and a spark, all in such quick succession that it could very well have been two missiles, or even one. But it was four, according to a dog named craig.

And where was a dog named craig that we had such optimal vantage? We were straddling a satellite in space as it made the evening rounds, hollering and waving our cowboy hat. We watched a Kenyan dart safely away from the flicker and the flash in an S.U.V., somewhere in southern Somalia.

[tomorrow] a dog named craig reads Tuesday’s Sigh-ence Times: a conscience-heavy look into the doleful world of modern science

bumping uglies, or, not that at all

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The New York Times [NYT] - Front Page [A1] - Friday, October 12, 2007
[FOUND AT: Uncertain, though probably Super America off University and Broadway, Minneapolis]

Unit Cost: $1.25 | Total Cost: $5.25

flashback

Over a span of nearly 60 years, Doris Lessing wrote herself to a Nobel Prize by voicing the spirit of an underrepresented part of society, its female part. If only she had read the stories Japan wasn't writing, maybe she would have dressed in fewer shades of blue on the morning of October 11, last year.

The day after Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature, a dog named craig came across an article in the New York Times just to the right of the 88-year-old novelist, that is, just to the right of a photograph of the 88-year-old novelist. In the photo, Doris wears a blue vest over blue shirtsleeves with a blue denim skirt (granted, there is some purple). She sits on the front steps outside her home in London, and the front door is open behind her. There are only two steps, and Doris has a body part on each. Potted plants sprout on either side of her and line the checkered walkway. She sits unflatteringly, looks up unflatteringly, and holds, by our count, three separate bouquets of flowers wrapped in crinkly plastic. She corrals the bouquets with her right arm, and in her right hand she holds an envelope that might contain her 10 million Swedish crown Nobel Prize honorarium, though it probably just says “congratulations” from a fancy man or woman with hair as white as Doris’.

In every regard, the author looks uncomfortable. The quote beneath the picture seems to confirm this: “I had forgotten about it actually.” If you look carefully at the photo, you can see these dismissive words dribbling out from behind her frown. Even her frown looks like an accident, as if to say, “Don’t worry Doris, I too had forgotten about the Nobel Prize.” The article says she had just returned from the hospital with her son, so okay, maybe she was too preoccupied to remember the biggest award in letters. We doubt it.

But aloof Doris is not the focus for a dog named craig. Our focus is blurred off to the side, hanging out in Doris’ periphery. It is beneath the fold, and it is photo-less. Compared to the announcement of the recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature, the article’s headline seems like a jealous business associate whose number one client you just had lunch with. It’s a little too sensational for its own good: Starving Man’s Diary Suggests Harshness of Welfare in Japan.

The story is about exactly what the headlines says it is about (although a dog named craig questions the copy editors at NYT who decided “suggests” was the most appropriate verb to insert between “Starving Man’s Diary” and “Harshness of Welfare in Japan”)*. As the article reports: an unnamed man on welfare in Japan kept a diary until he starved to death.

a dog named craig has carried this story around with us, tied to our collar, ever since we read it in October. When we run, it jingles. We’ll be brief.

***

a dog named craig flew out to Kitakyushu, a city located in the Fukuoka prefecture in northern Japan. We researched the approximate location of the diary man’s home, and then set out to find its exact location. After only two days in Japan, we did in fact find it. It was surprisingly easy.

The ground was muddy and the other homes in the area were made of shabby boards. Loose chicken wire on the ground ensnared old newspapers, and rats wandered in the open, as if they had laid claim to the ramshackle neighborhood. We asked around, and sure enough, they had.

We went to diary man’s door and knocked, stupidly. We entered after not hearing the response we didn’t expect to hear anyway. We thought the place was empty, but to our surprise it wasn’t. Someone had tossed scraps of wood and tin cans into the home, probably to store for later use, though a dog named craig had no idea what that use could be. A group of rats were playing bridge on top of a heap of cardboard in the center of the room. “Bugger off,” one of the rats said, the British one, apparently. After deciding we weren’t out to hassle them, however, they resumed their game and paid us no attention.

We sniffed around, read through some of the newspapers, and emptied the water out of a few of the tin cans. The clay roof was dotted with holes and the water dripped through them, as well as through the invisible cracks that ran around the holes. After an hour or so, the rats finished their game and took off under a hole cut into the wall. We were alone.

The room was silent except for the droplets plunking into the tin cans. Now that we were by ourselves, we couldn’t remember exactly why we had come. With the place completely empty, our uncertainty only intensified. We thought, this must be what those water droplets feel like as they hit the bucket: They fall for miles from the sky, and then, after they’ve already landed once, they’re pushed through a crack and fall again, right into a gaping space. Splash. And they hit the bottom of the can.

We circled the room — once, twice — before dragging some papers into the corner to sleep on. It was quiet, and even though we didn’t have our usual bed, we looked forward to a full night’s sleep. But when we went to stretch ourselves out, we bumped into something, and something bumped back, lightly.

“Sumimasen,” was all it said — Excuse me.

“Sorry,” we replied. The polite little bump rustled about briefly before settling. Its rustling was quiet, silent, almost. We lay back down, taking care not disturb the little bump again, and fell asleep.

***

We knew what it was that we bumped into. We knew the second we bumped into it. It was just a little bump, tucked off to the side of the room, somehow front-and-center, yet easy to overlook. It was the little bump that we had flown to Japan for, yet it was so small we had forgotten this until we bumped into it. We had forgotten that it brought us to Kitakyushu, whose name we had also forgotten. It was just a little bump, after all. It was tiny, even. It was nothing more than a tiny bump tucked off to the side and out of focus, waiting on the periphery, just beneath the fold. All it said was “excuse me.”

*The online edition of the article bears the headline: "Death Reveals Harsh Side of a ‘Model’ in Japan." a dog named craig's print edition reads "Starving Man's Diary Suggests Harshness of Welfare in Japan" on the front page, and "Starving Man's Diary Reveals Harshness of Welfare in Japan" on the inside jump, page A12. This is significant, we think.

Photo: An Audience With Downer Cow

the photos


Roger Clemens Courtesy of Doug Mills, New York Times; Downer Cow Courtesy of Hemmy.net

Left, seven-time Cy Young Award winner, Roger Clemens, frowns. Right, Downer Cow shies away from the camera: "I can't really feel anything," he said to a dog named craig on our visit to his California ranch last week.