Author Michael Crichton dead at 66

He died of cancer yesterday. What was your favorite Crichton book? I admit not to reading all of them, The Andromeda Strain(Which BTW the 1971 version is on television as I type this post.) might be my choice. Disclosure would be at the other end. The AP article makes a goof and calls Crichton's 2004 novel State of Fear, State of Favor. Maybe Hillel Italie became unhinged due to the book's presentation of Global Warming. I doubt the error about how long a tsunami in the novel would take to reach the shore was caught by many people(besides me). The AP article did tell me Crichton was 6'9, something I didn't know.

Thank you for all the great books Michael Crichton and RIP.

Recruitment headaches

From Reuters-

LONDON - The success of the James Bond movies has given the British Secret Intelligence Service a recruitment headache -- too many cranks want to join MI6.

"I think it gives people a false impression of what working for the organization is actually like," the head of MI6 recruitment -- named only as "Mark" -- told BBC Radio One's Newsbeat program on Monday.

"So it does tend to turn up quite a lot of thrill seekers and fantasists and we're really not interested in them."

As well as dismissing the notion that spying was a never-ending life of fast cars, fast women and shaken not stirred Martini cocktails, "Mark" was keen to demolish another myth surrounding MI6.

"We don't have a license to kill -- we don't carry Berettas -- that's simply not true."

The popularity of James Bond movies goes back to the mid-60's. So if MI6 is getting crank applicants, you may think it has been happening for sometime. I don't recall which of the three Frederick Forsyth books it was that featured the character Sir Nigel Irvine, but I seem to recall the character once saying there are 'old spies and bold spies but no old bold spies.' People who take movies or even mainline television dramas(Take for instance ER. Don't get me started on how unrealistic the portrayal of medicine is done on the show) as resembling real-life, are out of touch with reality.

Maybe MI6 should require applicants to read the works of John Le Carre first. Some have called George Smiley 'the anti-Bond'. That may make future MI6 applicants think twice.

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Blame it on Karl

Karl Rove resigned last week and people still blame him for just about anything in the nation. Today it is people's reading habits.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Liberals read more books than conservatives. The head of the book publishing industry's trade group says she knows why—and there's little flattering about conservative readers in her explanation.

"The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,'" Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress' most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.

She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion."

Schroeder is being more than a little silly, but there is a small point to be made from all this. Many people conservative or liberal, prefer to read what they want to hear. In other words, people read books, blogs, magazines etc that affirm their beliefs.

Speaking for myself, I like to read very divergent opinions. That accounts for why I read books written by authors ranging from Frank Rich to Michelle Malkin. Plus I subscribe to both the National Review and New Republic and have done so for many years. Neither liberals or conservatives have a monopoly when it comes to what is the best course in either US politics or foreign affairs. I'm an admitted conservative Democrat, who takes what both sides say with a grain of salt. Look at these posts on the Scott Thomas Beauchamp affair. The New Republic has almost certainly screwed up but at least one conservative was willing to manipulate matters or lie in order to score debating points.

A mind is like a parachute. It needs to be open in order to work properly.

Hat tip- Dr. Taylor at Poliblog. He points out that the survey in question was of reading in general, not political reading. Carl is also discussing this news.
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Sebastian Faulks

He was just named the fourth James Bond author.

LONDON (AFP) - - Respected author Sebastian Faulks has written a new James Bond novel, reviving the 007 spy over four decades after Ian Fleming's last book, it was announced Wednesday.

"Devil May Care" will be published next May to mark the centenary of Fleming's birth, 42 years after the original Bond author's last book "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights", published in 1966.

The book will be the 15th Bond book. Faulks -- famous for his trilogy "The Girl at the Lion D'Or", "Birdsong" and "Charlotte Gray" -- said he agreed to pen a new thriller despite initial reservations.

*****

Fleming famously wrote his books in the Caribbean, describing his typical day as a mixture of bursts of writing punctuated by cocktails, snorkeling and lunch on the terrace with glamorous women.

"That's very much the way I wrote it," joked Faulks. "Very much apart from the snorkeling and the cocktails and the lunch on the terrace," he said, although insisting "there were plenty of glamorous women".

Faulks is not the first author to be asked by Fleming's estate to write a new Bond novel: Kingsley Amis did so in 1968 with "Colonel Sun", while others include former Fleming colleague John Pearson and novelist John Gardner.

Texan writer Raymond Benson wrote the last 007 revival, "The Man with the Red Tattoo," in 2002.

This article fails to note author John Gardner, who wrote thirteen James Bond novels. I read each and every single one of them. The best non-Fleming Bond novel was Win, Lose or Die IMHO. After that novel, the quality of Gardner's work fell off.

I got to meet Raymond Benson at a London book signing in May 2001. My wife and I were vacationing in London at the time. I didn't care much for Benson's literary effors, High Time to Kill was the best of his Bond efforts. Kingsley Amis' Colonel Sun was excellent, unfortunately it was his only Bond effort.

Bottom line- Nobody will ever do it better than Ian Fleming.

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Novelty or Old News

Apparently Associated Press writer Phil Davis doesn't read or watch too many movies.

By PHIL DAVIS
AP
TAMPA, Fla. (June 3) - Capt. Sam Gibbons knew his mission was in trouble when he hit the ground in the early hours of the D-Day invasion 63 years ago. The future congressman's 101st Airborne troops were scattered far from their intended drop zone. And the only nearby soldiers he could see where German.

"People are always talking about behind enemy lines. Hell, there ain't no lines in combat," said Gibbons, who was 24 when he parachuted into Normandy on June 6, 1944. "We jumped right on top of the Germans."

On the ground, in the dark, the scattered American soldiers relied on a children's' novelty toy to sort things out.

Gibbons, now 87 and retired after serving 17 consecutive terms in Congress , is one of the few Operation Overlord paratroopers who held onto his military-issued "cricket," a brass and steel version of the cheap tin prize from a 1930s Cracker Jack box. The soldiers called the signaling devices "crickets" because of the sharp "crick" sound it made when pressed.

The crickets were lifesavers for American paratroopers scattered in the dark on a morning when using a flashlight to check a map or shouting in English meant instant death.

"The cricket was a stroke of genius," said Michael Gannon, a retired University of Florida history professor. "How else would you know who you bumped into in the dark? If you came across somebody, you clicked. If he responded in kind, you were friends. If he didn't, you shot him."

As interesting as what Professor Gannon and former Congressman Gibbons are telling, it is actually very old news. The movie and the book, The Longest Day, depicted the use of these crickets. Why is this suddenly news 63 years after the war and 45 years after the movie was shown? Is it that slow a news day in Florida?

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Out to make a buck

From the Sun-Sentinel-

Authorities in South Florida said Monday they are re-examining statements in the unsolved 1981 slaying of 6-year-old Adam Walsh to see if notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer might have been Walsh's killer.

The possible link connecting the 26-year-old cold case and Dahmer, who was convicted of brutally killing 17 men and boys, comes in the wake of calls from two retired FBI agents to re-examine the possibility that Dahmer abducted and killed the youngster in Hollywood.

New questions about Dahmer's possible role in Walsh's killing are contained in a soon-to-be-published book by crime author Arthur Jay Harris. The book is based largely on the release of a 10,000-page investigative file on the Walsh slaying. Harris talked with two Florida men who said they saw a man fitting Dahmer's description on the day that Walsh was last seen. One of them said he saw a man carrying a struggling boy into a blue van that police believe was used in Walsh's abduction.

Authorities noted that they took statements from these two men in 1981. When asked Monday whether the Hollywood Police Department will re-examine the case, Capt. Mark Smith, who leads investigations into cold cases, said through a spokeswoman that he "has no new information" to act upon.

The Broward County State Attorney's Office said in a statement that "if necessary, we will interview those witnesses again to make sure nothing was missed."

The statement said the prosecutor's office had been in contact with John Walsh, Adam's father, who is the host of the popular syndicated television show America's Most Wanted. Walsh's office did not return a call seeking comment.

Serial killer Ottis Toole, who confessed to scores of killings across the country in the 1970s and '80s and allegedly partnered in many of them with fellow serial killer and lover Henry Lee Lucas, was named a suspect in Walsh's murder in 1983. Toole confessed twice to the crime but recanted each time. Walsh, while critical of Hollywood police's handling of his son's case, stated in his 1997 autobiography, Tears of Rage, that he believed Toole abducted and killed his son.

Dahmer briefly lived in South Florida in 1981, at the time Adam Walsh disappeared. Under questioning, Dahmer repeatedly denied killing the boy.

The Miami Herald also reported it here. Then this 'story' has been around for a while. For Jay Harris wrote an article in The Daily Business Review almost two months ago.

Police heard from two men who say they saw Dahmer at the Hollywood Mall on the day of the abduction.

“Hi there, nice day, isn’t it?”

The banal words belied the terror Willis Morgan felt when a man approached him around noon that day. Morgan, a Miami Herald pressman, was browsing the red tag sale table in the doorway of a RadioShack in the mall on his day off.

The man was drunk, disheveled and spoke inappropriately loud. Morgan looked around for help or a witness, but the mall was mostly empty. The man stepped closer, got angry and repeated his comment at the same volume. Morgan had the feeling the man was carrying a knife and wanted to pull him out of the store.

The man was taller than Morgan, then 34. The man stared at him. “He had a look on him, like the devil was in him,” Morgan recalled in an interview.

Finally the man abruptly turned around and left. Morgan said he realized the man might approach someone else. At a safe distance, Morgan followed him — through the mall into Sears and its toy department, where he lost sight of the man. Adam’s mother, Reve Walsh, said she left her child alone in the toy department.

Back at work, Morgan told his Miami Herald co-workers of his encounter. They urged him to contact Hollywood police, whose search for Adam was already in high gear. At the end of his overnight shift, Morgan telephoned. He said a police officer took his tip but seemed disinterested.

Ten years later in 1991, while still working at the Herald, Morgan proofed a story about the arrest of a man in Milwaukee with severed heads in his apartment. A thumbnail-sized mug shot accompanied the story.

“I was freaking out. This is the guy! This was the guy I followed in the mall!” Morgan recalled.

His friends had to calm him. At the end of his shift, he visited Hollywood police.

After waiting three months, lead Detective Jack Hoffman took Morgan’s sworn statement.

Bob at The Daily Pulp wrote-

Two things struck me. One is the powerful emotional response that both of these witnesses, who indeed seem credible, had to Dahmer’s picture. It’s eerie. The other is that the guy who did it seemed drunk and demonic — which fits Dahmer in predator-mode to a tee.

The problem is that Dahmer, while admitting to all kinds of horrific killings, denied that he killed Adam Walsh. And that has kept Hollywood police and Broward prosecutors from taking the theory seriously. Harris talked to two FBI agents, however, who debriefed Dahmer and now believe it’s worth looking into.

FBI agent Neil Purtell thought Dahmer tacitly admitted killing Adam.

“It’s my experience when people overemphasize their denials, it’s usually an admission,” Purtell said. Dahmer prefaced one denial with “Honest to God, Neil.”

He added: “When someone says ‘Honest to God,’ I know they’re lying.”

Take that for what it’s worth, but I’m hooked.

I respect Bob, but the reason the Herald and Sun-Sentinel passed on Harris' article is probably the same opinion I have at present.

The Dahmer theory is all a load of bunk to sell a book.

Dahmer is dead, and like a lot of famous or infamous people, he lives on still today because of the horiffic crimes he committed. TFM has written on this topic before, but after someone famous dies they can become the subject of all sorts of theories, some reasonable and others very fanciful if not outright bullshit. Witnesses and FBI agents stepping forward 25 years after the crime sound just don't sound credible to me. Why now and not when Dahmer was still alive?

Harris has a book and story to sell. That doesn't mean TFM or the local media have to buy it.

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