October 22, 2006
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Mother of All Heists,Dixie Chicks,Anita Pallenberg,$139 million Picasso ripped,L’Wren Scott,Googling
More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq was stolen
The Mother Of All HeistsOct. 22, 2006
(CBS) More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country’s Ministry of Defense before the 2005 elections, according to Iraqi investigators.
Iraq’s former minister of finance says coalition members like the U.S. and Britain are doing little to help recover the money or catch suspects, most of whom fled the country. The 60 Minutes investigation also turned up audio recordings of a suspect who seems to be discussing the transfer of $45 million to the account of a top political adviser to the interim defense minister.
Correspondent Steve Kroft reports on this mother of all heists.
“We have not been given any serious, official support from either the United States or the U.K. or any of the surrounding Arab countries,”" says Ali Allawi, who was confronted with the missing funds when he took over as Iraq’s finance minister last year.
He thinks he knows why Iraqi investigators have gotten little help. “The only explanation I can come up with is that too many people in positions of power and authority in the new Iraq have been, in one way or another, found with their hands inside the cookie jar,” says Allawi, who left his post when a new Iraqi government was formed earlier this year. “And if they are brought to trial, it will cast a very disparaging light on those people who had supported them and brought them to this position of power and authority,” he tells Kroft.
One of the people praised in former U.S. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer’s memoirs is a major suspect in the case. Ziad Cattan was in charge of military procurement at a time when the ministry of defense went on a $1.2 billion buying spree. Allawi estimates that $750 to $800 million of that money was stolen. Judge Radhi al-Radhi, head of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, which investigates official corruption, tells Kroft that a lot of the money that wasn’t stolen was spent on outdated, useless equipment.
“It isn’t true,” says Cattan, whom 60 Minutes found in Paris and who was recently convicted in absentia in Iraq for squandering public funds. He showed Kroft documents and pictures of equipment that he says is now in Iraq. An official from Jane’s, one of the world’s foremost experts in military hardware, says the documents Cattan provided were too vague to prove anything.
Audio recordings obtained by 60 Minutes reveal Cattan talking to an associate in Amman, Jordan, in 2004 about the distribution of Iraqi funds. According to two independent translations, he is discussing payoffs to Iraqi officials.
One possible payoff the recordings allude to is the transfer of $45 million to the account of a top political adviser to the defense minister, a man who is also identified on the recordings as a representative of the president and the prime minister of the interim government. Cattan acknowledged his own voice was on the recordings. Three translators say he specifically mentions “45 million dollars,” but he disputes the translation. “I don’t say dollars,” he tells Kroft. “I don’t remember what the matter was.”
Cattan maintains that U.S. and coalition advisors at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense approved everything he did and says the recordings have been doctored. Audio experts consulted by 60 Minutes could not find any evidence of that. Judge Radhi also has a copy of the recordings and says a former employee of the ministry of defense confessed after hearing them.
60 Minutes has learned that Cattan is building himself a villa in Poland. Another suspect, Naer Jumaili, principal in a middle-man company that handled much of the $1.2 billion in Iraqi military contracts, is said to be buying real estate in Amman, Jordan, and building himself a large villa, even though he is wanted by Interpol. Judge Rahdi believes the fugitive suspects are bribing their way to freedom and says countries like Jordan and Poland have been “no help at all” in apprehending the suspects or recovering the money.
The case is one of 2,000 Iraqi government corruption cases the judge’s commission is handling that, all told, involve $7.5 billion.
No one in the U.S. government would speak on camera about the case. But U.S. officials say this was Iraqi money spent by a sovereign Iraqi government and therefore is the Iraqis’ business.
Produced by Andy Court and Keith Sharman
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved...THE Dixie Chicks’ biggest detractor
DIXIE DODGER October 9, 2006 — THE Dixie Chicks’ biggest detractor, FreeRepublic.com founder Jim Robinson, declined to appear in their documentary, “Shut Up and Sing.” Now Ken Sunshine, who reps the George Bush-bashing Chicks, calls him “a coward. A real man would put his money where his mouth is, but this Robinson guy, he’d rather hide behind his keyboard than have a real discussion about his ideas . . . he’s just a chicken[bleep] fraud.” Robinson’s rep, Kristinn Taylor, confirmed he ducked the interview: “He told me to go ahead and do it.”
Anita Pallenberg, October 24, 1973
Anita Pallenberg, October 24, 1973
Girlfriend of founding Rolling Stone, Brian Jones, infatuation of Mick Jagger, & the Mother of two surviving children of Keith Richards; Marlon & Dandelion (Angela). Richards and Pallenberg lost a son, Tara at the age of 10 months. He was born March 26, 1976. Anita was an actress in “A Degree Of Murder”, “Der Rebel”, “Barbarella”, & “Performance”.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn ripped a hole through his $139 million Picasso
I Punched a Hole in My Picasso!
Now what do I do?
By Daniel Engber
Posted Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006, at 7:03 PM ET
–> –>Casino mogul Steve Wynn ripped a hole through his $139 million Picasso painting while gesticulating at a cocktail party, reports the New York Post. Nora Ephron gave her own first-person account of the damage: It was “a black hole the size of a silver dollar … with two three-inch long rips coming off it in either direction.” Wynn had just agreed to sell the painting; now, the deal is off. Is there any way to fix the ripped Picasso?
Yes, but it will be slow and tedious work. The torn ends of the canvas can probably be lined up, and conservators can identify matching fibers on either side of the rip by inspecting them under a microscope. In general, you can expect the wefts in the fabric—that is, the crosswise yarns of the weave—to split at the site of the impact. The lengthwise warps tend to get stretched out, but they may not break.
The rip itself can be mended in a few different ways. First, the conservator can line up the torn ends and affix them to a new piece of fabric that lines the back of the painting. She might also try to attach the torn ends to each other using a method called Rissverklebung, in which individual fibers are rewoven back into place.
To reweave the warps and wefts, you have to figure out the proper placement of each individual fiber. Bits of paint that are stuck to the fibers must be glued in place or removed until the reweaving is complete. (Conservators map out the location of each paint flake they remove so it can be replaced in precisely the right spot.) Because an accident will stretch out some fibers and fray others, you sometimes have to tie off and shorten some threads while attaching new material to lengthen others. Threads attached to the back of the canvas will reinforce the seam.
Closing the tear is only the first part of the process. An accident like Wynn’s can damage the painting in other places by stretching the fabric and distorting the image. To correct for these planar distortions, the conservators try to change the lengths of individual fibers or small patches of the canvas. Applied humidity can make a fiber expand across its diameter and shrink across its length—and tighten up distended parts of the weave.
Bits of paint that have fallen off the painting must also be replaced. Wynn might have surveyed the scene of the accident and saved any stray bits of paint for the conservators in a petri dish. (Chance are he didn’t strip much off the canvas—Ephron says he was wearing a golf shirt, which suggests a bare-elbow blow. An elbow covered with rough fabric would probably have done more damage.) Conservators have to touch up spots of missing paint with fresh material, color-matched to the surrounding area.
One more thing: Conservators always try to make their repairs reversible. That way, you won’t cause any permanent damage to the work if you screw up, and someone can always try to improve on your work in the future.
Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Carolyn Tomkiewicz of the Brooklyn Museum.
Daniel Engber is a regular contributor to Slate.L’Wren Scott
L’Wren Scott
Born, Luann Bambrough she is a former model and now a fashion stylist who lives in Hollywood. She is Mick’s current “main person of interest” for the past few years. This shot from the Grammy’s January 16, 2005.
Live From Reykjavik, Part III: An Insider´s Look at Iceland Airwaves 2006
Megan Pillow 
10.22.2006Live From Reykjavik, Part III: An Insider´s Look at Iceland Airwaves 2006
It´s Sunday, the final day of Airwaves, and Reykjavik has emptied of tourists as quickly as water poured from a pitcher. The streets are all still today, the shops shuttered and dark, and, after a week of loud music, crowded venues, and late late nights, it seemed only natural that my friend and I chose to get out of town and see some of the countryside.
–> begin ad tag (ptile=2) 300×250–> –> End ad tag –>There are a few more performances tonight by local bands, but it is our last full day in Iceland, and in our opinion, nothing could compare to the caliber of last night´s performances.Saturday night in Reykjavik was perhaps a hair less harrowing than Friday night, or, perhaps I simply got used to the furor. Two venues promised great shows – at club NASA, the UK´s Fields and the U.S. band Brazilian Girls, and at the Reykjavik Art Museum, The Cribs and the Kaiser Chiefs were playing, both UK bands as well. It was a tough call, but we decided to wait it out at the art museum – we knew we´d have a chance to catch the Brazilian Girls once back in the U.S.
As always, we arrived early and grabbed a spot at the front of the venue. First up was a series of four Icelandic bands – Daniel Agust, Petur Ben, Biggi, and Leaves. The best of the bunch was unquestionably Daniel Agust, whose complex melodies and well-crafted lyrics complemented his powerful vocals.
Next up was The Cribs, a band who I´d eagerly been anticipating – after picking up one of their albums, I was thrilled to get the chance to see them in concert. Unfortunately, the performance was merely mediocre, which had to do somewhat with the band´s laissez-faire attitude. Much of the fault, however, should be placed with the audience, who weren´t as engaged by the band´s clever, catchy music as it well deserves.
When the Kaiser Chiefs took stage, however, all of the crowd´s lethargy disappeared. The credit for the tranformation rests on the shoulders of lead singer Ricky Wilson, whose performance was nothing less than stellar. Wilson´s vocals and his intoxicating ability to make each member of his audience feel like the only person in the room prove him a better frontman even than Mick Jaggar, and when backed by a band fueled by tremendous talent and instinct, the combination moves the performance from mere music into the realm of artistry.
If you can, pick up the Kaiser Chief´s album, Employment, but realize that it does not nearly do them justice. More importantly, if you have the chance to see them live, do so. It´s an experience you´ll never forget.
After an uneventful return to our hotel and a good night´s rest, my friend and I got up this morning and decided to rent a car, get out of the city, and take in a few of Iceland´s scenic sites. Reykjavik is relatively close to the country´s three largest tourist attractions, called the Golden Circle, and so we decided we had time enough to tackle them before heading home.
Luckily, driving in Iceland is relatively easy – Americans staying less than 90 days don´t need an international driver´s license, and Icelanders drive on the right side of the road just as we do. The only precaution that drivers are urged to take is to rent an appropriate vehicle – if you are planning to travel anywhere that is toward the interior of the country well off the Ring Road, the highway that traverses the entire circumference of the island, you would be foolish to rent anything other than an SUV with four wheel drive.
For our purposes, however, a Toyota Yaris was sufficient, and so we set out in search of the first stop on our excursion – Thingvellir, where Iceland´s first settlers held their national assembly, the Althing, in 930. The site was blessed with a beautiful view and massive rock fissures courtesy of the earthquakes that have occurred there as the American and European tectonic plates that are joined there gradually separate and Iceland itself slowly splits apart.
Once outside of Reykjavik, the landscape quickly transformed from merely beautiful into absolutely breathtaking. The countryside in Iceland is vast and unflinching, miles and miles of empty fields, rocky crags, and snow-capped mountains. The land is dotted with houses and buildings here and there, but little, it seems has changed since the time of the Vikings. It is picturesque, desolate and somehow supremely frightening; as we drove toward our second stop, Iceland´s well-known Geysir, we moved from a divided highway to a narrow paved road to a dirt and gravel pathway, across land that, if not so bone-chillingly cold, could have easily been mistaken for desert. For kilometers, there was not a building or a human in sight. It was easy to imagine how American pioneers felt as they traveled west, into both an unknown land and unknowable future. I shivered at the thought of getting caught here after dark, and my friend and I joked about how perfect a setting it would make for a horror movie.
After our brief stop at Iceland´s Geysir, where we weaved our way through steam and boiling pools of water to the largest spout Strokkur, which shot water nearly seventy feet into the air, we made our way ten kilometers down the road to Gullfoss waterfall where, even from the top of the cliff, we could feel the water from the roaring falls hundreds of feet below spray against our faces. Finally, it was time to backtrack to Reykjavik, and as we headed down the stretch of gravel road that lead to Thingvellir, Iceland offered us another surprise: the landscape that had before seemed so desolate was, in the dying light of the sunset, alive with color. The gray-green moss capping the rocks suddenly glowed emerald; straw-colored brush glimmered slim and golden. It was as if we were driving through a completely different landscape, and all of sudden, I realized how much I will miss this terrible, wonderful place.
Leaving Reykjavik tomorrow will in some ways be a blessing; I will be ready to go home, finish my book, resume my normal day-to-day life. But some small part of me will wish I could stay here a while longer, take apart and analyze more of the country´s problems, understand its successes, and relive Airwaves all over again. There are many cities and many music festivals out there, some more organized, others more successful than this one. But there is nothing quite like this month, in this city, in this country, at this festival, and because of that, I plan to tell everyone I know that they should not miss it.
Somehow, someday, I will come back. Perhaps I´ll see you when I do.
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Live from Reykjavik, Part II: An Insider´s Look At Iceland Airwaves 2006
Megan Pillow 10.21.2006Live from Reykjavik, Part II: An Insider´s Look At Iceland Airwaves 2006 (2 comments )
By day, the city of Reykjavik, Iceland is quiet, almost ruminative, going about its business with a dutiful and elegant sense of purpose. Tourists stroll the streets sipping coffee, swinging their shopping bags like children; stoic natives thread through them, intent on getting to work.Under a bright blue sky and the forgiving light of a mid-day October sun, the city stretches
–> begin ad tag (ptile=2) 300×250–> –> End ad tag –>out like a langorous cat, spreading its limbs toward the sea, and in that moment, there is not in the world a more beautiful, more fascinating place to be.But come night, that scene disappears behind a curtain of darkness, and another scene is lit, this one revealing a nightlife that is, at some times merely strange, at others sinister, but always wholly out of control.
It´s day four of the 2006 Iceland Airwaves festival, and I´m beginning to feel it. The last few nights in this dynamic and totally demented town are beginning to wear on me. Every muscle in my body aches, my feet hurt, and I have brusies on my rib cage and hipbones. This is seems, is the price of fun, and I´m more than willing to pay it, if I can, at least, avoid a repeat of what happened last night.
My friend Elise and I had been looking forward to the Friday night bands, in particular the Canadian band Wolf Parade, and we were determined to be at the very front of the venue. We realized after our experience at We Are Scientists that we had to take a tactical approach to this festival: choose the bands we most wanted to see, get there early, and hold our ground.
Our strategy was successful on Thursday night at the Reykjavik Art Museum, where we were front and center for the sweet and sultry U.S. band Mates of State, UK rockers Hot Club de Paris, whose unique blend of clever barbershop ballads and solid punk riffs were as appealing as their sexy Liverpool accents, and the Omaha, Nebraska-based Tilly and the Wall, a must-see because of their pure innovation – the six-member band´s percussion is performed by tap-dancer Jamie and the band´s two lead singers, Neely and Kianna, are uniquely appealing – one gifts the audience with a gorgeous voice and a Veronica Lake smile and the other channels Pat Benetar into a performance full of joyful anger and prodigious talent.
By far the standout performance on Thursday, however, was at club NASA from the Canadian band Metric, which was preceded by an athletic performance by the hardcore Icelandic band Reykjavik! Metric produces dark and mesmerizing music laced with lyrics possessed of a biting wit, and lead singer Emily Haines is unforgettable, blessed with the airy vocals and angry passion of Tori Amos and PJ Harvey and an uncanny repoire with both her band and her audience that gives her one of the most powerful stage presences in the business.
After Thursday´s tremendous success, we were looking forward to Friday. We reluctantly decided to forgo a performance by Canada´s Islands at the Reykjavik Art Museum in favor of staking out a good space for the night´s headliner Wolf Parade, so again, we headed into club Gaukurinn and found a spot at the front of the venue.
Through a couple of the night´s first performances, the crowd was manageable. By the time Norway´s 120 Days, a powerful band with a passing resemblance to early U2 fueled by electronica, hit the stage, the room was full, and as the young Icelandic band Mammut and the popular Jeff Who! made their appearances, the room became not a collection of people, but a living, breathing organism all its own. We were packed in so tightly that I could feel the barrier rubbing against my ribs, the sweat of my neighbors running down my back, someone´s elbows in my shoulder and neck. I had to grab hold of a metal pole running down the front of the barrier in order to simply stay standing up and in place.
When Wolf Parade hit the stage, however, the room erupted into utter chaos. People jumped when there was no place to jump. They screamed into their neighbor´s ears. And all of them tried to get to the front of the room, which meant that all of us at the front had to engage in gladiator-style heroics just to keep our place. I´ll admit it – I shoved people, I elbowed them, I butted them out of the way. I waited nearly three hours for this, and I wasn´t leaving.
Wolf Parade´s performance was simply brilliant, despite some inconsistencies in the sound mix. I have a feeling that, someday, it will be the kind of performance that I will be able to tell people ‘I was there.´But what I will remember most about last night, I think, is not what the band sounded like, althought that will stay with me, too. What I will remember will be the constant roar of the crowd, the thousand people that threw their hands in the air in response to a song, the looks on the faces of the people around me and on the faces of the other well-known Airwaves bands who snuck in the side door just to see them.
Despite being soaked in sweat and not being able to feel my feet, I was happy when we left the club, knowing I´d seen something memorable, and at 1:30 in the morning, I was ready to tackle nightlife in Reykjavik.
I had no idea what I was in for.
When we walked out of the club, the city was a changed place. Gone were the relatively empty streets and the clutches of tourists. Instead, the streets were filled with young Icelanders dressed to the nines, shouting to one another, heading into clubs and bars.
Needless to say, the rumors about Reykjavik nightlife are all true – in essence, on the weekends it is Tortuga as depicted in the Pirates of the Caribbean, the island of chaos where Jack Sparrow seeks refuge. Last night, I saw groups of men standing on corners with their pants around their ankles, people launching themselves through the air and rolling down the street, full beer bottles hurled against the sidewalks like rice at a wedding. I was manhandled by at least three men in an Icelandic bar, and had my rear end smacked by another on the city´s main street by another. In fact, I´ve felt more comfortable walking down 125th street in Harlem at 3 a.m. than I did walking through Reykjavik last night.
But that doesn´t mean I won´t be going out tonight. Instead, I´ll just have my guard up, my friend by my side, and I certainly won´t be making any more trips into Icelandic bars, unless I have mace and perhaps a tire iron in my possession. Tonight, my friends, the UK bands The Cribs and the Kaiser Chiefs are playing, and I won´t miss them. My time here is growing short, and though it took me a while to learn it, it seems like the key to surviving Reykjavik and the Airwaves festival is wit, determination, and a good offense.
Wish me luck.
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Live from Reykjavik: An Insider´s Look at Iceland Airwaves 2006
Megan Pillow 10.19.2006Live from Reykjavik: An Insider´s Look at Iceland Airwaves 2006 (4 comments )
It´s 10:30 p.m., and I´m packed into a club called Gaukurinn on the west side of town, cheek to cheek with hipsters in skinny pants and ruddy-faced fans screaming for the next band, and I feel like by getting here, I´ve accomplished the social equivalent of tackling Everest. The line to get in still snakes all the way around the side of the building, and it took me nearly half an hour to get to where I am now, center stage in the middle of the room, where we´re packed in so tight that I can feel the ribs of the person next to me pressing against my arm and I can see the flecks of gold in his green eyes even in the dim light.
–> begin ad tag (ptile=2) 300×250–> –> End ad tag –>In any other circumstance, this would qualify as a date, but here, it´s just what you have to do to get to the music.
This isn´t some club in Soho, though, or even L.A. or Miami. Instead, it´s one of approximately a half dozen venues in Reykjavik, Iceland, where, for the next five days, nearly 200 bands, solo artists, and DJs from Iceland, the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Britian, and more will perform from Oct 18-22 as part of Iceland Airwaves 2006. For five days, every night from 7 p.m. until 2 or even 3 a.m., there are approximately a dozen hot spots around the city where you can crowd in with other music fans and be the first hear the music that´s almost certain to already be working Europe into a frenzy, and almost equally certain to be doing the same thing to America in the next six months – bands like Canada´s Islands and Wolf Parade, the U.S.´s We Are Scientists and Brazilian Girls, and the UK´s Kaiser Chiefs and The Cribs. All you need is the trademark red wristlet that marks you as an Iceland Airwaves participant.
The Airwaves festival has been one of Europe´s hottest since its inception in 1999, where the first was played in a Reykjavik airplane hangar. Since then, however, the festival has garnered a great deal more cool and cache by making Reykjavik´s city centre the festival setting and by attracting artists and bands like Bjork, FatBoy Slim, and others on their way to fame. In part as a result, Reykjavik itself has earned a reputation as one of Europe´s party capitals, and the festival itself has routinely attracted lots of fans from across Europe. On the whole, however, because of the predominance of European music acts, it has still flown under the radar of American music fans.
This year, however, just might be the year that changes all that.
That might be, in part, because of the festival´s increasing visibility. Myspace is hosting a stage at the National Theatre Basement, beginning today through Saturday, Oct. 21, which will feature artists like Sweden´s Jenny Wilson, Germany´s Trost, and Canada´s Patrick Watson, all of whom are beginning to make a name for themselves. The site has a festival page, complete with pictures, interviews, and a festival lineup, which, given Myspace´s popularity in America, may well get some attention from the many young Americans whose staple is a daily visit.
In addition, America is becoming a growing presence among the long lineup of festival performers, which may well begin to pique American interest in the festival. Artists like We Are Scientists, a rock band that got its start in L.A. but now call New York home, are making their first appearance this year, and members Chris Cain, Keith Murray, and Michael Tapper say they hope to return. This year, Reykjavik is just a brief stopoff for the band – they were only able to stay in town for a day, just long enough to take in a tour of the city, attempt to track down one of Iceland´s famous hot dogs, and play last night at Gaukurinn before hopping on a plane first thing this morning to begin preparations for their three week tour in the UK.
The band, who is becoming increasingly known both for their infectious music and their wit, recently released an album that has, overall, been more popular in Europe and the UK than in America. Murray said that, after being on tour a year and half, an appearance at Airwaves was hard to quantify, but, he said, of all the places they´d been, it was most like Edinburgh – cold, northerly, and also possessed of a haunted tour of the city, one of the few things the band had time to take in before leaving.
Cain said that more Americans should tackle festivals like Airwaves, but was skeptical about whether or not they´d actually do it. “Given that Americans can´t support their own festivals, I don´t know,” he said. Tapper, however, said that, after experiencing Airwaves, the band, at least, wanted to come back to Reykjavik. “I´d like to do more than one day. I´d like to do the whole thing,” he said. Perhaps, he said with a smile, if more American celebrities came and did something crazy while at the festival, it would become more well-known.
For now, however, Reykjavik seems like one of the few places left where almost anyone can find anonymity. Like most cities and towns in Iceland, Reykjavik is perched at water´s edge and framed by snow-capped mountains and spare, volcanic acreage, and it is possessed of the simultaneous and somewhat startling charm of a melding of both ancient and modern culture. Historic houses are situated on the same block as modern Scandanavian designs; on the main shopping street, Laugavegur, throngs of tourists weave in and out of designer boutiques and coffeehouses, while Icelandic women leave their carriages containing coat-clad babies on the sidewalks while they step inside to shop.
The city´s small population – approximately 115,000 people – , its isolation from mainland Europe, and its traditionally low crime rate make it an appealing getaway destination. Ít´s a place where even American celebrities can stroll down the streets in relative obscurity. Today, I passed Harrison Ford and a friend as they strolled down Laugavegur. Most of the passersby seemed to glance at him but left him alone, with the exception of one young Icelandic women, who did a double take, turned, and ran after him, calling “Robert Redford! Robert Redford!” Ford turned, smiled, and then went on his way, strolling off down a side street and slipping into a bar, and in seconds, the spectacle was forgotten. I can´t think of many other places in the world where a celebrity like Ford would be both so blessedly misidentified and could disappear so effectively.
If anonymity is what you want, Reykjavik can certainly offer it, but Airwaves itself is an intimate experience – the bands stay in the same hotels and go to the same clubs and bars as the fans before and after the show, and in a city centre as compact as this one, the population of the city and the festivalgoers soon all become familiar faces, even after just a day. This morning, as my friend and I headed back to our hotel at 3 a.m., after hearing five bands, including We Are Scientists and the ambitious, entertaining, and unquestionably danceable The Handsome Public, who whipped their crowd, composed of mellow mods and frenzied schoolboys, into near-ecstacy, we lamented how many bands we had missed. Tonight, we promised ourselves, we´ll do even better, even though, as we collapsed into our beds, we felt as if we´d done enough to last a week.
Stay tuned, everyone – five bands, one interview, a hundred shops, a whirlwind tour of the city, and a chance encounter with Harrison Ford, and that´s just day one. The festival´s just getting started.Writing a biography in the digital age. Googling My Mother
Googling My Mother
Writing a biography in the digital age.
By John Dickerson
Posted Friday, Oct. 20, 2006, at 6:39 PM ET
–> –>One morning, my mother’s grave appeared in my inbox. The grass had grown back around it after the burial. The stone looked pinker than I remembered. The “Beloved Wife and Mother” written on it struck me as odd. Was that inscription always there? It seemed antiquated, like something you’d see in a small town cemetery, and, in my mother’s case, also a little limiting. These are the details you seize on when you’re suddenly confronted by Section 3, Grave 1316-A-LH before your first cup of coffee.I had asked for it. I was writing On Her Trail, a book about my mother, Nancy Dickerson, which was published this week. Early in the process, I instructed a few Internet search engines to make a daily pass of the Web and to e-mail me whenever they found something. Mom had been a famous reporter, so I knew I’d get some responses. That day, she was discovered on a Web site dedicated to those buried at Arlington Cemetery. (My stepfather, John Whitehead, was a commander in the Navy.)I was writing the book to figure out who my mother was, which might have seemed like a silly enterprise, since when I was growing up it seemed like everyone knew who my mother was. She was the first female network correspondent for CBS and the first woman star of the Washington TV-news corps. But I missed most of my mother’s career. I was born when Mom was 41, and by the time I was old enough to know what the news was, she had left the network and her stardom had faded. There were no videotapes of her newscasts during the ’60s and ’70s, just pictures of her with Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon on the piano. (Now, in the age of TiVo, my children can’t miss my appearances on even the lowest-rated cable show. Plus, I give them candy to watch).
I also missed most of my mother’s career because I didn’t care about it. Mom and I were enemies for the first part of the 27 years we knew each other. I moved out of our house at age 14 when my parents divorced, and I never lived with her again. But our cold war ended soon after I found myself joining her profession in 1993. We became pals and, for a few years, traded gossip every day. We didn’t talk about the past but the news in front of us, as if we were colleagues. Then, in January 1996 she had a brutal stroke. A year and a half later, it killed her.The initial basket of Internet search results brought back a host of items I’d never seen—footage of Mom narrating the return of John Kennedy’s body as it was brought back to Andrews Air Force Base and an account of a Nixon interview. The eBay alert found copies of her autobiography, her NBC portrait, and a 1964 Saturday Evening Post article published four years before I was born. (Her Supersister trading card I did recognize. As a 10-year-old, I found it disappointing because it didn’t come with bubble gum and I couldn’t trade it for Pete Rose’s rookie card.)
The bulletins from the Web slowed to a few each week. New deliveries meant someone had just referred to her in the newspaper or, more often, an old posting that had been missed in the initial trawl, like the picture of her childhood home or a 1960 profile from her college alumni magazine. I knew the delay came from a quirk in the software, but these finds felt special and hard-won, as if they’d been unearthed from behind an old can of nails in the back of someone’s musty garage.
Mom herself kept a lot, though she was too glamorous for garages. After she died I received 20 boxes of her journals and newspaper clippings and photographs. She saved the rice from Luci Johnson’s 1966 wedding and the 800-page report she’d worked on in 1956 as a clerk for the Senate foreign-relations committee. She was a C-SPAN bag lady.But what you keep about yourself is different from what other people keep about you. The little automated e-mail scouts were a way to screen for what might have been enduring about what she achieved. She’d been famous, but was any of it real? An old news clipping from 1961 named her among the best coifed women in America. That was hardly worth editing the tombstone for. Judith Shellenberger’s story, though, might be. In November of 2005, the foundation director attended a White House youth conference and breakfasted with Laura Bush. In an article about the trip, Shellenberger looked back on her career and said Mom had been her inspiration. “I wanted to be Nancy Dickerson,” she told her local paper. I read this and wrote her to ask what she meant. “Nancy Dickerson changed my whole life by inspiring me to pursue my dreams,” she replied. “My whole career has centered on the motivation your mother gave me. The fact that I too could be a strong career woman.”
I had heard this sentiment before but never really believed it. It wasn’t just that I’m an oafish male unwise to the struggle of the sisterhood. I’d heard the tribute too many times. So many women had told me that Mom’s pathbreaking career was their inspiration that the praise had become rote. Growing up in Washington, I was too used to hearing meaningless compliments dished out in earnest tones. It’s our folk language. But when Schellenger’s story came in over the transom, it seemed more authentic and objective for having been unsolicited. Suddenly, I was struck by the tonnage of the similar stories I’d heard but never listened to.
The Internet’s long tail was working for me. Joyce Ladner, a former president of Howard Univeristy, remembered meeting Mom at Martin Luther King’s March on Washington. Lew Goodman of Parkchester, N.Y., remembered the day Mom announced that the Beatles had arrived in America. As archived newspapers started to go online, Mom’s history came back. Almost 300 of them mention Nancy Hanschman, her maiden name, which she used when she first went on air. The new data were almost always surprising, but what was most powerful was how they arrived. I’d never written a book before, but I’d written plenty of profiles. Doing so meant sitting down with my pile of books and papers and interview notes and following a thread until I’d forced it into squeaky shape like a balloon animal. You know what you’re looking for, or at least you know that you’re looking. You occupy a confined intellectual and physical space. But these alerts didn’t work like that. They were off fishing for me, and the minute they hooked something, they brought it back and served it up without a filter and on their own time. Since I carry a BlackBerry (or it carries me), they were with me on the ride to work or blinking just before I put out the bedside light.I had shoved away my mother and her fame during the ugliest time in my adolescence. Her every letter and phone call had been an outrageous interruption. Now I was calling for her intrusions. Almost everything that arrived came from the period of her life I never experienced. Combined with my methodical slog through the materials she left me, the woman who was interrupting me on my BlackBerry became more real than the woman who had pasted back my cowlick and taken me to the doctor. She was authentic and natural, qualities I hadn’t seen much with my own eyes.
Though she had been dead for eight years, I couldn’t shake the impulse to ask my mother about what I was discovering. This had the nagging effect of producing a recurring dream of being able to fill out an online form to ask her questions that she could answer through e-mail. (I think Google’s working on a purchase of Séance.net after they get that YouTube thing worked out.)
Now that the book is done, the alerts continue, but oddly, they’ve turned into vanity events, letting me know about reviews and reactions to the book—to my mother, but as I have presented her. They’ve lost their magic. Still, the parallels of our two lives, now wound together in this book, continue to surprise me. Though no one planned it this way, the final deadline for my manuscript fell on my birthday. This week, the book hit the newsstands, and I saw Mom’s tombstone again, this time in person, on the ninth anniversary of her death.
A version of this piece appears in the Washington Post Outlook section.
John Dickerson is Slate‘s chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .Keith Richards’ Wife Patti Hansen & Their Children
Keith Richards’ Wife Patti Hansen & Their Children:
Theodora (left) & Alexandra (right)Patti Hansen was born in Staten Island New York, and was a model for Calvin Klein and Revlon. Patti was “discovered” at a Rolling Stones concert in 1975. She met Richards around 1980 and is also known for keeping the company of Anita Pallenberg. Richards and Hansen were married on December 18, 1983 (Keith’s 40th birthday) in Cabo San Lucas at the Finisterra Hotel. The ceremony was filmed by Julien Temple.
Keith RichardsAs I View Him
Yup. Keith Richards definitely looks like Jack Sparrow’s dad.
Photograph by : Jason Payne, The ProvinceI have had the distinct pleasure of being in this man’s company on more than one occasion. He is real, he is cool, he is generous with his time when people request autographs or photographic opportunities he does oblige with complete enthusiasm.It is amazing to see how people will approach him, and how he will respond. Often times they act like they know him and approach in a quite forward demeanor. Nothing rankles Richards, he throws his arm around one of the “blokes” and hangs on the chap like he is his long lost best pal.On one memorable afternoon and evening we shared a jet flight returning to New York from the island of Antigua. It so happened our seats were in close proximity. Along to my Right hand side was Keith’s Mother in Law, Mrs. Hansen, and as this was in the late 80′s, his daughters were toddlers.His wife Patti was also there in the same group of seats. Keith was deeply absorbed in reading some rather heavy philosophical treatise, along the lines of probably “The Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes…in front of him were always one Heineken and a brandy.When we arrived in New York and disembarked I distinctly remember Dad emphasizing to the little ones that they must carry some of their belongings because he was not going to carry it all. As kids always have, at least in those pre 9/11 days, ample supplies of toys and must have items.As we approached the Customs area, everyone except Keith went under the portal that was indicated for U.S. Citizens. Patti Hansen, her Mom and the two little ones, Theodora and Alexandra and myself went through the U.S. gate. We met up with Keith on the other side by the baggage carousel.This is the most telling part of this otherwise rather unexciting vignette.As the carousel was beginning to disgorge the various pieces of luggage, Keith was intently conversing with a middle aged woman in a wheel chair who seemed to be perplexed and anxious as to how to recover her luggage and Keith was carefully explaining how it worked and looking for the bags she had described. I distinctly recall thinking that this woman had no real idea who Richards was, but there were at least half a dozen other travelers who could not resist the moment to have a photo taken with a living legend. He obliged one and all, autographs, and even those that were obviously acting in a way under the effects of long flights with many cocktails. He was extraordinarily patient and cordial.After everyone had their luggage, some people from the airline appeared to ask Keith if everything was OK, and he explained to me that they do that because he is always flying in and out of there, Kennedy International. I guess..so. Mrs. Hansen hads remarked more than once on the flight how incredibly hard working her son in law was, and how he was constantly having to travel. She said she had no idea at all how he keeps up his non stop pace.Finally, Keith made it absolutely clear to me that he had several transports at his disposal outside of the terminal, and if I was in need of transportation into the city, I should simply jump in and ride along into Manhattan.I explained to Keith that my sister was there to collect me, but his entire vibe was sincere and humble and normal, his shoes were beat up and wearing through, kind of pointed toe half boots.The only concession to affluence , if you will, would have been a killer solid gold Cartier Panther Watch, and a bracelet on the other wrist. And finally, the signature ring of human skull sitting rather unmistakably large on his finger.This guy is a musician thru and thru from beginning to end.He lives his life with what I observed to be a very sincere concern for people around him.The Rolling Stones tour because they love to entertain, and I would suggest that in many ways the group derives every bit as much from going out on stage every nite as their audiences do from watching them perform.Keith Richards is one of a kind, someone I admire and respect. He is in a class by himself in so far as survivability is concerned. His life has progressed through so many levels and so many distinct forms of cultural and historical periods, that I believe he has been born with an innate ability to distill it all down to a point where now he would be amazing as a philosophy professor at one of any number institutions of higher learning.As for now his record setting tour and music will serve as an awesome demonstration of the power, talent, gifts and strength of one of the greatest entertainers of modern times. And moreover, a loving, kind , gentle and generous man.God Bless You Keith, May you Live Forever.Michael P. WhelanLas Vegas, October 22, 2006
I feel sorry for the gay men of Iceland. They must be BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS.
By: situationcritical on October 21, 2006 at 11:54amFlag: [Send to a friend
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