The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Catch-22

    By EmmaZahn on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 8:17pm |

    I enjoyed Joseph Heller's novel so much when I first read it that I read it again.  Maybe I should try to find my book so I can reread it because I'm beginning to feel like we are living it. 

    Doesn't the whole CPA under Bremer seem like a Milo Minderbinder operation?  Now at least one agency, the NHTSA, the federal agecny in charge of auto safety, is apparently being run by Major Major Major Major.   As summarized by Kevin Drum, the agency's new press policy:

    (1) Agency experts are no longer allowed to talk to reporters on the record. (2) The communications office (!) is not allowed to talk to reporters on the record. (3) The agency's administrator is not available to talk on the record about the policy barring staffers from talking on the record. (4) Her chief of staff explained to a reporter that "we were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record," but then insisted that this statement itself was off the record.

    Yes, I definitely have to reread Catch-22 to remind myself which other characters may be lurking around.

    Comments

    Oh let me just jump in with this, Miss Emma, for the infants among us:

    Catch-22 paradox:

    To get out of the army you have to prove that you are crazy, but if you can prove that you are crazy, you aren't really crazy, so you can't get out of the army.

    ;D

    Tish


    by Ticia (not verified) on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 8:19pm

    Am I really that old?!?

    Maybe.

    I've thought about changing my pseudonym to grumpyoldlady but don't really want to fight Ellen for it. :-)


    by Emma Zahn (not verified) on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 8:23pm

    No, no... As I live and breathe ... LOL. And I wouldn't want to fight Ellen ever.

    They are infants, we are mere youngsters! 

    Your favorite pacifist with Southern Belle inclinations,

     Tish


    by Ticia (not verified) on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 8:27pm

    Even better is Heller's "Good as Gold", which is all Washington insanity. Best line from it---"The mind boggles."

    You slander Milo, who always showed a profit, and only found willing partners to sign contracts. Bremer, by comparison, issued orders, one of which forced Iraqis to buy patented seed, and to purchase continuing-use licenses, from American agribiz.

    Did you read the bittersweet sequel to Catch-22, "Closing Time"?


    by Tom Wright (not verified) on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 9:32pm

    As far as I can remember, Catch-22 is the only book by Heller I've read. Thank for the recommending the other two.  I'll check them out.

    Maybe I did slander Milo since he was at least a likeable rogue and tried to make sure everyone who joined his syndicate made a profit -- even the Germans.

     


    by Emma Zahn (not verified) on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 9:48pm

    1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: As a matter of fact, Father, I know I can get my hands on an entire shipment of religious relics, blessed by the Pope himself. The Germans swiped them and put them on the open market. As I understand it, the stuff includes a wrist and collarbones of some of your top saints!

    ;D


    by Ticia (not verified) on Sat, 08/25/2007 - 12:09am