Burke and Tin Roof Blowdown
“So what are you reading?”
Sparkle’s question didn’t surprise me. It’s one of the things we share, a love of reading, anything really but especially mystery books.
“I just started James Lee Burke’s new book, The Tin Roof Blowdown,” I responded.
Her eyes brightened and she threw back her head and laughed! “I knew it! I saw he had a new book out and I hoped you had already bought it!”
What she’s not saying is “bought it, read it and will pass it along to me!”
It’s what we do. I am in the middle of a series she recommended and loaned to my son, he is 3/4 way through (the Hyperion series) and has passed along the first two volumes to me, which, when finished, I will return to my sis.
James Lee Burke’s newest book, The Tin Roof Blowdown, is Burke at his best. His last book ended with the ominous storm rolling in that has changed the face of New Orleans and this book starts with Hurricane Katrina. The stories are heartbreaking, and all the more so because they are true. New Orleans is one of the most corrupt cities in the United States, about one third of the police force LEFT the city they were hired to protect in the evacuation, and the poorest of the poor were left behind, to suffer, to struggle to live, or to die. Many did all three.
Detective Dave Robicheaux is called into the “Big Sleazy” with the rest of the New Iberia police force to help with rescue operations, and to try to bring some order into the chaos. He gets involved with a missing priest, two looters being shot, a robbery that includes cocaine, counterfeit cash and blood diamonds, and the usual cast of psycopaths and organized crime goombahs.
The book builds inexorably to a nail-biting climax.
This author can WRITE. He is head and shoulders above the average churn-em-out detective writer. Here is one of his less poetic, but more insightful entries:
” . . . the honest to God truth is that law enforcement is not even law “enforcement.” We deal with problems after the fact. We catch criminals by chance and accident, either during the commission of the crimes or through snitches. Because of forensic and evidentiary problems, most of the crimes recidivists commit are not even prosecutable. Most inmates currently in the slams spend lifetimes figuring out ways to come to the attention of the system. Ultimately, jail is the only place they feel safe from their own failures.
Unfortunately, the last people on our minds are the victims of crime. They become an addendum to both the investigation and the prosecution of the case, adverbs instead of nouns. Ask rape victims, or people who have been beaten with gun butts or metal pipes or tied to chairs and tortured how they felt toward the system after they learned that their assailants were released on bond without the victims being notified.
I don’t believe in capital punishment, but I don’t argue with the prosecutors who support it. The mouths of the people they represent are stopped with dust. What kind of advocate would not try to give them voice?
Libya Frees Medics
This has got to be one of history’s most bizarre news stories. For years, these Bulgarian (and one Palestinian) medics have been accused of deliberately infecting Libyan children with the AIDS virus at medical facilities.
Do you believe they did it? Most medical people are in the profession because they want to help. They have consistently denied their guilt, except under torture, and we all know that under torture people will say anything to make the pain stop.
I am betting the procedures in Libya were so primitive, the sterilization minimal to none, and the disease was transmitted by accident. Of course it would be too embarrassing for a nation to admit 1) that any Libyan had AIDS and 2) that poor hospital procedures and equipment caused the infection of children, so let’s accuse the guest workers from a poor country.
Here is a case where patient, persistent diplomacy prevailed. Although convicted in the Libyan courts, and although the guilty verdict was upheld by their courts, they were released to Bulgaria where they received an immediate pardon. Pardon my cynicism, but I don’t believe even the Libyans believed they were guilty. It became an embarassment all the way around.
HIV medics released to Bulgaria
The medics were greeted by tearful relatives and well-wishers
Six Bulgarian medics who were serving life sentences in Libya have arrived in Bulgaria following their release, ending their eight-year incarceration.
They were immediately pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov.
The five nurses and a Palestinian-born doctor were convicted of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV – charges they have always denied.
You can read the full story at BBC News.
News from Florida
In Kuwait, the free press is still very cautious. They might hint at a story, they might give a few details, but they are still cautious about crimes which in other countries would be a matter of public record.
Here is a very sad story from the Florida news scene today:
State Representative Arrested for Prostitution Charge
State Representative Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday after offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer, authorities said.
Veteran’s Memorial Park was under surveillance when Allen, Republican – Merritt Island, was seen coming in and out of a restroom three times. . . Allen, 48, then approached an undercover officer and was arrested.
He has been charged with solicition for prostitution, which has a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Brevard County officials said Allen posted a $500 bond.
For my Kuwait readers, a state representative is an elected official who helps make the laws. The Republican party is considers itself the guardian of public morals. So there is some irony in this story, as well as infinite sadness.
Burner Phone
As soon as I arrived, I turned on my “burner” phone, which I bought the last time I travelled in the US. This phone is also called a “throw-down” phone; people in illegal trades use them all the time. They cost like $14.95 and you buy minutes for them.
Unlike the expensive phone I have been buying a new chip for almost every time I come to the US, this phone powers right up after almost three months of never being used, has full power, still has the same number, which I discover is good until NOVEMBER, and even though I dropped it into the cat’s fresh water the first day I bought it, it works. It works.
How can something so cheap be so sturdy and so functional? It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of my more expensive phones, but it does everything I need it to do – I can make and receive calls, I can make my own phone book, I can speed dial . . .
and it makes me laugh to think I have a drug dealer phone. Hee heee heee, too funny.
Resolution: Detained Teacher
This is what is now appearing as “new statement” on the Bayan Bilingual School public announcement board on their website at the BBS website:
Due to the efforts of BBS management and the broader BBS community, in conjunction with expert Kuwaiti legal counsel, the situation regarding our Deputy Middle School Principal has been resolved.
We would like to thank every member of the Kuwait community and parents of the BBS students who have supported BBS throughout this process, and special thanks to the Kuwait Human Rights Society for their extraordinary support and empathy during this situation.
Thanks to blog commenter “Sailor” for keeping us up to date on this resolution. 🙂
Update: Teacher Detained
My niece, Little Diamond reports that the following story has been pickd up nationally by Reuters and has gone world-wide:
KUWAIT (Reuters) – The United States is trying to help an American
teacher to leave Kuwait after the Gulf Arab state imposed a travel
ban on her, the U.S. embassy said on Saturday.
The case of Katherine Phillips has made headlines in the local press
after the teacher posted on the Internet a letter, asking for help
after she fell out with the family of a student she had suspended
after a fight.
Philipps, a former vice-principal of a private school in Kuwait,
said that the authorities had slapped a travel ban on her at the
request of the son’s family who had been angered by her decision,
according to the letter posted on the Web and quoted by the Arab
Times daily.
The U.S. embassy confirmed in a statement a travel ban had been
imposed on her, adding its consular section was in contact with the
authorities to help Phillips leave Kuwait as soon as possible.
Kuwait, a staunch U.S. ally, was the launch pad for the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq in 2003 and is home to several thousands of U.S.
troops.
Reuters My niece speculates that this was the official version of the US Embassy, as it is very much positive on their “actions.”
Donna Leon Crossing Cultures
I’m in the middle of a Donna Leon read-fest. When I wrote the reviews the last time, I saw three books by her I had never seen – and I comb the aisles of Barnes and Noble when I am in the US, and Half Price Books, looking for titles by her. I am guessing some of her books haven’t been printed in the US, but I was able to find them from the UK Amazon.com.
The two latest books I have read by Donna Leon are timely. The first, Fatal Remedies, starts out being about Commissario Guido Brunetti’s wife, Paola’s crusade against the sex tours to undeveloped countries, her outrage against trips that allow grown men to exploit the poverty and need that the poorest of families will sell their own daughters and even young children to satisfy these men’s uncontrolled lusts. Her outrage leads her to a jail cell in her own husband’s precinct.
But just when you think you know where this story is going, it turns, as many of Leon’s books do, and tackles another subject, one very much in the eye of the news – falsified medications. There is a huge profit to be made, and huge wrongdoings in the medical supplies field, as expired medications are shipped to the most needy countries, and prescription and over-the-counter medications contain ingredients that are at best, harmless, and at worst – poisonous!
Guido Brunetti follows the money, and exposes the cheats.
In the second book, The Death of Faith, the issue – corruption in the church – comes close to home, as Brunetti’s daughter gets a low grade from her religious education instructor for asking questions, logical questions, about the dogma of the Catholic faith. Leon also tackles the issue of the order of Opus Dei, the same mysterious order featured in The DaVinci Code, an order that does exist, but about which solid knowledge is murky. What is known is that the order, in jihadist fashion, seeks to establish the Catholic church as the supreme guide to behavior on earth, it’s own version of sharia law to be the ruling principle in every country.
This is an anethema to Commissario Brunetti, and to all thinking Italians who savor the separation of church and state. He asks the eternal question – who decides? Who decides what behavior is acceptable, what questions are allowable? Religious belief, or the lack of it, is so very personal – this is a very timely issue that all nations are struggling with. Religious rule? Secular rule?
Underlying all the Donna Leon books is the sweetness of daily life with Brunetti’s family, his beautiful and principled wife, his teenaged children, the food they eat, the family discussions they have, the flowers he brings home and the strength of the connection they have with one another. The Venetian setting weaves its own magical thread through every novel, as we ride with Brunetti in the vaporetto on the canals, as we sit with him in a local bar for a quick coffee – or something stronger – and as he walks the streets from home to office, or to talk with a witness.
And last, but not least, the utter corruption in the Venetian system reminds us that veniality is not restricted to the United States, or to Kuwait, or to Nigeria, or Italy, or to any one country, but wherever man seeks to impose order, the chaos of corruption must be slowly and surely overcome by the building of an honest bureaucracy, people like you and me, serving in seemingly hopeless situations, but doing our best, day by day, like Guido Brunetti, to build a better world for our children.
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
In Alexander McCall Smith’s newest book about Mma Ramotswe, it is a time of transition and unease. Unthinkable things happen. Mma Makutsi quits her job as Mma Ramotswe’s assistant detective, and Charlie, the apprentice, quits to start his own taxi service. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni feels a restless urge to try out his detecting skills and everything is in turmoil.
And underneath, amazing things happen. When you think differently, there is room for change, and forgiveness.
With Mma Makutsi back in her usual place, the heavy atmosphere that had prevailed that morning lifted. The emotional reunion, as demonstrative and effusive as if Mma Makutsi had been away for months, or even years, had embarrassed the men, who had exchanged glances and then looked away, as if in guilt at an intrusion into essentially female mysteries. But when the ululating from Mma Ramotswe had died down and the tea had been made, everything returned to normal.
“Why did she bother to leave if she was going to be back in five minutes?” asked the younger apprentice.
“It’s because she doesn’t think like anybody else,” said Charlie. “She thinks backwards.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who overheard this, shook his head. “It’s a sign of maturity to be able to change your mind when you realize that you’re wrong,” he explained. “It’s the same with fixing a car. If you find out that you’re going along the wrong lines then don’t hesitate to stop and correct yourself. If, for example, you’re changing the oil seal at the back of a gearbox, you might try to save time by doing this without taking the gearbox out. But it’s always quicker to take the gearbox out. If you don’t, you end up taking the floor out and anyway, you have to take the top of the gearbox off, and the prop shaft too. So it’s best to stop and admit your mistake before you go any further and damage things.”
Charlie listened to this – it was a long speech for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni – and then looked away. He wondered if this was a random example siezed upon by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, or if he knew about the seal he had tried to install in the old rear-wheel-drive Ford. Could he have found out somehow?
In another place, Charlie has just told Mma Ramotswe of his plans to start the No. 1 Ladies Taxi Service:
For a minute or two, nobody spoke. Mma Ramotswe was aware of the sound of Charlie’s breathing, which was shallow, from excitement. We must remember, she thought, what it is like to be young and enthusiastic, to have a plan, a dream. There is always a danger that as we went on in life we forget about that; caution – even fear – replaced optimism and courage. When you were young, like Charlie, you believed that you could do anything, and, in some circumstances at least, you could. . . . .
“I will tell all my friends to use your taxi,” she said. “I am sure you will be very busy.”
And oh yes, in the midst of all this, three mysteries get solved – a case of inventory gone missing, a case of a string of inexplicable hospital deaths, and a case of a husband potentialy gone astray.
GREAT summer reading, deceptively simple. You find yourself mulling over the situations, the responses and the outcomes, and trying out new ways of thinking. Give it a try – you don’t have to read the whole series to enjoy each volume.
This eighth book in the series is available from Amazon.com for a mere $12.70. It makes great summer reading.
FBI Tries to Fight Zombie Hoards
The title got my attention. This is from BBC News and you can read the whole story here.
FBI tries to fight zombie hordes
The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals.
The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.
The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.
The agency said the zombies or bots were “a growing threat to national security”.
Signs of trouble
The FBI has been trying to tackle networks of zombies for some time as part of an initiative it has dubbed Operation Bot Roast.
This operation recently passed a significant milestone as it racked up more than one million individually identifiable computers known to be part of one bot net or another.
The law enforcement organisation said that part of the operation involved notifying people who owned PCs it knew were part of zombie or bot networks. In this way it said it expected to find more evidence of how they are being used by criminals.
“The majority of victims are not even aware that their computer has been compromised or their personal information exploited,” said James Finch, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division.
Many people fall victim by opening an attachment on an e-mail message containing a virus or by visiting a booby-trapped webpage.
Many hi-tech criminals are now trying to subvert innocent webpages to act as proxies for their malicious programs.
Many bots are used to send out junk mail or spam
Once hijacked, PCs can be used to send out spam, spread spyware or as repositories for illegal content such as pirated movies or pornography.
Those in charge of botnets, called botherders, can have tens of thousands of machines under their control.
Operation Bot Roast has resulted in the arrest of three people known to have used bot nets for criminal ends.
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