Week 17

02.25.02

Orhan Pamuk. That guy is a great novelist, of the major-cultural-figure, Nobel-Prize variety. I was reading him constantly when I was writing ZEITGEIST. "Now, as cries for an east-west war echo throughout the world, I am afraid of the world turning into a place like Turkey, governed almost permanently by martial law." Gosh, Mr Pamuk, sir, maybe the 21st century *does* look rather like Turkey.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/
story/0,1284,560193,00.html

http://www.raintaxi.com/pamuk.html

http://www.newmassmedia.com/
ls97spring/newlife.html

02.26.02

Here are some Iranian prohibition guys busting up a lot of smuggled booze. Two things kill me about these photos. (A), That awful, off-label crap that the Iranians are drinking, and (B) the fact that they gently decant it down some drain, instead of just busting all the glass bottles. I'd guess they are gonna wash them and re-use them.

http://www.iranian.com/AliKhaligh/2002/
January/Booze/index.html

02.27.02

It's very kind of those US Treasury agents to post pics of the nifty things Americans have tried to smuggle.

http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/photo/
smugshrt.htm

This handgun inside a Bible, man, that thing's hard to beat.

http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/photo/
smug1a.htm

The Teddy Bear with its guts full of cash isn't half shabby, either.

http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/photo/
smug1.htm

The New York City customs house after September 11, 2001.

http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/photo/
sept11/2n6.htm

02.28.02

Thank goodness the United States Department of Art and Technology is there to defend the public interest.

http://www.usdept-arttech.net/

03.01.02

Oh man, check that out: a lunar astronaut in a Masonic apron. I sure hope this guy's evident devotion to research leads him to enlightenment some day.

http://hardtruth.topcities.com/
planetsindex.htm

Bruce Sterling is a science-fiction writer who lives in Texas. The sun is a G-type star out towards the edge of the Milky Way.