Say. I had a nice conversation with Patrick Fitzgerald last Wednesday.
Now that I've unburied myself from the fun of verdict watch, would you all like to hear about it?
FDL reader CityGirl and I ran into Fitzgerald and his spokesperson, Randall Samborn, in the hallway of Prettyman. I introduced myself and CityGirl did the same. And then I very quickly blurted out that I went to Amherst, and had played rugby there.
A little hint to you Fitz-fans who also happen to be former Amherst rugby players: it's a topic he will engage in. I was curious, first of all, whether he had had the same coach who coached the men and women's teams when I played, Bob Hopley. Nope, apparently back in the day the rugby team was player coached. Pity for Fitz–Bob also happened to be a wine critic, which added a civilized side to captain's meetings. I made sure he knew the college team had started an alumni fundraising drive (they must have lost my address, he said sheepishly–me, I wonder whether he was simply preoccupied with something).
We talked about the character of our teams during the time we played at Amherst. In his day, the men's team was good; as it was when I played. The woman's team went from being crappy (I first played fullback and basically served as a human goalie because the rest of our defense was a sieve) to–my senior year, when I was on crutches with a knee injury–finally started beating Williams; the following year it would go Division One.
We talked about the club teams we played with after college. The nationals players we played with. Talked about our relative speed (I had it, Fitz says he didn't) and kicking ability (ditto). Though he did tell me about a Sevens tournament he played in–restricted to players over 200 pounds–where he got to do a lot of running and kicking. As Fitzgerald told it, anyway, it sounded pretty pathetic. We talked about the recent match where the Irish scored 43 points against the English. (Yup, I mentioned that, courtesy of mr. emptywheel, I am now officially an Irish former Amhest rugger.)
It was the kind of conversation old ruggers often have, reliving the fun. Only without the beer.
What's that? You're all asking when I got around to grilling Fitzgerald with all those questions I've wanted to ask him since day one? Like whether the prosecution really bought Addington and Cheney's theories of insta-declassification? Or whether Woodward and Novak came into their meetings with Armitage prepped to push him to leak Plame's identity? Or what George Tenet told him, particularly about the fights over his statement the week of the leak? Or Rove, how the hell Rove beat the rap? Or finally the details about Plame's status, Brewster and Jennings, and Judy's and Novak's use of the name, "Flame"?
Dammit. I forgot to ask. Sorry.
I guess that's why I'm a blogger and not a journalist. 
So, unfortunately here's my big scoop from my conversation with Fitzgerald: He played second row and eightman. And if you're interested, I was a natural outside center.
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Marcy!
Hello. Anyone here?
OT Martha Raddatz was on Charlie Rose last night apparently flogging a book on Iraq.
Raddatz is the one who asked Bush on February 14 about whether Iraq was in civil war. To which he replied:
She definitely has her moments but they are few. She has covered the conflict for 4 years and has been to Iraq something like 15 times. Yet she still has no coherent view of what is going on there.
She thinks that Petraeus is very deep and the best general we have, even though he (like all the generals before him) fundamentally doesn’t understand the situation in Iraq and doesn’t have the resources to confront it anyway. Pursuing a doomed strategy just doesn’t qualify someone in my book as a great anything.
Raddatz also has no idea about what is going on with the Maliki government. She thinks things are improving in Anbar although they are awful, etc.
If you haven’t sensed my level of irritation, let me tell you I am really tired of these Iraq reporters who have all of this incredible access and yet after 4 years of disaster staring them in the face can muster nothing more than a vague, inarticulate feeling that things aren’t working out there.
How’d I do, CityGirl? Hope you’re okay being mentioned?
This conversation is why you’ll be able to have other non-rugby conversations later.
Rugby? No wonder you ain’t afraid in Washbag D.C. Heh, one more reason you have TV appeal.
Well, at least you didn’t say teh swears.
Emptywheel, thank you. Hey do you think Fitz will give testimony to Waxman next Friday?
What do you think about JODI? *g*
lolo
Played Rugby once with some younger friends. Made me wish I’d discovered the game before the age of 35. I play hockey and roller hockey, which are rough in their own ways, but Rugby?- the bumper stickers are right!
Marcy, can you explain any aspects of Fitzgerald’s Libby strategy from the viewpoint of rugby experience. Maybe you did already, and I missed it.
I think Patrick Fitzgerald got his love for the game from his father F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote “The Great Rugby.”
Listen, if you do want to interview Fitz for your next book on Plamegate, you now have a connection that will get you the interview. So it’s all good!
TeddySanFran @ 6
It’s possible I did. That filter is none to highly developed in me. But I don’t remember doing so.
Or are you talking rugby chants? Now that would be a scene–chanting the Maori war chant as we waited for a verdict?
Marcy,
Are you going to go to the Waxman hearings?
You are the definition of perfection in womanhood, Ms Wheel. I hope your husband will forgive the observation.
AZ Matt @ 12
I’m working on it. Trying to pick up some other fun while I’m down there, but we shall see.
Rugby and wine? I guess that’s got something to do with Amherst. Or maybe I’m all resentful because I got waitlisted.
Are we gonna get together tomorrow? I’ve been writing out questions.
Scooter is probably a tennis player or golfer. Wells is probably the same. They weren’t ready for a rugger.
Wow! Fitz went to Amherst? Amherst is my son’s first choice for college. Now I gotta tell him to get kicking on that SAT prep.
And you didn’t flog you book to him either? I guess that means you’re a blogger rather than a self-promoting author, too. ;-)
Interesting conversation… Thanks!
Let me just say that I’m also looking forward to the possibility of watching a conversation between Congressman Waxman and Patrick Fitzgerald on CSPAN in the near future.
For all those who haven’t called Waxman’s office yet to thank him for holding hearings on the leak of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity, his office phone numbers are provided below.
Please call and say thank you!
And if you’ve already called, it never hurts to call one of his other offices and tell them thank you too!
His staffers are very friendly and enthusiastic!
Congressman Waxman
Washington, DC
(202) 225-3976 (phone)
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(323) 651-1040 (phone)
(818) 878-7400 (phone)
(310) 652-3095 (phone)
Well, Marcy, you are being too modest….Let’s just say it was Mr. Samborn who spotted Marcy and made a bee line for her to introduce Fitz to her. And let’s just say Marcy’s work was not unknown to Fitz, and you would have been very proud of her. (Should I leave it at that, Marcy?)
And, by the way, Marcy is a charmer (Fitz is too), and the conversation would have gone on longer had some interloper not come on the scene to break it up….And I didn’t wash the hand that shook Fitz’s hand the rest of the day….It was a privilege to be there with them.
jayackroyd @ 15
Oh no, the wine limited to sort of calm big picture meetings. Otherwise, it was the beer you’d expect.
You’ve got mail.
When did they start letting girls go to Amherst?
Gawd, I’m getting old.
When did they start letting girls play rugby, ferchrissake?
Don’t you have to have .. . .
Oh, never mind.
emptywheel @ 14
Well, if you need a place to stay, let us locals know. (Or is Plame House active through the month?)
thanks Marcy!
(I’ve got Zulu Warrior running thru my head now, with vivid memories!)
Marcy, it seems that institutions — like GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs and others — would want you to come in and talk with their students. Maybe if they know you’ll be in the neighborhood, they’ll extend a (paid) invite.
It can’t be said enough. Thank you for all you have done.
That try, and the commentary for it, should be familiar to anyone brought up across the pond. As will this bit of magic by Barry John.
(My college always ground to a halt on the day of the England-Wales match, with the camps gathered on either side of the TV in the common room. As an Englander with more affection for the working-class roots of Welsh rugby, I sat with the Welshies.)
Not quite a scoop, though, Marcy: when someone made a rugby analogy about Fitz running straight at the defence, I thought ‘possibly a number 8′, checked the googles, and there you go.
Prof @
22
One of my two proudest moments as a rugby captain at Amherst is when some old alum, who had played rugby at Amherst and then in the army, wrote our team a letter. He basically said he was really skeptical when he saw us practing before homecoming weekend. But then he was so amazed with our finesse with the game, he realized we were playign rugby the way it was meant to be played.
Hey you did good on Democracy Now.
When did you folk decide to use the effete (if anything about rugby is effete!) English public school (Meaning Private school) word for rugby for people who play the game? And No 8. Thank you again for putting up that fantastic try. I was at school, just, with the All Black captain and a couple of other players. That was a great tour. My father came off Guard Mounting at Edinburgh Castle to find half the All Blacks standing there along with Kirkpatrick’s headmaster.
We should tell them, Marcy, that Am Football is played with a ball our 10 year olds play with, and ours used to be non-water-proofed leather, so when you were banging off those giant spiral touch kicks and penalties and conversions from 50 yards out you were massively over-achieving your size and weight.
I love talking about 40 minutes each way (meaning each half!) with no breaks for a rest, and no pads.
Perhaps the book sales will pay for a trip down to the World Cup for you.
43-10 at Croke Park was grand, but sadly, I suspect Ireland will do more harm still to my Wee Boys this w/e.
OK Marcy, that was a good start, but you have now whetted my appetite and I want to hear more! Like what was he *really* like? Did he smile? Was he polite but distant? Did he seem nervous or was he too impenatrable to tell?
Maybe CityGirl has some impressions….(& did City Girl have a clue as to what the two of you were talking about?)
Oh yeah, what color was his tie? And what kind of shoes does he wear? :-)
egregious @ 28
Pretty amazing, considering the circumstances. LHP apparently was calling my broken phone to wake me up to make sure I made the interview.
So, yesterday I left a short little comment (my first), which I ended with the comment that I would go back to quietly lurking… That was before i realized you were a rugger Marcy. And Fitz, too? No wonder you’re both so terrific ;) Me, I played second row for a year with Pioneer Valley back in the ’80s — cross town from Amherst… And three years prior to that I was a charter member of our rugby club at a small college in WI. A great sport… Ok, I mean it this time, back to my shy retiring self…
Please post any pics you might have of Fitz in Rugby shorts.
He’s Becks with Brains!
You’re a pisser.
:)
marcy, I do believe the tall man would be more then happy to spend some time with you.
ask him, give it a go
maunga @ 29
Used to call teh football players, “Sissypads.” They were none too appreciative, but they certainly respected my tackling ability.
My in-laws were quite chuffed about Croke Park. That’s all tehy wanted to talk abotu on the last call–that and who I thought should be the Dem nominee for President.
EW, Christy, and other FDL legal beagles,
I have a procedural question regarding the upcoming Waxman hearings.
Suppose the Waxman committee uncovers illegal activity. Normally, the procedure would be for it to refer the evidence to the DOJ/Attorney General for prosecution, right?
But suppose that it is perceived that the DOJ has a conflict of interest. Can the committee refer the evidence to Patrick Fitzgerald for prosecution? After all, his appointment gives him plenary powers– he can investigate anything he wants to.
Actually, I’m presently a bit conflicted about Fitz. I have in mind that during Nixon’s second term (he was elected in a landslide, so was a popular sitting president), from the appointment of Archie Cox to Nixon’s resignation took only 16 months! Fitz was appointed more than 3 years ago. I’m tempted to view the Libby conviction as too little, too late. Why is he not pursuing the obvious trail of evidence he has accumulated? I can only suspect that he lacks confidence to take on the VEEP without help (from Congress.)
Bob in HI
“Dammit. I forgot to ask. Sorry.”
No worries. Waxman’s got your back.
Prof @ 22
By the way, it says that “women” were admitted, not “girls.” ;-)
Amherst is still majority men (52% to 48%) which makes it an outlier, as most colleges now have a majority of women. I read a prediction that within the next 20 years, the ratio nationwide may shift to 60% women.
Did you get yr phone fixed then? And is it ok what CG said about yr conversation with the great one?
Re: Samborn. Did he actually speak? I continue to think that this guy’s got one of the easiest jobs in the country.
“that and who I thought should be the Dem nominee for President.”
Well…????
Marcy – did you at least hand him a copy of your book?
Woodhall Hollow @
30
I think bc we were talking about rugby he was pretty friendly. I don’t remember his tie, shoes, etc (I only see that when I’m watching through close-circuit from the media room, apparently). I don’t think it was his seersuckery suit though. Nor his lucky blue tie, which IIRC he was wearing on verdict day.
Frank Probst @ 38
I suspect Fitzgerald is not unhappy about Waxman stepping in. He is the only Chairman in Congress who supoena powers and he is probably one of the more focus and organized people in Congress. From Fitz’s comments at the presser it sounds as if he wishes to pursue the matter farther up the chain.
dreamcatcher @ 39
Doubt it’ll ever be majority women. With Smith and Mt Holyoke that would take the male-female ratio from one of being unbelievable for men to one of outright danger (though, IMO, they were pretty close to that even in my day).
As to the women v. girls, they still had a saying when I was there (forgive me Christy–though I have no idea if anyone ever used it with you): Smithie to bed, MoHo to wed, and Amherst girls to talk to. I think they started figuring out the word woman around about my senior year.
Here you go Marcy….. the traditional haka, before they switched in the past year or so to a more blood-thirsty one. We did this one at school before games.
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Tenei te tangata puhuru huru
Nana nei i tiki mai
Whakawhiti te ra
A upa … ne! ka upa … ne!
A upane kaupane whiti te ra!
Hi !!!
I don’t know how to post the link to it live from a game, sorry, but here is where you can find it……
http://www.haka.co.nz/media/haka.mp3
Question: I am not sure I can make it tomorrow night to see Marcy et al in NYC. Does anyone know, can I pay at the door or is pre registration required? Thanks.
My daughter played rugby at Bryn Mawr. Tough, insane sport. I was proud of her.
wtlloyd @ 43
No, I’m really crappy at that. That’s why I need Jane.
THough I did send a signed copy to Tweety via Schuster, finally on teh last day.
Frank Probst @ 41
It doesn’t appear that easy to me. He has to wear two hats — as an AUSA and knowing how to deal with the media. I’m exhausted thinking about it.
Used to call teh football players, “Sissypads.” They were none too appreciative, but they certainly respected my tackling ability.
My in-laws were quite chuffed about Croke Park. That’s all tehy wanted to talk abotu on the last call–that and who I thought should be the Dem nominee for President.
Interestingly, “full kit” American football is quite popular in England as a recreational sport.
Even Oxford University has a team:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/sport…..tball.html
There are a number of “full-kit” American football amateur leagues all over the country.
I find this ironic, because, while American football is the number one spectator sport in the U.S., virtually nobody continues to play the “full kit” version after high school here. Meanwhile, in England, American football is much less popular as a spectator sport, but a higher proportion of people actually play the “full kit” version of the game.
For the sake of maintaining civil discourse, I’m not going to get into a discussion of whether rugby or American football is the tougher sport, etc.
I was in the media room. Missed the whole thing (but have been hearing about it quite a bit ever since….)
;)
Rolf Olmsted @ 5
Rolf is absolutely right. Your tactic was a very effective one for people who seek a LTR rather than a quick kiss, or kiss-off as the case may be. And my guess is, he already knew who you were. Anyone with his depth of research has to have someone (if not himself) who reads what’s being written about his work. And you have as much credibility on the subject of the Plame situation as ANYONE in the country. He probably walked away saying, “Hmm, so THAT was emptywheel. Tough, smart, AND she shows restraint. Hmm.”
emptywheel @
44
Verdict day was red, if I recall the court step presser correctly. It stood out for me, because that blue one became, (ahem!) very familiar to me.
Marcy,
I knew you were one of us, but I didn’t know you were one of US. Go Jeffs!
Pachacutec @ 54
I cede to the superior powers of observation of my shrink, then.
That’s why I need to write these things down while they’re happening, I guess.
BTW, what was it with this trial?
Now I have another proposal to write.
A’57 @ 55
Hey, cool, we show up everywhere, huh!?
Ran into my fair share of Jeffs when I was at yearlykos last year–a fair number of us in the blogosphere, as it turns out, though most of them younger than me. (’90)
OT The government continues to try to stifle scientists
Although no agenda had in fact been agreed to, the employees had been invited to discuss increased problems with polar bears in the Russian Arctic (due to global warming).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03…..ref=slogin
Too, too funny. ;-)
Wait! Did I just read that Amherst women’s rugby is Division 1 or did I misunderstand that? My daughter went to a “similar” school where the only Division One Sports were Men’s Hockey and Women’s Soccer.
Gnome de Plume @ 62
It went Div 1 in, either 91 or 92. Not sure if it still is, I’ve lost touch, but I assume so. At that point, more than 1/10 Amherst students played rugby. I think there was one more sport where amherst was Div 1, but I forget what it was–water polo or something?
Waxy’s hearings will be entertaining, and it does have a “target rich environment”. Fitz’s statement after the verdict clearly called for oversight, and the main reason we have had this go on as long as it has was because of deliberate stonewalling by the Rubber Stamp Republicans (RSRs) as demonstrated by the still-delayed Phase 2 report Sen Roberts promised two years ago.
As you might guess, I was originally a scrum half (a proud member of the Cal Bears [Guanos, keeping the first team honest]) but I’ve played everywhere in the lineup except #8. It was the only non-negotiable thing in my marriage (being the number one cause of retirement for ruggers) which is still going strong after 19 years.
Best club (all around): Escondido (we beat OMBAC while I was there as the fly half) which had their own bar. They’re North County now, and Ray’s still there too even if he spells his name wrong.
Best pitch played on: Singapore Cricket Club, firm but springy, basically miraculous in the tropics with daily thunderstorms. The Vinson Vermin (part of CVN-70) tied the ex-pats there.
Most miserable conditions: Fort Myers 7s in 105 degree temps during a thunderstorm. The soil never really sets in FL, so the dust was kicking up as we played. A close second would be getting hailed on in the Bay Area.
Pach @ 55
Yep, blue suit with a red tie. Shows up really well in Pat’s photos.
xyz @ 52
Is it a fair assumption you are in the UK? “Even Oxford University has a team” The University Match is one of the oldest rugtby fixtures, and i think the term “Blue” may have started there…..
David ehrenstein way back ….. “Becks” is an over-paid, over-hyped incompetent (Can’t shoot! Can’t pass! Can’t tackle!, to quote, I think, Bobby Charlton) at soccer.
rugger9 @ 64
I played for Berkeley for a year when I lived in the Bay Area. Though you’ll be hard-pressed to convince me that Escondido was ever good at anything! I lived in Poway in high school, you see.
I don’t know anything about Rugby except that it is an extremely tough sport. My ex used to play and he had this excellent (almost published) photo of him back in his college days going for the ball, arms outstretched, somehow suspended in mid-air with his belly about 3 inches from the ground!
You have to be pretty damned tenacious to play and that he was and still is. (And a lawyer to boot!)
O/T but great news.
Go Waxman!!
For all the latest Libby/PlameGate news, legal documents, timelines and other essential materials surrounding the Bush administration’s outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame and its politics of payback against Joseph Wilson, see:
“The CIA Leak/PlameGate Resource Center.”
Marcy
I expect a YouTube of you and Fitz singing Lord Jeffery Amherst.
bellesouth @ 69
Sweet, let’s get Poppy!!! Once we prove how much Cap covered up, it’ll make it harder to pardon Libby.
rugger9 @ 63
Did you play for Jack Clark? That man could teach more game theory in dinner speak than most coahes could impart in a full weekend clinic
At my daughter’s school, skiing and mountain biking took over her life. She was all-state everything in High School, but burned out and turned to studying and individual sports in college.
Sgt Dan @ 71
My husband will tolerate a lot of nonsense from me. But public renditions of Jeffrey Amherst is not one of them (he will, however, tolerate Victors Valiant).
maunga @ 66
I guess it’s a good thing nobody in LA pays much attention to the Galaxy.
Also the NYT has a short article on hearings today for some of the Guantanamo detainees. It came from Reuters. Apparently, Guantanamo detentions aren’t that big deal for the Gray Lady. Let the wires do it.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters…..mo.html?hp
Am I the only pup who’s never so much as dreamed of playing rugby? But I was at Amherst! Taught there, in the English department, from 1984-88, so Marcy, I must have overlapped with your time as a student there. Were you an English major? (IIRC your Ph.D. is in comp lit?) Any thoughts about your time there aside from Rugby (if there WAS anything aside from Rugby)?
I really loved my time at Amherst. Was brought in to help get a Women’s Studies curriculum off the ground–little did they know we were smuggling in queer studies too. Lots of fun. It still seems to me (what I hear from friends there) one of the very few elite schools where undergrads take their studies v. seriously and–this is a crucial thing–expect and hope to be changed by them. They were a great pleasure to teach–and there were wonderful colleagues, too.
D’you know when Fitz was there? I like picturing you both there. (Big fan, obviously. Extremely grateful for all your work.)
maunga @ 66
I spent about a year in the UK, but I’m in the U.S. now.
I think you’re right about the origins of “Blue”. Unfortunately, you can only earn it at Oxford if you play Cambridge. And last time I checked, Cambridge didn’t have an American football team. So Oxford’s American football team can’t earn its Blues.
Here’s some more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U…..rting_Blue
Eve in NYC @ 77
I’m trying to remember what your last name would be then. I took a lot of lit courses, of all sorts. Andy Parker and I stayed in touch for through my grad school career.
I guess I am too cynical to believe that there is anything that would keep this administration from doing whatever the hell it wants to. I’d like to see it though.
On topic
I don’t know if they still hold the Claydesdale 7’s (the tourney for the 200 lbrs.)
My 7’s coach(I was hooker in 7’s), Dave Martin, used to boast that during Clydesdale 7’s when all the really big guys ran down the field, the earth would shake.
harumph, Hugh @ 76.
OT–
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._0309.html
Oh, you’re a journalist all right, whether you like it or not…a journalist with a brain. You could have seized the opportunity to inundate the poor man with a bevy of questions he thinks he has already answered or already refused to answer in some regard. Or, you could have done exactly what you did and sown seeds for future conversations. Smart, my dear, very smart! Kudos!
sent this on to my daughter, a rugger at Vassar, who did her junior year at Edinburgh and played on the all-Scots women’s team.
she loved it.
Hmmm, unless Fitzgerald is subpoenaed – I don’t think he will voluntarily testify in an open hearing. I’m pretty sure he will say the legal process for Libby is still on-going, and that prevents him from commenting on the case.
xyz @ 79 Please do not tell me Oxford plays American football. — I might have to resign from the Brownies. I know a lot of Ams go there, but surely the university has not pandered to them so far as to legitimate a “game” many of us believe belongs in the Entertainment Section.
Cambridge U gives out blues to successful performers at designated games too, you know.
many of the wikipedia postings I have looked at are error-ful or deficient in information, so I do not bother any more.
Great rugby. When the Welsh were at their height.
And great blogging, Marcy. Thanks from this side of the pond for defending peoples’ freedoms everywhere.
johnSwifty @ 83
Oh, most of these, he hasn’t answered, and I doubt he has been asked…
>
So cool, Marcy. Name: Sedgwick. Andy’s a dear friend and OH BOY am I going to be on the phone to him pronto.
Maunga
Littleprop’s favorite tee shirt, now way way too small has a series of figures on it illustrating how to do the haaka.
She got it when she was a Toddler at the CanAm Tournament in Saranac Lake (a yearly family ritual for all the Prop family to this day) and willnot part with it.
The first time I ever saw the Haaka live (as opposed to videos of All Blacks games) was the National HS Finals. A Mormon HS eam from Utah called the Druids had a number of Mauri exchange students. The team did a wonderful job had the whole place cheering
maunga @ 29
Greetings from the Great White North.
Mr Bionic is a fifth generation Kiwi and always roots for the All Blacks in any sport they appear in. When any tournament is going on he sports red socks.
OT but I really love this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..rification
emptywheel @ 89
Regardless, your foundation has been laid. He won’t run when he sees you coming and might actually make time for an old hooker.
Here’s hoping you get your opportunity, soon, or later (raises glass of tart cherry juice and dribbles noisily down chin). I know the view to the process offered by answers to your questions could only be interesting in the extreme!
looseheadprop @ 90
When I lived in SLC and was interviewing at mostly-Mormon companies, they were (to say the least) taken aback that I played rugby. They said, the only people who play rugby in this state are the Tongans [South Pacificans heavily prosyletized by the Mormons] and I don’t think they’d let you play. I can imagine they’d do the Haka.
maunga @ 87
Maunga, I am exceedingly happy to inform you that, yes, Oxford University does have an American football team! My understanding is that they usually have a lot of former rugby players on the team.
It usually takes those ruggers a while to toughen up, but eventually some of them can become decent American football players.
http://www.theoxfordcavaliers.com/
Bionic @ 92 — a spot north of me…… I was on biz afew years ago at Poxwoods with a Passamaquoddy, a cool Reservation Police Officer.
Do I detect Mr Bionic has Welsh antecedants….. remebering 1905, I hope he keeps that quiet….. me too, but the first, Dammit, in 1840-odd was a Meenister in Geelong, before he went to Dunedin.
litigatormom has a post over at DKos about her adventures of trying to ask David Broder questions.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..2119/95338
Bionic @ 91
LOL. mr. emptywheel is, of course, Irish. We went to a wedding in Toronto a few years back and his lads made him wear a kilt (OMIGAWD does he look fine in a kilt!!! Jeebus!) Anyway, since he was the most Irish of the Celtic boys at the wedding (I think 8 wore kilts, but he looked far and away the best), he wanted to get green socks to wear, instead of the white ones that go with the kilts. We know where the rugby club is in town (have player ultimate there several times), but for the life of us we couldn’t find the green socks.
To think I turned down an acceptance from Amherst in favor of Bates.
Eve in NYC – I knew who you were as soon as you said you snuck queer studies into Amherst in the ’80’s. I loved your work in my second round of grad school in the ’90’s.
Oh Marcy, why and how did poor Mr Wheel feel about being made to dress up as a Scotsman. The only irish to wear kilts legitimately are the Irish guards and the Royal Ulster Rifles — saffron-coloured ones.
emptywheel @ 93
You know, now that you mention it, the Druid’s exchange students may have been from Tonga. That rings a bell.
Prof @
22
In the Midwest women’s rugby clubs at small colleges (like the one I went to) started in the late ’70s early ’80s — we started ours in 1981. I think the bigger universities had women’s clubs that started earlier. I hope so, ’cause they routinely whupped us and I like to assume that was due to experience :)
Interestingly, American women took to the sport earlier than women abroad, including England. In the mid-80’s Beantown Women’s Rugby Club had a tour over in England. I was told that several of the matches turned into clinics because the clubs over there were far less experienced.
Oh, and one other thing, as I pointed out to a male friend years ago, from a certain point of view, women are better equipped to play contact sports without protective gear than men ;) So no, I don’t think you have to have…
emptywheel @ 97
http://www.rugbyimports.com/
You can order the socks off the web
Gnome de Plume @ 100
Hey, Gnome, thanks! (Big queer grin)
Eve in NYC @ 90
The Eve Sedgwick? I am such a HUGE fan of your work!!!!! Wow.
maunga @ 101
Um, he’s pretty tight with these lads, having been recruited with them fresh out of college to go live in Japan for five years. Several of them have family kilts for special occasions. There were a few Irish of Scottish decent, too. He was the outlier, but lads are lads.
Besides, at this point, the next chance he gets to wear a kilt, I will be sure to, um, encourage him.
AZ Matt @ 98
I think what litigatormom experience in that intervening ten minutes is what would be called “a fix.” Either Mr. Broder shot up, or got a nice kool-aid enema in the interim. It sounds like reality was dangerously close to leaking out, in any regard. Nice try litigatormom!
phred @ 102
Did you ever play Beantown? Sheeez they are fit strong woman. They had A, B, &C sides and thier C side could beat most of the Met Union senior women’s clubs.
I’ve played them, and I’ve reffed them, but never once have I ever kept up with them.
Didn’t you ask him what was in that Starbucks cup every morning? You can always tell a person’s character by what s/he downs in the AM. Me, I’m a wuss. Make mine a venti white chocolate mocha with nutmeg. I’ll bet he drinks it black, hot.
marcy,
your story has recalls hunter thompson’s legendary chat with nixon.
nixon was tired from campaigning in new hampshire, and pat buchanan, then his speechwriter, went looking for thompson to talk with him as the campaign limo cruised the back roads of new hampshire late one night. the deal: you talk only about college football.
nixon was a fan, and thompson the only member of the press corps knowledgeable enough to discuss it with him.
anyway, like others have noted, it was right not to discuss the case. amherst rugby, very bonding.
p.s. did you ever play ultimate?
Eve in NYC @ 89
I remember now. I took Andy’s theory class and some lit classes with the old white men.
Fitz, btw, graduated in ‘82.
Queen Salote ran Tonga when my parents were there; she was about 6′ 4″ and weighed about 300lbs. Her son Tungi, who croaked only last year was half as big again. Tongans are large……. they only perhaps would do a haka, and then prob. having spent time in NZ. I have forgotten what their dances look like, but I am not sure the guys do them.
Jonah Lomu, that fella Marcy ran fast to escape a couple of days ago, is Tongan — about 300lbs and about 10 seconds for a 100 yards!.
This is too much fun! Fans running into heroes, making new friends, etc. You wonder who all else is out there writing under a pseudonym.
looseheadprop @ 105
You can also order kilts; though, if you have any Scottish heritage, you’ll probably want to hold out for the particular plaid of your clan.
emptywheel @ 106
Back when I work for a snooty firm on Park Ave, there used to be a banker in the building around the block from us and he and I were both late lunchers so Iwould often see him on the street. ALways impeccibly turned out in a kilt and Blazer. He wore a kilt to work every day of the year. Had the grey hair and beard to go with it. Perfect military posture.
He was quite imposing
dmg @ 111
Of course–the natural career track, no?
I started ultimate on pickup in SLC. But really got started here in MI. mr. emptywheel and I got together by starting a co-ed team. And the year I did cancer treatment, I practiced with Clutch. Not that I could keep up, after 6 mos. of chemo and radiation. But it was good fun.
Hmm.. this is very interesting. I actually went to college w/ Peter Zeidenberg (the associate attorney who did a lot of work on the Libby case with Fitzgerald) back in the day, and he was a rugby player too! Maybe there’s something in that crazy game that gives people a passion for justice? Who knew!
Kilts are wondrously good looking on men. All my lads have them for state occasions and youngest son was married in his, at the insistence of his bride, in Brazil.
SIX!! SIX NEWSPAPERS THAT HAVE DROPPED ANN COULTER!! MWAA-HAA-HAA-HAAAAA!!
[/The Count]
TRex @ 119
Are you gloating?
OT – Chimpy/Pres Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva presser in Brazil on CNN
also, marcy, i must say i find it a bit alarming how your itinerary has dovetailed with mine. from berkeley to escondido to slc.
my stops, though, were all earlier than yours. except for north county. you say you grew up there? i lived in cardiff for a glorious summer ‘80.
maunga @ 97
Mr Bionic’s ancestors came from Wiltshire. His family started and ran a well known farm implements company in NZ from 1851 or 2.
I have 2nd cousins who settled in Dunedin, but Mr B grew up outside of Christchurch. (On the mainland as they would say ;o)
emptywheel @ 50
I finally figured out how to watch Tweety on the MSNBC website and I think it is pretty clear that he sped-read it.
looseheadprop @
110
Yep, Pioneer Valley (loosely the UMass-Amherst team, but technically not affiliated with the school) routinely played Beantown (and typically lost spectacularly). Of course, that could have been due to our coaches being Beantown players themselves — they probably told ‘em all about our strategy ;) I am proud of the fact that a couple of our players were good enough to join several of theirs on the New England Select Side. Alas, I was not that good myself…
From the sidelines though, Beantown was phenomenal to watch!
Eve in NYC @ 90
OMG. Sorry to go all fangirlish on you, but it’s very cool to see you here at the Lake!
AZ Matt @ 122
What? I would never do any such thing. I’m simply reporting the news in an unbiased, Fair and Balanced fashion.
TexasEllen @ 119
Two of the lads who were at the wedding in Toronto wore theirs to a wedding we attended in Maringa Brazil. Made quite a scene, in Brazil, it did.
rbb @ 117
Someone in my old referees society once described rugby as playing chess while sprinting. I used to have some involvement with my rugby union’s administration, so we had all sorts of demographic info to give to sponsors and such. It seems rugby players are disproprtionaly well educated and service oriented.
many in professions, many who use their professional skills to “give back” (think doctors w/o borders, Peace Corp, etc) It was a nice factoid to learn
TRex @ 127
That is what I thought.
TexasEllen @ 118
I too am part of the kilts are a total turn on club. (blushing)
emptywheel @ 118
oh heck, you’re impossibly cool. i helped to start the team at penn, played with the flying circus in berkeley, and then the champion deseret disc in slc.
i still play pickup games; did so this morning.
am thinking of approaching my daughter’s high school phys ed people about starting and coaching a team.
dmg @ 123
Briefly passed through there. My folks lived in CowPie from 84-92 or so. But I was only there from 84-86. My bros both lived in the beach cities for a year or three–Cardiff and DelMar–though later.
Well, I am too old for women’s rugby, but I did play field hockey in HS. Not quite as rough, but could be vicious in its own way and it was also like chess played on grass. And we got to wear kilts.
So Samborn, Who’s job it is to make sure Fitz says even less publically than he would under normal circumstances dragged Fitz over to meet Marcy! Which must mean they’ve read your work and value it’s insights and no doubt wonder how you’ve been able to come to the accurate conclusions you have with less information than they have reviewed. I’m way impressed! And jealous
lhp
I have no beard, but am seen kilted at least half the time between 17Deg and 75deg. The guys might not understand why no skirting under 17Deg, but you ladies will, even tho’ it is nearly the whole 9 yards of 23oz. wool.
Bionic —- you aint married to a Tom something (in case you want to be anonymous as contentious folk like me try to be), whose father was an ambassador, and his mother american, are you, in which case I know him.
looseheadprop @ 133
I too am part of the kilts are a total turn on club. (blushing)
Yep. Me too.
2strange @ 137
Yeah, I’m thinking Samborn was told at some point to arrange an introduction if the opportunity arose…
emptywheel @ 118
I started ultimate on pickup in SLC. But really got started here in MI. mr. emptywheel and I got together by starting a co-ed team. And the year I did cancer treatment, I practiced with Clutch. Not that I could keep up, after 6 mos. of chemo and radiation. But it was good fun.
I have a love/hate relationship with ultimate – lots of fun, great exercise. When I was getting my MBA at UCLA in the mid-80’s, I played ultimate for the school team in the annual west-coast business schools’ Challenge for Charity, and I never escaped unscathed. Knees, fingers – it was ugly. Some sports simply disagree with me…
emptywheel @ 99
I have to say that due to my own Scottish and Irish roots (though I am a GT Britain mutt) I do love a man in a kilt.
The only place I can think of where you might have gotten them is from The Irish Shoppe (why didn’t you think of that? ;o) and I expect that if you couldn’t get them there, Mr emptywheel could probably have charmed them into tracking them down. lol
But before we get too chummy, I should also let you know that one of Mr Bionic’s ancestors was King Billy’s Minister of War, William Blaythwayte (sp).
Through that family connection, when Mr B’s family moved to England in the 50s, they took the kids to see the Canon of Westminster. Little Mr B was all prepared for guns and instead found an old cousin. He was thoroughly confused and disappointed. But it turned out well as they got a tour of the catacombs under Westminster.
Good God, Gag me with a bulldozer.
Someone needs to explain to me in great detail why;
He is still on the payroll,
He still has a security clearance
He is not rotting in jail as I type.
Rove: Next President will embrace ‘Bush Doctrine’
Michael Roston
Published: Friday March 9, 2007
Print This Email This
Karl Rove predicted in a Washington Post article today that future Presidents of the United States will embrace President George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemptive war. The statement came when the top White House adviser was asked what the 43rd president’s legacy would be.
Michael Abramowitz reported today on the various activities Karl Rove has engaged in to promote the president’s legacy. Although he has said there is an attitude of “Why worry about it?” in the White House, Abramowitz points to Rove’s efforts “to put his own distinctive spin on current events and the longer historical view.”
snip
The so-called Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, Rove said, “has a logic of force and nature and reality that will cause people to examine it, adjust it, test it, resist it — but ultimately embrace it.”
snip
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._0309.html
Woodhall Hollow – we must be of the same generation. Soccer came to my HS the last year or two I was there. I loved it. The young children in my family – nieces, nephews, stepgrandchildren are always amazed that I can dribble past them, stop kicks and beat them down the field.
Wow. The Try. Something I never thought I’d see here. Still brings a lump to my throat, 30 years later.
Fitz!
Mutant Poodle @ 140
I have a love/hate relationship with ultimate – lots of fun, great exercise. When I was getting my MBA at UCLA in the mid-80’s, I played ultimate for the school team in the annual west-coast business schools’ Challenge for Charity, and I never escaped unscathed. Knees, fingers – it was ugly. Some sports simply disagree with me…
I had to give up after my back gave out–I’d spend two days in bed after a tournament (though I still try to go to Gender Blender and Mars and play my 10 points over the course of teh weekend. It’s a pity–I miss it. And I’d be perfectly prepared to play Women’s masters.
TRex
Good Morning. He does not need outing as to his affiliation, but he most certainly does as to truly horrendous Neocon Fascist nastiness, and that is the deiverer of B. Netanyahu’s success in Israel, ring-leading the demonizing of the word ‘liberal’, general insider and V hush-hush Cheney/Bush et al advisor, Arthur Finkelstein. Does anyone know why A Finkelstein is spending so much time trotting back and forth to Albania purportedly on Administration or perhaps Rep Party biz?
Back to BS for a moment, Mr. Rove thinks future presidents will thank George for his preemptive war doctrine.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..84_pf.html
Well, I guess we know now where the bulldog tenacity of both Marcy and Fitz originates. Rugby is not for the weak in spirit.
Anyhoo, here is a recommendation for reading. I read a lot of John Buchan in my youth, and his description of a rugby game with the famous Gorbals Die-Hards characters is one of the best bits of sports writing I know. Buchan is worth a read for anyone interested in who wrote the best spy stories before Le Carre. (The book “The 39 Steps” is far better than the putrid movie versions.) But, Gutenberg has put a lot of it online and the rugby game is here
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301341h.html#c01
Sorry it’s about the Scots and not the Irish, but….
Eve Sedgewick at 90: one of America’s greatest literary critics. Love your work and I hope you are well and fully recovered from your illness.
Just one last observation on women’s rugby for those of you still scratching your heads about it… Football was (and is) huge in Wisconsin, and back when I was a kid, girls weren’t allowed to play. So when we had a chance to play rugby in college, we jumped at the opportunity to go crashing around on a field, just like the guys. It was great fun. Ok, I gotta go back to work. It was fun chatting with you folks, I’ll have to do it again sometime… :) Thanks!
TexasEllen @ 120
Especially if they have nice, muscular knees, which every good ruddy Scotsman has! And soccer and rugby players, oh mama!
you went to Amherst?! so did i. the day that i read that Fitzgerald was also an Amherst grad was my proudest moment as an Amherst Alum.
I think we tried the Irish shoppe to no avail.
And actually, I tease mr. emptywheel that my family came to the US from Ireland more distantly than his family came to Ireland from Normandy. So I’m really more Irish than he. Kind of.
Bustednuckles @
143
Just remember that Rove’s last set of predictions didn’t turn out all that well for him back last November. “Trust me, the numbers are there! We’ll win!”
Mutant Poodle @ 141
I have a love/hate relationship with ultimate – lots of fun, great exercise. When I was getting my MBA at UCLA in the mid-80’s, I played ultimate for the school team in the annual west-coast business schools’ Challenge for Charity, and I never escaped unscathed. Knees, fingers – it was ugly. Some sports simply disagree with me…
merely means you’re doing it right.
my knees look like something out of a school playground. gravel.
Ok, you should have your Pulitzer revoked for that oversight.
*sigh*
I suppose smoke got in your eyes.
twolf1 @ 123
NPR said there were many anti-imperialist Bush protesters and many cops beating and arresting protesters.
Bush wants Lula to mow down more rainforest to plant more plants to produce more ethanol so Lula don’t hafta buy gas from Chavez. See, cuz we don’t like Chavez. Get it?
NPR reports this sh*t with a straight face.
National Geographic Mag has a big feauture on rainforests this month. Its not good news. We are eating our planet and we are killing it so Bush’s rich friends can get richer.
Dubya sez in the future, we’ll all be dead. He’s all about speeding up that prospect for profit.
Chavez is sponsoring some anti-chimp demonstrations in Brazil too.
Yes I recognize that logic. It is the same logic of the nuclear build up to the cold war. I think Carl Sagan characterized that logic as, “Two people standing up to their waists in a room full of gasoline and hoarding matches.”
Rove is an idiot…a dangerous calculating and occasionally very luck idiot, but an idiot non the less. Is it any surprise to find that “Bush’s Brain,” does not posses good logic skills?
AZ Matt,
Great minds and all……
emptywheel @
72
It also will show just how stupid it was to go after Sandy Berger for making copies of his own damn notes.
It really is morning in America — the sunshine is streaming through the windows!
emptywheel @ 146
My worst frisbee injury was in college, just playing catch with a friend at midnight on the Brown University main green, freshly adorned with tall black iron poles during senior week on which lights were later (and the key word here is later) strung. My friend threw one over my head, and I ran full speed (fortunately, my full speed doesn’t scare anyone) into one of said poles, and was down for the count. Went to the campus dance with a spiffy suit and a big shiner, but wasn’t able to work the sympathy angle nearly well enough. :-(
Eugenics is alive and well with the God-Fearing. Via The Raw Story:
http://rawstory.com/showarticl…..-original/
Bionic the Dean of Westminster for the coronation in 1953 was a Kiwi named Don; i sat next to his nephew Malcolm Don all that year at school. Perhaps that’s the man you saw before promotion, perhaps, to Dean.
Thank you ladies, for the kilt approbation. I must be just too old and wizened, ‘cos here in boston I do not seem to get killed in any rush in either kilt, not even by the older ones…………
kristinejoy @ 107
Well… definitely AN Eve Sedgwick, anyhow. So glad to meet here!
Bustednuckles @ 158
Ahh! So true!
maunga @ 147
Wow, I had no idea there was a Finkelsteinologist in the house besides me. That guy is the Rosetta Stone of modern fascism.
If he is spending time in Albania its because that is a route through which to easily contact The Friend Who Shall Remain Nameless That Everyone Knows who was so helpful there in 97-00. A lot of his folks were very active there with the Kosovars during the Clinton years, and Finkelstein spent time there in those years. Guaranteed something big is afoot for this year if he’s back in that part of the world. Better duck!
Eve in NYC @ 163
Ya, and you are in Wikipedia too!
heck, i’ve played in a GRANDmaster’s tournament two years in a row. (i’d say running, but the prize was, like, a choice between a chair and and a walker.)
come back baby, disc never forgets. or forgives, but who cares?
headed out, once again inspired by your posts.
maunga @ 138
Nope. Andrews. I’m only semi anonymous. Mr. B’s father was one of several boys in the family. The older brother Tom ran the family firm and my fil became a doctor. They left NZ when he decided to become a psychiatrist and they didn’t offer it in NZ, so they ended up in England.
They got to Canada when Saskachewan had some interesting advanced program in the 60s which attracted psychs from all over the world. But when the government changed they closed down the facilty which ended up bringing Mr B’s family into geographic proximity to mine.
Funny how that goes, eh?
Gnome de Plume @ 144
I went to a small Vermont High School that could not afford football, so soccer was it. Girls didn’t though, just Field Hockey and basketball (I graduated in ‘74). I used to play around with my little brother and am a pretty good dribbler to this day, if I may say so myself!
The Nefarious Leslie @ 128
Nefarious, it’s fair enough–I feel like
a total fangirl the whole time I’m reading FDL, don’t you?
dmg @ 156
merely means you’re doing it right.
my knees look like something out of a school playground. gravel.
My knees each have raspberry scars from dopey bike accidents – I completed two Califronia Aids rides, many centuries, and many many individual rides through the Santa Monica Mountains, barrelling down canyon roads at 40-50mph, all injury-free, yet taking a corner at 8 mph on a rental bike on Martha’s Vineyard did me in – scraped the top epidermal layer from my left knee and shin. But I still do love the downhills…
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @ 167
I try not to cuss on-line, but this creature is f-ing dangerous, possibly the most, hein!
I tried seeing if someone on the feeble Drum was interested in him, but they would not even use his name. Perhaps they are wise and we are bloody fools.
Marcy, didn’t you mention my offer to have Fitz’s baby?
Eve in NY is Eve Sedgewick???? Who would’ve thunk it? Far-f*cking-out!
Bob @ 37
1. No, the committee cannot refer to Fitzgerald for prosecution. His jurisdiction is crimes committed in No. Dist IL
2. It’s hard to dispel this, but his appointment did not give him plenary powers to investigate anything he wants. His filings and Judge Walton’s decision in the Libby case re: unconstitutional appointment/advice and consent, make it clear that he has a very narrow mandate – the specific leak of classified information that Ashcroft recused on and any perjury/obstruction resulting from the investigation of that leak. If he had discovered that, prior to the leak, Rove and Hadley took muletrain’s worth of classified info and gave them to AIPAC, FITZGERALD, as Special Prosecutor, could not have pressed charges. He could tell Gonzales, but Fitzgerald was appointed for a very narrow, special investigation.
BTW – it was a pretty short time between the Libby filings where the Spec Pros acknowledged he could be removed at will and the word that Rove would not be charged. I know at the time everyone here said that no one would take the case away from Fitzgerald, but in light of the USAtty firings, you wonder a little bit. It sure would be nice if Waxman remembered to ask for the letter to Rove that Luskin has never produced. Even a redacted version – if there is anything to redact, that itself would be pretty interesting to know.
And I’m really hoping Waxman doesn’t limit to the Plame issue and gets right into the NIE. He needs to call Miller and have her explain whether she thought she was being leaked classified information, or being delegated the authority to declassify info as she saw fit by publication, or whether she realized all along she was planting propaganda.
Woodhall Hollow @
176
Any relation to Edie Sedgewick of Dylan and Warhol fame?
AZ Matt @ 163
I don’t get it. I thought homosexuality was a life style choice?
maunga @ 174
I identified him as such in 96 when I kept coming across his fingerprints in the Netanyahu campaign that year. I’ve been watching him ever since and everytime I get a line on his whereabouts its about two or three months before something pops off in whatever area of the world he is in.
Perhaps we are fools for observing the devil incarnate. Its like watching a real life Damian from The Omen.
litigatormom @ 178
These folks aren’t called anti-choice for nothing.
litigatormom @ 178
It sounds like they are straying dangerously close to the theory of evolution!
dreamcatcher @ 17
I’m taking my daughter to visit Amherst in a couple of weeks. When I tell her that both Marcy AND Fitz went there, she’ll be even more excited!!!
johnSwifty @ 159
“The nuclear arms race is like two men sitting in a pool of gasoline.
One man has seven matches.
The other has only five.”
Not sure if that’s Sagan I’m quoting or someone else, but it was the best description I ever came across.
AZ Matt @
163
Wow. Shouldn’t they punt on manipulating DNA in utero and instead try turning on the brains of Southern Baptist adults? Failing that, could they maybe switch on their compassion circuitry?
I wonder what your average Southern Baptist thinks of this. Do they buy into this thinking, or is this just something the church leadership wants them to believe?
CityGirl @ 20
Good – so Fitz is aware of Marcy’s book?
Someone suggested a while ago that the Wilson’s would be well served to hire Marcy for their team in the upcoming civil trial. I would like to second that suggestion.
Also, I hope FDL will help promote fundraising to help the Wilson’s pay for the civil suit. Imagine all the information that will come out of that trial.
For those who have never seen the Amherst Campus, one has to think about what a leap it must’ve been for the young Fitz to go there from Flatbush Brooklyn. I am serious.
Eve in NYC @
90
Eve, I taught at Hamilton College for a year, not too long after you left, I believe. You were very fondly remembered there in the early 90s by our mutual landlords (or so I seem to recall), Austin and Bunny. Believe I also missed your Duke years when I came to North Carolina. Nice to meet up with you here.
Woodhall Hollow @ 187
I’ve never seen Amherst. One of those “more trees than people” sort of places?
litigatormom @ 175
Sorry, I screwed it up a little. I said, “litigatormom wants to get your goat.” I was close, though.
litigatormom @ 183
Oh, cool, the one I met. If I can recommend her in any sense, I’d be happy to do it. DOn’t know how, though…
LBrowne @ 188
Yep, very leafy and gentile. Gorgeous old houses/halls impeccably preserved. And WASPY and quiet.
Ed*ard Teller @
8
We already know Fitz has leather balls, so you can scratch that question.
ummmmm…..chicks play rugby????? I never KNEW that! Cool. Guess I need to get out more often!
David Ehrenstein @
33
David, that comment made my day. And even better coming from you.
Woodhollow – Mass. medium sized high school ‘71. I only played field hockey in P.E. Our girls hockey team was too tough and mean for me, even though I could outrun them at track.
amazona @ 150
Amazona, another reader! Wow! Thank you so much. The health thing is a bit weird: some folks are living a lot longer these days with metastatic cancer, and I’m a poster child for that (11 years and counting). Quite amazing. At the stage I’m at, most of the time it’s not like being sick, but not really like being healthy, either. As the Tibetans would say–it’s a bardo. Quite interesting actually.
The actual technical term for a slow-progressing cancer is indolent. Loving that–been indolent all my life, sure as hell not gonna stop now.
Marcy,
You have such nice TEETH! Are they REAL??
talesoftwokitties @ 198
Why don’t you tell her where you are and find out the hard way? /snark
Woodhall Hollow @ 192
I wouldn’t say it was impeccably preserved, but it is VERY WASPY. I remember my Freshman year not realizing what a friend meant when he said he had to go to a board meeting. But he meant he had to go to a corporate board meeting.
I got in trouble, lots, for not being ladylike enough for the older folks who would come through. And I, at least, had attended a school in a town where most of my peers had gone to cotillion dance lessons from childhood (WTF is cotillion dance lessons, I asked?).
Eve in NYC @ 172
Eve, I cannot imagine what the last two years would have been like without FDL, and its tireless attention to the things that matter. Like rugby conversations with Fitz. ;) But seriously, I’m very grateful for the way the Lake has been both a refuge and an inspiration for so many people.
Woodhall Hollow @ 192
And NO GREEK LIFE (meaning no frats and sororities)!
The Nefarious Leslie @ 184
Yeppers, wiki at your own risk, but after perusing billions and billions of quotes to describe the insanity of the cold war, this is by far the best ever!
Rove’s insanity is really quite mundane by comparison. He simply views himself as important — simple narcissism, really — and America has been unlucky enough that he was able to convince an addle brained coke head with connections of that fact, too.
LBrowne @ 199
ummm – this is a RUGBY thread, right? /joke
Donita thread upstairs.
Sharoney @ 193
Yep, THAT’s today’s tee shirt quote
johnSwifty @
159
Isn’t it also basically the same logic that Napoleon and Hitler used?
Bob in HI
OT from the Department of WTF: Tom DeLay Becoming CNN Commentator
-via ThinkProgress
maunga @ 164
He wasn’t the Dean, but a canon, ergo Mr. B’s confused excitement. He was expecting cannons not a moldly old cousin. And the man’s name was Winter not Don.
It’s like the time I went to the Queen’s collection of DaVinci cartoons. I was 13 and I didn’t find them at all funny.
Blue Dido @ 188
Eve, I taught at Hamilton College for a year, not too long after you left, I believe. You were very fondly remembered there in the early 90s by our mutual landlords (or so I seem to recall), Austin and Bunny. Believe I also missed your Duke years when I came to North Carolina. Nice to meet up with you here.
Blue Dido, let me guess, Classics? What fun to “meet” people without knowing their names–like a masked ball.
Gosh, I remember Hamilton friends extremely fondly–but not Hamilton itself. I hope it was a lot more congenial by the time you got there.
Quite a thread.
Fantastic academic celebrity delurk, or whatever you want to call it. I think EveinNYC came to Berkeley right after I bailed out as a grad student there. I thought it might be her when she threw out the “sneaking in queer studies” line–great stuff.
Trying to figure out the details on emptywheel that are missing for the biography at this point. There are so many great writers around here: can’t we get brief but elegant biographical essays about our new media heroes? The UCLA MBA and jobs in SLC and MI could use some further clarification. Eating swordfish after the empty Plamehouse fridge is an interesting choice. Really sad to hear about another cancer treatment subject. Makes you all stronger I suppose.
I’m another dad who is taking an overachieving daughter to Amherst on the spring tour in a couple of weeks. Sadly she doesn’t seem like a future rugby player, not so athletic but she’ll give anything a try.
Somehow my pastimes of basketball, surfing, and skiing don’t seem rugged enough for this thread. Fair bit of mountaineering is all I’ve got to hold on to.
dreamcatcher @ 202
Actually, they had off-campus fraternities (and one co-ed fraternity). Which pretty much means much the same.
bionic @ 209
Up there, somewhere around Ellsworth and then later on nearer the sea…. was a car with the number NZME for many years. You? Or perhaps someone called Tom Mason……
Bob Schacht @ 207
Oh, I’d agree with you and I’d add Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Gingis Kahn, Attila the Hun…all the conquerers of history (or that one Star Trek episode where all Kirk got was a lousy version of Lincoln).
But, I know the perverse retort by those who buy the twisted logic of the “preemptive war” is not to conquer, but only to prevent war. So, it’s ok to make war and kill people because we don’t want your land, you see, we just want the war, in order to not have war (but really because we have to do something with all these missiles otherwise we can’t get another defense contract to make more).
But the insanity of the statement, “We need to make war in order to prevent war,” really shouldn’t need to be pointed out. Unfortunately for the world, most of America stops watching the WWF only long enough to agree with this idiocy.
twolf1 @ 208
WTF is right!
From your link:
Will they still keep him commenting from a jail cell?
I am so glad our cable provider dropped CNNHN for BBC World. I used to watch CNN constantly. Now there has to be a reason why I turn it on. Like waiting on the werdict when I knew FDL would get slammed. If not for that I wouldn’t have bothered.
Anyone else here hear Jeffery Toobin say something along the lines that having her covert status betrayed has “worked out well” for Joe and Valerie? Channel Barbara Bush much?
He couldn’t understand what sort of damages they might be entitled to, nor did he mention their plans to donate whatever damages they got to charity.
Eve at 196, thank you for your many insights and am happy to hear you are moving along there, what with the bardo. I once received a major insight into my own psyche after reading your memoir (had “Love” in the title, late fifties here, can’t remember anything)where you interfaced your thoughts with your psychoanalysts’.
maunga @ 213
Not me and sorry but I can’t decipher the cryptic comment. I’m not anyone mysterious in disguise.
twolf1 @ 208
He should be bogged down in litigation. Right Wing perspective has nearly saturated teevee and radio programming. This news makes the stomach turn. The man is a criminal.
amazona @ 216
Amazona, now that we’re in EPU-land (now there’s a bardo!) . . . really glad you grooved on “Dialogue on Love.” PS I’m late 50s myself, plus chemobrain (plus crappy memory to start with). Aren’t we glad we have good imaginations??
Eve in NYC @ 218
Oh nobly born…(one translation) I weep everytime I read those words.
Bionic @ 217
They didn’t rebuild you? They didn’t make you better than you were before…better, stronger, faster? I’m disappointed.
twolf1 @ 208
Couldn’t Ted Turner buy CNN back? Maybe if he and Jane combined their fortunes?
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @
167
That sounds interesting, but I don’t completely follow. Would it be possibe to elaborate?
Thanks!
Sweet. That was a pearler of a try in the youtube, though I am rather fond of this little video. http://youtube.com/watch?v=PN9VUStB6zM
I actually am covered in bruises from a select side tryout this past weekend. Luckily, I made the team and will be traveling to Utah later this month :)
As a Vassar Rugby alumni I salute you emptywheel. Did you do the Haka or just the chant?
Eve in NYC @
210
Blue Dido, let me guess, Classics? What fun to “meet” people without knowing their names–like a masked ball.
Gosh, I remember Hamilton friends extremely fondly–but not Hamilton itself. I hope it was a lot more congenial by the time you got there.
>>
Classics: that’s right (I’m so obvious). That department had completely changed by the time I got there, and was very lively. I have the same recollection of Hamilton that you describe. I’m still in touch with my dear friends from there, but I wouldn’t want to go back. It was the polar opposite of everything I had known growing up in the SF Bay Area. And I won’t even talk about the endless snow….
I know most everyone has moved on. I need to get to my work, too, But I just wanted to say that this thread is a perfect example of the reason I love FDL. Such intelligent and fun conversation with surprise guests all around. It is like one of those “what would be your dream dinner party?” questions, but with no control. It was great to meet you Eve, and good luck with your chemo. My life centers around my partner’s cancer, so I know some of the challenges.
Mary4 @
177
Thanks for your reply!
I was thinking about his office as special prosecutor, which he still has, even if it is “inactive.”
My authority on this is an article written several years ago by Marcia Macmullan, “Synopsis of Article on Why They Can’t Fire Fitzgerald” (August 13, 2005) for the Yurica Report, which includes this quote, ending with a quote within the quote:
Fitzgerald was empowered by Comey with unilateral authority to "expand" his jurisdiction and "pursue it wherever he wants to pursue it." ...The Government Accounting Office, (GAO) concurring in Comey's explanation that Fitzgerald has full authority to act independently, without obtaining permission from the AG. The GAO stated:"Thus, Special Counsel Fitzgerald need not follow the Department's practices and procedures if they would subject him to the approval of an officer or employee of the Department..". . . Not only was it Comey’s intention to prepare Fitzgerald for the coming assault on his legally mandated plenary authority by vesting him with complete autonomous rule, but the GAO, through their approval of “permanent indefinite appropriations” to perpetually fund Fitzgerald’s office, at the request of the Justice Department, has made a strong legal argument, in Decision B-302582, that Fitzgerald has all of the protections and authority normally granted to an independent prosecutor under the expired independent counsel law….
Consequently, I don’t understand the basis for your further comments, which seem to relate specifically to the Libby indictment, and not to the full range of Fitzgerald’s authority:
I believe that this is contradicted by Comey’s clarification of Fitzgerald’s authority, and the GAO’s certification of the clarification.
Yes, but wouldn’t that open wide the door to a “Saturday Night Massacre” type scenario that would create a public uproar, as it did when Nixon fired Archie Cox?
Agreed on both counts!
Bob in HI
*xyz at 52
That appears not to be Oxford University, but Oxford Brookes University, which is a different (and less prestigious) institution – known locally as ‘Oxford B’
juls @ 224 Except that all but one, I think, are not real rugby but the screwed up version called Rugby League, something more akin to Australian rules and American Football
Kirk Murphy @ 223
You might get an answer from FiniFiniTOOBZ on the new thread
maunga @ 230
thanks!
and thanks for reminding me of the rugby lovin’ culture I encountered in Fiji and the Cooks.
Kia Orana!
Tape of Padilla interrogation is missing
argonaut @149
THANK YOU!!!!!
twolf1 @ 232
&^$#@
These monsters will do anything to hide the truth!
kirk murphy #223- Glad you asked about that comment. I hope they will come back and respond. Generally “he who must not be named” around late nite is this guy. Today is the first I have heard of Arthur Finkelstein. His wiki is a bit odd in that only one photo of this well greased political operative exists. I don’t quite get the comments above either. Are one or both of these characters in Albania and why.
Before I do a bit more digging, I’ll bet we can ask Fini during late night.
These darned old internets are going to make tin foil hats into the new wing tip.
ROTFLMAO!
((((angie)))) – *s*
Eve in NYC @ 90
Eve, you wouldn’t have a mother named Flora, would you?
Just to clarify: Oxford Brookes is the former polytechnic up the hill. The University does have an American football team, albeit one that can’t award half-Blues because the other university doesn’t have a team.
And the rugby Varsity Match, usually played in frigid weather in December, is much fun.
Woodhall Hollow @ 220
Woodhall, I know what you mean–but if you don’t have a handkerchief handy, try Robert Thurman’s translation instead, where each chapter begins, “Hey noble one!”
JoyB @ 238
Not last time I checked. Got a mighty cute one named Rita, though.
Just for the record.
Ireland beat the pants off the pretenders from Twickenham (Although watch out for those devils in the World Cup… damn it)
And, and Boston Rugby Rules!
Eureka Springs, AR @ 235
I’ve always thought of Ledeen as lurking quite publicly, and he is much better known of course having been right at the centre of the yellow cake doc forging. But you are right, he is in there at the very core of PNAC/AIPAC/The Lobby, those folk who run the US!
Eve in NYC @ 239
I have that one too, but the hey doesn’t tug at the heart in tbe way that Oh does! Hey is more like, wake up into the bardo.
And I am so honored to be typing to you direct, so to speak!
nomolos @ 242 Boston Rugby rules…… compared with whom now?
Yes indeed Croke Park was a murder, and I fear for my main Wee Boys this weekend. Do you think the US team will manage to keep 50 points off the board at the World Cup against any of the real rugby countries?
emptywheel @ 67
Should have checked in at the 49er. The club’s room was shingled for durability. Ray Steel, George Miller, et al. had a real club where we played hard and smart, but also had fun. What was funny is that we beat OMBAC on the road, and they were so pissed off they didn’t show up to their own party. We were a D3 club but scalped OMBAC, Santa Monica, and Cypress in the D1 that year.
Every club I was with since didn’t mesh the social aspect nearly as well.
Marcy
Amherst Rugby, eh?
YOu know that I love you, but yes, I am very disappointed on the one hand as you did not ask the questions we wanted asked….which left me with that same empty feeling when I read Scott Turrow’s book “I went to Harvard Law School and You Didn’t (otherwise titled “1L”).
On the other hand you did not geek-out or goober-out completely, which, considering what you have been doing the past several weeks must not have been easy.
But alas, I still love you and what you did for the country by covering the trial.
Nice going.
bionic @215 – Anyone else here hear Jeffery Toobin say something along the lines that having her covert status betrayed has “worked out well” for Joe and Valerie? Channel Barbara Bush much?
_____________________________________________
HA on bb the comment!
when i heard toobin say that on cnn, i was incensed! amazing that he didn’t even make it sound like he was speculating!
how warped his mind is to think even for a nanosecond that the wilson’s see this situation as a cash cow.
lawyer or no – i’ve never been able to watch toobin or (cnn for reporting) on this story. there’s just something about him….. (snarky?) i would rather wait until david schuster comes w/ his reports on msnbc.
looseheadprop @ 73
When I was at Berkeley (Class of ‘84), the head coach was Ned Anderson and Jack Clark was his slightly psychotic (in a good way) assistant. He certainly never let us rest on our arses, which was one of the secrets to the Bear successes. Both know their rugby as well, and I think Jack is still the only American to be All World XV.
The school’s doing the 125th anniversary celebration on 3/17 if you’re out that way.
litigatormom @ 175
Too late, I got to him first.
maunga @ 114
We’ve got quite a few out our way, as well as Samoans and Fijians. The brand of rugby the islanders play (and don’t mix them up unless you’re provoking a fight) is very fast break and entertaining (unless you’re on the receiving end).
maunga @
245
The US is a bloody large country and west coast rugby is not the same as east coast rugby so to get a coherent team without upsetting a sh*t load of people is almost impossible. There are some superb rugby players in the US so I live in hope that one day politics in the game will piss off and the US team will do well. It is not the fault of the players who do their damndest. PS women’s rugby, which I refereed for years, is very exciting and good for them. But again, Boston rules!!!
rugger9 @ 249
Jack Clark was one hell of a player and one hell of a coach
Mary4 @ 177
I would suspect he’s going to start there as a topic, but Waxy’s shown the inclination to pull strings when they show up. He needs to start somewhere, and the Plame leak is one that touches all the bases from what I’ve seen.
Wow, EW is full of endless surprises… rugby at Amherst. Scrupulous with Fitzgerald, not really surprising… but it must have been very difficult!
Educated Plaintiff @ 248
I don’t get msnbc so I just have to hear vicariously or else watch of C&L.
And don’t you wish these guys would be forced to say as many many bloggers choose to write: “This is a WAG, but blah blah blah”.
maunga @ 245
Hard to say, I watched them against Ireland A last year with a sort of youngster squad, and they were predictably sloppy in ball control.
The game goes like this:
Get there
Get the ball
Do the right thing with it (e.g. don’t give it back)
Finish
The qualifying rounds were better, but until the Eagles take better care of the ball the opposition will beat them pretty hard.
Tug @
247
Aw, he probably wouldn’t have told her jack if she had asked him something about the case. I’m glad she treated him like a person worth having an ordinary conversation with instead of as, um, a food source for a ravenous parasite. That’s probably what a lot of media types look like to him, by this point in the Libby case.
As for the Turow reference, was it necessary to mention a specific book? They all seem kinda the same to me. :-)
emptywheel @
46
EPU’d again, but I couldn’t resist.
I started at Mt. Holyoke the year they began admitting women at Amherst, and I would not have traded places for anything. There were many, many faculty types at Amherst who thought all that icky estrogen in their classrooms would simply ruin everything.
Twits.
The little epigram Marcy quoted was around in my day, but the clause about Amherst hadn’t been coined yet.
Toobin and DeLay will get along well on CNN. I can’t understand why The New Yorker publishes Toobin when his CNN reporting is so right-wing. Two different outlets, I know, but based on principles I wish The New Yorker would drop him.
It’s Eighth man- two words, not eightman.
Because there are eight players in a rugby union scrum, 3 in the front row (2 props, #’s 1 & 3 and a hooker #2), two in the second, #’s 4 & 5 (the lock forwards) and 3 in the back row (the loose forwards, two flankers #’s 6 & 7 and the eighth man more commonly referred to as the number eight because that is the number worn on the jersey of the player who plays in this position).
A famous try scored by Gareth Edwards the Wales #9 (scrum half, halfback in the southern hemisphere – don’t ask me why) playing for the Ba Ba’s against New Zealand.
Just another star struck women,eh? He just did his job and no more. Don’t try to make him a deity.
Hey! I was a Williams Rugby player back in the day (late 80s). We used to beat you guys.
Sic transit gloria rugby.
Oh, Mme Emptywheel. I am such a an admirer of yours and treasure your valuable book, which I am touting to everyone I know, but, didn’t you succumb, in your excitement at meeting Fitzgerald, to the same kind of behavior which you and FDL have been berating the Washington insider Journalists for doing? You had an opportunity to ask something important within the context of your well-earned expertise, and missed it.
Maybe, you will get a second chance, someday, if Fitzgerald indicts Cheney. I hope you will have exhausted the sports theme by then.
David Ehrenstein @ 33
If the kilt F I T Z – wear it!
Magaret @ 264
I’d say she did a clever thing because if she had tried to winkled any out of him he would have given her a curt no comment.
Instead, she has had a conjent conversation and one that he is bound to remember. Always good if he ever does decide to spill any beans.
Sports is bullshit. It takes up time that would otherwise be spent doing something. And, in this case, although masquerading as human interest, just takes up blog space. Go find a sports blog, where lots of people spend lots of time living vicariously through others, eh?
I enjoy firedoglake because it is not one-dimensional. The contributors show themselves as real people with actual lives, loves, jobs, intereste, health issues, etc., etc., etc. A real community.
I suppose if you don’t like sports, you could skip this thread.
Marcy- oohh- thanks for posting “THE TRY”- legendary- I could watch it over and over.
Gareth! JPR!
Do you s’pose Fitz would remember her better if she’d talked politics? Or is she now, in his memory, “that blogger lady who played rugby at Amherst.”
I’d say she made the right decision to keep it topical, maybe it will open future doors for more journalism history.
And, concerning the word “journalist,” blog or not, it IS journalism, in its latest manifestation, and the FDL Bloggers are some of the best at it.
terri @ 267
Somewhat ironic on this blog where we have all been at the trial, vicariously, no?
emptywheel @ 190
707!!!!!!!!!!
kirk murphy @ 223
I don’t know what you’re talking aBout.
Spartacvs @ 261 — if anyone is still here. No it is not eighth man, it is Number 8 or Back Row. Jeez, it is not your language to screw up, people! And Rugger is the game, not a person who plays it. ‘Rugger’ is a slightly effete word for the game in many circles, because it is what the public schools (which means Private schools) call the game.
egregious — Arthur Finkelstein is an extremely hush hush fellow who is possibly the king fascist neocon/PNAC/AIPAC manipulator. Ledeen is a little more public, but is another very senior high Nasty. Ledeen, of course, was ‘close by’ and around itasly when the Yellow Cake forgeries were being constructed.
Out in the nether world of Wonderers, we wonder if Cheney’s violent reaction to Joe Wilson was first because of the closeness to exposing the perps of the forgeries, but there is the nagging wonder about the possibility of yellow`cake being smuggled into Iraq so They could say, “Look what we found!”
So if you are still checking way back down here amongst the rugby crazies……..
Wait,
Did you tell us where he played after amherst? Did he play on any of the club sides in the chicago area? I might actually have photos of him if he played in CARFU between 1984-1988?
emptywheel @ 212
Fitz rushed DKE, now Plimpton and lived in-house sophomore year as was the custom.
Fitz has the distinction of having been a member of two fraternities. He also joined Theta Delta.
The fraternities took up the question of co-ed membership in Fitzy’s sophomore year. DKE led the way. DKE house was the first Amherst frat to become co-ed. There were no sororities at Amherst – it was a men’s college until 1975.
Tomorrow I’m off to Alumni Gymnasium. The Jeffs are hosting Rhode Island College in the sectional finals of the Men’s NCAA D3 basketball tournament 7PM EST. Watch it HERE.
The hallways of the gymnasium, are adorned with varsity sport team photos from the most recent years to back before the turn of the century… no, not the 20th century, the 19th! I’ll be looking for women ruggers circa 1990.
(Cheer) J – E – F – F Jeff Jeff Jeff!
And to think, if Marcy hadn’t had the conversation with Pat and then decided to write a post about it, we still wouldn’t know she was an Amherst student after three years of her posts about special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Discreet that one, eh?
(Cheer) M – A – R – C – Y Marcy Marcy Marcy!
Oops, forgot to mention. The trustees voted to close all the frats. The college owned all the properties already. They quickly renamed the buildings.