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mallorys_cameraIn Alexandria we got onto the wrong train. Somehow we ended up in the third class car to Cairo rather than the second-class car to Cairo – me, Ann and 100 or so goggle-eyed Egyptian men. We climbed into the luggage rack, spent the five-hour trip fending the men off with sharp, pointed umbrellas. In retrospect, I don’t think their unwanted attentions were particularly serious – if they had been, we’d have ended up raped and quite possibly dead.
That incident which happened when I was just 24 left me with a huge dislike of Egyptian men – or rather Arab Egyptian men – or possibly even Arab men in general. Yes, yes, this dislike reflects badly on me, I’m sure. But there you have it. That maniacal groping was very creepy. I flash on it just about every time I see an Arab man. I’m everything they hate. They’re everything I hate. I represent the corrupt moral standards of the west; they represent the reactionary fundamentalism of the Middle East.
Impasse.
###
There’s a classic story by C.L. Moore, one of the rare women who wrote in the Golden Age of Sci Fi, called Vintage Season. Time travelers regularly attend disasters as tourists from the remote future. They watch from the sidelines, chattering among themselves and snapping the futuristic equivalent of iPhone pix as meteorites destroy great cities, human populations are decimated by plagues and civilization unravels. They are moved by what they see in the way that Victorian doyennes were moved by the plight of the little poor children who lived in workhouses, which is to say because a compassionate expression sits so prettily on the human face.
Contemporary mediaistas always remind me of the time travelers from Vintage Season.
###
So who knows what to make of Lara Logan?
This was not the 60 Minutes correspondent’s first time in the fish eye.
In 2008, she became a minor tabloid press sensation – NY Post Page Six, and even the holiest of holies, The National Enquirer – as the center of a Baghdad romantic triangle. One guy was a US Embassy attaché, the other a CNN reporter. Clutch and claw while you can because tomorrow a suicide bomber is going to accelerate right into your motorcade.
Last year my boyfriend Matt Taibbi wrote a Rolling Stone column titled Lara Logan, You Suck. If he hates her, I hate her – that’s just the way it is with me and Matt.
The Taibbi column painted Logan as a sycophant who would say anything to advance her career. I mean, honestly – McChrystal’s back-up guys, too drunk to invoke “off the record” privileges, talk about Vice President Bite Me in front of a reporter? That’s news. Reporters keep their jobs by reporting news. Except when they keep their jobs by donning kneepads.
She’s a good-looking woman, Logan. Sleek, blonde, possessed of dazzling dental veneers and a charming South African accent. Knows how to occupy the limelight without appearing to hog it, at least when the cameras are rolling. One imagines she’s a bit more imperious when the cameras are off.
One visualizes Lara Logan in Tahrir Square. She packs a pocketful of bright and shiny beads just in case someone tries to sell her Manhattan. She believes she’s invincible even though just one week before the entire CBS team had been picked up by the Egyptian army, blindfolded, detained, an incident that left Logan fuming: “American journalists don't spend much time in conditions like this. Even Al Qaeda can get along with these guys. American journalists kidnapped by the Taliban were treated with dignity and respect.”
Tell that one to Daniel Pearl’s ghost.
Of course, after this incident, once again Lara Logan’s a story, not just another reporter. So you’re going back? some mere reporter asks -- or words to that effect. What happens if something like this happens again?
"I don't worry about things like that,” Lara Logan announces.
Well, maybe you fucking well should! Maybe worrying about “things like that” is common sense, just like climbing up in that luggage rack like Ann and I did 34 years ago was common sense.
I mean, Jesus… Just because you're from the future doesn't mean the present tense can't wallop you one across the head.
That incident which happened when I was just 24 left me with a huge dislike of Egyptian men – or rather Arab Egyptian men – or possibly even Arab men in general. Yes, yes, this dislike reflects badly on me, I’m sure. But there you have it. That maniacal groping was very creepy. I flash on it just about every time I see an Arab man. I’m everything they hate. They’re everything I hate. I represent the corrupt moral standards of the west; they represent the reactionary fundamentalism of the Middle East.
Impasse.
There’s a classic story by C.L. Moore, one of the rare women who wrote in the Golden Age of Sci Fi, called Vintage Season. Time travelers regularly attend disasters as tourists from the remote future. They watch from the sidelines, chattering among themselves and snapping the futuristic equivalent of iPhone pix as meteorites destroy great cities, human populations are decimated by plagues and civilization unravels. They are moved by what they see in the way that Victorian doyennes were moved by the plight of the little poor children who lived in workhouses, which is to say because a compassionate expression sits so prettily on the human face.
Contemporary mediaistas always remind me of the time travelers from Vintage Season.
So who knows what to make of Lara Logan?
This was not the 60 Minutes correspondent’s first time in the fish eye.
In 2008, she became a minor tabloid press sensation – NY Post Page Six, and even the holiest of holies, The National Enquirer – as the center of a Baghdad romantic triangle. One guy was a US Embassy attaché, the other a CNN reporter. Clutch and claw while you can because tomorrow a suicide bomber is going to accelerate right into your motorcade.
Last year my boyfriend Matt Taibbi wrote a Rolling Stone column titled Lara Logan, You Suck. If he hates her, I hate her – that’s just the way it is with me and Matt.
The Taibbi column painted Logan as a sycophant who would say anything to advance her career. I mean, honestly – McChrystal’s back-up guys, too drunk to invoke “off the record” privileges, talk about Vice President Bite Me in front of a reporter? That’s news. Reporters keep their jobs by reporting news. Except when they keep their jobs by donning kneepads.
She’s a good-looking woman, Logan. Sleek, blonde, possessed of dazzling dental veneers and a charming South African accent. Knows how to occupy the limelight without appearing to hog it, at least when the cameras are rolling. One imagines she’s a bit more imperious when the cameras are off.
One visualizes Lara Logan in Tahrir Square. She packs a pocketful of bright and shiny beads just in case someone tries to sell her Manhattan. She believes she’s invincible even though just one week before the entire CBS team had been picked up by the Egyptian army, blindfolded, detained, an incident that left Logan fuming: “American journalists don't spend much time in conditions like this. Even Al Qaeda can get along with these guys. American journalists kidnapped by the Taliban were treated with dignity and respect.”
Tell that one to Daniel Pearl’s ghost.
Of course, after this incident, once again Lara Logan’s a story, not just another reporter. So you’re going back? some mere reporter asks -- or words to that effect. What happens if something like this happens again?
"I don't worry about things like that,” Lara Logan announces.
Well, maybe you fucking well should! Maybe worrying about “things like that” is common sense, just like climbing up in that luggage rack like Ann and I did 34 years ago was common sense.
I mean, Jesus… Just because you're from the future doesn't mean the present tense can't wallop you one across the head.
