Lileks Announces the Screedblog

James Lileks is one of the best bloggers out there. He's a professional newsguy -- works for the Star Tribune -- and author of some of the wittiest commentary on mid-twentieth century American consumer culture you will find anywhere. More than anything else he is father to the Gnat. And..., he is an incredibly prolific blogger. His books, columns and daily "bleat" are a continuing source of delight.

Well, now, make that "blogs." Regular readers of Lilek's "Bleat" have been charmed by the daily adventures of a house husband and his progeny, the trials and tribulations of a guy who has to churn out prose for a living, enlightened by occasional forays into American cultural history, and stimulated by occasional rants and screeds on whatever aggravation is currently afflicting the American polity. Now comes the "ScreedBlog" where Lileks unleashes his wit and venom on whatever hulking monstrosity is currently annoying him and us. Today's subject is the current flap over alleged mistreatment of the Koran. He writes:

The latest example of the US Army’s Koran Humiliation Initiative has that headline-grabbing word: URINE. You’d think Private Anderson swaggered over, unholstered Private Johnson and let loose a pounding stream of tangy intentional desecration on the book as it was clutched to the sobbing breast of the terrorist. (Sorry, detainee.) Of course, what really happened was slightly less horrible; someone took a leak outside the cells, and the gentle Caribbean breeze carried a jot of pee through a ventilation grill, where it lit upon the Koran.

As the WaPo story notes: “The Sergeant of the guard . . . ensure the detainee received a fresh uniform and a new Qu’ran.”

Life in the Gulag of our times. Bastards probably didn’t take all the pins out of the uniform. As for the allegation of flushing, the Pentagon inquiry “determined that no such incident took place. The probe did find, however –

“And here we get to the pith of the gist: Newsweek’s allegations were fake but accurate. “The probe did find, however that rumors of such an event swirled around the facility in the summer of 2002 after a detainee dropped his Qu’ran on the floor and other detainees blamed that on U.S. guards.”

Well, then. They made him drop it! Special Jew Mind Beams at work, no doubt. Say no more. No, let’s: “The story changed as detainees passed it along, escalating to rumors that U.S. troops ripped pages out of the book and then flushed it.”

Read the rest here. Go ahead..., do it! You'll be glad you did. And bookmark the site because you'll probably be going back to it regularly. I know I will.