Deep Throat fingers self

Former FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt (now 91 years old and living in Santa Rosa, California) has apparently told Vanity Fair magazine that he was Deep Throat, the secret source who guided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Washington Post investigation of Watergate that culminated in Richard Nixon's resignation as American president. Woodward and Bernstein gotta be choked that Felt decided to self-identify to another reporter, rather than letting them pull off the mask and relive their Watergate glories. Felt's confession would have been no revelation to the man who lost the most, Nixon, who had the G-man pegged as the snitch while he was still president. Which brings us to our quote of the day, courtesy of Tricky Dick:

"The informer is not wanted in our society. That's the one thing people do sort of line up against.... They say, 'Well, that son-of-a-bitch informed. I don't want him around.' We wouldn't want him around, would we?"

—President Richard Nixon, in a recorded White House conversation with Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman

Finally revealed: what "BD" stands for

Someone from Janesville Wisconsin visited my website yesterday via Google, using the search terms "free BD stories." Perplexed, I replicated the search. Turns out, "BD" is an abbreviation for "bondage." Now, I've never written a bondage story (much less a free one), although someone does get roped into a chair in my play The Scarborough Four ;-).

CanLit's missing foundation?

"A great literature needs, and in some sense depends upon, the co-presence of deep and passionate critical thought."

—Michael Keefer, paraphrasing Matthew Arnold (in a review of Barry Callaghan's Raise You Five), Globe & Mail, May 20, 2005

Dumb and dumber?

They don't make politicians like John Diefenbaker anymore. Last of the great Canadian orators, his one-liners were usually better than Carson's. One of my first "political" memories is watching The Chief scold Pierre Trudeau for using the F-word ('fuddle duddle') in the House of Commons. Here's another of my favourite Diefenbaker anecdotes, as revisited in a recent newspaper column on the history of "Tory turncoats":

Back in 1976, the ultra-rightwing Jack Horner couldn't persuade Tory delegates that he should succeed Robert Stanfield as leader (Horner came fourth in a field of 11 candidates). What did he do? Why, he switched to the Liberals and became Pierre Trudeau's minister of industry. When Horner crossed the floor, that marvellous, vitriolic renegade John Diefenbaker quipped that the IQ in both parties had suddenly risen.

—Peter Worthington, Toronto Sun, May 20, 2005