A colossal wreck a road trip through political scandal, corruption and American Culture and you will hear about alexanders fondness for road trips, his enduring quest not really to get through political scandal and corruption but to reveal it and his real love affair with American Culture which comes through strongly in the pages of this book. A little background just so you know, the book is coming at out now. You just heard he died a year ago. He was working on this book pretty much until the day that he died and it was pieced together partly thanks to the process that he and jeffrey developed at counterpunch for every year the the end of year y would publish to greatest hits column of their pieces of the preceding 12 months and this enabled alexander to keep a good track on his favorite parts of his own as they say in england. And the book was then put together with extraordinary help from daisy, from jeffrey and from andrew in between feeding his animals which were brought into the crisis that they talking to perceive his cockatoo on his shoulder and anybody else in the community where he lived who might need his help or assistance or advice on repairing their vintage vehicle. Alexander pulled together a colossal a colossal wreck as well as a wonderful collection of articles about words that should be forever banished. You can find all the information at counterpunch. Org. I will just say that this book is pretty much as he wanted it. Daisy can attest. Im incredibly glad its out here. It reminds us that alexander while he hated cliches he didnt very much live up to the one about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. You will hear a lot about afflicting the comfortable but i just want to share a little bit of discomfort for the afflict did. He had a critically reliable ability to stand up for the underdog and defend those who are powerless in our media culture and our society. And to sum up the imbalance of power. Workers for example. Out of every 28, 1996 he wrote the newspapers for free trade surely had something to do with the fact that although there has been fierce attrition in the journalism profession at least the loss of jobs here at least the lost jobs here arent reappearing south of the border at a fraction of the cost. The day that column writing is subcontracted to High School Students in guatemala i expect to see a turnaround on the trade issue among the opinion forming classes. He stood up for young people. May 22 of the same year the hysteria about teen violence is more than matched by the alarms and the pubescent running film with children having children and children getting one another aids. Bill and hillary sell them stop sermonizing on this. Adults listen to the boastful lies of teenaged boys and then rush to judgment. In 1970, 20 of boys and 4 of girls and Junior High School reported to have had sects. In 1992 that figured risen to 27 in 20 of girls and if rising legions of pubescents were sexually active how come the pregnancy rate among 10 to 14 euros has been similarly skyrocketed . In 1976, 3. 2 abortions and miscarriages and Junior High School girls in 19983. 3. Amid the supposed junior high sexual revolution, 98 of girls arrived at age 15 without ever having been pregnant. Junior High School Students must be americas most skilled deployers. Seventhgrader should be enlisted to hold seminars for u. S. Grownups and sport the industrial worlds highest rates of unplanned pregnancy. Finally standing up for animals in a charming piece about the Democratic Convention and how conventions in general like to to republican and democratic like to set up in tourist attraction towns. Talked about the Republican Convention in san diego and somehow the story of the convention merged with the story of sea world which is part of the landscape there. World owned by the anheuserbusch corp. And hosted 4 million visitors a year the same as the zoo was the famous venue for convention events. Nursed by the purity and lemaire with dolphins and orca recruited with behavioral techniques to exhibit the fundamental harmony of creation under corporate auspices. World is nonunion with minimumwage levels for the attendance. At least this newest teamster organized though there should be more Interspecies Union work. Why leave it all to the humans . In the polar bear expedition a big new pool with an enhanced underwater availability. Three of the bears had salmonella poisoning and were confined to what the guide rightly termed their bedrooms. This meant compulsory overtime for 18 monthold chinook who was putting in 13 hour days for it i thought chinook looked afraid and angry when i saw him but the guide insisted the cub was doing a quote real good job in exhibiting polar bears to the audience. Chinook to do the same way the elephant had done when it was discovered she was being savagely eaten for disciplinary infractions. Dont snarl, organized. Every now and again orangutans organize the need to fodder. When the apes carefully builtup reserves of rocks and costs 570,000 worth of damage to the one and a half inch glass. Alexander is going to be reported by Andrew Colvin who is not only alexanders brother but washington editor of harpers magazine and the author of rumsfeld his rise following catastrophic and a contributor to many besides. Daisy coburn wrote followup and we will take a few questions but if you really want to get close to any of us or ask any personal family questions you have to have purchased the book in hand. [applause] in master salesman. I think alexander would be very happy right now not just as the happy crowd who came here to review his career and maybe even buy his book. Which is grounds for excitement but also at this glorious past two weeks when the war party has been utterly con founded. The punditry and massed ranks marching in lockstep leading us into serious provac by the derision from the people. I couldnt put it as well as he could but i could certainly hear his tones of exultation and his revolutionary events in the last couple of weeks plus the idiot john kerry and perhaps there would have been a commentary of the prose style of the pond and Vladimir Putin really serving as an example to us all. Alexander those of you who dont know him already well come to know him a lot better when you read the book anywhere where lies what a tremendous influence on excel and alexander our father was who was a radical journalist. It i can read about what alexander said about claude particularly talking about his writing style, gun a first for alexander too. He wrote with a beautiful easy style. His prose could be ironic and also savage. He was learned that never overbearing cultivated that never patronizing. He respected and enjoyed people at all social levels. He loves dogs. Under the example who could resist the lure of journalism. None of his sons did to the initial gloom of our mother patricia who knew firsthand it didnt ring home regular slabs of bacon. His body wore out when he was 77 of his mind stayed sharp until his last. The day before he died he dictated a column for the irish times for patricia. He never lost faith in humanity know where instincts never fail to see the humor in life. I think for alexander those words apply just as well to him including the terminal, at the dictation of a column the very last column in this case to alexanders daughter daisy within days almost hours of his life. Alexander i would say although he wrote pungently about politics and about everything the human condition he had a very welldeveloped sense of theater which he applied and its why his political writing was so entertaining because he considered politics is a form of theater among other things. So in reflecting the disappointments of the Obama Presidency that may strike some of us i thought i would read something from november 24, 2009 his thoughts about obama. One aspect of obama. No one told us it would be boring but it is. The Obama Presidency. Having an adulterer and a at 1600 pennsylvania avenue for eight years of peace plus dick cheney down the corridor spoiled us. Outside of dashwood george fight his way to the end of the sentence in his daily battles battles with a englishlanguage . These days tranquility reigns or seems to in the obama private quarters. Senior white house staffers remained loyal and tightlipped. Small wonder jay lenos nightly show is funny. Its nothing to make jokes about a lease until sarah palin went on her book tour. Their expectations trickling through the hourglass. Whats left . Enforcing private coverage instead of cringing the medicare plan for low income seniors. The pollsters tell us is nothing unusual for a new president in the stage of the game. Whats to stop them from sliding down more . As you know obama came back but nothing much improved really. Life didnt get any more entertaining and michelle never threw a lamp so far as we know at obama and obama does construct a sentence and slice slice nicely. Alexander would have been disappointed at that but he would than i can imagine the exultation recall i would have gotten in recent weeks from him which thankfully since i live three hours update west coast a live of the geese said he would have had no qualms about waking me up in the morning. Given the recent turn of events in syria he would have been pleased. Few spectacles have been more surreal than that of senior u. S. Officials starting with the president the secretary of state in the u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Aside in his beleaguered government on the need to accommodate rebel forces whose arabian gulf sponsors are intent on slaughtering of all a weak minority are or driving them into the sea. The grimly hilarious moment last friday but just by a message from Ayman Al Zawahiri the head of al qaeda presumably the number one target on president president obamas hit list similarly praising the lines of syria for rising against the assad regime. Al qaeda and the white house in singh. So in some ways he would recognize the world he left a year ago but he would be said. I know he would be said to be missing it all this endless theater and particularly america. My introduction to the book some fool in england some blairite once attacked alexander is antiamerican because he was being properly derisive about the excesses of the clinton era. The political excesses, not the sexual of this excesses. Alexander loved the country and he knew it better than 99 of americans. He traveled endlessly back and forth. In fact he traveled so much and wore out so many cars one of the more touching memorials or letters of condolence with regard that arrived after his death was one from his Insurance Agent signed by people saying they really enjoy dealing with him and it was going to be a sad loss. That was one of the many groups he wouldnt think of who mourned my brother as i do every day. Thank you. [applause] hello. Alex coburn is more than half the reason i got into the prestigious highpaying field of radical punditry. So i have a great deal of gratitude to him for all these many decades of pursuing this strange career. Fresh out of college in 1975 and had a job in abrupt rich firm on wall street that eventually went bust in one of my fellow drones working there said you should check out this guy Alexander Cockburn at the Village Voice. I said okay and i did and i was immediately hooked. It was the first place they learned Reading Press columns that the New York Times did not always tell the truth and i had an understanding a vague understanding of politics but alex, reading his columns helps to fill in the details. Then i went off to the university of virginia after the Brokerage Firm went under in the Village Voice with me into the hinterlands of charlottesville. It was quite a marvelous thing for the boys in the late 70s and early 80s but alex from my point of view was the star of it. I love the style of the press club columns of the rude and loose journalistic direst textile and theyre some of that field in a colossal wreck with observations about this and that, books, food, lines on the tv meandering from one witty observation to another. Then i followed him of course when he went to the nation but i think the style of the column changed somewhat. One tends to straighten ones posture and sober up somewhat and alex flawed against those tendencies and inspirations that all of us who write for the nation but is sometimes an uphill battle. The midto late 80s not only alex was doing great work there but also his sometime friend and collaborator and the cop kind doing great stuff there signed and unsigned. The village missed subscription readers today. Anyway it was reading alex in the voice of the nation that inspired me to think about writing about economics and finance in the foot akel economy that i thought at that time the left writing on that was either dole or out of date or not in tune with the headlines. I thought maybe i could do Something Like this. One day reading the newsletter which was an eight page newsletter edited by dave marsh i thought i have to do one of these myself. I started doing my own newspaper and left the business observer. It actually sort of took off by standards of the radical journalism trade. I launch myself onto a career as a pundit under dismal science. I cant say i knew alex will personally but we would talk from time to time on the phone. His last two page column in the magazine before they cut it back to one page and later cut it back to once a month about twothirds of that last two page column came from a phone conversation we were having in a master class in writing. I would Say Something and he would type it in his own language. It was just amazing to hear what i was saying translated transformed into something radiant. I felt like i was sitting at the feet of a master watching him work. It was really a marvelous experience. We did have our differences and there were few years where we did not speak much. There was a moment in the office where i think the word sects passed through my lips. My memory of that is a little murky. Then i got annoyed about some of the stuff about Climate Change and then we had some disagreements about the militias i went part of the way with him on that but not all the way. I decided to renounce it in several years ago we made up and started talking again. I did an interview with him a year before he died for a radio show. We did it via skype and the video image on the screen was of him with his cockatoo percy sitting on his shoulder. Ipers m. Percy was named by the dash on a colossal wreck. It was right after jack shafer had been fired so we talked about presses. Since alex was the creator of the modern school in this country we would talk some about that. Everybody now is a media critic and it had gotten a little old. It was nice to see people move on from that. We certainly had political differences but what a marvelous writer and thinker he was until the very last minute. I want to reach us a Little Something he wrote in november of 2011 in the nation. I remember when this came out and had arrived in the mailbox. I was so excited with these two paragraphs that i read them about five times. Here it goes. It was in the midst of the occupy movement. I have to admit the start of november after the daily reports of our National Battle food austin philadelphia Atlanta National portland my eyes flicker back to greece in and my heart beats faster. Surely we can see the prerevolutionary situation. It must be the dreaded leninists in me after all these years of therapy surfed with democratic gentility. I clamor to the top Shelf Holding down florida mayors thesis and did then. And confiscate the biggest states to one giant national bank. The blood flows back into my cheeks and my eyes sparkle. Hearing my daughters steps outside library i shuffled back into place coddled him the letter and pluck a copy of e. F. Schumacher though im not at all sure of the weaning lists or twitter menus. The leninists in him is something that still appeals to me. In that last interview i did in the summer of 2011 with percy perched on his shoulder. Alex identified a problem that people dont spend their youth in marxist parties anymore reading the classics and because of that understanding you cant find is lost. But we do have this capacious new volume saver and also to quote aligned from land and that alex like to quote we can be as radical as reality itself. That kind of thinking might not get you on msnbc but who wants the approval of the semi official anyway. [applause] i had a feeling we would both pick the lenon bit. Hello. My name is Connor Kilpatrick and im an editor at jackup and magazine that i helped edit along with my comrades peter phrase in the audience make an erikson and oscar who is looking around here somewhere i believe. Im completelcompletel y honored to be invited to speak here but seeing as how everyone else here is either a relative or a personal friend i would like to talk about what it meant to someone who never wrote or corresponded to him someone as a dreaded millennial arrived on the socialist left during the bush obama years thanks in large part to the brilliant polemics of Alexander Cockburn. Im guessing everyone here knows alex is great at about his hate being pure. Is that correct . If you dont know the story gets from his editor jim goode who tested alexanders morale committed to the good fight by asking him if hate was truly peer . He put his story to the interns at the nation. Miliband replied with shock that now he didnt hate anyone in this alex put it its all you really need to know. It really is. So yes alex is hatred was most certainly pure but somehow for me it doesnt get out what made his writing so wonderful because it was a joyful hate and an inspiring hate. For all the sharp tongue and sharper pen we are after all talking about a man who once confessed to weeping on airplane as a watch 1993 homered sound incredible journey about to talking dogs and a sassy cat trying to make their way back home and i believe he wa