Laila Lalami

In the annals of lame excuses: I just wanted to create a community.

A true-life tale of espionage, diamond shipments and unconventional sexual practices, the story of Robert Hanssen, a CIA agent-turned-Russian informer, was always going to do well in the bookshops. Even so, executives at the online bookseller Barnesandnoble.com were mystified by a mid-January surge in sales of a book about the scandal, written by David Vise, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for the Washington Post.
Then they discovered the identity of the person who had purchased 20,000 copies of Mr Vise’s book at a discounted rate over four weeks in January and February: Mr Vise himself.
Even then, they might have said nothing - had the author not returned 17,500 copies and demanded a refund.
Now Mr Vise finds himself in the centre of a publishing furore, with rivals in the business accusing him of trying to manipulate the position on the bestseller lists of his book, The Bureau and the Mole, and Barnes & Noble demanding its money back, claiming that he took advantage of discounts meant for ordinary customers. His publisher, Grove Atlantic, has offered to compensate the bookseller for any losses sustained. “I just wanted to create a community,” Mr Vise said.

Bestselling author buys up 20,000 copies

The California gubernatorial primary results are in, and Bill Simon won by a large margin. But then you look at the numbers, you see that Simon received 501,643 votes (49%) while Riordan had 300,722 votes (29%). In a state of 30 million people, only about half a million are deciding about who is running for governor in November. So it will be Gray Davis vs. Bill Simon. It won’t be pretty.

A lesson in courage from over 300 reservists of the IDF:

We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.

We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people. We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides.

We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories, destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country.

We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society.

We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated in the end.

We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.

We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.

We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.

The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose and we shall take no part in them.

See the petition here.