MemeMachineGo!

Garry Trudeau addresses the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors and explains how the Army has been actively aiding his research into soldiers’ lives.

But then, as I prepared to travel to Riyahd, I hit another snag – one of my own making. I had just finished writing a week of strips about how rich young Saudi men were sitting out the war that American troops were preparing to fight on their behalf. So naturally when my application for a visa arrived at the Saudi consulate, it was immediately flagged for special treatment. Hundreds of reporters had been routinely granted permission to enter the country, but with my visa, it was explained, there were problems.

Two months of non-processing went by, and then out of the blue, I received a call from Col. Bill Nash, the commander of a tank brigade billeted just outside Kuwait City. He told me that he’d read I was having problems getting in-country, but if I’d just jump on a plane to Riyahd, he’d take it from there.

Two days later, I arrived at Riyahd at one in the morning with no visa. This was something of a calculated risk – the lack of a visa was almost sure to get me stuck in a holding tank and then put on the next flight home. I waited in the customs line and just as I was about to face the inspector, two young American officers suddenly appeared at either elbow, lifted me up, whisked me through a side door into the waiting hands of an Army escort. Before long I found myself in a Blackhawk, on my way to a forward operating base in Kuwait. I had just entered and left a sovereign nation without any trace of evidence I had ever been there.

See also the strips that weren’t: Harriet Miers prepping for her confirmation hearing.

And it gave me a thrill to see that Alex is going for a campus tour of dear ol’ RPI (where Trudeau was granted an honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humane Letters.)

(First link via Amygdala, where Gary’s back to his typically prolific pace)