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The Yoda of 9/11

Continued from page 1

Published on August 09, 2007

"It's perverse," notes Curley regarding the almost symbiotic link between the conspiracy believers and the success of his blog. "I certainly don't want to encourage the growth of this movement, but at the same time, we're not making any money off this. We don't have any advertising."

Curley occasionally talks about shopping a book proposal on the movement he's opposing, but for the most part, he seems content being a die-hard blogger of a subject that fascinates and occasionally enrages him. A self-employed real estate analyst and bachelor who enjoys playing in Texas hold 'em tournaments that offer gift certificates for grand prizes, he revels in the infamy, attention, and kudos the site brings him. Infamy from the troofer set. Attention from media outlets like the BBC, Time, Vanity Fair, and U.S. News & World Report, which have interviewed him, cited him, or praised the blog.

Fox News talking head Michelle Malkin has called SLC "the single best clearinghouse on the Net for fighting the tinfoil-hat brigade." Malkin's blog also verbally decapitates 9/11 nutters. But troofers also pay close attention to SLC, as is demonstrated by SLC's countless mentions on various troofer sites. Troofers regularly comment on SLC blog posts and often feel compelled to mock Curley and his blog — like when someone created the fake blog "Screw Loose Change Exposed" in March, pretending that Curley and co-blogger James Bennett had parted company.

More recently, Korey Rowe, one of the three Oneonta, New York, twentysomethings behind Loose Change, awarded SLC a sort of reverse endorsement after he was arrested for his alleged 2005 desertion from the U.S. Army. Following his release from civilian custody, and en route to hook up with his old unit in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Rowe filmed a short statement for the official Loose Change Web site. In it, he addressed SLC speculation on his enlistment status, announcing to Screw Loose Change bloggers, "I'm not going anywhere."

At the top of the "Official Loose Change Blog," there's also a link to something called the "Screw Screw Loose Change" blog. Yet when contacted for this story, Loose Change secretary/flack Kristy Kissner claimed that, despite Rowe's video message indicating otherwise, "We really don't pay attention to [SLC] a whole lot. They're really not worth a comment."

Funny, because a cursory search of the Loose Change site produced numerous mentions of Screw Loose Change or SLC.

According to Kissner, a third and final version of Loose Change is in the works by the boys from Oneonta, but that we should not expect this much-promised, theater-bound final cut until the end of 2007 or the beginning of 2008. Asked about Rowe's situation with the military, Kissner hadn't a clue.

"We've only heard from Mr. Rowe once or twice," she explained. "He doesn't really know. He knows what he was allegedly charged with, and that's all we know."

So Rowe "doesn't really know" if he's a deserter or not, but he and his pals want to tell the world how things really went down on 9/11. Head spinning yet? Welcome to Yoda's world.


For all the Star Wars geeks out there, we know the Yoda analogy isn't exact, so spare us the e-mails pointing out that it was Obi-Wan Kenobi who went to the Mos Eisley cantina, not Master Yoda. Nor is Curley a dead ringer for the diminutive, green Jedi Grand Master.

Rather, Curley's 6-foot-2 with a paunch and a frame that looks like it may have once been athletic, and could be again if his new bicycling regimen holds up. Aside from his expertise in the ways of mental warfare, there's another Yoda parallel: The north Phoenix home in which he dwells could double for the swamp planet of Dagobah, where young Luke Skywalker first encounters the feisty mini-maestro of the Force.

"I'll give you my excuse," chuckles Curley, as he gives a tour of his grungy digs. "I gave the maid the decade off."

Of the house's five rooms, only the guest bedroom, where Curley keeps most of his collection of 3,000 comic books, looks habitable. The kitchen's stacked with dirty dishes, and his living room's decorated in the mode of early post-Katrina. For those who recall The Odd Couple sitcom of the early '70s, imagine Oscar Madison's laundry-strewn bedroom writ large. Out back is a huge, walled yard populated mostly by sun-browned weeds. At age 52, Curley's never been married, and his pad definitely lacks the domestic touch.

Near a lonely exercise bike, encircled by papers and assorted detritus, is the center of Curley's existence, the battle station where he spends 15 to 30 hours a week infuriating troofers and drawing fans, insults, and the occasional, vaguely worded death threat. He says he makes a "decent living" inspecting properties for clients and producing spreadsheets that show the return they can expect on their investments in local strip malls and other properties. But if he hit the lotto tomorrow, you've got to bet he'd be blogging nonstop.

"Blogging never interferes with work," states Curley. "Work interferes with blogging. There are some times when I just can't do anything, if I'm on the road."

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