Clockwork's WGA-CAIR Dream Sequence Makes the NY Times

Writing years ago for OC Weekly–so many years ago that it was before online archiving was invented by the Druids–yours truly assumed a new identity to infiltrate the Orange County Republican Party. Part of the ruse–which is referred to online in the LA “By God” Times–involved “Matt Stanfil” submitting a letter-to-the-editor to the Times, which published it.

In the subsequent Weekly story than can only be found now in a recycling pulp mill, apparently, I first personed that it was drilled into our heads in journalism school that we must work hard enough so that one day we would find our bylines in the LA “By God” Times. Having done so as Stanfil, I mused, that probably was not what my J-professors meant.

Tuesday, the real deal Matt Coker byline made it into the even loftier New York Times. Alas, it is still not in the context that will win me a seat at my alma mater's next cold chicken journalism banquet. 
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Writes Michael Cieply in “Dispute Over a Script Seminar for Muslim Students”:

On ocweekly.com,
the Web site of OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper, one writer, Matt
Coker, had already poked fun at the session with a fable about a
“talented and unlucky Jewish kid” who brushes up on the Koran and
peddles his hitherto rejected script at the meeting under the name Aziz
Rahman.

Uh, exsqueeze me, Gray Lady: You forgot the link to that post.

Of
course, the more important news that's fit to print is not little old me–oh, heavens no. It's that the Writers Guild of America
(WGA) backed off from officially co-hosting a scheduled “Writing for
Hollywood” seminar with the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR).

The event aimed at generating more Muslim screenwriters went
off as planned Tuesday, and the speaker the WGA apparently lined up still appeared.
But the WGA denied it was a sponsor and the event was moved away from the guild's LA headquarters amid
member complaints.