It's always rewarding to receive a letter from a former student, particularly one so brilliant and this is no exception. But this letter is of interest because it reveals how young people who leave Morocco to study abroad sometimes feel about returning. This is an excerpt from the letter....
While reading your email I thought about my life here.. I do get to meet incredible people everyday and being here has probably been the best experience i ve had so far..at the same time i wonder to what extent this experience has changed me..i see through the eyes of people that all what i was before has been shaped by the pleasure of being away from the pressure of morocco..parents, expectations, norms..some of that followed me...however, i do feel more liberated ...and then the thought of going back there becomes a bit of a nightmare. Well I must say that i do have interesting things waiting for me in Morocco..internship, graduation..but above all..the thought of leaving again is what makes me feel more confident about what is waiting for me after morocco. I see my going back as a step to something greater, just if this was a period of preparation in consolidating my eternal beliefs in tearing down the walls of that disgustingly terrifying fortress of taboos..at least some of the walls I hope..I decided that the topic of my thesis would be an objective analysis of Morocco’s position in the Western Sahara problem. My thesis would probably be rejected and I would most probably end up being declined all favors from my father...which does not make my situation very easy for say... I have dreamed of freedom for such a long time...and I partially found it here...i say what I want without putting any kind of reservation on how my society thinks, or all what the shaped set of norms I was brought in pushes me to believe..And it feels good...and I do not want to loose this feeling...According to some, I will have to keep a low profile for a while until my say is valued.
But I ask myself: when would that be? When I get a PHD, when I get married or when I submit to the oppression? This whole idea of conformity makes me sick, and I want to leave before even going back. Life is incredible. My life has been a meticulous addition of musts and must-nots, and deep inside revolt was born...you once told me that I will set that country on fire...i do remember your words because they have been a source of pride and motivation for me in many different occasions..but I am afraid of having that fire eating up all the fixed comfortable facets of my life...you know..a loving family, a warm house to come back to on weekends..i am afraid that a compromise would not be possible..it would just be another lie in the melting pot of hypocrisy and a fake sense of right and wrong..and then I doubt..why am I doing all of this for? Am I only dramatizing my life because it is only in opposition that I exist? Can all these ambitious visions be a safe way of feeling better about who I want to be? Or am I really fighting for a change for the sake of making others have a better life? I was recently told by a dear person to my heart that I better not worry about myself because I will have a bright future, I will get to where I want to be...Where do I want to be? I want to be home...but home is not morocco anymore…it does not feel like home...home is where I feel safe, valued, and above all satisfied with myself…Morocco is everything but that...I cannot wait to discover where I will end up…I cannot wait to see this friend who is so confident about my future in ten or twenty years and prove him wrong, or right about what he sees as an evidence.
Should I talk about love? I will be 21 years old on the 12th of May and I think I already found love. But then again, the circumstances are not right and it all seems like a ridiculous joke of destiny..i said that life is incredible...I do believe it is...finding what some might call a perfect match and ending up not matching at all because of some absurd parameters such as time, space and people.. What comforts me is the thought of my mother saying..It is all good...It is all for the best..somehow she always managed to see the good in everything..I am trying to fulfill my part of faith in the incredible wisdom of god’s plan for me..it might all be for the best after all..because the best might be still to come..
Apr 29, 2007
Apr 19, 2007
CCD
And so there is this mystery, this disappearance of honey bees. The most recent speculation is that radiation from cell phones and other gadgets leads to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which in turn causes the hive to be abandonned, as the Independent put it, "leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes." And this interesting detail: parasites, other bees and beasts of the field won't come anywhere near the hive. Ordinarily, they would take the honey but now they stay away, as though the place were haunted by insect jins.
All of which suggests an analogy for time and place: The idea of becoming dizzy from something unexplainable, unbalanced by the slightest thing, you can't even describe it, a bad tummy, a twitch you hadn't had in years, well you're getting older, it's the pain of psoriasis and unusually dark thoughts, I'm thinking of Pliers Bittaker with those girls in his van, unmentionable things and of course Henry with his blue eyes the color or death in the near distance, talking about evil, Steinarian evil, which is the outdoor, drive-in evil, big name cosmic spirits, and being able to imagine any horror... and here you are flying around, unable to remember what needs to be remembered, address is the least of it, can't remember how you got started or even if you are alive at all, life suddenly seems dim and silly, what if there was a bomb blast and you didn't have time mark that, or else you are in the cockpit of one of those Avengers somewhere on a triangle east of Ft. Lauderdale, almost out of gas, sea and sky one and the same, and there is no one else around, you are completely alone, and now the idea becomes less appealing because there is the sense you are missing, but you're not sure, and from what or whom? Meanwhile, you fly on, looking down at places that have no meaning, faces without expression, and suddenly it occurs to you, it must be some form of dimentia, but no, it's not that, something else, and you fly on, aimlessly, more and more in that dreamlike place, skipping time and logic, occasionally believing you are safe in the contour of a swarm, but then suddenly no air speed, no engine, buzz goes dead, prop stopped, somewhere over the front, but where and who and what....
All of which suggests an analogy for time and place: The idea of becoming dizzy from something unexplainable, unbalanced by the slightest thing, you can't even describe it, a bad tummy, a twitch you hadn't had in years, well you're getting older, it's the pain of psoriasis and unusually dark thoughts, I'm thinking of Pliers Bittaker with those girls in his van, unmentionable things and of course Henry with his blue eyes the color or death in the near distance, talking about evil, Steinarian evil, which is the outdoor, drive-in evil, big name cosmic spirits, and being able to imagine any horror... and here you are flying around, unable to remember what needs to be remembered, address is the least of it, can't remember how you got started or even if you are alive at all, life suddenly seems dim and silly, what if there was a bomb blast and you didn't have time mark that, or else you are in the cockpit of one of those Avengers somewhere on a triangle east of Ft. Lauderdale, almost out of gas, sea and sky one and the same, and there is no one else around, you are completely alone, and now the idea becomes less appealing because there is the sense you are missing, but you're not sure, and from what or whom? Meanwhile, you fly on, looking down at places that have no meaning, faces without expression, and suddenly it occurs to you, it must be some form of dimentia, but no, it's not that, something else, and you fly on, aimlessly, more and more in that dreamlike place, skipping time and logic, occasionally believing you are safe in the contour of a swarm, but then suddenly no air speed, no engine, buzz goes dead, prop stopped, somewhere over the front, but where and who and what....
Apr 14, 2007
Traveling
We go to Turlock, which is below Modesto, above Fresno, underneath light rain, east of nothing, west of the Sierra, I'm sitting in a Travel Lodge lounge, is that the right word, with a silent TV and a Patel behind the desk. Dash's team won their game this morning. That puts them in the final four tomorrow, out of 73 teams for the state cup. It's an interesting accomplishment for a little white kid on an all Latino team, like his brother on an all black team. They've been lucky that way.
Meanwhile, the Indian woman behind the desk is swamped by soccer parents. And now everything is going wrong. In one room, a door lock won't open; in another, no towels; in another, the movie won't play... The Panther parents don't come to games. They can't afford it, they have no transportation, they have to take an odd job whenever they can, even today. But here these parents battering the poor woman behind the desk are wealthy. This is their job, going to the games, getting their kids hyped, trained. As if all their money will make the kids more talented. They come from Santa Clara and Santa Cruz, from cities with the names of a culture that's now behind the teams beating them one after another. The white kids that pump and strump are no match for the Mexican American kids, who play with pessemism, without much hope, but relentlessly, as though this is all they'll ever have. And of course that's true to some degree.
It's all the caucasian kids may have as well but they don't know that yet, they can't imagine.
Perhaps the Indian understands these subplots. I believe she does. She speaks the language well, she's endlessly tolerant. She watches closely. She has layers of interaction. Not like her husband. He has a short temper and after a couple of days I realize his ill temper is semi permanent. He's particularly tempermental when people ask for an internet rate, which he tries to explain was a mistake. So there is a long negotiation with each family. He's running on a tight margin. He has to fight for every penny, to pay all the maids, to wash all the towels. He doesn't have the time or money to fix the tear in the chain link fence behind the buildings and put back the thick wooden slab to keep out the mice and rats. And now is an important moment: When the state cup is over there'll be a long stretch of unused rooms. The clientel will go back to meth brained tanker truckers with their Latin dollies, four hours for $100. Or traveling salesmen come to Turlock to feast on the new businesses springing up. It's a long way from the Grapes of Wrath...
I go downtown for dinner. The only clear radio is "positice and encouraging KLOVE", Christian music rock, Love songs to the Healer, Loving you, my maker, save me from evil love and downward living.
***
The desire to love little dead men on little dead sticks had to change. Folks need something more hopeful, and more tactile. You don't want to fall in love with a corpse on a stick, even if it's Him. These days you want romantic love, spiritual love, endorphin love all wrapped up in one. A spritzer of sacred and profane, where you can hear the backbeat of sexual healing. Because after all, not if I'm Rosario riding meth-brained truckers to their little deaths or cleaning up the endless mess of anonymous families, if I'm her the analogy is enough, the representation is sufficient, but if I'm tattooed Andrea out at Kragen working 9 to 9 and my only fun on the job is creating the Mystery Oil display, and my old boyfriend went off to Iraq or El Lay, then I need some now-now in my life. I need Jesus to come in and do me, but the way He would, so it would be nice and gentle and he wouldn't leave right afterwards or tell me to go out and buy another pack of cigarettes and by the way bring back an Ultimate Cheeseburger, He would hold me and I'd feel so reassured and so young again. Because out here it's just tiring and you age fast and hard.
***
Dash goes off with his team to see 300, to get pumped, to believe... I'm stray deeper into Turlock, way of down East Main, and find Wellington Station. It's after 9 and about the last place you can find eats, even on a Saturday night. But this is no imitation English pub, this is real English food, the shephard's pie, the al dente vegetables and masked potatoes, without a hint of taste. Electronic dart board over on one wall, glasses hanging upside down above the bar, high boy little round tables, a few people at the bar, there's a Cal State a quarter mile on. On TV, it's extreme fighting from Manchester, EFFA sanctified, whatever you want, in your dreams mind rage and here's two Americans going at it, they're like in a cage, one's on top of the other, and you think it looks more like they're fucking then fighting because the one has his legs completely open and the other lies in between and they're head to head, you wonder what they're saying to each other, and by the way this is not like TV wrestling, this is for real, this is pain on parade. Finally, the ref gets them out of a corner, not because they're off the mat but because no action I suppose, 3 minutes no punch; break it up. So they do and then with time running out, the guy who's behind, judging by the reaction at the bar, kicks his opponent in the head with his foot, it's eessentially his heel bone on the temple. Well you could see the lights go right out like there was a power outage in Vegas, face goes dark, body goes down and you can see this, he's clunked, but that's no reason to stop and the hitter jumps on the body of the outted man and begins hitting him, they wear these little bikkini gloves, hitting him until the ref comes over and gets the put bull off and he raises both arms and comes to the camera to show his own bloddy mouth. One for the Pulver Team. This is a team sport. The Pulver team won with their last match. Oh my God, the girl at the bar who's been watching this goes, this has made her night, she was betting on Pulver and they won, and she said it first, they won, she knew they would, they had to and this last fighter pulled through, he was the underdog but he did and she knew he would, and now everything's okay for the entire evening for all of Saturday night, until tomorrow, when Church won't be a thought in her head, but her boy friend will give her a wakeup run and then he'll have to get right up and fix his hemi and get down to Fesno to get a rare part.
Meanwhile, the Indian woman behind the desk is swamped by soccer parents. And now everything is going wrong. In one room, a door lock won't open; in another, no towels; in another, the movie won't play... The Panther parents don't come to games. They can't afford it, they have no transportation, they have to take an odd job whenever they can, even today. But here these parents battering the poor woman behind the desk are wealthy. This is their job, going to the games, getting their kids hyped, trained. As if all their money will make the kids more talented. They come from Santa Clara and Santa Cruz, from cities with the names of a culture that's now behind the teams beating them one after another. The white kids that pump and strump are no match for the Mexican American kids, who play with pessemism, without much hope, but relentlessly, as though this is all they'll ever have. And of course that's true to some degree.
It's all the caucasian kids may have as well but they don't know that yet, they can't imagine.
Perhaps the Indian understands these subplots. I believe she does. She speaks the language well, she's endlessly tolerant. She watches closely. She has layers of interaction. Not like her husband. He has a short temper and after a couple of days I realize his ill temper is semi permanent. He's particularly tempermental when people ask for an internet rate, which he tries to explain was a mistake. So there is a long negotiation with each family. He's running on a tight margin. He has to fight for every penny, to pay all the maids, to wash all the towels. He doesn't have the time or money to fix the tear in the chain link fence behind the buildings and put back the thick wooden slab to keep out the mice and rats. And now is an important moment: When the state cup is over there'll be a long stretch of unused rooms. The clientel will go back to meth brained tanker truckers with their Latin dollies, four hours for $100. Or traveling salesmen come to Turlock to feast on the new businesses springing up. It's a long way from the Grapes of Wrath...
I go downtown for dinner. The only clear radio is "positice and encouraging KLOVE", Christian music rock, Love songs to the Healer, Loving you, my maker, save me from evil love and downward living.
***
The desire to love little dead men on little dead sticks had to change. Folks need something more hopeful, and more tactile. You don't want to fall in love with a corpse on a stick, even if it's Him. These days you want romantic love, spiritual love, endorphin love all wrapped up in one. A spritzer of sacred and profane, where you can hear the backbeat of sexual healing. Because after all, not if I'm Rosario riding meth-brained truckers to their little deaths or cleaning up the endless mess of anonymous families, if I'm her the analogy is enough, the representation is sufficient, but if I'm tattooed Andrea out at Kragen working 9 to 9 and my only fun on the job is creating the Mystery Oil display, and my old boyfriend went off to Iraq or El Lay, then I need some now-now in my life. I need Jesus to come in and do me, but the way He would, so it would be nice and gentle and he wouldn't leave right afterwards or tell me to go out and buy another pack of cigarettes and by the way bring back an Ultimate Cheeseburger, He would hold me and I'd feel so reassured and so young again. Because out here it's just tiring and you age fast and hard.
***
Dash goes off with his team to see 300, to get pumped, to believe... I'm stray deeper into Turlock, way of down East Main, and find Wellington Station. It's after 9 and about the last place you can find eats, even on a Saturday night. But this is no imitation English pub, this is real English food, the shephard's pie, the al dente vegetables and masked potatoes, without a hint of taste. Electronic dart board over on one wall, glasses hanging upside down above the bar, high boy little round tables, a few people at the bar, there's a Cal State a quarter mile on. On TV, it's extreme fighting from Manchester, EFFA sanctified, whatever you want, in your dreams mind rage and here's two Americans going at it, they're like in a cage, one's on top of the other, and you think it looks more like they're fucking then fighting because the one has his legs completely open and the other lies in between and they're head to head, you wonder what they're saying to each other, and by the way this is not like TV wrestling, this is for real, this is pain on parade. Finally, the ref gets them out of a corner, not because they're off the mat but because no action I suppose, 3 minutes no punch; break it up. So they do and then with time running out, the guy who's behind, judging by the reaction at the bar, kicks his opponent in the head with his foot, it's eessentially his heel bone on the temple. Well you could see the lights go right out like there was a power outage in Vegas, face goes dark, body goes down and you can see this, he's clunked, but that's no reason to stop and the hitter jumps on the body of the outted man and begins hitting him, they wear these little bikkini gloves, hitting him until the ref comes over and gets the put bull off and he raises both arms and comes to the camera to show his own bloddy mouth. One for the Pulver Team. This is a team sport. The Pulver team won with their last match. Oh my God, the girl at the bar who's been watching this goes, this has made her night, she was betting on Pulver and they won, and she said it first, they won, she knew they would, they had to and this last fighter pulled through, he was the underdog but he did and she knew he would, and now everything's okay for the entire evening for all of Saturday night, until tomorrow, when Church won't be a thought in her head, but her boy friend will give her a wakeup run and then he'll have to get right up and fix his hemi and get down to Fesno to get a rare part.
Apr 12, 2007
Boss
I've been thinking of him lately and how it's time to get busy and write it down.
The first time I met him was at the urinal at the federal building in el lay, at the height of the dog trial. He stood next to me, his dick hanging down in that ugly warrior arc, his hands on his hips, upside down hands, thumbs forward, the way steady leather skinned farmers do, and although he wasn't wearing suspenders it was if he was, I think of him that way, and here he was looking out at a grand view of America and saying, 'kid, pretty amazing isn't it.' And then he looked at me with his kindly smile, his St. Anthony smile. He could be mean, vitriolic beyond belief, but the best of him has always been his good hearted regard for strangers.
And then at the other end, riding around with Paulie driving through the city late at night, just the three of us, already then, regretting the loss.
The first time I met him was at the urinal at the federal building in el lay, at the height of the dog trial. He stood next to me, his dick hanging down in that ugly warrior arc, his hands on his hips, upside down hands, thumbs forward, the way steady leather skinned farmers do, and although he wasn't wearing suspenders it was if he was, I think of him that way, and here he was looking out at a grand view of America and saying, 'kid, pretty amazing isn't it.' And then he looked at me with his kindly smile, his St. Anthony smile. He could be mean, vitriolic beyond belief, but the best of him has always been his good hearted regard for strangers.
And then at the other end, riding around with Paulie driving through the city late at night, just the three of us, already then, regretting the loss.
Apr 9, 2007
Dorothy Kilgallen, I miss you
How bad news hangs in the air, like the brown and beige air in Los Angeles basin before catalytic converters. Even now. Good news on the other hand, has no color; it just rises and disappears. But even the slightest bad news has a tint and taste, even when you can't describe it, barely remember it. It always lingers, comes out in a dream or a shallow thought about something else.
"What did I see the other day?"
Oh yes, a second story apartment in Oakland, dense and dirty, a hallway the length of a short smile, chocked with 7 years worth of accumulation, a mother and daughter's hang out, the place they're always leaving, promising themselves to move away from, but then there's never enough money, never enough energy to get out, and so they live on. No matter because they've managed, what they've done with their lives, you think and no support at all. These are poets and writers and creative people. Funny people and you sit and watch her, she's quite a beautiful woman, at whatever age she is, but Sicilian by blood and so there's a dark streak there, and then paper over that a life you would not believe, so filled with death and destructiveness. We sit with her and listen to her say that she has had much creative success lately and more on the way, but she has no life. This is everyone's complaint, I suppose, how can you have a life when there's no time to have it. So she is well, and her daughter is well, and everything is fine, and even the apartment is alright, although you wouldn't want to live there because it's too close to Nathaniel West rooms in East Hollywood, where the curtains are ripped and the floorboards are filthy and the old half Persian carpets reak of smoke and a trillion specs of city vomitage. You have a good visit and everything's fine and you can't wait to see her again, but then later it's as though you lost your wallet and something's amiss.
Or else there's off hand comment. Nothing meant. Just an aside. A good friend telling me a therapist's wisdom, which was that 'all relationships end. Why get excited. Get used to it. Whatever relationship you're in it will end. By death if nothing else. Yours or theirs.' I'm not doing it justice. The comment was easy and off hand and a truth not worth exploring because it's so obvious. But you hear that and then you leave and then everything is colored by it. Then later it's that feeling again that you lost something and even St. Anthony can't find it.
The whole culture is bent toward bad news. Like twisting black flowers bending to a nightmare moon. And how we love it, don't we? The more of it the better. Especially when it involves health. The other day the kid told his mom he'd been seeing wavy lines and a black dot in the middle of his vision. She went right for it. Got on the Internet and all the darkest possibilities popped up and in no time at all, the worst was not possible but probable and from there the long slow trudge of living out the worst even before any doctors had been called, before any tests taken. Any mother would react the same way, any good mother.
But there's something else here. You might even say, there's a longing for the worst. In the bottom of the drawer, in the back of the closet that's what there is, secret pleasure in catastrophe. Because then you are released from everyday, then the fear that this is all too good to be true, is justified.
"What did I see the other day?"
Oh yes, a second story apartment in Oakland, dense and dirty, a hallway the length of a short smile, chocked with 7 years worth of accumulation, a mother and daughter's hang out, the place they're always leaving, promising themselves to move away from, but then there's never enough money, never enough energy to get out, and so they live on. No matter because they've managed, what they've done with their lives, you think and no support at all. These are poets and writers and creative people. Funny people and you sit and watch her, she's quite a beautiful woman, at whatever age she is, but Sicilian by blood and so there's a dark streak there, and then paper over that a life you would not believe, so filled with death and destructiveness. We sit with her and listen to her say that she has had much creative success lately and more on the way, but she has no life. This is everyone's complaint, I suppose, how can you have a life when there's no time to have it. So she is well, and her daughter is well, and everything is fine, and even the apartment is alright, although you wouldn't want to live there because it's too close to Nathaniel West rooms in East Hollywood, where the curtains are ripped and the floorboards are filthy and the old half Persian carpets reak of smoke and a trillion specs of city vomitage. You have a good visit and everything's fine and you can't wait to see her again, but then later it's as though you lost your wallet and something's amiss.
Or else there's off hand comment. Nothing meant. Just an aside. A good friend telling me a therapist's wisdom, which was that 'all relationships end. Why get excited. Get used to it. Whatever relationship you're in it will end. By death if nothing else. Yours or theirs.' I'm not doing it justice. The comment was easy and off hand and a truth not worth exploring because it's so obvious. But you hear that and then you leave and then everything is colored by it. Then later it's that feeling again that you lost something and even St. Anthony can't find it.
The whole culture is bent toward bad news. Like twisting black flowers bending to a nightmare moon. And how we love it, don't we? The more of it the better. Especially when it involves health. The other day the kid told his mom he'd been seeing wavy lines and a black dot in the middle of his vision. She went right for it. Got on the Internet and all the darkest possibilities popped up and in no time at all, the worst was not possible but probable and from there the long slow trudge of living out the worst even before any doctors had been called, before any tests taken. Any mother would react the same way, any good mother.
But there's something else here. You might even say, there's a longing for the worst. In the bottom of the drawer, in the back of the closet that's what there is, secret pleasure in catastrophe. Because then you are released from everyday, then the fear that this is all too good to be true, is justified.
Mar 23, 2007
Just this morning
Will Ferrell on Terry Gross, talking last year about his film, Stranger Than Fiction; about getting the gig on Saturday Night Live, about being interested in self important characters who imagine they have something all important to say or to do in the world but they don't.... Listening while crawling along 101 South, in Lane No. 1, once upon a time the fast lane, just north of the 92 interchange. It's a clear day, you can see forever, you can daydream to eternity.
Over on the right, something catches your eye. What is that? Cars stopped. A UPS van, a blue car behind that. Two men running, one after the other. One's a fat man. Where are they running to? You follow the action from left to right as you pass. They're running to another car stopped in the shoulder lane. Oh, what is that? That's a man hanging out of his car, out of the driver's side, his head is almost touching the cement. He is nearly upside down, he's not moving. A young man is all you can see. And there's something there. What is that? A little red spot in the side of his head. A little red spot. The mind puts things together this morning with the speed of a baby with an abacus. That little red spot could be from a bullet. And right away, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, you conclude, suicide. That's the feeling. Yet you're not even sure that the red spot is a blood spot. Could be lipstick for all you know.
But it's not. It's something bad. And what a shock. And wow how it lasts. Not like these other shocks, things you just read about, and imagine, no this has got a real kick to it. A short time later you see a police car, lights fluttering, hustling up from the south. Meanwhile, the radio is still on, speed unchanged, in line dancing still in effect, exit coming up....
Over on the right, something catches your eye. What is that? Cars stopped. A UPS van, a blue car behind that. Two men running, one after the other. One's a fat man. Where are they running to? You follow the action from left to right as you pass. They're running to another car stopped in the shoulder lane. Oh, what is that? That's a man hanging out of his car, out of the driver's side, his head is almost touching the cement. He is nearly upside down, he's not moving. A young man is all you can see. And there's something there. What is that? A little red spot in the side of his head. A little red spot. The mind puts things together this morning with the speed of a baby with an abacus. That little red spot could be from a bullet. And right away, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, you conclude, suicide. That's the feeling. Yet you're not even sure that the red spot is a blood spot. Could be lipstick for all you know.
But it's not. It's something bad. And what a shock. And wow how it lasts. Not like these other shocks, things you just read about, and imagine, no this has got a real kick to it. A short time later you see a police car, lights fluttering, hustling up from the south. Meanwhile, the radio is still on, speed unchanged, in line dancing still in effect, exit coming up....
Mar 22, 2007
Kids in the news
There was this story in a Reuters article two days ago...
Abdul-Muhsin said Zaman was abducted in Baghdad last month on her way home from school. Zaman was not at the hospital when Reuters visited, but Abdul-Muhsin said few children he had treated recently had affected him as much. “An elderly woman asked her to help her carry some plastic bags across the road to find a taxi. While she was taking her bags back from Zaman, she grabbed her and forced her into the taxi. She anesthetized Zaman and tied her up,” he said. The girl was held in a room with 15 other girls for seven hours before being released by police who raided the house. “They beat her, they told her that they would send her to insurgents as a forced ’bride’,” Abdul-Muhsin said.
By one account 75 percent of Iraqi children suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
And then the other day there was this story. in Baghdad, two adults in a car stopped at an American military check point with two children in the back seat. The soldiers saw the children and waved the car on. The car continued to a school and parked. The two adults fled and then blew the car up, with the two children inside. Five other people were also killed.
And you can imagine that, a boy and a girl, 8 and 9, confused, scared, given lies to eat, hopes to drink, on the way home by a circuitous route, don't worries, Allah, Allah, Allah, as though that will protect them and absolve the bombers.
Last night I drove Dash to a star gazing for his class, at Crissy Field, with its spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge. On the way, we saw an Asian man sprinting along the sidewalk. He flew past other joggers and kept up the pace for a long time. Dash was a like horse caught by the sight of other horses. He demanded I stop the car. He got out and began running. Very fast, as fast as he could, only his head visible in the orangle gloaming, his hair waving like fire. I'd never seen anything so beautiful, all I could think of was that I wanted to stop the moment, catch it and remember it always. But he slowed down and was angry that I was driving alongside. He waved me on.
Alright, I thought, and drove to where I thought we were to rendezvous with his class. But it was not the place. The darkness was speeding up. I thought I might see him, I knew he had cut across, but he didn't appear and after two or three minutes I drove back along the route I thought he would have taken. But he wasn't there.
I drove back to another place where the class might be. Sure enough they were there, huddled together, listening to a man talking about the rings around Saturn. I looked for Dash but couldn't find him and said nothing, largely out of embarassment. What could I say? We were together; he wanted to run, he likes to run, he's like horses and then we got separated.
I looked around and thought of asking people but it seemed silly. I thought he would appear but minutes passed and then it occurred to me he would be afraid. The darkness was on. He doesn't like the dark, nor his brother. And now I felt the prepanic that drives imagination. I went back to the group and looked closely. A few children looked at me, in a puzzled way. Finally, I drove back along the road again, where I had let him off. Out of one eye I caught him. He was talking to a young woman. He broke away got in the car, he was crying, he had run on not found me and run all the way back. It was a couple of miles. He was asking this woman for help when I arrived...
Once, in Golden Gate Park, at this spot just above where the stable used to be, I left him accidentally, thinking he was with his mother in the car behind me. We had stopped to pick him up. But she thought he was in my car and we drove a couple of miles before we realized our mistake. He has a recurring dream that he is left behind.
His older brother once flew a gigantic styrofoam glider at that very spot, years before, and I had dreams that I had to leave him there....
Abdul-Muhsin said Zaman was abducted in Baghdad last month on her way home from school. Zaman was not at the hospital when Reuters visited, but Abdul-Muhsin said few children he had treated recently had affected him as much. “An elderly woman asked her to help her carry some plastic bags across the road to find a taxi. While she was taking her bags back from Zaman, she grabbed her and forced her into the taxi. She anesthetized Zaman and tied her up,” he said. The girl was held in a room with 15 other girls for seven hours before being released by police who raided the house. “They beat her, they told her that they would send her to insurgents as a forced ’bride’,” Abdul-Muhsin said.
By one account 75 percent of Iraqi children suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
And then the other day there was this story. in Baghdad, two adults in a car stopped at an American military check point with two children in the back seat. The soldiers saw the children and waved the car on. The car continued to a school and parked. The two adults fled and then blew the car up, with the two children inside. Five other people were also killed.
And you can imagine that, a boy and a girl, 8 and 9, confused, scared, given lies to eat, hopes to drink, on the way home by a circuitous route, don't worries, Allah, Allah, Allah, as though that will protect them and absolve the bombers.
Last night I drove Dash to a star gazing for his class, at Crissy Field, with its spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge. On the way, we saw an Asian man sprinting along the sidewalk. He flew past other joggers and kept up the pace for a long time. Dash was a like horse caught by the sight of other horses. He demanded I stop the car. He got out and began running. Very fast, as fast as he could, only his head visible in the orangle gloaming, his hair waving like fire. I'd never seen anything so beautiful, all I could think of was that I wanted to stop the moment, catch it and remember it always. But he slowed down and was angry that I was driving alongside. He waved me on.
Alright, I thought, and drove to where I thought we were to rendezvous with his class. But it was not the place. The darkness was speeding up. I thought I might see him, I knew he had cut across, but he didn't appear and after two or three minutes I drove back along the route I thought he would have taken. But he wasn't there.
I drove back to another place where the class might be. Sure enough they were there, huddled together, listening to a man talking about the rings around Saturn. I looked for Dash but couldn't find him and said nothing, largely out of embarassment. What could I say? We were together; he wanted to run, he likes to run, he's like horses and then we got separated.
I looked around and thought of asking people but it seemed silly. I thought he would appear but minutes passed and then it occurred to me he would be afraid. The darkness was on. He doesn't like the dark, nor his brother. And now I felt the prepanic that drives imagination. I went back to the group and looked closely. A few children looked at me, in a puzzled way. Finally, I drove back along the road again, where I had let him off. Out of one eye I caught him. He was talking to a young woman. He broke away got in the car, he was crying, he had run on not found me and run all the way back. It was a couple of miles. He was asking this woman for help when I arrived...
Once, in Golden Gate Park, at this spot just above where the stable used to be, I left him accidentally, thinking he was with his mother in the car behind me. We had stopped to pick him up. But she thought he was in my car and we drove a couple of miles before we realized our mistake. He has a recurring dream that he is left behind.
His older brother once flew a gigantic styrofoam glider at that very spot, years before, and I had dreams that I had to leave him there....
Mar 19, 2007
Dinesen's Ghost
I wrote a note thinking she'd gone and come back.
"You mean to Ethiopia?" she wrote back. "Haven't left yet - we leave on Saturday. And, the plan is to spend about a week touring through north-central Kenya - the OTHER side of the Rift Valley (yes, I know, Rift Valley Fever - we'll try to avoid the beef...), through Maralal,Samburu, and Marsabit National Parks - up into Moyale,
and then over the border, where we zigzag through the lower (Ethiopian) Rift Valley lakes, making our way to Addis in about another week - and then one last week going beyond Addis, into the hills to the northwest... But, of course, we'll see how it goes - and, again, all of this is contingent on the vehicle log book actually being sent to Eldoret, on the 'new' peugeot having its final mechanical tune-ups, and on both of us finishing up a zillion things - all before Saturday.
It's gonna be a crazy week - that began today for me with a trip up to Ptoyo (bumfuck, west pokot) - where we picked up a young woman, 5 months pregnant, having a miscarriage... the fetus, a fully formed boy, came out some time between Ptoyo and Chepkobegh, where her mother-in-law scooped him out of the girl's skirt onto the roadside. And we all
clucked our tongues, and the mother-in-law tried to wash away the blood from the vehicle with tree leaves.
The family wanted then only to return to Ptoyo. But we convinced them to continue, on up to Kapenguria, afterall, the girl was anemic, had lost a lot of blood - and who knows what else. Of course, it had rained in the meantime, and by the time we got to Chepkobegh,the river was flooded. So we waited almost 2 hours, all six of us in the Prado, by the riverside. Under gray skies.
It's been a long day; and I can only say I'm already looking forward to the end of the week, to barbecued sausage and a glass of wine under the stars with baboons crying in the background.Afterall, what else, if not for these layers of experience, is East Africa about...?
"You mean to Ethiopia?" she wrote back. "Haven't left yet - we leave on Saturday. And, the plan is to spend about a week touring through north-central Kenya - the OTHER side of the Rift Valley (yes, I know, Rift Valley Fever - we'll try to avoid the beef...), through Maralal,Samburu, and Marsabit National Parks - up into Moyale,
and then over the border, where we zigzag through the lower (Ethiopian) Rift Valley lakes, making our way to Addis in about another week - and then one last week going beyond Addis, into the hills to the northwest... But, of course, we'll see how it goes - and, again, all of this is contingent on the vehicle log book actually being sent to Eldoret, on the 'new' peugeot having its final mechanical tune-ups, and on both of us finishing up a zillion things - all before Saturday.
It's gonna be a crazy week - that began today for me with a trip up to Ptoyo (bumfuck, west pokot) - where we picked up a young woman, 5 months pregnant, having a miscarriage... the fetus, a fully formed boy, came out some time between Ptoyo and Chepkobegh, where her mother-in-law scooped him out of the girl's skirt onto the roadside. And we all
clucked our tongues, and the mother-in-law tried to wash away the blood from the vehicle with tree leaves.
The family wanted then only to return to Ptoyo. But we convinced them to continue, on up to Kapenguria, afterall, the girl was anemic, had lost a lot of blood - and who knows what else. Of course, it had rained in the meantime, and by the time we got to Chepkobegh,the river was flooded. So we waited almost 2 hours, all six of us in the Prado, by the riverside. Under gray skies.
It's been a long day; and I can only say I'm already looking forward to the end of the week, to barbecued sausage and a glass of wine under the stars with baboons crying in the background.Afterall, what else, if not for these layers of experience, is East Africa about...?
Mar 13, 2007
Bombing in Casa
A bomber blows himself up yesterday in an internet cafe in Casa. But which cafe? That one near the gare du nord, at the bottom of the stairs. How many times did I go there? Or perhaps it was the place around the corner from the Hotel Farrah where Allal worked. That place was down the street from where I found the woman lying in gutter. A year ago I wrote about it.
The bomber died. A companion was injured and captured. The two had sought access to an internet site used by terrorists, were stopped by the son of the cafe owner. One of the men then blew himself up. The son was not killed but badly injured. But this is all from a brief release. What else is known?
It was Allal who drove with me one day to Siddi Moumen. We drove right into it, down one street after another. On a rise so that you could see downtown in the distance. This was where the May 16th bombers came from. Allal told me the whole story; he'd often been to the mosque where, supposedly those boys had come from. Ignorant, unemployed kids looking for a nightlife in Paradise with the black eyed. But there was one street in particular; it ran along the side of a towering wall. Opposite the wall the poorest people. It reminded me of the slums in Mexico City. Smiling kids, a lot of motion, a lot of activity. Not the expressions of depressed people necessarily.
"But what's behind this wall?" I asked.
Allal, ever a gentle man, with an angelic smile, replied. "This is a factory where the king's furniture is made."
I thought that must mean these people outside the wall must work there. "Oh no, he said. "Not at all. They bring those people from somewhere else, not from this neighborhood. Those are very sought after jobs, they wouldn't give them to just anyone." He smiled. "And it will cost them one day."
The bomber died. A companion was injured and captured. The two had sought access to an internet site used by terrorists, were stopped by the son of the cafe owner. One of the men then blew himself up. The son was not killed but badly injured. But this is all from a brief release. What else is known?
It was Allal who drove with me one day to Siddi Moumen. We drove right into it, down one street after another. On a rise so that you could see downtown in the distance. This was where the May 16th bombers came from. Allal told me the whole story; he'd often been to the mosque where, supposedly those boys had come from. Ignorant, unemployed kids looking for a nightlife in Paradise with the black eyed. But there was one street in particular; it ran along the side of a towering wall. Opposite the wall the poorest people. It reminded me of the slums in Mexico City. Smiling kids, a lot of motion, a lot of activity. Not the expressions of depressed people necessarily.
"But what's behind this wall?" I asked.
Allal, ever a gentle man, with an angelic smile, replied. "This is a factory where the king's furniture is made."
I thought that must mean these people outside the wall must work there. "Oh no, he said. "Not at all. They bring those people from somewhere else, not from this neighborhood. Those are very sought after jobs, they wouldn't give them to just anyone." He smiled. "And it will cost them one day."
Mar 1, 2007
Profile
(This a draft profile of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. The piece was commissioned by Salon, but was eventually killed, largely because the scandal that initiated the assignment passed through the news cycles so quickly that the piece had no context. A few weeks after the scandal I was promised an interview with the mayor but his communications staff did what you do in these situations, you promise and promise, keep the clock running until the moment has passed and then you just let the promise dissipate. You don't return follow up calls, you don't even try to explain youself. You just keep quiet. Eventually, this strategy comes back to haunt you, I've seen this from both sides, although as a press officer I don't remember letting people hang. But those scandals were so different and so endless that you had to face them. These people don't face anything. They operate from fear and cynicism, which is the deep reading of this city because their faberge egg of a mayor enjoys tremendous ratings. But no matter,a good friend who knows these characters far better than I explained to me that they are incapable of making the right decision and soon enough there will be another scandal and another opportunity to reveal the twisted little political soul of this city.... Why include this piece in a blog? Because several people I interviewed had interesting things to say about the mayor and those around him and were not quoted in other places.... This draft may include some inaccuracies, it has not been fact checked by someone other than myself.)
When San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom offered his public apology for having an affair with his appointments secretary, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the wife of his campaign manager and good friend, Alex Tourk, he stood before the cameras, fingers clasped at the waist, palms up in submission, just the way well mannered Catholic boys do on solemn occasions.
"Thank you all for coming on short notice," he began "ah… wanna make it clear that everything you've heard and read is true."
The word 'true' was underlined with the flicker of a smile, and something adolescent in it, as though to say, “I don’t know quite how to act at this moment.”
It was an odd beginning to an apology, and certainly not what a press secretary might have wished for: Better to dispel rumors and be specific about what you are apologizing for, rather than leave the mob to its imagination.
After all, if everything you'd heard was true then mayor Newsom has a problem with cocaine as well as booze, hates his job, is the puppet of his incompetent and feuding staff, is increasingly unstable since his divorce, and hangs on to political life only because ‘downtown’ still wants him and the city has a well documented case of dementia and simply can’t remember wrong doing by public officials.
If everything you'd heard is true, Gavin Newsom, once forecast to be the new Kennedy, has become a failed state of a man, unable to trust or be trusted, has only the dimmest notion of who he is and meekly fights off the fear that he’s powerless, undeserving, perhaps even a fraud.
That's the one trespass they don't forgive you in San Francisco. It's the city's most cherished conceit. You can be anything you want, high or low, noble or despicable, but you'd better be who you claim. And the more brazenly you claim it the better.
Willie Brown — ‘Da mayor’ who although distantly married while in office had a child with one of his mistresses and rode with her in parades — never took much public criticism for his personal life. He took criticism for everyhting else but not that. The reason was because he kept the Sunni and Shiia in the city under control, playing the endlessly quarrelsome political clubs and ethnic groups off against each other.
He also demanded complete loyalty from his people and gave it in return. And if some folks feared him because he was ruthless — as well as villainous, the way he was willing to sell off the city piece by piece to the highest bidder — no matter. Underneath, even critics respected him because he was the juice and he got things done.
What Newsom has done in the three years since he became mayor seems more promise than performance. His gay marriage agenda, the highlight of his term, was eventually annulled, and some would say has now been tainted by this scandal. His much ballyhooed program to take the homeless off the streets has has worked but in an ever fickle city you’ll hear people say, “I see just as many as I did before, just not in the same places”.
His universal health care program for the city, which was not his idea, is still on the drawing board. His project to make the entire city Wifi-accessible hasn’t passed through the board of supervisors. Indeed, his relationship with the board has become so poisoned that they barely encounter each other.
“He’s always been absentee,” says board president Aaron Peskin who would become mayor were Newsom to leave office before his term ends. “Even when he was supervisor. Now he spends a lot of time governing by press release, and more time talking to the press than talking to his staff. That’s lead to the hegemony of the board.”
Peskin, well known for his late night rants on the phone to anyone who will listen went on, “Did you see The Queen? He’s kind of like The Queen. I don’t mean in that sense. I mean athough he didn’t come from the city’s elite he takes refuge there, he acts like that. Even when he was supervisor he would look down his nose at the other ten members.”
When Newcom came to office in 2004, The San Francisco Chronicle, always a moderate voice, called him, “Kennedyesque”. That was the buzz, among mostly young professionals, business people like Newsom, and the ‘downtown’ folks, the older wealthy business elite always intent upon keeping the city’s wildly progressive tendencies in check.
Suddenly, and for no particular reason, this idea got around that Gavin Newsom could be president one day. His coattails became heavy over night. And it wasn’t just that he was the new new thing, or that to some he appeared to be a social stepping stone as well as a political one, but that he was genuine and full of ideas and more important full of hope. That’s important in city that enjoys its reputation for daring but always needs an ‘atta-boy’ as well.
Newsom was coming on during a period when the police chief and several of his staff had been indicted by a grand jury, and when several city officials had been caught up in various financial scandals. There was a feeling underneath that the city had gotten dirty under the spell of cronies and Wille Brown’s and needed to get back its respectability.
As he went around the city campaigning in those months before the 2004 election he projected the persona of both a worldly rich kid and a Capra character, a friendly John Doe who just wanted to do the right thing.
At the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he came to a Salon.com party and afterwards people said, “TK”. And if he was snubbed by the politicos in his own party over his gay marriage initiative, and scaring up all those folks in Ohio, no matter. GQ Magazine hosted a party in Boston for him that the fire marshall had to close down. Boston was his.
Almost from the beginning there were stories about Newsom’s drinking, rumors that he and his wife had grown distant and complaints that his staff was both arrogant and ignorant. But that was all hidden in the foliage, behind what seemed like such obvious political potential.
He reached full bloom in September 2004, in a Harper's Bazaar spread — stretched out on the floor of Ann Getty's living room, with his arm around his wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle, with her almond shaped eyes, a former runway model for Macy's and Victoria's Secret, and once the lover of Gavin’s best friend, Billy Getty. It was her idea to do the spread.
The magazine dubbed the Newsom's "The New Kennedys" but the spread seemed quaint and parochial. This was not Jack Kennedy — a young lion in all his social inaccessiblity, sailing, or throwing a football, completely in his element. It wasn’t even like Bill Clinton playing a saxophone on Saturday Night Live. No, this was a man lounging, displaying no talent except charm, and like an actor, in a house that wasn't his; in a suit that wasn't his, and with a wife who in a sense wasn't his either. She'd already been living in New York for nine months, having given up her career as an assistant DA to host a segment on Court TV.
The spread became a joke around City Hall and further embossed Gavin's image among critics as a pretty pretender who had inherited his business and political fortune more than earned it. A man, who seemed thrust out by the Getty family,
In fact, he was not the rich man he appeared, merely the good friend of a rich kid, Billy Getty. The connection was through Newsom's father, a Getty family lawyer, the family’s consigliore by all accounts. Gordon Getty owns the majority share of several of Gavin's businesses.
Asked once about his ties to the Getty family, with the suggestion that without them he would not have had such business or political success, Newsom replied, "I developed strategies and I created opportunities. I executed. I implemented. I produced results and I did it over and over again. . . . No one ever knocked on my door saying, 'Gavin, this is all yours.' "
The Getty connection is in contrast to his own modest upbringing. He comes from a Fourth generation Irish family. His father left the family when Gavin was two, to run for public office, unsuccessfully and against his wife’s objections. She worked three menial jobs at the same time, including secretary and waitress, raised Gavin and his sister, and ever a do gooder in 19?? took on a foster child, who in recent years has been in and out of prison.
According to one story, Judge Newsom once told Gavin he probably couldn't be an attorney because he wasn't smart enough. His mother once told him not to get into politics because it would ruin his marriage. And it did.
But always this dual life, ricocheting back and forth between the Gettys and his mother. His aunt married the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi, and among the investors in his businesses is the speaker's husband, Paul Pelosi. [Mother died in TK, affecting him TK.]
In school he suffered from severe dyslexia, and still claims it’s a hindrance. He couldn't get into an elite private school and so settled for public school. He went to the University of Santa Clara, partly on a baseball scholarship, graduated in 19?? and with financial help from Gordon Getty started a wine shop. He became a restaurateur and now owns, in part, five restaurants, a winery, a ski resort, and two retail-clothing stores.
One of his establishments, the Matrix Fillmore bar, features designer cocktails, a plasma screen video system and tables shaped as letters S, E and X.
There is this story: Growing up, Newsom often went with the Gettys, he was nearly one of the family. Once he went on a trip with the family, perhaps to a resort or to visit close friends. At first the people, nannies whoever they were, thought Gavin was a Getty and treated him like gold. But when they found out he was not, they treated him rather differently.
"I took that to mean he's acutely aware that in the end he's not one of them,” said the person who told me this story. “But then who is he? He's caught between worlds and doesn't have any way out."
After the Bazaar spread, Newsom's spokesperson, Peter Ragone, strongly suggested Newsom resist taking advice from his wife. Later, Newsom would say privately, referring to the magazine spread, "That was the worst decision I ever made."
Some would argue this was the beginning of Newsom's emotional decline because four months later Kimberly filed for divorce citing the difficulty of their bicoastal marriage. In fact, she had wanted the bicoastal marriage in the first place, unhappy with her shadow life as the mayor's wife. She wanted to wear the coat not hang on to the tails. Still, she seemed to miss her life with Gavin and sometimes complained to friends that when she tried to reach him he wouldn't take her calls.
"Say what you will about her," says someone that knows them both, "but she kept him in line."
Whether true or not, during ???? the Newsom administration seemed to unravel. The mayor
Perhaps, the signature failure in his three years in office was that Newsom was unable to convince the York family to keep the San Francisco 49er football team from moving out of the city to another county. The move isn’t set in stone but very unlikely at this point.
The issue was over a new stadium, the loss of which also dashed any chances the city might host the 20?? Olympics.
“It was a straight up business issue for the 49ers,” says Peskin. “There’s probably nothing anybody could have done to keep them here. Even if Willie Brown was still mayor. But it didn’t help that the Yorks couldn’t get phone calls returned and that’s the problem over and over.”
Much more subtle agendas have also suffered. “Some of his earlier dreams,” says Russell Murphy, a children’s advocate, “like funding community after-school programs, and busing kids to these programs, has become a thing of the past. You try to get these people in city hall to listen and they just back away.”
Even those who preferred his more liberal and equally popular opponent, supervisor Matt Gonzalez, believed Newsom could accomplish a great deal because he was inheriting a proven infrastructure.
“Frankly, I preferred Matt,” notes Jeff Sheehy, a long time community advocate who Newsom appointed as his HIV/AIDS Advisor. “But I voted for Gavin because I was wary of the people around Matt. I was afraid that without experience they wouldn’t be able to get anything done.”
Sheehy eventually quit his position.
“Gavin asked me to do this job, to volunteer by the way, and I was glad to do it, but then there was just no support. It was extremely frustrating. Part of the problem was Gavin himself, and part were these people around him. They’re in late 20s, early 30s, most straight guys, moderate lefties. But they just didn’t know what they were doing. ”
"He brought in this entire staff who knew nothing," says one of the old hands in the City Hall establishment. "Some are good but for the most part they didn't want to listen to us. It was as though they came on the coattails of the king and should be treated accordingly. And don't think they didn't all drink. That's the pot calling the kettle. You'll find a full bar in a lot of those offices."
Another person with long experience in the city remarked, "It was like a frat house and they were so tickled they had drivers. Every night they'd all go out drinking. That was when the decisions were made, not in staff meetings."
Meanwhile, Newsom didn't seem to care and made little effort to regain control of his office. He became increasingly isolated and the tone in his office began to change, in the words of supervisor Bevin Dufty, to a “bunker mentality.”
One former member of the Gavin administration who asked not to be identified told me, "He was ignored, they showed him no respect. I think he began to feel humiliated. And yes he was letting it happen but I don't think he felt he could change it. So he began to hate the job. He would put on his music and tune out, as though, 'They've won, there's nothing I can do.' The very people he hired betrayed him."
"Initially, I thought he was a dazzler," this person added. "I thought, 'well, maybe he could be another Kennedy', but then somewhere along the line he started losing his hold on things, he started drinking, and there was just no one around him to say 'you're out of control.' “
“It’s all Fitzgerald, it’s The Great Gatsby,’ says Peskin. “It’s the story of vacuous people who thought of themselves as a political elite, and thought they were going to run Newsom into the White house. But then along the way they all became morally bankrupt.”
When Gavin Newsom moved into Room 200 in City Hall one of the first things he did was to move the desk. Willie Brown had it facing the interior of the office and he had the tall curved doors always open to the hallway outside, and a velvet rope across, so that the tour groups could come and see the mayor in his political diorama, in his natural habitat.
Newsom closed the doors and moved the desk so that it faced east, toward the square and across the way the library and the Asian Museum. It’s a view of a city in all its steely variety and complexity. And of course you can see lot of people, but not who they are.
“I think it’s nicer where the desk is now,” says Bevin Dufty, who counts himself a firm supporter of Newsom. “But the tours have stopped. When Gavin first got elected I’d go and see him. it was supposed to be an open door policy, but his people began to screen everyone. “He’s running behind,” they would say and eventually I just stopped going over.
“It was so unlike with Willie, and I don’t mean this as a criticism, but at lunch for example, Willie was always out there, talking, engaging people. But Gavin is not a big ‘people person’. His compassion sometimes seems more for people in the abstract. So during lunch he would just stay in his office and eat turkey sandwich after turkey sandwich, with his music going, reading a book or going over some policy.”
It's interesting to note that before Newsom made his apology he called his family and close friends together for consultation — not in his home or in the Getty home but in the back room of a restaurant, perhaps the one refuge where he feels most comfortable and secure.
That seems to have been his life in recent years — in his office by day, in a restaurant by night. Often he could be seen at North Beach Restaurant, alone, with a glass of wine. Perhaps, happier as a businessman than as the primate of a $4 million budget and 30,000 city employees. Perhaps more comfortable in the half lit demimonde of casual relationships and a small tight circle of close if not completely trusted friends.
“But does anybody really know him?” more than one person asked me.
“You have to remember he’s still a 30-something guy,” says KCBS radio reporter Barbara Taylor. “In a way he leads a double life. He’s the mayor of a large city and at the same time a handsome bachelor, who women really like. So there’s inherently a conflict and sometimes maybe a disconnect when he reverts back to a 30-something bachelor and forgets that he’s mayor.
“But there’s another aspect to this disconnect. He has established an image as a moralist and a goodie two shoes. But then you wonder how that can be? At about the same time last year he was expressing outrage over some tasteless videos made by police officers he was off boffing his campaign manager’s wife.”
The question right after the scandal was “when will the other shoe drop”? And how big would the shoe have to be to force Newsom from office.
Then came news that Mrs. Tourk had been paid $10,000 for a benefit normally given to a person with an illness that could, in the words of the director of the san Francisco health department, “result in their death in a relatively short period of time.”
Was Mrs. Tourk’s condition that dire? The whole matter is under investigation. Meanwhile, damage control is under way. The mayor is in rehab. In a well respected program, not a celebrityhab. Moreover, a poll taken after the sandal broke showed that Newsom still has a 75 percent approval rating. The consensus is that he will easily win reelection, if only because there’s no clear contender.
"The city's nature is to be tolerant," notes philanthropist Warren Hellman who has worked with Newsom on several projects. "If nothing else happens I don't think it will affect his reelection."
Hellmann adds a widely held sentiment in San Francisco, "We almost impeached Clinton and look at what we got now."
As for the immediate political fallout Barack Obama has apparently refused to be seen with Newsom when he passes though San Francisco on ???. Most would agree that this is not an example of San Francisco values that helps Nancy Pelosi. If she was roasted for taking the advice of the sergeant and arms, surely she’ll be torn and quartered over this, if not now, later.
Then there is the matter of San Francisco, itself.
“It’s shameful,” says Calvin Welsh, “that on my side of the political edger we don’t have a progressive, full throated candidate, and it’s equally staggering that corporate San Francisco has no one other than this feckless character. You wonder what’s gonna become of this city.”
Aaron Peskin adds that with Newsom even more out of the picture now than before the city has fallen under the leadership of Newsom’s public information officer, Peter Ragone, who as the mayor’s scandal broke, was himself in a scandal, admitting that he had left quotes supporting Newsom on a blog, under another name.
Ragone has been given a new title: director of communication and planning.
“Peter Ragone is now in charge,” says Peskin. “Gavin reports to him, not the other way around.”
Still, Newsom may finally get his political wits back. He sounded like his old self at the opening of his reelection campaign office the other day, albeit still with his inappropriate smile in the midst of a renewed apology. “I wish he would take that little smike off his face when he offers an apology.” said a friend who works for the city. And although he’ll never become senator, much less a presidential hopeful, he could settle down as a businessman, a restaurateur, and be a Capraesque congressman, in a Washington office with a white picket fence.
For now he must confine himself to Baghdad by the Bay. Perhaps he can start playing basketball again in the Bay View, an African American district in the city. He used to go there on weekends and he was at his best, relaxed, as nice a guy as you'll ever find, look-you-in-the-eye friendly. "Hey Big G," the kids would say and he was in heaven.
When San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom offered his public apology for having an affair with his appointments secretary, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the wife of his campaign manager and good friend, Alex Tourk, he stood before the cameras, fingers clasped at the waist, palms up in submission, just the way well mannered Catholic boys do on solemn occasions.
"Thank you all for coming on short notice," he began "ah… wanna make it clear that everything you've heard and read is true."
The word 'true' was underlined with the flicker of a smile, and something adolescent in it, as though to say, “I don’t know quite how to act at this moment.”
It was an odd beginning to an apology, and certainly not what a press secretary might have wished for: Better to dispel rumors and be specific about what you are apologizing for, rather than leave the mob to its imagination.
After all, if everything you'd heard was true then mayor Newsom has a problem with cocaine as well as booze, hates his job, is the puppet of his incompetent and feuding staff, is increasingly unstable since his divorce, and hangs on to political life only because ‘downtown’ still wants him and the city has a well documented case of dementia and simply can’t remember wrong doing by public officials.
If everything you'd heard is true, Gavin Newsom, once forecast to be the new Kennedy, has become a failed state of a man, unable to trust or be trusted, has only the dimmest notion of who he is and meekly fights off the fear that he’s powerless, undeserving, perhaps even a fraud.
That's the one trespass they don't forgive you in San Francisco. It's the city's most cherished conceit. You can be anything you want, high or low, noble or despicable, but you'd better be who you claim. And the more brazenly you claim it the better.
Willie Brown — ‘Da mayor’ who although distantly married while in office had a child with one of his mistresses and rode with her in parades — never took much public criticism for his personal life. He took criticism for everyhting else but not that. The reason was because he kept the Sunni and Shiia in the city under control, playing the endlessly quarrelsome political clubs and ethnic groups off against each other.
He also demanded complete loyalty from his people and gave it in return. And if some folks feared him because he was ruthless — as well as villainous, the way he was willing to sell off the city piece by piece to the highest bidder — no matter. Underneath, even critics respected him because he was the juice and he got things done.
What Newsom has done in the three years since he became mayor seems more promise than performance. His gay marriage agenda, the highlight of his term, was eventually annulled, and some would say has now been tainted by this scandal. His much ballyhooed program to take the homeless off the streets has has worked but in an ever fickle city you’ll hear people say, “I see just as many as I did before, just not in the same places”.
His universal health care program for the city, which was not his idea, is still on the drawing board. His project to make the entire city Wifi-accessible hasn’t passed through the board of supervisors. Indeed, his relationship with the board has become so poisoned that they barely encounter each other.
“He’s always been absentee,” says board president Aaron Peskin who would become mayor were Newsom to leave office before his term ends. “Even when he was supervisor. Now he spends a lot of time governing by press release, and more time talking to the press than talking to his staff. That’s lead to the hegemony of the board.”
Peskin, well known for his late night rants on the phone to anyone who will listen went on, “Did you see The Queen? He’s kind of like The Queen. I don’t mean in that sense. I mean athough he didn’t come from the city’s elite he takes refuge there, he acts like that. Even when he was supervisor he would look down his nose at the other ten members.”
When Newcom came to office in 2004, The San Francisco Chronicle, always a moderate voice, called him, “Kennedyesque”. That was the buzz, among mostly young professionals, business people like Newsom, and the ‘downtown’ folks, the older wealthy business elite always intent upon keeping the city’s wildly progressive tendencies in check.
Suddenly, and for no particular reason, this idea got around that Gavin Newsom could be president one day. His coattails became heavy over night. And it wasn’t just that he was the new new thing, or that to some he appeared to be a social stepping stone as well as a political one, but that he was genuine and full of ideas and more important full of hope. That’s important in city that enjoys its reputation for daring but always needs an ‘atta-boy’ as well.
Newsom was coming on during a period when the police chief and several of his staff had been indicted by a grand jury, and when several city officials had been caught up in various financial scandals. There was a feeling underneath that the city had gotten dirty under the spell of cronies and Wille Brown’s and needed to get back its respectability.
As he went around the city campaigning in those months before the 2004 election he projected the persona of both a worldly rich kid and a Capra character, a friendly John Doe who just wanted to do the right thing.
At the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he came to a Salon.com party and afterwards people said, “TK”. And if he was snubbed by the politicos in his own party over his gay marriage initiative, and scaring up all those folks in Ohio, no matter. GQ Magazine hosted a party in Boston for him that the fire marshall had to close down. Boston was his.
Almost from the beginning there were stories about Newsom’s drinking, rumors that he and his wife had grown distant and complaints that his staff was both arrogant and ignorant. But that was all hidden in the foliage, behind what seemed like such obvious political potential.
He reached full bloom in September 2004, in a Harper's Bazaar spread — stretched out on the floor of Ann Getty's living room, with his arm around his wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle, with her almond shaped eyes, a former runway model for Macy's and Victoria's Secret, and once the lover of Gavin’s best friend, Billy Getty. It was her idea to do the spread.
The magazine dubbed the Newsom's "The New Kennedys" but the spread seemed quaint and parochial. This was not Jack Kennedy — a young lion in all his social inaccessiblity, sailing, or throwing a football, completely in his element. It wasn’t even like Bill Clinton playing a saxophone on Saturday Night Live. No, this was a man lounging, displaying no talent except charm, and like an actor, in a house that wasn't his; in a suit that wasn't his, and with a wife who in a sense wasn't his either. She'd already been living in New York for nine months, having given up her career as an assistant DA to host a segment on Court TV.
The spread became a joke around City Hall and further embossed Gavin's image among critics as a pretty pretender who had inherited his business and political fortune more than earned it. A man, who seemed thrust out by the Getty family,
In fact, he was not the rich man he appeared, merely the good friend of a rich kid, Billy Getty. The connection was through Newsom's father, a Getty family lawyer, the family’s consigliore by all accounts. Gordon Getty owns the majority share of several of Gavin's businesses.
Asked once about his ties to the Getty family, with the suggestion that without them he would not have had such business or political success, Newsom replied, "I developed strategies and I created opportunities. I executed. I implemented. I produced results and I did it over and over again. . . . No one ever knocked on my door saying, 'Gavin, this is all yours.' "
The Getty connection is in contrast to his own modest upbringing. He comes from a Fourth generation Irish family. His father left the family when Gavin was two, to run for public office, unsuccessfully and against his wife’s objections. She worked three menial jobs at the same time, including secretary and waitress, raised Gavin and his sister, and ever a do gooder in 19?? took on a foster child, who in recent years has been in and out of prison.
According to one story, Judge Newsom once told Gavin he probably couldn't be an attorney because he wasn't smart enough. His mother once told him not to get into politics because it would ruin his marriage. And it did.
But always this dual life, ricocheting back and forth between the Gettys and his mother. His aunt married the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi, and among the investors in his businesses is the speaker's husband, Paul Pelosi. [Mother died in TK, affecting him TK.]
In school he suffered from severe dyslexia, and still claims it’s a hindrance. He couldn't get into an elite private school and so settled for public school. He went to the University of Santa Clara, partly on a baseball scholarship, graduated in 19?? and with financial help from Gordon Getty started a wine shop. He became a restaurateur and now owns, in part, five restaurants, a winery, a ski resort, and two retail-clothing stores.
One of his establishments, the Matrix Fillmore bar, features designer cocktails, a plasma screen video system and tables shaped as letters S, E and X.
There is this story: Growing up, Newsom often went with the Gettys, he was nearly one of the family. Once he went on a trip with the family, perhaps to a resort or to visit close friends. At first the people, nannies whoever they were, thought Gavin was a Getty and treated him like gold. But when they found out he was not, they treated him rather differently.
"I took that to mean he's acutely aware that in the end he's not one of them,” said the person who told me this story. “But then who is he? He's caught between worlds and doesn't have any way out."
After the Bazaar spread, Newsom's spokesperson, Peter Ragone, strongly suggested Newsom resist taking advice from his wife. Later, Newsom would say privately, referring to the magazine spread, "That was the worst decision I ever made."
Some would argue this was the beginning of Newsom's emotional decline because four months later Kimberly filed for divorce citing the difficulty of their bicoastal marriage. In fact, she had wanted the bicoastal marriage in the first place, unhappy with her shadow life as the mayor's wife. She wanted to wear the coat not hang on to the tails. Still, she seemed to miss her life with Gavin and sometimes complained to friends that when she tried to reach him he wouldn't take her calls.
"Say what you will about her," says someone that knows them both, "but she kept him in line."
Whether true or not, during ???? the Newsom administration seemed to unravel. The mayor
Perhaps, the signature failure in his three years in office was that Newsom was unable to convince the York family to keep the San Francisco 49er football team from moving out of the city to another county. The move isn’t set in stone but very unlikely at this point.
The issue was over a new stadium, the loss of which also dashed any chances the city might host the 20?? Olympics.
“It was a straight up business issue for the 49ers,” says Peskin. “There’s probably nothing anybody could have done to keep them here. Even if Willie Brown was still mayor. But it didn’t help that the Yorks couldn’t get phone calls returned and that’s the problem over and over.”
Much more subtle agendas have also suffered. “Some of his earlier dreams,” says Russell Murphy, a children’s advocate, “like funding community after-school programs, and busing kids to these programs, has become a thing of the past. You try to get these people in city hall to listen and they just back away.”
Even those who preferred his more liberal and equally popular opponent, supervisor Matt Gonzalez, believed Newsom could accomplish a great deal because he was inheriting a proven infrastructure.
“Frankly, I preferred Matt,” notes Jeff Sheehy, a long time community advocate who Newsom appointed as his HIV/AIDS Advisor. “But I voted for Gavin because I was wary of the people around Matt. I was afraid that without experience they wouldn’t be able to get anything done.”
Sheehy eventually quit his position.
“Gavin asked me to do this job, to volunteer by the way, and I was glad to do it, but then there was just no support. It was extremely frustrating. Part of the problem was Gavin himself, and part were these people around him. They’re in late 20s, early 30s, most straight guys, moderate lefties. But they just didn’t know what they were doing. ”
"He brought in this entire staff who knew nothing," says one of the old hands in the City Hall establishment. "Some are good but for the most part they didn't want to listen to us. It was as though they came on the coattails of the king and should be treated accordingly. And don't think they didn't all drink. That's the pot calling the kettle. You'll find a full bar in a lot of those offices."
Another person with long experience in the city remarked, "It was like a frat house and they were so tickled they had drivers. Every night they'd all go out drinking. That was when the decisions were made, not in staff meetings."
Meanwhile, Newsom didn't seem to care and made little effort to regain control of his office. He became increasingly isolated and the tone in his office began to change, in the words of supervisor Bevin Dufty, to a “bunker mentality.”
One former member of the Gavin administration who asked not to be identified told me, "He was ignored, they showed him no respect. I think he began to feel humiliated. And yes he was letting it happen but I don't think he felt he could change it. So he began to hate the job. He would put on his music and tune out, as though, 'They've won, there's nothing I can do.' The very people he hired betrayed him."
"Initially, I thought he was a dazzler," this person added. "I thought, 'well, maybe he could be another Kennedy', but then somewhere along the line he started losing his hold on things, he started drinking, and there was just no one around him to say 'you're out of control.' “
“It’s all Fitzgerald, it’s The Great Gatsby,’ says Peskin. “It’s the story of vacuous people who thought of themselves as a political elite, and thought they were going to run Newsom into the White house. But then along the way they all became morally bankrupt.”
When Gavin Newsom moved into Room 200 in City Hall one of the first things he did was to move the desk. Willie Brown had it facing the interior of the office and he had the tall curved doors always open to the hallway outside, and a velvet rope across, so that the tour groups could come and see the mayor in his political diorama, in his natural habitat.
Newsom closed the doors and moved the desk so that it faced east, toward the square and across the way the library and the Asian Museum. It’s a view of a city in all its steely variety and complexity. And of course you can see lot of people, but not who they are.
“I think it’s nicer where the desk is now,” says Bevin Dufty, who counts himself a firm supporter of Newsom. “But the tours have stopped. When Gavin first got elected I’d go and see him. it was supposed to be an open door policy, but his people began to screen everyone. “He’s running behind,” they would say and eventually I just stopped going over.
“It was so unlike with Willie, and I don’t mean this as a criticism, but at lunch for example, Willie was always out there, talking, engaging people. But Gavin is not a big ‘people person’. His compassion sometimes seems more for people in the abstract. So during lunch he would just stay in his office and eat turkey sandwich after turkey sandwich, with his music going, reading a book or going over some policy.”
It's interesting to note that before Newsom made his apology he called his family and close friends together for consultation — not in his home or in the Getty home but in the back room of a restaurant, perhaps the one refuge where he feels most comfortable and secure.
That seems to have been his life in recent years — in his office by day, in a restaurant by night. Often he could be seen at North Beach Restaurant, alone, with a glass of wine. Perhaps, happier as a businessman than as the primate of a $4 million budget and 30,000 city employees. Perhaps more comfortable in the half lit demimonde of casual relationships and a small tight circle of close if not completely trusted friends.
“But does anybody really know him?” more than one person asked me.
“You have to remember he’s still a 30-something guy,” says KCBS radio reporter Barbara Taylor. “In a way he leads a double life. He’s the mayor of a large city and at the same time a handsome bachelor, who women really like. So there’s inherently a conflict and sometimes maybe a disconnect when he reverts back to a 30-something bachelor and forgets that he’s mayor.
“But there’s another aspect to this disconnect. He has established an image as a moralist and a goodie two shoes. But then you wonder how that can be? At about the same time last year he was expressing outrage over some tasteless videos made by police officers he was off boffing his campaign manager’s wife.”
The question right after the scandal was “when will the other shoe drop”? And how big would the shoe have to be to force Newsom from office.
Then came news that Mrs. Tourk had been paid $10,000 for a benefit normally given to a person with an illness that could, in the words of the director of the san Francisco health department, “result in their death in a relatively short period of time.”
Was Mrs. Tourk’s condition that dire? The whole matter is under investigation. Meanwhile, damage control is under way. The mayor is in rehab. In a well respected program, not a celebrityhab. Moreover, a poll taken after the sandal broke showed that Newsom still has a 75 percent approval rating. The consensus is that he will easily win reelection, if only because there’s no clear contender.
"The city's nature is to be tolerant," notes philanthropist Warren Hellman who has worked with Newsom on several projects. "If nothing else happens I don't think it will affect his reelection."
Hellmann adds a widely held sentiment in San Francisco, "We almost impeached Clinton and look at what we got now."
As for the immediate political fallout Barack Obama has apparently refused to be seen with Newsom when he passes though San Francisco on ???. Most would agree that this is not an example of San Francisco values that helps Nancy Pelosi. If she was roasted for taking the advice of the sergeant and arms, surely she’ll be torn and quartered over this, if not now, later.
Then there is the matter of San Francisco, itself.
“It’s shameful,” says Calvin Welsh, “that on my side of the political edger we don’t have a progressive, full throated candidate, and it’s equally staggering that corporate San Francisco has no one other than this feckless character. You wonder what’s gonna become of this city.”
Aaron Peskin adds that with Newsom even more out of the picture now than before the city has fallen under the leadership of Newsom’s public information officer, Peter Ragone, who as the mayor’s scandal broke, was himself in a scandal, admitting that he had left quotes supporting Newsom on a blog, under another name.
Ragone has been given a new title: director of communication and planning.
“Peter Ragone is now in charge,” says Peskin. “Gavin reports to him, not the other way around.”
Still, Newsom may finally get his political wits back. He sounded like his old self at the opening of his reelection campaign office the other day, albeit still with his inappropriate smile in the midst of a renewed apology. “I wish he would take that little smike off his face when he offers an apology.” said a friend who works for the city. And although he’ll never become senator, much less a presidential hopeful, he could settle down as a businessman, a restaurateur, and be a Capraesque congressman, in a Washington office with a white picket fence.
For now he must confine himself to Baghdad by the Bay. Perhaps he can start playing basketball again in the Bay View, an African American district in the city. He used to go there on weekends and he was at his best, relaxed, as nice a guy as you'll ever find, look-you-in-the-eye friendly. "Hey Big G," the kids would say and he was in heaven.
Feb 19, 2007
Realism
The walkway passes EA Sports. 'You're in the Game.' The place is the new American factory, a campus of sorts. Not pretty, not Ivy, but corporate. A dozen men play soccer on a grass pitch between the buildings. There's a spiral, perhaps intended to meditate on the virtues and values of gaming.
On their way to the nearby mall four young men from EA. Gamers, designers, who knows. They're bald or close to it. Jeans, sweatshirts. Hip, hep, cool.
"If you play the game with the old card," one is saying, "the ACS card, you can see guy. He thinks he's hiding behind camouflage but with the old card you can see right through it. And like when you come in a room, you know, with the new card it takes a minute, beause you have to wait until 'your eyes adjust'. But with the old card you can blow that asshole away."
One of the other guys says, "Realism isn't fun, is it?"
On their way to the nearby mall four young men from EA. Gamers, designers, who knows. They're bald or close to it. Jeans, sweatshirts. Hip, hep, cool.
"If you play the game with the old card," one is saying, "the ACS card, you can see guy. He thinks he's hiding behind camouflage but with the old card you can see right through it. And like when you come in a room, you know, with the new card it takes a minute, beause you have to wait until 'your eyes adjust'. But with the old card you can blow that asshole away."
One of the other guys says, "Realism isn't fun, is it?"
Feb 5, 2007
"and kill us all"
This is an excerpt from today's New York Times, about criticism of America's slowness in implementing a plan to stop the violence in Baghdad.
Mr. Abdul Jabbar said he rushed to collapsed buildings trying to help the wounded, but found mainly hands, skulls and other body parts. “The government is supposed to protect us, but they are not doing their job,” he said. “I watch the TV and see the announcements on the imminent implementation of the security plan. Where is it, for God’s sake? I wish they would attack us with a nuclear bomb and kill us all, so we will rest and anybody who wants the oil — which is the core of the problem — can come and get it. We can not live this way anymore. We are dying slowly every day.”
It is the sensation of the condemned: Now that I know I will die soon, don't prolong the torture.
Meanwhile, politicians bicker; the rush of the Super Bowl subsides, the addict's anguish begins anew, where is the next sensation? Give me something to look forward to, to distinguish me even as I am becoming extinguished.
Mr. Abdul Jabbar said he rushed to collapsed buildings trying to help the wounded, but found mainly hands, skulls and other body parts. “The government is supposed to protect us, but they are not doing their job,” he said. “I watch the TV and see the announcements on the imminent implementation of the security plan. Where is it, for God’s sake? I wish they would attack us with a nuclear bomb and kill us all, so we will rest and anybody who wants the oil — which is the core of the problem — can come and get it. We can not live this way anymore. We are dying slowly every day.”
It is the sensation of the condemned: Now that I know I will die soon, don't prolong the torture.
Meanwhile, politicians bicker; the rush of the Super Bowl subsides, the addict's anguish begins anew, where is the next sensation? Give me something to look forward to, to distinguish me even as I am becoming extinguished.
Jan 30, 2007
Rose away
And then out of nowhere Rose died. B's mother, at 86 — "86d" as we all joked later. After a long illness, after 10 children, after serving as a WAVE in WWII, after a long, clear life in a small Ohio town. And now all her children are feeling orphaned. Which suggests the broad experience of this generation. Time's run out. No more safety nets, not more tension on the other end to play yourself out again. The Summer of Love really is over and now what will happen to this generation, to all these people when they don't have parents to blame, to live off, to find solace with, to depend on. How will this generation finally come of age? Who will it be, in the on-deck circle. "You're up," you want to say now. "You're up to bat". And these are your last at bats by the way. You're up, what do you see out there?
Jan 28, 2007
From Marina in West Pokot...
On Friday, a boy died in our vehicle. Twelve, thirteen, who knows, he had been a dark mass at the other end of the field when we arrived in Serewo, a town not far from the bottom of the escarpment. Please, his father had begged, our child is sick, can you take us to the hospital. Of course, of course, but where is he? He pointed to the body covered in a black sheet. A lump.
Epilepsy, they said as they lifted him into the vehicle. The boy’s eyes were half-closed. The whites were showing. The circular mark of a serious blow to his forehead distorted his face, dripping with the crusty remnants of a local herb tincture. He reeked of stale urine.
Moments later, the nurse of the local dispensary asked if we might have room for a 3-year old girl, one he had diagnosed with malaria, but was not responding to the infusions he provided. She is restless, he said. When I saw her thin, anemic face, and the bloody IV line taped to a piece of carton around her wrist, I could hardly blame her.
With only the escarpment to climb before reaching Makutano, we began our journey – but the road reparations made it difficult. Even in 4 wheel drive, the landcruiser spun in place, its wheels caught in the sand. At one point, near the top, the road had been remade into a severely sloped maram track. A truck came the other way, and Eunice steered left, into the sandy slope. So tilted, I was sure the landcruiser would simply fall onto its left side. We got out and Eunice spun the vehicle around and through the sand back into the hard track of the road.
All the while, since I’d been gone a scant 24 hours, and I was just returning to network area, I listened anxiously to the local mechanic tell me that our other vehicle had almost had a serious accident the day before, how even he was shocked to see that the left front wheel had all but come off the vehicle, how could this happen…
He’s dead, Evelyn said. I hung up on the mechanic, mid-sentence, and turned to find the epileptic boy lying as he had been lying since he had been lifted into the vehicle. Only this time, he wasn’t breathing.
The father requested that we drive them to their house instead of the hospital. Of course, of course, but where is it? He guided Eunice down some dirt tracks, not far from where we were – and because the final stretch was over a cornfield, we stopped on the road, and he and the other father lifted the boy from the vehicle, each carrying two limbs. He was heavy. The boy’s head hung backwards, slack. They lifted him into the field and under some shade. The boy’s father turned to answer some queries from a pregnant neighbor; and as she looked at the boy, he walked off to his compound to find other family members who might assist in carrying the boy the rest of the way. Again, the boy was a lump in the field.
Eunice reversed and we returned to the hospital. The 3-year old girl and her family descended and went to check-in (no easy feat on a Friday afternoon). I returned the mechanic’s phone call.
Epilepsy, they said as they lifted him into the vehicle. The boy’s eyes were half-closed. The whites were showing. The circular mark of a serious blow to his forehead distorted his face, dripping with the crusty remnants of a local herb tincture. He reeked of stale urine.
Moments later, the nurse of the local dispensary asked if we might have room for a 3-year old girl, one he had diagnosed with malaria, but was not responding to the infusions he provided. She is restless, he said. When I saw her thin, anemic face, and the bloody IV line taped to a piece of carton around her wrist, I could hardly blame her.
With only the escarpment to climb before reaching Makutano, we began our journey – but the road reparations made it difficult. Even in 4 wheel drive, the landcruiser spun in place, its wheels caught in the sand. At one point, near the top, the road had been remade into a severely sloped maram track. A truck came the other way, and Eunice steered left, into the sandy slope. So tilted, I was sure the landcruiser would simply fall onto its left side. We got out and Eunice spun the vehicle around and through the sand back into the hard track of the road.
All the while, since I’d been gone a scant 24 hours, and I was just returning to network area, I listened anxiously to the local mechanic tell me that our other vehicle had almost had a serious accident the day before, how even he was shocked to see that the left front wheel had all but come off the vehicle, how could this happen…
He’s dead, Evelyn said. I hung up on the mechanic, mid-sentence, and turned to find the epileptic boy lying as he had been lying since he had been lifted into the vehicle. Only this time, he wasn’t breathing.
The father requested that we drive them to their house instead of the hospital. Of course, of course, but where is it? He guided Eunice down some dirt tracks, not far from where we were – and because the final stretch was over a cornfield, we stopped on the road, and he and the other father lifted the boy from the vehicle, each carrying two limbs. He was heavy. The boy’s head hung backwards, slack. They lifted him into the field and under some shade. The boy’s father turned to answer some queries from a pregnant neighbor; and as she looked at the boy, he walked off to his compound to find other family members who might assist in carrying the boy the rest of the way. Again, the boy was a lump in the field.
Eunice reversed and we returned to the hospital. The 3-year old girl and her family descended and went to check-in (no easy feat on a Friday afternoon). I returned the mechanic’s phone call.
Huis Clos
During the anti war march in the capital yesterday speakers repeated their pleas like lines from an old play. Oh the santimony, the I-am-right-and-have-been-all-along' was deafening, everyone insisting the war was must stop, and on a dime at that. Feminists, artists, activists, people with a political grudge on issues having nothing to do with the war all sang out. Voices quivered. A 12-year-old sixth grader from Boston made a most eloquent appeal, and you could hear people within mic range say, 'she really is just 12.' Yet no matter how relaxed and confident her delivery the girl was reciting an adult view. It was all an 'adult' view. Kucinich kept repeating the word 'peace' as though this was a neurolinguistic training exercise.
To hear it the notion seemed to be that if you just bring the troops home, the problem will dissolve, as though if you subtract America, the moral algebra will be zero. Equation solved, we can all feel good about ourselves again. Or like Pontius Pilot we can safely return to our isolation ward.
But what do you make of the Shiite commander who pointed out that the war will be over when the minority is vanquished and the sooner that can happen the better. That's the way it's always been, he said. That's the math for him, crush the minority, then democracy....
Has it not become ever clearer that whether there are more troops or fewer troops, this fire must burn itself out. The hatred is too carnivorous. An Iraqi, with his 7-year-old son on his lap, was quoted as saying in a New York Times article this morning that after several of his family had been killed and property taken, now he was so angry he wanted to 'rip them up with my teeth'.
For sure the diplomatic offensives should be launched, in all directions, without conditions. But now there's no escape — think of huis clos. It's too late. We're there, as bystanders or participants, call us what you like. We're in, worse than the French in Algeria, we're in and there's no way out, good or bad. It is the hell realms.
Did you read the account of the bomb in the bird cage that went off in the old animal market? By Marc Santoro, New York Times. Here's an excerpt....
The animal dealers would arrive early in the day and set up stalls along Jamhuriya Street.
The Bedouin would come in from the desert with scorpions and snakes and spiders, selling the venom for medicines. Merchants would bring in exotic animals, monkeys, foxes and even wolves, simply to attract a crowd so they could sell their more mundane animals, like chicken, sheep, dogs and goldfish.
The sellers would do just about anything to get attention.
Small birds were often painted bright colors to attract children, and fish were put in ornate glass jars to show off their brilliant colors. Men gathered in alleys to watch dog and cock fights. Tea and snacks were sold by wandering merchants.
Birds were a big draw, with rare pigeons being particularly popular.
One vendor, an Egyptian, according to witnesses, once put a chicken on a metal box and began rhythmically clapping. The chicken hopped from one foot to another, and the Egyptian claimed it was the world’s only dancing chicken.
But the crowd discovered a hot stone under the metal. Iraq has long been a rough place and the customers, who did not appreciate the trick, beat the man badly.
On Fridays, the day of rest, large crowds went to look at the animals before going to the mosque.
To hear it the notion seemed to be that if you just bring the troops home, the problem will dissolve, as though if you subtract America, the moral algebra will be zero. Equation solved, we can all feel good about ourselves again. Or like Pontius Pilot we can safely return to our isolation ward.
But what do you make of the Shiite commander who pointed out that the war will be over when the minority is vanquished and the sooner that can happen the better. That's the way it's always been, he said. That's the math for him, crush the minority, then democracy....
Has it not become ever clearer that whether there are more troops or fewer troops, this fire must burn itself out. The hatred is too carnivorous. An Iraqi, with his 7-year-old son on his lap, was quoted as saying in a New York Times article this morning that after several of his family had been killed and property taken, now he was so angry he wanted to 'rip them up with my teeth'.
For sure the diplomatic offensives should be launched, in all directions, without conditions. But now there's no escape — think of huis clos. It's too late. We're there, as bystanders or participants, call us what you like. We're in, worse than the French in Algeria, we're in and there's no way out, good or bad. It is the hell realms.
Did you read the account of the bomb in the bird cage that went off in the old animal market? By Marc Santoro, New York Times. Here's an excerpt....
The animal dealers would arrive early in the day and set up stalls along Jamhuriya Street.
The Bedouin would come in from the desert with scorpions and snakes and spiders, selling the venom for medicines. Merchants would bring in exotic animals, monkeys, foxes and even wolves, simply to attract a crowd so they could sell their more mundane animals, like chicken, sheep, dogs and goldfish.
The sellers would do just about anything to get attention.
Small birds were often painted bright colors to attract children, and fish were put in ornate glass jars to show off their brilliant colors. Men gathered in alleys to watch dog and cock fights. Tea and snacks were sold by wandering merchants.
Birds were a big draw, with rare pigeons being particularly popular.
One vendor, an Egyptian, according to witnesses, once put a chicken on a metal box and began rhythmically clapping. The chicken hopped from one foot to another, and the Egyptian claimed it was the world’s only dancing chicken.
But the crowd discovered a hot stone under the metal. Iraq has long been a rough place and the customers, who did not appreciate the trick, beat the man badly.
On Fridays, the day of rest, large crowds went to look at the animals before going to the mosque.
Jan 16, 2007
Downward Mobility
With the fire crackling, red wine at the bottom of glasses, yawns and the desire for one more story, there was this. A man who founded one of the most prominent acting companies in the state fell into ruin. He was fired, the reasons are not clear. He moved to Los Angeles and became a maitre D; the name of the restaurant didn't come to mind, but you could imagine a cafe for the well to do, the kind they have on 3rd Street in Santa Monica. No doubt some of the waiters were actors. He probably got along very well. Meanwhile, he explained the menu, no doubt with a flair, on a good night. On another night he probably looked at people a little strangely. Perhaps, he had seen them before at one of his productions. Perhaps, he looked familiar to the them. But in the end he did just as any of us would do, if we had to, if there was no choice, he took the order with a smile and returned to the kitchen. But then one night the new Maitre D' bought a pint of Hagendaz ice cream, went home, ate it, and then killed himself. How he did it was not known.
Twenty years ago or so I met a woman in Hollywood. She was Viennese, had married well and had two children. She was quite beautiful and well educated. But then her marriage fell away. You suspect she had dalliances, or she was not up to the drive and standards of her husband. He was an architect. She lost her children to her husband. She moved to Paris and for a time received alimony. Then it stopped and all her begging could not start it again. She moved to America and then to Beverly Hills and got a job at I. Magnin. She worked in the glove department and wore the gloves to her elbows as if she owned them. She lived in a one bedroom apartment north of Hollywood blvd. She had well to do friends and from time to time confided to them about her life. Once, she told me that her father had been a fascist and turned in several Jews to the Nazis.
Twenty years ago or so I met a woman in Hollywood. She was Viennese, had married well and had two children. She was quite beautiful and well educated. But then her marriage fell away. You suspect she had dalliances, or she was not up to the drive and standards of her husband. He was an architect. She lost her children to her husband. She moved to Paris and for a time received alimony. Then it stopped and all her begging could not start it again. She moved to America and then to Beverly Hills and got a job at I. Magnin. She worked in the glove department and wore the gloves to her elbows as if she owned them. She lived in a one bedroom apartment north of Hollywood blvd. She had well to do friends and from time to time confided to them about her life. Once, she told me that her father had been a fascist and turned in several Jews to the Nazis.
Jan 9, 2007
Moroccan trial ends
By Richard Hamilton
BBC News, Casablanca
A Moroccan magazine editor accused of defaming Islam and damaging morality by printing articles about religious jokes has defended his position in court.
Nichane magazine's Driss Ksikes, who is on trial in Casablanca with magazine journalist Sanaa al-Aji, denied the articles were intended be offensive. The prosecutor urged sentences of three to five years, saying journalists must balance liberties and responsibilities. The judges have retired and a verdict is expected later this month.
Following the publication of the articles, Moroccan authorities closed the magazine down and withdrew copies of it from newspaper stands. The article that has caused such an outcry looked at popular jokes on religion, sex and politics.
Mr Ksikes told the court he believed Morocco was a funny society. To ask the magazine why it told the jokes would be like asking the French playwright Moliere why he made people laugh, Mr Ksikes said. Ms Aji added that the jokes shed light on society and were in common usage, but they did not reflect her own beliefs.
The journalists, who have received death threats, said they were not making fun of religion.
They have, however, issued a public apology.
They are supported by international organisations such as Reporters Without Frontiers, which says this is a serious blow for press freedom. But the government does not see it that way, and says that attacking religion is one of the most serious offences a journalist can commit. Since the death of the previous king, Morocco has been undergoing a period of modernisation and media reform has been part of that process. However, this case may turn back the clock to the days when Moroccans had to be very careful about what they said.
* * * * *
Always the impression among people I speak to is that Morocco escapes the tumult, that Morocco hidden on the fringes, far from the formal madness, is safe from the Islamic fascists, not to mention the old regime of Hassan II. But now a trial begins today in which editors of a new weekly magazine, Nichane, are accused of runnning jokes critical of Islam. The managing editor, Driss Ksikes, is a friend and a highly likable and fearless fellow. He's also a playwright. And in recent years has drawn the ire of the government for a number of articles in TelQuel, the Time Magazine of Morocco. But if the situation has been tender it now seems to have broken out into a real wound. Clearly, the government, which is looking at an Islamic majority this year, cannot withstand the pressure of conservatives.
Meanwhile, the American press stifles a yawn and runs the emory board over its nails.
BBC News, Casablanca
A Moroccan magazine editor accused of defaming Islam and damaging morality by printing articles about religious jokes has defended his position in court.
Nichane magazine's Driss Ksikes, who is on trial in Casablanca with magazine journalist Sanaa al-Aji, denied the articles were intended be offensive. The prosecutor urged sentences of three to five years, saying journalists must balance liberties and responsibilities. The judges have retired and a verdict is expected later this month.
Following the publication of the articles, Moroccan authorities closed the magazine down and withdrew copies of it from newspaper stands. The article that has caused such an outcry looked at popular jokes on religion, sex and politics.
Mr Ksikes told the court he believed Morocco was a funny society. To ask the magazine why it told the jokes would be like asking the French playwright Moliere why he made people laugh, Mr Ksikes said. Ms Aji added that the jokes shed light on society and were in common usage, but they did not reflect her own beliefs.
The journalists, who have received death threats, said they were not making fun of religion.
They have, however, issued a public apology.
They are supported by international organisations such as Reporters Without Frontiers, which says this is a serious blow for press freedom. But the government does not see it that way, and says that attacking religion is one of the most serious offences a journalist can commit. Since the death of the previous king, Morocco has been undergoing a period of modernisation and media reform has been part of that process. However, this case may turn back the clock to the days when Moroccans had to be very careful about what they said.
* * * * *
Always the impression among people I speak to is that Morocco escapes the tumult, that Morocco hidden on the fringes, far from the formal madness, is safe from the Islamic fascists, not to mention the old regime of Hassan II. But now a trial begins today in which editors of a new weekly magazine, Nichane, are accused of runnning jokes critical of Islam. The managing editor, Driss Ksikes, is a friend and a highly likable and fearless fellow. He's also a playwright. And in recent years has drawn the ire of the government for a number of articles in TelQuel, the Time Magazine of Morocco. But if the situation has been tender it now seems to have broken out into a real wound. Clearly, the government, which is looking at an Islamic majority this year, cannot withstand the pressure of conservatives.
Meanwhile, the American press stifles a yawn and runs the emory board over its nails.
Jan 7, 2007
Following Saddam's Execution
Following Saddam's execution there was this story from Turkey...
"A 12-year-old died by hanging himself from the ceiling of his home, a hospital said Wednesday, and family members said the boy was copying Saddam Hussein's execution. It was the second death of a youngster blamed on televised images of the deposed Iraqi dictator's Dec. 30 execution. 30. A 10-year-old boy in Houston died Sunday by hanging himself from a bunk bed after watching news reports of the execution.
A hospital official in the southeastern province of Mus said Alisen Akti was dead on arrival at a hospital. The boy died of asphyxiation after apparently hanging himself, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to journalists. RadiKal newspaper quoted the boy's father as saying that the youngster had been affected by television images of Saddam's execution. "What kind of a problem could a 12-year-old have to want to kill himself?" Radikal quoted Esat Akti as saying.
"After watching Saddam's execution he was constantly asking 'How was Saddam killed?' and 'Did he suffer?'" Akti said. "These television images are responsible for my son's death."
In Yemen, a man apparently committed suicide when he heard the news. And in Morocco, a husband and wife got in a quarrel over whether the hanging was justified. The woman defended the execution saying that Saddam deserved to die. Her husband was so enraged he took a butcher knife and stabbed her to death. Meanwhile, crowds flow through the streets of large cities from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, caught up in the notion that here was a martyr.
"A 12-year-old died by hanging himself from the ceiling of his home, a hospital said Wednesday, and family members said the boy was copying Saddam Hussein's execution. It was the second death of a youngster blamed on televised images of the deposed Iraqi dictator's Dec. 30 execution. 30. A 10-year-old boy in Houston died Sunday by hanging himself from a bunk bed after watching news reports of the execution.
A hospital official in the southeastern province of Mus said Alisen Akti was dead on arrival at a hospital. The boy died of asphyxiation after apparently hanging himself, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to journalists. RadiKal newspaper quoted the boy's father as saying that the youngster had been affected by television images of Saddam's execution. "What kind of a problem could a 12-year-old have to want to kill himself?" Radikal quoted Esat Akti as saying.
"After watching Saddam's execution he was constantly asking 'How was Saddam killed?' and 'Did he suffer?'" Akti said. "These television images are responsible for my son's death."
In Yemen, a man apparently committed suicide when he heard the news. And in Morocco, a husband and wife got in a quarrel over whether the hanging was justified. The woman defended the execution saying that Saddam deserved to die. Her husband was so enraged he took a butcher knife and stabbed her to death. Meanwhile, crowds flow through the streets of large cities from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, caught up in the notion that here was a martyr.
Dec 20, 2006
Biting Back
There was this detail from a story in the New York Times....
"As soldiers paraded by a grandstand with top American and Iraqi military officials, as well as dozens of tribal leaders, a group of commandos with their faces blackened gathered for a demonstration of their courage. Each man reached into his right pocket, pulled out a frog and bit its head off. They threw the squirming legs to the ground as the group’s leader held aloft a live rabbit. He slit the belly and plunged his mouth into the gash. The carcass was then passed around to the rest of the soldiers, who took their own bites. It was explained later that this practice was especially popular among Saddam Hussein’s feared Fedayeen militia, whose members had done the same thing with live snakes and wolves."
"As soldiers paraded by a grandstand with top American and Iraqi military officials, as well as dozens of tribal leaders, a group of commandos with their faces blackened gathered for a demonstration of their courage. Each man reached into his right pocket, pulled out a frog and bit its head off. They threw the squirming legs to the ground as the group’s leader held aloft a live rabbit. He slit the belly and plunged his mouth into the gash. The carcass was then passed around to the rest of the soldiers, who took their own bites. It was explained later that this practice was especially popular among Saddam Hussein’s feared Fedayeen militia, whose members had done the same thing with live snakes and wolves."
Dec 4, 2006
From northwestern Kenya
yesterday i was in the middle of a meeting when i got a call from kapenguria. there's a 3-year old who's just been raped and they need to put her on ARVs (to prevent transmission of HIV). they can't find any of the clinicians. took us an hour, but finally managed. all the while, the little, 10 kg girl was lying in the wards, her parents mute beside her.
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