26 December 2002

On the Water

I don't know how Vicky Barker is doing it this morning. It the day after the holiday, Saint Stephen's day, and her voice is still bright and her phrasing impeccable. But the stories she reads and introduces on the World Service this morning are enough to propel me out of bed and into steaming black coffee. The news cascades over me from the far corners of the BBC's wide world. It's Boxing Day, and I have to work.

Retailers are hoping we get out there and save the Christmas season, despite the wild Nor'easter that swept through yesterday. Meanwhile, it's wide-open in Kenya, Urhuru Kenyatta surging toward the Presidential election tomorrow in Kenya. I know what I think. President Moi personally picked him out, and I think it was because of his father, Jomo. President Moi has been merrily deconstructing the most lovely nation in the world for a generation. The only way to ensure that Kenya slides into complete meltdown, like Zimbabwe, is to elect the dissolute puppet to the perpetual presidency so that Moi can continue to pull all the levers from behind the scenes. I think of the beauty of the Rift Valley and sigh in despair. The BBC led off this morning with the startling decision of the government of Malawi to sell off all its grain reserves right before the rains failed this year, and the continuing story from Harari, formerly Salsbury, Rhodesia, is that they must import grain to avert starvation.

Import grain to Zimbabwe. Think about it for a moment. The breadbasket of southern Africa importing food. It is like Nebraska asking for bread, or Iowa sending out for hogs. The mind boggles.

A representative from the largely white Farmer's Union points out that it might not have been helpful to displace all the skilled black farm labor along with the owners as President-for-life Mugubwe divides the rich land amongst his followers, the righteous teen-aged war veterans of a struggle that was over 25 year ago.

Then from the Continuing Crisis comes word that Pakistan has arrested four in connection with the bombing of a Christian Church during holy services yesterday. Three worshippers were killed. The attackers wore Burkas, the traditional head-to-toe garb imposed on women. We called them Space Suits, and it is an ideal cover for a terrorist. The Israelis have used the same cover for some of their fast-reaction forces

In North Korea, the increasingly loony government is moving four hundred fuel rods at the Yongbyon nuclear facility. To the south, tribal Montegnards have been sentenced by Hanoi for disloyalty to a state they disavow. The issue at hand is resistance to the forced plantation of lowland Vietnamese to the central Highlands, where the 'Yards stood with America against the Communists. Hanoi must be reading a page from Queen Elizabeth's play-book for Ulster. We know how successful that one was. I sigh and think about a meeting I sat in with the President of Vietnam. It was pleasant and productive and the attractive translator with the diploma from the Fletcher School whispered that we had to help get her out when it was over.

That war is not fully over, despite normalization of relations, and the American commentator Vicky introduces reads the world newspaper headlines and compares Saddam Hussein to Donald Duck. I think for a moment about the mustachioed Dictator in a sailor hat and jumper with no pants. The image is so disquieting that I almost miss it as Vicky segues nicely into a piece about Fan Fiction, in which the readers of fiction have created a totally new genre of web-based writing, elaborating and extending the adventures of popular characters like Harry Potter and the Star Wars gang.

Taking something you love and making it better is what one of the interviewees say. The producers can't keep up with the demand. The copyright nazis are trying to crack down on violators, but this is a mass movement that has re-ignited a text-based culture, this time in cyberspace. 58,000 web sites are devoted to Harry Potter alone. Think about it. I look down at the keyboard and realize I am one of the crackpots, my brand of Fan Fiction devoted to the chaotic parade of the World Service. Who needs Luke Skywalker or Jabba the Hut when you have Saddam Hussain in a sailor suit?

I assume it is pent-up demand for crisis after an enforced day of peace yesterday. I took a break from it all late yesterday and went to the Maryland Shore. I have a friend who is back from the Left Coast for the holidays, and her mother and brother have little houses on a marshy peninsula that protrudes into the Chesapeake. There is a little colony there, small lots and modest houses that have become, based on their proximity to the Capital and the natural beauty of the area, a most desirable destination. The people bought in low, and are sitting on a fortune in real estate and natural beauty. They are a great and eclectic bunch of colonists. They have micro-festivals in the midst of the macadam-ringed common area at the head of the land, ringed by tidy little cottages. There are old people and young people and gay people. There are even two newsreaders, one from Channel Four and one from Channel Five. Marlin Fitzwater, the former White House Press Secretary comes to some of the monthly parties. I found myself wanting to live there. We toured the marsh on foot, one hand gloved to protect it from the cold of the cocktail glass. We had such a good time that I found one of the twice-baked potatoes from dinner in my pocket this morning. Don't worry, it was foil-wrapped.

I thought about it. On the water. Almost affordable. Plenty of room for horses inland. The only downside is the plume from the explosions in Washington, when they come. It will spread to the east, toward the Chesapeake marshes. But as one of my new friends observed, you might get lucky and have the wind blow the other way. Sometimes they land to the North at Reagan National Airport, after all. Not often. But they do.

Sometimes it is about dumb luck, after all. So the biggest news of the morning is that my retirement plan failed. Some gap-toothed son-of-a-bitch in West Virginia took my $312 million dollar prize. I had invested a lot of foresight and a crisp $20 bill toward the PowerBall lottery, and you are right. I am pissed. All that planning for nothing.