18 August 2003

Sharp Signals

WASHINGTON- I am scrolling through the New York Times on my laptop and listening to the BBC World Service. The eager beavers are already hard at work in the world across the time zones to the east, where the day has been in progress for some hours. As the sun rises here and the sky goes from black to gray I drink steaming coffee and try to clear the last dream from my mind, attempting to dump the cache memory from my mental computer. I was in an attic store-room with a group of people I know. Everything I own, or once owned, is laid out and my ex and her family are there putting their names on my family's antiques. They might as well have carved their initials in block letters on the old mahogany.

I think it is a mental signal to get on with things, dreams being a way for the unconscious to send lists to the waking mind. Both my sons will be away at college tomorrow, and there are miles I must drive tomorrow to get the younger one to his dormitory four states away.

The radio and the e-news tell me that the Monday morning after the great blackout is starting with conflicting signals. Ontario still seems panicked. Detroit remains concerned and does not trust its water. Mayor Blumberg in New York is telling everyone to get back to business as usual. The outage may have cost Detroit $700 million dollars, and it must be two or three times that amount for New York. I like the Mayor's attitude, sending a sharp signal of optimism.

The media is reacting with surprise to the news from Hollywood that the slasher re-union epic "Freddy Meets Jason" was the runaway winner at the box office this weekend. I could have told them that yesterday. Instead of packing for the new college year, that is where my sons spent the afternoon. We had a very earnest discussion about what sort of signal this sent, about who would emerge victorious, either the chainsaw Hockey Mask or the evil Ruler of Dreams. The boys know all the movies and the jury is out.

Further east, revanchist Iraqis have blown up a major export oil pipeline to Turkey, so there is oil all over the highway near Kirkuk, and they blew a water main in Baghdad, so there is foot deep water in the capital. The former is disastrous to Ambassador Bremmer's plans to have oil exports fund the reconstruction. The latter is a reminder that the reconstruction is going to take a lot longer than anyone thought. The Ambassador announced that the guard force on the pipelines will be will be doubled, though where we are to find them is not specified, nor how they are to be financed. The Coalition Administration will wade to work today and figure it out.

Speaking of wading, this time out of the surf, Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas, came into the world on this day in 1587. We do not know how long she lived, or when she died. She was born on Roanoke Island, now in North Carolina, in Croatan Sound, between modern Albemarle and Pamlico. In 1584, English navigators in the employ of First Smoker Sir Walter Raleigh brought back glowing accounts of the area. They said the sound had protected anchorage and abundant fish. Raleigh became excited and dispatched a colonizing expedition the same year. That attempt failed, but in 1587 Raleigh sent John White with another group. White was forced to return to England for supplies, analogous to the airline pilot walking back through the main cabin with a parachute and telling the passengers "It's OK, I'm just going for help."

White was unable to return to North Carolina until 1591. When he pulled into the sound and dropped the hook he found the colonists had gone missing. Nothing remained of the first English child, nor her parents, except the block letters "CROATOAN" carved on a tree.

White was naturally perplexed at having misplaced his colony and looked around for it in vain. Their disappearance gave rise to a theory that the settlers had moved to Croatoan Island or had joined the Croatoan Indians. Another theory emerged with the discovery of forty-odd stone tablets. They were inscribed with what purports to be the history of the "lost colony." Inscriptions on the stones tell of the death of many of the colonists from disease and Native American attacks. Other colonists may have migrated into the interior, perhaps as far away as Atlanta, Ga. In 1998 scientists said that a study of tree rings showed that the colonists had faced one of the worst droughts in the area's history. So it is possible that Virginia married one of the locals and is still living in Atlanta. But it remains a mystery.

Steven R. Weisman, writing for the Times, headlined a major Administration initiative on the Korea problem. He said that the preparations of the multi-lateral talks will include some saber-rattling. According to his boldface title, the Bush administration "is also stepping up military pressure with plans for a joint naval exercise next month to train for interdicting at sea arms and other materials being transported to and from the North." He went on to explain that the exercise would be conducted, with great vigor, in the Coral Sea off northeastern Australia next month. Although it is not to be directed against any particular country, he concluded "the principal intention (is) to send a sharp signal to North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program."

I looked carefully at a map. The Coral Sea was the scene of a very sharp signal between the U.S. and Japan some time ago. It is at least two thousand miles from North Korea, which is to say, analogous to the sharp statement President Roosevelt made after the attack at Pearl Harbor. His first military response was to land troops in North Africa.

Having negotiated with North Koreans with great pain over a matter as simple as the breakfast menu, I am convinced that this sharp signal will have the Hermit Kingdom quaking in its boots. But the Administration has a point. I am hitting the road tomorrow to take a son to college, a thousand mile round trip so I can be back on Thursday morning. I will be out of the office for two days. So this morning I am inspired by the Administration to make a sharp statement of my own. I believe I will wade down to the office like Ambassador Bremmer and carve something into my desk. Maybe the words: "I am just going for help."

In block letters.