13 March 2004

Everyday Perils

God bless Nicholas Kristoff. He helped me put it all in perspective this morning.

I didn't know what to say this morning before I read his column in The Times. As I predicted, the death toll has continued to rise in the Madrid bombing and questions remain as to who perpetrated the outrage. There are pros and cons, but I must lean toward the Arabs. Detonators were found in a van that matched those found in a UXB- an unexploded bomb in a sports bag, and the van contained some verses from the holy Quran, apparently dealing with the education of children.

Which is of course what this is all about on several levels. There is a countervailing view that there is a new faction of the Basque rebels who have simply taken a leaf from the al Qaida playbook and have nothing else to do with them, and that the verses are nothing more than the "Jesu Adore" bumper-stickers you see around Arlington.

I drank several cups of coffee and could not dredge anything up that seemed either original or even vaguely profound. I am just angry that we cannot swat these flies.

I had lunch with an old friend yesterday, and of course we talked about it. My friend is the daughter of a family that had to flee the drug-lords in Colombia, who evicted the farmers in her grandfather's district at gunpoint. There is a new regime in Colombia, one that is well-supported by Washington and which is taking an exceptionally hard line against the narco-guerillas of the FARC. She mentioned casually that she had been back there for the first time in nearly twenty years, dealing with a family medical emergency.. It was just last week and I listened in amazement.

She said that the robust aid package we call "Plan Colombia" has brought a new confidence in the Government, and that had translated to a new confidence in the hearts of the people in Cali Republic to finger the bad guys, and not cower in fear. She said the Government was willing to send strike aircraft and hit targets when they were identified. She said her Uncle was pleased to hear the aircraft come up over the high valley and wipe the rebels out like cockroaches. The people were happy and the tide was rising against the bad guys. They were the ones who felt the fear now.

It strikes me that there is something good happening somewhere, that victory can be won. But it will take engagement and a slow and steady pressure. Nothing we seem to be doing very well in the Middle East, but we are trying to do it with Marines and Airborne Rangers. We somehow must instill confidence in the breasts of the people that order can be won, and that peace is better than the detonation of bombs by remote control. I think it can be done, but it cannot be done by the bayonet. Confidence is a subtle thing.

I have turned that over in my mind this morning and cannot translate the success in Colombia to victory in other forms of the war against terror. Instead I have gone into denial.

I have been cataloging the scores form the NCAA conference tournaments which will determine the seeds and venues for March Madness, the most magical sporting time of the year. Aryland beat Wake Forest, Michigan beat Iowa. The next round of the conference play-offs continue today, and the matter will be decided by the end of the weekend. It is a glut of basketball, a surfeit of towering young men and frantic fans. When the big tournament is done at the end of March, we will have a no-kidding national champion. Undeniable, proven on the floor, completely objective. Unlike the nonsense that surrounds college football's fictional championship.

I was comforted by Mr. Kristoll's timely reminder of the routine carnage of life in the post-industrial age. He told us that cars kill 43,000 Americans a year. Next most deadly is influenza and associated pulmonary illness which kills 36,000 people. Armed citizens, well regulated under the Second Amendment to the Constituion as personal militias, kill 26,000 of each other. Tainted food kills 5,000.

So, putting it in perspective, there really isn't anything to worry about.

I would have pranged myself up pretty badly yesterday at the exit off Route 50. I don't know that I would have died, but I certainly would have wrecked the car if I had been fiddling with my cell phone, turning the little LED screen just so to catch the light so I could read the tiny number to call my girlfriend.

Had I been doing that, I certainly would not have noticed the young African American man who waved at the three lanes of traffic rushing shoulder-to-shoulder into the city on the morning commute, and I certainly would not have expected someone five cars ahead of me to stop in the traffic lane abruptly to pick him up.

I would have sailed merrily into the bumper of the car before me and the airbag would have deployed into my face and cigarette and there would have been coffee everywhere. Instead I slammed my foot down on the brake and rode it to a halt in a panic stop as the horns began to blare and I looked up instinctively into the mirror to see if I was going to have some moron talking on a cell phone drive at speed into my trunk, snapping my head backward.

We all managed to get stopped without untoward incident, at least that time, and the young man got his ride. My heartbeat and breathing returned to normal within a few minutes and I arrived at my destination without further incident. Yesterday, anyway.

So I should be set of the weekend. There is plenty of basketball to distract me, I have plenty of ammunition, just in case, a carton of cigarettes and enough frozen hamburger to get through to Monday.

Then I can get back in my car and go to work. I'm no fool. I'm not taking the train.