Format Change

I woke to an eerie silence. There was something wrong. The clock radio hissed, and the numerals glowed. There was power, and it had turned on at the designated moment.

But there was no sound, and no music. I set it fifteen minutes before the BBC World Update begins at five. I need a little music from the lesser composers to start stirring. As the German author Berthold Auerbach, observed, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

Or the sand from my eyes, as the case may be. That wasn’t my quote, by the way. It was something they said on the radio as the all-night classical music program ended. I liked the lesser composers they played. It was soothing. I pondered the meaning of the silence and then realized it was a result of the Letter.

It had arrived last week with my monthly program for Public Broadcasting. I would have missed it, since it was slightly smaller than the thin magazine it accompanied in the envelope. It was signed by Sharon Percy Rockefeller, a woman I do not know, though I send a modest check when she asks.

Which is every couple months, according to the tally I made when working on the taxes the other day.

The letter said they were going to kill the classical music that wrapped around the features and give us more news and public affairs programming. Just what I needed here. Like there was not enough news, and public affairs so deep you could drown in them.

Sharon described the change of format as “more closely matching the pace” of the Imperial city. It is frantic enough here. I hated the idea of change. Now I am going to have to find another radio station, and change the channel. I hate doing that, too.

The music was soothing. But the static from the radio meant that it finally was done, the music over. I wondered what the engineers thought they were doing, broadcasting the silence, and thought that perhaps I should drive over to the station and give them something to talk about.

The BBC time hack came precisely at five, and the world began at least one of its rhythms. I rolled out of bed and padded to the window. Perhaps a half inch of sad-melted snow lay on the patio. The Government was going to be open, for sure.

The last part of Monday that I recalled with any clarity was the apologetic weather-woman on the ten o’clock news. She appeared just after Keefer Sutherland foiled a terrorist plot to melt down five nuclear reactors. That would have been bad. It was a rousing episode.

The weather lady had been hoping to deliver something newsworthy, but it is late in the season. The meteorological conditions just hadn’t worked out to give us a disaster. Instead the heavens opened, and gave us an soggy inconvenience.

She said that this late in the season the ground was getting too warm for the snow to stick. I listened to the radio this morning with mild surprise. It seemed like there might be a thaw elsewhere, too.

When the Syrians blasted Rafik Hariri to shreds, they apparently made a tactical error.

I have been hoping for the rebirth of Lebanon. Hariri was a former Prime Minister of Lebanon, and a nationalist. He opposed the presence of 15,000 Syrian troops in his country, and he paid the price for it. But there was a result that the Damascus fascists did not expect. The Lebanese people went to the street.

The Syrian-backed government of Omar Karami resigned en masse yesterday after a vote of no-confidence from a surprisingly assertive Parliament.

By the end of the day, the streets of Beirut were filled with thousands of protesters, and the leaders of the opposition say that they are consciously replicating the tactics of the Orange movement in Ukraine.

The Ukrainians refused to have a bogus election rammed down their throats, and they succeeded in overturning the results with people-power.

It is still very much an open question if the activity on the streets of what was the Paris of the eastern Mediterranean will mark the resurgence of a viable multi-faith state.

There have been indications that times were changing. The Souk, the ancient marketplace, has been rebuilt. The streets faithfully replicate the medieval grid, but there are upscale shops and an IMAX theater there now.

It was not that way the last time I was in the neighborhood. Beirut was a sad place, and the wreckage of what had been used as the Marine Barracks had not been cleared away.

There was a Green Line that marked the neighborhoods of warring faiths and factions. Part of my job was the maintenance of the plans for cruise missile strikes into the Beka’a Valley. That is where the Syrian forces have withdrawn to avoid confrontation with the demonstrators. There were terrorist camps there then, and now there are Syrian encampments.

The civil war ended the season we planned those missions, though of course we did not notice at the time. Peace is hard to distinguish from a simple respite in the violence.

The fifteen-year civil war in Lebanon left thousands dead. The factions were supported by the regional powers, Syria and Israel, and the disastrous Israeli incursion had been replaced with a smug Syrian occupation, with de facto sovereignty residing in Damascus.

It seems like there is a crescent of nascent democracy across the region. The Palestinians got a chance for a real vote for the first time with the passing of Chairman Arafat. There was the astonishing election in Iraq, and one in Saudi Arabia, though of course the women were not permitted the ballot. There is a vibrant electorate in Qatar. Maybe there is something in the air, a change of the season.

It is not Spring in Washington, but it just might be in Beirut. If they decide to change their format, that is one I can support.

I wonder if there will be a pledge drive?

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

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