Cable TV

It is an ambiguous day. It doesn’t know if it is going to rain or not outside. I listened to the sound of explosions from Jiddah, in the great empty nation of Saudi Arabia. The American consulate was hit by two explosions. They can’t keep it straight as to whether the facility was an embassy or a Consulate. The Embassy is the mother ship for the diplomats and that would be located in the capital of Riyadh.

The accounts are as confused as the descriptions of the running gun-battles in Iraq. There were nearly a hundred killed over the weekend. Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, no American diplomats were reported captured or killed, and how the assailants managed to get into the compound is undetermined. The usual people were captured or killed, a Filippino and a couple Pakistanis, and two or three terrorists.

One of the local commentators said that the security people were more like ushers at a theater than heavily armed security people. I’m not certain how that would make me feel, being escorted to my office by some fellow with a little flashlight.

It is significant, they tell me, since this is the first time a diplomatic mission has been assaulted. But I’m ambiguous on the matter. There have been other, really important things attacked in Saudi Arabia. In 1979 a wild-man named Juhayman Al Oteibi took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in all of the Islamic world. The long-haired Juhayman demanded the immediate ouster of the House of Saud, and termination of public evils such as radio, television and the employment of women.

He also announced the arrival of a new messiah, as a critical step on the way to the Apocalypse. He did not say who it was, or if he did, I do not recall.

The Saudis werre not abmiguous at all. They killed over a hundred fighters and lost about that number of troops. Juhayman was taken alive. Within the month he was publicly beheaded along with 62 captured fighters. As I recall, it was televised.

Coming as it did with the return of the Ayatollah to Iran, and the taking of the American Embassy in Tehran, things looked pretty ambiguous. But we got through that, over time, but if you live long enough you see another generation come along, and here we have it. A new generation of Al Qaida-linked militants is challenging the House of Saud.

There are more challenges to the House of Saud than just angry young men with guns. The Courts were recently handed a tough question of ambiguity. It required the sort of heavy thinking we have been doing in the West for a half century, or about the time things ceased to have much internal logic.

The case went something like this: a young Saudi man had what we call ”gender identity issues.” He did not feel the urge to pick up a Kalishnakov, but rather the to don the Burkha. He wound up in the United States for education, and began the process of sexual re-assignment. His father passed away while he was there, and part of the inheritance financed the surgery.

So far, a very minor and private matter in the carnival of American life. As a woman, he got a job with a computer company and was going to continue his education. But after 9/11, he felt uncomfortable in America and returned to the kingdom, cutting his hair and wiping off the makeup on the way. Sort of a mirror-image of Holly Woodlawn’s hitch-hike across the USA that Lou Reid celebrated in his hypnotic anthem to ambiguity ”Walk on the Wild Side.”

After his return, his mother also passed away, of natural causes. At a family meeting he confessed his journey of self-discovery, Western-style, and the meeting degenerated into a screaming match. His sister and her husband went to court and applied for the family estate, on the grounds that the former young man had been apportioned a full share of the inheritance, rather than the half-share to which a daughter was entitled.

They dropped the case at a preliminary hearing when the judge made it clear that the court was likely to rule against them. The judge in Jeddah ruled that since he had been a male when he received the inheritance, he was entitled to keep it in full. In the future, however, he will be treated under inheritance law as a woman. The bewildered tone of the judgment illustrates how hard it is to apply the rules of the holy Quran to the modern world.

Juhayman and the assault on the Great Mosque is said to have been a turning point in the history of Saudi Arabia. But it is ambiguious. It could be a road leading either to apocalypse or reformation.

Shoot, I was going to write about the French Police who planted the C4 explosives in an innocent traveler’s luggage as part of a training exercise, and then lost it. The explosives went off to an airplane and flew somewhere, they are not sure where, since there were 80 flights leaving Charles De Gaul International that hour. No one has reported finding the explosives when they got home.

The prospect of writing about the Intelligence Reform Bill this morning was looming, too, since it is again topical. But it has been topical all year in fits and starts, and I am tired of watching the rollercoaster go up and down. They will either let it go to the floor this week or not, and then I will worry about the provisions.

Everyone seems to have their ass covered, giving lip service to the legislationm, except for Duncan Hunter, and he says he is just doing what his son tells him. His son is a Marine and has been to The Show, and anything that mucks with the provision of timely intelligence to the Warfighter is anathema. And the fact that his Committee would lose jurisdiction. So for him the matter is closed.

The President supports the bill, and put the Vice President on the case. He included the matter in his radio broadcast over the weekend, for what it is worth. I have never met anyone who has listened to the weekend Presidential Chat.

It is a curious thing. There was a detailed survey done of the Republican marketing strategy in the late unlamented election. It turns out that Democrats watch more TV than Republicans, and thus money spent with the major networks would be a wasted effort for the President.

So the Republican money went to cable, and to niche viewers like me who watch infomercials. I marvel at that. I have a few hundred cable channels and wind up watching legendary marketing whiz Ron Popeil sell his rotisserie ovens and Six Star knife sets. It is pretty entertaining advertising, all those ovens lined up, cooking all manner of things. Roasts, chickens, ribs, even rotisserie vegetables cooked just the way you like them. But the cutlery!

I almost bought the knife set, thankfully not knowing about the Saudi inheritance case at the time. The stainless steel cutlery set is an $800 dollar value and has everything I will ever need and more. He claims the Chinese workers finely crafted the best high-carbon stainless steel with full tang impact-resistant riveting. He is willing cut me a deal, only $40 in three easy payments. Maybe he didn’t say it was the Chinese, but they are everywhere these days, and where else would stuff like this come from?

Anyhow, the President advertised on cable, maximized his impact, and there it is. Another four years, and for the viewing audience, even cheaper than the knife set.

The payment schedule is a lot longer, though.

Copyright 2004 Vic Socotra

Go Back