Tuneless

They took the classical music out of the attractive building in Shirlington, about two miles away as the crow flies, across the street from the Capital brewery where I drink with the Judge sometimes. The music had its hands bound, and the station manager and an heiress to part of the Rockerfeller fortune shot it through the head, right there in the parking lot.

That happened Monday, and I have been in denial ever since. The Authorities investigated. I found the results on the web this morning, a Saturday, when I had a chance to slow down.

There were several stories of which I had been blissfully ignorant. There was an angry assembly at the Board Meeting when the decision was made, but to no avail. They know who is responsible, but apparently no charges will be brought. The Classical numbers had been declining, down from a Nielsen number in the mid-threes to something just over two this year.

I have no idea what that means, but it sounded bad. I had been writing checks all the while to keep the station afloat, not many of them, I grant you, given my reduced circumstances in this new century; but it was what I could do.

But I still feel bad. I wish there were more of me to change the numbers in the listening demographic, but it is not be, the written hand has writ, and having done so, moved on. Ce sera, ins’ Hallah.

But it was still a bummer. I padded past the radio when I woke for the first time around five. There was a voice, reading something. Irritating. I missed the soft music that would lead me through the morning to the news. I turned off the sound and went back to bed for a while, missing the bridge from dreams.

We are creatures of habit. I had to find another radio station. A minor event, but since the radio is placed under my desk, having one station that played music and then all by itself played the news was a wonderful thing. It made ”hand”s off” listening a reality.

There are hard things in the world, and tuning my radio and reordering my weekend is not really one of them. After all, you could be a communist, trying to keep the faith after the great social experiment had been tossed on the ash-heap of history, and the moveable feast moved on.

I think sometimes communism is little like the dental trade. The dentist tells us all to floss, and we let them down. They say there is a higher rate of suicide among dentists, because we always betray them, and I suspect that is why there are so few old communists, too.

There is a lot that is appealing about the doctrine, a selflessness and idealism that has largely been pounded out of me by the reality of the world. Being an Italian communist would be just about right, so you could still have fashionable clothing and good food.

But if you lived a life of commitment to a Cause, and were a communist journalist, an opponent to war who has traveled to the war to do honest reporting in a socialist voice, that would be a hard thing. Particularly if you got grabbed by the bad guys who threatened to cut your socialist head off.

Giuliana Sgrena was grabbed in the war zone a few weeks ago. She was reporting for Il Manifesto, an old-guard socialist rag in Rome. There had been joy yesterday when I heard the news of her release. She said that her captors had not treated her badly, all those weeks, and finally decided the publicity of killing a socialist woman would outweigh the impact of her murder.

So she was scooped up by Italian intelligence officers, and whisked through the Baghdad night in a fast car, and into the kill zone in front of an American check-point.

I don’t know what they were thinking, but the car did not slow. The highway to the airport is he most dangerous seven miles of road in the world. I watched a feature on it last night, how the bad guys target everything on the road, since that is where everyone of note must travel to get in or out.

Bombs are planted there every time a patrol passes, or at least it seems that way. The troops who are responsible for security are properly on edge.

The military spokesman said all measures were taken to avoid firing into the passenger compartment, warning shots over the cars, finally shooting the tires and the engine bock. But the car kept moving and the kids at the checkpoint finally had enough.

Nicola Calipari was the Italian intelligence officer who negotiated her release form the bad guys, and he was the one who covered Giulaina with his body when the convoy finally came to a halt.

He was the one who died, though Giuliana was hit by shrapnel.

This is a very emotional affair, and a sad one. When the hour is right, later on, I will raise a toast to Nicola, who died a hero in the madness of war. Giuliana is back in Rome today, and the President has called the Prime Minister.

There is still a classical radio station in town, though it is way up on the other end of the dial. I will have to learn to tune from one station to another, which should not be an impossible task, though the difficulty in teaching older dogs new tricks is fully recognized. I like a balance between music and news, because sometimes the news is so strange that it is hard to bear.

But there are times when you have to tuneless, I suppose, and face the music.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

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