Month: May 2004

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Look, honey! It’s a fallen world!

Back when I was in college, my phone number was the former number of the Amherst Day Care Center. I used to get tons of wrong numbers & messages, despite my answering machine’s disclaimers. Eventually, I gave up and put a REALLY over-the-top message for day care in my best Peter Lorre voice. It was replete with lines like, “Leave your child behind the 7-11 for pickup, and make sure he has a change of clothes,” and, “We reserve all video rights.” I still got messages from parents asking to set up a schedule.

That doesn’t beat this story, however.

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Do something

Arab nomads on horseback have been committing genocide in western Sudan. I’ve been reading and hearing about it for a while. Just yesterday, I forwarded a link from Bookslut about the UNICEF efforts of Irvine Welsh (author of Trainspotting) to raise awareness in Britain about what’s going on in Darfur (that area of Sudan), and how the Arab militias have driven as many as 1 million black Sudanese out of their villages, possibly with government backing.

For some reason, until 20 minutes ago, I never thought to do anything. I just wrote my senators (you can find yours (with their contact info) at www.senate.gov), imploring them to do something to stem the crisis. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Senator,

What’s going on in Sudan reached atrocity level a while ago. PLEASE tell me that the U.S. is engaging in SOME sort of action to stop it. This has the potential to lead to more deaths than the genocide in Rwanda.

I understand that American troops are spread thin (and I support the actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq), but a key lesson from Rwanda and Bosnia was that even the threat of U.S. airstrikes can be incredibly effective in deterring tribal barbarism. We need to stand up and do our best to stop this latest bout of ethnic cleansing.

I know Sudan isn’t an oil hotspot, and it has no proximity to Europe (a key argument of President Clinton when justifying the Kosovo operation), but these are human beings who might die in the millions. (Further–and this is tangential, I admit–their assailants are out to spread a particularly barbaric form of Islam, creating just the sort of area that a Bin Laden could use for a base.)

Lastly, PLEASE don’t write to me about how this is a matter for the UN to address. I think the drips-and-drops of the Oil-For-Food scandal has gone to show that the UN is both morally and financially bankrupt.

Thanks,

Gil Roth

If you can think of other actions we can undertake to help raise awareness of this atrocity, and help get armed forces to stop it, please e-mail me.

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Once in a Lifetime

I saw some of Pat Tillman’s memorial service yesterday evening. Senator McCain was speaking when I tuned in, followed by Chief Petty Officer Steven White, who served with Tillman in Iraq. I didn’t catch his introduction, but I think he was a SEAL in the Navy.

He spoke wonderfully and plainly, telling anecdotes about Pat, explaining the heroism that led to his death, and choking back tears. Then he said something that made me well up (and is doing so now):

“It’ll say Pat Tillman, 1976-2004. That one little dash in there represents a lifetime. How do we spend our dash?”

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Lightness? Wait.

When I went through a significant break-up in college (1989-1993), I would watch Miller’s Crossing and re-read The Unbearable Lightness of Being. When I had my big split two years ago, I went back to Kundera’s book. It meant a lot of different things to me in my 30s. The things that appeal in college years seem laughable when you’ve lived in (some semblance of) the real world for a while.

John Banville recently returned to the book after 20 years.