Category: Sudan

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Sudan Update

I haven’t written much about the genocide in Sudan lately, except for a brief rant during my Budapest dispatches. Partly that’s because there’s been so much (belated) coverage by the world media. Also, it’s because Passion of the Present has been doing such a great job of coverage. I sorta figure my interested readers will click the Sudan Crisis link on the top of the Blogroll (left side of the page). If you are interested in learning more about what’s going on there, and what you can do to help save the lives of these people, check out that site first.

The news isn’t particularly heartening. The African Union has committed 2,000 troops to monitor the ceasefire and provide security for refugees, but Sudan is balking at their entry. There was a mass protest of the UN’s authority in the capital, Khartoum. Given the toothlessness of the UN resolution (“Think about stopping or we’ll start having cluster-fuck conversations about sanctions”), I guess this is more a way of protesting the possibility of U.S./UK military intervention.

Stanley Crouch wrote pretty disingenuously about the genocide in the Daily News this week. I don’t mean to say that his desire to see an end to the genocide in Darfur isn’t as strong as mine. But when he called for the U.S. to get involved, he wrote

The Bush administration is also punking out. It is going along with the cowardice and immorality of the world at large because those advising it fail to understand that this is the time to take chances. Had President Bush gone into Sudan with the Army’s new OTW (Operations Other Than War) unit last month, the world would have been caught off guard – and the Democratic convention would have been overshadowed.

There would, of course, be those screaming about infringing on Sudan’s sovereignty. They would make it a matter of pride and unity for Muslims to stand behind that racist regime. That would be to the good, because it might push Muslims into reconsidering the shortcomings of Islamic tradition.

I think his disingenuousness is revealed in the part about “overshadowing the DNC.” He seems to be glossing over the fact that we live in a country so polarized that major media sources snigger about the out-of-date nature of terror warnings and imply that they’re politically motivated, months after complaining that the government didn’t pay attention to years-old info that would’ve “connected the dots” about 9/11. So to imply that the President is simply “punking out” on Sudan is pretty bullshit.

American politics has made this situation far more complicated than it should be. I’m pretty convinced that a mission into Sudan (even one limited to providing humanitarian aid) would be contorted by the left-wing of our media into another example of Bush’s American Empire or somesuch. American deaths in Sudan would somehow be tied into that country’s oil reserves, and at least one Halliburton subsidiary would get involved in construction or logistics of military facilities, bringing the rage of Michael Moore down on the Administration.

(I’m only hoping, in the event that Bush loses the election in November, that he doesn’t follow his dad’s example and commit troops to Sudan after being voted out of office. Sure, Clinton allowed ‘scope creep’ to set in with the Somalia mission, but it was pretty bullshit of Bush Sr. to send armed forces to a third world African country on a vaguely defined humanitarian mission less than a month before Clinton was to be sworn in.)

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been calling for a military force to invade Sudan since I first learned the details of what’s going on. Sudan’s a failed state, it harbored the biggest name in international terrorism, and it’s supporting a program to kill off a million of its own inhabitants. Sure, we need to force immediate aid and security into the Darfur region, as well as the refugee camps in Chad (and our new non-enemy Libya might be able to help provide a base to do that), but I don’t know where that leaves us in the long term.

I suppose Stanley’s right in that we need to build a situation where the Muslim world can stop supporting this regime as a sign of protest against “American hegemony,” which my leftist friends tell me is the biggest threat to world security.

(As opposed to, say, the government of a totalitarian state of more than a billion people trying to suppress information about a wildly virulent, fatal respiratory disorder. I am, of course, just venting over here. Don’t mind me.)

I’m gonna get me some coffee, and maybe I can clean up this rant a little so it actually makes some sense.

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Home

Just got back from Budapest last night. I’ve got a ton more pix to post. I hope to write up the last day or so on Sunday and post everything then.

Meanwhile, here’s an article in The Scotsman about Darfur. While I’m glad that the world’s finally paying attention to what’s going on there, the UN resolution handing the government of Sudan another month to implement its (relatively) slow-motion genocide is just another sign that the UN is a useless institution that oughtta be scuttled. Back for 12 hours and I’m griping already . . .

There is a school of thought that argues that by the time the United Nations Security Council applies its attention to a crisis anywhere in the world, that crisis will already be out of hand, or the moment to intervene effectively will have passed. That is an argument that is particularly apposite in relation to what is going on in Darfur. The same school of thought also contends that when the UN does finally accept that something must be done, it will do the wrong thing, and do it so slowly that it merely compounds an already hopeless situation. And here we have Darfur again. Given the opportunity to act firmly and decisively, for once to present a united front to face down an aggressor and to protect those who cannot defend themselves, the UN has chosen the path of least resistance. It has shied away from using its power for good in favour of mealy-mouthed attitudes and toothless threats of some future, ill-defined, approbation.

So it is no to sanctions, and yes to yet more empty gestures, lest it offends those nations who have much to gain economically by cosying up to the Khartoum regime, and who gain pleasure by thwarting the aspirations of those who backed the war in Iraq, however well intentioned those aspirations may be.

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No Genocide for Oil, you French Motherf***ers!

Back in May, I wrote my Representative about the Congressional resolution on the Sudanese genocide. He wrote back this weekend (see below). There’ve been some developments, but no serious results yet. Several Congressmen are calling for the U.S. to label this a genocide, which would automatically trigger intervention by a whole ton of countries. For the same reason, NO ONE who stands for re-election wants to label this a genocide.

The U.S. is also pushing for strong measures from the UN, but seems to by stymied by . . . France and China (and others, but F & C have permanent veto powers on the Security Council)! It looks like both of those countries have significant oil interests in Sudan, and would like to stay on good terms with the military junta that runs Sudan (into the ground). I’d call this the heights of hypocrisy, especially given France’s complaints about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but this is a country that provided military assistance to the Hutus during the genocide in Rwanda. So I guess we have to consider it a major advance on the part of France that it’s not currently providing military support to the Janjaweed militias. Fuckers.

Anyway, this isn’t the site to go to for Sudan updates. The best place to find out what’s going on in Darfur and what you can do to help stop it is Passion of the Present.

Here’s Rep. Garrett’s response to my e-mail.

Dear Mr. Roth,

Thank you for contacting me about H. Con. Res. 403 and the ongoing problems in Sudan. I value your comments and appreciate the opportunity to respond.

We agree that the atrocities being committed by the Janjawid militia and Sudanese government are horrendous and should cease immediately. That is why I recently voted for H. Con. Res. 403, sponsored by Representative Frank Wolfe (VA-10). This concurrent resolution condemns the Government of the Republic of the Sudan for its attacks against innocent civilians in the impoverished Darfur region of western Sudan and urges the Government of Sudan to immediately disarm and disband government supported militia groups immediately. This resolution passed by a margin of 360-1 and has been referred to the U.S. Senate.

According to the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan branch of the Library of Congress established to conduct and provide non-biased research for Congress, “In late 2000, Washington defeated efforts to lift United Nations sanctions on Sudan and prevented Sudan from becoming Africa�s representative in the United Nations Security Council. Senior U.S. officials met with Sudanese government officials in 2000 to inform Sudanese officials what it would take to improve relations. U.S. security officials also spent several months in Khartoum talking with Sudanese security officials on terrorism. President Bush has mentioned Sudan twice in his speeches in the last two months, condemning human rights violations by the Bashir government. In early March 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell told members of the House International Relations Committee that Sudan is a priority to him and the Administation . . . (in 2004) later declared that the U.S. will not normalize relations with the government of Sudan until the Darfur situation is addressed.”

Be assured that I will continue to monitor this situation as it progresses, and will support the United States and the international community�s efforts to encourage and end to the 20-year civil war in Sudan.

Again, thank you for contacting me. [. . .]

Sincerely,

Scott Garrett
Member of Congress

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By any other name

Marc Lacey at the Times interviewed Colin Powell about Sudan recently. Here’s a snippet:

MR. LACEY: Okay. Now, some have used the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe this situation and others outside of the government are even using the term “genocide.” Now, the Government of Sudan calls these terms inflammatory, inaccurate. What’s the right term here? Is this ethnic cleansing? Does this reach the level of genocide?

SECRETARY POWELL: You know, these turn out to be almost legal matters of definition and I’m not prepared to say what is the correct legal term for what’s happening. All I know is that there are at least a million people who are desperately in need, and many of them will die if we can’t get the international community mobilized and if we can’t get the Sudanese to cooperate with the international community. And it won’t make a whole lot of difference after the fact what you’ve called it.

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And, boy, are my arms tired!

I’m back from California. I’ll ramble extensively about it tonight. Until then, here’s an e-mail response I received from Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), regarding the Sudan query I sent him last month:

Dear Gil:

Thank you for expressing your concerns about Sudan.

I appreciate your concerns regarding the civil war ongoing in Sudan, as well as the mass killings in the Darfur region. April 2004 marked the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. The inability of foreign governments to intercede between clashing Hutus and Tutsis contributed to the massacre of nearly one million Tutsis. This somber anniversary reminds us of the obligations that come along with American power to prevent atrocities and possible genocides.

Sudan has been ravaged by civil war intermittently for four decades. An estimated two million people have died over the past two decades due to war-related causes and famine, and millions have been displaced from their homes. According to the United Nations, an estimated three million people are in need of emergency food aid.

In mid-2003, the government of Sudan significantly increased its presence in the western Darfur region by arming the Arab militia, the Janjaweed, and by deploying the Popular Defense Force (PDF). The Janjaweed, under the direction of regular government forces, reportedly unleashed a campaign of terror against civilians. The Arab militia engaged in what United Nations officials described as “ethnic cleansing” of the African ethnic groups of Darfur. Men have been summarily executed, women have been raped, and more than 100,000 have been forced into exile in neighboring countries. In early February 2004, the government launched a major military offensive against the rebel forces, and by mid-February 2004, President Omar Bashir, in a nationally televised speech, declared that the security forces had crushed two ethnic African Muslim militias, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and offered amnesty to the rebels.

According to United Nations and U.S. officials, the situation in Darfur is considered the worst current humanitarian and human rights crisis in the world. Out of a population of seven million people, one million are internally displaced, over 100,000 are forced into exile, and tens of thousands of civilian have been killed. Since October 2003, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided over 74,000 metric tons of emergency food assistance and the State Department has provided more than $10 million for refugee assistance. As of April 23, 2004, total U.S. government (USG) assistance for Darfur was estimated at $85.5 million. USAID has also established a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) for Darfur, although the government of Sudan has not yet allowed the team to go into Darfur.

Rest assured that I will continue to monitor the civil war and humanitarian crises occurring in Sudan, and pursue further legislative provisions to prevent further atrocities from taking place. Thank you again for your correspondence.

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Sudan Again

Added a Sudan crisis link to the blogroll. And here’s an article from the Financial Times calling for EU action to stop the genocide:

The Security Council should in addition authorise all measures short of force to be used against Sudan and warn Khartoum of international military intervention if it does not alter its course. Only such an ultimatum will demonstrate that the international community means it when it says “never again” — that we are not going to stand by as another mass slaughter of innocents unfolds before our eyes.

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Weekend Update

It was a relatively quiet Memorial Day weekend, except for the part where the cop hinted that I might be a serial killer (or did he think I was a hitman?). My girlfriend and I were thinking of going to see David Byrne play on Saturday night, but I’d been reading some of his online tour-journal, and I was afraid that we’d get subjected to political ranting during his performance. We saw Zero 7 play a week or so before at Irving Plaza, and that was an awfully nice experience, so we elected to forego the David Byrne show.

During the 1990s, I think I only went to three shows (or “concerts,” if you insist): Joe Jackson (1990, Philadelphia), Bob Mould (1995, Georgetown), and Lori Carson (1998, NYC).

In the new century, I’ve been to a bunch more: Erykah Badu (a Valentine’s Day surprise for my old girlfriend, in 2002), Lori Carson (twice more in NYC), Springsteen (Shea Stadium, last October), Bob Mould again (South Street Seaport in NYC, July 2002), my old lovergirl Ari (she plays clubs in NYC), and the inimitable Tom Jones (Vegas, last January).

I was curious as to how a chill-out band like Zero 7 would fare in a live performance. For two years now, I’ve grooved on their sound, which chills me out without just being aural wallpaper (a tough terrain to negotiate). The gig at Irving Plaza was a good time, even though there was no seating and my girlfriend paid $9 for a drink (I stuck with water, which was $2 per smallish bottle). I was impressed that the band had all four of the vocalists who’ve sung lead on the two albums. In total, there were ten band-members, which seems like a lot of people to support on a North American tour. I mean, it’s not like they were playing Madison Square Garden or something. One fire hazard sign on the wall at Irving Plaza said the max was 340 people.

The show lasted about 100 minutes, showed off all four singers, and didn’t make the mistake of trying to use any of the female singers to back up the one male lead, Mozez; their voices would’ve conflicted WAY too much. Instead, the women sometimes backed each other up, or sang solo. The mix never got too loud, which I assume is key for an act like Zero 7. Drums and bass provided a solid beat, but never a thump-inside-your-chest pounding, which has always driven me nuts (or out of the venue, as it did during the Erykah Badu gig).

The highpoint of the show, besides Mozez’ bring-down-the-house rendition of Morning Song, was some fan who was dancing WAY too energetically to the music. For the most part, Zero 7 has a pretty sway-worthy sound, not funky-chicken-esque. But this Peter Brady-looking guy really got into it, I guess. As I said to my girl, “He’s got twice the beat, and half the rhythm.”

But that was almost two weeks ago. I felt bad about not writing it up immediately, and I’m sure there are plenty of impressions I had from the gig that would’ve made for neat reading. Instead, you get this mediated distance from the show.

There’s plenty that I don’t get around to writing about on these pages, unfortunately. I haven’t even gone into discussing the evening I met Ron Rosenbaum. I haven’t posted pix of the library I finished putting together in my house. And I never got around to writing about my new car, a Honda Element that I bought in January, after the maiming/near-death of my Saturn. Instead, you get tons about genocide in Sudan. Oh, well. (At least there’s some (relatively) good news on that front, with a barebones peace treaty in the 21-year civil war, but that doesn’t cover the Darfur region, unfortunately.)

So I bought a Honda Element at the end of January. Much to my chagrin, this makes me an SUV driver, albeit a wannabe-hipster one. But the car treats me well. It matches my utilitarian mindset pretty well: it’s got space, a strange external appearance, and no real luxuries inside (except for a booming stereo that has an external audio input, so I can plug my iPod in directly).

I nicknamed it “The Element of Surprise” shortly after I bought it, but my buddy Paul Di Filippo showed why he’s a writer and I’m just some schlub from NJ when I took him for a spin in it a few weeks ago. He said, “Why don’t you call it ‘The Element of Style’?” He’s so smart.

One of the good things about it is that you can remove the back seats for more space (or strap them up to the sides of the car). I took them out on Saturday, when I was heading over to my father’s place. I was going to help him with some computer stuff, some gardening and some furniture delivery, as well as take out a pair of chaises longue for the backyard.

Unfortunately, on the way to Dad’s place, I got busted for speeding. I was going 55 in a 35 (a REALLY tempting stretch of an office park). Given that it was a holiday weekend at the end of a month, there was no talking my way out of it. So I gathered my license, registration and insurance for the police officer, as he walked up to my car. It was the first moving violation I’ve had since 1990.

The crew-cutted young (mid-20s, I’m guessing) cop asked me for the three items. I handed them over, and he noticed that the insurance was for a different address than that of the driver’s license. I explained that mistake made by the DMV when I renewed my license in January. He asked me where I was going, and I explained. Then he looked at the back of my car through the window, and said, “These cars don’t have back seats?”

“They do,” I said, “but I took them out, so I could put these lawn chairs of my dad’s in back.”

He said, “You could put some bodies back there.”

This is exactly what he said: I swear to God. Completely straight face, no trace of a joke, no hint of a smile.

Not from HIM, anyway. I, on the other hand, burst out laughing in his face. “Well, sure! I guess you COULD!”, snorting and laughing away. I KNOW you’re not supposed to laugh at a cop, but I was so not expecting that comment from him. So I laughed at him. He walked back to his car, and I sat for 10 minutes. At one point, I thought, “Holy crap! I’m going to Gitmo! They’re going to ship me out as a terrorist because I took the seats out of my Element!”

He came back with a ticket for 20 miles over the speed limit, which hurts. He didn’t re-imply that I’m a serial killer or hitman, using my Gen X-mobile to haul bodies across northern NJ. Which is fortunate, because I’m pretty sure I’d have started laughing again, which wouldn’t have gone over well. Arrest averted, I took care of Dad’s various needs, then headed home, still marveling over the bizarro behavior of the cop.

Amy & I spent Sunday night and Monday morning watching both parts of The Godfather (because There Was No Godfather Part III), and otherwise relaxing by reading some old Calvin & Hobbes collections I picked up in the remainder section of an evil chain bookstore. It was great, rediscovering that strip. I’ve been racking my brains about it since Saturday afternoon, and I can’t think of another comic strip that comes near it, since Peanuts’ heyday. Amy & I goofed about various “competitors” to it (like Cathy, ha-ha), but it really is the best comic strip in the last 25 years.

I’m gonna stop now, because I’ve rambled enough.

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Interminably Long Ramble

[No, I’m serious. This thing goes on forever and doesn’t make much sense. You’d be MUCH better off just skipping to another post. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.]

Yesterday offered me a different catharsis than the one I was expecting.

I took a half-day off from work, so I could go into NYC for a showing of photos about the attempts at reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda. The one-day showing was at the Salander-O’Reilly gallery on 79th St., and would include short speeches by Samantha Power and Philip Gourevitch. I read the latter’s book a few weeks ago, and was destroyed by it. As any reader of this blog can tell, I’ve been pretty death-obsessed in recent weeks/months. It’s been a combination of two things: current events in Iraq, Sudan and elsewhere, and the stresses of the day-job (three consecutive issues have had weird production schedules, so I’ve been going without any decompression-time till we finished the June issue last Thursday). Both of these factors have a lot of attendant effects.

I got to NYC early, so I stopped at the gallery (come back around 6pm, they told me), then walked across Fifth Ave. to Central Park. It was an absolutely gorgeous day: 75 degrees, a nice breeze, not a cloud in the sky. I put on my iPod and walked for a ways. It was around 3:30-4pm, and there were plenty of little kids practicing sports. Lines of kids threw undersized footballs to opposing lines of kids. Out in the Oval, some softballers were practicing, but there was plenty of open area. I settled under a tree, and a trio of college kids started playing frisbee nearby. Someone flew a blue-and-white checkered kite. It was idyllic. I read a book for a while, and otherwise just breathed in the spring.

Eventually, I decided to get up and visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, back on 5th and 81st. I hadn’t been there since January 2003 (a month before I started typing up these virtual memories). It was my birthday (the 11th, for those of you who’ve been thinking of throwing a surprise party for me), and I got it into my head to spend that day at the Frick & the Met, checking out the paintings by Rembrandt. I wrote about my feelings for some of Rembrandt’s paintings in April 2003. It was a really wonderful birthday, even if I did spend it alone. I’d only seen a few of his paintings in person before, and the ones we have in NYC are just wondrous.

So yesterday, I went back to the Met. Like last year, I saved the Rembrandts for the end. This time, though, I lingered in the modern art halls, in the Lila Acheson wing, I think. I stared at several paintings by Mark Rothko. I’d never seen his paintings “in person” (you know what I mean) before, but I do remember goofing on them on principle, back in college.

I’ve been pretty biased against modern art for a while now, but I am man enough to recognize that some of that is just stupidity on my part. So I stared at several paintings by Rothko, not quite hearing that The Thievery Corporation was busy mixing and matching elements of the world’s musical traditions on my iPod. I felt enveloped. I thought about my old friend John, whose girlfriend once bought him a massive Rothko print that he couldn’t afford to frame. Normally, that sorta thing would’ve sent me tripping over a whole web of thoughts and associations, but it didn’t happen this time. But that’s not my unexpected catharsis. It was a heck of an experience, and I want to seek out more of his paintings.

Time started to slip, and I wanted to get back to the art gallery before too many people showed up (there was a writeup about the Rwanda event in Sunday’s New York Times, which meant a lot of people (relatively speaking) were likely to arrive. So I tried to hurry through the museum to the Old Masters, where I could commune with my best friend for a little while.

Unfortunately, I got lost in Byzantium (or at least the new exhibition on religious art of the Byzantines). Eventually, I made my way back to 19th century Europe, which gave way to August Sander’s photography (and memories of the time when I liked Richard Powers’ novels). Then the Old Masters. The Flemish style. The color and the shape arising out of darkness. R.’s mid-career portraiture, with its unnaturally vivid lighting, following the violent Bible tableaux. Out of the corner of my eye (just like Jan. 2003), I saw a self-portrait of R., through a doorway. Waited on it, gazing on Brueghel, van Eyck, Hals, etc.

He looks at me, ancient man forever alive.

The self-portrait at the Met doesn’t have the impact on me that the great one over at the Frick does. But that’s a more intimate space to begin with, and has those lovely Whistlers, Goyas, El Grecos. There, I see R. in golden robes, and it’s like seeing an old friend.

But that wasn’t it, either. I looked at the self-portrait, after contemplating Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer. A Japanese man stood next to me, expertly sketching the self-portrait. I wanted to tell him how amazed I was by his drawing, but elected not to. I sat down and wrote for a little while.

Shortly, I headed for the exit, so I could get to the photo-gallery. On the way out, my eye was caught by a wing of the museum that I hadn’t visited since I was a child, and a dream from several weeks ago caught up with me. It was the Egyptians and death.

Earlier, walking from Park to Museum, I passed Cleopatra’s Needle, read the translated hieroglyphics, all praise to sun-god Ra. I thought about the circuitous route that its sister took to get to London, the trail of accidents and death that it blazed. I thought about two Saturdays ago, when thoughts of mortality just dominated my mind. Not hard to imagine: I’d finished Gourevitch’s book on the Rwandan genocide, and would soon start Murakami’s book on the Tokyo subway nerve-gas attacks.

The Egyptian wing drew me in. Celebration of the dead. Sarcophagi of gold. How it would contrast with the photos of lines of skulls in the Ntarama Church, 20 minutes into my future. I know this narrative isn’t making much sense, but I still haven’t caught up on sleep, and I need to get all this out. These are virtual memories: almost the real thing.

It was Anubis, the dog-headed guardian of the dead. That’s what I saw symbolically in a dream, weeks earlier, culmination of an evening freighted with death.

“Freighted with death.” Puts me in mind of another myth: The Nordic gods, and their end-of-the-world. A boat bearing fallen warriors comes out of the underworld, and it’s built of dead men’s fingernails. Death, traveling freight. I tend to draw these significances, these parallels of myths. It’s sorta the subject of a novel I want to write (but am too much of a pussy to sit down and work through).

When I came into the museum, I walked through the sunlit, white rooms of the ancient Greek art & artifacts. A passage from Thucydides graced one wall, quoting from Pericles’ funeral oration on the wonders of Athens. [It elides over the part where Pericles mentions the terrors that Athens has to inflict. I’ll talk about that more extensively sometime, as the election approaches. Remind me.] In contrast, the Egyptian wing was darkened in parts to keep fabrics and parchments from fading. With nearly no visitors, it was almost silent.

I felt like a shadow, and Rwanda still awaited.

I got to the gallery at 5:30. Photos were mounted, but no-one was in the main room. So I took my time, absorbing the images. The photographs weren’t of the massacre itself, but of the country eight years later, as Rwanda struggled (and still struggles) to reconcile itself with the presence of so many genocidaires.

I kept returning to one photo. Not of the carefully organized lines of skulls, nor of shed with shelves of femurs. Not the men in pink shirts and shorts, facing village-wide tribunals called Gacacas. Not the tall, trim-bearded prosecutor, holding a microphone and calling on townspeople to offer evidence against a woman accused of genocide. Not the Tutsis, holding old photos of murdered family members, alongside Polaroids of their remains.

The photo that caught me was from the prayer hall of the Ntarama Church. It was a color photo of a brick wall, with a window in the top left. The bricks at the bottom of the window frame were missing. Having read about the genocide, I could only imagine how those bricks were knocked out.

In the middle of the photo, there are two sacks. They look like linen, or a woven plastic, several feet tall, leaning upright against the brick wall. They are filled with bones. From the top of the sacks, skulls and pelvises protrude. To the viewer’s right, sitting on the floor beside the sacks, is a framed wall-hanging, in relief, of the Last Supper. It’s stylized, full figures sitting at strange angles, contorted to face Jesus, who’s breaking bread.

It’s the sacks. I look at them, and they contain these lives. I don’t know how to express it. I mean, most of my coworkers look at me sympathetically when I talk about this stuff, but they still seem to think, “But these are a bunch of Africans, you idiot.” I don’t mean to be unkind to them. They have families, and homes, and much more by way of roots than I have, and the time I spend thinking about this stuff is time they could spend doing something called living.

So I kept coming back to these sacks, and thought about the lives that were stuffed into them. The artistic/synthetic experiences I’d had at the Met were submerged now, overwhelmed by death in Africa. Walking among the Egyptians was a good preliminary, it seemed.

After a while, I went to a coffeeshop around the corner, and read the catalog for the exhibit. I came back to the gallery around 6:15, and found it filled with people. I was gratified that so many people turned out for something that we could all just easily have glossed over (thanks, NYT!). The speakers were supposed to “go on” (you know what I mean) at 6:30. I walked among the photos again, surrounded by a throng of people. It felt wrong to me that they were happy to see one another. The room felt like an antechamber of death, not a place for smiles.

I immediately felt guilty for having that reaction. Who was I to complain about someone else’s feelings? As you can tell, I was in a serious bind, or an emotional death-spiral, as I like to call it. I was second-guessing everydamnthing, feeling utterly out of place in the room (for no good reason), and otherwise suffering from the heebie-jeebies.

Ms. Power walked in, and I thought for a moment about introducing myself to her. I’d sent an e-mail to her Harvard account last week, asking for advice/suggestions about what a normal (ha-ha) person could do regarding the genocide in Sudan. I haven’t heard back from her, but I figure she’s a busy woman. In addition, many people in the crowd knew her and wanted to talk. So I walked among the photos, heard snippets of conversation, and felt soul-heavy. I was utterly adrift, staring at that photo of the sacks of bones, when the thought struck me, “Wouldn’t it be great to be out on the lawn in Central Park right now?”

And this huge smile broadened my face. That was it: The weight lifted away. I walked out of the gallery, went to the Park, relaxed in the evening breeze, watched people play softball, and listened to some music. The catharsis struck. All the tumult built to a head, and then dispersed in this realization that I need joy, too.

On the way back to my car, I called an old friend of mine who works in the city. I thought he might be working late and, as it turned out, he was. He thought I sounded strange (I did) on the phone, so he decided to stay a little later and we met for drinks. It was a great time. We caught up on the past few months, goofed around like we did 10 years ago in grad school, and rambled about sports, culture, art, and war.

I thought about all the friends I’ve fallen out of touch with this year. The war’s had something to do with it, as has the exigencies of our day-to-day lives. I’ve made several good friends this year, but last night I remembered how good it is to spend time with old friends.

So this is what I do when I take a half-day off from work. Sorry to ramble so much, but if I stop to edit this, I guarantee it’ll never get posted.

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Sudan

VM reader Elayne mentioned that there’s a resolution in the House of Representatives (H. Con. Res. 403) condemning Sudan and calling for the UN to start an investigation into crimes against humanity. The resolution was introduced by Rep. Frank Wolf, the ranking representative from Virginia. I wanted to e-mail him directly, but his site won’t let you do that unless you’re from his district.

As I read about the resolution, I found that there was a concurrent bill in the Senate (S. Con. Res. 99), cosponsored by 21 senators (including both from my home state of NJ). It appears that the resolution is passed but “Held at the desk.” I’m afraid I don’t know enough about the workings of our Senate to know what that means. If anyone else does, please fill me in (hit the Comments section below).

I’m not sure of the status of the resolution in the House, but it appears that my representative isn’t among the 94 reps who have supoorted it. So I wrote to my representative, Scott Garrett:

Please support Congressional Resolution 403, condemning the Sudanese government for supporting attacks against the citizens of Darfur.

What’s going on in Sudan is genocide, and the U.S. needs to stand against it. Our representatives and senators need to make our support of human rights known. Both senators from NJ have cosponsored the concurrent resolution in their house (S. Con. Res. 99).

We’re in a new world. I support our actions in Iraq as being the best way to bring that area of the world toward modernity. But we can’t let atrocities like what’s transpiring in Sudan go undeterred and unpunished. If we do, it’ll turn into another breeding-ground of evil.

Stand up and support Resolution 403.

Thanks,

Gil Roth

If you wanna send a message to your representative on the quick, you should go here. It’ll give you info on the bills, and you can put in your zip code and get a pre-formatted letter sent to your rep (or you can edit it if you like).

The group that runs this site is Church World Service. According to the disclaimer at the bottom of the site’s home page, “Church World Service is a cooperative humanitarian ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations, providing sustainable self-help and development, disaster relief, and refugee assistance in more than 80 countries. CWS is part of the ecumenical family of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.”

I’m not pushing Christ on anyone (talk about an opiate…). I’m a Jew (but not a very religious one). I’m going to look into CWS and I hope that it doesn’t turn out that they have some really monstrous, repressive agenda. It doesn’t look like it, at first glance. You can read a little about them at their FAQ page.

I’m glad they’re taking such an interest in averting the Sudan crisis. My girlfriend and I recently tried to figure out what sort of humanitarian fund or group we could donate to that wouldn’t raise the possibility of our money getting funneled into a U.S.-bashing program. I proposed that we start raising funds to buy guns for the displaced Sudanese. She thought we might be able to find used fighter jets on Ebay.

I know this stuff has to be getting tiresome to some readers. My eyes glaze over when Andrew Sullivan starts writing about gay marriage, and I support the guy. Anyway, if you’ve read this far, thanks for sticking with it. I appreciate whatever support you can muster for this cause. I know we all have enough in our lives, without having to worry about the fates of people thousands of miles from here.