31 October 2006

October, Part II

Well. How about one more October picture?

Self-referential humor is never as funny to other people as it is to you, but this is my blog darn it and I'm going to poke a little fun.
October is still my favorite month, although this has been an... unusual month. I was praying for a great October. What I got was... well, let's just hope I got what I was praying for.

I changed jobs. The new job is a vast improvement over the old one, but the manner in which the change occurred... left a bit to be desired. No discussion has ever arisen related to that and it seems as though all those involved in the entire affair would just as leave never mention it again. Fine by me. As I said, I'm enjoying what I do now, and though it means less idle time I'm thrilled that I now have a job where I can see the purpose of my work. That's of inestimable value.
So that was good.

Then, of course, my cat was diagnosed with cancer and I learned and had to make peace with the fact that one of my best friends for the past sixteen years wasn't going to be there when I got home. This wasn't easy, but what must be done must be done. I passed one very hard night, and the next morning I woke up and knew that I'd said goodbye. I'll miss the old boy. Incidentally, here's a little picture of him and my folks' cat, Hobo, taken in the last couple days. He's certainly gotten skinny, but he looks just fine.

And then there was the incident of the other night. I won't go into any detail but you may have noticed a number of changes here on the blog. Let's just say that in my lack of concern about my career (which I'm expecting to end shortly) I let myself get carried away with thinking I could say just about anything I wanted. This is not the case for people in the military. It has never been the case, but two years of doing it was certainly enough to help me forget the fact. Turns out a few people found the blog and decided there were some things there that were A) inappropriate for a military officer to be saying, even if not in an official capacity, and B) too close to an operational security violation for comfort, even if nothing crossed the line.
So I turned out to be damn close to some lines that, if crossed, could result in let's just say some really unpleasant consequences. I'm not into that. For the remainder of my time in the service we'll just keep this to largely non-political observations.

Now, I'll point out that for example the recent series on issues in the Horn of Africa that I had started did not contain any facts that you couldn't find on the BBC or Wikipedia (I use both resources to check my facts, actually), along with my own interpretations and some gut feelings based on a decade of paying close attention to what people act like when they're up to no good. But again, this was a bit close to the line, and as I said I've no reason to go putting my neck at risk. So I won't.

It turns out that apparently there are more readers of this blog than I had suspected, including quite a few of my colleagues and several people I don't even know out here. The topic came up just a couple days ago in a conversation with someone I've seen a handful of times and who I wasn't even sure what service he was in. It felt... odd. But good. But I had to wonder: why the hell don't you people comment? Come on. Show some love.

This afternoon after lunch I was talking about the episode with a couple of people, one of whom I knew and one of whom I've never seen before but who apparently was not only aware of the blog but was a reader. I'll let you stay nameless. This person said to me, "All great writers are persecuted for their writing."

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time, as it would have come out my nose (ever done that with milk? You can't get the smell of sour milk out of your nose for days). I'm not sure either "great" or "persecuted" apply to my situation, but the notion certainly put a smile on my face.

So maybe it was a great October, and maybe it wasn't. But following an August and a September of drab, unbroken sameness (and hot weather), it's certainly been a memorable month.

29 October 2006

28 October 2006

Goodbye


This is Cinders. He's a good cat.

We got Cinders when I was 13. He was a funny little kitten, not very social. The first day he was at home with us, he spent most of his time under the sideboard in the dining room hiding. He even hissed at us. He was scared; I can't blame him. He'd been a stray, possibly born feral. Hard to say for sure. When we brought him home he was probably two months old, if that.

He was a very clingy cat, not bothered at all to use his claws to hold on, whether to your shoulder or to the back of one of the old rocking chairs he used to sleep on like a leopard on the limb of some great tree in Africa. He always had a little bit of the wild in him.

Cinders was there every day when I came home from junior high school. Every day when I came home from high school, he was there.
Cinders was there every time I came home from college. He was there every time I came home from pilot training. He was there every time I came home from a deployment. And for most of the last two years, Cinders has been there every day when I come home from work. We used to have long conversations in the kitchen while I fixed dinner. Cinders has been my whole family; he's played Hobbes to my Calvin for a long time.

But he's not going to be there when I get home this time. Sixteen years is a long life for a cat, and he wasn't in perfect health when I left home in July. Still, I didn't think that he'd seen his last December. When I said goodbye, I didn't think I was doing so for good. The truth is I'm not going to get to say goodbye.

Death is a cruel thing. Though I hope he will, the odds are Cinders will not get to slip peacefully away some night soon in his sleep. He's not dying of anything that will be so kind as that. This is what saddens me the most. No matter how comfortable Mom and Dad make him in these last few days or weeks, no matter how much he gets to lie in the sun on the porch and sniff the breezes and eat the yummy canned cat food, the last thing that's going to happen to Cinders is that he'll have to go to a scary place he doesn't like, and go into a white room, and get a shot from some stranger. He doesn't deserve that. But he doesn't deserve to suffer, either.

It's probably for the best that I'm not there. In the past the unpleasant duty of saying the last goodbye to family pets has always fallen to my father, who manages to hold up okay. I know there's no way I could do it, not for Cinders. I'm not keeping it together right now.

I'm going to miss my Old Buddy. I already do.

Why is Smitty in Djibouti? Part IV - Uncle Sam's Business

Part I
Part II
Part III
Working in CJTF-HOA is a bit strange. Every morning we stand up and people with close cut hair in smart uniforms use a lot of military lingo to describe, for example, the status of some concrete that’s supposed to be delivered to complete construction of a school.

Construction and well-drilling projects constitute about half our work. We have multiple large well-drilling rigs of a type not available in this area, capable of drilling very deep wells in areas that haven’t had operating water wells in quite some time. Access to potable water is one of the single most important things we can provide to help lift people out of poverty; economic development is simply not possible without a ready supply of drinkable water. The United States has chosen the military-there are, in fact, whole platoons in the Army’s engineering world dedicated to drilling wells-as the organization to go out into east Africa and help provide water.

The Navy has construction battalions (CB’s, more popularly the SeaBees) who are here at the base as well. They work on infrastructure projects around the base, but also do some work in town and elsewhere in the region. But we don’t want to come in here and damage the local economy by having our own construction teams build all the schools and hospitals. There are plenty of local contractors perfectly capable of doing the jobs, just not enough capital around to pay for them. That’s where we come in.

There is much more to say--there always is when Uncle Sam does something unexpected--but now is not the time. I'll pick this series up again in a few days.

Why Is Smitty In Djibouti? Part III - Why Are These Countries Here?

Part I
Part II
The question raised by yesterday’s history is, why the hell does Ethiopia care about holding on to the Ogaden?

Ah, well. That’s tough to explain, and I don’t know that I can do it exactly. But let’s examine the various secessionist and other movements that have existed in this part of the world over the last, say, forty years (roughly the period of decolonization).

1. South Sudanese rebels fought a near-30-year war for secession from the rest of Sudan (they have autonomy and a promise of a referendum on independence in 2012).
2. Eritrea fought a near-30-year war for secession from the rest of Ethiopia, which was granted in 1993.
3. The Afar minority in Djibouti fought two civil wars, the last from 1991-2001, supporting secession from Djibouti.
4. The Oromo Liberation Front continue fighting a war for independence from Ethiopia (Oromo make up 35% of Ethiopia’s population).
5. The Ogaden National Liberation Front continue fighting a war for independence from Ethiopia (Somalis make up 5% of Ethiopia’s population)
6. The Lord’s Resistance Army has fought a 15-year struggle against the Ugandan state since the rise of Yoweri Museveni, purportedly to ensure continued control of the government by the Acholi tribe, but more likely because there was nothing else to do for a living.
7. The Darfur civil war in Sudan has run since 2003.
8. Sudan has faced an insurrection in the northeast of the country that at times was fierce enough to block shipping access at the port of Sawakin.

It boils down to this. Africa is full of countries that don’t make any sense. Colonial powers drew lines, as they did in Somalia, that had nothing whatsoever to do with how people identified themselves. Single tribes—like the Somalis—were split up among multiple countries, while in other colonies, like the Congo, people who had no contact with one another and had entirely different cultures were lumped together and expected to suddenly feel a part of the new colony, a sense of nationality.

It didn’t work, not surprisingly. Few African countries harbor no secessionist or autonomy movements, and the fear is that once the door is opened to their success—either through military or political action—the flood will be unstoppable. This is why the African Union specifically states that territorial integrity is paramount, and why even though good sense dictates otherwise the AU is encouraging South Sudanese to vote against independence in 2012. If we encourage the South Sudanese, goes the theory, what’s to stop every other country from splitting apart?

Domino theories in geopolitics seem to be more bluster than fact, but the point holds. In the case of Ethiopia—indeed, of most large countries in Africa—there is a larger dimension. If Ethiopia strikes a diplomatic deal to allow the Somalis in Ogaden to go free, the Oromo and Afar and Tigray and others will surely wish to follow. If Ethiopia allows the Somalis to attack and overrun the Ogaden, Sudan and Eritrea will no doubt strike next, and the Oromo (the largest tribe in Ethiopia) will step up their separatist guerrilla war. Apparent weakness begets further attacks.

From a philosophical point of view, there’s no reason the Somalis of Ethiopia and Kenya shouldn’t be in Somalia. But from a practical point of view, it would be that much worse to see the rest of Africa descend into warfare as every little separatist element seeks to achieve its own independence.

So into this land of un-countries with all their ethnic grudges, the United States has come to wage peace. The U.S. seems to work fairly well despite having a wide range of different ethnic groups. Theoretically if we can just show the way around here, economic development and peace will follow. That’s what CJTF-HOA is all about.

27 October 2006

Why Is Smitty In Djibouti? Part II - A History of Somalia

Yesterday I closed with the mention that Ethiopia has several reasons to be involved in the Somalia mess. CJTF-HOA (Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa), which is the command I'm attached to, is very active in Ethiopia, and Ethiopia has long been the most important power in the Horn. The main reason Ethiopia remains interested in Somalia is that the Somalis have a habit of invading Ethiopia every so often. Not surprisingly, the Ethiopians tend to invade Somalia every now and then as well.

Ethiopia is a polyglot state whose people belong to no fewer than 80 ethnic groups. At least five of these are fighting for independence, one of them being the Somalis. Most of eastern Ethiopia is a scrub desert called the Ogaden, and is inhabited by the Ogaden subclan of the Darood clan of Somalis. When Somalia's CIC leaders speak of creating a "greater Somalia," make no mistake that they include the Ogaden. Sparsely populated, the Ogaden has perhaps four and a half million people and is roughly the size of Alabama and Georgia.

The CIC are not the first people to discuss the notion of a “Greater Somalia.” (Nevermind the fact that a truly greater Somalia would probably exist someplace other than Somalia, which is not a very great chunk of territory at all.) The current map in the Somali region is a combination of colonial and post-WWII factors. The Somalis had existed across the Horn for millennia. The Ethiopian monarchy reigned over a smaller inland region. Because this was an ancient Christian monarchy, when the European powers began carving up Africa to suit their needs they left the Ethiopians alone and rather than fighting over control of the territory, they fought over control of independent Ethiopia’s economy, which was far and away the strongest in the region. The British took Sudan and Kenya, surrounding Ethiopia on the north and south. The French created Djibouti and built a railroad from the port here to Addis Ababa to capture as much Ethiopian commerce as possible. Somalia was ignored.

Djibouti was slightly more than half Somali. The British, who controlled the port of Aden on the Gulf of Aden, took northern Somalia because they wanted to control Berbera, Aden’s counterpart on the southern coast of the Gulf. Nobody much cared about the rest of Somalia, which then as now was devoid of resources and riven by interclan fighting. Italy was late to the colonial game and weak relative to France and Britain; they seized what remained of Somalia, including the Ogaden, without much of a fight.

Ethiopia had long attempted to subvert and control the Somalis on its eastern border, going back hundreds of years, and the animosity between Somalis and the Ethiopian state is long-standing. After the Italian seizure of southern Somalia, Ethiopia saw an opportunity in Italy’s weakness, and marched on Somalia. The Ogaden was successfully overtaken in 1900, but Ogaden is a fairly worthless scrap of territory even by Somali standards. Somalis themselves fought a proxy war for Italy against Ethiopia for twenty-some years, while British control in northern and extreme southern Somalia and French control in Djibouti became entrenched.

Interestingly, it was the Italians’ laissez-faire attitude toward their colony that saved them the worst of the anti-colonialist struggle. The British faced stiff and bloody resistance in northern Somaliland (though not in the Somali parts of Kenya), while the Italians concentrated their efforts on turning their Somalian holdings into something worthwhile. Many Italians immigrated to the colony and built numerous agricultural and other projects. Mussolini even pointed to Somaliland as an example of his good leadership, contrasting the relatively peaceful development of Italian Somaliland against the bloodshed in British Somaliland.

In the 1930’s, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia (heretofore the only pre-colonial African country to remain uncolonized) from Somalia, using both Ethiopian and Somali troops. WWII brought an end to Italian control of Ethiopia and Somalia; the British eventually occupied the entire area, including the French port of Djibouti. But the British had no desire to hold on to Somalia once the war ended. Somalis desired independence, and here for the first time in the modern era the notion of Greater Somalia came up.

A 1948 conference between the WWII victors sought to sort out the Somali issue. Somalis themselves, which had formed a pro-independence political party, the Somali Youth League, were not given a seat at the table. Instead of independence, the conference returned Djibouti to France and granted the Ogaden to independent Ethiopia, over Italian objections. The British took the northern part of the country centered on Berbera, while the Italians were granted southern Somalia in recognition of their competent administration in the pre-war years. The British and Italians both recognized the need to grant independence to Somalia and began building national institutions that would survive the transfer of power. The southernmost portions of former Italian Somaliland, however, were awarded to British Kenya, presumably as a buffer against the rest of Somalia. These areas had been initially colonized by the well-regarded Italians and the residents were not happy with the transfer. The Somali Youth League then developed the modern flag of Somalia, a five-pointed star on a blue background. The five points of the star reflected the five parts of Greater Somalia: Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland, Djibouti, the Ogaden, and the Somali portions of Kenya

For their part the Italians were better managers than the British, who spent no effort on infrastructure or economic development and instead concentrated on ensuring British economic dominance of the port of Berbera. They let go of their Somaliland protectorate in 1959 four days before the Italians released their portion, and the two halves merged immediately.

Less than two years passed before the northern part of Somalia started talking secession. Northern Somalia is home to two clans, the Ishaaq and Dir, who are not represented in southern Somalia except around Mogadishu; likewise the southern tribes (Hawiye, Rahanweyne, Digil, and Darood) do not live in northern Somalia (though the Darood are the main clan in Puntland). This dispute simmered along as a political matter for many years, while other political parties sprang up seeking the return of the Ogaden and the Kenyan areas to Greater Somalia.

In 1963 the Bare Revolt erupted in southern Ethiopia. Led by Oromo (an Ethiopian tribe) and Somali elements, it sought the independence of the Bare region, which made up most of the southern Ogaden. Later that year Somalia and Ethiopia fought a brief but brutal border war; after the cease-fire, the Somalian government began funding the Bare Revolt, which lasted until the end of the decade.

The area then developed a Cold-War flavor, with all the turnarounds that implies. The Somalian government turned toward the Soviet Union and China, while Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia sought closer relations with the West. Soviet and Marxist influence combined with Somalia’s ancient clan wars to bring the democratic government to a near standstill. In 1969 Siad Barre led a military coup, and the country was taken over by the Supreme Revolutionary Council.

Somalia under Siad Barre initially sought to avoid military conflict and instead proceeded on a crash course of economic and cultural development. He created a new regional system that ignored clan boundaries in an effort to end the influence of clans on Somali life. In this Siad Barre preceded the CIC by thirty-five years; though Barre was no better at eliminating tribalism than the CIC. Though one of his goals was the erasure of clan-lines, every single member of Siad Barre’s inner circle in the government was of the Darood clan; the Rahanweyn, Digil, and Hawiye were represented only in the powerless council of advisors, and the Ishaaq and Dir of northern Somalia weren’t even granted seats there. (Today the CIC is made up almost entirely of Hawiye clansmen.)

Through the 1970s, Siad Barre took money and military aid from the Soviet Union and quickly developed a military capable of matching the main regional power, Ethiopia. In 1974, the communist military junta called the Derg deposed Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, and in the years following the Ethiopian military fell apart and numerous separatist struggles began, including one in the Ogaden. The Derg quickly proved to be far more ardently Marxist-Leninist than Siad Barre, and the Soviets began supplying the new Ethiopian regime, which quickly kicked out the American military mission in the country.

In 1977 the Derg finally settled on a leader, Mengistu Haile Miriam. Mengistu quickly accused Siad Barre of supporting the Ogaden rebels. Siad Barre denied this, and while the diplomats were still arguing over the evidence, he invaded Ethiopia. The Soviets attempted to get a cease-fire, but failing at that they simply abandoned Somalia. The U.S. came in on Siad Barre’s side, and the two superpowers fought to a standstill in 1978, when the Somalian military retreated back across the border at perhaps a third of the strength it had when it invaded.

Somalia continued to back the Ogaden rebels in Ethiopia, but with Soviet military assistance the Ethiopian military eventually overcame the rebels; however, an active separatist movement remains in the Ogaden to this day, occasionally perpetrating bombings and kidnappings. In response, the Ethiopian military conducted numerous cross-border attacks in central Somalia throughout the 1980s. Siad Barre abandoned the dream of Greater Somalia, having as he did a military incapable of making the dream a reality.

During the 1980’s Siad Barre’s regime became increasingly tyrannical and clan-based, persecuting especially the Isaaq clan in the north and the Majeerteen subclan of the Darood (you’ll note that Barre was himself a Darood, but of a different subclan); Abdullahi Yusuf, the current TFG president, is a Majeerteen and attempted a coup against Siad Barre in 1978 before escaping to Ethiopia to work to bring down the Barre regime.

Siad Barre’s government collapsed in 1991 under the weight of its own oppression. In his last years in office he played the clans off against one another in an attempt to hold on to power. When he fled the country, the clans began fighting. The U.S. intervened and then left again, the UN did the same, and so for the last 15 years there has been no functioning government in all of Somalia.

Now, however, the CIC is on the scene, proclaiming a “Greater Somalia” and Islamic government. Ethiopia supports the Transitional Federal Government-run by Abdullahi Yusuf, who has lived in Ethiopia for many years-and we can assume will defend it militarily as long as is necessary. As long as Ethiopia sees a threat coming from Somalia, it will find a way to stick around.

Tomorrow I'll look at Ethiopia itself--and Eritrea and Kenya and the rest of the Horn, too.

26 October 2006

Rain Rain Come and Stay

Monday night, it rained. It was the first rain in quite some very long time and although it didn't last long everyone was talking about it on Tuesday.
Wednesday morning it rained twice. Wednesday night it rained again. This morning it rained so heavily I wasn't sure I would make it to breakfast.

It has rained almost all day. Not constant rain; that sort of thing doesn't happen here. But it will rain very very hard for a minute or two, and then drizzle a little, and then stop. And then twenty minutes later it will rain very very hard for a minute or two, and then drizzle a little, and then stop. And so on.

The roads on base are starting to flood. The lovely Djiboutian dust has turned into thick brown mud that sticks to everything. Puddles two inches deep dot every low spot in the mud and gravel. The acacias are heavy with rain and drip on you as you walk under them.

I love it! Man, I haven't seen rain like this in months! I forgot how much I enjoy this kind of weather. I've had a big ol' smile on my face all day. They say this is going to keep up for the next day or so; I hope they're right (whoever "they" are). If the clouds cooperate I might take some pictures this evening.

25 October 2006

Why Is Smitty In Djibouti? Part I - Somalia

You may be wondering, what exactly IS Smitty doing out in this God-forsaken armpit of the world? A fair question, certainly, with multiple answers, and I'll take the next week or so and make an attempt at answering it. Incidentally, if you look at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and the east coast of Africa along those bodies of water, and place Djibouti on it, you'll note that this really is sort of the left armpit of Africa (the Bight of Biafra being the right). It smells, too, because they burn trash every night. Actually, they burn trash every day, too; there's a perpetual trash fire about a mile from the base. But the wind blows during the day so you don't notice it as much.

Anyway. Enough about burning trash and armpits. Why did Uncle Sam plunk a base down here?
The obvious answer is Somalia, but officially we pulled out of Somalia thirteen years ago and haven't looked back. This is more or less true, and in fact we have no activities inside the country at all, apart from mild diplomatic pressure on the various pseudo-governmental agencies operating there.

Somalia is not a country. It is a patch of earth the size of Texas, containing some nine million people who don't have the resources to feed themselves and consequently are constantly fighting. There are wars going on between subclans out there in the desert that have been going on since before the United States existed. Somalia is a quarrel with borders.

As it is the place has no less than four significant competing governments, plus a host of others and, anyway, most administration is local. Officially the place still has "provinces," though only Puntland and Somaliland pretend to recognize the old borders or names of those.

Somaliland is the reasonably stable and secure northern bit of old Somalia (purple on the map), about the size of x, which has been run somewhat successfully by a functional democratic government with several competing parties for at least the last eight years. It exists within the old borders of the colony of British Somaliland and believes this gives it the right to exist as an independent nation, apart from the rest of Somalia, which was a former Italian colony.

This is a key point. The African Union (AU) as a simple matter of policy does not recognize independence movements within member states (all African states save Morocco are members of the organization, and although Somalia has no functioning government border integrity there matters to the AU because the organization doesn't want to set precedents for other independence movements, of which Africa has at least a score). However, the AU does recognize the right of the Western Sahara (or Sahrawi Arab Republic) to self-determination (which is why Morocco left the organization), because it was a former Spanish colony administered separately from Morocco, and has stated that colonial borders, absurd as they are, must be respected—Africans, in other words, need to learn loyalty to their states and not their ethnic groups. This point of view is controversial, but there are good reasons for it; I may get into these in another post. On this basis, the leaders of Somaliland have pressed the AU for formal recognition along the borders of British Somaliland, but so far there's been no progress. British Somaliland in fact gained independence four days before Italian Somaliland; the two merged to form Somalia the day the Italian part gained independence, but those four days are basis enough for Somaliland to feel it has a right to self-determination.

Ethiopia might be willing to recognize Somaliland, but because of old animosity between Somalis and Ethiopians, it would be diplomatically unacceptable for Ethiopia to be the first country to do so. Djibouti, also, might be willing, being as how Djibouti is a majority-Somali country with no desire to join a "greater Somalia." Djibouti also wants to play a larger role in the region, politically; but this means not annoying the various people who currently run other bits of Somalia, who don't want to recognize Somaliland. Western countries including the U.S. might recognize the place, but won't because A) it is felt the AU needs to take the lead on the matter, and B) officially all Western countries support the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG), orange on the map, which nominally is the government for the whole patch of territory formerly called Somalia, including Somaliland. Recognizing Somaliland would imply downgrading the importance of the TFG. If the country is to be recognized, it will be by the AU acting as a unified body with one voice; right now the political will isn't there, for a variety of reasons, some of which I'll get into later. Consequently, Somaliland exists in a sort of diplomatic limbo, as do its people.

To the east is Puntland, blue on the map, which like Somaliland has declared independence and has been reasonably democratic and stable, though not so much as Somaliland. However, Puntland's government officially wishes to rejoin a united Somalia (which places it at odds with Somaliland), once such a beast can be said to exist. But the Puntland government has not in the past considered the TFG legitimate and so remains apart from the group. Puntland also wishes to rejoin a secular Somalia, not an Islamist one, and this brings it into conflict with the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC), green on the map, which currently controls Mogadishu. Thus Puntland is at odds with every one of its neighbors, and has been criticized by the West and Yemen for allowing mass migration from its shores across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, which has porous if extremely dangerous borders with its rich neighbor Saudi Arabia; that's where many Somalis and Oromo (an Ethiopian tribe that is about 60% Muslim and 40% Christian) are headed.

The implications of this migration are very bad, considering that Saudi Arabia has a history of producing dangerous fundamentalists, and anyway doesn't have enough jobs for its own population let alone any illegal immigrants. Poverty and rejection await most Somali and Oromo migrants to Yemen and Saudi, and those two things tend to produce young men who are susceptible to the Islamist siren-song. Thus most Western states—as well as most Arab ones—find it vital that Puntland stop the migration from its coasts, though since Puntland is not recognized officially by any country, it receives no help whatsoever in stopping said migration, a sort of catch-22.

Puntland in the past month has started to gravitate towards the TFG, because although Puntland's leaders don't see the TFG as legimimate, they see the CIC as a graver threat. Allying with the TFG may or may not be a good idea; in any event, we should assume that although Puntland might call on the TFG if attacked by the CIC, Puntland would not likely come to the TFG's defense.

There are several other smaller pseudo-states; those marked on the map include Southwest Somalia, Southern Mudug, Jubaland, and the Juba Valley Alliance.

Southern Mudug, red on the map, is mostly an outpost of the northern subclans of the Hawiye clan, centered around the small port of Hobyo (red on the map). The CIC is mostly controlled by Hawiye clansmen. Southern Mudug is a quiet entity and will likely accept CIC control when the courts and their militia come knocking. This will likely occur before year-end.

Jubaland (if the Juba Valley Alliance is included) more or less matches the old boundaries of an Omani and then British client-state that exist in the 18th C. under the same name. This area has no claim to independence similar to Somaliland, and in any event is run by a warlord and has not made a serious effort to assert itself as a state. The leader of Jubaland (which is yellow on the map) has thrown in with the TFG and is a member of the cabinet.

Southwest Somalia (pink on the map), like Jubaland, associates with the TFG, but the warlords who control the eastern and western sections of it, although cabinet members in the TFG, maintain the autonomy of Southwest Somalia. Political this is fairly sensible, since the TFG is never more than a few days away from collapse. If the government collapses either under its own weight or under attack from the CIC, the warlords will retreat to their redoubts and fight on from there.

That leaves the TFG and CIC, which are headquartered in the towns of Baidoa and Mogadishu, respectively. These towns are barely 100 km apart, and a number of smaller towns between them have changed hands between the CIC and TFG several times. The TFG, which never was able to successfully bring order to Mogadishu, controls very little territory outside Baidoa. The CIC, on the other hand, which receives significant support from abroad, has managed to threaten, cajole, and in some cases buy off the local clan leaders in several areas around Mogadishu and as far afield as Galcaio to the north and Kismaayo to the south. Kismaayo had been run by a fellow named Barre Hirale, who ran the area around the city under the name Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) (red-orange on the map) and acted much as the government of Puntland does.

Barre Hirale is an interesting character. Unlike Puntland's leadership and like that of Jubaland and Southwest Somalia, Barre Hirale threw in with the TFG and took a cabinet position, but maintained the autonomy of the JVA. Then a couple weeks ago the CIC came knocking at his door, and he struck a deal and left them in control of the town, retreating with his militia to Baidoa some 150km northwest. Late last week, Barre Hirale decided he liked ruling the JVA better than being the defense minister of the impotent TFG, and marched on Kismaayo. The outcome of the fighting there is not clear as of this writing (although tonight the CIC seems to have the upper hand), but it seems likely that if Barre Hirale wins he won't soon trade his position for any carrots the TFG might offer, or the CIC, short of the top job.

It's worth pointing out that Kismaayo and the Juba Valley are the most productive parts of Somalia by a wide margin, and thus are worth fighting for. A Somalia without control of the Juba Valley would be utterly unable to feed its people, and both the TFG and CIC are well aware of that, as clearly is Barre Hirale, who fancies himself kingmaker, if not king. This is also the part of Somalia closest to the Kenyan border, and this has presented its own trouble to the Kenyan government.

That said, Somalia is not a sand desert like Egypt. The few pictures of the Djiboutian countryside I've been able to post on this blog are indicative of the country as a whole—and indeed, Djibouti is in the driest and hottest part of the Horn of Africa; much of Somalia is slightly more productive. Still, it is a land of grazing and herding, not intense agriculture, apart from in the Juba Valley. There is no question but that the number of people living here is far, far higher than what the land can actually support.

I've included a little map I made up with all the cities I mentioned, plus rough zones of control of Somaliland, Puntland, the TFG, the CIC, and the Juba Valley Alliance. Other parts of the country (in white) are still run more or less by local clan leaders, small-time versions of Barre Hirale. They are open to influence by the CIC or the TFG, but the CIC has the upper hand as the TFG is both utterly incompetent and devoid of legitimacy and has invited the hated Ethiopian National Defense Force onto Somali soil.

There is no likelihood of Somalia developing a stable national government any time in the near future. The CIC has successfully calmed Mogadishu, reopened the port and airport, and claims to be running the place well. There are cracks in the leadership, though, and as the CIC tries to expand outside Mogadishu and the area controlled by the Awale clan, there has been more difficulty. Somalis are inherently more loyal to their clan and subclan than to their government, employers, or religion. Earlier this summer it looked as if the CIC would march across Somalia and unite the country at last, but this now seems highly unlikely and, if anything, it seems the CIC will ultimately become a source of instability in the region.

The TFG, however, couldn't lead people to the bathroom after five cups of coffee. Earlier this summer half the cabinet (which had over 60 members) resigned in an effort to make the TFG President, Abdullahi Yusuf, strike a deal with the CIC. But the TFG president was under pressure from other agents (i.e. the AU, EU, U.S., and most of the rest of the world) to hold his ground. Yusuf is a prickly character not suited to his position. He fired his first prime minister, reduced the size of the cabinet (a good thing), and still has been unable to control the government. The TFG doesn't even keep the peace in Baidoa, relying on local militias to do so instead, and its small security force has proven incapable even of keeping Yusuf himself out of harm's way.

Consequently the TFG invited the Ethiopian National Defense Force into Baidoa earlier this year. The exact degree of ENDF involvement in TFG decision making and security is unknown; the TFG insists the ENDF only provides logistical and training support, but many locals say otherwise and the CIC, which has made much hay rallying Somalis around the anti-Ethiopian flag, says the ENDF are running wild around the countryside. Meanwhile the CIC itself has sent teams to Puntland and Somaliland in attempts to destabilize those countries, though thus far Somaliland has remained calm. Puntland leadership have called in ENDF support—something Barre Hirale has not done in his effort to retake the Juba Valley.

Ethiopia has a number of good reasons for wanting to be involved here. It should come as little surprise that at least eleven other countries are involved in Somalia in one way or another, not including the various Somali pseudo-states. But that's for tomorrow.

22 October 2006

Meme

Oh fine. I'll participate in the name meme. Though it's really rather silly from my point of view.

HowManyOfMe.com
LogoThere are:
9,943
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?



Now, I hardly think this is fair, as in fact there is only ONE person in the United States with my full name.
But I was intrigued by some additional information that appears on the page. For example, there are 998,357 people in the U.S. with my first name (I assume this is based on Social Security Administration data), and 3,017,684 with my last name--the largest such contingent in the country. I checked other popular names, but at least at present Johnson is still the second most popular, and there are only 2,429,746 of them, barely enough to make a decent baseball team...
The commonality of my name has always been an issue in my life. I decided to see about my other name, the one that really sets me apart. It turned out that there wer 0 people with that surname in the United States. I know this to be incorrect as I correspond with two such people, and they are definitely in the United States and citizens. So I checked into the methodology and lo and behold, this is what it said.
The list of names from the census bureau isn't complete. For privacy reasons, names with relatively few responses were not included in the list. We used this data to create this site. Our site can only be as good as the data we have to work with...The program returns an estimate based on available data. It should be considered a "ballpark figure". It will usually return an answer in the right general area, but the chances of the figure being exactly right are very low.


I thought I'd see where my narrator fit into the grand scheme of things. There are 8 people in the country named Henry Lauderdale, which quite surprises me as only 4,470 people have the surname Lauderdale, which would make Lauderdale very heavy, relatively, on the Henries.

What a Week

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. This has been quite a week, as you might have guessed from the last post. Not that it's been entirely bad. The expected ass-chewing never occurred. When I showed up to work on Monday afternoon, some people wondered why I had even come that early.

My new job, which I think was decided that day, is CDO, or Country Desk Officer. This is sort of odd. We already have four CDOs, and we aren't reorganizing the countries to fit five CDOs; instead, I'm going to bounce around the office and fill in here and there. Starting tomorrow, for example, I'm going to be the CDO for Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan--although we don't do anything in Somalia so it's really just Ethiopia and Sudan, and really, it's mostly Ethiopia. Sudan has discovered that the easiest way to prevent unwanted foreigners from getting in and seeing what the government is doing there to grind the gears of bureaucracy to near halt. We haven't got a fresh visa from Sudan in about three months.

This means I have somewhat normal work hours--0700-1700, roughly--and that I don't have to be at work if there isn't work to do. I also get to eat lunch sitting down at the chow hall rather than at my desk. It will, however, severely restrict my internet time. I'm not unhappy about that, but it will mean less downtime and thus less time spent surfing, reading, etc. So I'm going to spend more time reading and writing and less time surfing. But still enough to post for my faithful readers, and still enough to check college football scores (ahem, number 12 Clemson beat number 13 GT 31-7, while three schools ranked above us struggled against unranked opponents. If there's not movement on the top 25 rankings I'm going to be pissed).

Lately I've been thinking a bit about this thing I do, this whole military thing, which hopefully I won't be doing for too much longer, and especially about what we're doing here. It will probably result in a few posts in the next seven weeks (yes, that's all the time I have left out here--and I'll spend one of those weeks on safari in Kenya! Yaay!) about military issues that may bore some of you out of your skulls. Feel free to skip them. Then again, I may not go so far as to commit anything to paper (or ones and zeroes as the case may be). You never know.

Well, I must be getting on. There will be more posts soon, very soon! Maybe tomorrow!

16 October 2006

Quality Management

Consider the following.

You are a manager of some sort. You have a number of employees working under you, and they work a variety of different jobs. Several of those employees work the same job. You decide one afternoon to move several of those employees into a different job. You tell one or two people other than those employees when you plan to move them into said different job.

And that's it. That's all you do. You don't tell the employees themselves anything. Not one word. The employees hear through the grapevine that they are to change jobs, but they don't know what the new job is, or where, or when to show up.

Do you go to bed satisfied that you've done a good job as a manager? Do you get upset when the employees don't show up for their new job when you wanted them to? What possible set of circumstances exist that allow you to consider what you've just done to be "good management" or even a proper way to behave?

This is what my boss has done to me and two other people. On Saturday, a rumor was mentioned that three of us might be moving to another job, but the rumor offered no consensus on what or where that job would be. On Sunday, we came in to do our current jobs (SWO and XO) as scheduled and did them as usual. The XO I relieved mentioned that he'd heard we were supposed to start the new job tomorrow, but didn't have any real information. He'd drawn up a new watchbill for the SWO and XO desks assuming we three would be moving on, but he did so not under any directed authority but because he wanted to be ready just in case.

We worked our shift. Two of us were working the same shift, from 1800-0000, so we were both there, in the office, at the same time and in the same location, for six hours, during the entirety of which time our boss came and went from the office. We spoke with him occasionally—he said hello to me at dinner, greeted "Todd" who was working his first shift since coming back from emergency leave, but said little else to us. He went out to have his three beers and came back and watched football in his office with the door open.

"Todd" and I had to think about whether we were going to ask him anything. Understand, at this point, the sum total of what we'd been told about this job change was from the XO I relieved, who didn't know much of anything apart from the fact that he thought we were changing jobs. The boss had said nothing to us, not one thing, not even a hint at one thing. He hadn't even mentioned something to us about the new job as if he thought he already knew.

The boss' most direct deputy also seems to know something, though not much, about the job change. He worked opposite Todd and I for about two hours. During that time he scarcely acknowledged our existence, and certainly did nothing whatsoever toward informing us of our change in status.

The third of us, "Will," came in around 2330 to relieve us. We talked a little about what was going on, but there wasn't much to say. At this point, what we knew was that there was a rumor that we might be changing jobs, but we didn't know to what, or where, or when, or with whom we'd be working, or when we were to be at work; in short, we had fragments of a rumor. All three of us were still in the office at midnight, when the boss closed his office door, said goodnight, and walked out, down the hill to go to bed.

He could have taken thirty seconds out of his evening and said, hey, you guys know about tomorrow, right? And when we gave him blank looks he could have explained, hey, you'll be working with so-and-so doing this-n-that and show up at thus-n-then. Instead, he walked out of his office, said goodnight, and left.

I'm writing this at noon. I stayed up a little later than usual last night and didn't get up at eight, as is my custom. I got up around ten. I chatted with "Will" a little around eleven-thirty or so. He had just woke up. Todd apparently didn't go to sleep until after breakfast. At this point we've heard nothing from anyone. No runner has been sent to our rooms to find us and figure out where we are. While I was asleep, Todd and Will went to breakfast and saw the boss there, who said hello to them. Still, nothing.

I assume that before all this is over we're going to get chewed out by two or three different people and accused of failing to do our jobs. I'm fairly well prepped for that at this point. I intend to just keep my mouth shut and take what comes, but I must admit I'm terribly curious. Will and I are going to go up the hill sometime this afternoon, after lunch anyway. I don't know what we're going to do there. I don't know if Todd (who outranks us) is going to join us or not, or whether he'll even be awake. Should be interesting.

13 October 2006

English Discussion Group

So Thursday night I went out to the English Discussion Group. Six of us went from the base, all men; a navy Commander (O-5), air force Colonel (O-6), two enlisted guys, a British colonel, and myself. We went to the Balbala English School to talk to the students and help them get more comfortable with the language.

The school itself is a little ways out of downtown in the "suburb" of Balbala. But this isn't what you'd call a suburb. It's a shanty town; you'd call it a slum if it was appreciably different from any other part of the city, but it's all about equally poor. The school itself is mostly made of rotten plywood and corrugated tin and has holes in the roof and a dirt floor and chicken wire for windows where the plywood has fallen apart. The students sit on moldy wooden benches and have narrow tables, not more than a foot deep, to write on.

The Balbala neighborhood is mostly just like the school, buildings made of corrugated tin and plywood, sometimes from scrap salvaged from ships that come into the Djibouti port to be dismantled. The main road is narrow, but paved, and choked with pedestrians, goats, running children, middle-aged men high on qat (bundles of which are for sale from dozens of identical stalls, all manned by women), more goats, and of course taxis and minivans (which are used as buses or large taxis) stopped in the middle of the road so the driver or passengers can talk to their friends. It's quite the obstacle course and demonstration of why you have to take a course to be permitted to drive in town here.

We did pass a few buildings made of more permanent stuff than plywood and tin: a mosque whose shabby stucco was falling off the building's corners in chunks, whose muezzin made the evening call to prayer as we were driving by and which not one person in the throng heeded; a restaurant with a mix of old tables and dozens of patrons, far more than would be allowed if there was a fire code, serving whole fish split open and grilled; a "cyber cafe" consisting of one small room with a single table and a single old computer, staffed by a greying man who sat behind the counter reading a French skin magazine. Balbala is a very interesting place.

As far as I know, this and the other English-language schools in town are a joint product of the US and UK embassies, and most instructional materials are donated by them. We go there under the auspices of the US Embassy, which suggests discussion topics each night. The point of the exercise is for us to help the kids get more comfortable using English (which is the third language for all the kids, sometimes the fourth (everyone learns French and Somali, and several of these kids probably speak Arabic)), but clearly the embassy picks topics to make the kids think about how their culture compares to the West.

So last night's discussion topic was, "What is the right age to get married? What is the right age to have children, and how many children should you have?" As I said, the kids could discuss soccer and get plenty of practice in English; the embassy obviously has an agenda with these questions.

And let me tell you, if we're going to save these people--well, if we're going to export Western cultural values to them, whether that qualifies as saving or damning I don't know--it's going to be through the women, not the men. The students who attended this discussion group were mostly between 14 and 16, although at least one fellow was near 20 and there were several younger kids who didn't say anything. There were five girls, and at least 20 or 25 boys. This was a small room and seating was tight; I myself ended up on the corner of a table (all the girls sat next to me, which one of the colonels mentioned on the way home in the van, to which I said, well golly, if I was a girl I'd sit next to me, too). This was an all-Muslim crowd (apart from the six of us from the base). The boys pointed out that the Prophet says they can get married at 15, and should be married by 20. One of the boys mentioned that Somali custom was that you could marry at 14 (!).

The girls would have none of that. At 14, you don't have a job, you're still in school or should be, and no way would they marry any boy at that age because how could he provide for them? The older boy said that he agreed, and although you COULD marry at 15, he wasn't married and thought the right age to get married was around 27 or 28, because then you're established and can support your wife and children. While of course I agree I think this is very interesting, because the life expectancy in Djibouti is only in the high 40s--so if you marry at 27, you've got maybe a dozen years to be married. And that means your kids are orphaned at 12 and younger. (That said, although the CIA says life expectancy is 48 or so, these kids live in the city and all their parents are still alive, and I think they probably expect to see 60 or 65 and with good reason; they're all trilingual or better and they'll all get decent jobs, at least as good as are available in Djibouti, and make enough money to eat well and stay healthy.)

Then of course there was the question of children. Opinions varied widely. The girls said maybe as many as four. The boys were all over the map--the oldest one said three or four, some of the youngers ones said eight, ten--and one boy said he wanted to have two daughters and 13 sons.

We couldn't let that one pass; our group leader asked this boy what he thought about the fact that if everybody had two daughters and thirteen sons, and if sons can marry four wives (of course all the boys said they'd have four wives)... well, where are all the wives going to come from? And then, too, if you have ten children, and each of them has ten children... well, Djibouti has a food problem already. How will that affect the future for your grandchildren if there are so many more people? The kids didn't really answer either of those questions, and I wouldn't have expected them to (they were 14; what were they going to say?), but the girls all said, they would not marry a man if he didn't have a decent job, they were all going to work outside the home, they would not allow their husband to marry a second wife (a man must have his wife's permission to take another wife, and must treat all his wives equally, according to Islamic scripture), and they would not consent to being the second (or third or fourth) wife of any man. Furthermore, they weren't going to be having ten kids, no way. And if they worked outside the home, by golly they were going to dictate where the money went: support the kids, support the parents (it's fully expected that children will send part of their income to the parents as long as the parents are living), and they weren't just going to hand over the money to their husbands, who would just buy qat with it anyway.

Of course this led some of the older boys to say that these Western ideas had made the women irresponsible and now they were not good wives. Of course we didn't say anything but I think all of us privately said Amen. I know I did.

12 October 2006

Out in the (left) field (and twirling)

Here's an interesting little article from one of my favorite news sites, Grist, about the possible imposition of nationwide regulations on small-scale produce growers. The writer is an organic farmer at a collective in western North Carolina, which happens to be an area of the country I'm quite fond of. I greatly like the notion of getting produce from local growers, and I do this in NC from time to time when I visit (actually, the market I like to visit is just across the border in Georgia). It would be a shame to see small-scale growers forced to send their produce to national growers to be bleached, waxed, sprayed with pesticides, etc., in the name of national uniformity.

But that's not what this post is about (entering left field now). The article contains two paragraphs that start with the following:
Small-scale livestock farmers, for example, must leap formidable hurdles to get meat to nearby consumers.
You can go read them now or the rest of this will make less sense than it does already.

Now, I was thinking. Throughout the rural south including western North Carolina you'll find deer processing outfits. Usually just one or two people, they'll take the deer you shot hunting this afternoon, clean it, butcher it, cut the meat according to your specifications, and do some small-scale taxidermy if you want the head to hang above you fireplace. And you get yourself a whole bunch of fresh tasty venison.

Who, precisely, is regulating this industry? I've eaten venison from such a place and never had any problems, and indeed if the deer processor's customers got sick eating the venison they'd know who to blame and the processor would be out of business soon enough, hence the industry is somewhat self-regulating (a form of Adam Smith's invisible hand).

Now I'm thinking here about our happy farmer in North Carolina with his few dozen head of cattle who wants to sell the meat to local consumers, and the happy local consumers who want to buy it. (Begin twirling.) Obviously if you're going to eat meat, you shouldn't be opposed to the notion that animals die so we can have dinner. So neither should you be opposed to the notion that you may have to have a hand in said animal's death if you are to have dinner.

In other words, whether you condone hunting or not, if you eat meat, you certainly condone killing cattle and chickens et al. Ergo you should be willing to go "hunting" on the happy farmer's land for one a them wild steers you hear so much about these days. Them things is hard to track, but by golly they're tasty.

Now, having shot you your wild steer, you take it down to a "steer processor" instead of a deer processor. Frankly I'd imagine most any deer processor would be happy to oblige. And they butcher it and cut the meat to your specifications and you have enough frozen steer to last you until next season or later.

And suppose you do have a problem with pulling the trigger on your dinner. No matter. A steer is quite a large beast, and if you yourself are too squeamish to hunt this fearsome animal yourself, fear not! Perhaps you have two or three neighbors who would be interested in some fresh steer meat for a season. After all, it's certainly going to be enough meat to last a while, why not share? And perhaps one of these fine neighbors of yours would be willing to risk life and limb on the hunt themselves. Why not strike up a deal?

And thereby does our happy farmer avoid the trial of shipping his cattle to a feedlot in the far off midwest, and does our happy consumer feast on grass-fed cattle from the local area. Ah, what a happy and joyous world of gastronomic delights awaits us in this happy utopia.

10 October 2006

Smitty's Clu Vu

Sorry it's been a few days since my last post. My muse started speaking to me Sunday afternoon and I've been working on a new project almost nonstop (well, I did have to go to work after all) since then. That much time sitting at a desk writing made my neck and back terrifically sore yesterday so I spent much of this morning lying in bed reading, but the muse won't shut up and I have more work to do. But I thought I'd take a break, check email, and show you what my clu looks like.

Unfortunately, though, the clu is only about 9' x 10' and hence the interior is almost impossible to photograph well. So instead you get pictures of the outside and the view. That will have to do.

First is this picture of the outside of my bank of clus. You can see more clus on the left side of the picture. The door to my clu is the first door on the right, and a tiny sliver of my window is at the right edge of the picture. We're looking south here, toward the chow hall, over the tents, and out in the distance of rural (read: uninhabited) Djibouti.

Next is this picture of the airport terminal at beautiful Ambouli International Airport, just to the north. The airport and the base share the runway.

This picture is looking somewhat east from the airport terminal. This is a small portion of the local port infrastructure; the majority of the Port of Djibouti (which has another name) is quite a ways north on the Gulf of Tadjoura, as opposed to the Gulf of Aden, which is the body of water you can see here. This is more or less the view out my window, although half the view is obscured by the opposite bank of clus.

And finally here's the view west up the road toward the office. I took this at sunset and brightness and dust in the sky bled the color out of the picture; in fact the sunsets here can be quite spectacular because of all the dust. The large tent on the right is our fire station. The small trailer in the foreground on the left is the MWR hut, from which I'm writing this to you right now. Isn't that nice?

06 October 2006

Plainsong


I picked up Plainsong from the local library. I was attracted by the pretty picture of stormclouds on the front and the fact that it been nominated for but not won an award (I have nothing against awards, and would like to win one myself some day, but as a general rule I find that I don't enjoy award winning books, especially Pulitzer winners, so I don't generally pick those up). One ought not to judge a book by its cover, of course, but books contain lots and lots of words and the only way to know if one is any good is to read the whole thing, which is untenable, standing there in the library. So yes, I buy books based on whether I like the cover or not. Of course I buy books for other reasons, but I daresay a huge majority of people sometimes buy books because they like the covers.

The picture of the author, Kent Haruf, on the second page makes Mr. Haruf look almost exactly like one of the people I work with. Scary, actually. Anyway, that's beside the point.

The point being that this book was outstanding. And I'm almost surprised I can say that. Mr. Haruf has a very particular writing style, very spare and simple (almost no adverbs at all, which you may have noticed I use rather a lot), never a longer word where a shorter one will do, hardly a comma to be found, sentences that might be called run-on if you were in fourth grade. For example:
He went out into the hall again past the closed door and on into the bathroom and shaved and rinsed his face and went back to the bedroom at the front of the house whose high windows overlooked Railroad Street and brought out shirt and pants from the closet and laid them out on the bed and took off his robe and got dressed.
I could never write a sentence like that. Not because I wouldn't deign to run a sentence on so (this one here is going to be plenty long), not because I would be afraid of neglecting my friend the comma, but because I simply couldn't pull it off; I'm not good enough. Maybe someday.

Plainsong is written like that. Haruf tells you plainly what his characters did. And, he tells you what they said. That's a key point—the narrator here tells you what characters said. The characters don't say these things themselves, not in the immediate sense. Of course you have no doubt as to the narrator's veracity; it's just that there's no proper dialogue. Such as like here:
…Presently she stopped cranking the machine and put in another master.
What brings you here so early? she said.
Crowder wanted to talk to me.
What about?
Russell Beckman.
That little shit. What'd he do now?
Nothing. But he's going to if he wants to get out of American history.
Good luck, she said. She cranked the machine once and looked at the paper. Is that all that's bothering you?
Nothing's bothering me.
Like hell it isn't. I can see something is. She looked into his face, and he looked back without expression and sat smoking. Is it at home? she said.
He didn't answer but shrugged again and smoked.

I don't know how to tell you how amazed I am that I liked this. Loved it.

I set down and stopped reading The Shipping News because I didn't like the writing style Annie Proulx used in the book. The Shipping News won the Pulitzer. It was a great book, loved by millions. I didn't get past chapter two. Haruf's conventions in the writing of Plainsong are no less idiosyncratic and certainly I would have expected not to tolerate them. Instead I loved them. But for the fact that it's been done I'd try it myself. I don't know how or why, but this spare writing makes the book that much more beautiful.

And that's what the book is, beautiful. There are not many characters, not many important ones anyway. They all lead their own lives; none is central. Of course the story would hardly work if they didn't all connect, and they assuredly do. One of the advantages of setting a book in a place like Holt, Colorado (a town not at all unlike Goodnight, Nebraska) is that characters are plausibly all connected one to the next, because the town is just that small. Of course Victoria and Guthrie will intersect. How can any two people in the town not?

The story is itself beautiful. It's also hard; the characters do not have it easy. Things get worse before they get better. People hurt one another, not meaning to. And other people do mean to hurt one another, and succeed, and in the succeeding betray their own worst impulses and hurt themselves. But amidst the hardship and hurt there is love, there is the discovery of new relationships. People grow up. Some people change in ways they never thought they would, or would have to.

What Haruf has done here is no small feat: he's gotten everything right. The whole book feels right, the setting, the characters, their trials—it all smacks of life and it draws you in. And he did it while ignoring one of the most common writing conventions. I still don't know how he pulled it off, but I'm glad he did. This is one of the best books I've read this year.

Plainsong


I picked up Plainsong from the local library. I was attracted by the pretty picture of stormclouds on the front and the fact that it been nominated for but not won an award (I have nothing against awards, and would like to win one myself some day, but as a general rule I find that I don't enjoy award winning books, especially Pulitzer winners, so I don't generally pick those up). One ought not to judge a book by its cover, of course, but books contain lots and lots of words and the only way to know if one is any good is to read the whole thing, which is untenable, standing there in the library. So yes, I buy books based on whether I like the cover or not. Of course I buy books for other reasons, but I daresay a huge majority of people sometimes buy books because they like the covers.

The picture of the author, Kent Haruf, on the second page makes Mr. Haruf look almost exactly like one of the people I work with. Scary, actually. Anyway, that's beside the point.

The point being that this book was outstanding. And I'm almost surprised I can say that. Mr. Haruf has a very particular writing style, very spare and simple (almost no adverbs at all, which you may have noticed I use rather a lot), never a longer word where a shorter one will do, hardly a comma to be found, sentences that might be called run-on if you were in fourth grade. For example:
He went out into the hall again past the closed door and on into the bathroom and shaved and rinsed his face and went back to the bedroom at the front of the house whose high windows overlooked Railroad Street and brought out shirt and pants from the closet and laid them out on the bed and took off his robe and got dressed.
I could never write a sentence like that. Not because I wouldn't deign to run a sentence on so (this one here is going to be plenty long), not because I would be afraid of neglecting my friend the comma, but because I simply couldn't pull it off; I'm not good enough. Maybe someday.

Plainsong is written like that. Haruf tells you plainly what his characters did. And, he tells you what they said. That's a key point—the narrator here tells you what characters said. The characters don't say these things themselves, not in the immediate sense. Of course you have no doubt as to the narrator's veracity; it's just that there's no proper dialogue. Such as like here:
…Presently she stopped cranking the machine and put in another master.
What brings you here so early? she said.
Crowder wanted to talk to me.
What about?
Russell Beckman.
That little shit. What'd he do now?
Nothing. But he's going to if he wants to get out of American history.
Good luck, she said. She cranked the machine once and looked at the paper. Is that all that's bothering you?
Nothing's bothering me.
Like hell it isn't. I can see something is. She looked into his face, and he looked back without expression and sat smoking. Is it at home? she said.
He didn't answer but shrugged again and smoked.

I don't know how to tell you how amazed I am that I liked this. Loved it.

I set down and stopped reading The Shipping News because I didn't like the writing style Annie Proulx used in the book. The Shipping News won the Pulitzer. It was a great book, loved by millions. I didn't get past chapter two. Haruf's conventions in the writing of Plainsong are no less idiosyncratic and certainly I would have expected not to tolerate them. Instead I loved them. But for the fact that it's been done I'd try it myself. I don't know how or why, but this spare writing makes the book that much more beautiful.

And that's what the book is, beautiful. There are not many characters, not many important ones anyway. They all lead their own lives; none is central. Of course the story would hardly work if they didn't all connect, and they assuredly do. One of the advantages of setting a book in a place like Holt, Colorado (a town not at all unlike Goodnight, Nebraska) is that characters are plausibly all connected one to the next, because the town is just that small. Of course Victoria and Guthrie will intersect. How can any two people in the town not?

The story is itself beautiful. It's also hard; the characters do not have it easy. Things get worse before they get better. People hurt one another, not meaning to. And other people do mean to hurt one another, and succeed, and in the succeeding betray their own worst impulses and hurt themselves. But amidst the hardship and hurt there is love, there is the discovery of new relationships. People grow up. Some people change in ways they never thought they would, or would have to.

What Haruf has done here is no small feat: he's gotten everything right. The whole book feels right, the setting, the characters, their trials—it all smacks of life and it draws you in. And he did it while ignoring one of the most common writing conventions. I still don't know how he pulled it off, but I'm glad he did. This is one of the best books I've read this year.

God's Smuggler

It's rare I read two books at once that are both outstanding, but I got lucky this time I suppose. I must thank AMS again for sending this one to me, as otherwise I might never have heard of it.

If you haven't heard the story, it's fairly simple. God's Smuggler, a fellow known as Brother Andrew (who at the time of publication for obvious reasons didn't care to announce his name to the world), felt called to do missionary work behind the Iron Curtain during some of the hottest parts of the Cold War. He delivered Bibles to the struggling churches in the communist countries of Eastern Europe at a time when the Church was under attack and distributing religious materials apart from the aegis of the state was a criminal offense likely to be punished by a long prison term if not summary execution. This is his story of that period of time.

I can't possibly do this book justice in a review. Like Brother Andrew himself the book is absolutely filled with the Spirit; you can feel the presence on every page. It is an amazingly uplifting read; this man has given himself over entirely to the Spirit, to God's will, and has done remarkable things because of it. It is an inspiration to read the story and I'm going to have to get my own copy so I can read it again, and again and again. This is a book every Christian should read, and more it's a book anyone curious about Christianity should read. Brother Andrew's story is nothing less than proof of the real power of God in the modern world.

The book is sitting in my room. I feel bad about that; it doesn't want to be sitting here collecting dust, it wants to be in someone else's hands right now. I might bring it to church on Sunday and pass it on for a few weeks, but I'm sure the book's owner wouldn't mind at all if I mailed to it to one of my readers…

God's Smuggler

It's rare I read two books at once that are both outstanding, but I got lucky this time I suppose. I must thank AMS again for sending this one to me, as otherwise I might never have heard of it.

If you haven't heard the story, it's fairly simple. God's Smuggler, a fellow known as Brother Andrew (who at the time of publication for obvious reasons didn't care to announce his name to the world), felt called to do missionary work behind the Iron Curtain during some of the hottest parts of the Cold War. He delivered Bibles to the struggling churches in the communist countries of Eastern Europe at a time when the Church was under attack and distributing religious materials apart from the aegis of the state was a criminal offense likely to be punished by a long prison term if not summary execution. This is his story of that period of time.

I can't possibly do this book justice in a review. Like Brother Andrew himself the book is absolutely filled with the Spirit; you can feel the presence on every page. It is an amazingly uplifting read; this man has given himself over entirely to the Spirit, to God's will, and has done remarkable things because of it. It is an inspiration to read the story and I'm going to have to get my own copy so I can read it again, and again and again. This is a book every Christian should read, and more it's a book anyone curious about Christianity should read. Brother Andrew's story is nothing less than proof of the real power of God in the modern world.

The book is sitting in my room. I feel bad about that; it doesn't want to be sitting here collecting dust, it wants to be in someone else's hands right now. I might bring it to church on Sunday and pass it on for a few weeks, but I'm sure the book's owner wouldn't mind at all if I mailed to it to one of my readers…

04 October 2006

The New Class War?

No time to post, no time to post. But I saw this article and thought it was well worth a read. The growing class divide in this country is one of the things I've been thinking about lately. Lou Dobbs gets right to the point here; I wonder whether anyone in government will have any time between sex scandals to talk about this issue. You can bet our fearless president and his cronies won't.

03 October 2006

The Lykes Building


A brief homage to the Lykes Building.

Also known as Park Tower, this building was built in 1973, the second major skyscraper built in Tampa in the 1970s-1980s building boom and the tallest in town until 1981. Very few people really like it. The interior is a bit outmoded. The building is not full.

But it's part of my view, or has been since I moved in. After the Lightning won the Stanley Cup, the building tenants made a lightning bolt every night by leaving some lights on and others off. I thought it was pretty cool.

I've always enjoyed watching the sun move across the building. Over the course of about two hours in the midmorning, the sun slowly brings the white ribs on the building into view, marching in a slow procession up the side until all six ribs are fully visible. It isn't the sort of thing you stare at, just the sort of thing you notice occasionally and smile. I like things like that.

I've seen the last of the Lykes Building. Skypoint, a shiny new condominium, has gone up three blocks north of Lykes, and although Skypoint is not as tall as Lykes, the relative proximity of it to my porch means it blocks my view of the older building. I recently saw new pictures from my porch, and indeed the only visible bit of Lykes is concrete cap on top.

Well. Views change. I just wanted to say goodbye.

October


Well, it's October. October is the greatest month of the whole year. I believe I've discussed the glories of October before somewhere, but couldn't find it, so let me provide a condensed version: lovely temperatures, apples coming in, fresh apple butter, baseball playoffs and the World Series, the meat of the college football season, NFL on tv, leaves changing colors, frost on the windows, Halloween, visiting Elm Street... I mean, I could go on forever. No other month matches up to glorious October.

Yesterday, on the first, I was thinking about Octobers past. In 2001, my lovely sister was married to a wonderful man. In 2002 I flew the T-1 for the first time—and I also took a trip across nearly the whole of the South Texas just because I felt like it. In 2003, I bought my house. In 2004, I spent the first half of the month in Hawai'i and the second half in North Carolina (whence comes the photo at the top of this post). In 2005, I spent nearly all of October in North Carolina, working on Lauderdale and visiting with Elm Street.

And in 2006… I was in Djibouti.

Given that I was also in Djibouti for all of September, and will remain here throughout November, I'm having some trouble figuring out how this October is going to match up to previous ones. I'm not even going on safari this month; that's next month. But, it's still October. October is the greatest month of the whole year. Djibouti can't possibly change that.

So I've decided to pray, this month, for a great October. An October of renewed clarity, perhaps. Or an October for finding purpose and direction. Maybe an October of great ideas and brainstorming. I don't know; I'll let God handle the particulars. And if I have to wait until the 31st, I shall do so gladly. If I have to wait until next year to realize this was a great October, so be it.

But it's October. And October is the greatest month.

Love

I was writing a card today, and noticed something that made me pause. Here I am, almost thirty (almost twenty-nine, that is), and I've been thinking for all that time that I had my own handwriting. And then I paused and looked at the word I'd written: Love. With the capital.

And I looked at the way the L had sort of an odd curve, and the way the 'v' and 'e' connected to one another and I realized: that's my father. That's the way my father writes that word.

Granted, my father uses cursive, so the 'o' and 'v' are connected one to the other, but apart from that one little connection, the word could have been written by either one of us.

I've received a lot of things from my father over the years, as all sons do. But how is it that I've also received handwriting? One wouldn't think there'd be any connection between the way our hands form letters on a page. But perhaps there's not; perhaps it's just the love.

I love you, Dad.

02 October 2006

Burning Notes

There are so many important things to do, to say and talk about on this blog today. It's October, the best month of the year. It was actually pleasant outside today. I've managed to sleep through the night twice in a row now! I'm reading two very excellent books, among the best books I've read this year (thank you for the one, AMS; I only wish the one I'd given you was nearly as good). Yes, many things to report.

So I'm going to not report on any of them right now, apart from announcing that I've run out of one-word post titles that start with B. I know, I'm just not trying very hard.

Anyway, here are some Vital and Important Links I wanted to pass on.

1. It is my intention, when the time comes, to attempt to register for the Hushville camp at Burning Man 2007. Those considering, no matter how idly, joining me in this adventure (and especially the lovely Rambling Speech) should know a bit about Hushville, hence the link above. There are other theme camps, of course, and you can camp outside any theme camp, too. So I'm open to persuasion. But for now, I'm thinking Hushville.

2. This article is excellent and should be read by everybody whether you're thinking of joining me or not: Another Vital Pagan Orgy Yes, that's really what it's called. Good article. Must read.