ENCHANTÉ – Tapping The Wire
Does anyone still remember Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? When I started my career a few centuries ago, I shared my office with a younger Fred, a guy in light brown shoes and a suit of an undisclosed color who used to tap dance in the office in his “free” time. Since we had a vinyl floor it sounded pretty good.
Looking out the windows, we saw birds sitting in rows on the telephone wire. “Hey Frank,” Fred said, “looks they’re tapping too!” “I’ll be damned,” I said. “They really do.”
“I wonder what they’re hearing,” Fred mused. “They’re chatting and seem to be laughing a lot.”
“I bet Security put listening devises on the chests of those pigeons,” I said. “You see how bloated they are? Then after the day’s over they fly back to their head office to be fed, and the guys in Security take those mini-recorders off and start listening to what we said over the telephone.”
“You better be careful when you call your bed friend across the corridor,” said Fred.
“Gee,” I said. “Is that why the Penguin (our Director) was looking that strangely at me the other day?”
“Could well be. You see, the party that’s not in power is doing everything to find dirt on us, and you in particular.”
“Why me? You spend most of the time tap dancing in the office, just like those birds, and get a huge salary for it.”
“Exactly! They don’t care about me. I just shuffle inboxes. But you, you deal with real secret stuff that the other party wants to know about, so they’ll do everything to find out. You have telephone wires near your apartment?”
“I look out on a few. Damn! Now you mention it. Every morning I wake up there’s a bunch of pigeons tapping on those wires. Sometimes they’re even tapping on the window sash.”
“Now you’re talking! I bet Penguin knows everything about you and Irene.”
“Irene feeds them every morning when she gets up. Hell, now I understand. Penguin wanted to sleep with her, that is, he tried, but she said he had ED and it didn’t work. So he’s jealous and sends these birds to spy on us.”
“You sure she doesn’t talk any secrets with you? Did you tell her anything? I saw Penguin shuffling in your drawers the other day. Are you hiding Viagra there?”
“Stupid, I don’t need that stuff. Wonder though what he was looking for. Snuff may be? Cannabis? It’s all gone. I thought the cleaners stole it.”
“Don’t you have an old kid rifle at home you shot birds with?” Fred wondered.
“Good idea. I’m seeing my mom in the country this weekend. I’ll look for it in the attic.”
The following Monday morning, after Irene and I had our fling, I got up and took my pellet gun to shoot at the pigeons out on the telephone wire.
It took a few shots before I finally got one. All my shots must’ve gone over and under and in between, because the only thing the pigeons did was looking aside at what passed by. None of them shifted one foot.
The unlucky pigeon fell on the drive way in front of my apartment house. I stood looking at it from the window when Irene, half-naked, came behind me wanting to know what I was doing. “I’m on a spy mission. That pigeon carries evidence on our intercourse (I used a different word but can’t print that here). “Get away from the window, you crazy!”
I came up with the dead pigeon. “You see what’s in there? A little tape like in voice mail! Let’s try it out on my tape recorder.” We inserted it and heard weird noises. “Sounds like you’re having your cummy,” I said.
“Not my voice. More like Jane’s. I know hers, she sits across from me. I think she’s faking it.”
Then we heard a groan at the end. “That’s Penguin!” Irene said.
“How do you know?”
“He groaned like that when I faked it with him.”
“You said he had ED.”
“We have our ways, you know.”
“Gee, you girls are right for the CIA. Did you know about these pigeons?”
“No. They only told us we’re for the birds if we don’t play along.”
“Did Penguin want to know something or tell you guys any secrets?” I asked.
“He wanted to know if you did it with any of those Russian girls, you know, those that advertise on the internet. I said I couldn’t tell one way or the other.”
“What? You didn’t defend me!”
“He also told me he had secret recordings of them doing it with you.”
“No! That’s pure fabrication!” I protested.
“They all say that.”
“Irene! Shame on you. I’ll take this straight to Penguin!”
“But Frank, you can’t….”
“I publicize this in the office paper,” I told him when I got there.
“That’s treason,” Penguin said, furious.
“What treason? Can I help it when a pigeon flies astray into my apartment?”
The news in the office leaked faster than publication of the paper. I was summoned to the Director General and showed him the evidence. He laughed very hard. He was of the other party. Penguin lied about it to the Director General and was fired. Irene and Jane were transferred back to the CIA. They forbade Irene to sleep with me, but she still does.
Back in my office, Fred asked, “You want to see some new steps? I got them over the weekend.”
ENCHANTÉ – THE AUTHOR’S “VOICE”
Sorry for my absence for a while. I had to finish a Manuscript. While doing that, I was reminded again of an author’s “voice.”
VOICE! That’s what “Literary Agents” look for: a strong, enticing, original, sparkling, superb, surprising “voice” in your writing. As I started writing, I read books and essays about “voice.” It was as mysterious to me as the vague “audience.”
Literary agents point to how the author’s writing comes across – woody, conventional, boring, long-winded or, yes, “surprisingly superb, stunning, unique.” They talk about “tone” and “style” as part of the essential “voice” components. What does “voice” to a reader? It depends on who reads, who critiques, and to a large extent on what the story is about, Some like it hot, some like it cool, some like it dreamy, others like it cruel and hard. Implying you would use different voices for different genres. It’s so easy to say what you must do. It’s so much harder to do what they say.
Very few “voice” professors compare voice to composers, music, and audience. Since I am a musician and like classical music and jazz, I recognize each composer with his different sound or “voice.” Listening to the radio, I immediately recognize Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Gershwin or Glenn Miller. Each singer has a different voice (here we’re talking about the real meaning of “voice”). I recognize Pavarotti, Domingo, Callas, even Caruso (older people like me). Jazz musicians have a different “voice,” such as pianists like Errol Garner, George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, Ahmad Jamal and Bill Evans. All have different audiences, although some are shared.
Like composers, authors have a beginning, a middle and an end, sometimes torrential. What does this mean for me as a writer? Apart from learning the craft, a writer needs to develop a particular voice to get “read,” as for a composer to get played, or for a player or singer to fill an audience in the concert hall.
Just recently I watched renowned Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., playing a most intricate concert for violin by Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich. Her Stradivarius violin has a very warm voice, her style is remarkably varied, very melodious, powerful, and moving. She got three standing ovations. After the intermission, she sat in my box to listen to – a very different – Brahms’ second symphony and since we could talk Dutch, we chatted about how she learned to play so well. She began playing at 5 years old. At the age of 14 she played Paganini’s First Violin Concerto! There you go: a “miracle kid.” (wunderkind). Do you have to be a miracle kid to write a best seller and to get read?
Two things struck me: with modern composers, it is much more difficult to pinpoint a typical “voice.” Some modern poets I can’t follow because of the remote universe of their words. A writer must also write stories in a manner that people like.
There are writers who use currently available software (prowritingaid.com. grammarly.com, just to name a few) which may help wordiness, grammar, punctuation, or “sticky sentences.” However, while “brainy,” software does not have a “heart.” It does not produce feeling or the tone of your “voice.” That has to come from within. Some authors have it or have it more than others. Some of it can be learned by trial and error, but at some stage, you reach what your voice represents. I tried hard to play like my idols, but I just didn’t have their gift. Do I have to accept the same feat in my efforts to have a voice good enough to get books sold?
I believe you need to write several books before you find your “voice,” a voice “that is not intrusive or flamboyant or pretentious and allows the reader to focus on character and action.” (those are award-winning author Mark Spencer’s words, my editor).
Good, I am not a “miracle kid” jumping off the stage like in American Idol. Writing gives me peace of mind. Like playing on the piano, knowing I’m not sounding like Ahmad Jamal. I love to draw up a story and take it to the finish. Some readers like my stories and a few of them gave me good reviews. I’m just happy to see the finished products sitting on my bookshelves, and on someone else’s. I like to run to a few book signings at B&N, and sell 3 books an hour in 4 long hours. I like to chat with my “audience.” Some people who read my books apparently like my “voice.” They are in my “audience.” Musicians like to chat with their audience, too, to sell their CDs. “Voice.” That’s what it is, composed, heard, or read.
But if you heard me singing in my bathroom, you’d all be running away, screaming.
Cheers!
For your spring reading:
Some Women I Have Known – http://amzn.to/1QIL94B; https://youtu.be/CehtAV55QpU ; Audrey Hepburn and Lady D can’t stop John from falling off the keyboard. But who does?
Enchanting the Swan – http://amzn.to/1LPFw5o ; https://youtu.be/8vHdGKGWQEo ; Pianist Paul loses cellist Fiona and does all to redeem her love.
Coming soon: Francine, The Dazzling Daughter of the Mountain State – Francine, a bright West Virginian MBA graduate, rises to the top of a mining conglomerate, demobilizes the anti-mining lobby, but will she save the company and find love in the meantime?
ENCHANTÉ – Iraq: A case for hands-on economic development
In the midst of all the hoopla about border control of the seven Middle East countries, among which Iraq, I want to repeat a column I wrote in September 2014 (well before Mr. Trump came on the scene). Much what I said in that column is relevant today. It occurred to me how important it was to shed light again on the “good Iraq.”
Frankly, I felt hurt that under Obama Iraq had been listed as one of the dangerous Middle East countries; and that as a consequence it became part of an immigration ban for 90 days by the Trump administration until effective immigration procedures could be assured.
Much has changed since I dealt with Iraq at the World Bank. Already during the period that I collaborated to implement a diversified project portfolio in Iraq from 2003-2009, Shiite and Sunni rifts hampered execution, and covert Iranian meddling became increasingly ostentatious. Then Sunni ISIS grew exponentially after the US allied forces left.
It broke the camel’s back. Iraq became a wholesome mess with unsavory characters threatening and terminating the life of many. Iraq’s relationship with the US changed from partial partner to full-fledged terror. I felt horrible for my good friends over there, with whom I had worked so closely to get things going in the right direction. It’s always the bad guys that spoil it for the good guys.
In 2003, after the US invasion of Iraq, the UN allotted US$450 million to the World Bank, to devise and help implement basic needs development projects (water supply, school construction, education, health facilities, administrative reforms, technical assistance and training, road rehabilitation and construction, environmental protection, etc.) This relatively small donor-led operation, subsequently enhanced by a US$500 million World Bank soft loan, lasted through 2010 when the funds were exhausted. It was a period where both the World Bank and Iraqis strived to rebuild and upgrade the country’s decades-long retardation to modernize the economy and administration. The operation started out in the most difficult circumstances of growing insurgency. Eventually, after the “surge” in 2007, it reached a stage where both sides began to see the fruits of the hard work. This was achieved through regular exchanges on project development and implementation, a mutual desire to learn how to do things better, how to succeed, and relay the lessons to local and national economic management.
When the US and allied military support disappeared in 2011, much of what had been achieved was destroyed again in the growing sectarian strife and the ISIS insurgency.
Let me repeat the blog of 2014. It shows what is possible in Iraq, in the right environment of mutual give and take by religious sects, and given a chance to succeed:
“Iraq The Beautiful – As an introduction, some photographs of Iraq sent by a close friend.
Baghdad
Baghdad Museum and Northern Iraq
More of northern Iraq
The Marshes, near Nasiriya, Iraq — Marsh Arab Village — Image by Nik Wheeler/CORBIS
Marshlands area in southern Iraq
Imagine you are a teacher with an economics degree, bagged with worldwide experience in economic development and project generation. You are tasked to teach a class of people not speaking your language, with a fractured background of religious strife, totalitarian rule, and years of outdated statist management with the mantra “if you don’t do it my way, there’s the door”, in a region that is entirely different from yours.
Imagine also that you can’t see your class and have to do everything by telephone and e-mail. Imagine further you are working with sometimes squabbling but very intelligent and technically capable Iraqi teams of diverse ethnicity. World Bank staff consisted mostly of capable Arab and Palestinian engineers, educationalists, health specialists, and economists, with similar diverse backgrounds and opinionated opinions about the invasion of Iraq. Imagine lastly that everything has to be done by yesterday.
That’s how I felt when I joined that team in 2005. But in spite of this list of near-paralyzing limitations, the team managed to identify, prepare and help execute a broad-based project portfolio of some 25 projects.
Underlying this effort was a strong push for capacity building and technical assistance. None of this could have been done without the support of (a) carefully selected Iraqi consultants who courageously inspected the project sites and assisted in strengthening the ministerial administrative capabilities of procurement of works, goods and supervision consultants, and (b) dedicated Iraqi counterpart teams in the ministries who were in charge of project implementation.
During the insurgency of 2005-2007, work continued, even though Shiite and Sunni participants were shooting at each other in some ministries, the Central Bank in Baghdad was bombed, and contractors and supervision consultants were threatened and even pursued on project sites. Some of the local consultants got wounded in Baghdad’s almost everyday bombing that caused long delays in just organizing one meeting at an implementing ministry on a given day that would take just a few minutes to arrange in Washington D.C. and an hour or two to finish.
The Iraqi counterpart teams met with the World Bank teams and consultants in Jordan and Lebanon (security reasons prohibited missions from meeting in Iraq) to discuss project progress, crosscutting issues, and necessary changes in design due to continuously changing circumstances. These conferences proved extremely useful, as they were the only real life contacts with Iraqi administrators as a group. It gave the Iraqis the opportunity to talk to their colleagues of other ministries and implementing agencies about common problems they faced and made them feel owners of their programs. You may notice the translation boot in the back.
Meetings with Iraqi counterparts in Lebanon and Jordan (Dead Sea) as security did not allow meetings in Baghdad.
Beirut and the Dead Sea shore
In 2007, a one man hero World Bank mission was set up in the Green Zone in Baghdad, and when security improved in 2009, it was extended to a formal resident office. Some missions took place in Baghdad and Erbil in the Kurdish area which was relatively safe.
Erbil
The experience of meeting with the Iraqi counterparts, even if taking place mostly through simultaneous translation, convinced me personally that with a sustained effort over the longer term, it would be possible to turn well-educated but held-back Iraqi technocrats into modernized administrators, taking on modern rehabilitation and economic development.
The relative success of the projects, compared to sometimes overly complex design and over-estimated results, surprised many. Some projects, such as irrigation rehabilitation where farmers had a direct incentive to get better, succeeded remarkably well against all the odds and poor expectations.
fr.Wikipedia.org Iraq.businessnews.com
But politics and religious strife took priority over rational thought. Soon we were back at square one and the spread of ISIL put everything in question. As a pilot enterprise, the hands-on effort in Iraq proved that it is possible to do it right if you give it a chance, but its future looks somber. It was a drop on a hot plate with an uncertain sustainability.
We are now at a point where the Middle East, including Iraq, has to decide how it solves its internal issues. Some Middle Eastern nations realize that ISIL is not the answer. But will they be able to stop the brutal reactionary insurgency?
Mesopotamia was rich in agriculture. Eve gave Adam the apple in Paradise in Iraq, but there was also a snake spoiling the fruits. Ominous foreboding for later Iraq? At one stage, Iraq’s Tigris and Euphrates rivers made it the grain storage of the Middle East, until oil drove the incentive to rigs, and the rivers became polluted because of environmental neglect and were drying up fast. Still, agriculture was and still is Iraq’s largest employer. Oil dependence drives out diversification as often happens in similarly endowed countries. Because of sectarian strife, politics, and tyranny, priorities get distorted, and the general population suffers.
thewaterproject.org Iraq.interalter.org
maginternational.org
Can a religiously divided Middle East overcome ISIL’s barbarian Sunni frame of mind? How can Iraq continue its economic development? Should we not let them fight it out among themselves? For centuries the UK, France, the Habsburgers and later the USA got their fingers burned in the Middle East. If there had not been oil, what would the Middle East have been now? But ISIS has killed in Europe and the US and operates among others from Iraq. The US and Europe cannot let that continue.
The US is not eager to get into a new war in the Middle East. The Trump Administration intends to erase ISIS, but what action can we expect?
Meanwhile, my Iraqi friends are left in the doldrums, knowing that we could have achieved a lot more if they’d been given a chance. That’s the sad realization.”
Southern and northern areas in Iraq
ISIS has occupied large slices of Iraq. The fight on Mosul is still going on. I watched Iraq reaching stabilization after six years of hard and idealistic efforts, and am saddened by the fate that many of my good Iraqi friends now suffer because of what cruel people do to them and that the US has to close its borders to make sure that those cruel people do not enter the US.
I hope the current administration finds a modus vivendi for Iraq.
ENCHANTÉ – The Fake Schumer Tears! Border Controls only a US Issue?
We hear this constant push for the moral issue of accepting refugees to come and live in the US. In Europe, much closer to all the Middle East turmoil, refugees have become a major issue of non-assimilation, ghettos, and crime. Many of them are adhering to Muslim religion from the day they were born, and their family customs and religious way of life are intrinsically different from Western life and Christian values. The Christian value is that of the Samaritan: so we favor helping them and bringing them into our societies. But assimilation has proved difficult because of language, ingrained customs, and different beliefs. Today, this issue has grown into a major battle of Christian survival and the integrity of Western civilization. People in the US and Europe have come to realize that one cannot be the eternal “Samaritan.” Their own society is at stake.
Don’t think the current US immigration measures are just a “Trump Idea.” Actor Schumer may shed fake tears, but he does not tackle the issue: The US AND Europe must face the onslaught on Western Civilization. Brexit broke through because of that fear. Trump’s election grew from the same fear of reckless Obama Samaritanism. Just read the reports of what Europe already did in 2015! Are you getting wiser, dumb “leftists,” who prefer to be overrun by a foreign force of medieval people knowing nothing more but Sharia law? And the following are New York Times reports!
Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands Introduce Border Controls
By MELISSA EDDY and DAN BILEFSKY SEPT. 14, 2015
Police officers directed migrants to buses at a camp near the village of Roszke, Hungary, on Monday.
Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
BERLIN — Austria, Slovakia, and the Netherlands introduced border controls on Monday, as Germany’s decision over the weekend to set up checks began to ripple across a bloc struggling to deal with the influx of migrants coming to the Continent.
In Hungary, the authorities said that a near-record 5,353 migrants had crossed into the country from Serbia before noon on Monday — even as Budapest continued to seal off that border with the construction of a 109-mile fence made with razor wire.
Around 50 police officers, wearing riot gear and equipped with pepper spray, converged Monday afternoon on the train tracks linking the villages of Roszke, Hungary, and Horgos, Serbia, which thousands of migrants had used to cross in recent days. An official in a bright yellow jacket turned away migrants seeking to enter Hungary.
Starting Tuesday, Hungary will classify unauthorized entry into the country as a criminal offense, punishable by up to three years in prison. In response, Serbia said it would set up reception centers in the north of the country and pleaded for the European Union, of which it is not a member, to take action.
Meanwhile, Dutch authorities said that they would conduct spot checks at their country’s border with Germany. And Slovakia announced temporary controls, and the addition of 220 officers, along its borders with Hungary and Austria.
Related Coverage
Numbers of Migrants and Unrest Prompted Germany’s Border Controls SEPT. 14, 2015
More Border Controls as Europe Stalls on Migrant Quotas SEPT. 14, 2015
With Some Paths Shut, Migrants Seek Others SEPT. 14, 2015
Germany Orders Curbs at Border in Migrant Crisis SEPT. 13 2015
For $14.50, Afghan Refugees Make a Desperate Bet on a Way Out SEPT. 13, 2015
Featured Comment
Ted Dowling
Sarasota
These countries are finally waking up to what their citizens want, rather than the demands of EU politicians and elite.
While Berlin said its new controls, along the German-Austrian border, were only a temporary, emergency measure, the restrictions, a response to the strain on local communities, signaled that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming stance toward the migrants was encountering domestic resistance.
Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told members of his center-left Social Democratic Party, which governs with Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, that Germany could face the arrival of even more migrants this year than the government had projected. “There are many indications that in this year we will not see 800,000 refugees, as predicted, but a million,” he said in a letter to his party.
“Germany is strong and can handle a lot,” Mr. Gabriel wrote. “Nevertheless, in the past few days we have experienced how, despite our best efforts, our abilities have reached their limits.”
Horst Seehofer, the premier of Bavaria, a deeply conservative state in the south, has criticized Ms. Merkel for her open-door policy. More than 25,000 migrants arrived in Bavaria over the weekend.
“There is no order, there is no system, and in a country governed by the rule of law, that is a cause for concern,” Mr. Seehofer told reporters on Sunday. He said that officials were straining to process and house thousands of newcomers, and that some of them were economic migrants, not people fleeing persecution.
“We need better controls in general because we have determined that in recent days, many of those on the move are really not refugees,” Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian interior minister, told a local television station. Officials in Eastern and Central Europe, including Hungary, have made similar arguments.
It was not immediately clear how long the German measures would remain in effect, but Mr. Herrmann estimated that they would last “at least a week.”
The extraordinary restrictions to the European Union’s border-free Schengen zone by Germany — one of the most ardent proponents of greater integration — signified a departure for Ms. Merkel, who had said just last week that there was “no upper limit” on the number of refugees her country could take in.
The Schengen Agreement, which guarantees passport-free movement within much of continental Europe, has been a cornerstone of European unity, along with the euro and a single market. Countries in the Schengen zone are allowed, however, to temporarily reinstate controls at their borders for security reasons.
Such controls have been set up seven times since 2013 when the rules were clarified for participating countries — but the first time such controls have been reinstated because of pressures from migration.
Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for Ms. Merkel, said the new measures were “not a closing of the border, or a suspension of the right to asylum,” but rather an attempt to instill greater order on the chaos of the arrival and application process.
“It also serves as a clear signal to our European partners that Germany, while prepared to take on a large share of responsibilities, cannot be solely responsible for taking in all refugees,” he said.
Nonetheless, Germany’s decision appeared to have edged neighboring Austria to enact its own restrictions.”
The above just shows that Europe, already in 2015, was becoming concerned about having to assimilate thousands and thousands of refugees, infiltrated by terrorists or potential terrorist through radicalization.
So why should the US be less concerned about this after the Maraton bombings in Boston, the radical Muslim murders in San Bernardino and Orlando, and most of all, 9/11? What are those silly Schumer tears for? He said the opposite a few years back (2015). Typical negative Washington politics at its worst and the Democrats are the ones who practice it heartily.
ENCHANTÉ – Border Taxes a Boring Issue?
You have to climb high to see the border, any border. It’s fascinating to see how world affairs repeat themselves in circles. This picture of mine was taken by a dear girlfriend in Switzerland when I dealt with “Border Taxes” at the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) in Geneva. How did I get there from Amsterdam? Because I was heading a Dutch delegation from the Ministry of Economic Affairs as the Netherlands’ Member of the GATT to the Border Tax Working Party.
It was a big issue around 1969/70. The GATT was established in 1947 to reduce and harmonize import tariffs to promote multilateral trade and encourage consumption. The GATT was part of the UN complex in Geneva as a Special Agency. Its meetings were held in the “Palais des Nations” which was built as of 1929 to serve as the home of the “League of Nations.” It is best known for “the Kennedy Round” (1964-1967), the sixth multilateral tariff negotiation named after President Kennedy, who was assassinated six months before the Round started in Geneva.
Photographs of the Palais des Nations from Wikipedia
Photographs of the Villa Bocage which housed the GATT Secretariat (Kris Terauds-krisageneve.wordpress.com).
From the terrace at the back, you could see the Mont Blanc, and we often had lunch outside in the spring and summer, enjoying the view. In 1975-77, the Gatt Secretariat moved to the historic building “Centre William Rappard” at the Lake of Geneva.
The Border Tax Working Party met regularly over a couple of years. Delegates from some eighty GATT Member States from all over the world descended onto Geneva to discuss the issue to abolish unfair taxes at the border to eliminate their nefarious impact on fair trade. (more…)