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| PainProgress I flew on an economy ticket code shared between Alitalia and Delta Airlines. My wife didn't want to go with me, this time, so I traveled alone, but one can hardly be alone in Italy, as they don't allow it. Seriously speaking, I was honored at having been invited to join a group of distinguished American scholars to meet with equally distinguished Italian colleagues at two prestigious American Studies Centers in Rome and Cassino, which had as well a teleconference video connection with Siena. I had hoped that the meetings would not be conducted in Italian because my Italian language skills are not that great (ne non sono buono?). However, when I finished my own presentation, one
of the few which was entirely in English the moderator, in italiano,
called for questions and comments and un professore italiano rose
to the occasion. Italian professors always rise to the occasion
and this one was no exception as he expounded for ten minutes in
his favorite language before finally asking a question, also in
his favorite language, and to which I rose to the occasion by expounding
in ten minutes in my favorite language and then answering my own
question which was the only one that I both understood and knew
the answer to. When I finished my response, I was greeted with a
sea of blank expressions and substantially polite applause. We took a bus trip to deliberate at the University
of Cassino and also tour the famous monastery at Monte Cassino.
During the ride I read a short book written by an Italian who immigrated
to Boston after the World War II. As a young boy he had fled the
area with his family as the Allies (the good guys) began to bomb
the centuries old Benedictine Monastery and the surrounding countryside.
The war had continued even after Italy surrendered as Germany occupied
the country and battled allied forces who slowly worked their way
up the peninsula. 1700 ft above the town below, Monte Cassino was
the center for the German Gustav line, 100 miles south of Rome.
It dominated the surrounding countryside, including the valley that
ran through the mountains to the north and the main highway linking
the south to Rome. After weeks of furious bombing and shelling it
was finally destroyed, killing German soldiers, and monks alike,
as well as hundreds of civilians who naively had sought refuge there.
As a result of the extensive campaign most of the surrounding towns,
and farms, were also obliterated. The author described the sights
of his return to his hometown. Nothing previously vertical was standing,
neither buildings nor trees. Bomb and artillery craters had filled
with water and in the summer heat they were breeding pools for malarial
mosquitoes. The heat and humidity also accelerated the rotting corpses
of animals, soldiers, and civilians. I guess you might call it,
Collateral Damage Italian Style. Italians are intensely territorial and most of
those who survived their "Liberation" slowly returned
to rebuild their homes and lives, and by the late 1950s the monastery
itself was completely restored. Actually, at the monastery I missed
the guided tour because I misunderstood the instructions of one
of my gracious hosts, who actually was speaking in English. Speaking of multilingual confusion, I took off
while our own monosyllabic bilingual Baby Bush (as opposed to monolingual
polysyllabic Papa Bush) was gearing up to bomb the hell out of someplace,
preferably Iraq but if that's not available; who knows? When I got
to Italy, I read in Corriere della Sera that Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi was emphatically denying, in Italiano, that Italia
was supporting the US multi-unilateralismo (I just made this word
up, I think) while in direct contrast in the International Herald
Tribune, Bush's spokespersons were claiming, in English, that despite
what Berlusconi was saying, in Italian, that Italy was in the pocket
of the US. I think that the current administration in DC doesn't
realize that that il Duce Mussolini is no longer in power in Italy
and that Italy, for better or for worse, is an imperfect democracy.
As for Fear of Flying Italian Style, although I
got back home to JFK airport in one piece, there was a two-hour
delay in Rome's Fiumincino Airport. Alitalia claimed that there
were some "equipment problems;" which didn't raise my
confidence level in taking a nine-hour ride in a complex machine
that just had technical problems fixed by people who don't speak
English. I think they really postponed the take-off in order to
fill the plane up with extraneous travelers, as there appeared on
the departure monitor that an Aeromexico flight to NYC had mysteriously
been combined with our Alitalia/Delta one. This merger happened
only after they moved the departure gate first from 30, to 24, and
then to 23 while I lugged my duty free booty from gate to gate to
gate in search of flight 0611. The Boeing 777 on which I flew both ways was a nice plane. Even in the narrow economy seats which lack sufficient legroom for anyone taller than 5' 6'' there is individual video service so I was able to watch on demand movies, which if I had to pay for them I wouldn't have. The screen provided many languages options, so I fooled around by watching American movies in Italian and Italian movies in English, but they still weren't worth paying for. So I listened to classical music with these little earphone things that are supposed to fit into your ear holes but don't, unless you push them in further than they were designed to go. Occasionally the sound would cut out and there would flash across the screen "PAINPROGRESS." At first I was puzzled as to how they knew that my ears were hurting. Then it came to me that PAINPROGRESS meant "Public Address in Progress." But my ear holes still hurt. It also appeared to me that PAINPROGRESS is a
perfect symbol for the media war hype we are getting now from the
USA's allegedly "free" jingoistic press. Even the once
dependably skeptical NPR and its local version, WNYC, sound like
Government Radio Stations when it comes to fronting for the President
from Armageddon, Texas. Equally offensive are the visual variants
of PBS to which we are currently subjected. Too bad they don't flash
the PAINPROGRESS sign across the TV screen when some government
"expert" or "independent" scholar from one or
another enterprising institute is called upon to explain why Iraqi
civilians deserve to die. One constantly painful argument that is heard is
that collateral damage is justifiable because Saddam had slaughtered
"his own people." I guess the ones we are going to kill
are not "his." The most odd thing on the flight was that when
we within an hour of JFK airport, while I was avoiding embolisms
by stretching by the toilets, I noticed that there were several
swarthy brawny men going into a passageway that seemed to lead somewhere
above the cabin. At first I thought that maybe there was a "party"
up there. When they came down they were in Alitalia steward uniforms
and until we were strapped in for landing they walked up and down
the aisles, I think looking for likely members of Al Qaeda. I guess
they are the Italian version of Air Marshals. In anticipation of the final, Final Battle against
one or another of the Evil Empires which rotate along the Axis of
Evil, a contingent of members of Voices in the Wilderness are already
in Baghdad. Voices in the Wilderness is a US/UK group which is trying
to end the economic sanctions against the "people," as
opposed to the "government," of Iraq. Since March 1996,
in violation of sanctions, almost fifty delegations have traveled
to Iraq. American authorities have warned that the penalty for traveling to Iraq, in violation of US laws, could be as much as 12 years in prison and over $1 million in fines. VIW says that each member represents thousands of people who oppose the economic sanctions that miss the target of the regime of Saddam Hussein and instead fall on millions of Iraqi people, young and old. VIW follows the nonviolent tradition of Mohandas Gandhi. They oppose the development, storage and use by any country of weapons of mass destruction whether nuclear, biological, chemical - or economic. Today, as the drum beat quickens, they maintain a constant presence in Iraq. They point to the devastating effects in the schools
and hospitals, on the streets and in the homes of Iraq of more than
a decade of economic sanctions and frequent bombings. They say they
are in Iraq to serve as human shields for Iraqi women and children
when the bombs start raining down on the city. The US has already
notified Voices in the Wilderness that, as opposed to Trent Lott,
US bombs don't discriminate, and that Saddam will ultimately be
held accountable for any anticipated Collateral Damage. I believe
that the moving deadline for Iraqi surrender is "any day now."
I was happy to go to Italy and I was even happier to get back home
unfortunately just in time to watch W's State of the Union Address
and then not watch a rerun of "CNN Live from Baghdad."
When W was having his usual trouble with hard words across my mind's
eye in bold |
