2007 Time Capsule

I. Favorite Book
The Trouble with Diversity by Walter Benn Michaels (that's Walter on the right). A highly readable, provocative thesis by the head of the UIC English department, one of the smartest folks I’ve come across in journey through academia. According to Michaels, multiculturalism is for the birds; it’s economic justice we should be concerned about.

Author! Author! By David Lodge. I got to know David Lodge through his Morris Zapp books (Zapp is a character based on Professor Stanley Fish, whom I took a class with at UIC). His novel Nice Work made it to my Top 40 at 40 list. This one is an imaginative tour of the mind of Henry James centering on the most humiliating moment in the life of the acclaimed author.

II. Memorable Arts Events—Theater, Art Exhibits, Museums, Concerts

In February, we trudged through snow to take Emilio to see a lively performance by Alex and the Kaleidoscope Band at the Bubbles Academy. On Mari’s last day of school, we took the train to Ravinia to hear the Doobie Brothers. The Doobie event was difficult to enjoy on account of the size of the crowd. Emilio enjoyed the train ride, though. Ten days later we returned to Ravinia to hear the Indigo Girls. We bought lawn seats that were out of viewing distance of the band, but near the end of the evening, Emi and I staked out a spot at the side of the stage and a friendly ticket holder later let us have her seats. Brandi Carlile performed with them and did a good job. That's Brandi on the far left in the video above.

Throughout the summer and fall, Emi and Emily, his babysitter, made almost daily visits to the climate-controlled Children’s Museum of Immigration at the Swedish-American museum on Clark Street (that's not Emily and Emi on the left in the photo at left). When I played the role of his escort, everybody knew him and was happy to see him.

Over the course of the summer, I attended two performances of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind at the Neo-Futurarium, once with Gimena and once with Lisa and Brian. In December, Jaime and Maria Rosa’s visit gave Mari and I an opportunity to go see (and participate in) Mr. Fluxus, a main stage production conceived and directed by Neo-Futurist founder Greg Allen. The highlight of that event, chronicled elsewhere, was the Warheads we brought home with us to share with Jaime and Maria Rosa.

III. Favorite Celebs
A. Male. Jack Black. I didn’t want to see Nacho Libre in a movie theater because I suspected that it, like most comedies I see on big screen, would disappoint. I didn’t see Holiday in a movie theater because the reviews for the romantic comedy were mediocre and I’m not a Cameron Diaz fan. I think I made the right call on both counts, but I recently caught both flicks on the homescreen, where expectations are lowered exponentially, and enjoyed Mr. Black’s work in both. Runner-up: Will Ferrell. Talladega Nights is another comedy I chose to catch on the homescreen. Loved it.

B. Female. Tina Fey and Kelly MacDonald. I’m digging 30 Rock. Haven't seen much of Kelly this year, but I look forward to checking her out in No Country for Old Men.

IV. A Year on the Tube.
Best Use of Netflix

Michael Apted’s Up series.

My DVR Regulars (In No Particular Order)

1. 30 Rock (NBC). Great platform for SNL All-Star Host Alec Baldwin, who has a great relationship with Ms. Fey. Tracy Morgan isn’t as good as I hoped he’d be. Jane Krakowski, though, has been a pleasant surprise.

2. The Sopranos: Part Two of Season Six—the Final Season (HBO). Didn’t care for the famous cut-to-black ending in the season finale, but this was a performance for the ages by James Gandolfini and I never missed an episode.

3. Meet the Press (NBC). I record this one, but I take it like a pill. Tim Russert makes me queasy sometimes.

4. This Week (ABC). I think George Stephanopolous does a good job.

5. The Daily Show (Comedy Central). I’m boycotting this one during the Writers Guild Strike. Sorry to see that John has allowed the show to go on.

6. Ebert and Roeper Show (ABC) It has been a year without Roger. Texan Robert Wilonsky (who writes for the Dallas Observer, apparently) has been my favorite fill-in.

6. Saturday Night Live (NBC). Loved Peyton Manning's performance as the captain of a high school basketball team given a half-time pep talk by dancing Will Forte.

7. The Flight of the Conchords (HBO). Debut of the Year. Always good. Brett's "I dance when I'm mad" moment (see below) was one the season's best.

9. Rome (HBO). Fun. Not great. Loved all the actors, though.

10. I guess this was the year I started watching Countdown with Keith Olberman. Some of Olberman’s special commentary moments have been stunningly acid. I’ve loved them. I also dig the Worst Person in the World feature and the incessant hammering of Bill O’Reilly. The show doesn’t always live up to its promise, though. Don’t care for the fluffy, “Keeping Tabs” section at the end, which features gossip wits like Michael Musto of the Village Voice.

11. I record and watch Hardball with Chris Matthews and also watch the Chris Matthews show on Sundays. I’m no Chris Matthews fan, but it’s the kind of TV wallpaper I like to put up when I’m occupied with other things.

12. The show I most look forward to watching, though, is The Office. I really dug the one-hour specials that started the season.

V. A Year in Tune.
As best I remember (I have no records of this), I bought 2 CDs this year:

1. The Best of Sade and
2. The Best of Roberta Flack. I picked up both of these in the month before my 40th birthday in an attempt to fill in some of the blanks in my music collection. Both had some candidates for my 40 Tunes at 40 list (I haven’t finished that list yet).
Once again, most of the new tunes that found their way into my brain came to me from the soundtracks that loop through the “offices” where I work on my diss.

Here are a few of the memorables that ended up sticking to the walls in that fashion this year:
1. Aretha Franklin sings “Eleanor Rigby.”
2. Etta James sings “Sunday Kind of Love" (1961).
3. Joss Stone sings “Dirty Man" (2003).
4. Ray LaMontagen sings “You Can Bring Me Flowers” (2006). I got this one and the next from one of the all-music channels on our TV (Adult Contemporary).
5. The Nightwatchman sings “The Road I Must Travel” (2007).
6. Imogen Heap sings “Goodnight and Go” (2005). That's Imogen in the photo at left.
7. Grace and the Nocturnals sing “Nothing but the Water Part II.” This one was recommended by Lisa.
8. The Black Crowes sing “Back Door Santa.”

Aught Seven, Act Last, Scene: Africa

Welcome to the third and final act of Aught Seven, a “borrowed” drama in three installments (thanks Slate, TIME, CNN.com, wikipedia and others for lending me stretches your prose--not to mention all those photographers and illustrators who have lent me their art). Given the demands of my new fatherly duties, I can’t imagine a scenario in which I’ll have enough time to put together something comparable in Aught Eight and have only been able to produce this final act because Maria Rosa and Jaime are in town.

At the beginning of the year, I announced a plan to release each act in several scenes in hopes of producing a friendlier reading experience for my readers, but instead of transforming one long blog into seven short ones, I ended up producing seven long blogs. The final act of this drama is no different, since it would actually take me more mental energy to cut down what I have than it would to just go with what I’ve already got.

Over the past year I have learned how to backdate my posts, so all the scenes will eventually appear in this date-space. Instead of rolling them all out at once, though, I’ll add installments as I get comments until I decide no one’s paying attention anymore and then I’ll publish what remains.

We begin, as always, with Africa . . .

Kibaki-ing and Screaming, Kenyan Prez. Cheats Voters
CNN reports that on December 30th, the Kenyan government announced that voters had re-elected President Mwai Kibaki with -4,584,721 votes to 4,352,993 votes for opposition leader Raila Odinga. The result was immediately called into question, with election observers from the European Union saying they had doubts about the legitimacy of the count. The disputed election triggered violence that had killed at least 124 people by the end of Monday. One of the most stable nations in East Africa, Kenya is bordered by Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia, each of which has played a featured role in Aught Seven’s tragic Africa scenes. Kibaki’s slim margin of victory is a marked difference from his win five years ago in a landslide election. He promised to fight corruption then, but he has seen his authority erode amid a number of high-profile corruption scandals in his government.

Bashir Stalls, Darfur Darkens

Though China finally agreed in August to back a U.N. resolution to send 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, due to a campaign of obstruction by the Sudanese government by the end of December only 9,000 of these troops are on the ground and they do not have the helicopters they need to guarantee their safety. That's Sudan President Hassan al-Bashir on the left in the photo at right with Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe at the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon in December. In April, the AP estimated that the conflict has produced 450,000 have casualties in the Sudan since February 2003. I haven’t seen any more recent estimates.

We’ve Got the Invasion Part Figured Out
In the year that has followed Ethiopia’s U.S.-supported invasion of Somalia and overthrow of the fundamentalist Islamic government which had brought a relative degree of security to the country (reported in this blog space a year ago), more than 1 million Somalis have fled their homes in what TIME calls “a refugee crunch whose scope and severity rival that of Darfur." The photo at left, taken in November, is of an Ethiopian soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

Ethiopia Has Boundary Issues
According to the editors at TIME, one of the year’s most underreported stories of 2007: “In what looks alarmingly like the lead-up to the border war that killed 70,000 people [between 1998 and 2000], tensions are once again building between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea (which gained independence in 1993), with the International Crisis Group estimating that each country has at least 100,000 troops poised for battle. The conflict centers on the town of Badme, which a U.N.-appointed boundary commission awarded to Eritrea in 2002. But Ethiopia refuses to comply, despite having signed a binding agreement.”

IMF Marketing Dollars at Work

According to TIME: “After nearly three decades of civil war that ended in 2002, having claimed more than 500,000 lives, Angola was a devastated and broken nation. But five years later, thanks to increased oil production, the International Monetary Fund estimates the sub-Saharan nation's economy will have ballooned 24% this year, one of the fastest growth rates in the world. . . The government is putting some of this wealth into new roads and public transportation, but critics worry the influx of cash is mostly lining the pockets of the elite — and building mansions in the capital city of Luanda.”

Aught Seven, Act Last, Scene: Asia

Ukraine Leans toward Europe
In a September 30th presidential election in the Ukraine, the party of Kremlin-favorite Viktor Yanukovich won 175 seats—the largets bloc in the 450-seat Parliament. Though the parties of Yulia Tymoshenko and incumbent Viktor Yushchenko split the Pro-Western vote, with 156 and 72 votes going to each respectively, hours after the official results were announced, Tymoshenko and Yushchenko declared they would pool their votes to ensure that Tymoshenko would become the prime minister. The 47-year-old Tymoshenko has vowed to move Ukraine closer to the European Union and further from Moscow’s orbit. On December 18th, she took office.

Wikipedia reports that in 2004, Yushchenko (who survived a near-fatal dioxin poisoning attack in September) was the informal leader of Ukraine’s pro-Western opposition coalition and one of three main candidates in that year’s October–November presidential election. After Yuschchenko lost a runoff with government-supported candidate Viktor Yanukovych (Russia’s favorite--that's Yanukovynch shaking hands with Czar Vladimir in the photo at left), the Ukrainian Supreme Court called for a revote due to widespread election fraud in favor of Yanukovych. Yushchenko won the revote 52-44 and the “Orange Revolution” ensued. Yulia Tymoshenko became Yushchenko’s prime minister.

A year later, on September 8, 2005 Yushchenko fired his government, led by Tymoshenko, after resignations and corruption claims.

In August 2006, Yushchenko’s feud with Tymoshenko led him to appoint his onetime opponent in the presidential race, Viktor Yanukovych, to be the new Prime Minister. This was generally regarded as synonymous with a move by Ukraine back into the Russian fold.[14]

After a May 2007 political crisis that featured troops disobeying orders, Yushchenko agreed to hold elections in September.

Burmese Blood
In September, twenty thousand people marched against the repressive military junta in Myanmar. In October, the government cracked down on the protest, arresting up to 6,000 pro-democracy monks and killing at least 30 and likely far more. The photo at right shows a Japanese photographer who was shot and killed by Burmese government forces.

About to Implodistan?
After eight years in exile in Dubai and London, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007 to prepare for the 2008 national elections. On the day of her return, two explosions occurred shortly after Bhutto left Jinnah International Airport. Though she was not injured, the suicide bomb attack killed 136 people and injured at least 450. The dead included at least 50 of her party’s security guards who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away.

On November 11th, President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule, citing religious extremism in the nation. Bhutto was placed under house arrest just a few hours before she was due to address a rally against the state of emergency. That's Bhutto in the photo at left, speaking to reporters through the barbed wire that surrounds her house. The following day, the Pakistani government announced that Bhutto's arrest warrant had been withdrawn and that she would be free to travel and to appear at public rallies. Leaders of other opposition political parties remained prohibited from speaking in public, however.

After relinquishing his post as military chief, Musharraf was sworn in as a civilian president on November 30 and announced his plan to lift the Pakistan's state of emergency rule on December 16.

On December 4, 2007, Bhutto met with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to publicize their demand that Musharraf lift the state of emergency before January's parliamentary elections (see photo at right), threatening to boycott the vote if he failed to comply. (Sharif returned to Pakistan in November after spending seven years in exile in Saudia Arabia after been ousted from power in a 1999 coup led by Musharraf.

On December 27, 2007, Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally. I found William Dalrymple's analysis of Bhutto's sadly unimpressive record to be persuasive.

Bhutto’s 19-year-old son Bilawal was named as her successor as leader of the party.

Another Bush Buddy Bites It
On November 27, Australian voters elected the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd prime minister, replacing conservative John Howard, a Bush ally who failed to retain his own seat in Parliament. Rudd said he would push for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, leaving the United Statesthe lone holdout. That's Howard and Bush at APEC's annual silly shirts convention.

A Czar By Any Other Name
In December, Russian president Vladimir Putin selected his protege Dmitry Medvedev to be the next president of the Russian Federation. The 42-year-old Medvedev quickly said that he would make Putin his prime minister. Putin’s presidential term ends next May.

Aught Seven, Act Last, Scene: Europe

Kosovo Kindling

In December, nearly two years of talks between the U.S., the E.U. and Russia to settle the future status of the Serbian province of Kosovo ended in failure.

Hashim Thaci, the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, who is expected to be sworn in soon as Kosovo's Prime Minister, has announced that Kosovo will press ahead with plans for independence.

Meanwhile, on December 16th Bosnian president Boris Tadic, seen on the left in the photo at right with Czar Vladimir, declared: "As long as I am President of Serbia, I will never accept the independence of Kosovo."

A little background: The U.N. has administered Kosovo NATO forces drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid grave human rights abuses in the fighting between Serbs and Albanians. Kosovo is seeking supervised independence from Serbia, but Serbia wants the region to remain autonomous within its borders.

Serbia says the province forms part of its historical territory and has strong religious significance for its majority Orthodox Christian population. But it is equally coveted by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who are mostly Muslim and make up a 90 percent majority in the region. Russia, a staunch ally of Serbia, has warned Kosovo against any self-proclamation of independence. CNN's European Political Editor Robin Oakley said the main threat of violence was from militias forming as both sides grew impatient with the failure of negotiations to produce a settlement. NATO currently has 16,000 troops stationed in Kosovo and more ready to intervene if needed to prevent any outbreak of violence on either side.

America is already committed to the idea of independence, but some European countries -- especially those with their own secessionist movements, like Spain, Cyprus, and Greece -- are more skeptical, fearing that independence could set a precedent for separatist groups elsewhere.

Aught Seven, Act Last, Scene: The Americas, D.C. Division

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Torture
In November, the Senate approved Bush’s nominee Michael Mukasey as U.S. Attorney General even though he refused to condemn waterboarding as torture.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of a Lame Excuse to Attack Iran
In December, a new National Intelligence Estimate by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran ended its secret nuclear weapons program in 2003, in contrast to a 2005 report that claimed with “high confidence” that such a program was still active.

Life, Liberty and the Destruction of Incriminating Evidence
Also in December, it was revealed that the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes of harsh interrogations of suspected Al Qaeda operatives. CIA director Michael Hayden claimed that this was done to protect CIA employees from possible retaliation by militants, and that congressional oversight committees had been notified.

Life, Liberty and a Refusal to Give Torture Victims a Hearing

The New York Times reported in October that the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal filed in December 2005 on behalf of Khaled el-Masri, “a German citizen of Lebanese descent who claims he was abducted by United States agents and then tortured by them while imprisoned in Afghanistan. Without comment, the justices let stand an appeals court ruling that the state secrets privilege, a judicially created doctrine that the Bush administration has invoked to win dismissal of lawsuits that touch on issues of national security, protected the government’s actions from court review. In refusing to take up the case, the justices declined a chance to elaborate on the privilege for the first time in more than 50 years. [el Masri] says he was detained while on vacation in Macedonia in late 2003, transported by the United States to Afghanistan and held there for five months in a secret prison before being taken to Albania and set free, evidently having been mistaken for a terrorism suspect with a similar name. Mr. Masri says he was tortured while in the prison. After prosecutors in Germany investigated the case, a court there issued arrest warrants in January2007 for 13 agents of the CIA."

Aught Seven, Act Last, Scene: The Americas, Beyond the Beltway

Photo Finish (Start?) for Donkeys

The game is to imagine a scenario that produces a win for a long shot like Edwards, who, in addition to running the campaign that is most progressive (and most appealing to me), has put all his eggs in the Iowa basket. The game goes like this: after months of creeping back up towards an Iowa lead that he relinquished early in the year, Edwards wins Iowa. The momentum bump gets him to second place in New Hampshire and competitive in South Carolina. By that point, whoever is in third place becomes a non-competitive long shot and it becomes a two-candidate race that Edwards has a chance to win. Realistically, I think there is very little chance that Edwards will do well enough to get a bump out of Iowa.

These are the fall poll numbers from Iowa: In September, it was Clinton (24-30), then Obama (21-28), then Edwards (19-23). At the end of December, it was Clinton (23-31), then Edwards (24-29), then Obama (22-30). Meanwhile, in New Hampshire it was Clinton (35-41), then Obama (16-23), then Edwards (10-16) in September. And near the end of December, it was Clinton (30-31), then Obama (27-32), and then Edwards (20-21).

What a world, what a world! Giuliani Melts
Through the end of September, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was polling between 4 and 12 percent in the Iowa polls. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was in the gold medal position, polling between 22 and 30 percent; former New York City mayor Giuliani was the silver, polling between 13 and 21, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson was the bronze, polling between 13 and 16, and Arizona Senator John McCain, a former front-runner, came in 4th, between 7 and 11.

In October, Huckabee’s numbers hit double digits and stayed there. By November he started polling in the 20s. By early December Huckabee had hit the 30s, and over the last week of the year, he polled between 23 and 36, battling for the lead with Romney–whose numbers remained steady throughout the fall and who was polling between 27 and 32 at year’s end. Whom has Huckabee’s climb hurt most? Giuliani, whose numbers dropped to between 4 and 8.

In New Hampshire, Romney polled between 23 and 30 in September, just ahead of Giuliani (20-23), McCain (12-20), and Thompson (7-19). Huckabee was not competitive. By mid-December, Romney’s numbers had strengthened a bit (28-34) and McCain (20-30) had overtaken 2nd place. Giuliani (9-16) slumped to third and Huckabee had risen to 4th (9-11). Thompson is not competitive.

Oh no you don't!

Speaking of Iowa, the last time we checked in on what was happening outside the beltway, this blog reported that gay marriage had been made legal in Iowa. And it was. For about four hours on August 31st, after county judge Robert B. Hanson overturned a state law banning gay marriage. After four hours, the same county judge delayed further granting of licenses until the Iowa Supreme Court decided whether to consider an appeal.

Nuclear Holiday
In early September, we learned that on August 30th, six nuclear weapons were accidentally loaded onto the wing of a B-52 bomber and flown from North Dakota to Louisiana in a glaring display of how easily our nuclear safeguards can fall apart. The mistake went unnoticed for more than 36 hours.

Come and Listen to my story ‘bout a man named João
In November, Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobas announced the largest oil discovery worldwide since 2000. Though the country is already a self-sufficient oil producer, the new Tupi field — located off the eastern coast of South America, beneath a crust of salt a mile thick in some places—could turn Brazil into a major exporter to rival Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

It’s Still Hugo’s Time
In early December, voters in Venezuela narrowly defeated a referendum on changing their constitution to abolish presidential term limits and vastly increase President Hugo Chavez's executive powers. Undaunted, President Hugo Chavez later decreed that Venezuela would permanently set clock back half an hour, creating a country-specific time zone.

Aught Seven, Act Last, Scene: Middle East

Turkish Wolves at Kurdish Doors

TIME reports that Turkey shelled the village of Dashta Takh in Iraqi Kurdistan in October.

In December, the Turks launched another operation against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) a militant group made up of Turkish Kurds that had found refuge in the lawless mountain region. So far 300 Turkish commandoes crossed briefly into Iraq, while Turkey has staged three air strikes. The TIME photo at right shows villagers walking through rubble from a Turkish air attack in the Qlatooka village, near Iraq's border with Turkey.

Turkey claims to have attacked some 200 PKK locations, and killed hundreds of militants. A PKK fighter told TIME that just five of the group's members had been killed. Whatever the true figure, the operation would seem to be a minor chapter in Turkey's seemingly never-ending civil war with radicals among its oppressed Kurdish minority population, who took up arms in the 1980's.

A little background: Turkey has long been hostile to the emerging power of Iraq's Kurdish minority, located primarily in northern Iraq. The PKK's deployment of women (see the all-female unit in the photo at left) is a development inspired by the PKK's Marxist ideology, which espouses gender equality.

In 1995, the Turkish army invaded northern Iraq, sending some 35,000 soldiers across the border to destroy the guerilla infrastructure of the Operation Steel, as it was called, killed over 500 militants, but still the PKK survived to fight another day. In early 1997, the Turks sent in another 30,000 soldiers — this time as part of Operation Hammer — to finish the job. They didn't.

After the U.S. overthrew Saddam, Turkey grew concerned that Kurds might take control of the oil rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk and inserted itself into Iraq's domestic political problems by dubiously claiming stewardship of Kirkuk's minority Turkoman population (with whom ethnic Turks share a distant Central Asian past and little else.) Turkey has demanded that Iraq's Kurds rid northern Iraq of the PKK (that's one in the photo at right), a job that the government-sanctioned Kurdish peshmerga militias are unable to do. (Iraqi Kurds tried to expel the PKK in the 1990's, but, like the Turkish army, they failed.)

The United States—which controls Iraqi airspace—tried to forestall a Turkish invasion, but eventually caved into Turkish demands and agreed to a limited incursion.

A little analysis:
The fact that Turkey was ready to risk alienating its American ally for an operation with little chance of strategic success is a testament to the uproar by the Turkish public for action against the PKK. But it is also a troubling sign of the role that Turkey will play in Iraq as American power recedes. That's Turkish President Abdullah Gul with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in the photo at left.

Kurdish leaders say that Turkey's unwillingness to open peace talks with the PKK, and its adherence to failed military policies, is a sign that Turkey is using the PKK as excuse to threaten Iraq's Kurds — and to scare them from even thinking about declaring an independent state. Whatever Turkey's intentions, the latest Turkish operation has reminded the Kurds of Iraq just how much their newfound safety and autonomy depends on American protection. Kurdish leaders in Iraq (that's Masoud Barzani, President of Kurdish Iraq, with Rice in the photo at right) have been relatively subdued since the Turkish operations began, acquiescing perhaps to the fickle will of their American masters. They know better than anyone that, without American protection, it's doubtful their hostile neighbors — not just Turkey, but also Iran and Syria, which have restive Kurdish minority populations of their own — would limit themselves to a few air strikes.

Surge of Blood

The Associated Press reported that the second half of 2007 saw violence drop dramatically in Iraq, but the year was still the deadliest for the U.S. military since the 2003 invasion, with 899 troops killed. At least 3,902 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war. The AP claims that Iraqi civilian deaths peaked in May with 2,155 killed. That fell to 718 in November and 710 in December. For the year, 18,610 Iraqis were killed. In 2006, the only other full year an AP count has been tallied, 13,813 civilians were killed. (The AP photo at left shows men mourning over a coffin at a Baghdad funeral, this time after a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid in the city's Sadr City section.)

But a survey of Iraqis released in September by an British polling agency, ORB, claims that the numbers are much, much higher. According to the ORB, up to 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq - lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels. The ORB asked a random selection of 1,465 Iraqis from around the country how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes. Previous estimates gave a range between 390,000 and 940,000, the most prominent of which - collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and reported in the Lancet in October 2006 - suggested 654,965 deaths.

Aught Seven, Act Last, Scene: The Cemetery

Legendary tenor Luciano Pavarottie died on September 6th. He was 71. During the spring of 1988, when I was living in Vienna and bought standing room tickets for operas at the Staatsoper (see photo at left) on dozens of occasions, I got a chance to hear all the greats. Pavarotti was, hands down, the best.

Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson died on December 23rd. He was 82. Got to know him first through one of Mom's records (Was it Oscar Peterson Plays the George Gershwin Songbook?). Saw him play at the Ravinia Music Festival a few years back. I'm not a big jazz fan, but I dig Oscar, mostly, I suspect, because the Montreal native played standards and never gave up on the melody.

The video below features Oscar playing Gershwin's "I Can't Get Started."

Meanwhile, Back in the Pod

Christmas Stockings

Though Mari and I took a Christmas-gift-giving holiday this year, Christmas gift-giving did not take a holiday from us. Much appreciated cards arrived from cousins Gary and Tracy and their families and they now have a magnetized home on our fridge (Emilio knows all of your names now) and in the weeks before the big day, our foyer filled up with an avalanche of gift boxes from Texas. Having Mari’s parents, Maria Rosa and Jaime, with us, was the best gift of all, and Santa filled everyone’s stocking (in the video above, Jaime and Maria Rosa explore theirs; Mari and I got matching wool radar caps).

The highlight of the day was Emilio’s first encounter with Santa’s bounty (check out the video on the Emilio Report), and the early highlight of Emilio’s stocking was the ThunderMaker (a cylinder with a metal coil attached). Later in the day, he enjoyed finishing his two new 48-piece Melissa & Doug wooden puzzles (The Rainforest and Horses). Santa brought Nina and Pablo a soft Audubon Society squirrel and robin to go with the soft hooting Owl he brought Emilio.

My first Christmas mission was to find an open grocery store that sold cornbread mix (our first batch didn’t rise like it was supposed to) and once I succeeded, preparation of the Christmas turkey and cornbread dressing continued. The menu also included Orange Whip, deviled eggs, 2 varieties of cranberry sauce, and apple sauce and cream potatoes prepared by Maria Rosa, who also carved the turkey. We sat down for our first round of eating while Emilio was enjoying his Christmas siesta. We spent the afternoon opening the presents Jaime and Maria Rosa brought with them from Spain, those which had arrived via mail, and those which Jack, Julie and Nathaniel dropped off when they made a surprise pre-lunch visit. The sum result of the gift-discovering orgy was an embarrassment of riches made more embarrassing when I later realized that I couldn’t recall who had given us some of the gifts. Chalk that up to frazzled father syndrome, for I am extremely grateful to all of you who went to such lengths to choose, buy and send or bring such thoughtful gifts to our family.

I have to give special shout out to Jack, Julie and Nathaniel for outfitting the three oldest members of the clan with Permian High School tees, featuring my old jersey number #12, and to John Dan, Michelle, Laura and John for helping me keep my hammer-and-sickle faith alive. Special thanks, too, to Gerardo for the Mapucha tapestry he sent us from Southern Chile and to Mom and Dad for pimping the ride they gave us with a 36-language GPS system, which will help get me to the Department of Motor Vehicles and learn Italian (but not, alas, Mapuche) in the process. The Little People Zoo Mom and Dad sent Emilio has been a big hit as has the Dora the Explorer bath toys sent by Brian, Lyndsae and Olivia and though it is an injustice to cut the list off there, I must because there are babes to bathe and, Emilio tells me, puzzles to work.

Nieto Triptico

Jaime saco estas fotos de sus tres nietos. That's Nina on the left, Emilio in the middle, and Pablo on the right.

Fluxus Sours

Tonight, Mari and I went to the Neo-Futurarium to see Greg Allen's latest greatest: Mr. Fluxus, an experimental "interactive exhibit/performance." It was our our first date in months . The reviewer at Time Out: Chicago does a good job of describing what we saw (and I've included a video of one the perfomers who performed a dance not unlike the one we saw him do before the wedding described below):

In Fluxus, life doesn’t imitate art, it is art. And you are the artist. . . . Named by artist George Maciunas in the 1960s, Fluxus (Latin for “flow”) became a loose alliance of artists like Yoko Ono and Joseph Beuys who worked in creative forms from performance to music to sculpture, seeking to strip art of its “professional, parasitic and elite status” and replace it with “art-amusement,” a simple, pretense-free experience not unlike, in spirit and form, the Neos’ long-running, lo-fi juggernaut Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.

Another Fluxus tenet, the “self-sufficiency of the audience,” drives the flow of Mr. Fluxus, which essentially is a series of installations in the Neo-Futurarium that engages all of its participants’ senses through interaction with the ordinary and the extraordinary. Traveling in a small group, we watched some players literally attack a piano, made music, tasted some acutely sour candy, smelled chocolate-chip cookies, had the chance to picket, and planned a wedding, among other things. Ephemeral and simple, personal and communal, Mr. Fluxus is difficult to evaluate because, well, it only is what it is because you are there.

During the course of the evening, we wrote poems, drew pictures, stuck our fingers in mystery boxes, cut the clothes of two performers, and Maria played the cello at a Fluxus wedding (see the image at right). We both tasted some of the "acutely sour candy" referred to above and brought some of it home with us for Jaime and Maria Rosa to try (see the video below). Jaime's facial expressions were my favorite part of the evening; and now they are recorded for all the world to enjoy.

Grandblogger and the Nightwatch

For readers of this blog who are jonesing for more photos of Emilio and the sibs, be sure to check out Gimena's blog, where Maria Rosa just posted some of the photos that she and Jaime have taken this past week in Chicago (that's the blogger and her muse on the left in the photo at right). Though the accompanying narrative is in Spanish, don't hesistate to leave comments in English if you feel so inspired. I know my bi-lingual sister-in-law appreciates it when someone lets her know they've visited her little corner of the blogworld.

In other news, now that I'm working the twincare nightshift, I'm making progress on my DVR cache. As a result, I can recommend the Extras series finale--especially to anyone who has watched this Ricky Gervais-vehicle over the past two seasons. Though the series was a singles hitter (to use a baseball analogy), it ended with a homer.

And I highly recommend, An Unreasonable Man, a documentary about Ralph Nader that was broadcast on PBS last week. It helped me clarify some of my thoughts about the infamous presidential election of 200o and the guy I voted for.

I have also learned over the course of the past week that:
1) Over the course of her life, Oprah Winfrey has voted for as many Republicans as she has Democrats;
2) Well-known lefty writers Todd Gitlin and Eric Alterman, whose bylines are frequently seen at The Nation, are rabid Ralph Nader Haters;
3) Ralph Nader's preferred frontrunner in this race happens to be the Democratic candidate whom polls have consistenty identifed as the candidate most likely to beat whomever the Republican party puts forward (see video below).

Look familiar?

Does the face of the gentleman pictured below look to you like anyone readers of this blog know and love?

The Happiest Days

Jaime flew in from Madrid today and got to meet Pablo and Nina for the first time. Maria Rosa comes tomorrow.

Nina and Emilio were in mid-siesta when Jaime first got here, but Pablo woke up for the welcoming party. That's him in Jaime's arms in the photo at left.

Jaime told me that this day, the day he met Emilio, the days Maria Jose, Gerardo and Gimena were born, and the day he met Maria Rosa have been the happiest days of his life.

One month and counting

I'm working the twincare night shift these days. Mari and Emi head to bed around nine p.m. (in theory), she gets up every three hours to replenish the milk supply, and I stay downstairs changing diapers and playing bartender . . . and sometime paparazzi.

I took these posed photos of Nina and Pablo last week in the wee hours. They don't usually hang out on the couch together. Nor do they usually share one of the deck chair/bassinettes they sleep in, but they are still just small enough to fit into one together in a pinch (or were when I took the photos that appear at the bottom of this post).

It still amazes me how different they are from each other, and not just in terms of their appearance. Pablo has the dilating powers of an anaconda and the lungs of a Pavarotti.
I used to think Pablo looked like John Gielgud, but he's starting to look more and more like his older brother, Emilio.

Lately, Nina (she of the thick head of black hair) has been the quieter of the two, but I don't think there's any reason to expect that these personality traits will necessarily stick with either of them.