Konversations

Well, I just started to do my daily Latin American news summary for Heritage and then remembered its Friday and I don’t have to do one ‘til Monday night! Kinda ironic since Wednesday night I almost forgot to do it… I had even flagged a message from Steve Johnson to remind myself to reply to a question the next day, forgetting I’m obligated to email him every night with the summary. I only remembered after I’d turned the lights out and was headed to bed, and I turned back to my computer to pull up the christianfm site so I could turn on careathon the next morning (Thursday). As I was minimizing my favorites folder for “LA news” something didn’t feel right… OH, then it hit me I had totally forgotten the summary.. anyways, I did it then of course but now I’m paranoid I’ll forget again…

Well, I have a couple random things I wanted to write about tonight but first I’ll summarize my day… hmmm, what did I do today? Oh… well, let’s see..made some calls and had a meeting regarding tracing “evidence” of Saudi funding of the export hate ideology. That was interesting and I made some good “finds”…also read about 100 cables today finding more evidence, and next week I get to go through 300 more…not so exciting. I also organized Deborah (my supervisor)’s files for her …which didn’t take long and was kinda nice to do something less brain intensive for a little while. I also wrote a congressional and spent a few hours getting clearances on that and everything… Umm…well, today seemed to be the day everyone asked me to fetch things for them (which isn’t very usual and that’s a good thing) so I spent lots of time learning new parts of the building which I think I’ll never totally understand. I found Dr. Rice’s office today on accident…really cool elevator up there too. They do these periodic tours of the diplomatic rooms for the interns, but the problem is I never get to do “intern” activites cause I’m too busy with real work. It’s also a problem with heritage… I get all these emails of groups wanting to go out after work too…Heritage and State.. which I would like to do the former more than the latter since I would say the majority of interns at Heritage are at least nominally Christian, and it’s already been acknowledged that “going out” does not mean drinking alcohol. On the other hand, I’m sure some of the interns would so that might be awkward. On the State side, invitations to “happy hour” are not at all tempting…that does not sound fun. I wish they were all more creative in activities but on the other hand I never get off work in time to go anywhere with either group anyway. As the office manager of IRF told me yesterday she had explained to someone who asked who I was… she answered I was an intern, and I guess the person she was talking to was confused as to why the intern was in charge of whatever secretary memo they were talking about at the time… Shellette (the office manager) said “Martha? Oh, she’s not a real intern…she’s just technically an intern cause she works like an officer”… I laughed when she told me, but it’s funny how I really do feel that way…It’s a good thing until someone outside the office treats me like an intern and I’m almost offended and then I remember that’s what I am. I’m glad I picked up on dynamics fast so I don’t feel so “lost”… and having a newer employee on the staff that knows less than I do helps too. I find myself avoiding telling people I’m an intern when they ask my responsibilities in IRF…it’s easier to avoid that “detail”… At Heritage, Steve calls me his “research assistant” so that’s nice. ANYWAYS…. So yeah, I think that was pretty much was I did today…nothing too earthshattering. Oh, I almost killed a lawyer too. Or I wanted to anyway. This project I’m working on for getting ready to sign a binding agreement with Vietnam requires this legal type memo. The “L” person (legal advisor) IRF generally deals with and who had explained how to do this “simple” memo to me in the first place is in Geneva for the HR conference and I was dealing with a backup person. He sent me this marked up copy of the memo, changing EVERYTHING and wanting us to add about 30 pages of legal mumbo jumbo…. He wanted us to define religion and prisoner and absolutely ridiculous things…including attaching a list of every active religion in Vietnam with definitions for each! That was COMPLETELY unrelated to the simple subject of the memo. He must be related to Bill Clinton. Anyways, he basically was being a complete obstructionist with an attitude toward IRF. Thankfully we found out our main lawyer is coming back Monday so we’re waiting on her and then we shred this guys notes. My supervisor called his boss screaming about it when I brought it to her… so now we should see some faster action which is really good cause we sent off terms to the Vietnamese tonight… I’m excited! Miraculously, they’ve already agreed to do anything we ask and turned down the offer of an additional 90 day waiver, saying THEY wanted to act fast on releasing the prisoners and opening the churches!! IRF is getting to do/doing so much more this year than ever in their short history and its cool to be a part… My day also had its humorous parts... my coworker, David, who is the foreign relations office for Saudi Arabia and supervising this whole project now calls me "cat" and barks at me like a dog... it's a long story but had nothing to do with the two of us fighting and everything to do with the fact we share a quirky sense of the humor the rest of the office doesn't usually get...and when you deal with such serious subjects you have to laught at something! Anyways, so when I got off work I ran to CVS to pick some stuff up, came back and did a huge cleaning of my room, bathroom, and the kitchen…convincing myself my family really is coming on Monday! I had become quite the slob so it’s nice to have it clean again…

Having finished my day summary (this will be a long blog, sorry) here’s my random thoughts… I had them both before 9am.

On a light note, I’ve resolved to establish a routine for getting dressed. I’ve never had one regardless of where I’ve been living, but this inefficiency is officially ridiculous…I noted today as I struggled to brush my hair with one hand, put on my watch with the other, with my shirt over one arm and not the other and one pant leg on, all while trying to check the weather on my laptop. Why? Because I’m far too easily distracted! I get up early since I don’t like to be rushed in the morning (I move too slowly…and before Holly protests that I sleep until the very last second, I have reformed and am allowing more time now) but then I start to put a sweater on and then go, “oh, I need to put my watch on” and then while doing those two things add a third as so on… It leads to me starting to walk out the door missing vital pieces of clothing….which is especially easy to do with so many layers on, it’s hard to notice unless I look in the mirror…which is not ever really a part of my non-existent routine. Anyway, so that is my resolution for the day: establish an efficient morning routine to make sure I get completely dressed before I leave the house AND that I can sleep as long as possible before getting out of bed. Just thought I’d share my epiphany. =)

On a much heavier note, I hate the media. It makes me so mad that they get to “decide” what is newsworthy. If a single Iraqi is killed (even if its an insurgent who blows himself up, failing to murder others) it’s going to be prominent in tv and print news. On the other hand, news which came out this morning that the North Koreans have murdered 70 people who escaped to China and China deported back to North Korea (knowing they would be tortured and possibly killed)… some of those murders were public, attempts to thwart further North Koreans from feeling the torture and starvation. Was that worthy of prominent news? Of course not! I chose to compare it with an Iraqi death because an argument could be made that American deaths in Iraq are more newsworthy than foreign deaths… but why Iraqi deaths, which can be blamed on Bush, and not North Korean deaths? On the way to work this morning on the Metro I overheard a conversation. Remarking on the news story concerning NK’s resistance to multilateral talks, a young man commented “Well, I would be COMPLETELY against any action against North Korea regardless of what they do.” He went on to argue troops in Iraq should “on boats tomorrow coming home.” At the time I laughed at his ignorance, and wondered if he realized what a scary world his children would live in should his ideology decide America’s foreign policy. After receiving the email about the murdered North Koreans, tears came to my eyes as I considered his, and most Americans’, apathy toward the tortured innocent of other nations. I’m not advocating an immediate invasion of NK, of course, because I don’t know what the answer is with our military power so limited…but I do know we should care, and there should be great outcry at the daily deaths that take place in NK at the hands of a crazed dictator. People casually refer to the “starving children in Africa” but hardly know of the thousands of children intentionally starved to death in NK. It’s just injustice that we would rather decry our diplomats for accusing NK of tyranny than acknowledge the terrifying reality and work to change it.

Well, I’m going to end this now but I wanted to share a story I received yesterday. This list I am on smuggles stories out of Cuba, mostly relating to everyday experiences. I read them daily but they only have an English edition once a week so up til this point I have not had any particularly poignant stories I could share without having to translate… So here is one… It’s not long but it illustrates a life so close to home and yet a mindset so different….

For dissidents only: State Security provides alternative garbage pickup

José Moreno Cruz, Cubanacán Press

SANTA CLARA, February (www.cubanet.org) - Many a morning, when the municipal garbage pickup personnel in my neighborhood just don't show up, my garbage is the only one in the whole block that is never left at the curb.

I never thought much of this, since every once in a while I had noticed a young man in a bicycle who sped by my house, often at night, and snatched the plastic garbage sack. I had speculated the man perhaps expected to find something useful or marketable among my discards, and let it go.

Until recently, that is. I was at a friend's home, doing some work, and I asked my friend's mother to throw some papers in the garbage for me. She very nonchalantly replied that she would burn them as she did all papers since she had seen some character picking up her garbage sack in front of her house some time past. And that's when it dawned on me; my personal garbage man works for the government, but not necessarily for the municipal waste service.

All of a sudden I remembered the wrinkled documents reproduced in the book The Dissidents, put out by the government security services over a year ago to discredit the dissident movement they say barely exists. I remembered the listening devices placed by the government telecommunications company, ETECSA, in the home of Laura Pollán and her husband Héctor Maseda, now in prison, and the several discovered by human rights activist Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas throughout his home.

Most, not to say all, government opponents and dissidents take it as a given that their phones are bugged. Recently we had news of a device called the "Voice DNA machine" installed at phone company central offices, which can identify 36 distinct parameters of the human voice and automatically record those it has been programmed to recognize, no matter where the calls originate.

As a journalist, my goal is to disseminate my work to the widest possible audience; what secrets the powers that be expect to find in my discards is beyond me. But maybe they just want to insure my garbage is picked up in a timely fashion lest I expose the deficiencies in municipal services.