ATTILA'S MAIDEN

Thursday, January 10, 2008

It was a friendship that could inspire a Disney movie. Oscar the dog and his best friend, Arthur the cat, were inseparable in life.

So, when 17-year-old moggy Arthur died, Oscar was left inconsolable. Their owners, Robert and Mavis Bell, buried Arthur in the garden.

But Oscar's love for his friend would not die – and during the night, he pulled the cat from his grave, carried him inside, laid him in the basket they used to share and gently cleaned him up.

Which is one of those things that's heartwarming when an animal does it, but kind of creepy when a human does the same.

Mr Bell found the pair curled up together in the basket. He said: 'Oscar had watched me bury Arthur. They had been inseparable.'

Arthur is now buried in a secure grave in the garden at the Bells' home in Wigan and Oscar has a new playmate kitten called Limpet.

'He's already very protective of her,' Mrs Bell said.

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

Published: November 25, 2007

Q: Although you’re known best as the author of the highbrow murder mystery “The Name of the Rose,” you’re also a prolific political commentator whose essays have now been collected in a book, “Turning Back the Clock,” in which you warn against the dangers of “media populism.” How would you define that term? Media populism means appealing to people directly through media. A politician who can master the media can shape political affairs outside of parliament and even eliminate the mediation of parliament.

Much of your book is an assault on Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy who used his media empire to assist his political ends. From ’94 to ’95, and from 2001 to 2006, Berlusconi was the richest man in Italy, the prime minister, the owner of three TV channels and controller of the three state channels. He is a phenomenon that could happen and is maybe happening in other countries. And the mechanism will be the same.

But here we have the F.C.C. and other federal agencies to prevent the sort of monopolies that would allow a politician to control the country’s newspapers and TV stations. In the States, there is still a great separation between the media and political power, at least in principle.

So why would any country besides Italy be at risk of having the media takeover you describe? One of the reasons why foreigners are so interested in the Italian case is that Italy was in the last century a laboratory. It started with the Futurists. Their manifesto was in 1909. Then fascism — it was tested in the Italian laboratory and then it migrated to Spain, to the Balkans, to Germany.

Are you saying that Germany got the idea of fascism from Italy? Oh, certainly. According to what the historians say, it is so.

Maybe just the Italian historians. If you don’t like it, don’t tell it. I am indifferent.

You’re saying that Italy was a trendsetter in both fashion — or art — and fascism? Yes, O.K., why not?

What do you make of Berlusconi’s successor, Romano Prodi, who was elected last year and has shifted the government leftward? He is a friend. I like him, but I think he has been overwhelmed by the infighting after the election within his own majority. Berlusconi has the advantage of being a big actor. Prodi is not an actor, which is not a crime, but it is a weakness.

Prodi is an intellectual as opposed to a businessman? Yes, he was a professor of economics. In the early ’90s, Prodi was also a teacher in one of my programs. Suddenly he went into politics.

You’re referring to the department of communications at the University of Bologna, where you’re a professor of semiotics. I retired this month. I am 75.

Have you ever wanted to go into politics? No, because I think everybody must do his job.

Do you see yourself mainly as a novelist? I feel that I am a scholar who only with the left hand writes novels.

I am wondering if you read Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code,” which some critics see as the pop version of your “Name of the Rose.” I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel, “Foucault’s Pendulum,” which is about people who start believing in occult stuff.

But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy and other occult practices explored in the novel. No, in “Foucault’s Pendulum” I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.

Do you care if people read your novels 100 years from now? If somebody writes a book and doesn’t care for the survival of that book, he’s an imbecile.

INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY DEBORAH SOLOMON

By RICHARD PYLE, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 1, 11:14 PM ET

 

NEW YORK - When Debbie Parkhurst choked on a piece of apple at her Maryland home, her dog jumped in, landing hard on her chest and forcing the morsel to pop out of her throat. When the Keesling family of Indiana was about to be overcome by carbon monoxide, their cat clawed at wife Cathy's hair until she woke up and called for help.

For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2 1/2-year-old golden retriever, and Winnie, a gray-eyed American shorthair, were named Dog and Cat of the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In addition, five humans were honored Thursday for their actions toward animals in the past year, including a Bronx firefighter who saved a dog and cat from a burning building.

Neither Parkhurst nor Keesling could explain their pets' timely heroics, though Parkhurst suggested her pooch's Heimlich maneuver might have been guided by divine intervention.

"That's what our veterinarian said," she said. "He wasn't making a joke; he's very spiritual, and now I have to agree with him."

Both pets were themselves rescued in infancy — Toby as a 4-week-old puppy tossed into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Keesling's husband, Eric, had to feed her milk with an eyedropper.

As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used to remove flood waters from their basement in New Castle, Ind., last March malfunctioned, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the time Winnie moved into rescue mode, the couple's 14-year-old son, Michael, was already unconscious.

"Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry meow," Cathy Keesling said. "When I woke up I felt like a T-bar had hit me across the head."

State police and sheriff's officers responding to her 911 call said the family was only minutes from death, judging by the amount of poisonous gas in the house.

Debbie Parkhurst's husband, Kevin, was at his job at a Wilmington, Del., chemical firm when she took a midday break from making jewelery and bit into an apple.

"Normally I peel them, but I read in Good Housekeeping magazine that the skin has all the nutrients, so I ate the skin, and that's what caused me to choke," she recalled.

"I couldn't breathe and I was in panic when Toby jumped on me. He never does that, but he did, and saved my life."

Both Toby and Winnie accompanied their owners to the awards luncheon at Manhattan's posh Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center.

 

Marat Safin is a unique person. Even though he lost his high rankings because of a serious injury, the former world number one is still interesting and intriguing for the fans, spectators and tournament management. And at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow this week he is, no doubt, the major star. Safin hates routine and he’s always sincere – sincere in his actions, behaviour, thoughts and words. That’s what Maria Kuznetsova from “Izvestia” had the chance to make sure of.

 

‘When people have nothing to say, they come up with meddlesome advice’

 

Q: Let’s start with an unusual question. What were your thinking about when you woke up today?

 

MS: I guess, I didn’t think about anything at all, because it all goes automatically – practicing, playing. Waking up automatically, then shower, and then a ride to the courts. Boring… (frowning)

 

Q: Do you make plans then?

 

MS: I never do, just because they never come true. Especially in here, during the tournament. Every minute of the day is fixed till the very evening. The only thing I can make plans about is where I’m going to have dinner.

 

Q: It’s annoying, isn’t it?

 

MS: Not that much, I just don’t like it. I want something new and exciting.

 

Q: What’s annoying then? What is the thing that gets on your nerves?

 

MS: It drives me mad, when some people say “Marat, you’re a talented player, but you should practice more. Usually people, who say something like that, know nothing or very little and have no relation to tennis. They have nothing more to say, so they come up with such advice.

 

Q: And your new coach, Hernán Gumy from Argentina? He comes up with no advice?

 

MS: You see any career has certain stages – the beginning, the middle and the end. When you’re just starting you should practice more, work on some elements, improve some of them... When you’re 25 it’s hard to change anything. I’m already a mature player, and I need a coach who can understand this. He can force me to do one thing, but at the same time he should let some other things go their own way.

 

Q: That’s what Gumy is like?

 

MS: He’s very calm. The point for him is to be this calm while he’s on court and not to make a fuss. Otherwise, you know, I might blow my top off.

 

Q: Blow your top off? Like doing what?

 

MS: Well, I might break my racket, or just tell everyone to… Well, you know how our Russian people swear. I bet you’ve heard workers at a construction site?

 

Q: I have. What else annoys you?

 

MS: Phone calls. If someone is calling, they want something from you. I don’t like answering, and when I don’t people get offended and angry, ask why I haven’t called them back, what’s up. That’s what annoys me the most.

 

Q: And your friends? Who are they?

 

MS: Good question… Almost all of them have some business. But there are also artists. Different people who have been living a long life and who have great experience.

 

Q: And who is Shamil Tarpischev for you?

 

MS: Tarpischev? Shama… A genius coach and a man who easily finds a way out of any situation. He reads people perfectly, gets his ideas straight and has enormous experience. He sees people through – he just needs to talk to them for two minutes. I have a great respect for him.

 

‘I recall my past so as not to walk on air too much’

 

Q: Comparing your old interviews and the more recent ones, it’s easy to see how much calmer and wiser you’ve become. Do you think much about yourself?

 

MS: Depends on what you mean by it. Yes, I think about myself, but not in a narcissistic way. (laughing) You see, it’s important not to get too obsessed with yourself and only yourself. But at the same time you should love yourself. If you can’t love yourself, how can you love anyone else? And people, who are close to us, also need our attention badly.

 

Q: What do you think about your life then?

 

MS: We all try to foresee what we’ll be doing in 5 years. And we set some goals for ourselves, because it’s very difficult to live without any. First a person aims at entering the university, than take a second degree. Then giving everything to work, to climb the career ladder. Thirdly he is just stuck in traffic jams every day. And then, at 50, he is hit by the realization, that he hasn’t actually done anything with his life. He was fussing, running around, but what for…

 

Q: And you yourself?

 

MS: I’m searching. Constantly.

 

Q: You sound like a philosopher or like a priest.

 

MS: Nope, I don’t read the Bible.

 

Q: And what are you reading?

 

MS: The most recent one was “A Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

 

Q: Never thought that you might like books of this kind.

 

MS: And what’s wrong about it? It’s kind of boring to read only classics all the time, I just need something different. So you go for the contemporary literature or something philosophical.

 

Q: What do you consider wealth?

 

MS: The years I’ve lived. I don’t need too much money, a house in Rublevka (the street in Moscow, where most of the rich and the famous live) or a villa in the French Riviera. Wealth for me is not all these material things, it’s a life experience.

 

Q: You once said in an interview, ‘I’m lucky, because I’ve got out of poverty’.

 

MS: That’s not true, I’ve never put it that way. I’ve grown up at VDNH, which is quite a nice district of Moscow. Just the whole situation my family was in was not that great. The four of us were living in the flat of 20 square meters. I know that lots of people had worse conditions, but still.  The point is that then I hadn’t had the actual chance of achieving anything serious in tennis. That’s why I’m saying – I’m lucky. A man appeared who gave money for me to go to Spain. It was a big amount of money – $ 300 000. You could imagine what $300 000 meant in 1994, couldn’t you? That was an inconceivable sum of money. So I’m still very grateful to that sponsor.

 

Q: Do you often go over the past? And what for?

 

MS: I do sometimes... And what for? In order not to loose the feeling of reality. You start to walk above the clouds, and then there it comes – a recollection from childhood, which immediately brings you back to the ground. For instance I go into the supermarket, where the shelves are full of different yummy things, and recall standing in line to buy some sugar. That’s exactly the moment, you know, when you start appreciating your life of today.

 

Q: Have these recollections become an extra stimulus for achieving some success?

 

MS: Of course. Otherwise, who would I have been if I hadn’t got into the tennis elite? Ok, a coach who gets $15 per hour. That might be enough for living, but hardly enough for a family and definitely not enough for buying a flat and a car. And then what? I don’t like this hopeless kind of life.

 

‘I wear pants that cost me $20’

 

Q: You’re thought to be one of the most eligible bachelors of the country. How do you choose girls?

 

MS: Just the same way you choose us. I look at the face and a bit lower.

 

Q: What do you value in women?

 

MS: Personality. Character is not a small thing either.

 

Q: How do you feel about marriage?

 

MS: I’m positive about it. But only after the children are born. After having been living with someone for 15 years you understand if you really love him or her.

 

Q: Not earlier? What happens before then?

 

MS: Love at the very beginning is an illness, a wild and feverous one. Then it transforms into respect, without which two people just can’t live together for long. Or either it does not transform, and to understand this you need time.

 

Q: Are you fashion-conscious?

 

MS: Not really. I don’t wear Versace; I don’t have Dolce&Gabbana or Cavalli jeans. I’m not trying to buy things of the latest fashion – I just don’t need that. I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone. There’s no one to prove anything to, and what for, after all?

 

Q: But you like to dress up smartly and nicely?

 

MS: Just have a look. Now I’m wearing jeans that I’ve bought for $20 on sale in the States, white socks that definitely don’t fit the image, shoes that are probably older than myself and a torn T-shirt.

 

Q: And what about Rolex on your wrist?

 

MS: (laughing) Ah, this… It’s for free. I’m promoting it.

 

Q: But you won’t deny your passion for good cars?

 

MS: No (smiling) I like to be comfortable sitting.

 

Q: What do you prefer?

 

MS: I’ve got two right now – Mercedes and Porsche. The first I got as a present, the second – I bought myself.

 

Q: Well, rather expensive ones…

 

MS: I’ve told you. One is a present. The second I bought with a huge discount - about 50%, it was sold to me by a friend of mine. You should have rich friends with good cars.  (laughing) As Ostap Bender said (the hero of one of the Russian books – The 12 chairs”, and “The Golden Calf”) – a car is not a sign of luxury, but a means of transport.

 

Maria Kuznetsova

 

(Source: http://www.maratsafin.com/)

 It is a scandal in contemporary international law, don't forget,
     that while "wanton destruction of towns, cities and villages" is a
     war crime of long standing, the bombing of cities from airplanes
     goes not only unpunished but virtually unaccused.  Air bombardment
     is state terrorism, the terrorism of the rich.  It has burned up
     and blasted apart more innocents in the past six decades than have
     all the antistate terrorists who ever lived.  Something has
     benumbed our consciousness against this reality.  In the United
     States we would not consider for the presidency a man who had once
     thrown a bomb into a crowded restaurant, but we are happy to elect
     a man who once dropped bombs from airplanes that destroyed not
     only restaurants but the buildings that contained them and the
     neighborhoods that surrounded them.  I went to Iraq after the Gulf
     war and saw for myself what the bombs did; "wanton destruction" is
     just the term for it. 
          C. Douglas Lummis, political scientist {1}

The above was written in 1994, before the wanton destruction generated by the bombing of Yugoslavia,
another in a long list of countries the United States has bombarded since the end of World War II, which is presented below.
     There appears to be something about launching bombs or missiles from afar onto cities and people that appeals to American military and political leaders. In part it has to do with a conscious desire to not risk American lives in ground combat. And in part, perhaps not entirely conscious, it has to do with not wishing to look upon the gory remains of the victims, allowing American GIs and TV viewers at home to cling to their warm fuzzy feelings about themselves, their government, and their marvelous "family values".
     Washington officials are careful to distinguish between the explosives the US drops from the sky and "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD), which only the officially-designated enemies (ODE) are depraved enough to use. The US government speaks sternly of WMD, defining them as nuclear, chemical and biological in nature, and "indiscriminate" (meaning their use can't be limited to military objectives), as opposed to the likes of American "precision" cruise missiles. This is indeed a shaky semantic leg to stand on, given the well-known extremely extensive damage to non-military targets, including numerous residences, schools and hospitals, even from American "smart" bombs, in almost all of the bombings listed below.
     Moreover, Washington does not apply the term "weapons of mass destruction" to other weapons the US has regularly used, such as depleted uranium and cluster bombs, which can be, and often are, highly indiscriminate.
     WMD are sometimes further defined as those whose effects linger in the environment, causing subsequent harm to people. This would certainly apply to cluster bombs, and depleted uranium weapons, the latter remaining dangerously radioactive after exploding.  It would apply less to "conventional" bombs, but even with those there are unexploded bombs lying around, and the danger of damaged buildings later collapsing.  But more importantly, it seems highly self-serving and specious, not to mention exceptionally difficult, to try to paint a human face on a Tomahawk Cruise missile whose payload of a thousand pounds of TNT crashes into the center of a densely-populated city, often with depleted uranium in its warhead.

                                                      A terrorist is someone who has a bomb
                                                             but doesn't have an air force

The bombing list
Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-1961

Guatemala 1960

Congo 1964

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Iran 1987

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)

Kuwait 1991

Somalia 1993

Bosnia 1994, 1995

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

Yemen 2002

Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)

Iraq 2003-05

Afghanistan 2001-05

Plus
Iran, April 2003 -- hit by US missiles during bombing of Iraq, killing at least one persdon {2}

Pakistan, 2002-03 -- bombed by US planes several times as part of combat against the Taliban and other opponents of the US occupation of Afghanistan {3} 

China, 1999 -- its heavily bombed embassy in Belgrade is legally Chinese territory, and it appears rather certain that the bombing was no accident (see chapter 25)

France, 1986 -- After the French government refused the use of its air space to US warplanes headed for a bombing raid on Libya, the planes were forced to take another, longer route; when they reached Libya they bombed so close to the French embassy that the building was damaged and all communication links knocked out.{4}

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1985 -- A bomb dropped by a police helicopter burned down an entire block, some 60 homes destroyed, 11 dead, including several small children. The police, the mayor's office, and the FBI were all involved in this effort to evict a black organization called MOVE from the house they lived in.

Them other guys are really shocking
"We should expect conflicts in which adversaries, because of cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms and levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities."
                                                                                    Department of Defense, 1999 {5}

The Targets
It's become a commonplace to accuse the United States of choosing as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns was carried out against the people of the former Yugoslavia -- white, European, Christians. The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (1) It poses a sufficient obstacle to the desires of the American Empire; (2) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.

The survivors
A study by the American Medical Association: "Psychiatric disorders among survivors of the
1995 Oklahoma City bombing":

             Nearly half the bombing survivors studied had an active postdisaster
                  psychiatric disorder, and full criteria for PTSD [posttraumatic stress
                  disorder] were met by one third of the survivors. PTSD symptoms were
                  nearly universal, especially symptoms of intrusive reexperience and
                  hyperarousal.{6}

Martin Kelly, publisher of a nonviolence website:

             We never see the smoke and the fire, we never smell the blood, we
             never see the terror in the eyes of the children, whose nightmares
             will now feature screaming missiles from unseen terrorists, known
             only as Americans.

NOTES
1. The Nation, September 26, 1994, p.304

2. RFE/RL Newsline, April 9, 2003 (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a "private" international communications service in Europe and Asia funded by the US government.)

3. Washington Post, January 1, 2003, Australian Broadcasting Company, January 1, 2003, Agence France Presse, September 19, 2003

4. Associated Press, "France Confirms It Denied U.S. Jets Air Space, Says Embassy Damaged", April 15, 1986

5. U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, "New World Coming" (Phase I Report), September 15, 1999, p.3

6. Journal of the American Medical Association, August 25, 1999, p.761

This is a chapter from the book Rogue State: A Guide to the

World's Only Superpower, by William Blum