Ms. Harris Goes to Washington

Last week I decided I had to get out of here, even just for the day. So I popped off to Washington for a meeting of the National Council of US-Arab Relations. And why not? I’m on their mailing list. The topic was “What Lies Ahead for America in Arabia and the Gulf? Analyses and Prognosis.” Well, Okay.

Here’s from their website:

“Congressional & Public Affairs Briefings

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations periodically sponsors public educational programs on Capitol Hill and around Washington, DC where an assemblage of domestic and internationally renowned specialists analyze, discuss, and debate issues of importance to the relationship between the U.S. and the Arab countries, the Middle East, and the Islamic world. These events examine how best to strengthen and expand mutual Arab-U.S. trust, confidence, and benefits while examining a range of complex issues, interests, and policies.”

There were a few guys, from the Gulf Research Center:

Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, Chairman and Founder, Gulf Research Center
Dr. Christian Koch, Director, Gulf Research Center Foundation
Dr. Mustafa Alani, Senior Advisor and Research Program Director, Gulf Research Center

The moderator was

Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President and CEO, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations

I’m not sure what to make of this. Strangely, the NCUSAR is a charity, dedicated to promoting understanding across cultures. A noble goal, surely, but……? Giving money to help the US and the Gulf counties make more deals strikes me as a little disingenuous. Think I’ll continue with Medecins sans Frontiers, myself.

The guys on the panel were all knowledgeable, and I’m sure they spoke well. I have no memory of what anyone said though, except that the overall essence was that the GCC is some sort of solid block and should act as such? And many of us know that Oman and KSA, just to randomly pull two names out of the air, are a wee bit different. In every way. I couldn’t help but feel that Oman is above lots of this stuff, in the sense that Oman’s (HM’s) goal for the country seems to be for the improvement of people’s lives, not just a few people. (Yes, yes I know it’s not perfect.)

Maybe it was just over my head. Judging from the discussion, it looks like there will in fact be a future between the US and Arabia, surprise surprise. There were a couple of American guys in the audience who had served in Oman (as diplomats) and they seemed nice and normal. For that kind of thing I mean. I felt I couldn’t read the subtext.I will go to another one sometime and maybe be more receptive as I'll know what to expect.

I guess I just feel a huge disconnect between my ideas etc and those of these policymakers. Of course! But really, when I think about it, shouldn’t there be some similarities? I am American. I have a business in the Gulf. I am constantly trying to understand this language and culture, and misunderstandings are one of the biggest pitfalls, especially in Salalah. I even deal in oil, albeit another kind of oil! Anyway, to trot out my old metaphor, I felt like a cat in a cabbage field.

They had nice food though.

Perfectly understandable was the sweet little Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center. Of course, it’s completely adorable. A cute, bricked, plant festooned walk with tables outside in the middle of a blossoming garden lead you to the unassuming door in this Dupont Circle townhouse. They have an exhibition going on downstairs, highlighting some of Oman’s many crafts. Oman really has a colorful and rich craft history: fabrics, frankincense, silver, copper, weaving, leather, kanjals (Ceremonial daggers) and the like. In fact, it’s common for other, nameless countries in the vicinity to appropriate these crafts and then pretend they are originally theirs. Such behavior is of course common, even in my business, but whereas in my case it’s just creepy and very “Single White Female,” in Oman’s case it’s the whole national heritage!

This exhibition attests to the rich variety of Oman’s culture and heritage. The visiting artisans who went to Santa Fe for the Folk Market this summer made many of the pieces on display. Some beautiful things to be sure!

I talked to a friendly young American scholar, who was about as enthusiastic and knowledgeable as can be. It’s weird to talk to an American who has been to Salalah. Good-weird I mean. I am almost over eager to hear their impression. I kept grilling him on his impressions of Salalah.

Anyway, I didn’t stay too long as I was on my way to this other thing.

But if you are in Washington, stop by the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, small, sweet, surprisingly rich and very friendly and interesting! Just like Oman!

If you live in NYC, I recommend going to Washington, for the day at least. It’s clean, friendly, quiet, polite and well put together. Roses bloom right on the street, wallah. No wonder people think we’re a superpower. Gone are the old impressions Washington used to painfully give. I’m sure there’re still plenty of horrors (I mean of the drug/street/crime variety,) but I saw just quietly humming metros with excellent low lighting, good sandwiches, and plenty of announcements of free and high quality things to do. And, maybe, there is a lot of belief around. There is an earnestness. People go to Washington with an agenda, to get something done, and they believe strongly enough in it to go to Washington about it. The escape from constant cynicism is a relief. You do see the nuts (whomever you think they are) because everyone is there, but it’s their capital too, after all. I encountered no hostility, no aggression, and no one following me down the street begging for my money, my time, and my signature. Everyone said hello. Some of them even introduced themselves. People even stood aside to let others off the train before they boarded. I swear.

Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center in Washington DC

National Council on US-Arab Relations

Gulf Research Center

We Have Lost so Much

I see flashes and hear sounds of that country I was from, the United States.

I didn’t expect to feel anything today.

There is so little authenticity now, everything is for show. It seems there are no emotions left, except those ones somehow accepted by this new world: anger, hatred, triumph, vengeance, pride, outrage, glee. Nothing deeper.

I guess plenty of us do remember the world of only a decade ago. You could see people crying and quietly resting while Paul Simon sang and while the names are read.

It’s hard to describe.

Whatever happened, all you intellectuals can debate it.

But those planes—such a load of hate, such a violent explosion of hate.

And, stupidly, hastily and predictably, we answered in kind. In so doing, we lost ourselves.

Much of the memorial today is beautiful. Singing. Water.

But there is still plenty of the same old moronic war and vengence talk.

Did “the terrorists” win? You bet they did.

But perhaps “terrorists” needs to be better understood. Who are they, really?

Our way of life? Gone.

Our country? Done.

I mean this in the way that I think matters, and it’s hard to explain if you are not American, or if you are very young. The parts of America that appear to matter to the ones in charge are not the parts I would have thought.

Locked in perpetual war, in economic free fall, civil rights lost, every personal moment caught on TV, private lives trotted out on the internet, spy cameras everywhere, our moral standing in ruins, a small group of wastafarians and corporations running everything, concentration and conversation disappearing in favor of twitter updates and sound bites……the effort to live like a real human being becomes harder and more frustrating.

What did we gain from the attacks on September 11? We accessed some dark part of ourselves and it got out, and took over. We did the same thing as was done to us, even though we hurt enough to turn that hurt into something else. We didn’t take that road though. We took the easier one, the war one, the one that humans usually take. And so here we are, once again in the circle of history.

We humans are truly morons. We never learn.

I am so glad I was here on September 11. I will always remember it, the terror, the heartbreak, the horror. The smell. The other hurt people, and the possibility that together, something good would come out of it.

Now, 10 years later, it’s like waking up in a strange land.

I don't know who to credit this picture with. I'm sorry.

Don't Blink, or the World Might Change and You'll Never Find it the Same Way Again

I want to write about something that has nothing to to with anything I usually write about, as I'm completely fed up with just about everything right now.

Long ago, as a tot, I used to watch a cartoon. It was black and white, and had three animals in it, and there was something about outer space. I used to watch it in the far corner of the house where I could watch tv and be forgotten about.

One day my parents came in and said let's go, we're going to buy a new car, and they turned off the tv. Well, I just howled because I loved that show and now I was going to miss it! My parents weren't too interested in my hysteria, for God sake I could watch it tomorrow. Or next week. Whenever it was on.

Off we went to the Chrysler dealership, with the new car smells and those little colored flags that fluttered all over the parking lot. My brother was probably still in blob-stage. It was Los Angeles 1969.

The next time I tuned into that show--It was called the Incredible 3, or the Amazing 3, it wasn't on. In fact, it was never on again! Yes, this is true, never! I remember crying more to my parents but of course they had no answers and obviously weren't going to pursue what happened to a cartoon. I missed it though! The characters we all animals and they did good things!
But it never came back on!

Worse, it completely disappeared! As I grew older, and would occasionally ask people if they remembered it, none did. Ever. I couldn't even rememer the name exactly.
Maybe I was making it up.

For the next 40 years I wondered, intermittently, about this show, if it ever existed. No one ever knew. I asked a couple of animator friends. Nope. Asked people from Disney. Nothing. Even the ones who grew up in LA like me. Not like I was obsessed, but if I met someone really into animation, I sometimes asked. It just seemed weird and kind of nightmarish that not only was it never on again, and never in the TV guide, but that no one ever knew about it.

I asked a film archivist. And a few other people at PBS, and various studios over the years. Obviously, I had made it up, and it's only a cartoon anyway. Even though it's not important it disturbed me on a deep level because if this was not true, then what else??!

Once or twice I asked people who were really interested, as they were cartoon mavens and thought they knew every one of them but hadn't heard of this. And these people would really look! But no one ever found anything.

Until one day Stacy did! On the internet of course. God knows how.

It was a Japanese cartoon! The Amazing 3. A cartoon that took on very progressive subjects, peace, poverty etc. This was during the American war in Vietnam. The idea being some space travelers were visiting the earth to see if it had to be destroyed to keep peace in the rest of the universe! They sucked up the first three creatures they found, and used their bodies as disguises: a horse, a duck and a rabbit. Needless to say, there was no hope for us, too warlike, and we were scheduled for demolition, but given a temporary reprieve at the last minute until the earth kid who pleaded our case said we could grow to love each other if we had time to mature up and so we were given the same time it would take him to grow up.





Apparently, the entire English-dubbed series in America was lost in a studio fire, probably right after I watched that last episode when my parents hauled me off to the Chrysler lot! Years later some surfaced in Australia, somehow, and the clips you can see on the internet are those. The show in Japanese ran for years, I think. It started in 1965 but LA didn't receive it until 1969.

I think it was only shown in LA and NY and only for a short time. So if you weren't a little kid in 1969, and didn't have a TV you could get away with watching on your own, then you didn't know about this show and even though there are apparently some fans out there eager to see the series anew, I don't think it has critical interest.

But for many Americans of a certain age, and perhaps a certain geographical area, those childhood TV shows for the bulk of our collective cultural memory. Sad perhaps but true. If you live in a country with traditions, you might find this funny, or sad or laughable, and even if you live in other parts of the US, like the Midwest or east. But for some of us.....those TV shows were a pretty big deal and still made up a large percent of collective memory. Not all, but plenty. I stopped watching TV in 1974. Maybe that's why I turned out like this.

Anyway, I found the whole thing interesting. Mostly I think because it feeds my sense of paranoia. And how a kids fears can so easily materialize. How do you know there aren't monsters under your bed? Or some freak hiding in the closet? Has it ever happened to you? Something that was important disappearing, and no one else recollecting it?

Amazing 3 anime site
Amazing 3 wiki