February 06, 2004, 9:20 a.m.
Another car from Cuba, friends in the dungeon, an American drop-out, and more

Friends, have you seen the latest one? The latest car to try to cross from Cuba to the United States? This time, it's a Buick. A cousin of one of the "drivers" — one of the escapees — said, "My cousin isn't crazy. He wants to be free."

As simple, true, and beautiful a statement as can be uttered.

Speaking of beautiful things: Our friend Jian-li Yang — along with countless others, of course — still languishes in some Chinese dungeon. (That's not beautiful: but Jian-li is.) According to reports, two State Department officials recently raised his case in Beijing, along with that of Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighur businesswoman who was jailed for "providing state secrets to foreign institutions" after she sent newspaper clippings to her husband in the U.S.

You remember Randall Robinson? He was the head of TransAfrica, in Washington, who went on a hunger strike in order to get President Clinton to invade Haiti. He did. Robinson is also a major, major apologist for Fidel Castro, perhaps his favorite world leader.

Well, he has now left the United States and written a book about it: Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land. He went to St. Kitts, where his wife was born. (Nice spot.) Why did he leave America? He told an interviewer, "America is a huge fraud, clad in a narcissistic conceit and satisfied with itself, feeling unneedful of any self-examination nor responsibility to right past wrongs, of which it notices none. It's the kind of fraud that simply wears you out."

I believe that now America is slightly less fraudulent without Randall Robinson in it.

Speaking of Cuba (sort of): Robert Redford has created a movie valentine to Che Guevara, which won raves at Sundance, of course, and raves in Cuba, where Redford flew after Sundance — raves from regime officials and friends, that is. The fair-haired actor stayed at the National Hotel, an establishment that, as an expert has reminded me, "forbids entry to ordinary Cubans, who cannot even step on hotel grounds." (Specially screened ones are allowed to do the washing up, of course.)

But none dare call it apartheid — that is only for South Africa.

Forgive my repeated playing of the Cuba-apartheid theme, but so few others, relatively speaking, join in!

When in Europe recently, I got the old line I've always gotten: Americans won't learn foreign languages, they're stupid and insular, blah, blah, blah.

I have contended with this since at least college days, and don't know other than to answer as I always have: Knowledge of foreign languages is rarely a matter of intellectual or moral virtue; it is usually a matter of practicality, of geographic accident. America is a big continental nation, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On our northern border, we have an Anglophone country, with a tiny pocket that is (partly) French-speaking. In the Southwest, we border a Spanish-speaking country. And in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, plenty of people are bilingual — just as you'd expect. And in southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, plenty of people are bilingual — just as you'd expect. (And that's not even counting Miami.)

Sure, if we lived in southeastern Switzerland, we'd probably know German, French, Italian, and Romansch. But guess what? We don't!

And then there's the fact that English is the lingua franca of the world. We are not to blame, individually; it is simply so.

By the way, I always loved that Sen. S. I. Hayakawa — remember his "trademark tam-o'-shanter"? — spearheaded the U.S. English movement, for he was a renowned linguist, in addition to a pol.

And this one was circulated to me via the Internet — perhaps you've seen it too:

"An officer in the U.S. Naval reserve was attending a conference that included admirals from both the U.S. Navy and the French Navy. At a cocktail reception, he found himself in a small group that included personnel from both navies. The French admiral started complaining that whereas Europeans learned many languages, Americans learned only English. He then asked: 'Why is it that we have to speak English in these conferences rather than you speak French?' Without hesitating, the American admiral replied: 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you would not have to speak German.' The group became silent."

I don't know whether this is true, and I'm not necessarily endorsing the cheek. But it's kind of fun, huh?

A friend pointed out to me this article explaining how the International Herald Tribune is worse than the New York Times, when it comes to bias in Mideast reporting. The IHT apparently "sexes up" the stories it reprints from the Times, putting an even slantier anti-Israel slant on them. Curious.

You will recall that, in previous columns, we have spoken of Meghan Howard, the Harvard kid who stood up to the Chinese Number One when he appeared at that school. Miss Howard is a supporter of the Tibetan cause. And the Harvard administration has come down on her for her disruption. Because, you know, that's what it always does: penalize students for disrupting various events for political reasons. (That was a joke: Leftist students who do such things are patted on the head for their conscientiousness and good citizenship.)

Anyway:

"Dear Mr. Nordlinger,

"I am the father of Meghan C. Howard, the Harvard undergraduate who displayed a Tibetan flag while China's premier spoke at the Harvard Business School. You may be interested to know that Harvard's Administrative Board, after a hearing, admonished my daughter and will place a letter in her file.

"I am so proud of her. When she was a girl, the suffering of the Tibetans moved her. She founded the first Students for a Free Tibet chapter in the area at her high school, facilitated the founding of other chapters, and organized marches publicizing China's cynical attempt to control Tibet's future via the detention of a child, Tibet's Panchen Lama. (Savor the arrogance of an atheistic government claiming to discover the rebirth of a previous Tibetan leader!) At 17 — when she was apolitical, on domestic issues — she heard George W. Bush's acceptance speech to the GOP convention on television. Inspired, she wrote him a letter of support (all this without conscious influence by her parents) and has defended his policies despite the intellectually uncomprehending environment of Harvard and most of her fellows in the Free Tibet movement."

Go, Meghan.

The other day, I associated "Politics is the art of the possible" with Hubert Humphrey, who liked to repeat it. I suppose I'll always associate the phrase with him (along with the super-vacuous "politics of joy" — remember that one?). Anyway, a scholar writes to me to say that, really, Bismarck is the author — or the popularizer — of that definition. But I'm sure that, if we dug far enough, we could tunnel all the way to Greece!

The below letter relates to an Impromptu that some of you may remember, published during the run-up to the Iraq war:

"Dear Mr. Nordlinger,

"I am saddened but at the same time proud to share with you the news of an Albanian emigrant enlisted in the American military and killed in action in Iraq this past month.

"Ervin Dervishi was an American and Albanian hero who fought and died for freedom. He was a Muslim who believed in America's just war against terrorism and fundamentalism. Those months ago, I e-mailed you a response to Mark Shields's comments on Albania and its support of the United States. [Shields had mocked Albanian participation in the coalition.] In light of this news, I cannot imagine what Mr. Shields would say — probably would spin it as blood on President Bush's hands."

"Dear Mr. Nordlinger,

"My high school recently hired a young man to work in the PE program and to help out as an assistant coach on the boys' basketball team, for which I play. This young man, who grew up in a nearby town, served a tour of duty in Iraq not so long ago for the Army; I'm reasonably sure he saw action. He's about six feet tall and built like a block of solid marble — one look at him and you know he's the kind of guy defending your country. He's also one of the friendliest people I know.

"At some point it entered my mind that I ought to write a feature article on him for the school paper, a monthly publication I help put together. After all, it was a real story to have a bona fide U.S. soldier coaching basketball. I approached him one evening, the lead paragraph already written out in my head, to ask if I could interview him about his experiences in Iraq. Looking at me square in the eye, the affable smile never disappearing from his features, he responded immediately: 'Not a chance.'

"Then I realized just how proud I was that people like him were (and are) putting their lives on the line for people like me. He wanted no fanfare — not even in the newspaper of a 900-student suburban high school. God bless him and every single one of his comrades: the finest, bravest, humblest warriors the world has ever known."

I didn't know that such high-school students existed, ladies and gentlemen, but there you are — and the writing was clean as a hound's tooth, let me tell you.

In one of those Davos Journals — or rather, one of those entries in the Davos Journal — I wrote something that made me queasy even as I typed: I referred to a southern CEO "whose sweet drawl can't conceal an exceptionally sharp mind."

I got many, many letters expressing disappointment in me. (One of them began, "Love you, dude, but . . .") I did not mean to imply that sharp minds and sweet drawls don't go together; what I was trying to say was that this particular sweet drawl — and a sweet persona generally — couldn't hide what was obviously a very, very hard head for business.

Is that any better? Maybe not, but I ask my readers in Dixie to forgive me, or to look away, look away . . .

"Jay, you write about the use of Bach in advertising. I want you to know that I discovered Bach through a 15-second Gatorade spot, the music from which moved me to tears (still living that one down)."

Nothing to live down — you're living it up!

"Dear Mr. Nord [really, that's what it says]: Would you provide a merciful linguistic service by reminding us that the plural form of email is email?"

No! I'm afraid that "e-mails" is the plural for me. And I can't do without that hyphen: "email" doesn't look right, somehow. And "prowar" is really for the birds (I suppose "antiwar" is slightly better, but maybe I just see it more).

Do you want to see what ABCNews.com says about Chinese human-rights abuses? Check it out, y'all:

"PARIS Jan. 27 — China's president was given the rare honor Tuesday of speaking before France's parliament, but some lawmakers critical of the Chinese government's human rights record said they would boycott the speech.

"Even as their leader, French president Jacques Chirac, rolled out the red carpet for China's Hu Jintao, and reaffirmed France's support for the unity of China and Taiwan, at least 15 lawmakers party said they would skip the speech to protest perceived Chinese human rights abuses."

Uh-huh, that's right, baby: You can take your "perceptions" and . . .

"Jay, I wanted to give you an interesting fact about Silvan Shalom, whom you wrote about: He's not only Israel's foreign minister, he's also a native of Tunisia who speaks Arabic and who currently lives in Israel because his family was ethnically cleansed from their native country back in the '50s. Somehow that aspect of his biography goes unappreciated."

I'll say.

Finally, "Dear Jay: I am a dedicated Impromptus-ite, I never miss one, but what in the living *@$!# is a 'master class'? Back in the late '60s, I dropped my NR subscription after one too many passages in untranslated French."

A master class is a class in which a musician — usually of some renown, usually a performer as well — teaches students before an audience, for the benefit of the students and the audience alike.

C’est assez clair, j’espère? Just kidding. Just kidding!

Au revoir, y'all.

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