PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS: “Most agree on this: The United States has an image problem,” says Sun-Times’s Lynn Sweet in today’s column over-ambitiously entitled, “What in the world awaits Condi?” as in Condoleezza Rice, our new sec. of state. Muslims and Canadians do not approve of our war in Iraq, for instance. Golly.

The goal is “to advance U.S. interests and security and to provide the moral basis for U.S. leadership in the world” by “public” diplomacy, says Sweet. An undersecretary’s position, currently empty, would normally handle this.

“There is a sense of urgency,” she says, felt by whom she does not say. She discusses this “public” diplomacy in spin-control terms: counter the lie right away, nip lies in buds.

But then she notes that the “regarded” Colin Powell, apparently meaning well-regarded, did not travel enough and so neglected “personal” diplomacy, staying home to protect his Rumsfeld-threatened turf. But Rice’s turf is not threatened. So:

“Rice should start traveling.

“A lot.”

(Paragraph structure in original.)

The unfilled-undersecretary-post problem is left behind.

Definitely.

Then (no transition) we are told about Congr. Henry Hyde, who “wrote . . . public diplomacy-related provisions in” (into?) a bill intended to reform our intelligence operation.

What’s more, we have not enough translators. This problem is “massive,” in case you thought the lack of both public and private diplomacy was big.

Wait. “Back on [to?] public diplomacy.” Period.

(Sweet’s mother was scared by a telegraph operator, as boys in the 40s gibed about an untoward penchant: the penchant-holder’s mother had a nasty fright during pregnancy, leaving the holder with said penchant. If a kid repeated himself, his mother had been scared by a broken phonograph needle. Not brilliant but serviceable on the playground.)

Then Sweet speaks of a “Broadcasting Board of Governors” and its “startups” since Sept. 11, 2001.

“But public diplomacy is more than just good PR,” she writes, meaning radio programs – the “startups” just mentioned. Then she names more things to do, including “grants to developing nations to develop its [their?] own free press, putting content on the Internet and increasing money into [italics added] Arabic and Chinese language training. It’s the whole message.”

I’ll say. But excuse me. I have to go increase some money into the parking meter. They are nasty about that stuff in Oak Park, demonstrating no diplomacy whatever.

Can’t imagine who’s doing a better job in Fallujah than Chi Trib’s James Janega, here with another day in the city that became a battlefield. He eyeballed the aftermath in houses, spotting family pictures and sandbags (used by insurgents), dusty Koran and English-speaking textbook, prayer rug and teacups, a can of men’s black hair color with “Happy Days Again” written on it in English.

In one such house, he writes, an insurgent waited in the dark and when a five-man U.S. squad opened the door, rolled a grenade toward them that killed one and wounded four. Claim cards are left in each house so that the owners can eventually be compensated by us.

EMBEDDED . . . Chi Trib’s James Janega showed up for work again in Fallujah, hanging out with GIs including Sgt. Marc Veen, 24, of Chicago, watching him at his rooftop post plugging an enemy sniper. “He would have gotten one of my buddies,” Veen told him.

He was with them as they rested or slept. One marked a grenade he meant to launch later. “This is 4 my buddy,” he inscribed. His buddy had been killed the previous day. “It hurts,” said the sergeant, from Norristown, Pa., who’d been at it for three days. “I can’t really think about it because I have to look out for my guys.”

“Grief he pushed off,” wrote Janega. “Rage he kept.”

The dead buddy’s wife (now widow) “lives across the street from my wife,” the Pa. sergeant said softly. “I’m all about fighting.”

Later the chaplain, preaching in a ruined kitchen, quoted St. Paul: “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” He spoke “with his right hand raised and eyes clenched shut, ignoring muffled blasts from the street.”

“We pray to the heavenly father for our wives, our children, our parents. . . ” he said. “Give us victory, victory, victory.”

=======
A few weeks ago, in Chicago, Janega was reporting on what Judge Anne Burke told Loyola U. audiences about clergy abuse and bishops. I noticed a change in the electronic version, with the notation that a mistake had been corrected and thought, that’s 21st-century journalism: mistakes can be corrected.

I emailed Janega to that effect, and he got back, full of apology for making the mistake in the first place. He surprised me with that. Reporters err; it was correcting the error that had struck me. The guy is conscientious, as is clear from this battlefield reportage.

Chi Trib’s James Janega rode a tank to work. If Sun-Times man Tom Fitzpatrick got a Pulitzer for on-spot reporting for his deadline piece on Weatherman rioting in Chicago in the 70s, what about the guy who tells us what the tank gunner says — “Wow. We’re the only ones left here” — when word comes of enemy success up ahead in the mean streats of Fallujah?

Copy editing Chi Trib (somebody has to do it):

Consider this of 11/12/04, “Experts see states as force in fighting global warming,” in which Stevenson Swanson and his editors can’t decide if he’s talking about warming or states or Bush, who won’t sign the Kyoto treaty.

NEW YORK — [Delete: With the re-election of President Bush, state governments and big business will likely be the biggest forces pushing policies and developing innovative technologies aimed at reducing U.S. emissions of the gases scientists say are causing global warming.]

[Delete: That forecast by leaders in the environmental and business communities is based on the Bush administration’s opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement that seeks to cut the amount of so-called greenhouse gases that enter the atmosphere, where they trap heat.]

The nation’s environmental and business leadership is unanimous in its opinion that what Bush won’t do about global warming, someone else will have to do, namely the states and big business. [If not unanimous, then what? Don’t just say leaders. How many, please, if that’s not too much to ask.]

The Kyoto treaty, which Bush rejected, requires industrialized countries to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-changing substances on average by 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels.

[Delete: When the president] Bush [we know he’s the president] rejected the treaty in 2001 [Delete: he said the agreement was], calling it fatally flawed because it excluded developing nations [Delete: such as], including China and India. Forcing U.S. businesses to reduce their emissions while letting companies in those countries off the hook would drive up the cost of American products and cost jobs, Bush said.

[Delete: An August report by an administration official indicated that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere was the most likely explanation for global warming, a shift from the administration’s previous position of emphasizing the scientific uncertainties of climate change.]

In support of Bush, the administration emphasized the scientific uncertainties of climate change but in August reported [Delete: report by an administration official indicated] that global warming [Delete: the buildup of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere was] is the most likely explanation [Delete: for,] thus producing significant doublespeak. [just kidding about the doublespeak reference, which is what Swanson means or what he says means if he doesn’t know it but may constitute editorializing]

But Bush still believes that rejecting [Delete: the] Kyoto [Delete: accord] was [Delete: the] right [Delete: move], Environmental Protection Agency Administrator [top dog? source of just mentioned August report, unaccountably unsourced by Swanson?] Mike Leavitt [yes, top dog: I looked him up; he’s Michael O. Leavitt, former governor of Utah, though apparently just good old Mike to Swanson] told [Delete: The] Associated Press since the election. [Delete: in a postelection interview with]

In any case [got to have transition here, can’t just string things together, even if the items are pearls], the administration favors voluntary over mandatory measures [Delete: programs] to reduce the emissions from automobiles, power plants and factories that Kyoto supporters blame for warming. Moreover, the administration has [Delete:] also allocated several billion dollars to support [Delete: the] development of new technologies such as hydrogen cells that [Delete: would] power cars without producing carbon dioxide. But such technologies are thought to be many years away from widespread use.

. . . etc. etc., all to make Swanson’s meaning clear, so as to keep readers’ attention.
=================================
More more more, from (now) several blocks away, in the Apparel Center . . . Sun-Times religion writer Cathleen Falsani, who often takes a celebrity approach to her beat – her Hugh Hefner interview comes to mind. – had an 11/12/04 interview with a considerably more attractive subject, a woman who saved Jews from Nazis in the 40s. She opened with fairly feckless questioning: “What is morality? Who is moral? And whose morals are we talking about anyway” but then declined to enter this “Great Moral Debate of ‘04,” writing, “I will demure.”

No. She will be demure about it – reserved, modest, shy? Hardly. No “be” is missing, but an “e” has sneaked in to do damage to her message. She will “demur” – show reluctance. And even then she’s doing more than show reluctance; she is declining or even refusing.

How does one know this? One looks it up in the Compact OED, here and here. The origin “perhaps” of each is the Old French “demourer” – ‘remain, stay’, influenced by ‘mur’ – ‘grave.’ The noun “grave,” so that one is quiet as …? Or the adjective, so that one is very (“tres”) serious. I do not know. I am a copy editor, not a lexicologist.