My front yard, So many trucks have run over that corner that we've had to pull out the first bush, so that when this blog post begins we only have five healthy yew bushes. This will be important information in about four paragraphs.
Boy, I've had an eventful morning, one that demonstrates to me the enormous complications inherent in relations of all kinds. As I read the papers this morning I must admit I was feeling a little sanctimonious. It was the news about North Korea that got me. To recap, back in 2002, North Korea was one of three nations in Mr. Bush's "axis of evil," toward which the Bush administration was going to take a hardline, confrontational approach. In other words -- no talking. Relations between the two countries were broken off.
People like me, who preferred diplomatic engagement to Bush's isolationist tactics, criticized this decision. And in fact, while Bush employed the silent treatment against Pyongyang, the North Koreans went off and developed enough raw materials to create 6-10 nuclear weapons.
Bush changed his tactics during his second term. American diplomats started talking with North Korea again. Probably this about-face came from listening less to Vice-President Dick Cheney and more to more diplomatically-minded figures, such as Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Whatever the reason, the change in tactics worked. Yesterday came the news that North Korea had agreed to a set of regulations that would halt its ability to create the raw materials for nuclear weapons. And today, North Korea detonated a cooling tower for a nuclear reactor, a mostly symbolic gesture that nevertheless made for some entertaining theatre.
So around 8:25 a.m. I was feeling pretty good about the power of engagement in solving diplomatic affairs. I had a live interview scheduled for 8:30 a.m. with CKCU's Sue Johnston, and I was killing time as I waited for her call -- reading in the Globe about a giant ecstasy bust in BC, actually, which police said was good because drug-producing labs are really bad for the environment. Pretty funny angle, I was thinking -- social acceptance of a drug like ecstasy being so entrenched that police have to resort to saying its bad for the earth to get people upset about its use. And then, outside, I heard a truck turning into the alley next to my house.
I stood up and watched. My house is immediately next to an alley, and the turnoff from the street is pretty tight, so there's a risk, if the truck driver isn't careful, that the truck's rear tires will run over the hedge that edges my property. This truck driver demonstrated he wasn't careful. He ran over the edge of my lot, completely smushing one of the five yew bushes that grow there. I rushed out my front door and headed down the alley to stop the driver, who at this point was trying to make another turn -- and this time, on that turn, he crunched into the corner of my back shed.
The driver got out. I recognized him -- it was the stepfather-in-law of one of my neighbours, who is moving out today. "Hey," I said, "you just ran over my hedge." He looked crestfallen. "Did I?" he asked. "Apologies for that -- these U-Haul trucks are hard to maneuver."
"Not only that," I said, "but you crunched the back corner of my shed here."
"Oh no," he said. "I didn't do that."
"I heard you," I said. "I saw it happen." And I pointed to the crumpled section of the corner, immediately at the level of the U-Haul truck's bumper.
He looked at it. He said, "That was already there."
I guess the escalation started there. I told him I thought he was being ridiculous, given that I had both seen and heard the collision, and the fact there were fresh scratches at the same level as the U-Haul bumper. And he said that I would regret it if I kept saying he was being ridiculous. "Geez Louise," I said. "You don't have to be a dick about it." And then he said, "Who are you calling a dick?" And somehow through all this we had stepped toward each other until we were chest to chest. I watched his eyes. The way that you can with some people I realized he was considering throwing a punch. Shoot -- at that moment, it wasn't all that far from my mind.
Two things happened simultaneously. My cell phone rang, and his wife appeared from the back door of my neighbour's house. "Come inside, _______," she called out, speedwalking toward our little Cuban Missile Crisis. "I'm sorry for this," she said to me as she pulled her husband away. "He's under an enormous amount of stress, we're trying to move, we've got to get the truck back."
"He ran over my hedge," I said, stupidly. And then I realized the cell phone calling must be Sue Johnston from CKCU. "He should be more careful."
By that point, they were in their backyard. And I speedwalked into my house to call Sue back on my landline. Twenty seconds later I was in a live on-air interview before the Ottawa radio audience of CKCU. Which actually went really well -- maybe the effects of the adrenalin. Much of the interview was spent talking about The Soviet Ambassador, and the way Yakovlev's story is a case study demonstrating the power of engagement. I even brought up current events in North Korea to argue my case.
However, my little neighbourhood confrontation helped me to learn an important lesson. The Bush administration's mistake in North Korea wasn't necessarily breaking off diplomatic relations when it did. Sometimes, breaking off relations is a good thing -- as it was today, during my little diplomatic imbroglio. Perhaps the Bush administration's real mistake was to bring absolute, black-and-white thinking to diplomacy. I should wrap this up -- we're heading out of town for a camping trip, today, and I need to get packing. So what's my conclusion? Not exactly sure. Something about the value of flexibility in relations of all kinds, and the damage that can be wrought by black-and-white, confrontational thinking. Clearly this is a theme that requires some return consideration.
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