A Propos of the Wet Snow – (Based on “Notes From Underground” by Feodor Dostoevsky) in Chicago

Press Release
For Immediate Release : October 2008
Contact: Zygmunt Dyrkacz 773.278.1500
info@chopintheatre.com

Performance: I- Fest 2008, Best of European Solo Acts

Description: Fourth edition of I-Fest presents Mr. Oleg Liptsin taking on Dostoevsky’s "A Propos of the Wet Snow " and Mr. William El-Gardi taking on the Shakespeare inspired Yasser by Abdelkader Benali.

I-Fest performances (15 from 10 countries in past 3 years –- Austria, England, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine) give a stage to nonconforming citizens. They choose their language, material and art form closest to their own I. They represent the growing population of individuals influenced by 21st Century new realities -- global culture, international migration, mixed marriages, and even world cuisine and attire. They dispel the myths of collective identities, often used for political and social simplification and manipulation. Reality is much richer than what’s in a name.

O. Liptsin is a Russian Ukrainian and a Catholic Jew whose artistic partner is a Taiwanese woman. Sudanese Egyptian born Muslim W. El-Gardi immigrated to Switzerland and is now a citizen of the United Kingdom. The author of his play, Yasser, was born in Morrocco and now, similar to the director Teunkie van der Sluijs, is a citizen of the Netherlands. This very well received play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was produced by the British Theatre Tours International.

So it is fitting that I-Fest is produced also by a couple of Polish/African American misfits. It also illustrates that international theater, in whatever simple and inexpensive way, can still be shown in our City.

I-Fest will also featuring the following panel discussions
The State of Race
Shakespeare meets the Middle East
Pan European collaboration in theater practices
Staging the one-man show for Edinburgh Festival

Location: Chopin Theatre - 1543 West Division

Dates/Times: 10/28, 31 - 7p/830p 11/1, 6, 7, 8 – 7p/830p 11/2, 9 – 3p/430p
The U.S. premiere of Yasser (60 min) will be followed by intermission and A propos… (90 min.)

Tickets: $15/ea. or 2 for $20. Tix: 773-278-1500

Supporters: British Council, Consul General of the Netherlands, Wicker Park/Bucktown SSA#33

More info: http://www.studiodubbelagent.com/yasser.html
http://www.internationaltheaterensemble.com/A_PROPOS_OF_THE_WET_SNOW.html
www.i-fest.com

The Presentations

Yasser is an uncompromising, yet playful monologue by award-winning writer Abdelkader Benali. Yasser Mansour is a young, idealistic and fervent Palestinian actor, living and working in Europe. As he prepares in his dressing room to go on stage to play Shylock, the archetypal Jew in The Merchant of Venice, he finds himself torn between his Palestinian identity and the role he is about to play. He would really rather play Arafat. And Yitzhak Rabin, as he used to do as a young boy in Palestine. What's more, he has just been robbed of all his props necessary to perform his role, and dumped by his fellow actress and girlfriend Lucy, tired of his political soliloquies. It's an hour before curtain up, the pressure mounts, but where is his nose? As he maneuvers through conflicts, roles and identities, Yasser discovers that the Arab understands Shylock better than anyone else: can anyone really cut a pound of flesh without spilling blood?

Yasser was nominated for the 2008 Expression of Freedom Award by Amnesty International. Reviews and more information at http://www.studiodubbelagent.com/yasser.html.


A Propos of the Wet Snow – (Based on “Notes From Underground” by Feodor Dostoevsky).
One of the most famous literal articulations on the irrationality of the human soul has been adapted into an emotionally challenging and physically active work touching on the main problems of modern life: hatred, destruction, intellectual and physical terrorism.

These “Notes” theatrically deliver the story of the notorious Dostoevskian hero – a person from
the underground. On examples from his own life he demonstrates the paradoxical quality of the human soul – “the territory on which God and devil carry on their battle”. Starting from the philosophical question about the nature of evil in the human soul our protagonist quickly moves into the anecdote from his life. Getting drunk at the farewell party with his old school fellows he challenges one of the most popular and successful members of their group. Confronting this successful young man our hero is questioning all prosperous parts of society, everyone who corrupts with public rules and lies, who represents the corpus of “life winners”. In his drunken debauchery the man from the underground defends the individual truth and personal freedom against compliance with social rules and norms of behavior.

By challenging the relationship between the individual and society, Dostoevsky touches upon a most vulnerable issue of the day – why people choose a freedom of doing something that hurts them rather than complying with public rules and be rewarded for it?

Reviews and more information at http://www.internationaltheaterensemble.com/A_PROPOS_OF_THE_WET_SNOW.html






Production Team - Yasser


William El-Gardi (Yasser Mansour) was born in Egypt in 1978 in an Egyptian-Sudanese-Turkish
family and grew up in Egypt, the Sudan and Switzerland before settling in the United Kingdom,
where he trained at Mountview Academy in London. His most recent theatre credits include Touch
by Rikki Beadle-Blair at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London, as well as the Theatre Café
Symposium at the Unicorn Theatre in London with Company of Angles. He made his Edinburgh
debut in 2007 in The Container by Claire Bailey which won a Fringe First and the Amnesty
International Freedom of Expression award.

Other recent theatre credits include Failed States, a political Musical satire at the Pleasance Theatre,
London and Time of the Tortoise at Theatre 503 in London. UK tours of: Tangier Tattoo with
Glyndebourne Opera House, OneFourSeven with the Dende Collective/Lyric Hammersmith, and a
Welsh national tour of Flowers from Tunisia with Theatre Ibyd/Theatre Clwyd. Other theatre
includes Laters with Rikki Beadle-Blair at the Tristan Bates Theatre, Release The Beat-The Musical
with Mehmet Ergen at the Arcola Theatre and Funky Stuff at the King’s Head Theatre, all in
London.

In Film and TV, William recently completed guest roles in the BBC series Whistleblowers, The
Bill, and Channel 4's new drama Saddam's Tribe. Other recent credits include Last Flight to Kuwait
for the BBC, a lead role in the BBC/HBO film Dirty War, and Danish Dogma feature Brothers with
Suzanne Beir. Other TV includes: Spooks (series 3), and Black September-Days that Shook the
World, both for the BBC, The Sketch Show-Clithero for Channel 4 and Murder Prevention for
World productions/Five.

Teunkie van der Sluijs (director) was born in the Netherlands in 1981 and is a graduate of the
three year directing programme at Rose Bruford College in London. Recent directing work includes
productions of Robert Holman’s Kerry Leaves Home (Battersea Arts Centre, London), Boris Vian’s
The Empire Builders (Pleasance Theatre, London), Howard Barker’s Judith (Rosemary Branch
Theatre, London) and The Love of a Good Man (Rose Bruford College), devised piece The Great
Monkey Trial (Rose Bruford College) and The Expected, a modern opera by composers Thomas
Myrmel and Wilbert Bulsink, which toured Europe in 2006-2007. College productions include
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Don Duyn’s Den Uyl and
Marguerite Duras’ India Song.

Van der Sluijs holds a BA and MA in Drama from the University of Amsterdam, and directed
several productions in the Netherlands, including Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis, Stanislaw
Witkiewicz’ The Madman and the Nun and Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, as well as
co-directing a devised production based on the writings of Nikolai Gogol. His work has toured in
Europe, to North America and to North Africa, where he was awarded the Récherche Théâtrale
Award 2003 by the Arab theatre critic’s jury at the Festival International de Monastir, Tunisia
(“This masters the vocabulary of theatrical depiction; it presents us a distinguished piece of artistic
work” - Le Temps). He has taught drama at the University of Amsterdam and City University
London, and is currently working as coordinator of the international new writing programme at
Rose Bruford College. He has taught theatre workshops in the Netherlands, the UK, Canada and
Tunisia.

Van der Sluijs aims to (re)discover and re-imagine the great texts of European writers, both classic
and contemporary. He has a keen interest in the dark comedic undertones of conflict - both personal
and political.

Esteban Nuñez (lighting designer and technician) was born in 1975 in the Basque Country, an
autonomous region in Northern Spain. He studied physical and technical theatre in France and
Ireland and worked in puppet theatre, clowning and visual theatre all over Europe. He subsequently
completed a BA in lighting design at Rose Bruford College London, and set up Fishylight
Productions, a UK-based company in lighting design and visual imagery for performance.

Abdelkader Benali (author) was born in Morocco in 1975 and has lived in the Netherlands since
1979. He is one of the best-known contemporary writers in the Netherlands. For his debut novel
Wedding by the Sea he won the prestigious Geertjan Lubberhuizenprijs, and the Prix de Meilleur
Premier Roman Étranger in France (“Vivid, mythic and heartfelt” – Financial Times; “Full of verve
and hilarity” – Le Soir). He was awarded the 2003 Libris Literature Award in the Netherlands.
Critically acclaimed because of his lucid and insightful treatment of migrants’ issues, Benali has
been widely translated, and some of this work has been published in English. He reported from
Beirut under siege in the 2006 Lebanese war. With Yasser, Benali won the H.G. van der Vies
Award for best new play in the Netherlands in 2002; in the same year, the play was selected
for the Nederlands-Vlaams Theaterfestival, the showcase festival of the 10 best dramatic works of
the Low Countries.

Andy Sinclair-Harris (designer) was born in the United Kingdom in 1982 and trained at Rose
Bruford College. He holds a degree in theatre design and an MA in Theatre Practices. He is a
celebrated designer/director and concept artist with an extremely diverse portfolio including theatre,
puppetry, events, parades and theme parks.

His credits include Zoetrope the first aerial show to be performed at Rose Bruford College which he
both designed and directed. When the Lights Go Out an interactive, visually powerful piece and The
Autumn of His Years, a production using only projection. Andy also formed the production
company Kinematic, and has already become renowned for creating visually stunning performances
without dialogue. He has also designed Howie the Rookie at Battersea Arts Centre in London, and
And the River Weeps for The Miskin Theatre. He has also assisted Bob Crowley with the design of
Disney’s Tarzan and Mary Poppins, both of which ran on Broadway.









Production Team – A Propos of the Wet Snow

Oleg Liptsin (Dostoevskian Hero/Director) - Mr. Liptsin studied theater at Russian Academy
of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow with Anatoly Vasiliev and Mikhail Butkevich. He worked as
an actor and assistant director at renowned Moscow State Theatre “School of Dramatic Arts”
(Theatre de l’Europe) under artistic direction of Anatoly Vasiliev. For 3 years Oleg performed in
a worldwide known production “Six Characters In Search Of An Author” by Pirandello.

In 1989 Oleg established one of the first independent theatre ensembles in Ukraine – Theater Club, Kiev – which became a leading experimental and avant-garde theatre-laboratory in the country.

In early 90s Oleg began his directing and teaching career in Europe and other parts of the world. In 1991, a short-term residence in Schaubuhne (West Berlin) while Luke Bondy was directing “The Winter’s Tale” by Shakespeare. In 1993, experimental theatre/installation project “Kusma” based on Andrej Platonov in frames of art festival in Upper Austria. In 1993-94, teaching at the “Konrad Wolf” Film and TV Institute in Potsdam/Babelsberg, Germany. Later, a production based on Joyce’s “Ulysses” for International Festival “Kontakt” in Poland. In 1995, teaching at the National
School of Drama in Delhi, India. From 1995 Oleg Liptsin began working in USA and later – in Canada, from 2003 - in Paris.

Awarded a National Award for Experimental Work in Theatre by the Theatre Union of Ukraine, won the “Best Director” award and 4 nominations for “Best Director” and “Best Actor” in Ukraine, participated in more than 30 international festivals.

Currently Mr. Liptsin works as director and professor of drama in different parts of the world. He established and conducted the post-graduate educational program in stage directing at National University of Theatre, Film and TV in Kiev, teaches acting at Slavic University in Moscow and at Shelton Theater School in San Francisco, manages the InternationalTheaterEnsemble – recently established experimental international theatrical network.

Oleg Liptsin’s most recent directing credits include: 'Outcry" by T.Williams, "A Propos Of The Wet Snow (notes from the underground)" by F.Dostoevsky, “The Gamblers” by N.Gogol at PODOL Theatre in Kiev, “Happy Days” by S.Beckett – ITE production in San Francisco and Berkeley, “The Living Corpse” by Leo Tolstoy at Shelton Theater in San Francisco, “Oscar” by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt in Kiev, “The Elephant Man” by B. Pomerance in San Francisco and “The Serpent-Woman” by Gozzi in Kiev. Currently Oleg works on “The Overcoat” by N.Gogol and continues his effort on developing the innovative theatrical network – ITE/InternationalTheatreEnsemble

Ai-Cheng Ho (Prostitute) – Ai-Cheng Ho was born in Tau-yuan, Taiwan. She studied acting with
Oleg Liptsin at Acting International in Paris and was trained in Jacques Lecoq’s acting method at
the International Jacques Lecoq Theatre School in Paris and International School of Performing
Arts in London.

Ai-Cheng’s other performing trainings include the Chinese opera and contemporary dance, which
she’s mastering for years. She is trained in martial arts: Tai-ji quan and others.

Since 2004 Ai-Cheng Ho is a member of ITE, she participated in such ITE projects as ‘Cherry
Orchard On Plain-Air’ based on Anton Chekhov, ‘The Snake-Woman’ by Carlo Gozzi (Commedia
dell’arte) and ‘Mozart and Salieri’ by Pushkin.

Ai-Cheng is Master of Performing Arts with major in Film study from the University Paris
I-Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Kevin Quennesson (Video Art Programming) – Kevin was born in France and studied sciences in
the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, leading French school of Engineering. He came to the USA in
2004 and studied philosophy at Stanford and computer vision and graphics at GeorgiaTech. His
interests are in the intersection of technologies and the humanities.

He showed his first work called “conscious=camera” in August 2005 at Siggraph, LA in the
Emerging Technology and Art Gallery category. The “conscious=camera” based on real-time
body-tracking is a poetic interpretation of the phenomenology of images expressed by JP Sartre in
“L'Imagimaire”.
In 2006, he presented at Siggraph in Boston his "traces" installation aimed at representing people
passage and absence. "traces" is featured in the large scale "quell code" (source code) Kunst an Bau
installation in the new headquarters of SAP in Germany. "Quell code" was made in partnership
with the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Austria.

Since 2006 Kevin is a featured artist of the Victory Media Network in Dallas, TX - largest outdoor
media art gallery in the world.

Kevin Quennesson now lives in California and is a software development engineer at Apple Inc.

Egyptian author releases English version of his new novel based in Chicago called "Chicago"

Egyptian author releases English version of his new novel based in Chicago called "Chicago"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jane Beirn
212/207-7256
jane.beirn@harpercollins.com

CHICAGO: A NOVEL by ALAA AL ASWANY

The best-selling Arab writer both in the Middle East and abroad, Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany used a Cairo apartment building as the backdrop for his international success, The Yacoubian Building, which brilliantly captured the daily drama and comedy of life in the teeming metropolis on the Nile. For his much-anticipated second novel, CHICAGO (HarperCollins Publishers; October 7, 2008; $25.95), this acclaimed fiction writer and controversial journalist – who despite literary success still practices dentistry in Cairo – shifts the stage to America’s Windy City, where a group of Egyptian émigrés navigate the shifting tides of life in the post 9/11 United States.

The many stories that converge in CHICAGO are set in and around the histology department at the University of Illinois, where Aswany himself studied dentistry in the 1980s. The characters, Muslim and Coptic Egyptians, as well as white and black Americans, all struggle with life’s quotidian demands, confronting issues of love, sex, religion and politics that have great impacts on their lives and aspirations. As their personal choices and interactions often
spiral out of control, the threat of life-altering consequences looms over their every decision.


Shaymaa Muhammadi is a brilliant young woman who has come to America on scholarship to further her medical education. Thirty and unmarried, she is religiously conservative, and appropriately modest in dress and demeanor, which isolates her from the free-wheeling Americans. When she meets a fellow Egyptian, another serious-minded student named Tariq Haseeb, she at first resists his advances. But the sexual chemistry between them proves too great, causing Shaymaa to compromise everything she has been raised to believe. The newest student, Nagi Abd al-Samad is politically suspect to some of the established members of the department, most particularly Ra’fat Thabit, a doctor who has fully assimilated, even marrying an American. But Ra’fat’s perfect world is shattered when he discovers that his daughter is harboring a cocaine addiction.

Another Egyptian married to an American, Muhammad Salah has been in this country for thirty years. Now sixty, Dr. Salah faces a crisis, his marriage has fallen victim to sexual impotence and he wallows in nostalgia for a woman he long ago left behind in Egypt. Ahmad Danana, president of the Egyptian Student Union in America, may be exploiting his student visa in order to remain in the States as an agent for the right wing government back in Cairo. When he clashes with Nagi’s over the new student’s revolutionary beliefs, the conflict may prove more serious than a mere student agreement. Meanwhile, Nagi’s situation is made all the more precarious by the fact that he has found himself a Jewish girlfriend in America. Rounding out the intertwined cast: Karam Doss, a brilliant heart surgeon with liberal politics whose Coptic beliefs stood in the way of his medical career at home; Dr. John Graham, an aging leftist who has found love late in life; and Carol, Graham’s African American girlfriend, who struggles with racism in her frustrating search for a job.

In its twelfth Arabic print run and an immediate bestseller when published in France last year, CHICAGO speaks to both the modern Arab reader and to the non-Arab interested in the ordinary lives of the modern Egyptian. The international edition of Time says Aswany’s “writing tackles the most pressing issues facing Egyptian society today, from dictatorship and corruption to economic inequality and Islamic extremism,” yet at the same time, here is a popular writer who entertains while he informs. The U.S. publication of CHICAGO, in this new English translation by Farouk Abdel Wahab, is sure to cement Alaa Al Aswany’s reputation as one of the most talked about writers on the world literary stage.


About the Author:
Alaa Al Aswany, 50, is the bestselling author of three previous books published in Arabic, including THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING, which was published in English by Harper Perennial and went on to top bestseller lists around the world. It was made into the biggest movie ever in Egypt and premiered in the US at the Tribeca Film Festival. A journalist who writes a controversial opposition column, Al Aswany makes his living as a dentist in Cairo.


# # #
June 9, 2008

Dear Book Review Editor:

The New York Times Magazine recently profiled Alaa al Aswany, the controversial Egyptian journalist and host of one of Cairo’s most talked about literary and political salons, who is also the world’s best-selling Arab-language novelist. Aswany’s first book, The Yacoubian Building, was an international sensation, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in Egypt alone – a country with 50 percent illiteracy – and has been published in more than a dozen foreign languages. Critics and devoted readers have drawn comparisons to Egypt’s great Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz. Yet while Aswany “does share the legendary author’s talents for constructing simple stories about Egyptian life that convey universal truths in defense of human dignity,” Time magazine has said, “[h]is writing tackles the most pressing issues facing Egyptian society today, from dictatorship and corruption to economic inequality and Islamic extremism.”

Already in its twelfth Arabic print run and an immediate bestseller when published in France last year, Aswany’s new novel, CHICAGO, provides a kaleidoscopic view of the lives of Egyptian expatriates in post 9/11 America. The colorful tapestry of interwoven storylines is filled with memorable characters – among them an idealistic medical student with a blonde American girlfriend; a veiled PhD candidate facing the conflict between her upbringing and the Western culture she encounters; an ambitious state security officer cum informant; a university professor nostalgic for the past – whose detail-rich everyday lives come to embody the complex collision between traditional Arab ways and modern American mores. An entertaining storyteller, Aswany has a singular talent for portraying the forces that shape these lives in a subtle, realistic manner, and CHICAGO is unusual in the way it shows us how America is seen from a Middle Eastern perspective.

Despite his global literary status, Aswany still works as a dentist in his native Cairo, an occupation that allows him to hear the stories of the kinds of ordinary Egyptians who populate his books. Indeed, it was the time he spent studying dentistry at the University of Illinois that has provided the core material for CHICAGO. Working on a broad canvas, Aswany keeps his finger firmly on the pulse of the modern Arab experience. “He is read everywhere,” says Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury, editor of Al-Mulhaq, the Arab world’s preeminent literary supplement. “The importance of Al Aswany is that he reinvented the popular Egyptian novel.”
In addition to his literary success, The Yacoubian Building was made into a highly successful film starring some of the biggest stars in Arab-language cinema.

HarperCollins is proud to be publishing this illuminating new work by one of world literature’s most impressive and important talents. I hope you agree that CHICAGO merits prominent space in your pages.

Sincerely,


CHICAGO
Alaa Al Aswany
HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: October 7, 2008
Hardcover/$25.95/352 Pages


TOUR SCHEDULE:

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16 NEW YORK
Barnes & Noble / Upstairs at the Square
@ 7:00 pm, 33 East 17th Street

MONDAY, OCTOBER 20 CHICAGO
Women’s Athletic Club
@ 12:00 pm, 626 North Michigan Avenue

Writers on the Record with Victoria Lautman
@ 6:00pm, Harold Washington Library, 400 South State Street

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24 WASHINGTON, D.C.
Politics & Prose
@ 7:00 pm, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW

Judge in Halliburton contract corruption trial clashes with defense

(DATELINE Peoria, Il, Sept. 30, 2008) -- The judge in the controversial trial of Jeff Mazon, a former Halliburton procurement officer accused of intentionally inflating a contract payment in exchange for a bribe, acknowledged his rulings have caused "some tensions."

In the second day of hearings, U.S. District Court Judge Joe Billy McDade acknowledged his rulings tightened reigns on Mazon’s defense team which is led by J. Scott Arthur a suburban Chicago attorney from Orland Park.

Arthur protested, after the judge directed the jury to leave the court room during a procedural squabble, that the judge’s ruling compromised Mazon’s ability to get a fair trial.

"Your honor. I can’t represent my client because you have given the government (prosecutors) so much leeway," Arthur protested as Judge McDade ruled against Arthur’s attempts to strengthen his clients argument that the War in Iraq had strained the war contract delivery system.

McDade, who is soft spoken and rarely raises his voice, referred to the first trial in which the jury last April deadlocked on the complex charges.

"I gave the defense attorney in the last trial more leeway on issues outside of the scope of cross examination to allow him (Arthur) to address matters to put on his own case for the defense," Arthur said.

But he said he "won’t allow" Arthur to do it again in this second trial which began Monday in McDade’s court room in the Peoria Federal Building.

McDade offered a chilling warning to Arthur, saying, "Whether or not there will be a 3rd trial in this case by you is questionable." Arthur said he thought he understood what the softspoken judge said but "wasn’t sure."

After verbally reprimanding Arthur, McDade cautioned the attorney about his conduct.

The argument erupted when Arthur tried to get a government witness who worked for the U.S. Army that approved contracts to support the War in Iraq to acknowledge that everyone was in a rush to get the contracts serviced.

McDade has already ruled that Arthur cannot argue Mazon is being made a scapegoat by Halliburton KBR, his former employer, that he was "framed," that Halliburton, worked with the government to frame Mazon, or that Halliburton KBR mishandled dozens and maybe more government contracts..

What remains of Mazon’s defense, which may have swayed the deadlocked jury in the first trial held in Rock Island, is that Mazon, like many other contractors serving the Iraq war, were overworked causing many errors.

During the trial, a government witness and Mazon’s supervisor, Col. Robert Gatlin, said that he and Mazon and others worked as many as 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

Prosecutor Jeffrey B. Lang argued that Mazon inflated the contract to provide fuel to soldiers at garrisoned at a military base that was hurriedly built in Kuwait prior to the Iraq war.

Arthur argued in the last trial and will argue again that Mazon and several other Halliburton contractors had merely tripped up over the conversion of U.S. dollars to the Kuwait Dinars. One Kuwaiti Dinar is equal to 3.3 U.S. dollars. The inflated contract price was increased precisely by 3.3 in an Excel spreadsheet in which the formulas were automatically embedded. By clicking the "cells," contractors automatically changed the price.

The bid document presented to the court showed the contract was $1.67 million US Dollars but listed as $1.67 Kuwait Dinars. It was then converted to $5.52 million U.S. Dollars through the monetary conversion error.

Lang also challenged claims that the government and Bush administration were intentionally seeking to downplay the trial.

"This is not a political trial. No one from Washington (DC) called and told me to do anything. I got into this because I wanted to. I read a story about this in the Wall Street Journal and I called and asked to be assigned to this case," Lang said during a break in the trial.

Lang said as many as 60 people have been charged and convicted with contract related corruption, but he insisted that the politically connected Halliburton should not be the focus of the trial.

Critics, though, insist the Bush Administration intentionally pushed the trial to Rock Island for several reasons. Mazon is Ecuadorian American but his skin tone could lead many to mistake him for an Arab American. Since the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of Arab Americans have become victims of American public anger from subtle acts of discrimination and bias in court rooms, businesses and government to acts of vandalism and violence.

Rock Island’s mainly rural Bible Belt constituency might have produced an unsympathetic jury for someone who looks "foreign" and who is alleged to have engaged in corruption with contractors in the Arab World.

Lang brushed the charges aside.

The Peoria jury reflects a slightly better cosmopolitan diversity including five men and nine women, all save with one apparent Hispanic juror and another Asian.

The trial is expected to continue through the middle of October.

(Ray Hanania is providing special reports and commentary from and during the trial which is taking place in Peoria, Illinois. He can be reached at rayhanania@comcast.net.)