Sign of the times

A year and a half after the entrance sign to Auschwitz was stolen and cut into pieces, authorities have decided not to restore it to its outside location. They’re going to keep it in an exhibition hall.

It’s bizarre that resources are being expended to protect that particular sign, given that the tens of thousands of the camp’s inmates must have prayed for its complete destruction. Except, of course, that it’s imperative that the generations of the future should see it and understand what happens when common citizens allow governments to do all their thinking for them.

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it

The E. coli outbreak in Europe is serious business—a food-borne illness that so far has struck down 1150 people and killed more than 15. And apparently the spinning wheel of blame has stopped with the pointer aimed at cucumbers from Spain.

Spaniards, however, are having none of it. They’re demanding to know what makes their agriculture methods culpable when who knows what those vegetables picked up in transit between Spain and Northern Europe.

Now what I find really intriguing is the image of the Andalucian minister of agriculture defiantly eating a cucumber to demonstrate her confidence in the complete healthfulness of the veg. (I’m not even going to touch the Freudian possibilities in this image.)

This is so reminiscent of the 1990 photo of Tory agriculture minister John Gummer cheerfully chowing down on a British beef hamburger to prove that the whole Mad Cow thing was just a load of old cobbers.

You’ll notice, however, that Gummer got his four-year-old daughter into the act: he’s holding a burger for her to eat because her hands are too small to grasp it on her own. Both give the appearance that there’s nothing they’d rather eat than these sandwiches, because there’s nothing—absolutely nothing, I say—questionable, much less lethal, about British beef, so everyone should tuck in.

What I always wondered was how many armed guards it took to keep Gummer’s wife from ripping that burger out of her daughter’s hand and ramming it up her husband’s nose, all the while screaming imprecations at him for putting the girl at risk for a bloody photo op? Because there’s no mother in the universe who would put her child in harm’s way for the sake of a political statement.

The Spanish minister, of course, is only risking her own health, and it’s her job to do whatever she can to promote the image of Spanish agriculture, which has taken a severe beating in the wake of the E. coli outbreak. But I’m wondering if she’s feeling any little twinges in her tummy.

Treeful of ego

Poor Larry Ellison—the founder of Oracle, whose ego is as big as his fortune, is at loggerheads (so to speak) with his neighbors in an upscale San Francisco enclave. It’s all about trees.

That Ellison, who suffers from Bill Gates envy, would go ballistic over trees that existed on the neighbors’ property when he bought his own doesn’t really surprise me. & I guess I shouldn’t find it novel that there apparently are lawyers who specialize in “tree law”. Especially in California.

Evidently Ellison is revving up for the America’s Cup in 2013; wants to have unobstructed views for the full-bore preening he plans to do.

I know he will, too. Back when I was working for Oracle, there was a story on the intranet about a contest of some sort that had been held at company HQ in Redwood Shores, Calif. The winners (& I swear I am not making this up) “got” to go down to the bay & watch Ellison’s racing yacht sail about. From the shore.

They weren’t even allowed aboard. Or given so much as a Diet Coke by way of refreshment.

And; then they had to write about what a great experience it was.

I’m not particularly sympathetic to Ellison’s position in this dispute.His ego could use a lot more trimming than those trees.

Memorial Day 2011

On this Memorial Day I’m remembering the victims of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Given the capture last week of Ratko Mladic, commander of Bosnian Serb forces during that time, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Croats, Bosnians, Kosovans, Slovenes and others whom Mladic and his crowd tortured, raped and murdered in their quest to build a greater Serbia.

Not a particular surprise: Mladic has denied any role in the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, according to his son. And, also unsurprisingly, supporters of Mladic rioted in Belgrade Sunday, outraged at his apprehension and also proclaiming he did nothing criminal.

Were there no other reason to remember the victims of the late 20^th Century Balkan wars, these grotesque denials would make it obligatory. Do a Google Image search on Srebrenica and look at the results, if you have the stomach. This is just one.

Then there’s the siege of Sarajevo. And Kosovo. And all the others.

General Michael Rose led the UN forces there and I well recall seeing his face the day he turned over his command. He looked ill, pain emanating from his eyes—like like he’d just got back from Hell and wasn’t convinced it wasn’t coming with him. The UN “peacekeeping” mission there was nearly useless in the face of political restrictions and Serbian willingness to violate any convention of warfare.

I own Fighting for Peace, Rose’s account of that mission; but I haven’t had the strength to pick it up and read it. I know it’s going to be hard for even me to get through.

(Ditto General Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil. Dallaire’s mission in Rwanda in the 90s was remarkably like that of Rose’s. But Rwanda is another post.)

As you go about your Monday holiday, thinking about the official start of summer, painting the garage or perhaps even decorating the grave of a loved one, have a care for those whose lives were ended or ruined by the Serb wars. And hope for justice yet.

Missing Liane

After 20 years at the helm of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, Liane Hansen is hanging up the microphone. Today is her last show.

I don’t know what I’m going to do—she’s become an integral part of my Sunday mornings, the way Susan Stamberg was before her. She’s broken plenty of big stories on her show, but what has endeared her to me is her unalloyed interest in the stories and people she has covered. That is a reflection of her character, her talent and her professionalism.

Here’s an NPR olio of Hansen’s work—listen to one or two of the early stories and then to the most recent. You can hear how she’s matured in the timbre of her voice. She sounds like a beautiful cello—warm and with a dynamic range that’s really impressive.

Her replacement, Audie Cornish, has been a stand-in for Hansen in the past year. Whenever Cornish was on the air I couldn’t wait for Hansen to return. I’ll have to get used to her; and in the spirit of Hansen’s willingness to delve into new things, I’ll give it my best shot.

But Liane—I miss you already.