Another criminal

One of the biggest war criminals of the second half of the 20^th Century has been caught—after only 16 years of hiding out in his native Serbia. Ratko Mladic has been arrested by Serb forces & is being held pending extradition to the UN tribunal at The Hague, where his political master, Radovan Karadzic, is currently defending charges of crimes against humanity.

Mladic, a Bosnian Serb, is evidently in very poor health & is probably looking forward to the medical care he’ll get while awaiting trial—care he wouldn’t have had access to in his village hideout.

Mladic was the commander of Serb forces that invaded Bosnia in the 90s following the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Working with Karadzic he crafted & executed a policy that brought us the term “ethnic cleansing”; their goal was to eradicate any non-Serbs in territory the Serbs deemed Serbian. Kind of like a south Slav version of lebensraum. The massacre at Srebrenica was only the largest & most appalling of their crimes.

It was a policy that the entire nation carried out with vigor & relish. In many quarters both Mladic & Karadzic are still considered Serbian heroes, unfairly & falsely vilified by a world that doesn’t understand the rightful place of Serbs & their destiny as a people.

That attitude partly explains why it’s taken so bloody long to take Mladic into custody; the Serbian government didn’t really put a whole lot of effort into the search. Like the Pakistanis being shocked—shocked, I say—to discover Osama Bin Laden living in their midst for years & years, I have no doubt that the Serbs & their government have been well aware of the criminals among them & were just disinclined to grab them up.

It’s only because they want to join the EU, & failing to turn over Mladic is an insurmountable barrier to that goal, that they’ve suddenly discovered where he’s been.

In many ways, the Serbs are like the Germans of 1944-45: they don’t believe they or their government did anything wrong in their quest to subsume formerly Yugoslavian territory into their idea of empire. They’re not at all sorry they went to war; they’re sorry they weren’t successful & they’re sullen that there’ve been some negative consequences.

I’m glad they’ve finally caught the bastard & that he’ll be in the dock in The Hague. Too often it’s only the little fish that are brought to justice. Mladic is a whacking great shark, even if his teeth are rotting & he’s utterly unrepentant, & he should be brought to justice, regardless of the delay.

We have a situation here

The Internet is a strange land. Well, perhaps more specifically, the web-based social networking phenomenon is a really strange land.

I’ve already commented on the wag or wags who grafted Princess Beatrice’s Royal Wedding millinery confection onto the heads of the men and women in the White House Situation Room watching the raid on Abbottabad.

But it seems that the Sit Room pic has spawned a life of its own. At the beginning, a Hasidic newspaper in Brooklyn removed Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason from the photo, because their editorial policy is to not show women, as they might be too suggestive, even fully—even frumpily—clothed.

Well, whatever. Although I’m not sure I’d trust a publication that Photoshops the pix it publishes to not also manipulate the reports as well. But that’s probably not the point for religiously-focused news outlets. Or Fox news, now that I think of it.

(I’m sure even mainstream newspapers crop photos; but electronically altering them is really beyond the beyond.)

But there’s obviously something about this photo that has inspired anyone with a graphics application, a sense of humor and too much time on his hands to dress it up. See for yourself.

Zoo news

I dunno about the Bronx Zoo—it seems to have a real problem keeping the inmates, er, in.

You’ll recall that a young Egyptian cobra disappeared for a while back in March. According to BronxZoosCobra on Twitter, the snake enjoyed a few days out on the town before being recovered, recaged and eventually named Mia (as in Missing In Action).

You can believe the zoo’s official story, that the cobra never got out of the reptile house. I prefer the tweeted version.

But word came this past week that a peahen also flew the coop on the 9^th. She was captured after only a couple of days, but then she was obviously strutting a lot more than the cobra.

Naturally, she signed up for Twitter, but I’m not finding her tweets nearly as amusing as Mia’s. Also, she seems confused as to sexual identity, since her nom-de-tweet is BronxZooPeacock.

Her adventure ended rather mundanely, as she was captured by the owner of an auto glass repair shop about a mile from the zoo. At least the cobra made it to a Yankees game.


Plus, frankly, the Twitter peahen is only partially armed to engage in a battle of wits, if you catch my drift.

Still—what I’m wondering is what’s up with that zoo? I mean, is it that the chow sucks or they’ve cut back on the workers for the poop patrol? Perhaps we’ll see a mass breakout, followed by a movie by Pixar.

Down in the easy chair

They say that if you can remember the 60s you weren’t there. Well, maybe. But if there’s one quintessential icon of my youth, it has to be Bob Dylan. Or at least, his music. Again and again, in his songs Dylan defined the turmoil of the 60s.

And today Bob Dylan turns 70. It’s hard to believe; in fact, it somehow doesn’t seem right. He was all about us against them, youth against age, ideals against corruption. There can’t be anything more scathing than “Masters of War” or “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding”. Despair, disenfranchisement, disillusionment—he caught those elements and hammered them home.

Dylan broke the mold—he wrote popular songs about issues of the day, a major break from things like “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter”. Yes, there were other topical songwriters (Tom Lehrer, say); but Dylan broke out to the wider audience. Maybe it’s because he was visceral where Lehrer was intellectual.

If there’s anything that encapsulates the 60s, it has to be “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.

“Come senators, congressmen

“Please heed the call

“Don’t stand in the doorway

“Don’t block up the hall

“For he that gets hurt

“Will be he who has stalled

“There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’

“It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls

“For the times they are a-changin’.”

(Sadly, senators and congressmorons are deafer than ever; the only calls they heed are from corporate donors and lobbyists.)

Or “Mr. Tambourine Man”. “In that jingle-jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.”

In a way, it seems so wrong that I’m finding a collection of celebrity tributes to Dylan in, of all places, AARP, although he is, after all, 70. The Telegraph has reviewed several books on him. & Rolling Stone has done him proud.

Speaking of which, it was Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” that gave both the publication & the band their name.

I have a lot of the songs on different playlists, so I’m frequently reminded of his talent for saying the most with the fewest words. Things like “My Back Pages” still resonate. Is there anything truer than the refrain, “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

And “I Shall Be Released” saw me through the past three years, especially the way Nina sings it.

Well, hell—there are scores I could go on about. But I’ll just mention two more:

The very anthem of the era has to be “Blowin’ in the Wind”. Three verses, four chords on the guitar, yet so powerful, so universal & so timely. Even now, nearly 50 years later. I’ll give you two versions—one by The Boss and one by Peter, Paul & Mary. They can’t have done a concert that didn’t end with it in all the years they were together.

Lastly, I wish this for Dylan and those who grew up with him: may you stay forever young.

Un-raptured

Something occurred to me over the weekend that 200 million people weren’t subsumed into heaven (at least that I know about): Harold Camping has twice predicted the end of days based on his mathematical calculations. And he’s two for two.

But he was trained and practiced as a civil engineer for many years. Shouldn’t someone be rechecking his jobs to make sure he didn’t miscalculate any compressive tension estimates on bridges or buildings? Or shouldn’t we at least be told what construction projects he worked on so we can avoid them?

Rapture wrap-up

Well, it’s looking bad for the Rapture predicted for today. I mean—only 0830 PDT and that’s not quite ten hours from local H-Hour, as specified by the now universally ridiculed Harold Camping. But I’m combing the media and not finding that New Zealand has been knocked off its pins by the earthquake that was to have triggered the global Judgment Day.

You may be thinking, “Harold, ju got some essplainin’ to doo,” around this time. But he’s gone through this before (1994) and like all the best practitioners of the art of propaganda (political, religious, commercial, whatever) he didn’t miss a beat, didn’t apologize, didn’t justify; just moved on to the next prediction. That was scheduling the Rapture for 21 May 2011 at 1800. So stay tuned for his next prophesy.

And he found an audience. A small serious one as well as the vast legions of scoffers and even entrepreneurs (e.g., the service that, for a pre-paid fee—will care for pets left behind when their humans were sucked up to Heaven). God bless America.

Dunno what the believers are going to do when 1801 passes them by and they find themselves in much the same condition as they were at 1759. But the ridiculers and the simply dumbfounded will be partying all weekend.

So come Monday, I think employers should be a little understanding when their staff comes to work in somewhat bedraggled condition—either from overindulgence or disappointment.

But on a similar note, all the Bay Area public radio stations—from KQED down to the ones that have about 52 watts of broadcast power out of Oakland or Campbell—have ended their concurrent spring fundraising drives. So it’s feeling a lot more like heaven on this part of the earth.

Rapture rap

This may have escaped your notice—it certainly did mine—but it seems that the End of Times begins tomorrow at 1800 in whatever time zone you’re in. Apparently it’s a rolling doom.

According to Harold Camping, a civil engineer who started a broadcast ministry and thus is eminently qualified to pontificate on matters theological and moral, 21 May 2011 is Der Tag. Those who are saved (not entirely sure of the definition, but it seems limited to Camping’s followers and presumably some other categories of mostly evangelical Christians) will be sucked up into heaven. Everyone else will—well, again I’m not clear on the specifics, but obviously the good times will no longer roll.

The world won’t end, though—that’ll happen six months hence, on 21 October.

Look—I’m not making this stuff up, I’m just reporting it.

Of course, predicting the end-of-the-world/second-coming is a bit of a cottage industry. So far the predictors have, well, got it wrong. Every time. Time after time.

And this includes Camping. He last predicted that Judgment Day would occur in 1994. Evidently his direct pipeline to the Almighty was clogged with some sewage, but he swears he’s got it right this time.

I’m a bit confused as to the 1800 timestamp, though. I mean—God is eternal, right? What does a particular hour matter to him/her? Days, years—those are human structures; arbitrary ones, when it comes down to it. Could God be arbitrary?

And why the staggered implementation? We’re not talking about introducing a new app—first iPhone, then Droid, then Blackberry. Why not instantaneous for all the world?

And how come the Kiwis get to be the vanguard? We in California have to wait something like 17 hours after it starts in New Zealand. Maybe God’s taking the godliest first? From 2300 tonight we have to stand around and…well, I don’t know what we’re supposed to do…while pretty much the rest of the world gets the best seats in the heavenly stadium?

There don’t seem to be any guidelines as to what the non-enraptured are supposed to do. No mention of rending of clothes or gnashing of teeth. Naturally there are plans for parties—a lot of folks ready to celebrate regardless whether it’s the end of the world or a really, really big egg in the face for Camping.

Well—I think it’s at least worth a glass of bubbly.

Enron again

Andrew Fastow, once CFO at Enron, got out of stir this week. He’s entered a halfway house in his home town & scene of his crimes, Houston.

Fastow was behind Enron’s complex financial shell games, which resulted in the collapse of the company (once the seventh largest in the US) & the ruin of tens of thousands of employees & investors. There’s no question about that, & he was convicted of massive fraud, but because he cut a deal with prosecutors & ratted out his fellow executive fraudsters Kenneth Lay (CEO) & Jeffrey Skilling (president), he got a mere six years at Club Fed.

He’s now in a halfway house that’s seen a couple other Enron ex-cons, & apparently might (like others) be able to serve the last of his time in “home confinement”. Picture, if you will, the sentence your average embezzler would get & imagine that person getting the option of home confinement.

I have no words to express my contempt for Fastow & his crooked corporate cronies. I’m also disgusted that we the people learned nothing from the Enron incident & sailed head on into the economic meltdown of the past few years.

& Congress? Congress learned to label their largest political supporters “too big to fail” & to think it a much better investment to bail out the corporations so designated to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, but cut back or out social programs that support healthcare, housing, education & pensions to the mass of working & middle class Americans.

Across the Irish Sea

I wonder if I’m the only person a little freaked out to hear “God Save the Queen” at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin?

Queen Elizabeth II is making an historic visit to the Republic of Ireland, and all. And that’s a swell thing—first British monarch to set foot trip in 100 years (and when the last one, George V, did, there was no Republic); it’s very symbolic. Ireland, after all, was England’s first colony (courtesy of Henry II in the 12^th Century); until Ulster is reunited with the other three provinces of Ireland, it’ll be the last one.

Her Majesty is making a point of visiting Irish sites rural and urban, historical and aimed at the future. Naturally, given how she just loves those ponies, she’s going to have a poke round a couple of studs (that’s farms, not muffins). And there’s a state dinner.

But the huge significance comes from her paying official respects to the past, laying a wreath to the fallen at the Garden of Remembrance. The “fallen” in this case are the men and women who died in the fight to free Ireland from British rule, from the rebellion of 1798 to the civil war of 1919-21. For the reigning monarch of the UK to honor them is extraordinary.

(Iain Paisley is probably rolling over in his grave. Oh, wait—he’s not dead; he only resembles a corpse both physically and morally.)

And it can’t be all that easy for her given that she’s suffered personal losses in the ongoing struggle for the hearts and minds and territory. Her husband’s uncle Louis Mountbatten was assassinated by an IRA bomb just 32 years ago.

No, I give her major props for this.

It’s the British national anthem in that particular place that creeps me out. It just seems really wrong.

The Garden of Remembrance is rather like a cathedral. The statue before which the Queen laid the wreath is a representation of the Children of Lir. In Irish legend, the four children of a king; his wife, wracked by jealousy, turned the children into swans, in which form they remained for 900 years. The curse was finally broken by a Christian monk, and the children were returned to their human form. The bronze figures in the Garden of Remembrance are in the process of turning from swans into people.

Rather like the Irish themselves after nearly 900 years of living the British curse.

Well, it’s gracious of the Irish to play GSTQ, And gracious of HM to make the gesture. Now—is she going to Bewley’s for a coffee? It’s only a stone’s throw from the Book of Kells.

The election next time

Newt Gingrich has announced officially that he’s running for President in the 2012 election. President of the United States.

I’m not going to get into his political history, or the disconnect between his assertion that everyone has to adhere to family values except his own self.

I’m just going to say that I don’t think I can take seriously “President Newt”.

On a similar, politics-makes-even-weirder-bedfellows-than-business, note, Donald Trump has dropped out of the race. This is sad news for comedians because The Donald is an even bigger joke than little Newtie, although I believe they’re about even in the wife count.

Given that Trump would have to spend his entire presidential salary of $400K on hair stylists, gel & spray, I’m also thinking he wouldn’t like to take the pay cut.