Regardez S'il Vous Plait

Judging by a few emails and comments, some of my Republican friends are becoming tired of my continual Bush-bashing.

They probably not should read the following piece that I shamelessly lifted wholesale from this site.

Text begins:

This is a clothing label from a small American company that sells their product in France.



Here's the translation of the French part of the label.

Wash with warm water.
Use mild soap.
Dry flat.
Do not use bleach.
Do not dry in the dryer.
Do not iron.
We are sorry that our president is an idiot.
We did not vote for him.

Text ends.

I did a little research. (Read: I googled "We are sorry that our president is an idiot" and found several links.) Apparently the label is real and the picture of it is propagating virally via blogs and the news media, including an AP story.

On the website of Tom Bihn, the company that produced the so-labelled item, there is a statement that explains: "This all began as an inside joke aimed (we think) at the president of our company, Tom Bihn. Many people have concluded the care label refers to other presidents - what can we say?"

However, on the same webpage, the company uses the buzz around the item to encourage sales. "Supplies are limited. Be controversial. Place your order today," exhorts the company.

Naturally, the Urbans Legends website has already covered the web buzz with its own story and analysis.

House Arrest

Yesterday Ann and I put ourselves under house arrest.

It was our contribution to a series of "house arrest parties" held around the country to raise money for the US Campaign for Burma. June 19th is the birthday of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of the Burmese democracy movement.



For over ten years I've been active almost to the point of obsession in the Free Burma movement. In my previous career in social investment I played my part in organizing shareholders to press companies to withdraw from Burma. I quickly broadened my role to include organizing people around America to lobby their local city or state to boycott companies that did business in Burma. That led to filing of shareholder resolutions, the passage of city and state Burma laws, and the withdrawal of dozens of companies from Burma.

In 1996 an activist friend of mine urged me to watch a videotaped interview of Aung San Suu Kyi that had just been smuggled out of Burma. In the first half of the interview Aung San Suu Kyi is somber as she describes the growing crackdown in Burma and an attack on her by armed military goons. Later the interviewer asks her about the Massachusetts Burma Law enacted earlier that year. At that point, Aung San Suu Kyi's face just lights up. She expresses her gratitude for the law. Then she gives her now famous quote: "Sometimes I feel it is better to have the people of the world on your side rather than just governments."

Watching Aung San Suu Kyi express her appreciation for my work still brings tears to my eyes. It is crucial that my work truly helps those I seek to support. On a deeper emotional level her gratitude moved me. It remains a source of inspiration to me whenever my activism appears futile.

Aung San Suu Kyi's words continued to resonate with me as I organized my House Arrest Party. Ann and I sent invitations to scores of friends and colleagues. We fed our guests Burmese food and showed them new DVDs by Witness and Asiaworks on the current crackdown in Burma. We raised over $1,000 for the work of the US Campaign for Burma.

It was another small contribution to the Free Burma movement. But I feel it was not a futile one.

Caught on Tape

My old friend and "Paws For Thought" blogger, Carol Naylor, had "a bit of a clear-out" recently and came across a whole stash of tapes from our college days at Loughborough University.

She found a tape of me on the college radio station as a guest record reviewer. That night I reviewed several new singles including "Ball of Confusion" by Love & Rockets, "Suddenly" by Billy Ocean, and "She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult. I'm glad I had enough good taste in 1985 to like that Cult song.

Carol even kindly converted it to a Windows Media file and threw it on her website. Click here to listen to it.

I can't believe I ever sounded that young ... or that British.

Back Home

Ann and I greatly enjoyed the Netherlands. In the museums, we viewed Van Gogh and Vermeer pictures and learned all about the Dutch Resistance. We also cycled all around the Hoge Veluwe park.

We also met two old friends of mine, Gijs Hillenius and Dorothy Hill. He used to run the Burma Center Netherlands while she was active in the Canadian Friends of Burma in Toronto. When they both came to a Free Burma conference I organized in Berkeley in August 1996, I suggested that Dorothy confer with Gijs about organizing boycotts of beer companies. I thought Gijs would help Dorothy apply the lessons of the successful Heineken boycott to Interbrew. Things went further than I expected when Dorothy moved to Holland in 1997 and they ended up marrying.

The Dutch government does what a government can do well: run an efficient national transportation system. Bus tickets in the Hague will work in Amsterdam. Trains are on time and the counter clerks hand you an accurate schedule with your tickets. The Dutch wisely stays out of what a government does badly. As a result marijuana and prostitution are legal within certain reasonable limits.

And Amsterdam is a unique city of short houses built around a semi-circle grid of streets and canals. I'm glad I'm returning there next month.