Mullings 12-11-2002: A Scamp Abroad

mullings.com ^ | 12-11-2002 | Rich Galen

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Mullings
An American Fifth-Column
A Scamp Abroad
Rich Galen
Wednesday December 11, 2002
From Villa Tatiana
Geneva, Switzerland

• One of the things about writing from Europe is you read European newspapers – not just on the web as you can from Mullings Central in Alexandria, Virginia – but really read the International Herald Tribune as a newspaper.
• As an example on page 4-II in yesterday’s IHT a piece by John Vinocur has this lede:
• “Scratch an anti-American in Europe and very often all he wants is a guest professorship at Harvard or to have an article published in the New York Times.”
• The article goes on to recount a lengthy interview with the new British Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane who does not take very seriously recent polls showing Europeans hate Americans.
• MacShane is a Member of Parliament from a “working-class” constituency who warns “you mustn’t generalize about ... a few anti-American intellectuals in Paris and Brussels.”
• Further, he points out that the farther east you go “the more pro-American sympathy you find.”
• What?  You didn’t see this in your local paper this morning?  
• Here’s another.  Lest you think (See?  When you write from Europe you quote people who say things like “mustn’t” and you use words like “lest”) that playing fast and loose with the accountants was invented by American corporations, here’s a little tidbit from the European edition of the Wall Street Journal:  “Cable & Wireless Falls 43% on Tax News.”
• It seems that the giant international telephone company, Cable & Wireless sold a 50 percent interest in a mobile phone system to another giant international telephone company, Deutches Telekom.  Nothing newsworthy there, except there was a hidden clause which required C & W to put £1.5 BILLION in escrow, if certain events occurred, to pay off potential tax liabilities.
• Guess what?  The events occurred, so Cable & Wireless had to fess up about the little clause in the contract.  It was selling at well under one pound per share and now faces de-listing by the London Stock Exchange.
• The U.S. has taken control of one of the copies of Iraq’s 12,000 page declaration, according to Saddam Hussein, proves it no longer has weapons of mass destruction.
• According to the transcript of an interview with French TV, Secretary of State Colin Powell said simply, “He’s a liar.”
• Speaking of diplomacy, Geneva is the home of a bunch of United Nations agencies.   Every nation which is represented in New York, has representation here.
• The Palais des Nations – the old League of Nations headquarters – is now the seat of the United Nations Office in Geneva.  Yesterday, it was the site of the annual bazaar for children’s charities.  Every nation had two booths:  One selling manufactured goods, crafts, etc.  indigenous to that county; and another selling food – meals – indigenous to the country.
• The US booth, as happens in these things, was right next to the Palestinian booth. Everyone, by all accounts, played nicely but this might have been because the majority of booths were manned by ... women.
• For its part, the US sold things like jars of JIF peanut butter and Carnation evaporated milk in its goods booth.  The major attractions of the US food booth were corned beef sandwiches and cheese cake.
• The bazaar was jammed with all manner of Geneva residents, diplomatic personnel and their families, and even Ambassadors.
• While food samples were available at booths from Afghanistan to Zambia, in a burst of home-town pride, I had a corned beef on rye from the good ole’ U S of A booth.
• On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Geneva Travelogue, a roundup of previous Travelogues, a link to the Herald Tribune article, and the Mullfoto of the day:  http://www.mullings.com/dr_12-11-02.htm

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I wonder what the Palestinians had as locally-manufactured products? Pipe bombs?