You Can't Spell Justice Without US.

I am feeling like a regular Macaronileine Albright. I had a meeting in the Hague today.

Okay, so it was a meeting with a Dutch branding agency to discuss copy for a limited edition run of Jenever (if you don't know what Jenever is, think of it this way, Jenever:Dutch::Gin:English, as they'd say on the SAT, if the SAT had more questions about drinking . . . which would really skew the grading curve).

Still, I couldn't help but feel a thrill at being in the Hague. It's such a historic place. The seat of the World Court. The place where crimes like genocide and illegal war are tried. Where justice is meted out against the evils of the world. It makes me wish more Americans could be here.

Like maybe W, Dick, Karl, and extra-especially Rumsfeld.

Although in truth, the American imperialism I've witnessed first-hand this week has been of the cultural rather than military persuasion.

Note this bit of graffiti
Not quite the Anarchist A, is it?

As they said during the 1968 student uprisings in Paris, Sous la pave, les television reruns!



And speaking of routines, say you want to learn the latest dance routines. Come right over to the Amsterdam dance school, where you can learn to boogie woogie to this fine music.




In an effort to escape American cultural imperialism for an hour or two, while at the Hague I visited the memorial to George Maduro, a Dutch Resistance fighter who was murdered at Dachau.

This is the memorial.










It's a small Netherlands after all.

It is, to be precise, a 1:25 scale Netherlands. Yes, a scale model of the entire nation.

And it is being dominated by an oversized monster.

No, not a Texas-sized W at a mini International Court of Justice.A large Elmo looming behind the Madurodam shipyard! It is indeed an evil dance of global domination those muppets do.

Friends of mine from LA struggled not to expose their toddler to any branding or marketing (presumably so that later in life the kid wouldn't be easily pressured into buying limited edition Jenever). They referred to Elmo only as "a red monster." But they couldn't keep their nanny from using his real name. Which the nanny, being a Latina immigrant, thought was Memo (a common nickname for Guillermo).

Dateline, The Hague.
Memo to the World Court:
When it comes to the global struggle between justice and evil, we're giving you the, it's not you, it's US routine.