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New York Times Weekly Review
Asahi Evening News  May 30, 1997
Dead Men Don't Wear Bleeding Chennai (excerpts)

by Barbara Crossette

Think for a minute about what Laurent Kabila has just done to Ralph
Ehrenberg.  Mr. Ehrenberg is in charge of 4.5 million maps at the Library of
Congress, the largest map collection in the world.  "Every time this
happens," he said after Zaire became the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
"we all have to go in there and re-catalogue and rearrange our collection."

It happens a lot.  Not just in the heart of Africa, but in other exotic
places like Alaska and Florida.  In Asia, they have been on a rampage.
Remember those bleeding Madras plaids?  Good thing they are no longer in
fashion, because Madras has b ecome Chennai.  Bombay is now Mumbai.  In both
places, local chauvinist politicisns have chosen to erase their cities'
international recognition for teh sake of authentiity.

Oh, Burma!  There a military dictatorshiop that would just as soon not be
noticed tried to hide the whole country by renaming it Myanmar and its
capital Yangoon -- neither of which are recognized by the Burmese democratic
opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi or by the United States Government.

"I say, save the old Burma Shave signs," said Saul Cohen, editor-in-chief of
the next 6,000 page edition of the Columbia Gazetteer of the World, due in
1998.  "This military junta isn't going to last forever."



 ---  prophetic words!
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