Aung San Suu Kyi is Responsible for My Cold

Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had her house arrest extended for another year on Sunday. She has spent 10 of the last 16 years confined to her home, which is slowing falling down around her. Except for a cook, she isn't allowed any visitors. This Nobel peace laureate is the poster child for armed rebellion, because passive resistance hasn't worked. When the military refused to let Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy take power after a landslide victory in 1990 elections, she should have taken up arms with about 17 other ethnic rebel groups in the country to seize power. A civil war would have been preferable to the brutal conditions that exist under the junta. Instead, she sits in her house, most of the leaders of her party are dying of old age, most of the ethnic rebels have been pacified and there seems no indication whatsoever that sanctions will force the ruling generals to make democratic reforms. What does this have to do with my cold? I knew when one of the ladies from the Burma service showed up sniffling and sneezing at my desk Sunday that I'd catch whatever she had. It's a long-about way of saying my blogging for the next several days might be spotty.