On the road to Myanmar

Here's a news item you might have missed: "Voters in Kyrgyzstan cast ballots lastSunday on a constitutionalreferendum that oppositionparties denounced as an attempt by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to strengthen hispowers."

Hmmm. That was news to me. That darn President Bakiyev -- power grabbing again. Don't they all, though.

The truth is I'd never heard of Kyrgystan. It's so hard to keep up with geography these days. Once upon a time, all you needed to know were America, England, France, Italy,Germany, Russia, Japan and China, and you could pretty well keep up with all the bad things.

I'm not saying things were better then; I'm saying that's the way things were then. When? Well ... in the past, to bespecific. Strange things have happened to the world map in my lifetime. I keep wondering how Rumania became Romania. I'm a Rumania man myself.Gypsies dancing in the streets, concertinas squeezed, fiddles faddled.

More recently, a whole bunch of countries have disappeared from the map entirely. Czechoslovakia disappeared just whenI was pretty sure I could spell it. Then there was Yugoslavia, which seemed like it would last forever, both there and on the Iron Range. Gone. Is Freedonia in there somewhere, or does Prime Minister Rufus T. Firefly rule from Hollywood?

Don't get me started on Africa, the map of which has been shuffled several times in my lifetime. I've given uptrying to remember the names of most of the countries in Africa.

And now the latest is Myanmar, known for centuries worldwide as "Burma." President Bush apparently has not been told that Burma has gone the way of the Belgian Congo (remember that?) and is now Myanmar, where the military leadership has been cracking down on multitudes of democracy-minded monks. Bush still calls it Burma.

I think I'm with the president on this one thing. I hate to see Burma disappear. It has such romantic associations -- the famed Burma Road, and, of course, elephants working in the rivers, the exotic cities of Rangoon and Mandalay. Oops, no more Rangoon. It's now Yangon. Then there are those old Burma Shave highway signs: "Spring has sprung, and grass has riz, where last year's careless drivers is."

What would Kipling think? Long ago he wrote, "By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,/There's a Burma girl a-settin' and I know she thinks o' me./...On the road to Mandalay,/ Where the flyin' fishes play, /An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!"

There's a Myanmar girla-settin'? I don't think so. Maybe Myanmar woman a-settin', but then no poem. Myanmar Shave? Forget it.

One thing is sure: There are a whole lot of monks in Myanmar. It brings to mind a song I learned in elementary school, which I didn't realize until recently had political implications, like "Humpty-Dumpty" had political implications if you knew the politics:

"I went to the animal fair,/The birds and the bees were there,/The big baboon, by the light of the moon,/Was combing his auburn hair./The monkey he got drunk, and sat on the elephant's trunk/Theelephant sneezed, and got down on his knees,/and that was the end of the monk."

Well, so it would appear.

Write Jim Heffernan at vheffernan@earthlink.net . For previous columns go to duluthnewstribune.com.