Zycher of Striped-Pants Land

Just back from a week in Geneva schmoozing the international diplomats, who are there to negotiate an "Access and Benefit-Sharing" system for the Convention on Biodiversity. More about this policy issue later, but essentially it is an effort to (choose one): a. Obtain competitive compensation for the use of such indigenous resources as plant and animal materials and the "traditional knowledge" of various third-world shamans; or b. Use international treaties and lawsuits to steal patents. Later on, I'll report, you'll decide.

Anyway, it was a fun crowd at the after-hours cocktail gathering, a great, vibrant, colorful, multicultural conga line following the one waiter carrying an hors d'oeuvres tray. (Can't our tax dollars buy more than that?) There was the very attractive young lady wearing a skirt made of about as much cloth as a handkerchief; I know not---and my wife insists that I not find out---precisely how she was able to sit down at the sessions. There was another attractive lady wearing on her dress a huge carnation; only my finely-honed sense of diplomacy induced me to refrain from reaching over to see if it squirted water. And there was the King of the proceedings, a man known to all as Nanook of the North (not his real name), who wore a full, traditional Lapland outfit, complete with leather belt, hat, and moccasins to which was stuck some seemingly genuine dried bear droppings. Afterward, we tried to get a taxi back to our hotel, but not one was to seen anywhere in the vicinity; apparently all the diplomats have government-issued cars, many with drivers. The life of the deeply caring is not too shabby. And so we walked back, an outcome that proved quite fortuitous, and not merely for the exercise and the stroll along Lake Geneva. On the way we passed a store called the "Tax-Free Shop for Diplomats." And that just about sums it all up, doesn't it?