In case you hadn't figured out how the world works yet. [2]

On February 11th, 1994, the Canadian Major-General in charge of UN Peacekeeping forces in Rwanda faxed a chilling prediction to UN headquarters in New York; he believed that preparations were in hand for a massacre of Tutsi tribesmen by Hutu militias. The head of UN Peacekeeping in New York did nothing; he didn't even raise the possibility that trouble was brewing in the region with the Security Council.
On April 16th the Hutu president of Rwanda was assassinated and the country exploded into violence - in the next fourteen weeks more than 800,000 people were murdered; mostly Tutsis and Hutu moderates. It was the largest mass-killing since the Second World War. Two weeks into the slaughter the security council met to discuss the situation and agreed to reduce the number of peacekeepers in Rwanda from 5,000 to 270, effectively allowing the slaughter to continue. Once again, the head of UN peacekeeping did nothing to prevent this.
The name of this head of peacekeeping, who sat on his hands and whistled during the biggest mass slaughter in modern history whilst being the person most able to prevent it taking place?
Kofi Annan, now Secretary-General of the United Nations and loud-voiced critic of Western indifference to African suffering.

It's a funny old world, isn't it?

Memories are made of this.

I have been thinking about mortality over the weekend. It's something I said in conversation on Saturday night that really made me think of it - When we're dead, all we are is memories in the minds of others. Some people will remember usd well, and kindly. Others not so.
People tend not to think about their own mortality. Like paying tax, it's sometyhing awful and arbitary that happens and so you try and put it off for as long as possible. However, the line about memories got me thinking about how people are remembered. I think that everyone has the people who they'd like to remember them well - friends, family, members of the superhero community, and so on: but the interesting question is who you'd like to remember you badly. The people who will think ill of you when you're gone.
As we go through life, we're going to meet people who like and dislike us. Some people even dislike me, but then again there are 6 billion people out there so I suppose it's inevitable that there will be a few imbeciles scattered amongst them.
But that's the question I'd like to ask of you all: not who you hope will remember you kindly when you keel over dead, but who you'd hope will remember ill of you. Who will curse at the memory of your name? And will you be glad they do?