While the US State Department deals with the Wikileaks crisis, we have our own brand of leaks. The literal kind. Leaks that seep in between the large, gaping spaces in window frames, through shutters that are rotten, or via walls that are cracked from foundering foundations.
Think I'm exaggerating? Well, look at the map (Bestcountryreports.com). That's us in the darkest blue patch: Tangier, confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and the Strait of Gibraltar, with the Med just next door. No wonder the place is Morocco's wettest.
So what does this mean? Well, for starters, it means repeating an annual rite: removing pictures from one of the Legation Museum's loveliest buildings. That's Moustapha at right attempting to limit damage to some of our ancient prints and maps in the Arab Pavilion, which is suffering some of the worst damage.
Only this time we're not going to put them back next spring. I'm going to procure myself some yellow plastic "crime scene" DANGER – DO NOT ENTER tape and cordon off this travesty. Maybe our visitors (journalists, writers, scholars – but also tourists, including some concerned American citizens) will be moved to write to their members of Congress to demand that the US Government take better care of its oldest diplomatic property overseas.
But cordon off I will. Don't want any of our visitors to receive a chunk of historic ceiling on their heads.
Gerald Loftus
