Return to Laclede County

Sometime this week, the man whose odyssey originating in eastern Laclede County gave the ruling military junta in Myanmar the kangaroo court case desired to affirm next year's general elections as a joke in their favor, will return home to the comfort of his home somewhere off Highway 32 east of Lebanon. And meanwhile, the woman who has become the face of the struggle for democracy around the world, remains under house arrest for the next 18 months, just after said general elections. All thanks to a senator from… Virginia?

Virginia senator Jim Webb travelled to Myanmar over the weekend to visit with the military junta's leadership, on his own accord. This trip resulted in the release of 53-year-old John Yettaw, who was sentenced to seven years hard labor following his conviction of entering Myanmar illegally. Yettaw, meanwhile, is in a Bangkok hospital following a seizure, and will have to find his own way back to Missouri. (And according to a recent search of When To Fly, it's going to run the family $890 for a one-way ticket from Bangkok to Springfield, if they book him today to arrive on 8 September.)

And what still startles me is the lack of response on the local front. After meeting with both the junta leadership and pro-democracy leader Aung San Soo Kyi, Webb has expressed support for easing sanctions on Myanmar. (Reports of China and India increasing trade with the country would undermine the current sanctions.) But in the three months the man from Falcon, Missouri, who claimed he had a vision and sought to warn Soo Kyi, no statements were made by any elected official from Missouri concerning his condition, conviction, or even that of Soo Kyi. Perhaps with Mr. Yettaw on his way home (and a reporter from a major Missouri media operation finally writing about this, this particular story by The Kansas City Star's Tony Rizzo featuring Mrs. Yettaw), we might hear from Webb's colleagues about their office's views on what transpired over the last three months.