Booty of the Vanquished

Judging from the email I'm getting, a lot of 60 Minutes' best people are leaving. I was going to make a rats/ship analogy, but none of the people I'm referring to are in the slightest bit rodent-like. I think a better analogy would how, in some places, after a change in government, whole classes of people - intellectuals, students, unionists, etc - feel it in their best interests to relocate.

Okay, a Third Reich/Khmer Rouge (what, you'd prefer Operation Condor?) inference is a little harsh, but stick with me here.

For years, there hung on my wall at CBS a collagist masterpiece made from a gruesome, gaudily-framed portrait of an anonymous tool-and-dye manufacturer from Greater Tupelo area, and a CBS publicity shot of the former executive editor of 60 Minutes. That guy, who'd worked at CBS since my parents were children, served as the institutional memory and, very often, the journalistic conscience of 60 Minutes. So, of course, when Moonves & Co. decided they wanted to make some changes, he was the first to be "promoted" to a less hands-on job. His portrait stayed on the wall as a backhanded tribute.

Now, I don't want anyone to think I spend a lot of time mulling this, but once or twice over the past year I've found myself wondering why 60M would let a talented (well, okay, how about likeable....anyone?) guy like me go. I'd always assumed that it was because I failed to appreciate the wise lessons professional athletes can impart to us in times of crisis. But that was before I learned that this artistic masterpiece is now prominently displayed on the executive producer's wall. On other words, it currently hangs on the wall of the man who fired me.

Dude, I'd have totally given it to you if you'd asked.

Of course there's nothing inherently wrong about this; I mean, I did leave it behind and, hell, Lord Elgin filled the entire British Museum with the Booty of the Vanquished. Even The Decider likes to take Saddam's pistol down off the mantle and fondle it now and again. But I can't help thinking of those people who returned home to their old apartments in Paris after the war, looked at the empty wall and wondered, "Où est le Manet?"

(Note: the photo above is an old one. The first person to send me a picture of its current location will receive a free handwoven Zapatista doll from Chiapas. Seriously.)