A BLUE-RIBBON DAY FOR THE WORLD BANK. Having managed to do what leaders of the world's great nations could or would not do, the World Bank Staff Association deserves a global day of thanksgiving for having managed to drive Bank president and Iraq War proponent Paul Wolfowitz from the helm of that mighty ship of multiple states. It was at the staff level that the revolt against Wolfowitz began, organized through the staff association, the closing thing to a union the Bank will allow. To think it all began with the distribution of blue ribbons. (Read Sridhar Pappu's delicious WaPo piece for the lowdown on the sartorial scheme to drive the neo-con to neo-gone.) Before the new millennium dawned, I worked at the World Bank, as an "independent contractor" for a year-long stint, and later did an editorial job for one of its divisions. (For fuller disclosure, there's a riff on my blog about this.) Even though I did not qualify for membership for the staff association, I nonetheless found its leadership to be most helpful, especially when the Bank switched its operations software and couldn't figure out how to pay us "independent contractors" (otherwise known as perma-temps). It's easy to demonize the Bank as a faceless representative of all that is wrong with globalization, and certainly the Bank has much to answer for in this regard, especially as it has enticed developing nations into selling off state-owned utilities to private interests (structural adjustment, in the Bank's lingo). But the Bank is also populated with many extremely gifted and earnest people who really set out to do good in the world, and I had the pleasure of working with some of the best. Given today's outcome, I do bet that former Staff Association President John Alvey -- the British translator who got me paid during the software snafu -- wishes he hadn't retired before the Wolfowitz coup. --Adele M. Stan
