[Chicago], September 3, 1988
Of Striking Similarity
The Art Institute of Chicago is presenting the special exhibition “Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Hermitage.” The exhibition was arranged as part of the American-Russian cultural exchange program that had been agreed upon at the summit meeting in Geneva in 1985. The paintings of Dutch and Flemish masters on exhibit, which have rarely been seen in the West, have attracted many visitors from Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, who are obviously of Dutch descent. The faces of these visitors had a striking similarity with the figures shown on these paintings. They also took great pride in these magnificent works of art which they regarded as their cultural heritage. The appreciation of art treasures from Europe in America is in part based on ethnic origin.
[End] September, 1988
A Year of Natural Disasters
At first the drought, then the wildfires that consumed large areas in the National Parks, especially in Yellowstone, and now the hurricane “Gilbert,” which raced with 170 mph through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, until it finally had landfall near the Mexican-American border. This up to now strongest hurricane of the century devastated nearly half of Jamaica as well as large parts of the Yucatan Peninsula. It has been a year of natural disasters. The abnormal behavior of these weather patterns points more and more to global climate change.