Yesterday afternoon I paid a visit to Fort Lauderdale sculptor Jim McNalis. Jim periodically e-mails me, almost always with updates on the situation in Burma, which he has visited eight times in the last nine years.

His apartment, overlooking a canal in Coral Ridge, was bright and filled with busts. On the coffee table sat copies of The Irrawaddy, the magazine published in Thailand by Burmese intellectuals who successfully fled the country's military dictatorship.

Jim gave me a tour of the living room, which was like a quick lesson in recent Burmese history. The trio of busts on an end table were the Mustache Brothers, a comedy troupe that engages in political satire and spends a fair amount of time in prison.

The half-pig, half-human in the army hat was Than Shwe, the leader of the military regime, whom Jim has dubbed "Than Shwine." This may explain why, in September, Jim was denied a visa to enter the country.

The bust with the determined eyes and folded arms was of Aung San, "sort of the George Washington of Burma," JIm said, explaining that he founded the army and got independence from Britain.

A bust of his daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, stood in the corner, with her famous resolute gaze.

It was the most moving interior I'd ever seen in South Florida.

This morning I found an e-mail from Jim: "Burma is a real heart breaker...such a gorgeous country...such wonderful, curious, courageous people and one of the most inhuman military dictatorships in the world.
There, as in many parts of this world, the bad guys are winning."

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