The Brown Danube

Hungary is beset with an ecological disaster and a human tragedy as a toxic sludge spill took several lives and ruined a substantial area of that nation. The red sludge is now seeping into the mostly pristine blue Danube that winds its way through central Europe. As a Tennessean who has personally experienced and suffered property damage in a thousand year flood and whose state also witnessed a toxic Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill, I can empathize with what Hungarians are now facing and the problems which may harm other Europeans down river from the tragedy. A flood is an act of God while a sludge spill like this betrays man's unsteady hand. Let us hope the resilient and resourceful Hungarians who climbed so quickly from their Iron Curtain chains can rise once again with the spirit that has unified them since the Magyars.