MEMO FROM ...: "Seams of Belgium's Quilt Threaten to Burst," by Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 14 May 2008, p. A11.

As mulitnational unions grow in number and size (these United States being history's first great package), they encourage further "splittism," to use the Chinese term.

I mean, if we're all in the EU already, what's the big deal if Flanders wants to divorce itself from Brussels and Wallonia?

Globalization encourages two opposing trends at the same time: multi-unionism and nation-state fracturing. So it integrates and disintegrates at the same time.

Take that concept, F. Scott Fitzgerald!