Adventures in reconstruction and redevelopment

According to a report by Andrew Bounds in the Financial Times, the European Agency for Reconstruction is subject to an investigation for mismanaging its programs for reconstruction in the Balkans. It seems that “a fifth of the contracts signed by the European Agency for Reconstruction in 2003 have ‘anomalies’.”

Among the principal “anomalies” are charges of bribery of an EAR employee by Siemens and Lurgi Lentjes in order to win a €49.8m contract to renew a power station in Belgrade in 2002. The article reports that “the employee, who allegedly received money and a luxury car, was suspended and then resigned. His exact whereabouts are now unknown and European parliamentarians believe he has moved to Africa.”

These sorts of stories do quite a lot to help those political forces which oppose greater cooperation with Europe, and to discourage people who want to accomplish worthwhile things in a legitimate and honest way.

After Ceca, Ceca

I will be the first to say that I expected more from the mighty BBC than an article of vague generalities and quotations from two sources. But Matt Prodger's short piece does have a couple of delicious lines from Ceca.

First, explaining her domestic popularity: "Greeks listen to Greek music. Italians listen to Italian music. And Serbs listen to me. It's to do with national identity. Britney Spears and Madonna could never be a success here like I am."

Second, waving aside any association with the things she is associated with: "I don't know what they're talking about. I don't sing songs about nationalism. I only sing about love. And besides, Milosevic has been gone for four years, and I'm still here."

Very nice. Now go listen instead to "Uslovna sloboda" by Jarboli.

Progressive witchcraft

I'm quite taken by Kathy Paur's summary of the liberal values of the Harry Potter book series, which she presents together with some other takes on childrens' literature over at BOPnews:

"Harry Potter is ostensibly a self-reliant individual taking on the worst evil-doer of all – but the Potter subplots hold significant populist lessons: Pure-blood elitists are mean people you wouldn’t want to befriend. Discrimination against lower socioeconomic classes (chiefly house-elves, goblins, centaurs, and were-wolves) is not only immoral but may have disastrous consequences (the Order of the Pheonix worries that the goblins will support Voldemort if he promises not to treat them like second-class citizens). The media (The Daily Prophet) can be bought by those in power and used to mislead and endanger the citizenry. An ineffective government (the Ministry of Magic) which isn’t committed to the well-being of the people is more than capable of ignoring real threats and punishing whistle-blowers. And free, high-quality education is wonderful fun."

There is an interesting discussion developing in the comments too. On the other side, it seems that there are people on the right willing to run with all sorts of inflated or satirical claims about the books promoting the spread of the dark arts.

The art of the bad deal

Anyone who wants to build up an art collection in a hurry may want to get in touch with the Agency for Bank Receivership and Liquidation in Serbia. B92 reports today that they are preparing an auction of 73 works of art from the collections of failed banks, whose value has been confirmed by the staff of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. On sale on 30 January will be works by Safet Zec, Radomir Reljić, Aleksandar Cvetković, Ljubica Sokić, Jovan Bjelić, Peđa Milosavljević, Mića Popović, Olja Ivanjicki, and Milan Marinković-Cile.



I doubt very much that the above painting, "Evropa terra incognita" (Radomir Reljić, 1968) is on sale, since it is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

One damn dime for your thoughts

Most of you have probably received by now this message going around the net calling for 20 January to be observed as "Not One Damn Dime Day." The last one that I got bore the (electronic) signature of the venerable TV journalist Bill Moyers, though I doubt very much that that very kindly and tolerant fellow has much of anything to do with the malediction of legal tender. The idea is that on the day that George Bush is to be inaugurated, all the good people of America would simultaneously demonstrate their disgust and their power by, ummm, not shopping. Presumably this would demonstrate to the centers of corporate power that el pueblo unido jamás será vencido.

Any reasonably competent economist will explain why putting off your shopping until 21 January is not likely to flip any big corporate wigs, and that it would have no effect at all on your fixed costs. This whole business seems designed to play into the popular fantasy that people can bring about major change by not doing anything (Bartleby, anyone?). It smells to me like a hoax. How does it smell to you?

Update: If you like the idea of a massive boycott and find yourself in the Netherlands, I think that winkelen ought to be permitted.

New photo blog sighting

He has only just begun, but my friend Miladin zvani Jela has put up his new photo blog. Just seven photos for now, and in the future -- at least eight!

Good news and bad

The good news today is that much to relief of my much burdened spouse and her computer, I finally got my machine back from Apple today! And it is humming along in fine repair! The best bit of all is that they do not seem to have destroyed my existing files, which means I will not have to scour the P2P servers for the works of Üstmamó and Brooke Benton.

The bad news is that the domains at blog.hr seem to be unreachable today. Let's hope this is temporary, as nearly all things are.

Flattering as it is

The editors of the Wampum blog are very kind indeed to list East Ethnia as a nominee in their Koufax awards competition for best new blog. But there are so many really outstanding nominees, I do not think I am really in the running. The competition is a great way to find new and interesting things to read, though.

Recommended reading for today

At Osservatorio sui Balcani, the sociologist Aljoša Mimica is interviewed by Ramona Parenzan and Denis Kajić. In Italian, nego šta.

Important decisions made over the weekend

Among the dilemmas we had was deciding who had done the best versions of the works of Serge Gainsbourg. For the song "Un poison violent, c'est ça l'amour" we could not resolve the question of whether the original version stood up to the cover by Eszter Balint. But no dilemma on the topic of "Je t'aime moi non plus." The prize goes to Miss Kittin, for her version with Sven Vath.

Ten letters with onions

One of the happier bureaucratic customs is the postal service's use of stamps to commemorate great individuals, historical moments, places and other cultural icons. There was a time when I would not send a letter without an Otis Redding stamp. But our friend Milena is kind enough to send along a picture of this Bosnian stamp, celebrating a darn good culinary product:



Other countries should follow suit.

Update: Have a look at the comments, Mr Teekay suspects that the photo may be a hoax. If it is, the postal service would be wise to embrace it.

Update2: Counselor Skelly has evidence that the stamp is real, he provides a link in the comments.

Four more Gmail invites

Sorry for the lack of updates over the weekend, family and fun beckoned too vociferously. I'll have some new items up today. In the meantime, the nice people at Google have given me four more invitations for Gmail to hand out. If you want one, drop me a note at eastethnia at gmail dot com. First come, first serve.

Mr López, white courtesy telephone

That crafty Augusto Pinochet, whose health seems to deteriorate suddenly every time he is served with a subpoena, has apparently been up to activities other than adjusting his IV in the periods in between. According to a report in El Nuevo Herald, investigative judge Sergio Muñoz has also discovered that he had four forged passports under various names, and bank accounts in several countries in addition to the $16 million USD he had stashed away in a bank in the United States.

As for the bank accounts, it seems he held some under his own name, some under his initials, and some under his second surname Ugarte. Some of them he held under the name "Red Fox." And the US accounts, it seems, were held under the name Daniel López.

The great Argentine cartoonist Horacio Altuna should be outraged at the use that has been made of his signature character.

Pépé le traditionaliste

This is an old film, but we just saw it last night. Pépé le Moko (1937) features Jean Gabin as a Parisian gangster holed up in Algiers, where he is protected by his legendary status in the Casbah. The police do not dare to go into the Casbah to get him, but he cannot leave. The film begins with a postcard-like presentation of the Casbah, voiced over by a police detective's description, as a place of diversity, intrigue and tradition.

It isn't a great film, certainly: there are some fine actors and wonderful photography, weighed down by truly awful dialogue and bountiful evidence that the scriptwriter did no research at all into the world of police and thieves. But the Casbah/city motif intrigues me, because it sheds light on the status of the gangster as folk hero. What Pépé depends on for protection is a cocoon of tradition and culture, a favor that he returns by appreciating the objects he steals. The city of Algiers offers the pleasures and opportunities of ascendant capitalism, and with it the possibility of returning to France, but he knows that if he goes there he is certain to be arrested or killed. There is not much need to give away the (in any case fairly thin) story to offer this as the center of the film.

So what is it that makes the gangster a folk hero? In this case, it is the embodiment of precapitalist values: charisma, sociability, embeddedness (of course the gangster as a defiant individualist is not the perfect precapitalist, but even then he evades the rational requirements of modern society). He can exist as a part of a traditional community on the margins, but the modern world of the city below is an atmosphere that cannot support him.

What I don't get is why the people of the Casbah seem so ready to accept the Parisian Pépé, who is clearly not of their universe. Something does not fit, like all those actors using stage techniques on cinema sets.

Democrats, your pulse is silent again

I found this surprising, to say the least. I sent a letter to my senator -- John Kerry, a fellow you may have heard of -- urging him to oppose the nomination of torture advocate Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States. Here is the response I got back:

January 6, 2005

Thank you for contacting me concerning the nomination of Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General of the United States. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

I am closely following the nomination hearings of Mr. Gonzales. I have several questions that I want answered, including his role in shaping the Administration's policy on detainees and how that may have contributed to prisoner abuses. The hearings currently underway will allow us a better understanding of Mr. Gonzales' record, so we can make an informed decision on his nomination to be Attorney General when it is considered by the full Senate.

Thank you again for sharing your opinions with me. I encourage you to contact my office with any additional concerns.

Sincerely,

John F. Kerry
United States Senator

So let's get this straight. The leader of the party of opposition is confronted with a candidate whose main contribution to the country has been to approve gross violations of human rights. And he hasn't made up his mind??? I would respond, but I have been able to avoid using obscenities on this site so far.

Pfuj. I'll let you know how Kennedy responds.

Trouble with labels

According to the Boston Phoenix, a restaurant in my neighborhood may or may not have some difficulty with its name. The Tsunami sushi bar might need to do some of what in a distant land was once called "rebranding." Mike Miliard's article quotes the owner, John Wu:

"Still, Wu — who’s originally from Taiwan and, thankfully, doesn’t know anyone affected by the disaster — was naturally concerned that the eating public might react adversely to the new connotation of his restaurant’s name. 'That’s exactly what I was worried about since the occurrence on Sunday, that my name would now suddenly become a bad rap. But actually, that hasn’t happened so far.' Even so, he says, 'there have been three individuals — one was my customer and two others were pedestrians — mentioning that now the word tsunami is associated with this big destructive image [and] that perhaps we should change the name. Although that does not represent a majority of my clientele, it does make me think.'

"But he’s not ready to take drastic action quite yet. 'Of course, changing a company’s identity is extremely difficult,' Wu says. 'We’re a small, family-run restaurant. For the last three and a half years we have established quite a nice reputation for ourselves in a mega-city for sushi bars — there are 14 in Brookline alone. From my perspective right now, things are still okay. Right now, I don’t see the impact. But if I do, then I have to seriously consider marketing myself otherwise.'"

It is a perfectly nice place that we have been to a few times. Although of the neighborhood places, most of the family prefers Takeshima.

Housekeeping again: New links

Just a quick post to bring attention to the new links that have been added since, um, the last time I put up a post like this:

Burekeaters: Pan-Balkan, just how me piace.
Centralni komitet: Sto ce nama tudjinske rijeci?
Kako odgojiti kravu: Don't dried bananas cost more than fresh ones?
Noga filologa: Language, literature and things that spin around them.
Roma Roma: Football and Balkan history, yes!
Tajni grad: “Kratki zapisi o stvarima.”
Teekay: Balkan politics, intellectual history and Macintoshes.
Berlin sprouts: European politics and culture from Ulrich Buechsenschuetz.
Tom Engelhardt: Commentary from the social critic and novelist.
Chez Nadezhda: Mostly Asian and US politics, but that is not all.
Unfogged: Oh look, smart people with attitude.

If I have forgotten your site, let me know! I’ll fix it.

The next big addition to the right side of the page will be a listing of news sources, to be prepared the moment I get around to it.

Vic dana

This one is not stolen from a newspaper, but was provided by our friend Milena:

Pita Mujo Hasu:
- Sta je bilo prije? Kokos ili jaje?
- Ma prije je bilo svega!

Don't get bugged, read this plug

Many of my posts send people to news articles at sites that require registration (the previous post has three of them, for example). There is an alternative: BugMeNot. Ko razumije, shvatice.

Anti-torture campaign picks up

Thanks to Americablog for bringing this to my attention. Now not only have the New York Times (in today's lead editorial), the Los Angeles Times (in an op-ed by Robert Scheer), and twelve high-ranking former military officers come out against the confirmation of torture advocate Alberto Gonzales as the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the United States. A coalition of groups, including the True Majority Foundation, the National Council of Churches and MoveOn, is raising money to put an anti-Gonzales ad in the Times. Here is an image, thanks to Americablog:



The site for the campaign is at True Majority, where you can also make a donation toward buying ad space if you feel inclined.

Update: Here is General James Cullen (ret.) in the Christian Science Monitor on his reasons for opposing Mr Gonzales:

"We saw this as posing a huge danger for American service men and women taken into captivity. These briefs under Gonzales could be cited by our enemies to justify torture of our people," says retired Gen. James Cullen, former chief judge of the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

He explains in an interview: The Army Field Manual cautions that if readers are in doubt about whether a proposed interrogation technique should be applied, they should ask themselves: If they were taken prisoner, would they want the proposed interrogation measure applied against them? "This very common-sense approach was missed entirely by Mr. Gonzales," says General Cullen.

While Gonzales may have acted at the urging of Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "Mr. Gonzales had the responsibility at some point to put the brakes on this ... and he failed to do it," he adds.

Update2: Now AP is reporting that Mr Gonzales plans to promise to obey the law if he is confirmed:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales plans to promise to abide by the government's non-torture policies and international treaties if he is confirmed by the Senate, The Associated Press learned Wednesday.

Soft bigotry of low expectations: if he promises (under condition of receiving a massive privilege) to obey the law in the future, that certainly qualifies him to be the chief law enforcement officer of the country. In this administration.

Azra's favorite mushrooms

These are with portobello mushrooms. Although the name sounds Italian, legend has it they are the product of a mistake by a Pennsylvania farmer (Let3: "Daleko je Pennsylvania") who forgot to harvest his crimini mushrooms and let them get really big. You could probably do it with crimini mushrooms as well, but you would have to do some fine-fingered spoon work. The recipe is very easy if you have one of those choppy-dicey food processor things. You could make it without one, but you will spend a long time with a knife. So, here goes:

Portobello mushrooms na bruklajnski nacin

1-2 portobello mushrooms per person, depending how hungry they are
1-2 cups of bread crumbs (grind an old loaf of bread; if you buy breadcrumbs at the store, don't tell me about it)
A handful of parsley
4-5 cloves of garlic (less if you are one of those people)
A spoonful of Vegeta
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese

Remove the stems from the mushrooms and wash them, let them dry. Grate up the bread and put the crumbs in a bowl. Cruelly pulverize together the garlic and parley with the Vegeta and olive oil. Mix that together with the bread crumbs.

Put some oil in a roasting pan and the mushrooms in the pan. Spoon the crumb-garlic-parsley and whatever mixture into the mushrooms. Grate Parmesan cheese over the whole mess and roast for about ten minutes at 400-450 (Farenheit, obviously).

Serve with roasted peppers.

My secret ingredient: duck fat. No, you can't buy it, you have to collect it when you roast a duck. Then put it in the refrigerator and use it wherever a normal person would use butter. My grandmother used to do this (sometimes with onions), and however clogged her arteries may have been, her life was long and happy. Put it in the bottom of the roasting pan before putting the mushrooms in.

Croatian elections turn ugly

The unpopular foreign minister Miomir Zuzul, shadowed by a corruption scandal, has resigned, observers suggest in an effort to improve the image of HDZ. Drax is reporting that health minister Andrija Hebrang will soon follow. One candidate who did not make it to the runoff, rich guy Boris Miksic, is claiming fraud.

Now today an article has appeared in Nacional (Nacional is a subscription site; the story is reported also by Index, which is free) calling into question how Mr Miksic acquired the wealth on which his reputation and campaign were built. It includes charges of theft of intellectual property (which a court rejected), dishonest connections with the Tudjman family, invention of biographical details ... juicy stuff.

If this is an effort to discredit Mr Miksic before the election, one has to wonder why it was not done before the first round. At this point it might be asked whether stories like this are more likely to influence Mr Miksic or his supporters.

The writing on the wall (foul humor edition)

I had the good fortune to come across this at Stvor.



Twas found in the washroom of the bar "Ona a ne neka druga."

No statute of limitation

The Supreme Court of Chile has rejected an appeal by former dictator Augusto Pinochet to avoid being tried for reasons of health and old age, the BBC reports. His case will now be returned to investigative judge Juan Guzmán, who originally found him competent to stand trial.

According to the BBC article, "Lawyers for Gen Pinochet say the legal process could kill him." Naturally we are quite concerned for his welfare, as we are for the welfare of all unrepentant mass murderers. Best to have him where his condition can be monitored constantly.

Does anyone want a Gmail account?

I just started using it out of dissatsfaction with my employer's server (too much spam, the web interface I am using while confined to Mrs Ethnia's computer is offputting), and kind of like its clever design. They have given me three invitations for new accounts to hand out. If you want one, just send me your e-mail address to [eastethnia at gmail dot com], and I'll send it to you. First come, first serve.

Update: They are all handed out. And interestingly, all to people in the same city, which is not the one where I live. But if I get more to hand out, I'll make a new post.

I hear my species calling, but the pizza guy is on the other line

This is, apparently, from a high school textbook in philosophy published in 2003 and still in use. According to a letter in Tuesday's edition of Danas, on page 187 of Udžbenik filozofije by Ivan Kolarić, in the section on Nietzsche, the good professor Kolarić says:

".....However, our misogynist, while he is incomparably more moderate than his teacher Schopenhauer, succeeds in undertsanding the very essence of the female being when he writes: 'Woman is an enigma whose solution is a child!' Truly, women who have not given birth are like unripe fruit, they have not affirmed their nature, they have not answered the call of their species and they have not realized the meaning of their lives...."

Or maybe you prefer the original:

".....Međutim, naš ženomrzac, mada neuporedivo umereniji od učitelja mu Šopenhauera, uspeva da dokuči samu bit ženskog bića, kad kaže:'Žena je enigma čije rešenje je dete!' Zaista, žene koje nisu rađale su kao nedozrelo voće, one nisu potvrdile svoju prirodu, nisu odgovorile pozivu vrste i nisu ostvarile smisao svog života....."

The writer of the letter, Ljiljana Negojević of Kraljevo, points out that "The words between quotations are Nietzsche's, the rest is the personal position of the author of the textbook, which students are obligated to learn." There may be a pedagogical theory associating students' tendency to learn with the type of fruit they most closely resemble.

Professor Kolarić would appear to be head of philosophy and sociology at that distinguished academic institution, the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Pale, right in the vibrant downtown of "Srpsko Sarajevo."

A krigla named desire

BBC reports that the superbrewer Inbev, which was formed in August of last year when the Belgian giant Interbrew bought the Brazilian Ambev, has reached an agreement to buy out the huge Russian Sun Interbrew for 259.7 million Euros.

Now, I am not one to quote Marlon Brando frequently, but I can't help myself: "Stella! Stella!"

So popular all of a sudden!

Wow, I seem to be getting a lot more visits than usual today. This is probably because of fifteen minutes of fame that comes from being linked by the fabulous Laura Rozen. Laura, you have lots of fans!

Edo Murtić

Elections are not the only thing happening in Croatia. Today also marks the passing of the great painter Edo Murtić.


Edo Murtić, "Autumn," 1963
Courtesy Galeria Torbandena, Trieste.

Thanks to Quod, here is a biography from Iskon.

GONG: First unofficial Croatian election results

As reported by Index, here are the first unofficial election results released by the nongovernmental organisation GONG, on the basis of 4% of polling places. The estimated result is given, followed by the estimated margin of error in the results.

Stjepan Mesić 51,41 +/- 1,88 %
Boris Mikšić 18,37 +/- 1%
Jadranka Kosor 18,2 +/- 1,17 %
Đurđa Adlešić 2,72 +/- 0,36 %
Slaven Letica 2,62 +/- 0,19 %
Ljubo Ćesić 1,90 +/- 0,25 %
Ivić Pašalić 1,65+/- 0,23 %
Anto Kovačević 0,87 +/- 0,14 %
Miroslav Blažević 0,78 +/- 0,08 %
Miroslav Rajh 0,75 +/- 0,07 %
Doris Košta 0,42 +/- 0,06 %
Mladen Kešer 0,33 +/- 0,1 %
Tomislav Petrak 0,12 +/- 0,03 %

Update: I see that Drax is also publishing results as they come in, with commentary as well. So I will not update results, go to Drax or Index instead.

Update2: GONG's projections are being updated every 30 minutes at Index, until midnight (that's 6PM in Bostonian). They still show Mesic above 50% and Miksic in second, but the current article does not say how much larger the uzorak is than the one for the results above. My wild guess: the vote from Hercegovina will not help HDZ move up to second place, and there will not be a second round. But take this for what it is worth, time will tell.

Update3: Well, that was fast! If this report from Index is correct (it cites a leak from the state election commission), then the prediction I made in the last update was wrong on both counts. As Yogi Berra once said, "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future."

Update4: The state election commission is reporting that Mesic leads with 49.03%, and Kosor has captured second place with 20.18%, edging out Miksic 17.80%. The remaining ten candidates are all below 3%. On 16 January, a second round will be held.

Update5: Just to note that the far right is the big loser in this election. The candidate of HSLS, Đurđa Adlešić, got 2.69%. Slaven Letica, who was once a mild-mannered medical sociologist but wants to be a national-populist when he grows up, got 2.60%. Ljubo Ćesić Rojs, about whom the less said the better, got 1.85%, while ex-hohštapler Ivić Pašalić got 1.82%. Even if all of their supporters vote for HDZ, it will not be enough to defeat Mesić.

Election day in Croatia

Today Croatia has presidential elections. If public opinion surveys are to be believed, no surprises are expected, and the current president Stjepan Mesic should have little difficulty getting reelected. Polls show him far ahead of his nearest rival, HDZ candidate Jadranka Kosor, who promises not to drink coffee or tell jokes if she is elected. In any case, I will be following events as they are recounted to the world by Dragan Antulov.

Update: The elections have not passed without at least one bizarre incident. Apparently in the very pleasant city of Split, an election observer from the non-governmental organization GONG was smacked in the head by a drunken Boris Dvornik, who was once a great actor, but has perhaps found other interests.

Update2: More detail on Boris Dvornik's introduction of violence into the election cycle from Drax. Apparently the incident arose from a gap in perceptions, in which Mr Dvornik thought the election observer was a hot young woman, whereas she thought he was a nasty old drunk.

Update3: Actual real news! Poll results conflict as to whether Mesic will succeed in getting over 50%, thereby securing election without going into another round. But results appear to agree that second place will not be taken by Jadranka Kosor (whose HDZ is the party of the current prime minister Ivo Sanader, and is also well known for a couple of other reasons) but by Boris Miksic, a former tennis champion and rich guy from Minnesota who financed his own campaign. Reports from Drax, from Index, and from B92.

Update4: Now the speculation is focused on whether votes from outside the country might change the result. If the "diaspora votes" (don't say it, I know) are significantly different from the results so far, this could either 1) put Mesic below 50%, which would force a runoff election, or 2) put Kosor ahead of Miksic. I do not have a guess on the likelihood of either, except that if either one happens then the likelihood is increased for possibility 3) that a change of the outcome as a result of the "diaspora vote" would lead to greater pressure to eliminate the "diaspora vote."

So much progress in the new year!

Even the Bush administration seems to be backing off its earlier advocacy of torture, but Bush's under-the-table appointee to the board of the United States Institute of Peace, the nutcake Daniel Pipes, rages on. His newest idea is to advocate placing people in internment camps in the United States on the basis of religion.

Of course the idea of placing people of a certain religion in camps is hardly original to Mr Pipes. He was influenced by his political models. But the inspiration he acknowledges is the forced internment of US citizens of Japanese descent during the Second World War. The US government has acknowledged that this internment was illegal, and in 1988 offered an official apology and reparations. Have a look at his interesting effort to call the consensus of policy-makers, historians and the judiciary "revisionist!" (Note to Mr Pipes: do look up "revisionist" in a dictionary).

Mr Pipes does indicate a dim awareness that his ideas are shared by no sane person on the face of the planet, acknowledging that his proposals meet with "near-universal disapproval" and that "polite society shies away" from dangerous lunatics like him. He attributes this to a reflexive tendency "to condemn in advance any use of ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion in formulating domestic security policy," which seems like a roundabout way of admitting to being a violent racist on the far edge of the fringe of the fringe of even his own wacko habitus.

Happy new year? I'm not done complaining about the old one

In the new year's message from Serbian prime minister Vojislav Koštunica:

"On its way out is a year which was, by many measures, difficult. In that year we did not live the way we expected and how we deserve."

So it isn't so much that you ought to be wished a happy new year. It's much more important that you be persuaded that the old one was sad.

Can we tolerate East Ethnics?

Ian Buruma wrote an odd piece for the New Yorker in which he takes an insane person's murder of an obnoxious racist as a sign that tolerance cannot survive, and then proceeds to blame the whole thing on an imaginary "Middle East."

I thought of responding, but a post at Dragi Erazmo pretty much says everything I thought.

Speechalism

Thank the internet spirits for Norm Jensen of One Good Move, who finds the most fascinating and hilarious items to post on his site. Set aside three minutes and fifty five seconds to enjoy this mockumentary film (a Quicktime video file) on the unique oratorical style of Mr Bush. The genius of the presentation is explained by Harlan McCraney, Presidential Speechalist (underplayed by Andy Dick).

Jerry Orbach, 1935-2004

He had a celebrated career in musical comedy for several decades before he took on the role for which he became known around the world, as the world-weary and sarcastic detective Lenny Briscoe in the television series Law and Order. According to reminiscences, he actively participated in writing the series as well, and was not only a much-loved actor but also a nice person. Now Jerry Orbach has died, of prostate cancer at the age of 69.



His comforting and long-running presence will be missed by insomniacs everywhere.

Lessons in free market economics

Thanks to the always very perceptive Dušan Pavlović.

Deadline for ICTY indictments

There is an interesting essay with a developing discussion over at The head Heeb by a guest writer, one Doug M.

He writes about the impending deadline for the ICTY prosecutor to file indictments -- 31 December, just two days from now. Most of the essay is dedicated to speculating as to whether an indictment is likely to be filed against Ramush Haradinaj, the former guerrilla commander who has recently become prime minister of Kosovo. But there is plenty of interesting reflection beyond that as well.

Phobias for fugitives

The Croatian justice minister, Vesna Škare Ozbolt, is quoted today as explaining that the fugitive Ante Gotovina, who is charged by ICTY with war crimes and crimes against humanity, is afraid to face the charges against him because a previous prison sentence in Nicaragua made him "phobic of any kind of imprisonment."

And no prosecutor would want to file charges against people who are afraid of prison. Only against people who fantasize about it.

Susan Sontag, 1933-2004

Today the writer Susan Sontag died, of leukemia at the age of 71. She was a specialist in no field and a contributor to many, and although critics might say that she invited controversy without being prepared for it or that her best ideas were far behind her, she managed for a long time to occupy a role that has largely disappeared in the US: the public intellectual with something cogent to offer on a wide range of subjects, for whom coherence and erudition are values independent of a particular object.

That role was probably the product of the existence of an established upper class -- one whose members were interested in more than the construction and maintenance of their own fortune, and who felt the need to justify their position by offering something in return. That class was easy to ridicule while it was still around, but it will be hard to replace now that it is gone.

New for admirers of popular culture

This is either a new magazine or one I have just heard about. Either way, it will probably be interesting to have a peek at Popboks, the official publication of the "Society of admirers of popular culture." It is edited by the courtly Goran Tarlać, and among the contributors are some of the finest popular culture writers Belgrade has to offer. In addition to the magazine, the site offers archives of the historic popular culture magazines Džuboks(1974-1985) and Ritam (1989-1995).

Roasted potatoes with lemon

This is simple, and often impresses people beyond all reason. The original recipe was from a book I got from a Greek market in Worcester, but that one called for inordinate amounts of butter which ended up giving the whole thing a soapy flavor, so I changed it. They go nicely with any sort of roasted meat, but it would be a shame if that meat were anything other than lamb. The "it would be a shame if you did anything other than what I do" line I got from Marcella Hazan's cookbooks, great recipes but an imperious tone.

The roasted potatoes

enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a roasting pan
6-8 potatoes, the small to medium type are best
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper
enough broth to almost cover the potatoes (from kockice is fine, I like Knorr's vegetable kockice)

Cut up the potatoes any way you like, thick slices or wedges are best. Put them in an oiled roasting pan.
Pour the lemon juice over them, sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Pour the broth over that.
Put them in the oven and roast them with whatever meat you are roasting, about 90 minutes.

That is really all! Simple and transcendent.

Forecast: Cold, drizzle, light posting

Greetings from my wife's computer! My computer has to be sent off to Apple for a repair, which will have us sharing a device for a few days. Pametniji popušta, so I expect that until my machine comes back the blog will not be updated too often. But do come by, enjoy what is already here. My previous experience tells me that Apple is generally pretty fast about fixing stuff and getting it back.

There is ardor among thieves

This breaks my heart. A serial robber in Zagreb was caught after 26 robberies because police were able to identify him by his very cordial language. According to the Associated Press:

The 25-year-old man called the people in the stores ``honey'' or ``kitten,'' and told them: ``You are very dear,'' ``This is a tiny little robbery'' and ``Take some of the money yourself, babe.''

Turns out the fellow wasn't even armed. The whole "civility in public discourse" business must be nothing but lip service.

My dahija, he wrote me a letter

B92 is reporting that a letter was received, sent as a fax from an unlisted Belgrade telephone, to Alternativna televizija Banja Luka, purportedly from the fugitive Radovan Karadžić. There is no confirmation of authenticity, and it may well not be authentic. There is also no sign of it on ATV's web site, at least not yet.

The content of the letter seems to be largely a complaint about OHR's measures in Republika Srpska, and a criticism of SDS for not responding decisively enough.

"Now it is to be or not to be," the letter tells citizens. I'll take "not to be" for 200.

Dalmatia on the Danube

Maybe with global warming it will be! But geographic purity does not matter much compared to the service offered by the Blue Danube Wine Company, which distributes wines from Croatia, Hungary and Austria. Ljudi, they have Mátyás Szöke's cabernet for $10.95 USD a bottle!

Chocolate, garlic and fish

I haven't offered a culinary post for a while. But now I am inspired by this article by Cristiana Pulcinelli in l'Unità, "Cioccolata, aglio e pesce per vivere sei anni in più." She reports on a variety of nutritional studies showing that life expectancy can be increased by eating the three above-named fine things.

Now, I am wondering whether anybody has a recipe for monkfish in molé. That ought to take care of it.

Outward Christian soldiers

The always very interesting Digby gets us up to speed on a project to move right-wing theocrats who call themselves Christian to the state of South Carolina with an eye to taking it over. They declare:

"ChristianExodus.org is coordinating the move of thousands of Christians to South Carolina for the express purpose of re-establishing Godly, constitutional government. It is evident that the U.S. Constitution has been abandoned under our current federal system, and the efforts of Christian activism to restore our Godly republic have proven futile over the past three decades. The time has come for Christians to withdraw our consent from the current federal government and re-introduce the Christian principles once so predominant in America to a sovereign State like South Carolina."

If they are unable to accomplish their goals legally, they add, they are ready to leave the United States:

"ChristianExodus.org is orchestrating the move of thousands of Christians to reacquire our Constitutional rights and, if necessary to attain these rights, dissolve our State's bond with the union."

The problem, of course, is that there are already people living in South Carolina. Maybe they could find a place much, much farther away? No, farther than that. Farther still.

Religion news from all over

In case you were curious about sin. This from Associated Press.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Cigarette packs in Thailand may soon carry more than the usual health warnings, with an edict admonishing the public not to give Buddhist monks a smoke.

The new label, proposed by the head of Thailand's National Buddhism Office, will read: "Donating cigarettes to monks is a sin."

Carry on.

It's official! Collaborators = antifascists

Right, so the Serbian parliament has passed a law declaring the World War II-era Četniks and partisans to have been, retrospectively, on the same side. Coming from the United States, it may be that I am no position to be self-righteous about the idiocy that is in power in other countries. But I have to wonder, now that they have got through voting (176-24) on the legal falsification of the past, what plans do they have for falsifying the present?

OHR 1, RS 0, everyone else ... 0

Widely expressed concerns about a deep crisis on the way in the Republika Srpska (RS) entity of Bosnia-Hercegovina are a tempest in a džezva. A lot of the reactions I have seen portray high representative Paddy Ashdown’s decision to suspend the autonomous police of RS as some kind of unjustifiable and dictatorial power grab. It wasn't, but at the same time, the action highlights some of the problems with his job.

First to the reasons why the action is not an unjustifiable power grab:

1. Why grab what you already have: Paddy Ashdown is the UN High Representative for Bosnia-Hercegovina, an office created by the Dayton Peace Agreement to oversee the federal government and the governments of the two entities. The Office of the High Representative (OHR) has extensive powers, including the ability to veto legislation and to remove public officials for violations of the Dayton Agreement. This has been controversial in the country, and Mr Ashdown has fueled the controversy further by using OHR’s powers more extensively than his predecessors. Nobody doubts that he has the power, if there is any debate it is over how politic it is to use it.

2. The entities and subentities create crises that need to be addressed: In theory, OHR should cease to exist once Bosnia-Hercegovina becomes functional as a state. But not all political actors in the country want it to become a functional state. From the beginning, authorities in RS have sought to weaken the authority of the federal government and behave as though their entity were a state. The other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina (FBiH), is periodically weakened by the efforts of political forces among Hercegovinian Croats to act as though federal and Federation control did not exist. The dominant political parties among both Serbs and Croats do not disguise the fact that they would rather be part of a different state.

3. The RS authorities invited a response: One of the requirements of Dayton is that authorities cooperate with ICTY. This is also a requirement if Bosnia-Hercegovina is going to be included in European regional arrangements, which offer the only opportunity for political or economic progress. How many suspects have been arrested and extradited by RS since RS began to exist (in a legal form) in 1995? I didn’t hear you. How many? That’s right, ZERO. It is a violation of Dayton and an obstacle to the progress of the country. Which is what the far right parties in power in BH want, and there is no reason to allow them to get it.

As to the threats of crisis: RS premier Dragan Mikerević resigned, as did federal foreign minister Mladen Ivanić. Mr Ashdown put it well in an interview with BBC: “If somebody wants to resign because they have to cooperate with the Hague, that is their problem.” RS president Dragan Čavić is threatening protest measures and a referendum in which ”RS would choose its own way.” Considering what happened last time his party tried to create an independent state by fiat, the threat is as empty as it is irresponsible.

The bottom line: Mr Ashdown acted within his legal powers. It is true that he made the ultraright Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) angry, but the price of keeping SDS pacified is far higher than any conceivable corresponding benefit.

Now to the down side. What this whole tempest shows is the underlying weakness of OHR as an institution: OHR will never run out of reasons to justify its continuing overlordship, and as long as it does the electorate in the entities will never stop providing reasons. People will continue to vote for extreme right parties to show their frustration with OHR, and then their elected officials will behave irresponsibly. OHR will use this irresponsibility to expand its own power to undo the work of elected officials. The reason is simple. One way to assure that politicians will behave irresponsibly is to create a system in which they carry no real responsibility. Dayton created a vicious circle in which the extreme right and the international administrators depend on one another. If there is a way out of this vicious circle, nobody has put on a light to show it yet.

Vic dana iz Danasa

From Monday's Danas, for a feature on jokes involving this character, take a peek also at Carniola.

Došao Mujo na granicu. Pita carinik:
‘Alkohol?’ ‘Ne!’
‘Cigarete?’ ‘Nee!’
‘Kava?’ ‘E, može jedna mala’.

Prilog čitaoca S. M. iz Sjenice

The image of Serbia

Some quotations from a panel discussion at the Media Center in Belgrade today on the topic of "Serbia and its image," organized by the magazine Vreme and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, as reported by B92:

Roksanda Ninčič, Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "It looks as though nobody cares about the future of this country, nor its citizens, and with that in mind, not for its image either."

Predrag Marković, historian: "The regime of the nineties succeeded in ruining our image, with unbelievable speed. It is not possible for anybody to understand how an order could be given to destroy the only two cities that the world knows about, Sarajevo and Dubrovnik."

Dubravko Koledić, journalist for the German Press Agency (DPA): "The image of Serbia has been meaningfully damaged by the number of votes the Radicals get. The image of Serbia has been spoiled by the premier, Vojislav Koštunica, because he will not cooperate with the Hague. That is what is said by an ordinary person, not an institution, and that is what is written on an ordinary internet site. So, we affect our image ourselves, we are responsible and not even God can help us with that."

Srđan Šaper, marketing executive and erstwhile pop star: "I think that a retrospective revalorisation of the Tito period is going on, not only because people lived better then, but because they had a clearer sense of national identity, that is they identified more with what was then Yugoslavia than they do with what is now Serbia."

The report only gives these brief passages from the three participants (it is accompanied by a photo in which there is a fourth person, the moderator, I suppose). It would be interesting to see the complete texts. But what seems striking from the quotations that the journalist chose is that they are not transparently about image at all, but about concrete concerns.

Housekeeping: Some new links

Some people might be interested in a few of the sites I have added to the link list since first posting it. These ones have been added:

Amitai Etzioni: Reflections by the sociologist of the same name.
Chase me ladies: I believe this a satirical site from Hong Kong.
Dnevnik ulice: Some darn fine urban essays from Mostar.
Here's what's left: Left takes on US politics.
Manic net preacher: European politics, accent on the economic.
Pestiside: "The daily dish of cosmopolitan Budapest."
Reportage: Journalism from South Asia by Joshua Newton.
Transition trends: News from countries in transition wherever they may be.
Turkish torque: Social and political commentary by Ugur Akinci
Viewropa: A group "Euroblog," politics, culture and tutti quanti.

I think that's all of the new ones.

Kosti u mikseru

A lot of the news from Serbia this week has to do with real or imagined political conflicts about how to confront the recent past. But that is not enough for today's ambitious politicians. They also want to refight the Second World War. And why not, when Richard Burton, Yul Brynner and Orson Welles fought it so well?

What, you say? Well, this: before the Serbian parliament is a proposal that would declare the Partisan and Četnik movements of the WW2 era to be equivalent. This is the same sort of bad idea about "reconciliation" that inspired Ronald Reagan to visit Bitburg, Franjo Tuđman to develop new symbolic schemes for Jasenovac, the Burger King to relieve the Freedom Fries of their feudal obligations, and a host of other misguided gestures in which the bodies of the dead are exploited for political gain and the whole spectacle is promoted as if it had something to do with "peace." But clearly it is a burning issue for a parliament that has nothing meaningful to do, led by a government for which paralysis is a political principle.

The whole nonsensical business was either sidetracked or revealed, depending on your politics, in yesterday's debate (there are varying reports in B92, in Danas, and in Blic). DSS deputy Dragoljub Kojčić made his contribution by telling deputies from Montenegro to go back there, instructing Muslim deputies to "respect my history!" and praising his daughter's ideological interventions in her third-grade history lesson.

For good measure, he also called SPS deputy Ivica Dačić a "Četnik in a tetrapack." No, I don't know what that means either, but chances are it raised the level of the debate.

Update: One of the best responses I have seen on this comes from Ivan Torov, who is for some reason now writing for Политика. It's right at the other end of this link.

Shouldn't we all join the pop cult?

It has been a long and arduous wait, but finally, the fifth edition of Pop Kult is online (to my British friends: no, this is something else).



Attractive features include: Jelena Milić's column "Impotencija i provincija," Ivana Kronja on turbo-folk, an essay on Dinko Tucaković's film Rubber Soul Project, Ljubiša Rajić on elites, and a good deal more.

Interview with special prosecutor for war crimes

In this week's edition of the magazine Vreme, Dejan Anastasijević interviews Vladimir Vukčevic, the special prosecutor for war crimes. Mr Vukčević discusses his ambitions to establish credibility for more trials to be carried out domestically, criticizes the political actors who denounce his work, and coyly announces that he has some cases he cannot discuss.

The original article is available from Vreme, and for anyone who prefers an English translation, I made one.

Fun with fugitives

One of my favorite headlines from a Serbian newspaper I vaguely recall from the beginning of 1995, when international negotiators were promoting a peace plan for Croatia. They came to present the plan to Slobodan Milošević, and the headline the following day was "Milošević did not say either yes or no." So what did he say? Everyone had to guess.

Here is some competition in today’s Blic. Dejan Vukelić has an article titled “Prosper offers for Karadžić and Mladić to be tried in Serbia.” The characters so far: Pierre-Richard Prosper is the US ambassador at large for war crimes, and Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić are fugitives charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Bosnia-Hercegovina. So already we have the question: how can Mr Prosper make an offer in the name of an institution he does not represent, and how can Serbia try non-citizens for crimes committed on the territory of another state?

Next character: somebody named Borko Đorđević, a person I have never heard of, but who is identified in the article as a “respected surgeon from the United States.” Apparently Dr Đorđević has a plan to enlist the aid of former US president Jimmy Carter and negotiate the surrender of the two fugitives. There is no word as to whether Mr Carter knows anything of this plan.

Are you with me so far? Good, because now it gets weird. The article goes on to say, "…if Mladić and Karadžić were to surrender to our [Serbia’s] authorities, Prosper said that he does not exclude the possibility that they be tried in Belgrade…” Did Mr Prosper say this? Apparently not: the journalist was told this by "the minister for the diaspora in the Serbian government Vojislav Vukčević.” And how did a person with the title of “minister for diaspora” (whatever that is, it cannot be an office that has authority over this field) learn this? "He says that he heard Prosper’s position listening to a conversation between him and Đorđević’s lawyer.” So apparently Mr Prosper did not make an offer: he told a lawyer representing a third person in a (presumably) private conversation that he "does not exclude the possibility” of something happening over which he has no authority – he did not say either yes or no. This was told by a fourth person, Mr Vukčević, to a fifth person, the journalist who wrote the article for Blic. Just to make things clearer, the article concludes with statements from several people confirming that none of the people named so far have any authority to decide in this matter.

What happened here? Probably nothing, but everybody has to guess.

Update: Radivoje Petrović has more in Политика. Apparently this effort has been going on for a while, and includes a campaign to build an all-star defence team for Karadžić and Mladić, which would be led by the well known attorney Alan Dershowitz (the paper renders it as Дрсовиц). They also have a photo of this Dr Đorđević, who seems to be a plastic surgeon in Palm Springs.

Update 2: Now it is Novosti's turn. In her article, Dubravka Savić adds that conditions include, in addition to the high/powered legal team, a guarantee of pretrial detention in private lodging in Belgrade and the opening of an ICTY branch office in Belgrade. Have these negotiations already begun?

Update 3: With the morning come statements from people who actually have responsibility in the matter. B92 reports that Mr Prosper told the Beta news agency that "the whole story is completely untrue" and denies ever having contact with Dr Đorđević. The chair of the National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, Rasim Ljajić, says "there is not even a theoretical chance" that the two could be tried in Belgrade and does not regard the story as serious.

Holiday music from North Ethnia

Okay, I understand that at least here in the USA, it can be a little difficult to enter a public place at this time of year without hearing atmospheric music of the "holiday" genre. Fine, but why does the genre have to be so narrow? And really, bells, was it Pavlov who determined that the experience of shopping is enhanced by pop songs with bells?

Thanks to Viewropa, here is a nice alternative. When I played it, my beloved spouse called from the other room, "Irish or Balkan?" Postmodern Polish, actually. (The link is to a somewhat slow-loading mp3 file, 3,8 MB.)

"Chasidic Dance," by the Warsaw Village Band

Enjoy! And do have a look at the group's web presentation at this address.

Interminability

Those of you fortunate enough to read Italian might find this interview of Christophe Solioz by Luka Zanoni interesting. He is working on a metaphor for the international presence in Bosnia-Hercegovina modelled on Freud's concept of "interminable analysis." The metaphor raises a good number of potential questions for exploration: Is "nation building" a form of therapy? Who is being treated, and for what? Do any of the parties willingly see themselves as therapist or patient? Maybe the issue could be raised of whether the insurance program covers the sessions?

Generally I am not fond of psychological metaphors as a way of discussing social phenomena, but this seems potentially very rich.

CIA: Keep clear of military interrogation practices

All right, I know this is no revelation, but it seems increasingly clear that there is a good deal of friction between career intelligence people at the CIA and the policy people dominating the Bush administration. We already knew this from the earlier semipublic conflict over who claimed what country had what weapons. Adding to the expanding pile of revelations, today the New York Times reports on a CIA memo to employees in Iraq from August 2003. The memo advised CIA agents that prisoners held in Iraq were in military custody, and warned them against joining in any excesses by the military, telling them:

"if the military employed any type of techniques beyond questions and answers, we should not participate and should not be present"

Complaints by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the military's treatment of prisoners were made public last week. Administration people might state publicly that the torture scandals are the product of some enemy or left-wing cabal --but they know that their opposition comes from responsible people in the government.

Fellowships for women human rights journalists

The call for applications has gone out from the International Women's Media Foundation for women journalists covering human rights to become the first holder of the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship. The fellowship involves a residency at MIT's Center for International Studies, with the opportunity of spending time at the Boston Globe or that other paper in New York. The application is available here, the deadline is 25 February and the term of the fellowship is from September 2005 to May 2006. A biography of Elizabeth Neuffer is here. Her book, The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda, can be purchased here.

Everyone off on technicalities?

B92 is running a statement by the lawyer Tibor Varady regarding two suits involving the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ: 1992-2003), now the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (SCG: 2003-sometime soon). The suits involve a genocide charge filed against SRJ by Bosnia-Hercegovina and a genocide charge filed against NATO by SRJ.

Mr Varady's basic argument in the suit filed by Bosnia-Hercegovina is that the International Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction in the case because SRJ is not the legal successor of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ: 1945-1991), and therefore not a signatory to the conventions that give the court authority. What he is hoping is that the court will find that SRJ did not have standing to sue NATO for that reason, which would make it possible to argue that Bosnia-Hercegovina could not sue SRJ for the same reason.

Did you get all that? It's all a lot of good sophist fun if you are a lawyer. The essence of it is that if Mr Varady is right, the outcome does not depend on the merits of the cases.

Update: Good thing that last sentence was premised "if Mr Varady is right," because it seems like he is not. In February 2003, the ICJ ruled that the issue of successor representation of SFRJ in the UN could not be raised as a substantive argument regarding jurisdiction, because it did not affect SRJ's obligation to abide by international law. Thanks to Andras Riedlmayer for drawing my attention to the ICJ ruling, which was announced here.

NE Ethnia: Boston more diverse, region still segregated

A report in today's Boston Globe summarizes the findings of a housing study in greater Boston by Kennedy School professor Guy Stuart. Although the region in general is becoming more diverse, the picture changes when one looks at where population growth is taking place. To wit:

"Nonwhites and Latinos are moving to satellite cities in large and disproportionate numbers. While 15 percent of the region lived in satellite cities in 2000, for example, 34 percent of the area's Latinos resided there. The study listed the satellite cities as Attleboro, Brockton, Fall River, Fitchburg, Gloucester, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, New Bedford, and Worcester."

As the population in the satellite cities grows, the cities are becoming more segregated since "whites who departed either moved to another community or shifted to blocks where whites already had been disproportionately represented." These other communities include suburban towns, where the population of the average block was 93 per cent white in 2000. The article concludes:

''If these trends continue," Stuart said, ''satellite cities will become more racially and ethnically divided, as whites either leave or move to enclaves that are already largely white, in the face of a rapidly expanding nonwhite and Latino community." 

I would add that housing is not the only area where division is apparent. The pattern was obvious in our previous home in Worcester, where expanding and culturally vibrant immigrant communities are almost entirely excluded from the Soviet-type political structures, and live on blocks which are ignored by the financial and business structures. Meanwhile the businesses which would be in the city center (bulldozed long ago to buld a chronically failing shopping mall with a large and generally empty parking garage) were migrating across the border to the strip-mall section of suburban Shrewsbury. As we used to tell people trying to find us, "We live right where downtown would be if there were one."

There is no statute of limitations

The former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has been charged in the disappearance of nine people and the murder of one, and placed under house arrest pending trial, the BBC reports. Judge Juan Guzmán has also determined that Pinochet is mentally fit to stand trial, reversing previous findings by Chilean and British courts. Other charges remain pending against him.

The decision has been welcomed by Chilean human rights organisations for obvious reasons. Of course, it also has implications elsewhere in the world for aging killers seeking to wait out the charges against them. Pinochet has been relying on the fact that as time goes by, his memory and physical condition deteriorate. As time goes by, the willingness of his former associates to stand between him and justice deteriorates too.

Poison is as poison does

Certainly by now everybody knows about what seems to be, now there is no doubt, the attempt to eliminate the Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko by poisoning.

Juan Cole reminds us that "the annals of modern history are replete with failed poisoning attempts that backfired," and gives an overview. It includes the Wile E. Coyote-worthy CIA schemes against Fidel Castro. It also includes that fascinating poisoned umbrella tip used against Georgii Markov in 1978, apparently the only success on Professor Cole's list.

DW: Enthusiasm for EU declining in Croatia, or not

Today on Deutsche Welle there is a report desribing a decline in enthusiasm for joining the European Union in Croatia. A survey (DW doesn't source it, however) shows support for EU accession declining from 72.4% in January to under 50% in November. They cite analysis (okay, two individuals) attributing the decline in support to European demands for the extradition of Ante Gotovina and for the return of refugees.

The piece might be saying too much based on too little: surveys are notoriously unreliable in this part of the world, even though a big shift like this might be hard to attribute to sampling error. And one would hope for a wider variety of sources, especially since both analyst Radovan Vukadinović and foreign ministry official Hijadet Bišćević seem to be echoing official positions. At the same time, there are enough expressions of real frustration with EU criteria in all of the candidate countries so that the perspective that DW's report offers cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Pink provocations

Responding to an earlier event in which a Serbian architecture student provoked an incident with his poorly conceived street performance of appearing on Zagreb's main square with a large portrait of Četnik commander and World War II era collaborator Draža Mihailović (he received a short prison term for disturbing the peace and was sent home), a Croatian hacker has got his material onto the site of the sleazy (and privately owned) Serbian television network RTV Pink. B92 carries the text, which seems fairly innocuous considering the effort involved:

"Greetings, Greater Serbia. We would like to have our own text on your national television. If you can take photos on our square with Četnik leaders, we can also appear on your national television with our own national symbols.

"Greetings to Stevan Vranešević who so courageously took his picture in the middle of Croatia. Thank you for the hospitality which our basketball players got in Belgrade. Warm greetings from Croatia.

After that the story continues in a warm and fuzzy tone. RTV Pink did not delete the message, telling visitors to the site in a postscript that they did not consider the purpose of the message to be destruction but communication (Note: This information is from B92, the Pink site was not reachable Monday morning, probably preopterećen). Responses to the message among B92's visitors who posted messages are also distinctly not outraged. Here are some examples:

"I welcome this gesture by our dear friends from Croatia. It demonstrates that Pink is the national television of Serbia. Who watches RTS anymore?"

"I think that this is the work of RTV Pink. Željko [Mitrović, head of RTV Pink] uses any means to attract attention."

 "One more sign that on both sides there are normal and, thankfully, humorous, young people."

"I would say this is done with style. This text on the site of RTV Pink automatically raised the quality of the site, at least in the cultural sense. Greetings to all Croats and Serbs who fight with words, irony and other intellectual weapons."

"Interesting news. I think that it is (unfortunately) a very telling sign of the (present) distinctions between 'us' and 'them.'"

"Pink is not the national television but a national vision. Pink is all of us ... the kid really hit the central point of the Serbian nervous system." 
 
"This is the continuation of war by other means. These kids were raised in the nineties on the programs of 'national' television and 'national' textbooks."
 
 "Bravo! This can be taken positively. On both sides there are good and competent hackers. I hope that in the future we will also compete in better disciplines. You remember the eighties and the competition between the Zagreb and Belgrade cultural scenes. What is more, I hope this will lead to better understanding of the need for internet protection. Nobody can learn anything from photos with Draža, but from 'hacking' sites they can! Greetings to people in Zagreb and especially people in Split!" 

There are certain to be more comments (the link again, right here) as the day goes on.

Sunday breakfast

I made these for breakfast, a recipe of my own devise. Maybe not your traditional breakfast pancakes, but my daughter likes them.

Corn pancakes

1 cup of corn flour (any corn flour will do, so don't go wasting money on the fancy stuff)
3 eggs
a splash of sparkling mineral water

4 or 5 scallions, chopped up
a handful of parsley, chopped up
some bell pepper, chopped up (even better if you have some roasted ones laying around)
whatever cheese you happen to have, cut into little cubes
a spoonful of Vegeta or some other dubious MSG product
olive oil

Mix together the corn flour, eggs and mineral water until you have a semigloppy mess. Add in the chopped stuff and cheese and mix some more. Mix in the Vegeta. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls into a pan with hot olive oil and fry them up until they are the color that fashion houses label something like "earth tone." Serve them and eat them. They are nice with yogurt, Eros Pista, olives, feferončići, or whatever else you may have.

Update: Azra says, "Yummy. Tata didn't explain what feferončići were, so I will tell you instead. Feferončići are yummy spicy peppers. They are hot, and the Macedonian ones are the best. Have a spicy time."

Your political beliefs are spreading

Elisabetta Povoledo reflects on the question that has been confounding all of us: "Is Nutella left- or right- wing?" Nutellologist Gini Padovani has the answer:

"All generations have appropriated Nutella - they all feel as though it belongs to them. It transcends generations. It is national-popular," he said, referring to a concept coined by the founder of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci. "Today we would call it bipartisan."

This happens in a context of ideologisation of taste, which Padovani says is a uniquely Italian phenomenon, arguing, "It's only here that people say that a shower is 'left' while a bath is 'right,' jeans are 'left,' a jacket is 'right,' or that Nutella is 'left' and Swiss Chocolate is 'right'."

This all makes perfect sense to me, even though most of my politics are "left" and most of my tastes are "right." Which makes me a centrist, doesn't it?

Thanks to the brilliant Edin Hajdarpašić for bringing this to my attention.

New on East Ethnia: A list of links

A small thing, yes. But look down the page on the right, and you will find that I have added a link list to the site. Since I am not terribly proficient in things computer, this took a bit of digging around for scraps of HTML (thanks to Coturnix for a big chunk). For some reason typing bits of letter combinations into brackets has made me feel accomplished.

Guarantee: Every link has passed through a rigorous process of me looking at the site and deciding whether I like it or not. Suggested additions always welcome, of course.

Tough on crime II: Run-ins with scissors

In Philadelphia, a ten-year old girl was placed in handcuffs and brought into the police station because she had brought a pair of scissors to school, according to the Associated Press. No, she did not threaten anyone with them. But apparently she violated a shool rule according to which scissors are considered to be potential weapons. Every ten-year old reads the variations on rules that get thought up, right? Because otherwise it's into the cuffs. After terrifying the girl, according to the report, "Police officers decided the girl hadn't committed a crime and let her go." Really.

I have just got no comment on this utterly avoidable display of brutal stupidity involving at least two state agencies.

Weekend light reading: Aesthetics and politics

There is an interesting article available at Kakanien Revisited, which discusses political conflicts in the Milošević period in terms of the promotion and desecration of images, and the techiniques of different art movements. It is illustrated with photographic documentation of some of the more interesting performances of the period.

"Image worship, parody and image destruction in Serbia in the 1990s," by Anna Schober (the article is in pdf format).

The author vigorously contests the perception that parody and irony have become dominant, therefore meaningless, forms of political representation by focusing on the "image struggle" that was carried out in multiple fields during this period.

Coverage of Rumsfeld's exchange with soldiers

The only thing resembling a television news program in the United States, Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, offers its coverage of Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's inadequate responses to the concerns of US soldiers, courtesy of One Good Move. The file is a Quicktime video file, 9.9MB, lasting 8 minutes and 42 seconds.



Apparently Rumsfeld's responses to inquisitive soldiers are nothing compared to the way he answers his own preemptive rhetorical questions.

Department of bad decisions

ICTY yesterday released Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, respectively the founder and first commander of the Unit for Special Operations (JSO), pending trial. This more or less guarantees that efforts to intimidate witnesses will intensify, not only in their trial but in the ongoing trial of JSO members for the murder of prime minster Zoran Đinđić. They may have already started.

Economic data from WIIW

At the WIIW (that's Wiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche, or Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies for us Yanks) Balkan Observatory, they have posted new economic data and forecasts for eight Southeast European countries: Albania, Bosnia-Heregovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, and Serbia-Montenegro. Files are in pdf format.

At TOL: Apology time

For anyone who is interested, my new column for TOL is out. This month, it is about Serbian president Boris Tadić's apology and the responses to it.

Also at TOL, a series of articles on drugs in Central Asia, an analysis of asylum standards in the EU by Martin Rozumek, the editors' take on the controversy over election fraud in Romania, and much more.

Quote of the day

From World o'Crap:

"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes, that way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes."

2004 Global corruption barometer from TI

Transparency International has released its Global Corruption Barometer for 2004. All 23 pages of it are available as a pdf file here. The group’s work is a little controversial among people who study corruption because they conduct surveys on how much institutions are perceived in public opinion (among 50,000 respondents in 64 countries) as being corrupt rather than studying corruption itself. Perceptions are not completely irrelevant, however, considering that trust in institutions in an important variable in measuring how stable they are likely to be and how likely they are to be perceived as legitimate.

The five institutions perceived as being most corrupt are: 1) political parties, 2) legislatures and parliaments, 3) police, 4) the judiciary, and 5) tax revenue agencies. There is some variation, though: in the US, Canada and some European countries, media outlets make people's top three. 45% of respondents globally expect levels of corruption to increase in the coming three years (up from 42% in 2003), while 17% expect a decrease (down from 20% in 2003).

Obviously it is hard to draw very many meaningful conclusions from a sample as diverse as this, encompassing 64 countries with a wide range of conditions and situations. They do give aggregate data on individual countries in Appendix IV, but not in enough detail to do the kind of cross-tabulation they do in the text of the report. It’s interesting data-gathering, and it cries out for some independent analysis that would produce some good theory.

The Hague moves a couple notes up on the flute

Political analyst Tanja Topić tells B92 that she senses a change in official rhetoric regarding relations between Serbia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) following president Boris Tadić's return from visiting Bosnia-Hercegovina. It is apparent in Tadić's apologies (however mixed) in Sarajevo and Mostar earlier this week, and in statements by Tadić and foreign minister Vuk Drašković today. She doubts, however, that this change of rhetoric will lead to arrests and extraditions soon, because of "criminalised structures which protect fugitives."

Not to be outdone, prime minister Vojislav Koštunica's government has decided to offer guarantees for the provisional release of Vojislav Šešelj. It is a cynical move, calculated to undermine Tadić by throwing a bone to the far right, and taken in the full knowledge that Šešelj's chances of gaining conditional release are absolutely zero.

No Batman, Mandrake or Phantom?

Now here is a good idea for a film series. Dom omladine in Belgrade is introducing "Superoperator," a program in which every month a well-known cultural figure selects films to be followed by musical performances.

The program kicks off in December with the program selected by Dušan Kojić - Koja of the greatest Yugoslavian band of all time, Disciplina Kičme (the web site includes new music from the British incarnation of the group, Disciplin a Kitschme). You can view the program here. I'd say Koja is a tad on the eclectic side.

Plugging my friends' books: Balkanology edition

My friend Chip Gagnon has just released The myth of ethnic war: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s. He contests the notion that nationalist politics works by some kind of euphoric mass mobilisation, arguing instead that conflicts empty political space by forcing all issues to be seen through a national lens, the effect of which is to demobilise people as political subjects. Also, it has a great cover design.



You can get a copy of your very own right here.

Plugging my friends' books: Clark sociology edition

My colleague Bob Ross has recently released Slaves to fashion: Poverty and abuse in the new sweatshops. It is grounded in his long-term research on globalisation of labor and the garment industry, and is sure to be hugely influential both in terms of understanding how labor markets are changing and in terms of guiding activists who are interested in labor standards. You can buy it here. If you want to judge it by its cover, it looks like this:



And my colleague Parminder Bhachu has released Dangerous designs: Asian women fashion the diaspora economies. It discusses how especially Sikh designers in Britain have defined Asian fashion and turned it into a global commodity, and what this means in terms of economics, culture and identity. You can buy a copy here. Sorry I don't have a cover image to share.

Nothing against Amazon -- for Parminder's book I've linked to their online store. But I like to support neighborhood businesses, and I love independent bookstores. So for Bob's book I have linked to Brookline Booksmith. They do everything Amazon does, and give my dog biscuits too. Doesn't everyone love to read with their dog?

Invitation to park illegally in Boston

The city of Boston has a program running this month: if you get a parking ticket, instead of paying it you have the option of buying toys of equal value to the penalty (yes, you have to produce a receipt). The toys will then go to the Toys for Tots program, which gives toys as holiday gifts to needy children.

Okay, you don't have to park illegally. Just appreciate a program that brings pleasure to an experience that is usually nothing but an annoyance. Actually, it wouldn't help to violate the parking regulations, the program is only for tickets issued between 1 December and 3 December.

The papal you

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, replying to a question by Army Spc. Thomas Wilson on why soldiers are not provided with protective armor:

"You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have."

Except for this: Mr Rumsfeld doesn't go to war. He sends other people. Probably too, he only imagines that he has Mr Wilson.

Documents on torture

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a series of requests under the Freedom of Information Act for documents related to torture committed against detainees at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. Here is what they have got. In sum: other agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) knew that prisoners were being treated illegally and informed the Department of Defense about this, with warnings and protests. The Adminstration defended the use of torture and continued to do it anyway.

Why is it again that Mr Bush said he does not want the US to be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court? Oh yes, it is because he is a torturer.

Balkanblogging 1

Sure I take requests! Coturnix of Science and politics asked for a selection of good Balkan blogs. So … I know a little and found out some more, here are my favorite finds from the first outing:

There is an anonymous but not reticent Sarajka in Rotterdam (no, Amsterdam! sorry!) who encapsulates culture, politics, literature and art in her generally folly-free Letters to Erasmus.

Bojan Bajgorić Šantić, a respected Splitizen, is the first blog-based candidate for the Croatian presidency.

A classic formulation, at Ne bih da se petljam we find the ruminations of a person who would really prefer not to get involved, but in such a situation…

Outsiders take on the challenges of life and politics in Bucharest at Halfway down the Danube. The authors are aware that Bucharest is not on the Danube, give them a chance.

Dragos Novac offers in @rgumente a sort of mixed presentation of business, technology and Romanian politics. I choose it for his elaborate metaphor about cows, the world needs more of these.

In the name of the “Initiative for a normal Serbia,” Miroslav Hristodulo gives his unique and disarmingly honest political analysis. Is it normal for Serbia that he has not updated since March? Probudi se Miroslave, čekamo tvoje insajte.

Holding up the end of people who have not updated on this side of the puddle, a US law student kept us updated on what was being done about Finding Karadžić until, say, October. It’s still pretty interesting.

At Flogging the Simian, one Soj gives long examples of investigative journalism, some of it quite original, and all definitely free of the big-media orientation available almost everywhere else. We hope she does not really abuse primates.

I promise to review any suggested additions to the list and include the ones that strike my fancy in a future installment.

Update: Get an ongoing take on the literature and architecture of Sarajevo with a refreshing dip in the Miljacka. Thanks, Anonymous.

Five characteristics of fundamentalists

Thanks to Digby for drawing attention to the essay "The fundamentalist agenda" by the Rev. Dr. Davidson Loehr. In it he summarises the findings of the Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which surveyed fundamentalist movements around the world and found that "the agenda of all fundamentalist movements in the world is virtually identical, regardless of religion or culture." This agenda comes down to five items, on which I will quote Loehr at length:

"The fundamentalists' agenda starts with insistence that their rules must be made to apply to all people, and to all areas of life. There can be no separation of church and state, or of public and private areas of life. The rigid rules of God—and they never doubt that they and only they have got these right—must become the law of the land. Pat Robertson, again, has said that just as Supreme Court justices place a hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution, so they should also place a hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible. In Khomeini's Iran, and in the recent Taliban rule of Afghanistan, we saw how brutal and bloody this looks in real time.

The second agenda item is really at the top of the list, and it's vulgarly simple: Men are on top. Men are bigger and stronger, and they rule not only through physical strength but also and more importantly through their influence on the laws and rules of the land. Men set the boundaries. Men define the norms, and men enforce them. They also define women, and they define them through narrowly conceived biological functions. Women are to be supportive wives, mothers, and homemakers.

A third item follows from the others. (Indeed each part of the fundamentalist agenda is necessarily interlocked, and needs every other part to survive.) Since there is only one right picture of the world, one right set of beliefs, and one right set of roles for men, women, and children, it is imperative that this picture and these rules be communicated precisely to the next generation. Therefore, fundamentalists must control education by controlling textbooks and teaching styles, deciding what may and may not be taught.

Fourth, fundamentalists spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. Men are on top, women are subservient, there is one rigid set of rules, with police and military might to enforce them, and education is tightly controlled by the state. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. The phrase “overcoming the modern” is a fascist slogan dating back to at least 1941.

The fifth point is the most abstract, though it's foundational. Fundamentalists deny history in a radical and idiosyncratic way. Fundamentalists know as well or better than anybody that culture shapes everything it touches: The times we live in color how we think, what we value, and the kind of people we become. Fundamentalists agree on the perverseness of modern American society: the air of permissiveness and narcissism, individual rights unbalanced by responsibilities, sex divorced from commitment, and so on. What they don't want to see is the way culture colored the era when their scriptures were created."

There may not be much to add here, except that looked at in this light, the agenda clearly has much more to do with a certain type of authoritarian politics than with religion.

Apology of a sort

Serbian president Boris Tadić is on a visit to Sarajevo, where he is apologising "in his own name" for crimes that were committed "in the name of the Serbian people." B92 is carrying the following text of Mr Tadić's somewhat equivocal statement, in which he calls for mutual apologies by all sides:

"However, these crimes were not committed by the Serbian people, but by criminals, individuals. It is not possible to charge a whole people because the same crimes were also committed against the Serbian people, so in that sense we all owe one another an apology. If I have to start first, well, here I am."

Interesting formulation. Probably it will be taken as a half measure. But then, half measures are not always worse than no measures at all. But it does lead a person to wonder why politicians are so much more cautious when making apologies than they are when doing damage.

Sociology of everyday life

My friend and colleague Ivana Spasić has released a new book, Sociologije svakodnevnog života.



There is an excerpt of her section of political meanings of everyday resistance in the new issue of Republika.

Parliament

I am not certain what the source for this is, but a friend tells me that one third of the members of the Italian parliament are under indictment. As near as I can tell, this either means that the parliament is much worse than average or that the prosecutors are much better than average.