Results of the East Ethnia poll

Since the thing was set up to accept multiple answers, and the program does not track, I do not know how many responses the survey got. It could be as few as 15 and as many as 62, probably somewhere in between. Unsurprisingly, the results show that people want most news and commentary (15 votes each). More surprisingly, the next most popular response was "Eric blathering on about his personal life (9 votes), followed by recipes and items about academics and the arts (7 votes each). The least frequent response was for jokes and funny pictures (6 votes). Three people expressed a preference for "something else," but didn't say what that was. So I interpreted it to mean that they wanted photos of very large heads of cabbage.

Hardly a scientific survey, but there you have it.

Some really large cabbage

In his village near Trebinje, Rade Kokić grows some shockingly large cabbage. So large, nobody has got around to measuring it. But there is no doubt that it is large.

Yes! Cambodian rock n roll!

Yes, Cambodian rock n roll.

What did Koštunica write for Obraz?

I first heard about the possible connection between current Serbian prime minister Vojislav Koštunica and the bizarre far-right group Obraz (the Vojvodina Assembly defined this cheeky group as "clerical-fascist," and has asked that they be banned) when the social psychologist Jovan Byford discussed an article that Mr Koštunica wrote for the movement's magazine (called Obraz, but the magazine predates the movement) in 1996. Dr Byford discussed the matter, and the genesis of far right movements generally, for Peščanik on 23 December.

The full text of the article is reproduced by B92. Anyone looking for shocking revelations, or even interesting reading, will be disappointed. The article is basically a recital of themes that are more or less standard in Mr Koštunica's milieu, most of them derivative of earlier renditions by writers like Vasilije Krestić and Dobrica Ćosić. So conclude what you will. I conclude that Mr Koštunica is not an original thinker and that he chooses his company poorly, but then we already knew that.

Update on "Captain Dragan"

The district court in Šibenik has announced that it has begun a criminal investigation against Dragan Vasiljković on suspicion of crimes against prisoners of war and against civilians. The announcement provides no details of the time, place or nature of the crimes. The court has also ordered that Mr Vasiljković be held in custody, which would be mostly a formality since he is in Australia, but it allows prosecutors to issue an international arrest warrant. In the recent past, Dragan Vasiljković has declared that he would willingly face any charges, on the condition that the Croatian government covers the cost of his airfare from Australia. I do not believe he specified whether he would demand business class or a vegetarian meal.

For a snowy day

Today was to be the first day back at work for much of the family but snow has closed all the schools. So it is as good a day as any to join this online gamelan, wouldn't you say?

Just a note on the snow: there has been nary a flake all day. This may be what hardened educational professionals call an opportunistic snow day.

Update: Snow finally did start coming down around 1 PM (that's 1300 for y'all who prefer that sort of chronological measurement). A friend recently arrived from the tropics of Finland writes: "This was a real surprise to us that schools and daycare can be closed because of rain, like 'snow expectance'!"

The Church on time

The last and only time that elected officials looked closely at the abuse of intelligence privileges for political purposes was when the "Church Committee," headed by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, produced its report in 1975. The activities uncovered included not just efforts to assassinate international leaders and destabilise governments around the world, but also another question that has been gathering attention recently: the use of intelligence powers to spy on US citizens. A selection of Church Committee documents is available in PDF form online. It would seem to make for timely reading again.

The director of the CIA at the time when the Church Committee issued its report was one George Bush. The secretary of defence was some guy named Donald Rumsfeld. Frank Church lost his reelection bid in 1980 and passed away in 1984, and neither of the others has been heard from since.

An ounce of prevention is worth a lifetime of alienation

Via Boingboing (who got it from Itch.in), this insert was found in a CD by the band Coldplay, published by Virgin Records. I have nothing against Coldplay, although they are not high on any list of favorites either. I even have a sort of grudging respect for Virgin, however much their anti-corporate corporacity (something like mass pseudo-demassification) has worn thin over the decades (try as they may, they won't match Ralph Records). In any case, the overly aggressive "antipiracy" scheme has to be traced more to the corporation than to the artists, who will probably be blamed. A couple of notes here: 1) the strategy of telling people what they can do with products they have purchased is not likely to win lots of friends for the recording industry in this period of intensive decline caused by their failure (not for the first time) to adapt to new technologies that change the structure of the market, and 2) the declaration of contractual obligations of which one party is not aware until it is too late (the "contract" is hidden inside the shrinkwrap) should not get them too many micrometers past the door of a courtroom. Music publishers are sprinting toward a brick wall by trying to use repression as a response to their general decline, while there is good evidence to question the assumption that downloading and filesharing damage sales, and reason to suggest that these activities might increase sales, especially of work by lesser-known artists. But then, closing ranks is a sign of an institution in decay, and opening possibilities is a sign of emergent creativity.

Interesting site of the day

Human rights archaeology is a combination of diary, fieldnotes and short essays on the subject of cultural heritage in Kosovo and conflicts over it. The author, Sam Hardy, also maintains another blog dealing with questions of anthropological and archaeological theory more generally. Interesting reading, and also a good example of what can be done from the field with a combination of exposure, intellectual engagement, and the magic of network technology.

Happy new year!

Best wishes for a far better new year to everyone! We are off for an end of year road trip today (have never seen the mighty state of Maine, must take a peek at it), so I will not be posting. Until next year.

Documents on "rendition" and torture in Uzbekistan

This information comes by roundabout way of Jesus' General, who has satiric and nonsatiric takes on it. Craig Murray was recalled as UK ambassador to Uzbekistan after raising concerns about the use of torture to obtain evidence evidence passed on to the Foreign Office by the Uzbek security services. He documents his exchanges with the Foreign Office over the matter. Now the former ambassador is in a conflict with the Foreign Office over the manuscript for his book -- they would like him to remove all references to documents indicating the practice of torture and rendition. In particular, the concern relates to two documents, one of them (in PDF format) the telegrams sent by Murray to the Foreign Office compaining about the practice, and the other a legal opinion declaring the use of evidence obtained by torture not to be a violation of the UN Convention on Torture. Mr Murray is refusing to suppress the documents, and has published them on the Web instead. The Guardian reports as well.

Best developments on the Croatian blog front

You can now find the work of many of many of your favorite Croatian bloggers aggregated and organised by topic at Bestseler, the blogerski onlajn magazin. Worth a daily visit, no question!

People with whom I am proud to have crossed paths

One of them (with me in the photo) is Nikola Božilović, a sociologist from Niš. He has released two excellent studies of popular culture, one of them an exhaustive investigation of what rokenrol means in the history of the world, and the most recent one, Kič kultura, a multidisciplinary explanation of the varieties of false glamour in entertainment, politics, and cultural life. His work asks people to take seriously the things they encounter, no more and no less.

I am also delighted to have made the acquaintance of my brilliant friend's brilliant sister, the theatrical writer Milena Marković. I got a copy of her recent documentary film, Minerska opera, which records her experience in the dying mining town of Bor, where she and a group of local people staged a production of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny opera. The film records the production, but also the joint efforts of the director and the locals to apply the aesthetic of the opera to their own hopeless situation, as seen through the experiences of two miner-musicians. The romantic guitarist Miki finds beauty in a variety of original and Communist songs ("Comandante Che Guevara," "O bella ciao," and "Bandiera rossa," the last two in a version most clearly derived from their performance by Pankrti), while his friend Lovke wanders around in search of a substitute for the romatic sounds of his youth, but is sure that he likes the aroma of the burning trave from his bottles of rakija. Mrs Ethnia and I (mostly she) did the English subtitles for the film -- we are still not sure that we did this honest work of art justice, but are proud to have had any kind of involvement with its production.

These are just two of the people who, during my last visit to Serbia, made me feel lucky to have some exposure with that part of the world. Sometimes I get the question as to whether I am "pro-Serb" or "anti-Serb." I have no idea what the question means. Actually, I could phrase that better: I know what the questioner thinks it means, but it makes no sense to me. I am in favor of honesty, creativity and hope. I admire the people who offer those things.

Mladić ante haagus?

Eh, maybe. The arrest of Ante Gotovina means that Serbia now has a monopoly on the fugitive racket, not a very enviable position. The special prosecutor for war crimes made an enigmatic announcement, suggesting that he might know something but was not about to do anything. The interior minister made a petulant remark, blaming the preceding government for not having made the arrest (but implying, correspondingly, that his government might). A former police official made a dramatic claim, suggesting that negotiations were under way (but he is not in a position to know). And so today Danas editorializes that public opinion is being prepared for an arrest and extradition. Since we have all been here before, we can only wait and see.

Update: New reasons for not doing their job are blooming like a thousand flowers. Interior minister Dragan Jočić says that it is difficult to find people charged with genocide, because "they are experienced warriors, people who spent the war under difficult conditions and survived." Indeed, it must have been terribly difficult to wage war against unarmed civilians, but this hardly makes for warrior experience. Not that Jočić would have a basis for comparison. Manwhile, Kurir is raising the alarm (by way of Index.hr) that Mladić may prefer committing suicide to surrender. But since Mladić is not a civilian, we doubt that Mladić will kill him.

The first ever East Ethnia poll!

Give your answers sometime between now and 5 January. Choose multiple answers if that is your inclination. Alternative answers or answers with explanations are welcome in the comments.

What would you like to see more of on this site?
	Regularly updated news from the East Ethnian region
	Eric blathering on about his personal life
	Eric's recipes and kitchen hints
	Tendentious political commentary and posturing
	Semicomprehensible osvrti on academics and the arts
	Jokes and mildly amusing pictures
	Something else
Free polls from Pollhost.com

A holiday greeting

Having no talent for design of my own, I thought I might share with you the holiday greeting I got from my favorite media outlet.

The difference between knowledge and action

So Serbia's war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević says that he knows who is aiding Karadžić and Mladić. Or at least he has announced as much. But this seems like an odd thing for a prosecutor to announce, since he has neither named nor charged the people in question. Other agencies that might feel called upon to do something say that it is the job of the Bezbednosno-informativna agencija (BIA). But they have been too busy spying on parliamentary deputies in order to anticipate their votes, it would be a bit much to expect them to do any sort of job.

That crisp Massachusetts air

How tight was the connection in Paris? Let's just say that it was the first time I ever had to go up those steps leading to the plane and knock on the door in order to be let in. Otherwise the return was fine, my apologies for not posting these past few days but I ran out of hours on my fabulous dialup connection in Belgrade and had to see so many people that there was no time to go and buy more.

Much happened in between posts. Some of the perpetrators of the Ovčara massacre were convicted, and more are promised. The trial of the incidental players in Bosnia's most horrifying home movie began with the code of silence breaking down. Vojvodina's assembly set forth an initiative to ban neofascist groups, and the Serbian "diaspora" ministry promised (but did not deliver) an amnesty for people who refused military service in the last batch of wars. That is just a bit of the main stuff.

Burek from Prokuplje became a hit import product in Germany, and a proposal by a group of Croatian linguists to make the language sillier did not. A new Russian TV adaptation of The Master and Margarita became a huge hit.

On the culinary front, one friend taught me to make the dough for burek (it's not as complicated as it seems: it involves the strategic use of butter and a sheet, and the presence of Marlon Brando is not required -- and vinegar goes into the dough!). Another made me wild asparagus from Istra. The burek friend's daughter passed her last exam in architecture, so we made a Mexican dinner in her honor: salsa, arroz a la mexicana, chicken in a pepper and cream sauce, and of course Cesar Cardini's famous salad.

For a musical photo gallery of somebody more capable than me making burek, try this site. Thanks, Mirko!

Time now to rest and spend a bit of time with the family. To any of East Ethnia's readers who celebrate Christmas today, a happy Christmas to you!

Return to Belgrade

Ha! I thought that once I delivered the books I had brought for the Nishville sociologists (thank you, uncle George, for permitting me that shopping spree), that I would be free of heavy objects to lug across slushy sidewalks. It was not to be. I received more books than I brought, so now I have a full selection of readings, on everything from sociology of culture and religion to one of the local specialties, Romologija (are you listening, Mat Savelli?). It may have only seemed that I had more to carry, because this can happen after five straight days of eating a lot of meat, another local specialty.

Generally I would have to say that the visit to Niš was a success. We have a plan for future cooperation and for involving more people in it. Anyone who may have thought that some strange American was coming to give them instruction was probably relieved to find that it was just silly little me. I am now the proud owner of an album of the greatest hits of Luis. In the meantime, two of my dearest friends got job offers. Every sign is good. Except for the bus that broke down halfway to Belgrade, but even that was a nice opportunity to chat with people.

In the coming few days that I have left in Belgrade, there are people to cook for and people whose cooking must be tasted. So I will still be a bit occupied, but promise to begin again with the posting of news items tomorrow. After I sleep.

Greetings from Naissus!

I have to post in a hurry because the Nišlije are keeping me busy! Today was the first full working day of my stay here. The local sociologists are delighted with the books, thanks to everyone who made suggestions! There is a critical mass of ambitious young researchers at the sociology department here, who see an opportunity to do something of lasting value. This presents an energising contrast to the political situation, which is similar locally to what it is on the larger scale. Also, everything you have heard about the excellent barbecue in Niš is true (sadly, the same cannot be said for Niško pivo). We reached a compromise on language: I am permitted to lecture in my native tongue, with questions and answers in theirs. That leaves everyone a little confused, which is probably the goal of social science research anyway. More dispatches when I get a moment.