For all their carping on about the lofty ideals of 18th-century Americans, the Tea Partiers — at least Rand Paul’s — sure don’t abide by one: chivalry. Really, now, stomping on a female’s upper body and then having the gall to ask for an apology? Are we really that divided?
Monthly Archives: October 2010
Old Gold
Doing some research on Milosevic cheerleaders and Srebrenica deniers Living Marxism, I happened upon this debate in the 8 July 1993 issue of the London Review of Books. If you’ve been following the discussion on my post on Mladic you might’ve heard the assertion that the only way to reverse the gains made by the ethnic …
A picture of future as imagined by Rand Paul
“Always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” And so we …
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Superheroes
To conclude all this southeastern Europe-focused posting on a positive note, I strongly urge all fans of energetic guitar-based music to check out Belgrade’s excellent Stuttgart Online and to buy their infectious album Radost Svakom Domaćinstvu. They definitely capture the dada-street art sound of late seventies Belgrade as immortalized on the anthology Paket Aranzman — …
Serbia, the EU and Muslims in the Balkans
The Dutch held out but Europe, as usual, wants to have its way so after a threat to ram Serbia’s EU ‘assessment’ through by majority vote, the Dutch folded. However, there is a provision that every step of Serbia’s accession will have to be subject to a unanimous vote. The Dutch, we can imagine, will …
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More on Bosnia
It’s turning out to be a Bosnia-focused weekend here. Marko Hoare has an excellent and sober assessment of Angelina Jolie’s Bosnia “imbroglio” up here. For those who don’t know, the British left often has an odd — to say the least — way of viewing the Balkan Wars. Mainly it consists of lionizing Milosevic as …
Soft on Mladic?
Thursday I was excited to see the photo of none other than Ratko Mladic on the cover of the IHT at the newsstand; “he’s been caught,” I thought, “just like Karadzic a few years ago.” Of course, he hasn’t, and the article spends far too much time on summarizing the case against the general, although there …
If it had been in Italy…
A student passed me this joke on the Chilean mine disaster, which also plays on a lot of other recent Italian news (Sarah Scazzi, Giancarlo Tulliani‘s house, the Naples trash crisis, the electoral crisis). Mainly it’s funny, if you get it all. Deep Italian current events, knowledge, sure, but enjoy: If it had happened in …
Rand Paul in the Corriere
This time I’m not writing to encourage you to vote for an artist. This is for real. Or as real as it gets with opposing the Civil Rights–rejecting, Amero-believing regressive lunacy that will become our state’s cross to bear. Yes. A man only an alien could love… Kentuckians, get out there and vote. I realize that …
Quick Roundup
ENEL is getting pretty interesting. Check out their Green Power. Back when in 2008 I was impressed by their solar generation, tracked by the minute, at their headquarters near Largo Cairoli in Milan. As was predicted in the Italian press years ago — and in these pages a few weeks back when people were naive …