YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett

Wow Granger High is on NPR! Principle Esparza has been doing a lot with the school! I"m glad to hear that! He's been showing them physically what their earnings will be if they stay in school. This is a good place to start.

It's cold this moring in our gulag but we were warned to expect all sorts of things, a proper sand storm, thunderstorms, hight winds, whatever. I bet it will be perfectly nice out. Not that I'm going there if I don't have to. The most outdoor thing I plan to do is get the washing hung. If a sandstorm blows up I'll have to rapidly bring it all in and hang it in the bathroom. Seriously I went to sleep too warm, and woke up freezing.
I went to sleep fairly early last night actually. Friday night Ivan the Terrible slept a total of 14 hours. He needed it though. I can tell you this particular flu is disruptive of sleep. So one must do what one can to sleep long on recovery. I wish i had another day off. I must go to classes though.
The big news in the U.S. is the May Day boycott of jobs with a one day 'work boycott' We have had in our country no such thing as a 'general strike' in decades, but this amounts to a one day 'general strike'. I don't think it's a good idea to boycott work, but many will be doing so locally. I personally must go to school. I have no real choice but to be in classes as long as I can make it in at all. Still it can't be a totally bad idea of Elie Wiesel is marching! He's not a young man and it means something if he's going! I had the privelege of meeting him when he was on a book tour years ago, and I respect the man greatly. He's stood for the right things a lot of the time and that is worthy of respect. I will not spend any money that day but I'm going to be in classes. There have been a lot of rumors in this town about what will and will nto happen, it's known there will be a march, which I'm not going to because I'm not well enough to go.I'm barely well enough to be in classes.


I read the headline and thought it said 'social services' instead of 'special services' I must not be particularly awake.

130 people have been helping Mladic

2 killed in an explosion in Mitrovica Kosovoska


Milosevic Ally buys his son a 25 m pound home

2 killed 45 injured in road accident in BiH



Psychologically this man went through a few of the same issues I did with learning English with a few exceptions, 1. English was spoken in my home, 2. different language, and 3. Different national transition. Mexico U.S. vs then Yugoslavia U.K.
I did feel a certain amount of common ground though, and it's a good article.

Dejan Sudjic Goes Home




Pyramid Update

Russian girl wins Mrs. World title
She's a knockout drop dead gorgeous young woman too.
So GO AHEAD! Write that Post Soviet Spy Thriller!
Russia still spying on U.S.

another note, John Keneth Galbraith died. He was a very great man.

The pyramid documentary will come out this summer, nice shots of the hill, the town and so forth, very short but well if you've been following pyramid news it's something to see! :)

This just doesn't seem very effective anymore to me...
Yet Another Deadline to find Mladic

Such a change from the attitude of Enver Hoxa!

Albania's Tourism Potential
There is a very fine line between a test that assures that a new immigrant understands the history and laws and language of a new country and racial, ethnic, and religious exclusion.
Exams for New Citizens of Australia?

Story on CIA flights


Investigation of CIA flights

Bulgaria institutes a nationwide curfew

I'm still suffering from the illness. Right now my eyes are a little affected. I don't have a fever and I'm only mildly congested. I'm going to take it easy today, the only serious thing I plan to do is the math home work.
I hope to get some decent rest, and stay down so that I have a chance to recover before being back in the fray on Monday.

Still Can't Find Mladic

Montenegrin leader urges arrest of Mladic

Key Witness in Arkan Case gunned down

Kosovo news

Bishop of Krk wants 'Decency Zone'

Constitutional Process in BiH 'in disarray'


Well whether people want to admit this fact NOW, modesty IS a Christian value!

One day I will do a special post on how the present immodesty of Western attire got started, it's an interesting history!

EXCUSE ME WHILE I GLOAT !!!


Rush's Arrest Info, and MUG SHOT!!

Alter Ego?
via Metafilter
MetaFilter

Maybe Rush should just be a mojado en reves! mvxaxaxaxaxaxa!

Probably though, U.S. pressure will prevent this law being signed...

Personal Amounts of Drugs may soon be legal in Mexico
Fascinating hidden history again via Metafilter
The Red Elvis

and this one, a real tale of horror...

NOT for the faint of heart, a story on Chernobly, in fact I was actively creeped out by this
In fact don't look at this if you plan to sleep anytime soon.
Chernobyl

Well I am feeling a little better. At least the congestion is down, which means something as I was really seriously congested. Today it's not bad, only one side and if I get warm enough not at all. All I need is to do some math and I'll be warm enough.

Today's local news has a report from some woman who has gone down to a town I know on the New Mexico U.S. Border! I know the area fairly well actually as I once lived there!

It's in the desert, and the Minute Men are there waiting for illegal aliens. Anyway the town used to be a sleepy desert border town, and Palomas used to also be a sleepy desert border town. She described the sharp wind that kicks up every morning. She described how on the Mexican side, the stores are filled with what one may need to take along on an illegal crossing.

Her obvious political slant aside, this is ClearChannel and Fox, it was a real blast from the past to hear about an area I lived in so long ago...

Today's Headlines:

Harper Lee turns 80, he wrote 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

Saddam turns 61 today, proving that captivity isn't like all that bad!


Spoiler Alert: The big Mladic update is that there IS no big Mladic update, he's not been arrested or even found and the deadline is what DAYS?!?!?
Maybe the EU ought to stop letting S&M play them for chumps.
Mladic Update

EU Warns Serbia Montenegro over Mladic

Seriously this could have happened to any police force....I'm surprised it didn't happen to some other force sooner.
Serbian Police mess up a training exercise

CIA Flights Denied


Former Serbian Police Chief Killed in Belgrade

Why I HATE Corporate #@^%**&^$#@#$&!

this sort of thing seriously pisses me off!

I had humiliating experiences in the happy magical thinking world of sales, and it always pissed me off, but I think they should thank God they were sued instead of having happen what I think they DESERVE so richly

I hope this woman wins the lawsuit! I hope some of the bosses out there have the grins wiped right off their faces!

I have had congestion and chills and fever. I only have one class today, it's math, which I'm not that good at, so I don't want to miss class, on top of that, this instructor gives extra homework if you miss class. So I must go in. Yesterday a kind frend lent me her nasal spray, it worked but when it wore off I was congested with INTEREST, exponentially congested, to the point of nearly total nasal obstruction.. That was terrifying! My son had some decongestant that is supposed to only be taken once in 24 hours. I still have some congestion and a very itchy runny nose too.


A little old but worth reading

Upriseing of Minorities



Parliment Rejects Changes to Constitution



NATO not planning to use bases in Bulgaria

Bulgarians Protest Bases During Rice Visit


In the news available locally not mentioned at all. Some of the demonstrators seem a little long in the tooth, but not all of them.


Floods in Romania drive more people from their homes
A site that is available only by subscription said that the flooding has done terrible damage to Serbian agriculture as well.

Owen makes the headlines again as the most sympathetic reader... I wish only that people who are sick could just stay home but it doesn't work that way at the college level and often in the world of work, the very sorts of workers who most should stay home if they are sick are most likely to need to go in and to suffer sanctions for abscence. It's up there with only half an hour for lunch break and other barbaric aspects of the life of American workers. These aren't even the worst things. If one gets sick one often doesn't have health insurance of any kind or only inadequate insurance. At least there is a clinic open a few days at school. It's $20 a visit for students and you don't have to have insurance but as everyone knows, there is no cure for the common cold or the flu, so why waste that $20 when maybe something worse could come up and you'd need to go for that as well?
They didn't really know what was wrong with me last time, it seems every spring I get the chills and fever thing for like the last five years, and then I got the flu in addition.
So here's this mornings little news round-up of Balkans news.



Croat War Crimes Suspects on Trial

Trial of Interior Ministry Officials in Serbia

Small town in Serbia wants to be part of Macedonia


Vuk Draskovic says Serbia is Ready to Compromise on Kosovo Status


Higher Visa Fees Isolate Balkans Nations

Explaination of BKTV Turnoff

Consequences for BiH Constitution not being Adopted

Basically I came in to school even though I feel like death warmed over on toast, because they don't allow a lot of absences, particularly for people attending on grants.
I don't need to be here quite so early but I was afraid if I did not come early I would not come at all.

School Spirit Week, yesterday was Crazy Hat Day and I wore my FBI hat, it is a REAL FBI hat. Others had better and crazier hats. Today is Decade Day; one dresses like someone from one's favorite decade, mine is the 60s. People have gotten so tame and fearful since then!
I have this lovely dress that has silver embroidery and I'm wearing it with silver jewelry. It's probably nicer than anything anyone else has.

Today's headline in Slobodna Dalmacija grabbed my attention...

Between Condoms and Disease, the Church Must Choose the Lesser of Two Evils

Oh this is good, I just found out that the compose function now DOES let you hyperlink! YEAH! I will now bitch less about Blogger anyway..
I can't make things work otherwise though either because I'm really sick or because it doesn't like things here at school. I may have more for you all later!


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In fact I do have a few updates. I don't feel well so now I'm going to go lie down take care all my fellow zeks and my visitors too!
Mladic update

Mladic Ally Arrested

More Mladic buzz

Kosovo Serbs Charged in War time murders

I thought this was some kind of nice ink for the Orthodox people, an account of a celebration of Orthodox Easter, and the customs surrounding it.

Article on Orthodox Easter

Eurovision Contest Odds As if I cared about anyone but Hari Mata Hari! :)

Lakeland Teen to Testify about Romanian adoptions


Sinister Racket in Trafficked Children

Croatia expects to have more Tourists than Inhabitants again

Judge Rejects Albanian Teen's Asylum Appeal

Dick Cheney brings Medal of Honor for Croatian Hero of Pearl Harbor


Rest of the Story


Whatever Ivan the Terrible had, I've got now. I feel terrible!
I'm having chills and fever on very slight movement and I'm congested. So anyway I'm off to school for the day, this is one of my long days.
Have a good day dear readers and stay healthy!

Sretan Vam Vaskrs to all of my readers who are Orthodox believers!



Pope prays for Balkans flood areas

Bulgaria Celebrates Easter


Son of Bulgarian Immigrants Running for President of Venezuela

Fascinating reading...
Article on a Terrorist from the Guardian

A crime in Kosovo
Finding this in 'Newsday' is a bit wierd!
Amnesty Article


Kosovo Albanian goes to Easter Services



Romanians use horse drawn vehicles to get out of flood area

Well the water a horse can cross is water that would be the end of an internal combustion engine! It's not high tech or low tech people should concern themselves with but Appropriate Tech!


Human Trafficking in Iraq

The next Bush loving Koolaid drinker who mentions rape rooms to me is going to be forced to read this!
When I read stuff like this it makes me killing mad.

Story of a Canadian who died in Afghanistan

Looters and Grave Robbers in Bulgaria

Stone Balls in BiH


Science and Politics


Article from FENA about Osmanagic

Second FENA article

Interview with Osmanagic


Pictures from previous site

Lots of Bosnian language info on pyramid dig lots of pix
Visoko Online

Another blog article on the Bosnian pyramid
Bonus Points, read the archeologist jokes! :)

Another pyramid article



Australian goes to the Bosnian Pyramid dig





Some excellent pyramid pictures


Reuters Film of Pyramid


Some Half-wayLegitimate Criticism of Visoko Dig*


Warning Slow as Molassas PDF File...Semir Osmanagic is on the Board of Directors of this organization.
Alliance on the Web Annual Report

Archeoblog

* Alright I'm going to editorialize a bit here, I wanted it seperate from the links.

I was not able to get a lot of background information on Dr. Semir Osmanagic himself, other than he's Bosnian, born in Zenica, 45 years old, and lives most of the time in Houston Texas.
He does have some training as an archeologist, mostly he's worked in Latin America. Frankly that is excellent training for knowing a pyramid hill when one sees it.
I did get a brief glimpse of the hill on a bus ride between Zagreb and Sarajevo back in 2001. I did think it looked like a pyramid. It wasn't right for an inactive volcano.
Bear in mind I spent a couple years in Mexico as a kid, and have visited two unexcavated pyramids, one known and one not yet known. So I think I have the ability to spot the signs of a pyramid.
I do have a little archeological training. Dr. Osmanagic has 15 years of training and field experience.
So when I said the criticism of Dr. Imamovic was halfway legit, that's it, it's halfway legit, but not entirely legit. Dr. Osmanagic isn't a rank amateur, he's had training.
I should mention one thing I can't stand about archeologists is the level of infighting in the field. I've witnessed it in the past. I don't like it. I don't consider it useful or the behavior of scientists.
I did my best to keep really 'woo woo' sites out and of course weeded out anything with a strong political agenda of any kind.
I should also mention there IS in fact one other pyramid in Europe, it's in the Canary Islands.

The Black Pyramids in Tenerif


More on the Black Pyramids in Tenerif


Other pictures of the pyramids in Tenerif

Tenerif's Black Pyramids are very small compared to Mexican or Egyptian pyramids.

They are of the 'step pyramid' style. One sees those in both Egypt and Mexico.

Anyway I want to find out more about Osmanagic, and I'll share it when I do. Sometimes the first search for information isn't what one wants, and one needs to do it again.

Raja Radio Bosna Mp3"

This has LIVE MUSIC from Boise Idaho tonight! Skelly tune it in if you aren't there!

I've been experimenting a little with how to make this blog physically easier to read. I am myself nearsighted and have a hard time with small print. I haven't had time to explore all the possibilities offered before, but I felt I had to do something to make it easier to read things. It's not that much more work, and gives a little variety to things.
The 'Compose' mode isn't bad at all, given how many times I've bitched about various facets of how Blogger can be user unfriendly it's time for me to say that I appreciate being able to make the font tiny, normal or Huge!
sometimes the variety is very welcome. There's also some options with fonts. While the conventional font offered IS readable, it's boring and not very pretty and I love things which are pretty. Sorry we female types are wired that way!
Let me know how you like the changes.

Some great photos of the pyramid dig in Visoko!

Bosnian Pyramid


A really detailed pyramid article





EU will investigate secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe

Anyone who has been anywhere near landmines appreciates new technology for disposing of them, Hell actually anyone who remembers the scene with the careful, patient, and distressed German mine disposal guy in 'No Man's Land' would be happy with this news!
Article on EOD removal robots


Flower Seller's war


Macedonian National wanted on alien smuggling charges
sorry for the highly annoying ad situation!

BBC story for those who hate the ads and don't want to put their zip code birth year and gender in a funny box

Bird Flu Risk in U.S. may be overstated

I guess we'll know in two weeks.

New Law on Religion in Serbia




Native Americans in Canada highly upset
Somehow you don't think of stuff like this happening in Canada, but I remember there were similar problems a few years ago.

Fox News to get one of Serbia's Channels!
I do not consider the presence of Fox News in the Balkans to be an improvement.
I like Fox entertainment, the Simpsons, Futurama, and so on but their news branch and talk radio branch leaves a lot to be desired. I consider Fox News to be representative of the worst in Western media.

This by contrast is GOOD news, BiH does have a good deal of hydroelectric capacity and can be of great help to the region as a whole, and of course this will help make life better for people in the region.

Investment in BiH Electrical Grid


Montenegro's Independance Vote

Bulgarian Nurses will be bach home by September
Slightly closer to our gulag...
Earthquake in Kamchatka

Interesting...Did you know that Arafat always went to Christmas services? I used to have pictures that showed this, in various old magazines. I dont' see why it's a huge problem, in general Muslims don't go to such services except 1. To educate themselves about Christianity. 2, If a friend dies or gets married who happens to be Christian Muslims might attend the service.3. For Diplomatic reasons, as in this case.

Serbian Church doesn't want Kosovar PM to attend Easter Services

This is good news, because a lot of people really have a foot in both countries.
Croatia to Ease Passage Between BiH and Croatia

This however is not wonderful news...
Milosevic Allies doing well in opinion polls

OSCE to help Macedonia address Human Trafficking problems
Ivan the Terrible has been sick the past few days, not able to speak at all. He lost his voice and had to e-mail his boss that he would not be in. Today it was raining so he did not take the car. The windshield wipers don't work and it's of course dangerous to drive in rain, besides he really hasn't recovered from whatever is wrong, merely recovered his voice. Two days out will leave him with a real mess too. Still in his job, you have got to be able to speak in order to do it.

I am alright except for a dull pain in my neck. I am probably not spending a lot of time online today. I could, this isn't a school day for me but I have rather bad eye strain and the dull pain in my neck is the sort that often heralds a migraine so I'm going to take it easy today. I expect company anyway.


Article about Mostar's Bruce Lee Statue

Speaking of Mostar, the Mostar live cam has been down for a LONG time now, it started with one camera being down consistantly and then days and days of it. This is a pity as I like to look at the bridge. I'm sure others enjoyed the window on life in Mostar as much as I did.


Teenaged Kosovar Albanian Girl denied Assylum in Netherlands

Mahut Bakalli
A fairly detailed article
Another Take on The Constant Gardener?
I had to try for another source on this story, I hope this link works. Blogger not having the bugs worked out on just using that link icon is VERY user unfriendly, and I wish their tech support was actually REACHABLE, I promise I'd be nice about it!

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HAM353238.htm

Just copy and paste that sorry for the inconvenience but damn I can't take this any more! I want to throttle someone for having to deal with HTML when supposedly one could just link the story with the icon in the little tool bar.


Croatia signs agreement not to sue U.S. for warcrimes

Rest of US Croatia Treaty Story
There was some discussion of this in BiH which really fought signing such a treaty. Croatia held out a long time. I think it's an unfair treaty to other countries. I understand the American point of view, anyone who remembers the U2 incident can! No nation wants their soldiers tried for war crimes, at the same time, as recent events have shown, any soldier is vulnerable to commiting such deeds.
Not enough is taught to children about revenge, and how to assess what is proportional. It might be the Christian discomfort with the subject and that favorite out of context court 'Vengence is Mine saith the Lord' Seriously, why is vengence alone the Lords, when it is through us His people that works of charity are done? I think if people were given some character education very young about what is and is not appropriate for given levels of misdeed, thenmaybe there would be more understanding of what is legitimate retaliation and what goes over the reasonable bounds.
It's up there with not talking frankly with one's children about sex. I had a hard time doing that as a mother, but my own mother's example of frankness on this subject kept me from getting into worse difficulties than I did. There are mistakes I did not make, and there are mistakes my children didn't make because I spoke frankly with both of them about what is and is not a good idea, and about ECONOMIC realities of how their lives would suck if they prematurely became parents. The problem is that the human body is programmed for a scarcity environment, where every single child contributed to the survival of it's community, whether hunter gatherer or low-tech, subsistance agriculturalist. We are wired for conditions which don't exist for most of us anymore. If you approach the subject of sex with the acknolegment that it is in fact cruel to force postponment of marriage and children far beyond biological readiness for economic reasons, in other words acknowlege that this is not an easy thing, you make a good start in helping children avoid bad situations in their teens.
The same goes for vengence. Most parents do not talk with children about war and it's consequences nearly well enough. Even very religious parents fail in this vital duty. The Bible, and the Koran both have a lot to offer as discussion points for this subject.
In fact the Bible is full of examples of what I would call disproportionate revenge, vilages where all men over a certain age were killed, the women and girls enslaved and the animals taken others where not even the animals were spared. I call these the 'ethnic cleansing' parts of the Bible. Think of it, the Canaanites and the Philistines were in fact ethnically cleansed. The Samaritans were despised and discriminated against. One of Jesus' most powerful parables, the story of the Good Samaritan isn't just about helping people, it's also a message about the evil of discrimination!
I always respected the priests and ministers of my acquaintanace who frankly discussed these portions of the Bible, and one female rabbi I heard discuss this touchy subject. These people kept me from deciding to just be an atheist or agnostic!
I have rather little use for organized religion, but I do think people need some kind of rules that work for them, that they won't just chuck in a crisis.
Scripture works as a jumping off point for this sort of discussion, and that's why it survives even in this wired age.


Net tightens around Mladic




Serbia was an important cocain distribution point


EU faces Balkans terror risk
I have to complement the political cartoonist here

Update on Srebenica War Crimes Suspect in the U.S.
Issues surrounding U.S. bases in Romania
Bosnian Pyramid looks to be for real!

The ITV story on Mladic I couldn't do anything with earlier
Mladic surrounded
of course I'll believe it when I see it...
Asylum another aspect of immigration law worldwide
Article on Mahmut Bakalli

Sorry if anything is wrong with these links, I had a LOT of math homework and I have a headache, whoever made putting links into Blogger so hard really needs a spanking.
U.N.ASKED TO END PEACEKEEPING MISSION IN BiH
APN Paid The Serbian Mafia 20 million Euros
rest of the story


Today's Mladic Updates!
ITV out of Northern Ireland reports that Mladic is surrounded, but the link didn't work, anyway it's probably the usual codswallop!
U.N. Waiting for

Mladic


Gotovina story

Another Take on the Constant Gardener?


Fair is Fair I had a Gotovina update, really it was sort of combined with a Ceku update...

U.N. NOT preparing a new deportation of Serbs from Kosovo



The Eternal Bay of Piran problem
But if you read Yakima Gulag Literary Gazett you knew this a couple days ago! :)


Cheney going to Croatia,



A Bulgarian Border town calls for legalized prostitution


Man gains second family in BiH

But seriously...
Again, it was not hard to find a sensational lead story...

Terrorists Recruiting 'White Muslims' in Balkans?' Although given that there are a lot of really disgruntled American converts available out there, I don't know...I can tell you that a Muslim person from the Balkans only has as an advantage skin color, culturally there is a big difference that is noticeable without serious training in how to 'pass'. and there is the severe visa regime which affects people of all religions and nations from the region, so I don't know how useful it is to recruit there really.
Warning 1 graphic picture... File under WTF?!?! I mean WHO kills dolphins on purpose?!?
Butchered Dolphins Shock Beach goers
Attack Party in Big Trouble

Today is also the Centenary of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. As a former San Franciscan I can say it's impressive the way they are doing the commemoration. I've been hearing reports on it on NPR, since I have to leave soon, I can't update with links yet. I'll try to supply some later.

Normally, before September 11th, I used to hang the Irish flag on my house along with the American flag, as this is the REAL Irish Independance Day. There are other places to read about these things. Suffice it to say that I'm glad there is an independant Ireland, just as I am glad there is an independant United States of America. Irish people have done a LOT for peace-keeping through out the world and made innumerable contributions to world literature and world music. At one time the absolute nerdiest thing was to like Irish music, now it's available and emulated worldwide!

After yesterday's smorgasbord (sic) of weather, it's nice out today, the sun is glorious and even though it was cold this morning I think we'll have a nice day!
Enjoyed Easter with the family very much, I had a very nice late birthday gift from my younger sister, a pashmina! it's BEAUTIFUL! It goes with several outfits, stays ON, and is warm, without being too hot.
I'm wearing it today in fact!


About time I say!
Serbia to Freeze Assets of Indicted War Crimes Suspects"

As if Tuzla needed more problems ....
Toxic Waste Barrels in Tuzla
Archeological Damage in Macedonia due to Floods

Flooding is very bad this year all over the Balkans. Ohrid is a very beautiful place and I am sorry to see this level of destruction due to flooding.

thanks to Connie for the illustration!


Sretan Vam Uskers* Fellow Zeks, and those who visit the Gulag!
So how is Easter in the Gulag?Well it's FREEZING out here in the Gulag! I had to bring in my house plants last night because we had the first real frost warning, and even a warning of a 20% chance of get this, SNOW!
I went to visit a friend of mine who has really not been well lately. On the way to her place I saw a snowflake. Had I been on the campus of the Yakima Gulag People's Institute of Higher Re:Education, I would have assumed it to be a petal from a cherry blossom, the little cherry trees by the library are blooming. Here however the nearest cherry related item would be the Cherry Cokes in the cooler at the 7-11 store!
So snow level at 1500 feet, and my daughter is going to get me and Ivan the Terrible after she gets off work. They are having a barbeque at her place. I am glad because I like going there, and I like to have barbeque very much.
I get laughed at at barbeques a lot, because I don't put buns on my burgers, I have ALWAYS all my life if plates ere available gotten a plate and put the burger on the plate with pickles, onions, a pickle or two and maybe some mustard. Everyone laughes at me for it, but I do it anyway.
I a

m going to put away as many burgers as I can, and enjoy the grand babies, and kick back.

Nice view of the suspected pyramid in the background! I wish I could be in on that dig..
BBC picks up on Pyramid Story!

Pyramids can be right under your nose even in places where there are a lot of pyramids right under your nose. Having lived in Mexico when I was little I saw LOTS of them. Including one that really did look like the Bosnian suspected pyramid, I remember going there with my parents, and my younger sister.
Newly Discovered Pyramid in Mexico

Odd and Cool, the Yakama People should do this!

Easter Rising of 1916 Commemorated
I never thought I'd see a story done this way on the BBC! I stayed in Dublin in a hostel just around the corner from the GPO, and the lightwell still had the marks of flame after all those years! I was told by a person that was there that I was correct in assuming that the marks of flame were from the time of the Rising. I should say there are not THAT many bullet holes left in buildings now, it's not like Sarajevo or something these days, but at the time Central Dublin was devastated. It looked pretty bad, as things tend to do after heavy naval artillary bombardment.

Article about 'Grbavica'


* that means Happy Easter in Bosnian, at least if you are saying it to someone Catholic, and Croatian, if you say it to someone Serbian it's something else, but I'll wish my Orthodox visitors Happy Easter on their big day next week! :)

Croatia is very high on the corruption index

Mitric to be deported to Serbia
for those who don't want to read a Chinese Communist publication, same basic story, from Bulgaria, note also the picture of the Danube, it's VERY flooded.
Mitic to be deported

Condeleeza Rice to visit Greece

Bomb in Sabac, Serbia My guess is it's a dispute among gangsters.

Dame Muriel Spark dies She wrote some really wonderful books, the world has lost someone special.
Danube at highest point in 100 years
Note the picture of the poor Serbian farmer trying to save his cattle. Who says farmers don't need courage>
Warning to the sensitive, and to people who may be at work. This is what one criminal did to avoild talking...

Bad and Wrong!

Bosnian Pyramid update
Another Pyramid Update

I can't believe my eyes!
U.S. soldiers see certain parallels in Iraq to the Bosnian war
It's not as far fetched a parallel as all that, 1. former Ottoman territory, 2. diverse populatin which was well mixed. 3. All powerful dictator playing divide and rule.
There are some major differences of course, but the observations of soldiers who experienced both places are worth noting.
Charges dropped against one of the Scorpions

Governor Gregoire just vetoed the funding which would make it possible to have three new faculty members in the Nursing Program! There are some 200 qualified students on the waiting list, trying to get into the program. This is terrible news, because there is a state-wide nuse shortage. The governor said that the appropriations were not the solution as a state wide solution is necessary.
This was on K.I.T. a station I admit to often making fun of but they do have the most local news in English. I wish they would broadcast less right wing brain washing though.

I did not need to look far for a sensational lead story today! I hope this outbreak is contained and quickly!
15 Serbian Police have Bubonic Plague!


Correction on Serbian Plague story
Seventeen members of Serbia's para-military police have been hospitalized with viral hemorrhagic fever, known as "mouse fever."
Doctors at Belgrade's infectious diseases clinic said the number of sick policemen is expected to rise since 33 gendarmes were directly exposed to the virus while on assignment in southern Serbia, the Beta news agency reported Friday.
Mila Vucic-Jankovic, head of a Belgrade immunology institute said tests have established the policemen were infected with viral hemorrhagic fever with kidney syndrome, which means renal function could be affected. None of the hospitalized policemen were in a life-threatening state.
Field mice are carriers of the virus and that's why the disease is called "mouse fever."
Woods and fields in southern Serbia and its Kosovo province are natural hotbeds of "mouse fever," doctors said.

*Original Serbian Plague Story*

UPDATED: 13:54, April 14, 2006
Gendarmes infected with bubonic plague in Serbia,Montenegro
font size ZoomIn ZoomOut

Fifteen gendarmes in southern Serbia have been infected with bubonic plague, the health authorities of Serbia and Montenegro said on Thursday.

The infection was confirmed in 15 gendarmes in two squads in the southern Serbian city of Bujanovac, said the head of the infectious disease controlling center.

The infected soldiers have been hospitalized but are out of danger now. The remaining gendarmes in the 35-strong squads are to receive medical checks as a precaution, the center head said.

The gendarmes had been operating in the wild for a long time and were vulnerable to bubonic plague which may be transmitted by mice, the official added.

Bubonic plague is primarily a disease spread to humans by insect bites. Its death rate is between 30 and 60 percent. Serbia's first case of bubonic plague was found in 1961.
Actually Bubonic Plague decimated the Balkans in the same eras when it decimated the rest of Europe. In a way I'm not surprised, because if there's ANY endemic in rodents and rodents increase in numbers it will affect humans sooner or later.
Both war and flood increase the numbers of rodents, and displace them into other areas.

For those of you who don't read Croatian, basically, Vice President Dick Cheney is going to visit Dubrovnik, Croatia, and meet with President Mesic of Croatia, and with Sanader, the Prime Minister.
Dick Cheney to visit Dubrovnik, meet with Mesic and Sanadar

Rest of Story

Kosovo's Communist Era Leader Dies

15 Serbian Police have Bubonic Plague!
Head of the Serbian Orthodox Church Hospitalized



Bosnian Pyramid Update

Or is it an Ottoman Army Arms Dump? Read the story, there's a couple more!
How has Art Bell Missed this story very much? Seriously, it's right up his alley!

NSFW!

A TOTALLY MIND IMPROVEMENT STORY! DO NOT CLICK ON THIS AT WORK!

NSF Mussolini Relative Porn Star Offers Herself to bin Ladin

and safe for work.....
for the ladies! but STILL a totally Mind Improvement story! :)

Bulgarian enteres Male Model Contest

Serb Suspect Ruled Mentally Un-Fit for Trial by the Hague Tribunal
The others in the same case got in my opinion ridiculously low sentences.

No Extraterritorial Entity in Decan via Kosava Report

Germany SiCG sign military cooperation agreement

Flooding of Danube in Serbia, other areas of Balkans

Spain wants Bulgarian workers

Huge Trial of Gangsters in Bulgaria

Dr Laura is NOT going to like this story! xexexe!

From North West Frontier to North West Frontier

I should mention that a very slick human trafficking ring has been at work bringing people in from India and Pakistan. at least 54 people have been smuggled into Washington state. This was on Northwest Public Radio.
Again this sort of operation would not be so profitable if we simply removed the quotas which are from a racist era of American history that should shame all decent people.

Oh my blog had a visit from the U.S. State Department yesterday. Welcome to my small, discerning, and alert readership!

Latin will be ambassador to Spain

Rest of Story

Serbia Flooded, damage in Belgrade

What does this have to do with the Balkans? Read on...
U.S. Navy Sinks Sham Marriages Scheme

Bosnian Pyramid Update I like the illustration of the pyramid with the sun behind it.



Daily Mladic Will be Handed Over Soon Update Sometimes I think the idea is to turn this into old news so that nobody gets upset because by then it will feel like old news.
And a Gotovina update
Kehoe Hired to Defend Gotovina

U.S. asks E.U. to be clear on the Status of Western Balkans Nations

3 Balkans States Mull War Crimes-Cooperation

Greek President Slams West over Kosovo


Locally, there is a report that the State of Washington Energy Assistance program has run out of money. This is very bad because we really can get some cold winters and heating prices of all kinds have been simply murder. This time it's not Enron but when that was going on I KNEW it was market manipulation and I really think the same thing is going on now, only the culprits are understandably being more clever.

I had one winter where the price of keeping my home tolerabley warm was sufficient to have funded THREE trips to BiH, or perhaps a year's stay. It pisses me off no end when something I have to have is so expensive that none of the rest of the things I need to do or want to do are even possible.

Ljalic resigns from another post
First Terrorism Case in BiH comes to trial

While there is the tradition of the 'sworn virgins' in Albanian society, these women who for social purposes are men are a very different matter from Lesbians. I don't know about it, but I suspect that Lesbians do not have a good social position in Albanian society. I'm glad she was able to stay in Britain.
Lesbian Assylum Seeker Allowed to Stay in Britan

Apples are selling like hotcakes in Croatia

Top ten underpriced European cities

Sesame Street in Kosovo



Counci of Slavic Peoples Calls for Dissolution of the Hague Tribunall In my day this might have been called a 'front organization' or something....

Serbia will not fulfil it's engagements to the Hague

Rene van der Linden against independance for Kosovo
The boycotting of elections in various parts of the Balkans is a bit like the loser business of Abstention in Northern Ireland, eventually it HAD to go!
UN Envoy calls for end to boycott policy
This guy really was kind of a sad case.. here's an update, he's the guy from Australia who isn't a citizen but never lived in Serbia, so he gets deported to Serbia...
Jovcic Case update
A really inspirational story, not all news from the Balkans is bad news and not all news from Tennesee is bad news either!
Angels in Scrubs
Just so you don't think I'm always only slaggin' on the Serbs!
Drunk Croat gets 27 tickets in one day
What this guy was going for the record?!?!

Oil Refinery Disaster in Serbia

ZPresident of Turkey Visiting BiH

I have long maintained that social atmosphere is profoundly affected by the nature of print and broadcast media. Someone ought to do a comparative study of the effects of rant radio in the U.S. compared to Kosovo, it would probably make for disquiting statistics. Scroll down for a full report in English, Albanian or Serbian.
Differences in Print Media in Kosovo



EU helps Moldova with Border Security




Interesting study on attitudes toward prostitution in Bulgaria

EUFOR searching a business in Banja Luka

The Valley of the Roses is famous for it's beauty and for attar of roses.
Dutch invest in the Valley of the Roses

more on the Croatian Lodge in Biloxi, thanks Connie!

Croatian Lodge in Biloxi Miss

We now have a chat room, just follow the link

Press Room

What with all the rain and getting back into classes laundry didn't get done. It didn't help that I have to tell my son to bring it upstairs and sometimes I forget that part and sometimes he doesn't remember. We had dirty towels. Time in the laudnromat was inevitable.
I dislike the laundromat closest to us on a number of counts. One of them is the decrepit nature of the place, the other is the lack of machines. The other two laundromats I know of are in a bad area of town, where there are a lot of people I'd rather not deal with, and they lack attendants.
I really prefer to wash clothes in a laundromat where there is an attendant. So I sat there waiting for stuff to wash and got into a conversation with the attendant and one of the regulars. He turned out to be a very interesting person. His mother used to work for President Reagan. I could tell he was probably a Republican because many of his towels and throw rugs were decorated with elephants. That's fine, I had my red bag from the convention in 2000, with the stuff about the Democratic convention. We ended up comparing travel notes, about the Soviet Union when it was the Soviet Union, he met Andropov, Saudi Arabia, and BiH, he'd never been. I was impressed with the fact that this man was a civil person, and enjoyed meeting him.
Something in the conversation gave me a feeling of hope that on the other side there are some decent people.
I tried and tried to call home, so my son could come get me. No answer no answer so I called my daughter's place and asked that they e-mail him to please get me. I thought maybe he forgot to turn on the ringer to the phone.
My daughter set out to come get me.
Meanwhile my son arrived knowing he was in deep trouble. I don't awfully like going to the laundromat in the first place, even this one, because it's being stuck someplace. I especially don't like being stuck there a lot longer than I had to be stuck there.
Anyway he showed up. I told him I'd called his sister in the mena time so I tried to call her place back, no answer, meaning they were probably on their way to the gulag from the dacha.
Nothing for it but to go home. We went home.
I called again, six rings to get the anwering machine, and left an appologetic message. My son's phone worked fine when he got home, but the little jack broke some way, it fell out when he next checked for a dial tone.
I think phone jacks and the little plugs for them are a case of real bad design! I had endless trouble with them.
Well I'm tired, had to hunt down my math book and decided to see if I could lighten the amount of stuff I carry to school. I decided to take fewer things, but I probably am going to change my mind about the CD player. There's times it really is good to have it along.
County convention wasn't bad. I am an alternate delegate, got to see a lot of my friends.

1000 protest in Presevo

Mafia Rampage may delay Kosovo Independance
From an Iranian News Source: Click with care I guess...
Kosovo's UN Governor Faulted in Corruption Inquiry

This is a Big FAT I Told You So! I have said to many of my friends that as soon as the wages went up in the Indian technical support centers they would next be in Bulgaria or Romania, well guess what? Hewlett Packard is the first to open a European Center
I TOLD you so!

New Cancer Therapy in Bulgaria
I'd like to see more on this study to be honest with you...Dr. Laura quoted it as refereing to cohabitation of the type she calls 'shacking up' but this doesn't say anything abou tthat. I do know that many men WILL sabotage women's diet efforts. I observed this with my late mother and step father. He would make it hard for her to maintain a low weight. They were married.
Study says men make women fat
From Kosava Report..
Ljalic accuses Slovenia of war crimes!
Sorry I just have to be snarky here...
The Slovenians must have been REALLY good at it, and it must have paid off since the Slovenian War of Independance was one of the shortest wars on record in the 20th century!

File under 'Well D'uh!'
Mladic family reports pressure by government
no I'm totally not making this up....
Transgendered Communist Candidate in Italy

Croatia wooing tourists from India Indian music is actually well liked in Croatia, I saw two programs on Indian music on HRT and the people I watched the program with seemed to like the music.


I spent most of today at the County Convention. It took forever and I'm still tired. I'm an alternate for the State Convention.

Rasim Ljajić will Resign

Osmanli New Yorker


Herbal treatments for diabetes
I never even heard of this celebration before, but it's a good idea as far as I'm concerned.
International Roma Day

Anarchist march in Sofia

Bodies of 11 Serbian dead from Kosovo turned over to relatives for the sake of the relatives this is a good thing.

Coments on Doctor's Strike in Bulgaria

*American News*
Massechusetts passes law that everyone has to buy health insurance. I think this is the wrong approach. The insurance companies still charge some pretty awful sums for health insurance. Many people still won't be able to afford anything adequate. So it is very unfair to ordinary people. I think that the state needs to step in and do someting similar to 'Basic health' and charge those whose incomes allow for that a little more maybe. Even that doesn't work as well as it might. The problem is with the industry itself.
I think one central place to handle health care financeign is better than what goes on now. 500 kinds of paperwork, and tremendous expense whether or not it is justified either by level of care, or other objective measures.
Immigration law continues to be a huge source of discord as well in the U.S.

But I thought they DID that ALREADY!

Belgrade Freezes Assets of War Crimes Suspects

This was the article that started the fuss
Mladic says he's ready to surrender


Lunacy



Mladic's son refuses to negotiate surrender

As you know I don't ordinarily have anything from Pravda but oh well... here is an article from Pravda
11,000 bodies of missing in Bosnia still need to be found

I don't know if this would work or not..

I had something from Slobodna Dalmacija about the secret flights. In Croatia, investigation has continued on this matter. Personally I find the whole story fishy...

More on CIA flights


Opposition to Mother Theresa Statue ends

Pavarotti cancels more concert dates



Yet more foolishness with the immigration bill and I don't know what to think, but I can say for sure American immigation law is way too complex and this proposed law still doesn't help.

I say there should not be quotas, it should not take YEARS to get in to the U.S. legally, and there need to be options for obtaining a Green Card easier than seeking an Amerian wife.

Easier legal immigration would be particularly useful as far as U.S. relations with Latin America go, and would just be better all around.
I'm almost relieved the deal fell through, but more thought needs to go into the law.
Basicaly too, I think easier legal immigration could even be better for unions. Unions in the past have opposed easier immigration.
I do not favor a 'guest worker' program though. That has led to problems in the past for the U.S. and for the guest workers themselves.

This was in 1945 when the fascists were defeated in Sarajevo but a new war began the same date April 6 1992.
So much to think about on a day like this!
Quod posted this.


Saraynet used to post that sort of thing and now they don't.
I don't understand why they don't. They don't post about holidays or other stuff either anymore.

Why did I call the place that I go to college that? Because a lot of people there in fact ARE being re:educated! I am being re:educated essentially for the third time.

Sometimes it's learning stuff I failed to learn for whatever reason earlier in life.
Basic math for example.
Other times it's building on knowlege I already have, that would be Spanish class, and some of the courses like medical terminology.
Other things really are about totally new stuff, like computer keyboarding, I didn't always know how to type on this thing you know!
Soem of the best stuff is that there are actually good teachers at this little college,
Mr. Pinon, Mr. Bill, Ms Whitcomb, Mr. Mayo, Mr. Rudnik who isn't here anymore, Mr. Huyk, Mr. Koestler, Ms. Warren, Ms Ivy, and the other wonderful people in Allied Health, and people in the office like Mark and Bob! You guys ROCK!
The list is long and honorable as far as the instructors go.
Then there's the cast of wack characters, Brat, Paige, Trinity, Cathy, Karen A.M. Ian, Josh, J.T.Juanna, Kristy, and the Lawyer.. then there's the book store crew, and the people who work around the campus, mostly really good people.

I've been very lucky to go there, especially at this late point in my life.
Even my fiance was once a student there, he took ESL with Teacher Mary as many call her.
Hardly a facet of my life has been untouched by that place in the last three years. Let's face it going to school is all consuming!
I ahve not seriously cleaned house in 3 years! I began to over this last break, because I was sure my carreer there was over. I figured it was time to clean things out. Now I am devoting one day a week just to throwing out the accumulation of paper. To folding up clothes I can no longer wear, givign away books I read long ago. I even have donated old text books that I won't need, that I could not sell.
So what is a typical day? Last quarter it was dragging myself to an upright position, going to brush my teeth and getting into the computer based classes and reading my books.
This quarter it has been getting up early dressing, brushing my teeth, and packing lunch and a breakfast. Even though I'm only a couple blocks off campus I prefer to stay there until class is over for me t hat day. I do homework, I can get help from table mates very often. I eat in their company, and we are a source of mutual support and sillyness.
The new look of my blog was the gift of a table mate!
So how did this table start?
I was ionvited to the Table.
I was angry with my fiance for not writing. I was composing a really angry nastygram about his total neglect of me, and his total rotteness in not writing. I was in a BAD mood. I was looking stuff up in my handy dandy Bosnian dictionary. Trying to figure out if it was the right word really.. trying at the same time not to be TOO nasty and mean.
A woman sat at my table. She was very obviously a Muslim person, a light skinned Black person, hijab, jilbab. I was busy writing and really didn't notice her at first. She passed me a note.
The note said 'Hi My name is Aisha Do you speak English?' I realized she'd made a common mistake in thinking that just because I'm not from this gulag, I'm totally a foreign person. So anyway I decided maybe we both needed a good laugh.
I wrote 'Hi my name is Katja and I speak very good English!' and put a smiley face!
She read it and we both laughed and spoke with each other.
So every morning I sat with her, and a couple other women who have since graduated.
She had a lot of challenges, being Muslim in this country after Sept 11 was no picnic, also she has a son and he was then serving in Iraq, he was an Arabic translator interpreter. She was of course worried sick for him.
I remember one day when we spoke.
It was awkward.
I remembered saying "I don't know what yoru views on the war are, I think we both probably think it's a bad thing in many ways..but your son is in a position to save lives, both American lives and Arab lives. He can help a lot. I'll pray for him"
Her feeling were something I could not begin to imagine. I still pray for her son, and think of her and her family.
They moved away, to be near relatives. No one has heard from her since.
Still she is who started the table, by inviting people to sit there. We'd do our homework, tip each other off to ways to make our lives better, comfort one another, horse around, tell sick jokes. All that stuff.
EAch of us invited other people to sit at the table.
I've learned as much from the people I usually sit with as I have in classes.
Aisha isn't the real name of this lady. But whereever she is, she started something really cool and those of us who began sitting together because of her have not forgottten her...
Whereever she is I hope she's o.k. I hope her son is ok and made it back o.k.

Usually my day is very simple this quarter.

Scarlele

A nice young lady who has considerable artistic talent.

Pretty soon my blog roll will be organized more into Geographical and Thematic catagories. Right now I'm just glad to have some color other than bright orange.

It's at least nice out, tomorrow is an errends day for me, and Saturday I have to do political stuff.

I hope to spend some quality time with my math book over Sunday. I did finish all my homework, but damn that test was physically painful, mostly because I have a hard time remembering my multiplication tables, and almost no math related concept gets into my head easily.

I still owe Mr. Bill a lot, because instead of being a snivleing wet piece of toast i was a muttering semi insane piece of bagel!
No this test was not a piece of cake for me...
Ah well....

Zlad is BACK!
@Trinity; You have competition in the wig department!
Molvanian news!


Phaic Tan Travel Advice

Some will remember Elektronik Supersonik!

But we think you should visit the more better nerealan zemelja
Visit Beautiful Zahumlje!



Because Balkanization is a Good Thing

And besides you'll like our beautiful flag, just don't do corporate dress, people in suits have wound up covered in mud and left in the middle of mine fields!

CIA Used the Dubrovnik Airport


Rest of Story


More Detail on Milosesevic Report

The Donaldson case. This man was an informer, possibly a double-agent. I have heard a lot of famous and terrifying stories about what the IRA used to do to informers.
Irish Story of the Day


I'll believe it when I see it!

Wife of Mladic says four relatives detained

I guess FEMA are not the only f****ps in the disaster relief business!
Mess from Last Year's Floods in Bulgaria not yet cleaned up

Five to be charged with terrorism in BiH

In Seattle, according to a report on Northwest Public Radio a number of Chinese illegal entrants were arrested after being seen to leave a fenced off area of the Port of Seattle. They traveled in a cargo container which was set up for a long sea journey. There was even a toilet! Both men and women were in the container, and they were at sea 15 days!
The last port they were in in Asia was Pusan, South Korea. I have to say that this is not all t hat unique, it happens every so often that one of these cargo containers is discovered.

I am not the only one out there who feels that the particularly difficult process of entering the U.S. legally is part of the problem.

Quotas basically are racist. They date from the era of eugenics and another thing is they date from an era of extreme hostility toward Catholics. One who hasn't read a lot of late 19th and early 20th century writings would not realize that the aim of quotas was to prevent the entry of 1. Southern Europeans such as Italians, 2. Southeast Europeans, 3. Eastern Europeans 4. Jews from anyplace. 5. Asians, whether from South Asia or China.

People have been arrested for people trafficking on the Canadian border in the last couple of days as well.

Protection of Women from Violence is an Obligation not an Option

Of course this isn't going to settle the conspiracy theorists down. The good news is that at least so far they have not been on the Former Art Bell Show!

Milosevic died of natural causes

Bulgarian Nationalist Party preparing a surprise for Condi
I guess they don't like her or something...
I really like the new Internet Cafe at the Yakima Gulag People's Institute of Higher Re:Education! It makes it easier to pry me out of my house to go to school, and therefore in fact more of my homework gets done.

That can only be a good thing!

Code is btw miserable for me but I owe Bora a huge thanks for showing me how it's done! If he hadn't this post would not be coming to you so early!


So far I like the math class I'm in. The guy moves at a pace I can handle. The construction noises are another matter and how over heated that building is yet another. I can't be too warm when I'm doing math! The accelarated brain activity overheats me enough!

Well take care prijatelje!

***UPDATES***





The Ice Feet!


Milosevic Death Ruled Natural

Owen, it's not always the code that's at fault, that story was the earliest one, but some news sites purge stuff when they think it has gotten too old. It's an annoyance at times but what can one do really?

Frontline Milosevic End of an Era


SiCG and U.S. Sign Weapons Ban


CIA Jails in Bulgaria

And just because not too many people get to see the paper from the Tri-Cities home of the Richland Bombers! They paint themselves florescent green and have little mushroom clouds and atom symbols on their letterman jackets. I'm NOT making this up!

Effects of Democracy on Journalism

Serbian Matriarchy

I just really liked this article, it was just beautiful and I like the pictures with it.

Of course unemployment is a problem in neighboring countries as well...

Unemployment in Croatia

Ethnic Albanian Arrested for bomings in Kosovo
Cute guy picture alert!
Tarkan Concert in Bulgaria I love Tarkan's music and he has actually a small but devoted fan base in the Yakima Gulag...

Harry Potter to be killed in next book

OK now it's later!

OK Boris, you can bring the body guards but the police must be notified
Warning, website situated in Iran...in case that worries you....
Who Next?

Hot Competition for Serbian Broadcast Outlets


I am not sure I did ok with it, but I did turn in my math homework ON TIME much to the shock of a beloved former math teacher...
I have Spanish and Math to wade through tonight.
Thanks to a nice classmate of mine, I was able to purchase the needed text book for this class at a price we both felt good about. I told her if she can find the CD I'll give her another $5 for it. It might be useful who knows...?
Tonight my son and I went for sushi, I had my usual bento box special with the salmon, he had his usual that has beef. Riding home with soup on your lap is a little tense, but worth it to have properly made miso soup, and we watched people getting all Medieval, justing, wearing funny hats, drinking mead, wearing cool Medieval hairdos, a woman walked through the area in the fashionable but ugly low rise Capri lenght jeans, and a sphaghetti string red tank top. She just suffered in the dignity and beauty department next to those beautiful women in Medieval dress! She looked less mature, less virtuous even than the women wearing the Medieval version of slutwear.
THere was archery and jousting, I love a good joust! Of course I like horses anyway, and the horses seemed to be having a good time. Guys running around in armour of course....
And the men looked so dashing, even the older ones who had beer bellies looked better in Medieval clothes! THe children looked more natty and less bratty in their Medieval outfits. They (Whoever it is They are anyway...!) have always said that all good fashions come back in style. Well I can't wait for the Renaissence to come back! I'm just kind of an extremely retro person!

In the sushi place there were some Japanese friends of the owners visiting, and as they left one Mapanese man, obviously not an English speaker, said 'Buenos Dias!' and then 'Adios' experimenting with his Spanish. So I said 'Adios' to him. I think the others liked it, they all smiled, and not that special smile highly embarrassed Japanese people will sometimes do.
The sushi was good, I am now stuffed to the gills, and must lie down.

The immigration bill is still a cause of argument in the Senate. I really have about had it with how stupid immigration law is to begin with. Quotas for example, as far as I'm concerned the whole concept of quotas came from a racist era in American history. They were designed to keep out people from for example Southern vs Northern Europe, and to keep out people from Eastern Europe vs Western Europe. The era in which quotas were assigned was the disgraceful era of the Eugenics Movement.
Eugenics was an important and largely unacknowleged American contribution to fascism.

I think current immigration law is unfair, and really leads to the very imbalances it in theory was designed to prevent.

The grass is growing in our gulag, and will need cutting for the first time this year. I talked with a young guy who has normally cut the grass.

Well that's it for tonight!

In our gulag we had a HUGE deomstration, perhaps the biggest I have ever attended in the actual town of Yakima, and the second biggest I ever attended here.

The new attempts to reform immigration were the reason for the demonstration. It began at Miller Park, actually people began arriving early. There was considerable police presence, including uniformed officers and several un marked cars. I would assume some detective presence.

The march went in sort of a circle of the downtown area, but not into the core of downtown and passed off peacefully. It was a legal and permitted deomonstration.
There were community groups such as the lawyers from the Immigrant Rights Project, Amigas Unidas, UFW, MEChA, and other groups.

I did see a few fellow students. It was cold but sometimes the sun came out and it got hot. So between snow flakes drops of rain and being really warm.

I gor very tired.

Balkans News Follows:



File under Anything to Cause Further Problems:

Milosevic letter published in Russian Newspaper

I do think Chechnya deteriorated to a situation of ethnic cleansing long ago it's just that no one is really talking about it in the West.

Bodies found in Grozny

U.S. backs Balkans oil project
Problems in Vojvodina
Detailed article on Bulgarian forces in Iraq

Article in Chron about Omarska
We sat at a table near the window overlooking a slim patch of river -- a rather unremarkable river, except in the way it slithered by unnoticed on its way out of town. The air was still, so thick and still, and it was intolerably, menacingly hot on this summer day. My colleague and I downed our coffee, and having finished our breakfast, hung around a bit longer to go through the stack of newspapers in front of us.

We were journalism trainers, and the local weekly newspaper in this east Bosnian town had begun a popular series in which a victim of a war crime was profiled each week, including those who had spent time in the nearby Omarska concentration camp. The editor said printing the survivors' accounts was a way for the community to begin to heal, and to document what had happened.

It was our job to critique the stories journalistically: Were they fair? Had facts been verified when possible? How many sources were interviewed? Was the coverage and presentation too sensational?

Despite the oppressive heat, our waiter had restless energy. He kept circling back to us, asking if we needed more juice, more coffee, more water, and then he'd circle back to the counter and eye us from there. I remember him -- his dark thinning hair, his dark eyes, his round face, his compact body. When it was clear we were about to leave, he came back to our table for the last time, tapped his finger on the newspaper's front page photo of a suspected war criminal, and started muttering.

"He says that's a bad man," said my colleague, translating. "He said that man did horrible things to the people here."

The waiter, with his dark brown eyes, crouched down to me, his Bosnian face fronting my American one, pointed to an emptiness in his mouth where some teeth had been beaten out, and said quietly, "Omarska."

And then his brown eyes began to cry.

Omarska is the horror that was never supposed to happen again after Auschwitz. It is the oily blackness of soulless madmen who crack their brothers' backs, beat them, starve them down to ghastly skeletons, and worse.

A survivor, Rezak Hukanovic, writes of the torture in his book, "The Tenth Circle of Hell."

"Thirst, hunger, gang rapes, exhaustion, skulls shattered, sexual organs torn out, stomachs ripped open by soldier assassins of Radovan Karadzic."

If the late Slobodan Milosevic was the mastermind of the Bosnian war, Radovan Karadzic was it's premier architect, organizing such camps as Omarska (which he would mockingly label an "investigation center" when reporters came snooping about) to ethnically cleanse a region of its non-Serbs.

In May 1992, intense shelling in and around Omarska forced residents to flee their homes. Upon doing so, many were captured by Serb forces and either killed on the spot or marched off to one of the handful of concentration camps in the area.

The Omarska camp operated for about three months, in which time, the U.S. State Department estimates, up to 5,000 people were killed. Those who were able to return home found their houses occupied by Serbs.

Bosnia has three main ethnic groups, Bosniaks (Bosnian-Muslims), Croats and Serbs, and under Josip Broz Tito's communist regime, ethnicity was essentially a nonissue to the people of Bosnia, as in the rest of Yugoslavia. People married each other, worked together, lived in the same villages and neighborhoods, leaving ethnicity a matter only for the census-takers.

But mighty Milosevic's calls for a Greater Serbia ignited a nationalist flame that shined like a beacon for the likes of Karadzic, who schemed ways to ethnically cleanse vast territories of Bosnia for the purpose of uniting them with Serbia.

This was the third of four wars Milosevic would carry out against his own people, killing hundreds of thousands, and eventually snuffing out the existence of Yugoslavia itself.

Serbs were not the only war criminals to emerge from the Bosnian conflict; Bosniaks and Croats also shoulder blame for shameful acts, a fact many Serbs feel is unjustly overlooked. But it was Milosevic's Serb soldiers who shot like snipers at civilians during the siege of Sarajevo, who killed, execution-style, nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in a matter of hours, and who left us the disturbing legacy of the Omarska concentration camp.

I was in the central city of Tuzla the night a helicopter lifted off from there carrying a captive Milosevic to The Hague. The following morning, I walked around the city -- its once charming main streets now pockmarked by mortar attacks -- and tried to read faces for signs of joy, vindication, relief. The faces gave away nothing, nothing at all, and I thought maybe the war had taken it all from them.

The day his trial started, I sat on a stool in a Bosnian cafe and watched the Bosnians as they stonily watched Milosevic. The country is now divided into two entities, and I was in the Serb-controlled part, waiting to meet a dear friend, a Bosnian-Serb editor who lost both of his legs in a car bomb attack for reporting about war crimes. He had received several death threats before the 3-pound bomb was placed under his car on his birthday, and I asked him once why he risked his life for war criminals.

"The best thing for Serbs here," he told me, "would be to distinguish between war criminals and Serbs as a whole. Not every Serb is a war criminal."

My friend nearly died exposing the crimes, but the most wanted criminal remains free. Most think Karadzic now lives in a mountain cottage in Serbia, with 20 or more footmen to buy his food, his coffee, his wine, his clothes and his beloved books, because he is, after all, a poet.

No one has found him yet. He slithered away unnoticed, swimming with the current of Omarska's river of tears.

Patti McCracken, a frequent contributor to Insight, is based in Austria. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

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Bosnian Serbs Discontented with new Law on Flags and Emblems

I can predict that they are not the only ones who won't like this act. It's a silly bit of P.C. nonsense. Maybe having the old flags is a piece of Medieval nonsense on the part of all three communities, but I prefer Medieval nonsense to P.C. nonsense on General Principle and frankly leaving the assorted flags alone is a wiser move. Most of them date to the 15th century and before.

American FBI opens an office in Albania

Privatiazation will not help hospitals if health care remains cheap

The man who said this is right. I maintain that privatization of medical care is the worst mistake any Balkans nation can make. All it has led to in the U.S. is endless expenses.

Story on Mother Theresa Statue

Most Albanians are proud of Mother Theresa, and they should be! I had the privelege of meeting some of her order when I lived in San Francisco with my kids. They are not allowed to accept anything, not food or a cup of tea, if they visit anyone.

Mother Theresa was at pains to get along with people who are not Christians. She had for a European, especially one born in her era, the era of the Balkans Wars of 1911-1912, of the importance of religious tolerance.


My son and I went to the wedding of two of his friends yesterday, it was a very nice wedding, of two people who are very nice people. It was nice getting to meet the families of both and everyone got along, it was the most peaceful wedding I ever attended!
I may post a few pictures in a day or so. The pictures are downloaded but I'm very tired today.


Charles Taylor to the Hague


Indian Companies Expansion into Foreign Markets This expansion has been going on in the Balkans for some time, and it's in several types of business.

Arms Smuggling Network Busted in Croatia