Sunday, February 24, 2008
If you don't see me for a couple of days don't be alarmed...
The S.O. is safely back from Dubrovnik. He is taking a day to rest from his trip and from being poked and prodded by doctors who enjoy decent equipment. It is lovely out. As expected yesterday's anti-juvenile delinquency demo went off peaceful. I am staying in the neighborhood mostly so my ankles will be o.k. Someone has some music that sounds totally Bollywood! It probably is actually Bosnian but I keep thinking it's like BHANGRA time! :) It's one of those ring tones. I wish I knew how to install a ringtone. I haven't gotten that far in the fun world of mobile phones yet. malo po malo. :).
At all of those folks who are happy that Kosovo is free, alright, what next? I hope things go alright for the people there. I don't want to see another war anywhere around here, mostly because aside from a large number of huligani in various parts of Serbia and R.S. and a few in Kosovo, no one else around here really wants another war. I think that goes for a lot of Serbs comeing down to it. They too lost loved ones. I don't think anyone wants to drink that Koolaid again. I come from a country that recognized Kosovo, the U.S. and I am living in a country that doesn't DARE recognize Kosovo because doing so might start the next war. So I hope my respected readers will understand that I am staying neutral on this subject. I do not want any stupid flame wars here. Anything that looks like flame responses will not make it onto this page. A little exuberance fine, but actually around here, it isn't party time. It is time for thought. How to get through the next few months in a civilized way, and then the next few months. The S.O. and I don't entirely agree on Kosovo incidentally. He has lived there, and worked there a LONG time ago. He is a Croat and no fan of certain of the Serbs, but he thinks of it as their territory. We just don't discuss it. I don't think of it as Serbian territory. A bunch of them LEFT in the Great Migration, and if they had stayed on instead, 1, neither BiH or Vojvodina would have Serbian people in any real numbers, and 2. Kosovo would probably not be something like 90% Albanian. Stuff that happened in the 1600s can't be fixed this late in the game. As wellthere was what Milosevic did. He did Serbia so much harm. If he'd left autonomy alone, the Kosovo Albanians NEVER would have gotten freedom. There is no nation that would have recognized them. Genocide made it happen. If there had been no genocide, no one would care what the people in Kosovo wanted. Kosovo instead was what broke Yugoslavia.
National borders are something that have changed a lot in centuries. I am not saying it is right or wrong that they do, they just do. About a hundred years ago this whole place was either part of the Ottoman Empire or part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Empires rise and fall. What matters is what people pay for taxes, whether people can work, whether people can go to work and school with a reasonable hope they can again go home without someone killing them and taking their stuff.
I hope in Kosovo they can set a government that manages to do that for people. That would be a really good thing. Lord knows it wasn't the case under Serbia for a long time.
If governments, any governments want peace out there, they need to take care of their people. They need to NOT set up the material conditions for revolution. When people have jobs, educations, housing, health care and something called a future, they don't rebel. It really is that simple.
As for Dodik and his bunch. There is a pretty neat series of pictures of the home he has for himself in Belgrade. It is a totally tasteless example of the WORST sort of Balkans Moderne architecture. It looks like a fortress. He paid for it with money he basically stole from his own people. That's it get your people scared of the other people, and then rake in the boodle! Lajcak visited him up in Banja Luka, and reminded him that his people signed the Dayton Accords and the agreement includes not having referendums about independance for R.S. They showed all this on the news. It included a visit to a very fancy Orthodox church in Banja Luka where there was a wedding. It was a nice day out, and people were passing some rakija around outside the church, in a big brown bottle. Lajcak wiped the bottle uncomfortably with the sleeve of his sport coat and had a sip. He shouldn't worry, rakija kills all germs. :).
So what did I do this morning? Nothing much, had a couple helpings of suho meso. I have discovered it is better if it has a little fat, taste wise and as far as controlling my appetite goes. I had that some cola and sat watching Euronews, then Dinotopia.
Anyone out there who hasn't seen the Dinotopia series needs to! It really is great fun! It was filmed in Hungary and Germany and England. The cast is wonderful. I especially like the 'Outsiders' and the baby dinosaurs. I used to have a Dinotopia calender. I bought it for Ivan the Terrible, but it wound up being a mommy toy! I loved it, the drawings on it were fantastic.
Costuming on the film is amusing, you see all sorts of fun clothes, like the Outsider Torres with black jeans and a Ren Faire type corset in red, very sexy. One girl had what DEFINATELY was a Bosnian ladies vest, the guys are equally cool. Everyone should dress like that! :).
Then there's the dinosaurs themselves, the T-Rexs and the city, Waterfall City is rendered quite nicely in the film.
I have continued watching 'Jesen stize dunjo mojo' too, that is a wonderful series, mostly filmed in Serbia. It really has wonderful actors. The little girl who plays Dunja is cute, and the sets are wonderful.
They haven't had Folk Show a couple weeks and reception on SATV has been kind of bad so I have missed out on programs like 'Meraklija' which I love. 'Meraklija' is mostly about sevdalinke, and they have really good singers. It's very low key and very nice without being boring.
Hopefully Folk Show will be back. I passed on 'Bloody Bordello' they have been running a bunch of 'Tales From the Crypt' late on FTV. I can't even wrap my mind around watching that for the subtitles! It's just icky. I watched 'Monk' though, where the doctor trys him on some new meds that make him all maniac and he becomes 'The Monk' and wants to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. People just want his old OCD self back by the end of it!
That one is good for subtitles. I sit with a notebook and make note of anything I didn't know before. That helps a lot.
I learned at least six new expressions from last night.
So off to work over the book again. I keep finding stuff that needs work. So it goes.
At all of those folks who are happy that Kosovo is free, alright, what next? I hope things go alright for the people there. I don't want to see another war anywhere around here, mostly because aside from a large number of huligani in various parts of Serbia and R.S. and a few in Kosovo, no one else around here really wants another war. I think that goes for a lot of Serbs comeing down to it. They too lost loved ones. I don't think anyone wants to drink that Koolaid again. I come from a country that recognized Kosovo, the U.S. and I am living in a country that doesn't DARE recognize Kosovo because doing so might start the next war. So I hope my respected readers will understand that I am staying neutral on this subject. I do not want any stupid flame wars here. Anything that looks like flame responses will not make it onto this page. A little exuberance fine, but actually around here, it isn't party time. It is time for thought. How to get through the next few months in a civilized way, and then the next few months. The S.O. and I don't entirely agree on Kosovo incidentally. He has lived there, and worked there a LONG time ago. He is a Croat and no fan of certain of the Serbs, but he thinks of it as their territory. We just don't discuss it. I don't think of it as Serbian territory. A bunch of them LEFT in the Great Migration, and if they had stayed on instead, 1, neither BiH or Vojvodina would have Serbian people in any real numbers, and 2. Kosovo would probably not be something like 90% Albanian. Stuff that happened in the 1600s can't be fixed this late in the game. As wellthere was what Milosevic did. He did Serbia so much harm. If he'd left autonomy alone, the Kosovo Albanians NEVER would have gotten freedom. There is no nation that would have recognized them. Genocide made it happen. If there had been no genocide, no one would care what the people in Kosovo wanted. Kosovo instead was what broke Yugoslavia.
National borders are something that have changed a lot in centuries. I am not saying it is right or wrong that they do, they just do. About a hundred years ago this whole place was either part of the Ottoman Empire or part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Empires rise and fall. What matters is what people pay for taxes, whether people can work, whether people can go to work and school with a reasonable hope they can again go home without someone killing them and taking their stuff.
I hope in Kosovo they can set a government that manages to do that for people. That would be a really good thing. Lord knows it wasn't the case under Serbia for a long time.
If governments, any governments want peace out there, they need to take care of their people. They need to NOT set up the material conditions for revolution. When people have jobs, educations, housing, health care and something called a future, they don't rebel. It really is that simple.
As for Dodik and his bunch. There is a pretty neat series of pictures of the home he has for himself in Belgrade. It is a totally tasteless example of the WORST sort of Balkans Moderne architecture. It looks like a fortress. He paid for it with money he basically stole from his own people. That's it get your people scared of the other people, and then rake in the boodle! Lajcak visited him up in Banja Luka, and reminded him that his people signed the Dayton Accords and the agreement includes not having referendums about independance for R.S. They showed all this on the news. It included a visit to a very fancy Orthodox church in Banja Luka where there was a wedding. It was a nice day out, and people were passing some rakija around outside the church, in a big brown bottle. Lajcak wiped the bottle uncomfortably with the sleeve of his sport coat and had a sip. He shouldn't worry, rakija kills all germs. :).
So what did I do this morning? Nothing much, had a couple helpings of suho meso. I have discovered it is better if it has a little fat, taste wise and as far as controlling my appetite goes. I had that some cola and sat watching Euronews, then Dinotopia.
Anyone out there who hasn't seen the Dinotopia series needs to! It really is great fun! It was filmed in Hungary and Germany and England. The cast is wonderful. I especially like the 'Outsiders' and the baby dinosaurs. I used to have a Dinotopia calender. I bought it for Ivan the Terrible, but it wound up being a mommy toy! I loved it, the drawings on it were fantastic.
Costuming on the film is amusing, you see all sorts of fun clothes, like the Outsider Torres with black jeans and a Ren Faire type corset in red, very sexy. One girl had what DEFINATELY was a Bosnian ladies vest, the guys are equally cool. Everyone should dress like that! :).
Then there's the dinosaurs themselves, the T-Rexs and the city, Waterfall City is rendered quite nicely in the film.
I have continued watching 'Jesen stize dunjo mojo' too, that is a wonderful series, mostly filmed in Serbia. It really has wonderful actors. The little girl who plays Dunja is cute, and the sets are wonderful.
They haven't had Folk Show a couple weeks and reception on SATV has been kind of bad so I have missed out on programs like 'Meraklija' which I love. 'Meraklija' is mostly about sevdalinke, and they have really good singers. It's very low key and very nice without being boring.
Hopefully Folk Show will be back. I passed on 'Bloody Bordello' they have been running a bunch of 'Tales From the Crypt' late on FTV. I can't even wrap my mind around watching that for the subtitles! It's just icky. I watched 'Monk' though, where the doctor trys him on some new meds that make him all maniac and he becomes 'The Monk' and wants to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. People just want his old OCD self back by the end of it!
That one is good for subtitles. I sit with a notebook and make note of anything I didn't know before. That helps a lot.
I learned at least six new expressions from last night.
So off to work over the book again. I keep finding stuff that needs work. So it goes.
# posted by Katja R. @ 2:08 AM 
Comments:
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Wikipedia what the demographics of Kosovo were 50 years ago. Personally, I think it's really naive when people try to explain Serbia's claim on Kosovo through arcane history and religious nonsense (I swear if I hear "Serb Holy Land," one more time). Recent reports have shown that Serbia is losing about $200 billion worth of assets in this independence (and no, they don't belong equally to Albanians because they have refused to pay taxes for as long as I can remember). The monuments that are being descecrated by Albanians on Kosovo are more than religious paraphanelia- they have been used by elementary schools all across Serbia to educate youth about their history. Finally, believe it or not, there have been Serbs in Kosovo ever since WWI. All this great migration nonsense really does not make any sense to me because I remember what I lived in 20 years ago.
Also, I respect everyone's opinion, but in this case, yours is ridiculously narrow. My family was forced out of our home in Kosovo and told that if we ever come back we'll be killed. Our entire village is something like 85% Albanian now. And you're right, we're probably better off living in Canada now, but don't tell me justice was served when Kosovo was lost. Now I keep hearing that if we had stayed 20 years ago and risked our families lives in order to make sure we fulfill a demographic majority we'd still be able to keep the territory...get serious. I love my land but I love my family much much much much more. For the record, my brother has recently visited our village and yes, our house and property is still there....just we aren't livinig in it. I am the number one critic of Milosevic, wretched leader. But on the issue of Kosovo, can you at least ask yourself why he sent in the army?
Also, I respect everyone's opinion, but in this case, yours is ridiculously narrow. My family was forced out of our home in Kosovo and told that if we ever come back we'll be killed. Our entire village is something like 85% Albanian now. And you're right, we're probably better off living in Canada now, but don't tell me justice was served when Kosovo was lost. Now I keep hearing that if we had stayed 20 years ago and risked our families lives in order to make sure we fulfill a demographic majority we'd still be able to keep the territory...get serious. I love my land but I love my family much much much much more. For the record, my brother has recently visited our village and yes, our house and property is still there....just we aren't livinig in it. I am the number one critic of Milosevic, wretched leader. But on the issue of Kosovo, can you at least ask yourself why he sent in the army?
# posted by 
: 5:53 PM
: 5:53 PM 
However, Wikipedia is not considered a good first source on anything and for academic research purposes, it is not used, if you use Wikipedia in a college paper as a source, your paper will be severely graded down. I don't put a lot of credence in it, you should see some of the sloppy stuff that gets in.
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