Friday, September 08, 2006
Europe's Economic Boom?
Occasionally I venture, oh so gingerly, into business journalism. Here I try my hand at analyzing recent European economic trends in a piece for TCS Daily. Caveat lector...
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Europe's Rising Stars
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Rock and Roll Confidential
Chuck Prophet is a phenomenally gifted and criminally unknown guitarist and songwriter who's enjoyed critical success in his solo career (seven albums, each one better than the last). He's currently touring with his old mates in Green on Red, a mid-1980s band out of Tucson and L.A. that also weren't very well known but influenced a lot of alt.country, Americana and grunge-type bands that followed.
Green on Red have been playing club dates and festivals around Europe (where they have a small but loyal following of aging punkers and recovering hipsters). I saw their gig this week in the tiny town of Eeklo, Belgium. I made the hour-long drive from Brussels on a Sunday night to see them mainly because I'm a fan of Prophet's sublime albums and his right-on guitar picking. It was worth the trip: a great, garage-y rock show in a hot, sweaty venue. What more could you ask for?
Anyway, Chuck's keeping an online diary of the tour. It's funny and insightful -- and, like his songs, well-written. He talks about sharing a bill with Guns 'n' Roses, passes along some road-life culinary advice once given him by Exene Cervenka, and just generally riffs on being an itinerant rocker. Here's a sample entry.
Green on Red have been playing club dates and festivals around Europe (where they have a small but loyal following of aging punkers and recovering hipsters). I saw their gig this week in the tiny town of Eeklo, Belgium. I made the hour-long drive from Brussels on a Sunday night to see them mainly because I'm a fan of Prophet's sublime albums and his right-on guitar picking. It was worth the trip: a great, garage-y rock show in a hot, sweaty venue. What more could you ask for?
Anyway, Chuck's keeping an online diary of the tour. It's funny and insightful -- and, like his songs, well-written. He talks about sharing a bill with Guns 'n' Roses, passes along some road-life culinary advice once given him by Exene Cervenka, and just generally riffs on being an itinerant rocker. Here's a sample entry.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
thisEurope on myspace.com!
What is thiseurope.com, you might well ask? Click here to find out, and to sign up for updates on our progress. Or, if you're a myspace kind of person, check out thiseurope on myspace.com...
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Europe's Greatest Speeches
Another bimonthly issue of e!Sharp magazine means another chance for me to conjure up a completely subjective Top Ten list. This time around I look at great speeches in European history. You can read the article (in .pdf format) by clicking here. Click here to take a look at the revamped e!Sharp website, which allows you to flip through the pages of the mag with a mouseclick. Pretty cool.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
The Laser Beam Next Door
Here's the text of my Wall Street Journal Europe article on secret laser projects around the world. Enjoy!
Laser Tag
By CRAIG WINNEKER
August 4, 2006
I recently started my own blog because, like most normal people, I wanted to share various random and mundane thoughts -- as well as any Internet links to which they might correspond -- with anyone interested enough to stumble across them. Little did I know that some crude yet effective blogging technology would help me uncover a terrorist threat simmering simultaneously on every continent in the world.
You read it here first: A disturbing number of people are trying to build a laser gun.
It all began when I was still learning how to blog, tweaking the various features of my Web site to make them more attractive to the online passerby. Just for fun I posted a link to a page I'd come across that includes instructions for building a laser.
In case the existence of such a site worries you, rest assured that the required components for this particular model include a chain saw, a moped, 20 gallons of Vitalis and three cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. It's likely to cause very little damage to anyone but the person attempting to build it. (The Web site, by the way, will also show you how to teach your monkey kung fu, build a time machine and, perhaps most usefully, make fruit salad.) I found it funny and figured others would, too. Hence the link.
Months went by without much happening -- at least in the way of people other than myself visiting my blog. Then, as I was figuring out how to configure my new Site Meter, a Web site hit counter, so that it would ignore my (quite frequent) hits on my own blog, I discovered something else. I could track individual visits to my page, discovering where the surfers were and what search terms they were using to reach me.
A few people were looking for strings of words I'd happened to have posted as titles with various articles I'd written. For example, researchers looking for the "top 10 European movies of all time" have been linking to a magazine article I wrote on the subject and subsequently stuck on my blog. Someone at the University of Leuven in Belgium was seeking "opinion on Interbrew choosing Stella Artois as a flagship brand"; typing those words into Google conjures my blog, where I'd posted a newspaper feature on beer marketing that provides said opinion.
Needless to say, I became obsessed with the people who were reading my site. I was stalking my would-be stalkers. Occasionally someone even searched on my name. That's always a bit spine-chilling -- but not as scary as what I found next. By far, the No. 1 search term bringing people to my Web site, thanks to the abovementioned blog entry, is "how to build a laser gun."
The first such link was from a browser in Terry, Mississippi. No big deal. Probably just some overachiever fed up with having to study intelligent design in school all day. But the next person was in Amman, Jordan. This caught my interest. We've become conditioned to fear the WMD-focused ambitions of people in the Middle East.
Then the next day there was a Web search from Madrid, Spain, where there had been a terror attack a few years ago and where there are still suspected al Qaeda cells. I was beginning to suspect a network. More hits followed, all looking for information on how to make laser guns.
Here's a partial list of hits and their origins: Kingston, Jamaica; Pierre, South Dakota; College Park, Maryland; Pendle Hills, Australia; Brooklyn, New York; Stafford, Virginia (home of Quantico Marine Base); Allahabad, India; Sao Paolo, Brazil; Kelaniya, Sri Lanka; Qiryat Gat, Israel; Lebanon (!), Tennessee.
Every day I check my site stats. About every third day I find someone looking to build a death ray.
Site Meter offers a few other intriguing clues about these would-be mad scientists, occasionally providing more detailed information. A visitor to my site from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in the U.K., was searching from the premises of Research Machines, an educational software company. Another wasn't just from Maine: He or she was from the Maine Bureau of Taxation, raising disturbing questions about regulators run amok.
By the way, these people are not just searching "how to build a laser." They want to know "how to build a laser gun." The former search string will get you a couple of junior-college FAQ Web sites that tell you how to rig up a crude laser. Add "gun" and you get the original site I found so funny, a few online gaming forums and my blog.
You may say I'm crazy to be worried. But I'm stocking up on Vitalis and Pabst.
Mr. Winneker is a writer in Brussels. Check out his blog at http://www.craigwinneker.com. If you want to know how to build a laser gun, visit www.wwujd.com/makealaser.htm.
Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Laser Tag
By CRAIG WINNEKER
August 4, 2006
I recently started my own blog because, like most normal people, I wanted to share various random and mundane thoughts -- as well as any Internet links to which they might correspond -- with anyone interested enough to stumble across them. Little did I know that some crude yet effective blogging technology would help me uncover a terrorist threat simmering simultaneously on every continent in the world.
You read it here first: A disturbing number of people are trying to build a laser gun.
It all began when I was still learning how to blog, tweaking the various features of my Web site to make them more attractive to the online passerby. Just for fun I posted a link to a page I'd come across that includes instructions for building a laser.
In case the existence of such a site worries you, rest assured that the required components for this particular model include a chain saw, a moped, 20 gallons of Vitalis and three cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. It's likely to cause very little damage to anyone but the person attempting to build it. (The Web site, by the way, will also show you how to teach your monkey kung fu, build a time machine and, perhaps most usefully, make fruit salad.) I found it funny and figured others would, too. Hence the link.
Months went by without much happening -- at least in the way of people other than myself visiting my blog. Then, as I was figuring out how to configure my new Site Meter, a Web site hit counter, so that it would ignore my (quite frequent) hits on my own blog, I discovered something else. I could track individual visits to my page, discovering where the surfers were and what search terms they were using to reach me.
A few people were looking for strings of words I'd happened to have posted as titles with various articles I'd written. For example, researchers looking for the "top 10 European movies of all time" have been linking to a magazine article I wrote on the subject and subsequently stuck on my blog. Someone at the University of Leuven in Belgium was seeking "opinion on Interbrew choosing Stella Artois as a flagship brand"; typing those words into Google conjures my blog, where I'd posted a newspaper feature on beer marketing that provides said opinion.
Needless to say, I became obsessed with the people who were reading my site. I was stalking my would-be stalkers. Occasionally someone even searched on my name. That's always a bit spine-chilling -- but not as scary as what I found next. By far, the No. 1 search term bringing people to my Web site, thanks to the abovementioned blog entry, is "how to build a laser gun."
The first such link was from a browser in Terry, Mississippi. No big deal. Probably just some overachiever fed up with having to study intelligent design in school all day. But the next person was in Amman, Jordan. This caught my interest. We've become conditioned to fear the WMD-focused ambitions of people in the Middle East.
Then the next day there was a Web search from Madrid, Spain, where there had been a terror attack a few years ago and where there are still suspected al Qaeda cells. I was beginning to suspect a network. More hits followed, all looking for information on how to make laser guns.
Here's a partial list of hits and their origins: Kingston, Jamaica; Pierre, South Dakota; College Park, Maryland; Pendle Hills, Australia; Brooklyn, New York; Stafford, Virginia (home of Quantico Marine Base); Allahabad, India; Sao Paolo, Brazil; Kelaniya, Sri Lanka; Qiryat Gat, Israel; Lebanon (!), Tennessee.
Every day I check my site stats. About every third day I find someone looking to build a death ray.
Site Meter offers a few other intriguing clues about these would-be mad scientists, occasionally providing more detailed information. A visitor to my site from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in the U.K., was searching from the premises of Research Machines, an educational software company. Another wasn't just from Maine: He or she was from the Maine Bureau of Taxation, raising disturbing questions about regulators run amok.
By the way, these people are not just searching "how to build a laser." They want to know "how to build a laser gun." The former search string will get you a couple of junior-college FAQ Web sites that tell you how to rig up a crude laser. Add "gun" and you get the original site I found so funny, a few online gaming forums and my blog.
You may say I'm crazy to be worried. But I'm stocking up on Vitalis and Pabst.
Mr. Winneker is a writer in Brussels. Check out his blog at http://www.craigwinneker.com. If you want to know how to build a laser gun, visit www.wwujd.com/makealaser.htm.
Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Friday, August 04, 2006
How to Build a Laser Gun II
My piece on the worldwide laser gun conspiracy is published in the Wall Street Journal Europe today. You can read it at WSJ Online. I'll post the text on this site soon for those who don't have a WSJ Online subscription. (Updated: click here to read article.) If you've linked to this site via WSJ Online, welcome! And check this out!
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Europe's Greatest Cars!
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
All the Pretty Crowes
I went to a really great Black Crowes concert in Amsterdam last week. I didn't see Cormac McCarthy there, but he seems to have reviewed the show for my friend Martin Jones' website Kalimotxo.... Check it out here.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Great European Films
The most recent installment of my regular column for e!Sharp magazine is a list of the Top Ten European Films of All Time. Of course it is ridiculous to try to compile such a list, but I did it anyway. And, in fact, these aren't even really the greatest European films of all time; they're just a small sampling of movies I think are brilliant. I'm already starting to second-guess myself...
1. Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Blanc, Rouge
Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993-94
Europe has produced many of the greatest films in history, but in recent years has suffered from an identity crisis. Under attack from the relentless Hollywood blockbuster (into whose gaping maw European audiences unashamedly flock), the prototypically artsy continental film has suffered. The EU and its member governments struggle to protect their supposedly vulnerable European culture with subsidy programs. Meanwhile, unfortunately, some recent European film offerings have acquired a Hollywood sheen – that is to say, they have become crap-tacular.
Compiling a list of the best movies in any category is a difficult and frequently pointless task. But it’s usually a good way to start an argument or at least spice up a dull dinner conversation. So here goes…
My nomination for the greatest European film comes from a man who started his career producing such documentary classics as The Principles of Safety and Hygiene in a Copper Mine and ended it (prematurely, dying just after their completion) with a series of masterpieces. In his Three Colors trilogy of the early 1990s, Red, White and Blue, Poland’s Krzysztof Kieslowski captured a Europe in transition by focusing on grand themes (liberty, equality and fraternity) as they related to intensely provocative individual situations. Never clichéd, always interesting, uniformly unpredictable, these understated films probably do not top anyone else’s list and may seem less momentous than some of the others on mine. But they are so uniquely European in their scope and execution that they ultimately outpace the rest of the bunch.
2. La Grande Illusion
Jean Renoir, 1937
A classic ever since it was first released, this movie has only become more influential over the passing decades. Directors continue to try to remake the war-movie genre, but none has ever topped Renoir’s take, which focuses on the personal relations between men who have become enemies for reasons beyond their control. In portraying Europe’s descent into fascism, the director focuses not on jingoism, but on human interplay that transcends national borders. It may be the first pan-European movie. Needless to say, it had enemies, and was nearly destroyed after the Nazi regime seized Paris in 1940. Prints and negatives, thought lost forever, were rediscovered in 1958. A restored version is available on DVD and should be in your collection.
3. A Bout de Souffle (Breathless)
Jean-Luc Godard, 1960
The movie that changed all the rules, this may have been the first truly “independent” film. Produced on a low budget and left with purposely rough edges, the movie feels as if it were made up as the director and actors went along. Co-stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg are so sexy you can’t take your eyes off them. This was the first film to use cross-cutting and seemingly nonsensical flash-forwards – techniques that have now become commonplace. It’s also a movie about movies, with references and homages to everything from Humphrey Bogart to Godard’s Nouvelle Vague compatriots. Breathless is perhaps not as sublime as other Godard movies, but is so revolutionary it makes this list.
4. Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean, 1962
As a piece of epic filmmaking, it is unrivalled. No movie made in Europe or America (the Lord of the Rings trilogy was made in New Zealand) has ever matched Lawrence of Arabia’s combination of cinematic vision, historic sweep, compelling character, stunning set-pieces and just plain huge-ness. What this film also has is class and, rare for a production of this scale, restraint. It manages to hold our interest through a four-hour running time not with gadgetry and gore but with good old-fashioned storytelling and brilliant acting. It’s often said about other movies but it’s especially true of this one: They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
5. Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, the Wrath of God)
Werner Herzog, 1972
A relentlessly riveting performance by the mad German acting legend Klaus Kinski anchors this tale of a Spanish conquistador disappearing up his own Amazon in the early 16th century. Just as with Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now a few years later, the audience gets the sense that the filmmaker and his star are exploring their personal hearts of darkness in this movie. European colonialism is boiled down to an insanity-fueled quest for wealth and power as Aguirre seeks the fabled El Dorado. And there are a lot of monkeys. Perfect.
6. La Dolce Vita
Federico Fellini, 1960
Yes, it may be that 8 1/2, his more astringently personal work, is the greater film. And yes, lately it has become more fashionable to cite La Strada or Amarcord as Fellini’s best films. But I stick with this iconic classic – maybe because it portrays journalism in such an, er, interesting light. The story follows a disillusioned gossip columnist as he makes his way through a seedy underworld of sex, booze and superficiality. One of its minor characters, the photographer Papparazzo, would forever enter our degenerate mass-media lexicon.
7. Det Sjunde Inseglet, (The Seventh Seal)
Ingmar Bergman, 1957
A friend of mine once told me that as a teenager he sneaked into a showing of this film thinking it would be a Swedish skin-flick. Boy was he in for a surprise. Dark, austere, surreal, this meditation on life, death and the existence of God won’t please moviegoers looking for a good time. A knight plays chess against the Grim Reaper as Europe struggles with the Black Death all around them. The story and the acting are tight but it’s the stark and distorted imagery that stays with you.
8. A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick, 1971
Ultraviolence, multimedia over-saturation, moral decay, societal breakdown, incomprehensible lingo, irritating electronica: this ever-controversial film predicted much that we’ve come to take for granted in the modern world. That it still turns our stomachs after more than 30 years is a remarkable testament to the vision of director Kubrick (an American who for most of his career worked exclusively in Britain, where at his request this film is still not shown). The film also features Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony way before it ever became the EU anthem.
9. No Man’s Land
Danis Tanovic, 2001
Though it depicts Europe in what was undeniably not its finest hour, this film is one of European cinema’s finest hours-and-a-half. The tragic international debacle that was the Balkan conflict is concentrated on three wounded soldiers – two Bosnians, one Serb –trapped in a trench between enemy lines. They come to terms with the crisis even as the international observers around them – UN diplomats, a British journalist, a French soldier – cannot. A truly pan-European production with funding from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgium, France, Slovenia, the UK and Italy.
10. Zentropa
Lars Von Trier, 1991
Von Trier before he became dogmatic, didactic, misogynistic and anti-American. Though his more famous films Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark are undeniably astounding and at times downright revolutionary, this earlier work is more European (it was even called Europa in some markets) and holds up better on second or third viewings. Its mesmerizing use of narration and suspenseful Third Man feel (heightened by stunning black-and-white photography) perfectly suit the story of a young American caught up in post-war European intrigue.
Honorable mentions: Wings of Desire, Withnail & I, The Battleship Potemkin, The Life of Brian, Underground, Au Revoir Les Enfants...
1. Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Blanc, Rouge
Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993-94
Europe has produced many of the greatest films in history, but in recent years has suffered from an identity crisis. Under attack from the relentless Hollywood blockbuster (into whose gaping maw European audiences unashamedly flock), the prototypically artsy continental film has suffered. The EU and its member governments struggle to protect their supposedly vulnerable European culture with subsidy programs. Meanwhile, unfortunately, some recent European film offerings have acquired a Hollywood sheen – that is to say, they have become crap-tacular.
Compiling a list of the best movies in any category is a difficult and frequently pointless task. But it’s usually a good way to start an argument or at least spice up a dull dinner conversation. So here goes…
My nomination for the greatest European film comes from a man who started his career producing such documentary classics as The Principles of Safety and Hygiene in a Copper Mine and ended it (prematurely, dying just after their completion) with a series of masterpieces. In his Three Colors trilogy of the early 1990s, Red, White and Blue, Poland’s Krzysztof Kieslowski captured a Europe in transition by focusing on grand themes (liberty, equality and fraternity) as they related to intensely provocative individual situations. Never clichéd, always interesting, uniformly unpredictable, these understated films probably do not top anyone else’s list and may seem less momentous than some of the others on mine. But they are so uniquely European in their scope and execution that they ultimately outpace the rest of the bunch.
2. La Grande Illusion
Jean Renoir, 1937
A classic ever since it was first released, this movie has only become more influential over the passing decades. Directors continue to try to remake the war-movie genre, but none has ever topped Renoir’s take, which focuses on the personal relations between men who have become enemies for reasons beyond their control. In portraying Europe’s descent into fascism, the director focuses not on jingoism, but on human interplay that transcends national borders. It may be the first pan-European movie. Needless to say, it had enemies, and was nearly destroyed after the Nazi regime seized Paris in 1940. Prints and negatives, thought lost forever, were rediscovered in 1958. A restored version is available on DVD and should be in your collection.
3. A Bout de Souffle (Breathless)
Jean-Luc Godard, 1960
The movie that changed all the rules, this may have been the first truly “independent” film. Produced on a low budget and left with purposely rough edges, the movie feels as if it were made up as the director and actors went along. Co-stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg are so sexy you can’t take your eyes off them. This was the first film to use cross-cutting and seemingly nonsensical flash-forwards – techniques that have now become commonplace. It’s also a movie about movies, with references and homages to everything from Humphrey Bogart to Godard’s Nouvelle Vague compatriots. Breathless is perhaps not as sublime as other Godard movies, but is so revolutionary it makes this list.
4. Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean, 1962
As a piece of epic filmmaking, it is unrivalled. No movie made in Europe or America (the Lord of the Rings trilogy was made in New Zealand) has ever matched Lawrence of Arabia’s combination of cinematic vision, historic sweep, compelling character, stunning set-pieces and just plain huge-ness. What this film also has is class and, rare for a production of this scale, restraint. It manages to hold our interest through a four-hour running time not with gadgetry and gore but with good old-fashioned storytelling and brilliant acting. It’s often said about other movies but it’s especially true of this one: They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
5. Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, the Wrath of God)
Werner Herzog, 1972
A relentlessly riveting performance by the mad German acting legend Klaus Kinski anchors this tale of a Spanish conquistador disappearing up his own Amazon in the early 16th century. Just as with Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now a few years later, the audience gets the sense that the filmmaker and his star are exploring their personal hearts of darkness in this movie. European colonialism is boiled down to an insanity-fueled quest for wealth and power as Aguirre seeks the fabled El Dorado. And there are a lot of monkeys. Perfect.
6. La Dolce Vita
Federico Fellini, 1960
Yes, it may be that 8 1/2, his more astringently personal work, is the greater film. And yes, lately it has become more fashionable to cite La Strada or Amarcord as Fellini’s best films. But I stick with this iconic classic – maybe because it portrays journalism in such an, er, interesting light. The story follows a disillusioned gossip columnist as he makes his way through a seedy underworld of sex, booze and superficiality. One of its minor characters, the photographer Papparazzo, would forever enter our degenerate mass-media lexicon.
7. Det Sjunde Inseglet, (The Seventh Seal)
Ingmar Bergman, 1957
A friend of mine once told me that as a teenager he sneaked into a showing of this film thinking it would be a Swedish skin-flick. Boy was he in for a surprise. Dark, austere, surreal, this meditation on life, death and the existence of God won’t please moviegoers looking for a good time. A knight plays chess against the Grim Reaper as Europe struggles with the Black Death all around them. The story and the acting are tight but it’s the stark and distorted imagery that stays with you.
8. A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick, 1971
Ultraviolence, multimedia over-saturation, moral decay, societal breakdown, incomprehensible lingo, irritating electronica: this ever-controversial film predicted much that we’ve come to take for granted in the modern world. That it still turns our stomachs after more than 30 years is a remarkable testament to the vision of director Kubrick (an American who for most of his career worked exclusively in Britain, where at his request this film is still not shown). The film also features Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony way before it ever became the EU anthem.
9. No Man’s Land
Danis Tanovic, 2001
Though it depicts Europe in what was undeniably not its finest hour, this film is one of European cinema’s finest hours-and-a-half. The tragic international debacle that was the Balkan conflict is concentrated on three wounded soldiers – two Bosnians, one Serb –trapped in a trench between enemy lines. They come to terms with the crisis even as the international observers around them – UN diplomats, a British journalist, a French soldier – cannot. A truly pan-European production with funding from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgium, France, Slovenia, the UK and Italy.
10. Zentropa
Lars Von Trier, 1991
Von Trier before he became dogmatic, didactic, misogynistic and anti-American. Though his more famous films Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark are undeniably astounding and at times downright revolutionary, this earlier work is more European (it was even called Europa in some markets) and holds up better on second or third viewings. Its mesmerizing use of narration and suspenseful Third Man feel (heightened by stunning black-and-white photography) perfectly suit the story of a young American caught up in post-war European intrigue.
Honorable mentions: Wings of Desire, Withnail & I, The Battleship Potemkin, The Life of Brian, Underground, Au Revoir Les Enfants...
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Report from Belarus
An opposition activist in Belarus reports the following, from last night:
Update: today the source reports that last night the Milinkevich workers "have been found in one of the detention centers in Minsk. A court hearing is supposed to be taking place right now."
For more on the situation in Belarus as the presidential "election" approaches, read this. And this.
According to the press release distributed by the office of the single candidate from the unified Belarusian opposition, Alyaxandr Milinkevich, this morning, after a meeting of Milinkevich with voters in the "Byarestse" cinema theater, five representatives of his team, including Vintsuk Viachorka were held by the police and driven away. The opposition activists might have been beaten. For the moment, it is not clear where they are. Their mobile phones are switched off.
For more information, please go to [links in Belarusian]: http://charter97.org/rus/news/2006/03/08/gdehttp://www.svaboda.org/articlesfeatures/politics/2006/3/F2BF7C97-81D2-4611-9EED-43889A12E660.html
Update: today the source reports that last night the Milinkevich workers "have been found in one of the detention centers in Minsk. A court hearing is supposed to be taking place right now."
For more on the situation in Belarus as the presidential "election" approaches, read this. And this.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Auto-Reply!
I am blogging this week for The Bulletin, the local expat magazine here in Brussels. They've just re-launched their website, and are still feeling their way through cyberspace (their blog, isn't really a blog yet, but give them time). Surf on over...
Friday, January 20, 2006
A Soldier, Not a Spy
Here's a great op-ed piece from my friend Grant Doty, published recently in The Washington Post. Grant is an officer in the United States Army who not long ago returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He has some thoughts on the current US administration's policy on domestic surveillance...
What's French for Google?
I don't know Jim Warren of The Hague, but his letter to the editor in today's International Herald Tribune is priceless:
The article "Europeans weigh plan for search engine" (Jan. 18) provides a very interesting comparison of cultures and economies. In the United States, two motivated young guys with a vision start a company from scratch, hire a bunch of smart people who aren't afraid to innovate and work long hours, and in relatively short order build a massive company. Google is now not only one of the world's most successful and valuable companies, but it is also profoundly changing the way we use the Internet.
In Europe, two governments announce a billion-euro tax-funded program to develop a government-subsidized research center that will hire a bunch of smart people who will work 35 hours per week with guaranteed pensions and who will labor under a dozen layers of management to ultimately deliver, many years from now, a more complicated and unwieldy version of what Google is already doing today.
Anyone who still can't understand why there's a large - and growing - competitive imbalance between "Old Europe" and the rest of the world need look no further than this to see the problem.
Jim Warren, The Hague
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
What Happens in Vegas...
Friday, November 18, 2005
Brussels' Best Bars
The Bulletin, the local expat mag, asked me to contribute to their extensive listing of "Brussels' Best Bars". So I did. Here are my five contributions to their list. These aren't my personal favorite bars; they're just ones I thought should be included....
L’Atelier
77 Elisestraat/Rue Elise 77
02/649-1953
This cozy brown bar can be hard to find, tucked away on a side street in Ixelles’ ULB quarter. But it’s worth the effort. Dominating the candle-lit back room is a wall menu boasting more than 200 Belgian beers, from the lowly Maes to the elusive Fantôme. The selection is categorized helpfully into different styles (sweet blondes, bitter ambers, etc.) that might also describe the student clientele. Thankfully, the place’s charm seems to have survived a modernization effort undertaken a couple of years ago (they still spin vinyl on a turntable).
Cafe Belga
18 Flageyplein/Place Flagey 18
02/640-2569 (but I’d be shocked if anyone bothered to answer)
Fred Nicolay owns the coolest bars in town, and they all share certain traits: poor-to-indifferent service, uncomfortable chairs, unbearably hip clientele. Café Belga is his crowning achievement. What makes this Flagey landmark so great is that everyone loves it even though almost everything about it – the too-cool-to-serve-you bartenders (yes, they are handsome, but must they spend five minutes handcrafting each thé à la menthe?), the horrible view (its terrace overlooks an open sewer), the chi-chi patrons (“I’m saving this seat for my cigarette smoke…”) – is unpleasant. It’s packed all day and all night.
Fat Boys
5 Luxemburgplein/Place du Luxembourg 5
02/511-3266
This, sad to say, is the only real sports bar in town (Conway’s, with its craven red, white and blue signage, tries to fool American tourists trapped in the Toison d’Or-bit, but it’s really just a pick-up joint for suburban Belgians). A sports bar is place with more than one television and the courage to tune them simultaneously to different events. Fat Boys usually fits this definition. What’s more, it has something rare for a Brussels tavern: a long bar at which one may sit and drink.
Greenwich
7 Kartuizerstraat/rue des Chartreux
02/511-4167
Refreshingly for an establishment in the St. Géry hipster quarter, no trance techno beat pulses through the stereo. In fact, no music at all disturbs the quiet, well-lit Greenwich, where you can read, chat, or even hear yourself think. In fact, you can even hear the chess players at the next table thinking. But don’t let the sound of brains contemplating queen sacrifices and hands slapping chess timers and fingers ruffling ponderously through goatees scare you off. Order an ale and enjoy the silence.
Coaster
28 Rijke Klarenstraat/rue des Riches Claires 28
02/512-0847
It’s late, very late. You’re drunk and in need of a nightcap – or, more precisely, early-morning-cap. You’re still in enough control of your faculties to avoid Celtica, with its desperate lager-louts hoping for one last chance to pull. So you head to this gem hidden behind the Halles St. Géry, where the music is good, the service friendly, and the cocktails delivered in frosty shakers. Speaking of shaking, so is your booty, most likely atop the bar. The place seems sequestered, mischievously off-grid. Don’t go before 3. In fact, don’t go at all, you’ll just spoil it.
L’Atelier
77 Elisestraat/Rue Elise 77
02/649-1953
This cozy brown bar can be hard to find, tucked away on a side street in Ixelles’ ULB quarter. But it’s worth the effort. Dominating the candle-lit back room is a wall menu boasting more than 200 Belgian beers, from the lowly Maes to the elusive Fantôme. The selection is categorized helpfully into different styles (sweet blondes, bitter ambers, etc.) that might also describe the student clientele. Thankfully, the place’s charm seems to have survived a modernization effort undertaken a couple of years ago (they still spin vinyl on a turntable).
Cafe Belga
18 Flageyplein/Place Flagey 18
02/640-2569 (but I’d be shocked if anyone bothered to answer)
Fred Nicolay owns the coolest bars in town, and they all share certain traits: poor-to-indifferent service, uncomfortable chairs, unbearably hip clientele. Café Belga is his crowning achievement. What makes this Flagey landmark so great is that everyone loves it even though almost everything about it – the too-cool-to-serve-you bartenders (yes, they are handsome, but must they spend five minutes handcrafting each thé à la menthe?), the horrible view (its terrace overlooks an open sewer), the chi-chi patrons (“I’m saving this seat for my cigarette smoke…”) – is unpleasant. It’s packed all day and all night.
Fat Boys
5 Luxemburgplein/Place du Luxembourg 5
02/511-3266
This, sad to say, is the only real sports bar in town (Conway’s, with its craven red, white and blue signage, tries to fool American tourists trapped in the Toison d’Or-bit, but it’s really just a pick-up joint for suburban Belgians). A sports bar is place with more than one television and the courage to tune them simultaneously to different events. Fat Boys usually fits this definition. What’s more, it has something rare for a Brussels tavern: a long bar at which one may sit and drink.
Greenwich
7 Kartuizerstraat/rue des Chartreux
02/511-4167
Refreshingly for an establishment in the St. Géry hipster quarter, no trance techno beat pulses through the stereo. In fact, no music at all disturbs the quiet, well-lit Greenwich, where you can read, chat, or even hear yourself think. In fact, you can even hear the chess players at the next table thinking. But don’t let the sound of brains contemplating queen sacrifices and hands slapping chess timers and fingers ruffling ponderously through goatees scare you off. Order an ale and enjoy the silence.
Coaster
28 Rijke Klarenstraat/rue des Riches Claires 28
02/512-0847
It’s late, very late. You’re drunk and in need of a nightcap – or, more precisely, early-morning-cap. You’re still in enough control of your faculties to avoid Celtica, with its desperate lager-louts hoping for one last chance to pull. So you head to this gem hidden behind the Halles St. Géry, where the music is good, the service friendly, and the cocktails delivered in frosty shakers. Speaking of shaking, so is your booty, most likely atop the bar. The place seems sequestered, mischievously off-grid. Don’t go before 3. In fact, don’t go at all, you’ll just spoil it.
Friday, November 04, 2005
Out of Ethiopia
My wife, Karen Hoehn, has just this morning returned from Addis Ababa, where she was helping run an NGO training conference for the Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung (German Foundation for World Population). She is safe and sound, but many people she left behind in Ethiopia are not.
Here's what she experienced when leaving the country yesterday:
Here's what she experienced when leaving the country yesterday:
I came home from Addis Ababa last night, two days earlier than planned. It's a very sad situation there. The government has been pulling people (e.g., university professors, an NGO [ActionAid] program officer) out of their homes and imprisoning them or shooting them dead because they have different political views (e.g., want freedom of the press, elections without fraud, etc.). One woman was shot dead because she cried out "why are you taking him?!" when the military took her husband away from their home. Kids have been shot in the back when trying to run away from the danger.
I'm totally fine, but yesterday was scary. Driving back from the idyllic DSW training center 45 km outside Addis, we were waved off the road by men with automatic rifles. Men with guns were running up and down the road and jam-packed into military trucks -- handling the guns casually, like bling. Gunfire crackled at regular intervals nearby. The government was shooting men in the prison on the other side of the wall from where we were, picking them off like fish in a barrel. Undoubtedly, many were the university professors, etc., who had been arrested the day before. As we waited, sweating and hearts racing, I watched our young driver trying to choke back his tears.
After a while, the gunfire died down and our driver raced full throttle down the gunman-lined road, with us ducking down, holding backpacks and laptops up against the windows to protect against any stray (or intentional) gunfire. Back in Addis, we packed our things and headed for the airport.
It's very sad to think of my friends and colleagues at risk back there -- but in world news, it's not a big thing, so of course no one cares.
If you see any articles about this, you can be sure that the death tolls are much higher than is being reported, and that many of the people being shot are thoughtful, gentle (and unarmed) people.
Please say a prayer for the good people of Ethiopia and ask God to stay the hand of oppressive governments and people with guns.
Schoolhouse Rock
Hello, back again after not posting for a while...and only to pass along a review I did of a recent concert by Sufjan Stevens here in Brussels. I wrote it for The Bulletin, a local expat magazine, but I'm posting my original version, which includes a few lines they cut for space. The nerve...
Sufjan Stevens
Ancienne Belgique
25 October
My “isn’t this precious” alarm goes off early, just as indie darling Sufjan Stevens and his band, the Illinoisemakers, appear on stage wearing matching University of Illinois cheerleader outfits and brandishing pompons.
Yes, Stevens has titled his most recent CD “Come on Feel the Illinoise”, a tone-poem tribute to the Land of Lincoln, and promises it is the second in a series of paeans to all 50 US states (his previous album saluted his home state of Michigan). As if to address questions about whether he’s seriously going to produce 48 more albums to complete this project, he starts the show with a geographic tour of the US. “It’s part of the act, the 50 states, pack up your bags, it’s never too late,” he sings, managing to mention each of the states in an introductory jingle.
In between songs, the Illinoisemakers stand at parade rest, arms folded behind backs, and listen reverently as Stevens, affecting a village-idiot-savant persona, shyly explains how his next tune is about a wasp that scared him in the Palisades State Park and this reminded him of something existential. Then they give the cheerleader exhortation, “Ready? OK!” and away they go.
Their matching costumes, irritating musical-chairs multi-instrumentalism (is it really necessary for all seven band members to take turns demonstrating they can play the piano?) and pitch-perfect enthusiasm are more suited to a college production of “Godspell” than a rock club date. But this is Irony, so perhaps that, not Illinois, is what the ‘I’ on their sweaters stands for. The Flemish hipster audience eats it all up.
As for Stevens himself, there’s no denying he’s an intriguing fellow with a talent for intricate composition and sly self-promotion. He too plays an awful lot of instruments, including the banjo, which is one we should hear more of in popular music. And it’s a fine ambition to want to chronicle the American Midwest by investigating its history, its landscape, and its people in popular song (even if Springsteen sort of did it already with “Nebraska”).
At their best, Stevens’s state sketches evoke Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology” in their ability to make the mundane seem hauntingly complex. But mostly they try too hard to be Folk Art. The song titles reek of cleverness. Example: “The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologize For The Inconvenience But You’re Gonna Have To Leave Now, Or…[it keeps going, actually].”
It is when he stops being so clever that Stevens manages to shine. The refreshingly simple “Jacksonville”, for instance, is a standout, even though (or perhaps because) it rhymes “colored preacher” with “nice to meet you.”
It’s always promising when someone’s music cannot be described in three words or less or by comparing it to someone else. I’m still not sure what kind of music Stevens -- with his campus theatrics, his Charlie Brown-theme piano, and his faux naïf sing-song whisper – is making. But I suppose it’s good someone’s making it.
Sufjan Stevens
Ancienne Belgique
25 October
My “isn’t this precious” alarm goes off early, just as indie darling Sufjan Stevens and his band, the Illinoisemakers, appear on stage wearing matching University of Illinois cheerleader outfits and brandishing pompons.
Yes, Stevens has titled his most recent CD “Come on Feel the Illinoise”, a tone-poem tribute to the Land of Lincoln, and promises it is the second in a series of paeans to all 50 US states (his previous album saluted his home state of Michigan). As if to address questions about whether he’s seriously going to produce 48 more albums to complete this project, he starts the show with a geographic tour of the US. “It’s part of the act, the 50 states, pack up your bags, it’s never too late,” he sings, managing to mention each of the states in an introductory jingle.
In between songs, the Illinoisemakers stand at parade rest, arms folded behind backs, and listen reverently as Stevens, affecting a village-idiot-savant persona, shyly explains how his next tune is about a wasp that scared him in the Palisades State Park and this reminded him of something existential. Then they give the cheerleader exhortation, “Ready? OK!” and away they go.
Their matching costumes, irritating musical-chairs multi-instrumentalism (is it really necessary for all seven band members to take turns demonstrating they can play the piano?) and pitch-perfect enthusiasm are more suited to a college production of “Godspell” than a rock club date. But this is Irony, so perhaps that, not Illinois, is what the ‘I’ on their sweaters stands for. The Flemish hipster audience eats it all up.
As for Stevens himself, there’s no denying he’s an intriguing fellow with a talent for intricate composition and sly self-promotion. He too plays an awful lot of instruments, including the banjo, which is one we should hear more of in popular music. And it’s a fine ambition to want to chronicle the American Midwest by investigating its history, its landscape, and its people in popular song (even if Springsteen sort of did it already with “Nebraska”).
At their best, Stevens’s state sketches evoke Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology” in their ability to make the mundane seem hauntingly complex. But mostly they try too hard to be Folk Art. The song titles reek of cleverness. Example: “The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologize For The Inconvenience But You’re Gonna Have To Leave Now, Or…[it keeps going, actually].”
It is when he stops being so clever that Stevens manages to shine. The refreshingly simple “Jacksonville”, for instance, is a standout, even though (or perhaps because) it rhymes “colored preacher” with “nice to meet you.”
It’s always promising when someone’s music cannot be described in three words or less or by comparing it to someone else. I’m still not sure what kind of music Stevens -- with his campus theatrics, his Charlie Brown-theme piano, and his faux naïf sing-song whisper – is making. But I suppose it’s good someone’s making it.
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