Another Newspaper Closing

Much of the discussion about the "new media" involves the inability of the old "dinosaur" media types to change with their audience, and when the old newspapers seemed to grandstand about their importance while fewer and fewer people continued to actually buy their products, it was occasionally satisfying to see some of them get their comeuppance. Still, it is occasionally sad to see smaller and less influential publications fall by the wayside, and Americké listy surely must qualify as one of those. As Petr Bísek, the editor, noted, it's probably not surprising that the older readers read less and less, and the younger readers sought out alternative sources of information. Indeed, there is a bit of Czech blogging from America, (albeit less focused on the Czech- and Slovak-speaking population actually in America) and certainly it's likely that more and more young people going to the US from this corner of the world already have a handle on the English language upon arrival. And who knows, maybe something else will rise up out of the ashes.

Light Blogging

Due to a relatively high number of visitors to Brno lately (you know who you are) which has in turn taken your correspondent to such environs as Rožnov pod Radhoštěm and Prague, blogging has been a little slow. This will only continue for the next few days, as I shall soon, for the first time ever, end up in the Netherlands for four days. So just a few links will have to suffice for now.

First off, the curious story of Luboš Bokštefl, who decided that "Super Size Me" was such a splendid idea, it should be transferred to the notoriously healthy environment of Czech pubs. Eating nothing but pub food for 30 days, he lost six kilos. Indeed.

Man targeted by aliens who drop meteorites on his house. He's either a prophet, a fraud, or just in a very strange spot.

Sigh. But is anyone surprised? I mean, don't you kind of expect Oliver Stone to say such things, in a way?

Finally, an excellent, fair, and lucid article about the Al Gore sexual assault story. From, of all places, The Nation!

The comment section is open. I think I'm at least as interesting as Arianna Huffington, and I'd like to believe that Starobrno Nation is as willing to contribute to the excitement! Hopefully next week blogging will resume at it's usual turtle pace, rather than the snail pace of the past week.

Legnica, or Liegnitz

The next stop on our little tour was Legnica; the Germans knew this town as Liegnitz. Legnica in the past was a majority German-speaking town; only after 1945 did it become a Polish city. Like many cities in western and/or southern Poland, many of the Polish there are transplants from what is now Ukraine; when the 1945 borders were drawn up, parts of Poland became Ukraine or Belarus; parts of Germany became Poland. Poland "moved west." As a practical matter, it was easier to move Poles from the (former) east Poland to the (new) west Poland, rather than everybody moving a little west. So many Poles who now live in Legnica trace their family history not to Silesia, but to Ukraine. This is a little interesting, since the Polish Piast Dynasty buried the last of its issue here in 1675. (However, this Piast is still very much alive.)

This uprooting resulted in a city that underwent a bit of a personality change in the late '40s, which along with ideological, ahem, augmentations, created a very "new" old city. Liegnitz of the Nineteenth Century was a relatively wealthy city, in a relatively industrial region (before that word developed its negative connotation, when smokestacks and mines were a source of civic pride, rather than a provincial embarrassment), and as a result built gardens and parks. (Apparently, Germans had a thing for gardens.) The denizens of today's Legnica still wander through the in-some-places-overgrown Park Miejski, and many of the garden buildings are long gone, or or their way. Underneath the garden's weeds, there are places of beauty, and it is slowly being rehabilitated, and transformed.

The Riding School for noblemen's sons is also enjoying a renaissance in this quiet town. It unsurprisingly (due to the relative dearth of noblemen's sons and horsemen generally) has been transformed into a museum, which looks back to examine Legnica's incredible history and glimpses ahead, showcasing the most modern of its art. Things are gone, and they ain't coming back, but the town whispers its history, in a hushed German voice. Its future is decidedly Polish, but with open eyes to other places as well.

My traveling companion and I spoke with my dear Polish friend about the fact that many Germans come to Silesia on "memory tours," and asked if the same thing ever happened for Poles, wistfully dreaming about their return to their childhood on the steppes of Ukraine. He mentioned that it is slightly more common now, but for many, many years, it was forbidden to even discuss the possibility, and many of those Poles who could give their descendants a Polish-Ukrainian history lesson have been silenced by time. One wonders what the Poles -- and the Ukrainians -- have lost.

Buy a Calendar!

This article from the Telegraph was recommended to me by one of my hundreds of stalwart readers, and it's good to see that the most important news from the Czech Republic has finally made its way into the mainstream press. As it turns out, the Public Affairs party now has their calendar for sale up on their website. Featuring their most attractive deput-ettes, and their "chief negotiator" (think Rahm Emmanuel in a tutu, but less creepy), the Telegraph article recounts many of the exciting aspects of the recent election.

I alluded to this calendar in "The Votes are In!" last month. You can of course buy it from the Věci veřejné website here. However, your correspondent is unsure about whether shipping to foreign addresses is available.

The best thing you'll read today....

...comes from Kevin Williamson over on National Review's homepage. Williamson compellingly links homeschooling ("one of the few truly radical movements in America") with gun rights as examples of the ways free citizens defend themselves from the state as an undesirable Hobbesian Leviathan, and he then goes on to attack Leviathan on both ethical and instrumental grounds -- not only is Leviathan wrong, it is also impractical. Williamson points out that for many on the Left, there seems to be nothing between anarchy and Leviathan, and gives two excellent examples of people throwing their lot in with the awesome power of the state, in a sort of Hobbes-cum-Hegel perspective.

Long ago, I had a teacher here who made the provocative assertion that for a brief moment, anarchism (as an -ism) was ascendant in the hot debate over "correct" radical course to take (vis-a-vis socialism), particularly in Spain and France. His argument was that these anarchists were in favor of building "autonomous spaces" within the state, I suppose something akin to the Kibbutz movement in Israel. They rejected the concept of free individuals in a context of limited government, to be sure, precisely because they doubted the ability of individuals to stand against Leviathan. In other words, they felt the commune was the best method of blunting state power. But they did acknowledge that socialism paves the way to Leviathan, and sought to cut off these paths.

Of course, nowadays it is clear that the Hegelians and the socialists have dominated this internal debate of the Left for many years, but as Williamson notes, it is a false dilemma to choose between the Leviathan (even a semi-democratic one) and anarchy (in its more traditional sense). The concept of a free, independent citizen has been radical for 250 years, and will continue to be so.

Görlitz and/or Zgorzelec

The small town, or rather towns, of Görlitz and Zgorzelec straddle the Neiße river on the German-Polish border, and was a historically important town in Oberlausitz. For the vast majority of its history, Görlitz was administered as a single city, generally by various Saxon or Prussian nobles. Like many medieval towns, it is full of legends about lazy smiths making deals with the devil (in this case disguised as a black knight) and how on cold nights you can still hear his hammer. (Our guide, an old friend of your correspondent's traveling companion, tells the story magnificently.) However, due to its relatively nonstrategic location, the town has a rich, and fairly well-preserved, downtown. Architectural sights ranging from Gothic to an immense, beautiful art-nouveau department store line the streets. Quinten Tarantino shot parts of Inglourious Basterds here, and upon arrival, the reasons are obvious.

The great tragedy of this beautiful corner of Europe is that many of these beautiful buildings lie empty, or nearly so. The department store is four stories high; now, only the foyer is being used as a perfume and cosmetics shop. A small town cannot expect Hollywood Nazi-kitsch every year (regardless of how wonderful that might be for the rest of us), and so despite the desires of these town's (dwindling) residents, Görlitz needs something a bit more tangible to get its economy rolling again. In this respect, it is a microcosm of the problems the former East Germany faces. (See here for an absolutely amazing must-read discussion on this phenomenon.) Home to the excellent Silesian Museum, which manages ably to alternate between the glorious and the mundane of the city's history, Görlitz will need more than a proud history and filmmakers to keep it afloat.

What's true of the German side is even more difficult for the poorer, less glamorous Polish side, though to be fair, lodging is cheaper and food is still excellent. Polish attention to restoration has not been extended to smaller towns as it has been in Wrocław or Kraków, and the communists, characteristically, built low-quality apartment buildings on the Polish side of the skyline, embarrassing the city below. The theme of these recent travels seems to be one of constant squandered potential, and a looming feeling of an inevitable impending decline. And it's sad, because as our guide (a transplant himself) pointed out, these towns would be great places to be. They are clean, well-administered, and attractive. In the case of Görlitz-Zgorzelec, it's a border town without all the typical downsides of that prejudiced term, and many opportunities, if only the market can be found for them.

On to Legnica, or Liegnitz!

The problem with your Congressman's pet project....

is that it's just not awesome enough!
So says the Onion.

Of course, if you believe Keynes, it really wouldn't matter if we blew all the money on giant genetically-modified bats. I mean, we're talking some serious animal spirits here....

Bautzen, or Butyšin

The small region of Oberlausitz in Saxony is the traditional home to the Sorbish, one of Germany's four "national minorities" with particular protections from the German government. (The others are Danes, Frisians, and Roma.) Bautzen is considered the cultural capital of this small (ca. 60,000) population, and it is a great little place. Unfortunately, your correspondent was on a very tight schedule, and could not spend the full time needed to appreciate this town. Nevertheless, it was fascinating to see. The signs in Oberlausitz are customarily bilingual; Sorbish appears to be a mix of Polish and Czech, and later in the trip a Polish friend of mine (who also speaks Czech) explained that the "sound" of the language strikes him as leaning toward Czech, but the grammar leans to Polish. Because of their minority status, they tended to be rather unenthusiastic about both the Nazis and the Communist East Germans, though with their relatively small number, it was difficult to put up a great deal of resistance. In any case, the town of Bautzen is home to Serbske Nowiny, published 5 days a week at a very reasonable € 0.30 per copy (pick one up next time you're in town), as well as a museum of Sorbish culture.

While going through Bautzen, one must also climb the "Reichenturm," a disturbingly crooked structure which probably should have had a foundation deeper than the foot or so of earth that it was set in. At some point in the '60s, the East German government injected concrete down the center of the tower to hold it more-or-less in place, which causes a certain amount of inconvenience while ascending the tower, but at lest it's still possible to ascend, so that's alright.  St. Peter's Cathedral is also particularly interesting; it is a "Simultankirche," used by Catholics and Protestants alike. There are two altars, two groupings of pews, and even two organs, yet under one roof. A small 3-foot-high fence-like barrier (open for tourists) runs through the church. Apparently, the two religious communities drew up an agreement hundreds of years ago about who uses what and when, and it has been in place ever since.

In addition to this quiet town's interesting little churches and towers, however, a more somber, more monument to a more terrifying and less tolerant era can be found by walking east from the main square down Weigangstraße, where the East German Secret Police, the infamous Stasi, maintained one of their two largest prisons in the DDR. (The larger of the two is north of the main square.) Bautzen II is a prison that haunts. Its cramped cells and interrogation rooms, its bugged walls, its sick-green and ever-peeling-pale yellow paint jobs, all this testifies to the legacy of the DDR. The "diplomat's room," where foreign politicians came to inquire about the interned, has a low ceiling that cannot help but make one feel as though he himself will be crushed or broken by the unknown rooms above. The doors and bars squeak and grind. This is not a place to be re-educated. If you've made it here, there's no more you can be taught.

Yet still (and this is to the museum's credit), still the human spirit is given the chance to triumph. The letters written on cigarette papers and snuck out in a pocket have been returned to the site of their conception, this time as as history, rather than hope. The corner cell where a single man once cleverly spooned through the wall and sprinted dashed ran for a noble 11 days shows the repair job, but the fact that it IS a repair proves that someone fought back. Stories of men and women who perished and men and women who survived press up against the walls, and we learn their stories too. It is tragic and unjust and appalling, and we owe them a debt of gratitude and honor for ennobling humanity by their ultimate victory -- and ours -- over Bautzen II.

Scrappleface

Bob Etheridge is a man of the people.
And this is one of the finest things Scrappleface has ever put together.

Great

http://www.burststudio.com/kitten.html

Pointless, crude, and in rather poor taste. And simple to play.

Taking a Vacation through Saxony and Silesia, and Stalin v. Jackson

There's been quite a bit to blog about this past week (Czechs finally agreeing to a government, Komorowski winning the Polish elections, Spain winning the World Cup, Germany cooking its citizens in trains), but I was busy with other things. What other things could be more important than a Civic Platform President in Poland, you ask? Well, a trip through Saxony and Silesia, beginning in Dresden and culminating in Wrocław, of course! So the next few blog posts will address your correspondent's impressions of these interesting lands. Perhaps this would have been accomplished sooner, but email access was rather limited and in any case, I was less-than-disposed to writing anyway.

Of course, this is not a completely content-free blog post, so feel free to ruminate on this, courtesy of Tagesschau. For those of you who have left your handy German-English phrasebook at home while you read this at work, the summary is this: not so many years ago, perhaps 50, the largest statue of Stalin outside the Soviet Union was erected in Prague. Not long after, Stalin became somewhat less popular, and his cult of personality went the way of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. The pedestal of the statue remained however, and a metronome was placed there in 1991, marking time.

Fast-forward to 2010 (Fast-forward? Do we even do that anymore in an age of digital video?). A small group of Praguers has now decided that the Letná Plain, and the pedestal area, would be the optimal place to place a monument to the late, great Michael Jackson. Jackson began his final European Tour not far from the site, and (according to the Wikipedia article, so it's gotta be true) even erected his own 35-foot-high statue there briefly in 1996. Apparently, some form of statue or a bust of MJ would be placed somewhere in the area, though it is unclear whether the metronome would have to be removed.

For reasons perfectly incomprehensible to your correspondent, some artists and citizens are opposed to this proposal. It seems like a natural place to place a memorial to the King of Pop. Or at least a memorial to the cult of personality.