Taking a Saturday break

last friday, i bused down to macedonia for the weekend to visit friends... saturday was a gorgeous day and we hiked in the mountains followed by a wonderful dinner of fresh trout in a mountain restaurant... it was a great way to clear out the cobwebs and refresh myself after a week of unaccustomed office work...

this weekend, i'm hanging out in the apartment here in prishtina and just can't get my head around all the unpleasant news that never stops pouring forth from my intertubes... yeah, i'm reading it but i can't seem to work up the motivation to post any of it, certainly not when it's the same ol', same ol'...

i'm also trying to wrap my head around the fact that this coming thursday is thanksgiving... last thanksgiving, i had come from here in kosovo to visit macedonian friends and cooked them a genuine american thanksgiving dinner... where does the time go, eh...?

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Brief update

my last post was on sunday from prishtina, kosovo, where i was waiting for the baggage that had been delayed due to a very short connection between my reno-san francisco flight and the san francisco-frankfurt flight... i finally got both bags on monday morning, after which i took the bus to skopje and then yesterday drove with friends here to siviri on the halkidiki peninsula south of thessaloniki, greece...

siviri is on the beach and is full of greeks and residents of the balkans enjoying the last weeks of summer... it's hot and crowded but most pleasant nonetheless... last evening, i watched the sunset from a little restaurant/bar while eating aubergine croquets, nibbling greek olives, sipping ouzo and puffing on a good stogie... life is good...

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Embarrassing moments prior to ringing in the New Year in Argentina

i arrived back in argentina yesterday, a bit worn out from a full day in airports and an overnight flight... the good news was that the flights were all smooth and on-time, my luggage arrived with me, nothing was stolen and it was a glorious summer morning here in buenos aires when i got off the plane...

after a shower and some superficial unpacking, i walked over to the supermarket in the early afternoon to pick up some necessities... i won't define "necessities" for you, just suffice it to say that mantecol was on the list (see below)... i was able to lay my hands on most everything i wanted but when i got to the checkout counter, i was dismayed to find i hadn't enough money... i could have SWORN on a stack of bibles that i did, but upon retrieving the wad of bills from my pocket, i was horrified to find that, in addition to argentine pesos, i had grabbed a handful of macedonian dinars as well... (macedonian currency, while not identical to argentine currency, is enough alike to withstand a cursory glance which is all i had given it when i took it out of the foreign currency pocket in my travel folder... sigh...) the cashier was somewhat taken aback when i announced that i wouldn't be paying for ANY of it... i figured i would come back later and do my own self-imposed version of groundhog day...



(note: mantecol makes another variety called "mega," coated with chocolate, which is, to my way of thinking, incredibly more delicious - and positively addicting - than the regular variety...)

well, after walking back home to nurse my wounded pride and then later walking back to the bank atm and getting more cash, i did go return to the supermarket, tail between my legs, only to find that the store was about 10x more crowded than it had been earlier... hmmmm... by that time, jet lag was rapidly catching up, so i decided to postpone it 'til today and instead marched on to the fruit and vegetable kiosk and the corner chinese convenience store to get enough things to tide me over...

i managed to sleep to nearly 10:30 this morning, something i almost never do, but that's just an indication of not only how tired i was, but how completely being back here relaxes me... so, after a very leisurely late morning and early afternoon, punctuated by a french toast with fresh peaches, scrambled eggs and brazilian coffee breakfast, i moseyed back over to the supermarket only to find it was about TWICE as crowded as it had been when i huffed away last evening... double sigh... needless to say, i stuck it out and was pleasantly rewarded by almost 45 minutes in line enjoying my argentine neighbors chattering with excitement over their plans for the evening festivities...

big holidays, particularly christmas and new years, are celebrated with special relish by the argentines... at midnight on both christmas and new years eves, there is nothing to compare with the explosion of fireworks taking place on every street in every barrio in the city... literally, it is impossible to even walk across a street without tripping over a kid in the process of lighting a fuse... and, lemme tell ya, some of those fireworks are B.I.G., as in H.U.G.E...! two big fireworks companies, jupiter and cienfuegos, are the major suppliers and one of them, jupiter, garners business from all over the world to put on displays...



and, as long as i'm shamelessly shilling, take a look at jupiter's awards...



so, after completing my restocking (even though i have to leave again a week from friday), i walked the two flat tires attached to my bike over to the service station to get them re-inflated and, as i passed the entryway of my neighbor's house around the corner, i was reminded that, for the past three years, i have blown the opportunity to grab a photo of their annual holiday decorating... my intentions have been good, i just never seem to have had my camera in hand before they took it down after new years... so, after riding my back back, i snatched up the camera and finally made good my promise to take a picture of it, offered below for your amusement and edification...

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It's a damn shame that Macedonia is getting flipped off by the Greeks

A map of the natural features of Macedonia

after spending over a year in macedonia during the course of three years and six different visits, i've gotten to know the country reasonably well and made some fast friends... it's a beautiful country with scenery and mountains to rival anywhere else in the world... the country continues to struggle with a lot of things for many reasons, current and historical, that i won't go into here, but the macedonians are intelligent, plucky folks and, like so many others in countries across the world, are getting the short end of the globalization stick...


The Shar Planina Mountains looking
northwest from Skopje, Macedonia

while in macedonia, i was able to visit greece a few times, driving down to thessaloniki and the halkidiki peninsula... it's a delightful, beautiful area, from the ouzeris of thessaloniki to the little villages and gorgeous quiet beaches of sithonia... i found the greeks to be pleasant folks and i loved their food and the whole atmosphere that surrounds getting together and sharing good company over meals, wine, and, of course, ouzo...


Sunset over the Aegean Sea
Neos Marmaros, Sithonia,
Halkidiki Peninsula, Greece


Google Earth view of the Halkidiki Peninsula, Greece
Upper left, Thessaloniki
Center bottom to center right, the "three fingers" of
the peninsula, Kassandra, Sithonia and Athos
Bottom center right, Neos Marmaros

i simply fail to understand why the greeks have so much antipathy for the macedonians... yeah, i know that there's a lot of folks in that area of the world who are still pissed off over being ruled by the turks during the 500 years of the ottoman empire, but, ferchrissake, GET OVER IT...!

for greece to have vetoed macedonia's entry to nato over macedonia's quite rightful choice of its name as the "republic of macedonia" is just plain mean-spirited... what a bunch of weenies...

A disappointed Macedonia warned Thursday that its failure to join NATO could lead to instability in the region. While Ukraine and Georgia were also rejected, the two countries welcomed the pledge that they would one day be part of the alliance.

A dejected Macedonian delegation walked out of the NATO summit in Bucharest (more...) after Greece succeeded in vetoing Macedonia's membership bid on Thursday. Before heading home, Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski said: "I want to send a message to Greece. We will survive and the Macedonian people will overcome this misfortune."

Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki told reporters that 90 percent of his people supported membership and that he and his offiicals needed to show their solidarity with their people. "Macedonia's delegation will leave the summit because they see it as necessary to being together with our people today. This is a difficult time for a small nation."

The Greek intransigence had stemmed from its opposition to the former Yugoslav republic's name, which it shares with the northern Greek province of Macedonia. In the run-up to the summit, negotiators had attempted to find a compromise solution (more...) that would suit both sides, but time ran out and Macedonia's ambitions to join the NATO alliance were thwarted.

i got an email from a friend in skopje yesterday... we regularly chat online and she's been keeping me apprised of the goings-on... needless to say, she was disappointed about nato but, more than that, just pissed off with those obnoxious greeks...

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The real story of Kosovo

Kosovo in relation to Serbia

from ihc...

Following the NATO invasion of Kosovo in June of 1999, the US and its allies stood by as the Albanian mafia and gangs of criminals and paramilitaries spread out across the province and systematically cleansed Kosovo of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Romas and other ethnic minorities. They burned down houses, businesses and churches and implemented a shocking campaign to forcibly expel non-Albanians from the province. Meanwhile, the US worked closely with the Kosovo Liberation Army and backed the rise of war criminals to the highest levels of power in Kosovo. Today, Kosovo has become a hub for human trafficking, organized crime and narcosmuggling. In short, it is a mafia state. Is this the "democracy" Hillary Clinton speaks of "promoting" in "the heart" of Europe?

It didn't take long for the US to begin construction of a massive US military base, Camp Bondsteel, which conveniently is located in an area of tremendous geopolitical interest to Washington. (Among its most bizarre facilities, Bondsteel now offers classes at the Laura Bush education center, as well as massages from Thai women and all the multinational junk food you could (n)ever wish for). In November 2005, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described Bondsteel as a "smaller version of Guantanamo." Oh, and Bondsteel was constructed by former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

i always wondered why serbs, macedonians, and the people of the former yugoslavia hated clinton with such a passion... an american visiting belgrade for the first time, as happened with me in 2005, before even being dropped at the hotel, is driven past the still shattered nato bombing sites which are quietly pointed out without comment... go read this article in full and weep for the seemingly never-ending horrors inflicted on the world by my country...

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Dental tourism

my dental history since 2003 has been a case in point...

It was fear of the hefty bill as much as fear of the drill that kept American musician Don Clay away from U.S. dental clinics for 30 years.

When a sorely infected tooth eventually drove him to the dentist last month, it was to a clinic in a Mexican border city better known for violent crime and drug cartels.

Shrugging off concerns about hygiene and Mexico's brutal drug war, thousands of Americans are heading to Ciudad Juarez and other Mexican border cities for cheap dental treatment.

"I had to get my teeth fixed. I need a perfect smile to make a successful career in music. Treatment in the United States is so pricey," said Clay, a Texan trying to get a record deal as a hip-hop artist.

U.S. dental treatment costs up to four times as much as in Mexico, making it tough for uninsured Americans to treat common problems such as abscessed teeth or pay for dentures.

A dental crown in the United States costs upward of $600 per tooth, compared to $190 or less in Mexico.

Aspiring Mexican dentists are moving to border cities in droves and are luring American patients away from farther flung discount destinations such as Hungary and Thailand.

Americans have long crossed the border for cheap medicines, flu vaccines, eye surgery or specialist doctors, but dentists are now in highest demand.

a few years ago, i needed some dental work done when i was working in macedonia... i was referred to a young woman who had worked in the u.s. for two years under a dentist in atlantic city... i was vastly impressed, not only by the quality of her work, but also by the thorough explanation she gave of her methods, how she followed the european treatment model rather than the u.s. treatment model, and even her explanation of the type of materials and instruments she used and where she obtained them (germany), something i had never heard from a u.s. dentist... then there was the price... i obtained two crowns for 80 euros or roughly $USD103 each... (that was at the then $USD1/€1.29 exchange rate which has since ballooned to $USD1/€1.48...) from that point through summer 2006, i paid her regular visits every time i was in-country... (as a side note, she told me that she also did dental work for many italians who were working in the country... i later learned that many greeks travel across the border to macedonia specifically for dental services, particularly interesting due to the fact that there is zero love lost between greeks and macedonians...)

after i returned to the u.s. from buenos aires last september, i had a large filling break loose (while eating VERY crunchy, dried, fried peas coated in wasabi, idiot that i am), leaving a gaping hole in a tooth... i knew it needed to be fixed and didn't want to wait until the now-vulnerable inner tooth decayed further, or, worse yet, started to hurt... however, i knew that a visit to a u.s. dentist would set me back at least $200 - probably a conservative estimate - so i kept putting it off... i returned here to buenos aires a week ago yesterday and, on wednesday, i visited my landlady's dentist who lives right around the corner from me, my first experience with an argentine dentist... after asking me right off the bat whether i supported hillary or obama, he made short work of fixing it, did a great job, and charged me $30AR, a little less than $USD10 ($USD1/$3.16AR at the current exchange rate)... he also advised me to lay off the super-crunchy stuff... ;) you can bet who i am going to see for my dental work from now on...

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Supreme Court terminates el-Masri's suit

in my post yesterday, i concluded with this...

will accountability carry the day...?

evidently not... more props for bushco's continued defiance of the rule of law and any measure of legal redress...

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Khaled el-Masri's case moves to the Supreme Court. Will accountability carry the day?

Khaled el-Masri

i've been kinda sorta following el-masri's case (here and here) for a number of reasons... one, el-masri was abducted and subjected to rendition in macedonia in early 2004, during a short window of time between my first and my second (out of a total of 6) engagements there, so his story hits a bit close to home, as it were... two, germany, following italy's example (italy is trying the cia agents involved in abu omar's abduction in absentia), issued arrest warrants last june for the cia agents involved in his abduction... third, el-masri was released without ever being charged, and fourth, he is a german citizen... it would seem to me that if anyone is entitled to legal redress, it would be el-masri... last march, the u.s. court of appeals in richmond, va, ruled that el-masri was not entitled to redress because his lawsuit would expose state secrets... i was hoping the case would make it to the supreme court and it looks like that's happening this week...

The Supreme Court is set to decide as early as Tuesday whether the government can invoke the doctrine of "state secrets" to quash a legal claim that CIA bungling resulted in a man being abducted, imprisoned and tortured.

After five months of such treatment, CIA agents apparently realized that the man in custody, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was not the wanted terrorist Khalid al-Masri.

The case has attracted wide public attention in Europe, but El-Masri has been unable to gain a court hearing in the United States because the government has so far successfully invoked the argument that it cannot be taken to court when doing so might expose state secrets.

For his appeal to get an airing in the Supreme Court, four of the nine justices will have to agree to hear it. The justices have been closely split in cases that challenge the administration's handling of the war on terrorism.

That El-Masri is the victim of a case of mistaken identity does not seem to be in doubt.

the last paragraph in the following is particularly noteworthy...

Though the Supreme Court has not directly ruled on the state-secrets privilege in more than 50 years, the rule has been invoked regularly in the lower courts. The Bush administration has used it to block suits involving whistle-blowers, wiretapping and the firing of CIA agents.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union are urging the high court to take up El-Masri's case. They say the privilege has been transformed from a limited protection for military secrets to a broad shield for the government to hide behind when confronted with allegations of "grave executive misconduct."

It is particularly strange, they say, to allow the Bush administration to "invoke state secrets to protect the nation against the disclosure of information that the entire world already knows."

will accountability carry the day...? color me skeptical...

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Summer to winter

when i left buenos aires in mid-april, it was hot, sticky and there was a mini-plague of mosquitoes... arriving back today, i am in the middle of a southern hemisphere winter, no leaves on the trees, a breeze that requires a fleece jacket, and a house that's taken most of the day to take the chill off... meanwhile, back in the high desert of the u.s. great basin, the temp spiked again today in the high 90s... my landlady is still in semi-shock over the first-in-90-years snowfall of a few weeks ago, and i guess i'm going to have to start eating starchier food to get my blood thickened up a bit... < sigh >

speaking of heat, my friends in the balkans are having to deal with some of what we were dealing with a few weeks ago - extremely high temps and wildfires... i couldn't believe the temp in skopje, macedonia*, on monday - 109F/48C... i've been there when the temp hit the low 100s, and, believe me, it was PLENTY hot...

on the bright side, i got my new wireless router up and running with no problem, except for the guy down the street who's using the same make and model... once we stopped trying to configure each other's router, things worked just fine...

*In Macedonia, one person died and 20 were evacuated from burning houses near Bitola, the country's second-largest city, as temperatures reached 42 C amid a declared national emergency.

Thousands of firefighters and local residents battled into Tuesday to contain the huge blaze, while President Branko Crvenkovski ordered army units mobilized to help with the effort. Firefighting airplanes and helicopters were expected to arrive Tuesday from Croatia, Turkey and Austria.

"We managed to defend the city and now have the fire under control. There is no threat to Bitola any more," Ivica Bocevski, a government spokesman, told The Associated Press.

it's such a small world... i happen to know ivica... he's a heckuva nice guy, so is his wife, and their 1 1/2 year-old baby girl is a sweetie...

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Back in Amerika without a doubt - some observations

it may be miami and spanish may be practically all you hear being spoken, but i'm back in the u.s.a., no doubt about it... i headed to the shopping mall across the street a couple of hours ago, just as it started raining... i got back a few minutes ago and it's still coming down, not heavy, but what i suspect is the kind of steady wind and big, fat tropical raindrops that are probably the norm around here...

a few observations...

we're all familiar with how shopping mall owners, ever on the lookout for more ways to turn a buck from their square footage, have leased the concourse space to hundreds of kiosks which are now so chock-a-block you can hardly make it from one end of the mall to the other... what i didn't snap to until today, is the changes in the very architecture and construction of the malls themselves... remember how mega-malls used to be massive architectural edifices in and of themselves, often on a grand theme like southern plantations, the forum in ancient rome, etc...? a lot of the existing ones are that way and some new ones are still being built that way, but, guess what...? mall developers have made the discovery that, basically, few people give a shit what the OUTSIDE of a mall looks like... patrons are busy finding a parking place so they can hotfoot it inside in pursuit of whatever they think will be the latest purchase to make themselves happy... so, as i realized today while WALKING (yes, that's what i said, WALKING) across the highway to the mall, the only two actual, identifiable BUILDINGS at this mall are the three anchor stores, macys on one end, sears on the other, and penney's in the middle... what connects them looks, from the outside, like nothing more than some type of quadruple-wide trailers towed in and stuck together... a heckuva deal, i must say, and undoubtedly a MUCH cheaper proposition for the developers... and, hell, the inside is nothing but connected boxes anyway, so throw in some plastic plants, a few skylights, and bright, come-hither lighting, and who's going to notice - or care...?

a second observation...

several commenters have noted the mccain banner at the top of the blog... i've been in argentina since it started appearing and i figured that the reason it hadn't shown up when i had the page open is that, given google's web crawler 'bots, it only appears when the ip address indicates that the viewer is actually in the united states... well, i guess i was right, cuz i got it NOW... < sigh >



and, last but not least, this bumper sticker, forwarded by a friend in macedonia who, in turn got it from a friend in the u.s., sure to be an instant classic...

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HOLY FREAKIN' CRAP!

i had seen excerpts from this wapo article but i hadn't seen the accompanying photo...



The $1B+ new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY...! any american who isn't embarrassed to death by this obscene display of empire run amok is seriously living on another planet... and, as e. buttler at the barstool chronicles (who tipped me off to this photo) says...

Well, of course wounded vets at Walter Reed have to live with rat shit, mold spores, and who knows how many other manifestations of privatized "care," when the Stalinist freaks they so inexplicably serve operate raj-style embassies, such as this one located in the Halliburton-approved subsidiary otherwise known as Iraq.

a new embassy is a-building in skopje, macedonia, on a hill overlooking the city, next to the 12th century fortress... i can't wait to see what kind of over-the-top monstrosity THAT turns out to be...

and, naturally, the u.s. interests come ahead of any local, historical, cultural, or religious interests...

[The] American plan to construct $50 million United States Embassy on Gradiste hill overlooking capital of Skopje, Macedonia, runs into opposition from many Macedonians, who consider hill as one of most important historical sites in country, as well as home to recently discovered 300-year-old cemetery that may hold as many as 2,000 graves; they want Macedonian government to cancel its deal to sell land to US government and designate area as national heritage spot; it appears unlikely that would happen; US Amb Lawrence Butler denies that proposed building would damage historical remains or artifacts.

that article was dated almost three years ago... the new embassy in skopje is projected to open this year...

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It's time the courts stopped allowing the CIA to remain unaccountable

if you've followed the el-masri story, you will remember the circumstances surrounding his kidnapping and extraordinary rendition... put yourself in his shoes... i can... having lived in macedonia for months at a time over the interval of the past four years, i can easily not only imagine it, i can visualize the very area because i've been there... at the time of his apprehension, i was spending the holidays in the states, but returned little more than a month after he was snatched, a case study in six degrees of separation...

A German citizen who says he was kidnapped and abused by the Central Intelligence Agency cannot seek redress in court because his lawsuit would expose state secrets, a United States Court of Appeals ruled yesterday in Richmond, Va.

There is substantial evidence that the plaintiff in the suit, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was subjected to the C.I.A.’s practice of extraordinary rendition, in which terrorism suspects are seized and sent for interrogation to other countries.

[...]

Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the A.C.L.U., said that the court’s decision had been “truly unbelievable” and that his group was “very seriously looking at all the avenues before us” for an appeal to the full appeals court or to the United States Supreme Court.

“Actions like this are reminiscent of third world countries,” Mr. Romero said. “It’s just not tenable to have the C.I.A. unaccountable for its most egregious violations of human rights.”

again, put yourself in his shoes... wouldn't you be crying out for justice, or even mere acknowledgment of who did what...? our government has been so unaccountable for so long and the courts are so inured to it, justice has ceased to be an operative word in our "justice" system...

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