The New York Times reported that Sen. John McCain had an affair with Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist for the telecom industry. Here are some of my responses.
Vicky Iseman is good looking, but I am afraid she is not that good looking, she sort of has an oddly shaped face, I think she has a smile of a stroke victim (sorry) and she has that gender neutral non femininity of DC women.
The thing that is great here is that it looks like Vicky Iseman has quite a bit of power in her profession, perhaps somewhere on equal footing with John McCain, it seems to be the subtext in the reporting. Is that what makes it Ok? Attractive? Has this event helped Vicky Iseman professionally?
Bill Clinton's affairs didn't hurt him politically, either in the election or in the White House. Bill Clinton usually had affairs with women who were professionally less powerful than he.
I think the NYT article tried to make this about McCain's record and reality with lobbyists, but it flopped, by injecting a hint of smutty sex. Perhaps there was some humanity involved as well.
Sometimes people who work together have a relationship dynamic that does not involve "doing it" but are intimate and, otherwise, affairs. That is probably what happened.
Why has no one thought that maybe the NYT, a media organization, wanted to attack the telecom industry/lobby/regulations structure through this article? Is this about leverage against that structure? Could it be the cultural establishment thinks the NYT is really more "left" or "independent" than it really is? I read the Financial Times.
If this were a lobbyist from the "Merchants of Death" we met in "Thank You For Smoking," then would the story look the same? Who cares about telecom regulation except the grad students in ICR at UIUC.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Realpolitik
I think Kosovo's independence, and its support in the West, is about realpolitik.
I think this is about resolving an issue Milosevic created in the late 1980s. It could have gone another way, but in 1999, with the military occupation of Kosovo, and the reaction of NATO and the US, it couldn't go any other way. That was also about the EU and the USA feeling guilty about looking the other way in the region in the early 1990s and now feeling it has to do something in the region. Maybe it isn't the best solution, to have an independent tiny state, it is 1.9 million Kosovars and 100,000 Serbs, but it is the best solution of not very good solutions.
Kosovo will be under EU control/supervision for a long time. It has no civil society, etc. Perhaps EU presence here is the goal. Smuggling, etc, is a problem here, and perhaps the EU can clean it up, or perhaps not.
It is also about energy, energy markets, and energy transport: where will Russia's southern pipeline run? What about nuclear energy from Bulgaria? If the EU is in control of Kosovo, then maybe it has more influence in this.
Russia wants to say this is about creating instability, but I think this is a thinly veiled threat that Russia won't stand by the EU in other matters (when did the EU have a strong assurance from Russia?).
For more commentary, see
Philip Stephens, "Milosevic was the midwife to Kosovo's nationhood," Financial Times, Friday February 22, 2008, page 9. (Commentary).
I think this is about resolving an issue Milosevic created in the late 1980s. It could have gone another way, but in 1999, with the military occupation of Kosovo, and the reaction of NATO and the US, it couldn't go any other way. That was also about the EU and the USA feeling guilty about looking the other way in the region in the early 1990s and now feeling it has to do something in the region. Maybe it isn't the best solution, to have an independent tiny state, it is 1.9 million Kosovars and 100,000 Serbs, but it is the best solution of not very good solutions.
Kosovo will be under EU control/supervision for a long time. It has no civil society, etc. Perhaps EU presence here is the goal. Smuggling, etc, is a problem here, and perhaps the EU can clean it up, or perhaps not.
It is also about energy, energy markets, and energy transport: where will Russia's southern pipeline run? What about nuclear energy from Bulgaria? If the EU is in control of Kosovo, then maybe it has more influence in this.
Russia wants to say this is about creating instability, but I think this is a thinly veiled threat that Russia won't stand by the EU in other matters (when did the EU have a strong assurance from Russia?).
For more commentary, see
Philip Stephens, "Milosevic was the midwife to Kosovo's nationhood," Financial Times, Friday February 22, 2008, page 9. (Commentary).
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Lunar Eclipse
Did you see the Lunar Eclipse last night?
Around 6, I was walking from meeting someone at Starbucks, going directly east, to Krannert center. I saw I full moon, pearly, proud, feminine in the sky. It was a sky that is blue and clear on a cold night. I have a cashemere sweater dress that color blue and I am wearing it today with mother of pearl earrings.
I had been at Manolo's Pizzza and Empanadas for a slice prior to attending the performance by Pacifica Quartet at Krannert Center , which is just across the street. I heard the cook tell the cashier about the lunar eclipse (that is how I learned about it) and say it would take place around 8.45, on West Oregon St. in Urbana (Manolo's and Krannert are on West Oregon).
After listening String Quartet op. 18, no. 5 and Hindemith (String Quartet, op. 22), and before Beethoven op. 132, which were lovely, at at 8.30, there was an intermission. I really am not educated about music, unfortunately. String Quartets, I am learning by experience, are lovely, and Beethoven is really nice. Someone who knows more about it advised me about that before the performance, and it is so. Usually, I hear classical performances over the radio, at home, while working, or cooking on the weekend, and I think "where are those sounds coming from? the speakers? they are too complex and full to be being made in those two boxes." My reaction last night was, wow, that is where the sound comes from, the strings, and the people who are playing them, they had their bodies into the performance.
Intermission was the same time the pizza cook said the moon was scheduled to move into the shadow of the earth.
So as I walked out of the performance hall and zipped up my coat, the usher told me that I didn't even need to go outside to see it, and I walked to the big window that looks over West Oregon St. and saw it with some strangers who had also just heard the performance. It took my breath away. I saw it as the moon was moving into the shadow, and it moves really fast. I felt as if I were watching a clock that told me life going on in unknown directions, regardless of what I do. I also saw a shooting star as I was thinking of some things on the other side of the globe and wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.
Around 6, I was walking from meeting someone at Starbucks, going directly east, to Krannert center. I saw I full moon, pearly, proud, feminine in the sky. It was a sky that is blue and clear on a cold night. I have a cashemere sweater dress that color blue and I am wearing it today with mother of pearl earrings.
I had been at Manolo's Pizzza and Empanadas for a slice prior to attending the performance by Pacifica Quartet at Krannert Center , which is just across the street. I heard the cook tell the cashier about the lunar eclipse (that is how I learned about it) and say it would take place around 8.45, on West Oregon St. in Urbana (Manolo's and Krannert are on West Oregon).
After listening String Quartet op. 18, no. 5 and Hindemith (String Quartet, op. 22), and before Beethoven op. 132, which were lovely, at at 8.30, there was an intermission. I really am not educated about music, unfortunately. String Quartets, I am learning by experience, are lovely, and Beethoven is really nice. Someone who knows more about it advised me about that before the performance, and it is so. Usually, I hear classical performances over the radio, at home, while working, or cooking on the weekend, and I think "where are those sounds coming from? the speakers? they are too complex and full to be being made in those two boxes." My reaction last night was, wow, that is where the sound comes from, the strings, and the people who are playing them, they had their bodies into the performance.
Intermission was the same time the pizza cook said the moon was scheduled to move into the shadow of the earth.
So as I walked out of the performance hall and zipped up my coat, the usher told me that I didn't even need to go outside to see it, and I walked to the big window that looks over West Oregon St. and saw it with some strangers who had also just heard the performance. It took my breath away. I saw it as the moon was moving into the shadow, and it moves really fast. I felt as if I were watching a clock that told me life going on in unknown directions, regardless of what I do. I also saw a shooting star as I was thinking of some things on the other side of the globe and wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Knjiga za Svakog Pedera
knjigazasvakogpedera.blogspot.com is the website for the "Knjiga za Svakog Pedera" book project. I am writing "Knjiga za Svakog Pedera" as a scientific guide to life in contemporary, urban Croatia. It applies current scientific research on daily life and larger questions, from how to do the laundry so colors don't fade to how to live in harmony with a man. "Knjiga za Svakog Pedera" takes its inspiration from the book "Knjiga za Svaku Zenu."
(this is not anti-peder/anti-gay, it is maybe like a postsocialist, post-communist, post-SFRY, Central European "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy")
(this is not anti-peder/anti-gay, it is maybe like a postsocialist, post-communist, post-SFRY, Central European "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy")
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Hilary's tears
A woman politician who cries on the campaign. Mmmmmmm.
She is on the way to setting women back to Victorian Era.
She is on the way to setting women back to Victorian Era.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Technology and Music
Pop quiz: name the object below, what it is used for, what brand it is, and a bit about the brand. 
Boat and Tote Christmas
My friend and I exchanged identical (except for monogram style) gifts for Christmas 2007. This happened quite on accident. We have known each other for 20 years, give or take. We don't live in the same city - haven't for some time.
Hope you all had a nice Christmas 2007. Happy New Year 2008.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Papernjaci (Papernjak)
These are the BEST cookies. They are from Slavonia, where my father's family is from.
Here is the recipe from Kuharstvo by Mira Vucetic, 1952 (name of recipe is papernjaci iv).
- 500g flour
- 200g finely ground walnuts
- 150g sugar
- 200g butter
- 250g honey
- 3 egg whites
- 1 lemon peel, grated fine
- 1/2 tsp (2.84 grams) cloves finely ground
- 1/2 (2.84 grams) teaspoon pepper finely ground
Mix the butter and egg until creamy, then add the sugar and mix till creamy, then add the honey and mix well. Add the flour, then the rest of the ingredients. Mix until the dough is very hard.
Roll the
dough out with a rolling pin to a width of 0.7cm (as fat as a finger) and press down with the papernjak mold (pictured to the right). Remove the mold and cut out the individual cookies. Brush with egg whites.
dough out with a rolling pin to a width of 0.7cm (as fat as a finger) and press down with the papernjak mold (pictured to the right). Remove the mold and cut out the individual cookies. Brush with egg whites. You can roll the cookies on the parchment paper as well, if you find it difficult to transfer them from the counter to the baking sheet (bottom photos is baked papernjaci).
Sretan Bozic i sve naj naj!
Put the cookies in the oven to bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, at 375 for 10 to 15 minutes. Use the middle rack of the oven.
Sretan Bozic i sve naj naj!
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Kiflice, kifle, Walnut and vanilla cookies or Kiffel
http://balkanbarbie.blogspot.com/
To celebrate the holidays, my friend T. came over last Sunday afternoon and we baked these kiflice.
Ingredients (in USA/UK imperial measures and then in European):
half pound (1 cup) butter, soft = 225 or 230 grams butter
half cup sugar = 95 grams sugar
2 cups flower - sifted, all purpose = 200 grams flower
1 and 1/4 cups walnuts, well ground (mljevenih). Buy them that way or grind them in the blender or food processor. = 105 grams walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla (liquid form of vanilla, .17oz) = 5 ml vanilla
confectioner's sugar (also called powdered sugar) for dusting
Sastojici:
225 g puter / maslac
95 g secer
200 g brasno
105 g orah, mljevenih
5 ml vanilje
Tools: I used the lovely Bosch stand mixer you see in the photo, which my parents gave me as an early birthday present (December 23). A hand mixer will also work. Mixing with a wooden spoon would work as well. I guess you would need to use a wisk to cream the butter and sugar, in that case.
Directions:
The Dough:
Mix the butter and sugar until creamy. Probably use middle speed. Add vanilla. Mix until well integrated. Add the flower, a spoon full at at time, on low speed. Mix until it forms a solid mass. Slowly add the ground walnuts. When the walnuts are all integrated, stop mixing. Take the dough out and make a ball out of it. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 3 hours
, or put it in the freezer for about 2 hours. It is nice to prepare the dough and refrigerate it overnight. The dough needs to be a solid, hard mass.
The baking:
Heat the over to 350 Fahrenheit, which is about 175 c, for those of you in Zagreb, Osijek, Vienna, Graz ... Toronto, and Vancouver
Line a cookie baking sheet with parchment paper.
Pinch off some of the dough. Roll it between your hands, specifically palm-side of your knuckles, to make it into a tube shape. When it is ready, it should be about the length of your index finger, thinner than your pinky. Lay it on the parchment paper in the shape of a horse shoe.
Keep all of the kifle the same thickness and length so the batch bakes evenly. I hope the photos are instructive about the size and shape of kiflice.
Bake for about 10 or 15 mintues at 350f, 175c, until slightly brown on the top. My oven took 15 minutes. The ones in the photo are pretty good.
Take them out, let them cool off. When they are cool and you are ready to serve, dust them with the powdered sugar.
Store them in a tin can or in a plastic box - anything with a good seal - in the cupboard. They keep very well in the cupboard (no eggs in the dough). They freeze very well. Children enjoy making them because they role them with their hands and that is cool. It isn't very messy either, maybe put a plate under their hands to catch crumbs when they roll the cookies.
For your convenience, here is a kitchen conversion web site in which you can ask for the conversion of weights and measures of specific ingredients used in the kitchen (convert-me.com).
And we ate a few, drank wine, then later some tea, and laughed quite a bit. Today, we had our first snowfall in Urbana. Very nice. The year will come to an end quite soon. The days are short, and cold, it is the time of lights, we can celebrate living through another year, and hope for what will come the next. Pe
ace on Earth.
Enjoy
Merry Christmas, Sretan Bozic, i Sretna Nova Godina 2008.
To celebrate the holidays, my friend T. came over last Sunday afternoon and we baked these kiflice.
Ingredients (in USA/UK imperial measures and then in European):
half pound (1 cup) butter, soft = 225 or 230 grams butter
half cup sugar = 95 grams sugar
2 cups flower - sifted, all purpose = 200 grams flower
1 and 1/4 cups walnuts, well ground (mljevenih). Buy them that way or grind them in the blender or food processor. = 105 grams walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla (liquid form of vanilla, .17oz) = 5 ml vanilla
confectioner's sugar (also called powdered sugar) for dusting
Sastojici:
225 g puter / maslac
95 g secer
200 g brasno
105 g orah, mljevenih
5 ml vanilje
Tools: I used the lovely Bosch stand mixer you see in the photo, which my parents gave me as an early birthday present (December 23). A hand mixer will also work. Mixing with a wooden spoon would work as well. I guess you would need to use a wisk to cream the butter and sugar, in that case.
Directions:
The Dough:
Mix the butter and sugar until creamy. Probably use middle speed. Add vanilla. Mix until well integrated. Add the flower, a spoon full at at time, on low speed. Mix until it forms a solid mass. Slowly add the ground walnuts. When the walnuts are all integrated, stop mixing. Take the dough out and make a ball out of it. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 3 hours
, or put it in the freezer for about 2 hours. It is nice to prepare the dough and refrigerate it overnight. The dough needs to be a solid, hard mass.The baking:
Heat the over to 350 Fahrenheit, which is about 175 c, for those of you in Zagreb, Osijek, Vienna, Graz ... Toronto, and Vancouver
Line a cookie baking sheet with parchment paper.
Pinch off some of the dough. Roll it between your hands, specifically palm-side of your knuckles, to make it into a tube shape. When it is ready, it should be about the length of your index finger, thinner than your pinky. Lay it on the parchment paper in the shape of a horse shoe.
Keep all of the kifle the same thickness and length so the batch bakes evenly. I hope the photos are instructive about the size and shape of kiflice.
Bake for about 10 or 15 mintues at 350f, 175c, until slightly brown on the top. My oven took 15 minutes. The ones in the photo are pretty good.
Take them out, let them cool off. When they are cool and you are ready to serve, dust them with the powdered sugar.
Store them in a tin can or in a plastic box - anything with a good seal - in the cupboard. They keep very well in the cupboard (no eggs in the dough). They freeze very well. Children enjoy making them because they role them with their hands and that is cool. It isn't very messy either, maybe put a plate under their hands to catch crumbs when they roll the cookies.
For your convenience, here is a kitchen conversion web site in which you can ask for the conversion of weights and measures of specific ingredients used in the kitchen (convert-me.com).
And we ate a few, drank wine, then later some tea, and laughed quite a bit. Today, we had our first snowfall in Urbana. Very nice. The year will come to an end quite soon. The days are short, and cold, it is the time of lights, we can celebrate living through another year, and hope for what will come the next. Pe
ace on Earth.Enjoy
Merry Christmas, Sretan Bozic, i Sretna Nova Godina 2008.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Talking Heads
Lately, I have been listening to Talking Heads, especially the song "Sugar on my Tongue." I also like Elvis Presley. I can reccomend the movie, "Lost Embrace" (2004). In Spanish, it is "El abrazo partido." The movie takes place in a shopping mall in Buenos Aires, perhaps the most beautiful city in the world.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
War crimes tribunal and job interviews and online dating
There are some things I can't impose rationality on. Yes, I am talking about love. I am also talking about the dynamics of job interviews. This could also be said for war, or Stalin. Maybe that is why historians explain events by saying one person is dominant, for example, things went this way or that, but so and so was mostly guilty. I think Milosevic was mostly guilty for thing sin the 1990s and early 2000s. What about the war crimes tribunal. Is that an effort to impose reason on horror? Maybe it is just a way to get rid of the past. It makes secrets public, it shames some people and social groups.
I watched an ad for an on-line dating service last night, I think it is chemistry.com, and it seems to be branding itself as the hipsters dating service. It is the opposite of e-harmony. They suggest e-harmony rejects people - hipsters. It criticizes their questions as long and not relevant to hipsters. The questions are the unique selling proposition of eharmony. They say it matches people on important values. I wonder how chemistry.com matches people - probably on cultural things like what music I like, I guess. I think chemistry.com is more like Bourdieu and interpretive marketing research brought into VALS while eharmony is more like VALS and lifestyle research. Please don't rip off my ideas and write an article on them and get tenure etc. Yes, I am a wounded graduate student, just back from a job interview. Regardless, I am right about these dating services and their connection to marketing research, and I am taking marketing research theories seriously. Hey, maybe if I have to teach Audience Analysis this spring, I will apply dating services as a case study.
I started to write about love and imposing reason on it, and how you can't, even though dating services say you can. Then the connection with Bourdieu came up. So that is why we went down that road.
Please, do not impose reason on love, that is a one way trip to crazy town.
I watched an ad for an on-line dating service last night, I think it is chemistry.com, and it seems to be branding itself as the hipsters dating service. It is the opposite of e-harmony. They suggest e-harmony rejects people - hipsters. It criticizes their questions as long and not relevant to hipsters. The questions are the unique selling proposition of eharmony. They say it matches people on important values. I wonder how chemistry.com matches people - probably on cultural things like what music I like, I guess. I think chemistry.com is more like Bourdieu and interpretive marketing research brought into VALS while eharmony is more like VALS and lifestyle research. Please don't rip off my ideas and write an article on them and get tenure etc. Yes, I am a wounded graduate student, just back from a job interview. Regardless, I am right about these dating services and their connection to marketing research, and I am taking marketing research theories seriously. Hey, maybe if I have to teach Audience Analysis this spring, I will apply dating services as a case study.
I started to write about love and imposing reason on it, and how you can't, even though dating services say you can. Then the connection with Bourdieu came up. So that is why we went down that road.
Please, do not impose reason on love, that is a one way trip to crazy town.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Žuži Jelinek
Mrs. Jelinek (70) is a fashion designer. Recently she published a book and thus became an author too. In various Croatian weeklies we can read her columns, she is often invited as a guest to popular TV talk-shows and she has been frequently interviewed by the press. Mrs. Jelinek attracted the media with her statements about the relationship between men and women and has thrust herself upon the public as an authority on beauty, harmonious marriage and success in life. Although Mrs. Jelinek shamelessly and with a smile talks pure nonesense, nobody has openly said anything against them so far. Here are only a few quotations which are characteristic of Mrs. Jelinek's points of view.
(quotations taken from the daily paper "Vecernji list", Oct. 2nd 1998., journalist Branko Vukcic)
"VL: If a man does something inappropriate, for example is late....if he (un)intentionally hurts a woman, what can he do to make up for what he did? What works with women?
Jelinek: If only men would know how women are easy! We are all alike inside."
"Jelinek: In the morning a man should say a few warm, kind words, and all his problems are solved. If a woman was clever, and the majority is today, she would not reproach him anything, because men today are extremely touchy."
"Jelinek: Four rules how a woman can keep a man are: First, with sex. Second, with a smiling face. Men do not like women who sulk. Third, she must never begrudge him on anything because all men are alergic to reproach. Fourth, if a man is well fed, if he is happy and content at full dining table then a woman can't lose him. He might temporarily go to another woman, but he will come back. Men are different than women and sex is important to them as much as food."
"Jelinek: Every woman must be interested in politics so that she would be able to make conversation with a man at all."
http://crowwomen.tripod.com/zuzie.htm
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Adjusting to America
For one whole weekend, I didn't go to the mall. No, it wasn't a dare, or a political statement, it just happened that way. I was working, doing laundry, watching DVDs, talking to friends, going swimming at the pool, and having a cafe late at Cafe Paradiso. It just quietly happened on its own that way.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Looking Good in a Buffalo Stance
What I miss about Zagreb:
I miss Otvoreni Radio (it translates into Open Radio and you can listen here through live stream and you can listen here www.otvoreni.hr). They have a mix that floors me. I love it. I feel like I am back in my kitchen on Kaciceva, the third floor, with the balcony on the garden, not street side, dancing while cooking up some lunch, maybe trout, on a Saturday afternoon, listening on the 1960s era Grundig "Yatch Boy" he bought on ebay (his first ebay experience) and mailed me in Zagreb from Germany, cause he knows I think Grundig makes the best radios, my father has them. I even shipped it back with me, and it is in my kitchen right now.
Or sitting in a car in front of my building, he's driven me home after drinks, it's Chaka Kahn's "Ain't Nobody," on Otvoreni, he thumps his palm on the driving wheel, tells me about when he was a DJ at KSET ages ago. It is the first time I listened to Otvoreni, and I kept my dial there since.
I heard this song (Buffalo Stance) on Otvoreni while in my kitchen and was delighted. Nenah Cherry (she's Sweedish, are you also surprised) sings it and this is what she says about it, from her web site: this song "is about sexual survival. It's not a feminist record - none of my songs are. But it's about female strength, female power, female attitude."
Yah, I am back in the USA, in a town in the mid-west.
I just heard the whistle of a train, that reminds me of Zagreb...
I miss Otvoreni Radio (it translates into Open Radio and you can listen here through live stream and you can listen here www.otvoreni.hr). They have a mix that floors me. I love it. I feel like I am back in my kitchen on Kaciceva, the third floor, with the balcony on the garden, not street side, dancing while cooking up some lunch, maybe trout, on a Saturday afternoon, listening on the 1960s era Grundig "Yatch Boy" he bought on ebay (his first ebay experience) and mailed me in Zagreb from Germany, cause he knows I think Grundig makes the best radios, my father has them. I even shipped it back with me, and it is in my kitchen right now.
Or sitting in a car in front of my building, he's driven me home after drinks, it's Chaka Kahn's "Ain't Nobody," on Otvoreni, he thumps his palm on the driving wheel, tells me about when he was a DJ at KSET ages ago. It is the first time I listened to Otvoreni, and I kept my dial there since.
I heard this song (Buffalo Stance) on Otvoreni while in my kitchen and was delighted. Nenah Cherry (she's Sweedish, are you also surprised) sings it and this is what she says about it, from her web site: this song "is about sexual survival. It's not a feminist record - none of my songs are. But it's about female strength, female power, female attitude."
Yah, I am back in the USA, in a town in the mid-west.
I just heard the whistle of a train, that reminds me of Zagreb...
Monday, June 25, 2007
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