Ran Jak Diary

Fake Georgia war reports

It is helpful that the western world's most influential news agencies now agree that it was Georgia, not Russia, that started last August's war. But I don't see any reports telling us how it was possible for journalists and editors from the west to have been so wrong in their original dispatches. After all, reporters from the east, west and in between all had their facts right when Georgian bombs began reigning terror on South Ossetia. Confessions are awaited. Don't delay.

Janine Gordon

The art of Janine Gordon keeps attracting me.  Volker Diehl Gallery exhibits her in Berlin.

Belated Thanksgiving

Wal-mart stampede, 1 dead

There's probably not a better scene that exemplifies American culture today:  A 34-year-old Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by 200 crazed shoppers Friday morning as they rushed into the store at 5:00 am to cash in on special discounts. The mob of shoppers reportedly "took the doors off the hinges," injuring three other people in the stampede. They didn't even stop for emergency crews that were later treating the Wal-Mart employee on the scene -- they just kept rushing past, trying to get their share of the Wal-Mart discounts on "Black Friday," the biggest shopping day of the year.

Pavlovian

It is as if I am sitting next to a friend, on board a fast train, zipping along on a straight track, when our railroad car is suddenly diverted off the straight trackbed and onto a branch line that probably has not been used in half a century or more. It's awful! The track is in such terrible shape that our railroad car bolts left one second, then forward the next. It seems to lurch, nearly jumping the track, and then, POW!. Could that have been stones on the track that nearly sent us flying? *PAHAW!* And again., this time a wild wild lunge left, and I was nearly thrown from my seat. I look around for a conductor but it's just my friend and me here, and he doesn't even seem to notice how we are being tossed about as our railroad car picks up speed. 

My friend asks what is wrong with me, and he looks annoyed. "You are sweating! And you are so fidgety! What is your problem?" My problem?  MY problem? I ask if he has gone mad, and list some of the danger we have been facing since leaving the main track land getting onto this terribly old branch line. My friend looks at me as if I've lost it. He speaks in a lowered register, and his words sound like he is commanding me! WHAT HAVE I DONE?  And now I begin to cry, and each whiney word I speak is obviously a major piss-off for my friend. Thankfully, the train slows down and - wow = pulls into a large train station. 

We leave the train and walk a few steps to a cafe. My friend is livid. He demands to know why I suddenly lost control of my nerves and emotions. "Exactly as you have done every single time we travel together on this particular route!" Oh shit, he is right. How could I have possibly forgotten?

When I arrived here at the building, Frau Eberhardt from the 5th floor and I shared the lift, and she definitely heard me mutter "Pavlovian" a few times. Either she was kind enough not to ask what that was all about, or I frightened her. I hope not. 

As Friday marched on and I was in nearly continuous phone contact with trusted friends on the US east coast, clues began mounting that something was really amiss, and maybe it wasn't me after all. 

TO BE CONTINUED

Arrest that soil!

Nearly 200 specimens of mushrooms that grow wild in Dutch forests and nature reserves will be defined as hard drugs starting Monday. Police plan to arrest anyone whose land is found to include the newly banned wild mushrooms growing in the soil. Asked how property owners and renters are supposed to hunt down mushrooms that actually grow wild, a spokesperson for Health minister Klink said, "Prison terms of one, two and six years might motivate them to look."
A forestry worker at De Hoge Veluwe national park said there will be no clearing of wild mushrooms in the park. He declared, "some species are protected. Our task is to see that visitors to the park don’t damage or pick them, besides which it would be impossible to police an area of 5,500 hectares."
The absolute idiocy behind declaring 186 specimens of wild mushrooms to be illegal hard drugs gives reason to believe that satire is the role of government.

Commerzbank day at Dresdner

I have been a faithful customer at Dresdner Bank, though my loyalty was not earned by Dresdner's owner  Allianz, the giant insurer, which seemed unaware what to do for anything about banking, like my account. But as of today, Dresdner is part of Commerzbank. At least they are in the same business.

UK: Sick arrest of MP

An opposition Conservative party member of the British parliament has reacted with understandable outrage to his arrest by police investigating an alleged information leak in the Home office or interior ministry. Damian Green denied any wrongdoing and said: "I was astonished to have spent more than nine hours today under arrest for doing my job."

Any good that Gordon Brown's government may do now will not compare to the wrong it has done Britain, Europe and the world by arresting an opposition MP for doing what he was elected to do -- getting facts to hold the government to account for its actions. 

To catch up is my dream

I am very sorry for not yet replying to your notes about my birthday! I'll try to catch up on Saturday. Please accept this apology for the delay.

One email about "kalkoen dag" suggests the entry should have started where it ends. ))  Another email  offers to explain various positions and practices that I probably never heard of, just as I didn't know about the one I discovered in the early hours of Tuesday. 

Amsterdam art palace

Plans for an ambitious hundred million euro ’art palace’ in the fast-growing business district on the southern edge of Amsterdam are getting rave initial reviews. The plans for a 500 square meter cultural hall along the lines of the Grand Palais in Paris. It is to open in 5 years, featuring "blockbuster" exhibitions.

Georgia thought it had US okay

Here is a significant development. Georgian authorities mistook messages from the US administration as encouragement to use force against Georgia's breakaway provinces -- an action that triggered the August war with Russia, a former Georgian diplomat said Wednesday. Erosi Kitsmarishvili, who was ambassador to Moscow in the months before the August war, said the Georgian government's actions were to blame for the conflict. He said Georgian officials told him that Bush gave his blessing for such a use of force when he met Georgia's president Saakashvili in Washington in March of this year.

Kalkoen dag

Jeroen wished me a happy kalkoen dag - turkey day - when he walked in. Then he asked if I am quixotic, which I may have been at one point in time but am certainly not now. He exhaled relief at the welcome news. 

It took no more than a minute or two for Jeroen to look ready to be serious. He had asked to see me because of his desire to write in a more personal style, eliminating numerous conventions on punctuation and capitalization. He knows that his format ideas could reduce the size of his potential reading audience, but hopes they will come around as word spreads about the substance his work. He wanted my opinion. 

Word will not spread if he goes for his own rules, I said. Too many others have tried before, so it will be considered to be unoriginal. Besides, reviewers hate such tricks and don't read books that toss conventions aside, and there goes word of mouth.