Citizen Europe

New Citizen Europe Blog!

2009-07-10T19:59:00.001-07:00

Goodbye, Blogger!

I'm making the move over to WordPress. Anyone interested in reading about European nationalism can find me writing on my new blog over at http://joelitobarski.com/

See you there!

Where Have I Been?

2009-06-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping a low profile in the EU blogosphere since the TH!NK ABOUT IT finale in Rotterdam.

The main reason for this is that I'm up to my eyeballs in work at the moment, so my blogging has suffered.

The other reason is that I'm working on a brand new blog/website (powered by Wordpress) to be launched soon.

More info to follow...

Blogging in the Stone Age: How Political Blogging in the EU is Playing Catch-up With America

2009-06-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

I've just had an editorial published on www.dailybabel.com.

I'm sure it will prove at least mildly controversial, and I hope it will generate a bit of debate. If not debate, then at least some thoughts!

Comment if you think I've got it wrong, because I will listen to you. I would actually love to be proved wrong in this case!

You can read my editorial here.

What is the Point of the EU Blogosphere?

2009-06-06T06:09:00.001-07:00

I'm going to try experimenting more with audio and video as a blogger. I'm sure this is a better way to connect with people and show the human side of EU politics. So here's a video I've put together, showing some of my thoughts about what we could do with an EU blogosphere.

Please criticise my mad ideas!

My Editorial for JMECE Lab

2009-06-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

The Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence Lab has published an editorial I wrote about European identity. It's a personal piece describing my own feelings as a young European living and working in the EU.

You can download it or read it online here.

Comments and criticism welcome!

Some News on How the Elections went in Maastricht

2009-06-04T13:27:00.001-07:00

The UK and Netherlands were the first countries to go to the polls today in the EU parliamentary elections!

I was sent an e-mail today by Faten, a voter in Maastricht in the EU elections [EDIT: Fatan isn't actually a voter, because she is South African. But her partner is Dutch and voted in the elections]. She offers a personal account of going to vote in the Netherlands:

"Dear Joe,
As promised I wanted to drop you a quick email on my observations on how the elections went in Maastricht.
It was a normal cold Thursday morning; people going to work as one sees it every morning on bikes. Pretty much like other days, really. There was no rush to vote. I live next to a voting office, which I pass on my way to work.
The voting office is a school and the traffic of this morning was rather calm - again the usual traffic caused by parents dropping off their kids at school. The City Hall also housed a voting station. To guide the voters, small signs were put up to direct the voters. Those were the only noticeable signs that some type of elections were taking place (if one doesn't know he wouldn't recognize that EU elections are taking place due to the lack of some type of poster of even a sign of the EU flag). However, the preliminary estimates show that 40% of Dutch went out to vote - a higher figure than initially predicted.
One of the key concerns in the run up to the election was that the radical PVV party of Geert Wilders would win the majority of votes. As it looks now, they only got the 2nd position (of course official results still have to be announced). Preliminary results show that CDA (the leading party in government) is leading (20% - 5 seats which is a decline of 2 seats from the previous election) followed by the radical PVV which has secured 15% of the votes according to the preliminary estimates.
The elections were not only 'spiced-up' by the radical PVV but an animal for the animals also run for elections and the preliminary results show that they are close to securing 1 seat. The party is said to represent those who are victims of human cruelty. Interesting!
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Faten"

What Future for the EU Blogosphere?

2009-06-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

My latest TH!NK ABOUT IT post can be found here - in which I muse about how we can build a better EU blogging community.

Guest-blogging on TH!NK ABOUT IT

2009-05-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of updates.

It's been a hectic week - and it's about to get more hectic. I've just started guest-blogging over at TH!NK ABOUT IT.

I'll be blogging there this week, so I may neglect my duties here at Citizen Europe. But please do comment on my ramblings at TH!NK!

Monday Cartoon: A United Europe?

2009-05-26T03:58:00.001-07:00

I will try to post a cartoon every Monday, if I am able. Today's Monday cartoon is on Tuesday - but my excuse is that this has been a busy week!

Blogger Interviews Irish Minister for European Affairs

2009-05-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

This is a follow-up to an earlier post (here)

Frank Schnittger, a blogger over at TH!NK ABOUT IT managed to interview Dick Roche, Ireland's Minister for European Affairs (watch his interview here).

He asked a good mix of questions, focusing on both domestic Irish issues and on broader European issues as well. Dick seemed happier talking about the broader European picture, but Frank did ask some difficult questions and tried to pin the Minister down on specifics.

It's great that someone at the level of a Minister has granted a 50 minute interview to a blogger, so (no matter what you think of his politics) Dick Roche should be congratulated for that.

The audio quality on the recording is not amazing, and Frank unfortunately managed to lose part two of the video (leaving only parts one and three). He says this was a technical fault, but I'm wondering if it wasn't because Dick Roche let slip about the EU plans for world-domination, and "they" confiscated the video. Probably not...

Anyway - Well done to Frank for scoring this interview!

Monday Cartoon: Britain and the 'F' Word

2009-05-18T02:12:00.001-07:00

Launching Citizen Europe (Lite)

2009-05-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Prudent Investor left a comment on one of my posts (here)

Giuseppe, [EDIT: For that would be my name in Italian]
nice blog. May I only suggest you change the colors as white script on dark backgrounds is tremendously eye-tiring (to the older geezers like me? Humans have got used to black on light backgrounds since Gutenberg.

Prudent has a point, and it's something that troubled me when I started up my blog. It's a question of access.

I like my blog. I like my colour scheme. I like all my gadgets and widgets and gizmos cluttering the place up.

But if you're reading my blog and you're colour-blind (or if you just don't have the eye-sight of a hawk) then you might not find my layout so stylish.

Moreover, if you're reading my blog on a mobile phone or if you're using a dial-up modem or have a dodgy internet connection, you might not appreciate all my widgets and gadgets and things.

So, I've started up another blog. It's exactly the same content as Citizen Europe, but it's just plain black text on a white background. There will be no pictures, videos, gadgets or widgets slowing down your connection (although I will try to provide text links to pictures and videos so you're not missing out).

The address is: http://citizen-europe-lite.blogspot.com/

European Democracy: The Politicians are United but the Voters are Divided

2009-05-14T04:26:00.000-07:00

Frank Schnittger, a blogger over at TH!NK ABOUT IT, is undertaking a truly interesting experiment. What he's attempting on his blog (here) is a relatively novel way of conducting an interview... yet it raises questions about the nature of EU democracy.

Frank will be interviewing Dick Roche, Ireland's Minister for European Affairs, and he has posted his questions online for the community to read. Furthermore, he is now asking for suggestions for more questions.

One of the amazing things about this is that Dick Roche (or, more likely, one of his aides) will also be able to read the questions Frank is going to ask him, and so will be better prepared for them.

Image via Wikipedia

In other words, it's almost an "open" interview, between Dick Roche and the TH!NK ABOUT IT community, with Frank as a mediator. Great stuff!

The problem is, a lot of the questions suggested by Frank are very specific to national, Irish politics. This makes sense: MEPs are elected by national voters and so they campaign on issues that will interest and affect specifically those same national voters.

As Frank points out:

"[Dick Roche] is not going to want to raise additional issues... [that] have the potential to lose him votes."

I agree with Frank. But I think this is a terrible way to conduct politics.

This is one of the reasons the public are so frustrated with European politics. Now is the only time that we - the European public/s - have any say over these issues. Now is the only time we can hold our politicians accountable.

Two years down the line, when these issues are actually being addressed, there will be no public accountability. It is only now that we can reward or punish our politicians for their future vision. So, Frank, please press him on at least some of these issues!

For example, I definitely want to know about the Barroso coronation. I want to vote for a political group that intends to put forward a candidate to run against Barroso. I do not want to do this because I dislike Barroso, but because I believe that competition is in the interests of democracy. After the elections, though, the power to push for this sort of thing will be out of our hands.

All across the EU, each individual voter will have their own set of key issues that they will be voting on. MEPs should clearly set out their positions on ALL of these issues, and then let the voters decide. But the system, as it stands today, encourages MEPs to campaign only at the national level on national issues for national votes. Given this is the case - what questions can I, a citizen of another EU member-state with only a cursory knowledge of Irish politics, possibly suggest for Frank to ask?

This is why I think we need some sort of European-wide accountability, represented by some part of the EU institutions being directly elected by all EU citizens voting together. At the moment, the politics are united, but the vote is fragmented. MEPs take European-wide decisions, but they campaign on national issues. I cannot vote for Irish MEPs, so Irish MEPs are not interested in my opinions, yet they help take big-picture decisions in my name.

Still, perhaps I am jumping the gun a bit.

I have no idea how Dick Roche will respond to these sorts of long-term questions. The fact that he is willing to be interviewed by a blogger at all is fantastic, and this should immediately win him respect.

But my appeal to Frank is this: don't ignore the long-term questions. June 2009 will be the only time (until the next set of elections) that we have any real power to influence what happens.

Review: Villa Margon

2009-05-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

April 18th to April 16th 2009 was "Culture Week" in Italy. Determined to imbibe some late-Renaissance European culture, my lady and I (and a couple of friends from Brazil) visited Villa Margon in Ravina (not too far from Trento). Here's a quick review of the villa and what it can tell us about European culture.

Villa Margon, constructed in the 16th century, sits atop a hill (which is a bit of a shlep if you don't have a car), with vineyards below and the Italian alps above. The villa showcases some superb frescoes (typical of the region) depicting various historical and Biblical scenes.

There are five rooms of frescoes, divided into three sets: one of Biblical scenes, one of historical battles of the Holy Roman Empire, and one showing the cycle of the months. The "cycle of the months" theme seems to have been fairly popular for frescoes in this part of Italy. There is a cycle fresco in the Aquila Tower of Castle Buonconsiglio, another in a Venetian residence in Rovereto, and I've heard of at least one more in a castle somewhere in Trentino.

My favourite panel from the Margon cycle depicts the Villa's noble family sat at a table having lunch on the porch of Villa Margon, watching peasants happily threshing wheat under a scorching sun. Ah, the nobility... what better way to work up an appetite than by watching other people work for a living, eh?

The Margon cycle of the months was an idyllic representation of an ordered society, where peasants knew their place - and it probably contrasted fairly sharply with the actual political situation in Trentino at the time they were painted. Certainly, when similar frescoes were painted in Trento's Buonconsiglio castle, there was discontent and disruption at all levels of society.

Interestingly, there's actually some perspective on display in these frescoes: the peasants that are nearer to the foreground are depicted as being larger than the noble family taking supper in the background. This is completely different to the Buonconsiglio frescoes in Trento, in which nobles are always depicted as being larger than peasants even if they are in the background (how can you display a lowly villein in more detail than a just and beautiful nobleman?).

The reception hall contains frescoes painted by a Flemish artist circa 1560, depicting the historical conquests of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. These are amazingly detailed and very colourful - they look almost cartoony they're so vibrant, with knights and horses crashing about all over the place. The frescoes, commissioned by an Italian noble family (and painted by a Flemish artist), depicting a Spanish emperor of a "German" Roman Empire, remind us of the intensely smooshed-together nature of European history and culture.

Finally, we arrive at the Biblical frescoes. I didn't recognise all of the stories, but I seem to remember both Old and New Testament stories were depicted (possibly seperated into two rooms - I can't remember). In terms of visual excitiment, Old Testament is always more fun. One of my favourite panels showed the flood scene from Genesis. Noah's ark is painted as a great big wooden box of a thing, and if you look closely at the water you can see the little people of the Earth drowning. One or two are even desperately clinging on to the side of the ark.

Not really the sort of thing you'd want peering down at you from your bedroom wall.

Overall, Villa Margon was tremendous fun with some amazing frescoes and striking scenery. If you find yourself in Trento with nothing to do - this would make the perfect afternoon trip.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Review Criteria

Comment: What does "EU 2.0" Actually Mean?

2009-05-12T05:11:00.001-07:00

There's an interesting debate going on between Julien Frisch and Ralf Grahn about the nature of EU 2.0.

Julien is critical of Ralf for his use of the term EU 2.0, preferring to restrict all uses of the term "2.0" to the "Web 2.0" context it was originally intended for.

I argued that, whatever the context:

[2.0] represent a single goal and emphasis: "community."

And that, personally:

I would define EU 2.0 as the interaction between Web 2.0 and European politics

Julien's comments were in response to this post by Ralf.

PLEASE LEAVE ANY COMMENTS ON JULIEN AND RALFS' BLOGS

Cartoon: Five Years of EU Expansion

2009-05-11T00:11:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine drew these cartoons to mark the five year anniversary of EU expansion into Eastern Europe. They made me laugh, so I thought I would share them with you here. All images are copyright Sergio Fischer, 2009, under a Commerical Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Comment: How Much Should Bloggers Self-Promote?

2009-05-06T02:07:00.001-07:00

Etan Smallman, one of the TH!NK bloggers, is continuing to impress with his well-argued posts and original interviews. His latest post is here.

[EDIT: It turns out that this post isn't actually an original interview by Etan. Whoops! Still, his last post DID have original interviews in it: here]

I left this comment:

Is this another original interview, Etan?

If it is - then I have a piece of criticism for you (in an otherwise excellent post) - you're not making that clear enough!

You're being too modest and what you need to do is self-promote more. If this is indeed original research, you need to say "in my interview with Mike Smithson, he said..."

People do not expect bloggers to interview. What you are doing is amazing. If you do not make it clear that this is what you are doing, people will assume you have just cut and pasted from an article and are doing regular blogging (i.e. news analysis).

I'm continually impressed by your efforts, Etan - so I'm going to be more critical with you.

Your title "Does this suggest a low turnout on June 4th? Place your bets…" is too ambigious.

This title would be perfect for a sub-heading, in the main body of the text but beneath your main title. But it is unsuitable for your title.

You have to think about how your title will come across in web-searches, RSS feeds and archive lists. It must be as clear as possible.

I can be guilty of ambigious titles myself - and it's something I also have to work at. But something like "UK Public Interest in EU Lowest Since 1988" is clear and attention grabbing.

You can probably think of a better example - but it should strike a balance between being clear (but boring) and being interesting (but ambigious).

Keep up the good work, Etan!

Joe

NOTE: PLEASE LEAVE ANY COMMENTS YOU MAY HAVE ON ETAN'S BLOG RATHER THAN HERE

Comment: Invasion of the Mutant Zombie Chickens

2009-05-06T01:38:00.001-07:00

Radovana, a Slovak student blogger, came across a pair of giant chickens promoting the EU elections in Trnava yesterday (her post is here). She got funny looks as she took photos of the chickens, and didn't want to hang around too long!

My comment:

Hi, Radovana!

A great discovery!

But you are a blogger now! It is your duty to disqualify yourself from social life and a normal existence in your hometown.

You must be as curious as possible, and try to satisfy that curiosity - even if it means strange behaviour in public (ESPECIALLY if it means strange behaviour in public!) :D

You should return to the chickens and stand next to them, interviewing all people who walk past. Ask them if they know what the chickens mean and if they think the sculpture is effective.

And try to steal some of the chicken! Maybe take it home and cook it. Write a review!

Perhaps that's going to far...

NOTE: PLEASE LEAVE ANY COMMENTS YOU MAY HAVE ON RADOVANA'S BLOG RATHER THAN HERE

The Communist Totalitarian System of Barroso

2009-05-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

Libertas founder, Declan Ganley, is apparently publishing a book outlining his "political vision." He's hoping, no doubt, to emulate the recent success of President Obama.

Others have already written about Libertas (notably Ralf Grahn here, Julien Frisch here, and there's an entire blog devoted to derailing Libertas here), so I won't go into detail about the party. I just want to comment on Ganley's claim (made, apparently, in his book) that the European Union is a "a Communist totalitarian system of José Manuel Barroso -- a former Maoist Communist."

[Image: Barroso/Che, Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported, from:
José Manuel Barroso2, Besoin d'air, 2007, Attribution ShareAlike 2.0
and Guerrillero Heroico - Che Guevara, Alberto Korda (Korda), 1960,
Public Domain (Controversial)]

I've not read (and probably won't read) Ganley's book, and only have access to his quote because it's in the Irish Independent. I can only assume, therefore, that the Independent has quoted Ganley horribly out of context. If not, this was an... exceedingly ill-advised thing to say.

The EU is a Communist totalitarian system? Run by Barroso? You're having a laugh, right?

If the EU were a totalitarian system, Ganley simply would not exist. I would not exist. Ganley would not be able to run an opposition party. I would not be writing this blog. Me and Ganley would both have been liquidated by the state. There would simply be no space for political opposition or for civil society. The state would have total control of both the public and the private spheres of society. Total control. Not some control. Not a little bit of control.

It's not called alittlebitarianism. It's called totalitarianism.

And yet I exist.

And Ganley exists.

So the EU is not a Communist totalitarian system.

And as for Barroso in the role of Glorious Comrade Number One? In a totalitarian state there would be no seperation of power. Power would be concentrated in the hands of the ruling dictator/junta. But the checks and balances of the EU do exist. There is a seperation of power.

By the way: Yes, Barroso was a member of an underground Maoist party as a young man. So was Andrew Marr, apparently (although he was a bit younger - 11 years old). Whether Barroso was a Maoist or not is neither here nor there - he most definitely isn't one now and the system he is part of does not permit the totalitarian concentration of power into his hands.

But I'm being silly. And Ganley is being silly. The EU is not a totalitarian system.

Describing it as such is shrill, hysterical hyperbole. It undermines Ganley's argument.

There are very valid reasons to criticise the EU. If you make up reasons, or overstate your case, you are shooting yourself in the foot.

/rant

Comment: Unionist Identity in Northern Ireland and the European Union

2009-05-03T04:50:00.001-07:00

Great post by Eurocentric on his blog (The European Citizen: Hearts and Minds and Europe)

I left a detailed comment in response. I'm going to disable comments on all my "Comments" posts in future, as I want to drive traffic to other people's blogs. If you want to respond to what I've written - please do so on Eurocentric's blog!

Another great post!

I'm interested in your presentation about unionist nationalism in Northern Ireland (I'm giving a presentation on Tuesday about UK nationalism in general). Could I get a look at the notes for your presentation? Either as a blogpost or sent to me directly? citeur@gmail.com

In return, I'll post the results of my presentation as well! :D

As to the rest of your post:

"Although the Republic doesn't really want NI until it can afford it"

I think this is a really interesting point. On the other side of the coin; when I was in Northern Ireland I heard people say that they don't think the UK really wants NI (too expensive to police and support economically) - but it can't afford to be blamed for any bloodshed that unification would bring.

And in Derry/Londonderry, I had an interesting talk with a nationalist about why a lot of Catholics don't support unification. His take (in Derry, at least) was that if the Republic took over government in the North (and hence welfare support), it would simply be unable to cope with the high levels of unemployment.

Northern Irish Catholic identity (i.e. I don't mean just "nationalist") is also a very interesting thing. Chatting with NI Catholics, I got a real sense that they have some mixed feelings towards Catholics in the Republic. There's sometimes a sense that NI Catholics have gone through something that people from the Republic don't really understand - they haven't shared in it.

In a sense, just as NI Protestants are alienated (or at least distinct) from people in Britain, NI Catholics are distinct from those in the South (I'm deliberately avoiding the terms "Unionist" and "Nationalist" to make this particular point - although I'm aware of all the problems of terminology. These are big, clumsy statements I'm making!)

"Irish reunification would be a lot easier and acceptable for unionists within a European context"

When I first arrived in NI, I really supported this idea. But after living there for a while, I started to understand how much unionists (in general) seem to hate the EU. It almost seems that any symbol of identity supported by one community automatically cannot be supported by the other.

These are only my observations after less than a year living in NI, so I could be completely barking up the wrong tree!

Comment: Should Iceland Join the EU?

2009-05-03T04:45:00.001-07:00

I've just recently started reading RZ's blog Re:Europa and came across an interesting bit of debate about Iceland joining the EU (Re:Europa: Everybody Loves Iceland).

A chap from Australia (Ty Buchanan) commented and explained how he was sceptical. His family had been forced to close their local business (growing vegetable produce) because of increased competition from overseas.

In my comment, I tried to link his experience to the exact same (extremely valid) concerns I think many in Iceland's fishing industry are having at the moment. I wonder, though, if staying out of the EU would really reduce these pressures or just postpone them.

Hi, Ty!

I'm sorry to hear about your family business. Iceland's fishing industry fears that exactly the same thing will happen to them if they join. And with Iceland's banking sector obliterated overnight, fishing is now one of Iceland's most important remaining industries. They had banking and fish. Now they have fish.

It's a difficult situation to deal with. But I don't think it's just a problem with the EU; it's also a problem with globalization in general. If the UK hadn't joined the EC, then local producers would still have been under pressure from the advance of foreign multinationals - they would always be able to under-sell local producers.

EU Fisheries: Two Views

2009-05-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Two interesting blog posts written in response to the recent publication of the European Commission's Green paper: Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.

One critical post (here) written by Bruno Waterfield of the Daily Telegraph. The second more supportive (here), written by Peter Sain ley Berry over at the EU Observer. These two views are not necessarily mutually exclusive - both men make some very valid points.

Fisheries is something I really want to read up on, as something is currently going very wrong in our seas. If we're not careful, the fishing industry will be destroyed and fish stocks will collapse.

I might consider blogging on this, if only to force myself to read up on it!

A French Existentialist Radio Play: Dans la Chambre

2009-04-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

When I was a child, my family used to take me on camping trips to France. Once, on one of these trips, I was playing in some rock-pools on a beach in Normandy and a French boy about my age came up to me. He started asking me questions.

In the best French accent I could muster, I tried to answer him: "Je suis Angleterre!"

He must have thought me either mad or patriotic in the extreme (if a distinction exists).

Since that day, my French hasn't really improved. I can just about string together series of words into meaningless sentences.

Not very good for camping holidays in Normandy... but perfect for a French existentialist radio play!

I present "Dans la chambre" - a play looking at the very essence of what it is to be human in a world without meaning.

The purpose of this is to practice my French in a fun way. If you speak French, please let me know how my pronunciation is!

Bon appétit!

Comment: Should Gordon Brown Hold a Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty?

2009-04-30T04:18:00.001-07:00

Bit of debate on Etan Smallman's blog here.

Gordon Brown promised a referendum on the EU Constitution. The Constitution was rejected in referenda in France and the Netherlands. It was then re-drafted as the Treaty of Lisbon. Is Gordon Brown still obligated to give the UK a referendum? Are the EU Constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon really that different?

My comment:

They’re about 90% the same (if not more). All references to states or constitutions removed (no mention of national anthems or flags, etc). Some stuff was shifted around from the main body into annexes (no practical difference in doing that, as it’s still legally binding, but makes it less obvious)

I agree that if you make a promise for a referendum on the constitution, it should still apply to Lisbon. I have no polling data at hand, but my gut tells me it would fail.

Comment: TH!NK ABOUT IT in the Greek Media

2009-04-30T03:45:00.001-07:00

Stergios Mavrikis reports in his blog (here) that the TH!NK ABOUT IT project has been recieving some attention from the mainstream media in Greece. Great stuff!

Me and Stergios were involved a few weeks ago in a discussion about the conflict in Cyprus (on another blogger's page - here). I had been fairly critical of the original post, and I had behaved badly. Cyprus is a modern conflict in which there have been many deaths and tragedies, and so when speaking to someone directly involved, you have to show sensitivity. I don't think I did this properly.

It's okay to be critical - but you also have to remember that if people are directly involved, it is not an abstract thing they are talking about. They may be personally involved in the conflict, and these are issues very close to them.

Still, I hope there aren't any hard feelings!

Here's my comment:

Congratulations, Stergios!
All of the TH!NK writers are involved in a very exciting experiment! Is it possible to artificially create a community of online writers through a competition such as this?
You have now demonstrated that you have the attention of at least part of the mainstream. Now you have to consilidate that attention build upon it!
The most interesting thing for me is to see if TH!NK bloggers keep on writing AFTER the competition is concluded. I hope you do!
P.S. I hope we’re still on good terms after our earlier conversation about Cyprus. I read your profile, and you have almost identical interests to me (especially when it comes to European identity). I’d love to hear more about your research!
Regards,
Joe

P.S. I do know how to spell consolidate!

Modern Slavery Inside the EU

2009-04-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

READING TIME: 10 minutes.

Most people associate "slavery" with the transatlantic slave trade, abolished in the 19th century. One estimate puts the number of Africans enslaved in that trade at over 11 million. But slavery did not end in the 19th century. It's still with us in the 21st.

Image by mvcorks via Flickr

As with most statistics on crime, calculating the extent of the problem is difficult. Victims are unlikely to be reported unless they are actually discovered by authorities. The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) admits that:

"Available information is often based on estimates with little explanation on how figures were calculated." (UN.GIFT, 2008, p.3)

Nonetheless, UN.GIFT fears the problem is growing each year and might even be "reaching epidemic proportions" (ibid). Those sources that do cite figures, despite running into the methodological problems outlined by UN.GIFT, can at least suggest the scale that modern slavery is operating on.

The UN International Labour Organization (ILO) published a "Minimum Estimate of Forced Labour in the World" in 2005 and came up with the figure of 12.3 million (Belser et al, 2005, p.1). Another study, published by Dr. Kevin Bales of the NGO Free the Slaves, puts the figure higher at 27 million (Bales, 2007, p.2).

DEFINITIONS: A PROBLEM OF IDENTITY

There is, of course, still the problem of how to actually define "slavery." Free the Slaves has published a list of 12 terms commonly used in place of the word "slavery" by journalists, academics, politicians, etc. These terms vary from "debt bondage" to "human trafficking" to "slavery-like conditions [popular with journalists]." The problem is, most of these terms actually are technically distinct: debt bondage is not the same thing as human trafficking!

By making these technical distinctions clear, is the power of the word "slavery" lost? Does it become easier to disconnect emotionally from the topic? And if it does become easier to disconnect, is this necessarily a bad thing? Does it not, in fact, provide needed objectivity? Or does it just encourage people to ignore the issue?

Certainly, we only seem to make these technical distinctions when discussing modern instances of slavery. "Debt bondage" and "human trafficking" have existed since the institution of slavery was first recorded, yet we still speak in more general terms of "slavery" when we refer to the practices in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece (Greene, 2000). Why then is there such a language bias today? Is it because we conceptualise slavery as belonging to the past? Or is there a more complicated reason?

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: A TERM WE CAN ALL AGREE ON?

One of the terms used most often when describing modern slavery is "trafficking in persons" (or "human trafficking"). Some commentators, though, have strongly criticised this term for being too detached:

“The transatlantic slave trade from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries involved the trafficking of eleven million Africans across thousands of miles to work as slaves on plantations. Why is this historical practice termed a slave trade and the same practice today termed trafficking? This linguistic attenuation scrambles global attention and blunts abolitionist policies.” (Kara, 2008, pp.4-5)

Even the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, has written about the problems of terminology, arguing that:

"The term trafficking in persons can be misleading: it places emphasis on the transaction aspects of a crime that is more accurately described as enslavement." (Costa, 2008, p.1)

If it is misleading, then why does "human trafficking" still persist as the term of choice used to describe modern slavery? The critics certainly seem to have a convincing argument: describing it as "human trafficking" makes it sound like the crime is in the moving of a person across borders, rather than in the enslavement of a person against their will.

Perhaps a part of the reason for the continued use of "human trafficking" might be the increasingly blurred boundaries between what is actually human trafficking and what is just "human smuggling" (i.e. "illegal" or "irregular" migration, as it is also known). Some critics point to a "migration-crime-security continuum" that sees "migrants themselves... criminalized and their experiences of victimization [overlooked]." (Goodey, 2003, p.416). In other words, according to this argument, politicians are eager not to be seen as being too "soft" on illegal immigration, and this can also unfortunately result in victims of trafficking being prejudiced against legally as a result.

The UN's legal definitions of both human trafficking and human smuggling are set out in the two "Palermo Protocols" adopted in Palermo, Italy, in the year 2000. The Palermo Protocols replaced an earlier definition of human trafficking from 1949 that had proved less than successful:

"Few countries had signed the 1949 Convention, partly because of controversies over its definition. (Skilbrei and Tveit, 2008, p.11)"

The definition of human trafficking is a sensitive subject for a lot of countries (including the United States, Germany and the UK, none of which had ratified the 1949 Convention), but the ILO argues that the distinction is now (post-Palermo Protocols) legally clear:

"The distinction between smuggling and trafficking, now firmly anchored in international law, has clarified that irregular migration processes can involve violation of human rights as much as they are a violation of state borders. Those who have suffered human rights violations are seen as trafficked victims and should be afforded protection measures." (Andrees, 2008, p.1)

So whether a victim is deemed to have been "trafficked" or merely "smuggled" (and also, therefore, the nature of the legal protection they are afforded) is dependent upon the treatment of the victim by the trafficker/smuggler. Specifically, according to the Palermo Protocols, the determinate of whether or not a victim has been "trafficked" or "smuggled" is whether or not the victim is being "exploited" commercially through "sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs" (Article 3a) and whether that exploitation is being achieved through illicit means (such as force, deception, abduction, fraud, etc.).

This goes right to the heart of the controversy surrounding the definition of "human trafficking," because by defining human trafficking as being essentially the same thing as human smuggling with the caveat that trafficking involves the infringement of the individuals' rights, this definition is potentially offering extra legal rights to "illegal immigrants."

BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES EVEN FURTHER

Elizabeth Pisani, author of The Wisdom of Whores, warns of the dangers of taking the worst-treated victims of human trafficking and generalising their experiences across the entire sex industry. She believes that, in the context of protecting sex workers:

"[T]reating all sex workers as though they are the helpless victims of trafficking is short-sighted and counterproductive." (Pisani, 2008, p. 227)

Furthermore, she argues:

"The 'victim' thing takes us back to the religious convictions of right-wing voters in the United States. In recent years they have launched a crusade to equate prostitution with human trafficking... I don't doubt that some pimps and brothel owners hold women and young girls against their will, forcing them to sell sex and sometimes even keeping all of the payment for themselves. But these cases of slavery appear to me to be relatively rare." (ibid, pp.213-217)

By challenging the identification of prostitution with "victimhood," Pisani's argument serves to further blur the boundaries between human trafficking and human smuggling. Is a woman who is smuggled for sexual exploitation with her consent not necessarily a victim of trafficking? Should she be treated as a criminal or as a victim?

A closer reading of the Palermo Protocols does not help matters. Sub-paragraph (b) of the definition of human trafficking states:

( b ) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph ( a ) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph ( a ) have been used;

So even if a victim consents to being smuggled, they should still be considered trafficked if certain means are employed in their recruitment. These "means" include not only force and deception, but also the abuse of a "position of vulnerability" over the victim. This immediately raises certain complications.

Martin Wyss, for example, Chief of Mission of the International Organisation for Migration in Moldova, has argued that in Moldova (one of the poorest countries in Europe) most victims of trafficking come from:

"vulnerable, broken families... [they] have looked for an alternative in Moldova and didn't manage to find one... [and they] act out of despair." (IMO, 2007)

Does this mean that, because of their especially vulnerable economic and social environment, irregular migrants from Moldova should automatically be considered victims of trafficking and not smuggling?

Wyss argues that a fixation on the question of consent is, at best, unhelpful:

"[The] question is always: how well did the victim know before she entered the trafficking trap. How 'guilty' she is... It is completely unfair to blame the victims, because even if they knew that they had to work [as a prostitute] in a bar, they never imagined the working conditions and they were always promised things that they didn't get." (IOM, 2007)

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

Human trafficking/slavery is always a highly complex issue in any regional context. But the nature of the European Union, with relatively poor countries in Eastern Europe sharing borders with the wealthy countries of Western Europe, and especially with the porous nature of national borders following the Schengen Agreement, makes for a particularly complicated situation (Kara, 2008, p.11).

In addition, the status of human trafficking in Europe is not a static, unchanging thing. It is constantly evolving in response to the new possibilities of globalization, the pressures of economic forces and the reactions of states, NGOs and law enforcement agencies. Anti-trafficking policies, if properly targeted and implemented, can have a real impact. Martin Wyss reports, for example, that:

"The statistics show that there are now very few victims from the Balkans these days. We believe that a concerted action from the international communities has had an effect." (IOM, 2007)

But just as fast as old trafficking routes are closed down, new ones open up. Lilia Gorceag, a psychologist working with the IOM Mission in Moldova, explains:

"At the beginning it was Kosovo and the Balkans. Today it has shifted to the Middle East, especially Turkey, as well as Russia and Ukraine. There is also internal trafficking." (IOM, 2007)

So what is the correct approach to take? Critics of the current international response have argued that "the international community has been... obsessed with stretching out their hands to the victims of trafficking" at the expense of a concerted focus on prevention (IOM, 2007). More effort needs to be spent addressing the root cause of trafficking, i.e; the conditions of poverty in developing countries that make people so desperate. But is this goal at all realistic? Elizabeth Pisani thinks not:

"To wipe out prostitution, you'd have to wipe out the poverty that fuels the supply side. A noble goal. But [some studies] suggest that prostitution is driven by demand more than suppply. So you'd also have to wipe out whatever it is that makes men buy sex." (Pisani, 2008, p.220)

Pisani is speaking in the context of international prostitution but her argument could equally be applied to human trafficking in general. Trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation is by far the most common form of trafficking (representing 79% of all victims) - although it should be pointed out that there could be a statistical bias at work here (Costa, 2008, p.2).

Pisani's argument is that it is essentially not possible to eliminate prostitution. In an age of increasing globalization, people will always cross borders, whether legally or illegally - and they will travel to anywhere better paid jobs can be found. Pisani thus calls not for prevention, but for more attention to be paid to targeting those factors that make life for prostitutes so dangerous and unbearable. These measures could be better distribution of condoms, funding for sex-education programs, and possibly even the legalisation and regulation of prostitution.

Would the legalisation of prostitution and increased representation of the rights of prostitutes (for example, through unions) help ease those factors that generate the violence against and mistreatment of victims of human trafficking? It's not completely clear that it would. Trafficking also takes place for the purposes of exploitation of manual labour (Costa, 2008, p.2) and labour is not prohibited like prostitution. Slave labour is exploited because it is cheaper than normal labour, and likewise sex slaves would always be cheaper than well-protected prostitutes.

Siddharth Kara, in his book, Sex Trafficking, argues that:

"The best short-term tactics against the industry are those that reduce the aggregate demand of consumers and slave owners. The most effective way to reduce aggregate demand is to attack the industry's immense profitability by inverting its risk-reward economics, that is, by making the risk of operating a sex slave operation far more costly." (Kara, 2008, p.200)

In other words, a greater emphasis on effective law enforcement and punishment. So where should the emphasis lie? On prevention, on protection (of victims rights) or on enforcement? In a perfect world: on all three. But in a real world of limited resources and political attention, the solution is unclear.

The difficulty in finding a definition of modern slavery is not just a side-argument, though. It is absolutely fundamental. It represents the current divided political opinion about modern slavery. Are modern slaves innocent victims of violence and intimidation? Or are they immigrants trying to cross borders illegally and fully aware that they will be entering into prostitution or other forms of exploitation?

In the middle of a global economic recession, it is entirely possible that views on modern slavery may harden even as increasing poverty drives more and more people into the hands of traffickers. If anything is clear from my investigations into the status of modern slavery, it is that more needs to be done to promote a general understanding of the realities and problems of the situation.

Beyond that limited suggestion, it is difficult for me to fully endorse one approach over another (especially given my limited knowledge of the subject). International institutions such as UN bodies have produced many considered and well-researched suggestions, but their hands can still be tied politically as they depend upon governments for support and funding. Opinions from academics and activists depend on who you are talking to and what their political beliefs are.

The fundamental question, then, is still one of definition. How you respond to human trafficking will depend on politics, and politics depends on how you define human trafficking. We seem to be getting closer to a consensus (with more countries having signed up to the Palermo Protocol than the 1949 Convention) but until clarity is achieved, we may find ourselves continuing to work at cross-purposes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andrees, B. (2008) Forced Labour and Trafficking in Europe: How People are Trapped In, Live Through and Come Out, International Labour Office, Geneva

Bales, K. (2007) Defining and Measuring Modern Slavery, Free the Slaves, http://www.freetheslaves.net/Document.Doc?id=21 (Accessed April 2009)

Belser, P. et al (2005) ILO Minimum Estimate of Forced Labour in the World, International Labour Office, Geneva, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_081913.pdf (Accessed April 2009)

Costa, A. (2008) Global Report on Trafficking in Persons: Executive Summary, UNODC

Goodey, J. (2003) "Migration, Crime and Victimhood: Responses to Sex Trafficking in the EU," Punishment Society, 5 (415)

Greene, J.D. (2000) Slavery in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Franklin Watts

IOM (2007) Testimonies of Victims of Human Trafficking (DVD), International Organisation for Migration, Mission to the Republic of Moldova

Kara, S. (2008) Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, Columbia University Press, New York

Pisani, E. (2008) The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS, Boydell & Brewer

Skilbrei, M. and Tveit, M. (2008) "Defining Trafficking through Empirical Work: Blurred Boundaries and their Consequences," Gender Technology and Development, 12 (9)

UN.GIFT (2008) Human Trafficking: An Overview, United Nations, New York, http://www.ungift.org/docs/ungift/pdf/knowledge/ebook.pdf (Accessed April 2009)

Comments: TH!NK ABOUT IT Bloggers Start Interviewing MEPs

2009-04-28T14:37:00.001-07:00

I've been commenting a lot on the TH!NK ABOUT IT site recently. I promise I do comment on other blogs, and you're probably all bored about me banging on about TH!NK ABOUT IT all the time, but I've been really impressed by both the quality and quantity of posts coming out of that site.

Today, for some reason, was a great day for interesting posts in the EU blogosphere, and a good number of them came from TH!NK. That project really has become the centre of the indy EU blogosphere in many ways (must. stop. over-using. the. word. blogo. sphere.)

Unlike most EU blogs, TH!NK ABOUT IT bloggers are not blogging as part of an institution or political party. Sure, they're being encouraged by the European Journalism Centre, but there're still writing independently of it. I really hope that at least some of them keep their taste for EU blogging and continue posting after the EU competition.

In fact, things are really starting to get very interesting over at the TH!NK ABOUT IT project. Not only is the daily post count rising, but the latest evolution of the project has seen more bloggers start carrying out filmed and written interviews with members of the public (usually fellow students) and, more impressively, with MEPs! Although this gives MEPs a chance to propagandise a bit with (mostly) unexperienced proto-journalists, it's also an example of EU bloggers doing actual primary research instead of just analysis!

Bart Staes managed to score an interview with a Belgian Green MEP and asked some very interesting questions (including a couple of tough-ish questions, such as: "Why are Greens needed if the other parties put these three crises on their agenda too?") [EDIT: Bart Staes is actually the name of the MEP! The blogger's name is Veerle Vrindts and "he" is actually a "she"! Sorry, Veerle! This is what I get for not reading things properly!] His [EDIT: HER!!] post can be read here.

I left a comment on his [EDIT: her] blog, encouraging him [EDIT: her] to try and get more interviews and asking him [EDIT: her] to share some tips so that other TH!NK bloggers will have an idea about how to go about setting up their own interviews with MEPs.

Here's my comment:

"Great job, Bart!
More and more TH!NK bloggers are actually getting out there and doing original journalism - conducting interviews with the public and with MEPs! That’s exactly what we need! (Nobody else is covering the EU elections, so you guys should do it!) :D
Tell us a little about how you went about your interview, though. Did you have a tape recorder? A camera? Did you take notes with a pen and paper? Did you have your questions pre-prepared, or did you think them up on the spot?
Regards,

Joe"

Frank Schnittger posted a very interesting analysis here on the current situation facing Libertas, the anti-Lisbon Treaty party. What most interested me, though, was that Frank has managed to arrange an interview with a politician and is asking his readers to submit questions. Not only would it be great if TH!NK bloggers organised more interviews with MEPs, but if they all asked readers for question submissions it would be fantastic! I'm not sure if people will take Frank up on his offer (it's difficult to think up good questions when you're not familiar with the politics!) but I'd strongly encourage everyone to use the opportunity!

I left a comment on his blog chastising him for not making a bigger deal about his interview:

"Hi, Frank!

Great article - very well written!

I have one teeny piece of criticism, Frank… it’s that you wrote this very interesting article about Libertas, and then RIGHT AT THE VERY END you have a miniscule paragraph about how you will be interviewing a Fianna Fáil politician and you’re happy to take questions from your readers!!

When is your interview? Please, please, if you have time, put together a seperate post briefly profiling Dick Roche and asking for people to submit questions! This is a great opportunity and really deserves to be another post in itself. At the moment, your Libertas analysis is distracting from it!

Other than that, good stuff!

Joe"

In contrast to the good proto-journalism being carried out by TH!NK bloggers, there were a couple of posts bemoaning the lack of attention the mainstream media is giving the EU elections, and the lack of campaigning by parties. To think! A bunch of grubby bloggers putting the mainstream to shame!

Eamonn Fitzgerald (here) spotted what might be Italy's first EU election poster in Rome.

My comment:

"Woo hoo! If I’m not mistaken, you’ve spotted Italy’s first EU election poster! And it’s all about… national politics.
Hehe, well - can’t complain! At least “Elezioni Europee” is mentioned!"

And Etan Smallman (on his blog here) noticed a Conservative Party EU election poster in the UK.

My comment:

Hi, Etan!
This is an interesting poster. The slogan “give us a referendum” makes it sound to me like the Tories are demanding a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU!
Of course, they’re actually only talking about a referendum on Lisbon.
This might just be the way I’m interpreting the poster, but I’m sure the Conservatives are going for the Eurosceptic vote.
Well - at least they’ve actually started campaigning!

I look forward to more posts like these!

Comment: Don't They Know The Elections Are a Month Away?

2009-04-26T22:23:00.001-07:00

TH!NK ABOUT IT is churning out plenty of high-quality posts recently, and there's another one there today from Helena Mercer, a student in the UK, lamenting the lack of any obvious campaigning by UK parties despite the elections being a little over a month away.

My comment:

Hi, Helena

It's not just the UK, unfortunately! Everyone in Italy is focusing on the local elections in May - and the European elections have received no attention.

Just yesterday Katrina wrote an interesting piece about the threat of the BNP getting in if you don't vote in the European elections:

http://www.thinkaboutit.eu/2009/04/wheres-the-hype/

I have to say, it definitely makes me want to vote!

Joe

E-mail re "The Results of the Icelandic General Elections"

2009-04-26T10:58:00.001-07:00

Dear Hjörtur J. Guðmundsson,

I've been reading your blog, EU News from Iceland, with great interest! Your latest post about the Icelandic elections was well written and explained things clearly to us outsiders!

However, somebody recently tipped me off to an article in the Icelandic review that argues the exact opposite - that a vote in the Althingi for applying to join the EU will likely pass with a 43 out of 63 majority.

I was wondering what your views were on this? Is it likely?

Regards,

Joe Litobarski

P.S. I have cc'd a copy of this e-mail straight to my public blog here. I'd love to publish your response as well, but please let me know if you would prefer me not to.

Comment: Vote in the EU Elections or the BNP Will Get In!

2009-04-26T09:10:00.001-07:00

A nice post by Katrina Jane Bishop over at TH!NK ABOUT IT.

My comment:

Cheers for this post, Katrina!

I have to admit: I hadn't thought about the EU elections this way. It seems much more important to vote when you consider that by abstaining you are making it easier for extremist parties to get in.

Comment: TH!NK ABOUT IT Interviews with Young Europeans

2009-04-26T08:49:00.001-07:00

I'm going to make more of an effort to comment on other blogs. I'll post a copy of whatever comments I make here (I'm using Scribefire, so there's no excuse not to).

Today, I came across an interesting post by Bulgarian blogger Boyan Yurukov on the TH!NK ABOUT IT competition site. I just left him some encouragement. Here's my comment:

Nice post, Boyan!

Good use of pictures and it's nice to see more interviews! One tiny thing: a couple of Plamena's questions and answers are mixed up - but it's very minor!

Regards,
Joe

Less Than Zero: The Impact of The EU Blogging Circus

2009-04-17T02:12:00.000-07:00

[Image: Scary Clown - Burning Life, Constanza Volare, 2008,
Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic, edited by Josef Litobarski, 2009]

The always interesting EU blogger Julien Frisch came up with a provocative post today about the state of the EU blogosphere. I've wanted to post something about EU blogging for some time now, and Julien has given me the kick-start I needed.

His argument was a sophisticated one: Julien feels that because the EU blogosphere is so very small and so very geeky, we write under the illusion that nobody is actually listening to us. On the rare occasion that a "non-geek" does actually lift the lid on our grubby little world, it's a rather disconcerting experience.

The EU blogosphere is a "quasi-private" realm. It's not quasi-private because our ramblings are concealed - everything is conducted very publicly - but because the obscure, geeky nature of our subject-matter ensures that hardly anybody bothers to read what we write. Julien calls this public/private world the "Circus of Geeks."

"Look Mummy, There is a Geek. And He's Blogging!"

It's difficult to know how much this quasi-privacy is actually an illusion. After all, as Steffan pointed out in his blog today, comments are not always the best way to gauge how much of an impact your blog is having. Tools like Google Analytics can help you determine how much traffic you are receiving, and if any of that traffic is coming from important domains like the offices of the EU Commission or Parliament, but that's a very nerdy and very imprecise way of assessing your impact (also, does that mean your blog is a failure if it hasn't been read by an intern at the European Parliament on his/her coffee break?)

Is the best that our carnival of geeks can ever truly hope to achieve really a "close to zero" impact on the real world? Are we doomed to look on in envy as "mainstream" political bloggers get ministers fired and expose political scandals (and how bad is it when you can describe other bloggers as "mainstream"?)

Stephen Pollard wrote a piece in The Times this week about the dangers of over-estimating the impact of blogging:

I know from my own experience as a blogger, a columnist and now an editor that there is no comparison between the impact of a newspaper and a blog. If I write something critical of government policy on my blog, it might produce a sage nod in agreement somewhere, but that's it. When, however, the Jewish Chronicle recently attacked the Government's plan to grant a visa to Hezbollah's spokesman, it helped to bring about a volte-face by the Home Secretary.

This goes double for the EU blogosphere. I'm quite sure our impact is less than zero.

EU 2.0b or Not 2.0b - That is The Question

Frank Schnittger, one of the bloggers over at the TH!NK ABOUT IT competition site, wondered last month if the competition might be dying.

TH!NK ABOUT IT, a project run by the European Journalism Centre, is a blogging competition designed to provoke interest in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections in June. Judging by the predictions of historically low turnouts in many member-states, by that criteria the project may not have been much of a success.

However, in terms of expanding our little circus of EU geeks, it could be great. Far from dying, the project is generating a lot of interesting posts and discussions. For my part, I've decided to make more of an effort to encourage all of the TH!NK bloggers to keep posting as we get closer to the elections. Not that I think their efforts will have any real impact on the actual elections - but the more geeks in the carnival, the bigger the show! In other words: if we have close to zero impact at the moment, it can't hurt things to develop a larger EU blogosphere.

And it really does encourage you as a blogger to receive comments and questions. Even if it's only fellow geeks commenting, it reminds you that people are actually listening. This is why I'm going to try to comment more on both TH!NK ABOUT IT and on other EU bloggers' sites in general from now on. Furthermore, I'm going to have a go at writing more posts like this one: examining what's being said by other bloggers and writing follow-ups. This is how debate takes shape.

The idea behind web 2.0 was always that it's not so much about the technology (which is often already in place) as it is about the community. By commenting more, posting more, interacting more and generally strengthening the network, it's possible to build up a vibrant internet community that draws from itself and turns up unique and fascinating debate.

In some respects, the tiny nature of the EU blogosphere is actually its biggest strength. There are literally a handful of names that turn up in the comments section of blogs, time and time again. It's easy to get to know people, and to start developing a dialogue. People are friendly and polite (if they insult each other, then absolutely nobody will be reading their blogs) and generally very welcoming to newcomers.

There' s Another Show in Town

Despite trying to be as neutral as I can in my approach to the EU, I find myself reading and commenting on broadly pro-EU blogs more often than not. This is a mistake. There is, you see, another show in town. Over the road from the circus-tent of the EUrophile geeks is the EUrosceptic geeks' tent. The two groups of clowns mostly stay in their separate tents, but very occasionally one or two will wander across for an argument.

Now, the blogosphere is a great place for debate. But it's also very prone to the dangers of tribalism and cyberbalkanization. I was having a debate with a EUrosceptic on Nosemonkey's blog recently, and I was reminded how important it is to engage properly with people that oppose your views (and I mean actually listening to what they're saying and trying to find common ground rather than just thinking up counter-arguments).

There was some minor heckling and name-calling on Nosemonkey's blog, but mostly the discussion has been civil and very interesting. I honestly feel I learned a lot. And it got me thinking: if now is the time to develop the EU blogosphere and strengthen the network of connections between bloggers, then now is almost certainly also the perfect time to strengthen those connections between the two tribes of geeks.

The EU blogosphere, whilst insignificantly tiny now, will not stay small forever. Despite growing painfully slowly over the last few years, it has nonetheless been growing. And as it grows, there are two possible directions it could take. The two camps could either grow increasingly polarised and separated, or they could maintain civil (and maybe even friendly?) relations.

So, in order to try to encourage the latter path of development, I'm going to try to visit, read and comment on as many EUrosceptic blogs as I can. I'm also going try to tone down the rhetoric when speaking with EUrosceptics, and call them out when they lapse into their own rhetoric. And I will be doing exactly the same when I speak to EUrophiles, especially if I see them mocking or insulting a position. If possible, I'd like to be on first-name terms with as many bloggers as I can by the end of this year (both EUrosceptic and EUrophile).

A Hippy Love EU Blogocooperative

This doesn't mean I want the EU blogosphere to morph into some sort of hippy love EU blogocooperative. My point is that it's useless to stay within your own ideological tribe and not to engage properly (and politely) with all opposing views.

Here are some of the things I intend to do:

Write more blog posts in response to things other EU bloggers have posted.
Admit more often (publicly) when I've made a mistake or changed my opinion. It's not "flip-flopping" and it doesn't invalidate my whole system of belief to admit I've made a mistake.
Listen closely to what other people are saying and engage with them seriously, no matter how badly argued I may feel their position is (I may very well not be understanding them properly - see below).
Make sure I'm absolutely clear I understand what a person is saying before I attack their point.
Ask more questions.
Do more research.
Criticise people from both sides of the debate if they lapse into rhetoric or insults.
Read and comment more (offering both support and criticism) on blogs from both sides of the debate.

Are Carrots Fruit? Does the EU Destroy Lives?

2009-04-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

This post grew from a lengthy discussion I've been having with readers on another EU blogger's site. As often happens with the EU, things quickly became a bit bogged down in the details and soon veered completely off-topic. And, as often happens in my life, lengthy and detailed discussions about jam and trucking ensued.

I'll open up a thread here just so that Nosemonkey's blog doesn't get dragged even further off-topic. If anyone feels like commenting, you're welcome to. Otherwise: here's the gist of what I was arguing.

Carrots = Fruit, Jam for the Making Of?

Things kicked off when Tim Worstall argued that:

"I don’t think there should be a law about whether carrots are fruit, jam for the making of, or not. So long as your Doce de Cenoura has a great big picture of a carrot on it to explain the orange colour, and the label as “cenoura” on it, that’s all that anyone needs."

The EU directive claiming that carrots are fruit can be found here. I gave it a quick once-over, and it's a fairly dull directive largely concerned with standardising product labelling across the EU so that jams made in one member-state can be sold in all the other member-states. It was first adopted in 1979 and then amended in 1988 in order to expand the definition of what constituted jam.

As far as I can tell, the directive does not go so far as to force jam-makers to use only fruit to make jam (or "jam-like" substance). It just seems that the directive only applies to those fruits/carrots listed in the text:

"Article 1
This Directive shall apply to the products defined in Annex I."

However, I very much doubt that you could market your cat-food flavour (or other non-fruit flavour) jam as an actual "jam" if it didn't conform to the directive. You would have to call it cat-food "preserve" or something like that. Also, note that the very fact the directive was amended in the first place should at least demonstrate the potential for future flexibility.

Nonetheless, Tim also pointed out an apparent absurdity contained within Annex II of the directive, in which a number of permitted additional ingredients are listed, including:

"leaves of Pelargonium odoratissimum: in jam, extra jam, jelly and extra jelly, where they are made from quince"

In other words, Pelargonium odoratissimum (aka apple geranium leaves) are only allowed to be added to jams made... from quince. Why does the directive only permit apple geranium leaves to be added to jams made of quince? I don't actually know. It does seem a tad odd.

I put a kettle on and had a bit of a think about this one. Maybe the list of additional ingredients is a consumer protection measure? It is a fairly comprehensive list, and could be designed to stop jam manufacturers from adding "filler" to their products and ripping off customers. Or perhaps (and more likely) different member-states had different legislation when it came to permitted additional ingredients, and the directive was attempting to standardise all the different laws. Or maybe apple geranium leaves give a jam a lovely appley flavour, providing the illusion that a particular jam is made from apples, and not from old socks and earwax. I'm not sure.

What is clear, however, is that the directive is about standardising jam labelling and (to a lesser extent) manufacturing. Tim's response to this was to argue that standardisation is anathema to competition, and it inevitably results in inefficiency and waste. Just look at the USSR.

The problem with this argument, however, is that without at least some standardisation, there is no market at all! If 27 different member-states all have different legislation covering the manufacture and labelling of jam products, then making jam for every country in Europe would be a massive headache.

Proponents of the single-market often argue that any barrier to trade between member-states is (or could potentially be) a form of protectionism, and that this runs counter to the liberal economic model. In times of economic hardship (such as the current financial crisis) domestic political pressure often forces a government to employ protectionist measures (remember Brown's slogan: "British Jobs for British Workers"?). The European single-market makes it much harder for member-states to actually implement protectionist policies.

On Trucks, Truckers & Trucking

The next topic was prompted by Robin, who proposed that people did not properly understand the anti-EU position because:

"You haven't had your way of life destroyed, so you wouldn't have the same emotions about these people than if you did."

He then gave various examples of groups of people whose professions, he argues, had been damaged by Britain's inclusion in the EU. One group mentioned was British international drivers.

Robin's argument was essentially that British hauliers are currently being unfairly discriminated against on British roads because they pay extra taxes to the British government, which EU drivers are exempt from paying.

The British government does indeed issue a Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), which is paid upon purchase of a driver's license. The UK is free to do this under EU law. I don't want to bore people by posting reams of EU law, but I would like to quote just two paragraphs from a directive. Specifically, directive 2006/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, which governs the application of toll charges by member-states, and says:

1. "This Directive shall not prevent the non-discriminatory application by Member States of:
(a) specific taxes or charges:

- levied upon registration of the vehicle...

The above paragraph is the one permitting the UK government to levy the VED. The second paragraph I want to quote demonstrates that EU truckers are also obliged to pay British tolls (at least, as far as I can gather from the directive):

"Article 7

4. Tolls and user charges may not discriminate, directly or indirectly, on the grounds of nationality of the haulier, the country or place of establishment of the haulier or of registration of the vehicle, or the origin or destination of the transport operation."

There is also something Robin didn't (as far as I can remember) actually mention, but which also affects British truckers: the high fuel charges consumers pay in the UK. Foreign hauliers are able to fill up with cheap petrol on the continent before arriving in Britain, giving them an edge over British truckers. This, however, is still a national policy, and is set by the UK government.

Next, Robin (quite rightly) pointed out that British hauliers are still obliged to pay to use toll-roads in other European countries, yet foreign hauliers don't have to pay VED in the UK (although it should also be pointed out that the EU does put pressure on member-states to keep toll-costs below a certain amount, as happened recently in Slovenia). This is true, but again: this is a national policy!

The British Conservative Party did, in fact, put forward a plan in 2007 that they claimed would make things fairer for British hauliers. I'm not sure if the plan is still current, or if they will actually have any success implementing it when they almost inevitably come to power in the next general election, but they claim that their plan conforms to EU competition law.

My point is this: the problems facing trucking are all issues that the national government can (potentially) do something about.

Of course, I'd certainly be interested to hear from you if you disagree!

Tax Havens - A Necessary Evil?

2009-04-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

[IMAGE: Financial crisis / Finanzkrise, 2009, alles-schlumpf,

Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic]

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about banking secrecy and tax havens. Since that post, the G20 has met, and tax havens were indeed discussed. Furthermore, the G20 announced that it intends to:

"take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems ... We note that the OECD has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information."

Will G20 countries ever actually go so far as to deploy sanctions? I'm not sure. But some commentators have been up in arms about this threat. One chap, blogging for the conservative US Heritage Foundation, wrote:

"The attack on tax havens is, at best, a politically motivated irrelevancy. At worst, it is the start of a broader campaign to find new sources of money to tax and stigmatize as international wrongdoers states that, as an expression of their national sovereignty, have chosen to have lower taxes. These states are using their political freedom to promote economic freedom: They are benefactors, not malefactors."

But, as ever, it's not so simple. Yes, states are well within their rights to set their own tax rates and compete with other states for international investment. But does that also give them the right to assist in tax evasion? In other words, do democratic states not also have the sovereign right to collect taxes?

Leftist, Big Brother Anti-Tax Haven Bureaucrats

Bob Bauman, writing on the "Offshore Asset Protection Blog," was even more critical:

"all this G-20, leftist, Big Brother anti-tax haven pressure is a smoke screen for welfare state tax collectors aiming for complete destruction of financial and personal privacy for everyone... These tax bureaucrats demand access to every citizen's financial lives, no matter where you live or where you may have assets."

But the "banking secrecy" employed by tax havens goes above and beyond the level of privacy provided by normal high-street banks. The issue essentially boils down to cooperation with government tax authorities: regular banks cooperate with tax authorities against tax evasion; tax havens do not.

Bauman goes on:

"[the OECD] also produced a blacklist of 34 supposedly "bad" tax havens, the sole criterion for "bad" being these jurisdictions will not automatically turn over requested tax information about foreigners with bank or financial accounts in their countries.

Of course the authors of the "bad" jurisdictions list carefully excluded themselves, including the United States and the United Kingdom, two of the leading tax havens in the world."

In actual fact, the list published by the OECD is not a moral judgement. It is a statement of fact. Indeed, it's not even so much a "blacklist" as it is a progress report. It doesn't mention "good" or "bad" tax havens. It just lists the progress of various countries in implementing regulations involving the sharing of tax information. Switzerland, as it hasn't yet implemented any OECD regulations, was on the list (although it was made clear that Switzerland has announced it intends to sign up to the regulations).

The United Kingdom and the United States were, despite what Bauman writes, also included on the list. They are at the top, beneath the heading "Jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard." This is because they have actually signed up to most or all of the OECD regulations. Switzerland has signed up to none of them. This isn't a moral judgement. It is a statement of fact.

Nevertheless, unhappy about being included on the list, the Swiss government then vetoed part of the OECD budget. This seems a tad spiteful. The OECD was vetoed, essentially, for reporting the truth. The amount vetoed was 134,800 euros - hardly a sum of bail-out sized proportions, but the veto sends a message.

The Oil That Greases the Machine?

The law firm Allen & Overy recently published an article defending tax havens. The article describes tax havens as:

"the oil which enables many uncontroversial financial and commercial transactions to run smoothly and it would be a mistake if changes which are necessary to prevent abuse were to result in that oil being drained from the system."

Their argument is, essentially, that tax havens should continue to exist because otherwise the international economy will suffer. Tax havens allow international transactions to cheat what would otherwise be an overly clunky system:

"The tax systems of most large economies are not perfect; they are complex and inflexible and often give rise to adverse mismatches which are unexpected and unintended and which do not reflect the economics of the transaction... A tax haven entity can be used as a very efficient pass-through for unexciting but important flows of money, in situations where unnecessary or uncertain tax rules would operate to make the transaction unattractive."

This may seem like a fair point. But surely it would be better for genuine tax competition to be taking place, rather than for businesses to constantly try and cheat the system. If a government has a clunky tax system in place, then it should suffer for that economically. If there aren't any negative effects, there will be no impetus to reform the tax system. This is supposed to be how liberal competition works.

The Dark Side of Tax Havens

By painting their critics as loony lefties or as big-brother conspiracy types, supporters of tax havens are ignoring the darker side of tax evasion. The truth is that the countries suffering most from tax havens are not rich, developed countries. They are countries in the developing world. Angel Gurría, the secretary general of the OECD, wrote an article last year in which he claimed that:

"developing countries are estimated to lose to tax havens almost three times what they get from developed countries in aid."

This is a truly shocking figure. Oxfam estimates that at least six trillion dollars of developing country wealth is currently being held offshore by individuals. This figure doesn't even include money moved offshore by private companies.

Now, I've listened to the arguments from both sides on this one. I honestly can't see any valid justification for allowing tax havens to continue operating. Even on their own terms they are a failure, because they distort global tax competition. When you add to this the damage done to the developing world, the continued existence of tax havens seem indefensible.

Fareed Zakaria on the EU

2009-04-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

[Image: Fareed Zakaria, 2007, Larry D. Moore, GNU Free Documentation License]

Last Wednesday (3 April, 2009), I went to see Fareed Zakaria, editor of the international edition of Newsweek, give a talk in Rovereto about the green economic policies of President Obama. I had this conception of Zakaria as a fairly conservative commentator, and so I was surprised at how liberal his ideas actually were.

I had already heard a lot of Zakaria's arguments made by other people, but he pulled them together into a coherent whole and presented them nicely. He spoke mostly about green technology and the pressing need to start adopting it as our oil runs out. At one point he said he would respond to those who say climate change is a hoax by saying that, if true, it would be "the most beneficial hoax in history" because it would have spurred the development of renewable energy. Of course, the problem with this point is that there is still plenty of coal in the world, and the debate is about whether or not to start exploiting it. Whether climate change is a "hoax" or not has a real impact upon this debate.

Zakaria also talked a little bit about the European Union. He criticised Europe for their initial response to the financial crisis, which he said had been to blame the US. Zakaria pointed out that European banks had, on average, three times the leverage of US banks (mostly invested in Eastern Europe). I would argue, of course, that there's a big difference between investing in the development of Eastern Europe and running a hedge-fund off the back of toxic mortgages, but he is correct in that this crisis was not purely the fault of Wall Street and the US.

My favourite soundbite from the night was this one: "Everything is globalised except the politics." Zakaria was arguing that the conflict between a country's domestic interests and its international interests produces harmful results. European banks invested heavily in Eastern Europe, convincing countries to allow them to operate in their markets by telling them "you don't need local banks, we will be your local bank." Then, when they had to be bailed out and partly or fully nationalised, the public in their home-countries objected to taxpayer money going to support these bank's Eastern European obligations. So the banks dropped their Eastern European obligations. Now, after this financial crisis is over, Eastern European countries may no longer trust Western European banks and may restrict how they can operate in their markets. Everything is globalised except the politics.

Asked about European leaders, he said that he thinks most of them are "serious people." Angela Merkel is a "serious person." Mr Sarkozy, on the other hand, is a "fascinating person." He ran for election telling the French people he would be a Reagan-style economic liberaliser, yet now he tells the press he is currently reading Marx's Das Kapital. Zakaria thinks he's just doing it for show, as Das Kapital is "an incredibly boring book."

The most "serious" person of all, however, in Zakaria's view, is British Prime Minister Gordan Brown. Zakaria said Brown is "almost an intellectual." But Brown's greatest flaw is that he does not "connect with the people" in the way that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi does. The two of them should have a child, mused Zakaria, and it would be the perfect politician. I'm not sure how many people would agree with that.

When it comes to the great debate about the European Union, Zakaria thinks the problem is that we have never resolved the relationship between the EU and the member-state. Every time something unpopular needs to be done, national politicians cry "don't blame me, it's all the fault of evil Brussels." And then when politicians say they want to build a stronger Europe, they complain they are unable to because Brussels is too unpopular with the public.

We are constantly taking away legitimacy from Brussels by blaming it when unpopular decisions need to be taken. The EU is like the whipping boy of national politics. The problem with this argument is that it makes Europe sound like we have only one politician, who can never make up his or her mind about Europe. In truth, we have many, many politicans, all arguing from different perspectives when it comes to the EU, and hardly ever coming to agreement.

Still, it's interesting to hear an outside perspective.

New Banking Laws - Will It Make a Difference?

2009-03-29T10:50:00.001-07:00

[Image: Credit Crunch, 2008, bitzcelt, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic]

In the midst of a financial crisis, with the G20 summit just around the corner, the debate over "tax havens" and "banking secrecy" has been heating up. Indeed, things have been progressing at such a furious pace that The Observer newspaper today reported that "senior international regulators [believe] more has been achieved [in terms of regulating tax havens] in the last 13 weeks than in the previous 13 years put together." Exciting stuff. Earlier this month, Switzerland bowed to international pressure and agreed to sign up to OECD banking regulations. Could this be the end of the tax haven?

Let's not get carried away.

Take Switzerland, for example. Public opinion in Switzerland (where referenda are practically constitutionally guaranteed when it comes to controversial political decisions) seems to favour keeping banking secrecy intact. Of 1,004 Swiss citizens polled for a survey commissioned by the Swiss Banking Association, 78 per cent wanted to keep banking secrecy. On the other hand, a separate poll of 602 people for a Swiss weekly newspaper showed that just over half of people thought Switzerland's reputation as a tax haven was justified, and 56 per cent of people favoured Swiss banks co-operating more with international regulators to stop tax evasion.

Still, Swiss banks argue, nervous investors might pull their money out of the Swiss economy instead of running the risk of governments going through their accounts. The President of Switzerland, Hans-Rudolf Merz (who is, funnily enough, also the Swiss Finance Minister) was quoted in the Washington Post as saying "We have a tradition of privacy. I don't want the state to sniff into my bank accounts as long as I'm paying my taxes correctly."

The problem is, of course, how is the state supposed to know whether or not you are paying your taxes if it can't look at the books? I'm not suggesting a solution (I, too, feel uneasy about letting the state rummage through people's accounts) but it does seem to be a paradox.

Others have argued that the problem is being overstated. The President of the Swiss Bankers Association, Pierre Mirabaud, has angrily countered the idea that tax evasion is endemic amongst Swiss banks, saying "it is completely absurd to think that the Swiss private banking industry is based on tax evasion. This, I am sorry to say, is a very good story, but it is not the truth."

Again, the paradox arises: how can we know how much tax evasion there is if the system is secret and information isn't shared with regulators? Even after the adoption of the new regulations, Swiss banks can still refuse to hand over information unless concrete proof is presented demonstrating that tax evasion has occurred. This sort of proof is rare, unless, for example, an angry partner or spouse co-operates with the authorities.

Some critics of reform, though, have raised other potential problems. Dan Mitchell, co-founder of the right-wing Center for Freedom and Prosperity, has warned that, if banking secrecy was overturned, corrupt governments might sell information about the world's richest individuals and companies to criminals and terrorists. The suggestion being that kidnappings and assassinations would follow. This doesn't seem a particularly solid argument. Why would corrupt government officials sell information whilst corrupt bank officials wouldn't? For that matter, if terrorists wanted a global rich hit-list, why wouldn't they just open up a copy of Forbes?

Mitchell makes a better case when he argues that "tax competition leads to low tax rates and increased prosperity" and that "sovereign entities have the right to secure tax privileges. Even if the US government does not like it." The problem, however, is that banking secrecy is not a black and white issue. It contains (at best) some very legally grey areas. Yes, small countries have the right to set their own tax rates and regulations, but does that also give them the right to essentially assist in fraud, corruption and international crime?

An excellent report came out this month from the international NGO Global Witness about the link between banking secrecy and corruption in developing countries. The message throughout the report was that large-scale corruption in developing countries requires two sides - the corrupt official on the one hand, and a bank willing to deal with the money on the other. The report attacked the current system of regulation, arguing that it doesn't go nearly far enough.

There are now, for example, many ways to protect your identity that make the old system of numbered Swiss bank-accounts almost redundant. A friend of mine in the business community explained how it works:

"In most cases, the Swiss banks don't even know who the beneficial owner of the account is. A very typical configuration is a corporate account in the name of... a cayman company which, in turn is owned by many different companies which are loosely held by a trust. As long as the final owner is a trust, there is very little legal action possible - that is the purpose of it."

The Global Witness report highlights this as one of the biggest problems facing the current system of banking regulation. A bank is not required, legally, to know who the eventual beneficiaries of a trust actually are before it allows them to open an account. So, even though the current Swiss reforms grab a lot of headlines, they don't necessarily make a lot of difference.

Because of all this, although the twin issues of tax havens and banking secrecy will definitely be on the agenda at the upcoming G20 summit, it remains to be seen how effective any new regulation will be.

[UPDATE: I was sent a report (LINK) on this issue by Allen & Overy, a law firm investigating various financial issues in the run up to the G20 meeting. I haven't read it yet, but will update when I have.]

Swiss Devalue: More Currencies to Follow?

2009-03-16T01:50:00.000-07:00

[IMAGE: Eat Money, 2007, waɪ.tiː, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic]

Switzerland has been in the news a bit recently. It has devalued its currency; something which has a lot of economist-types raising eyebrows.

In the UK, there was a lot of furor recently when the pound collapsed against the euro. Elle and I, personally, saw the value of our savings affected. It's an emotive issue, especially for UK businesses that import from the EU, overseas students (like me!), and British tourists abroad. Philip Hammond, of the Conservative Party, was quick to attack the government for failing British holiday-makers: "Hundreds of thousands of Britons find themselves grounded as the pound falls below one euro in value."

Hammond, as shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, must have been aware that what he was saying, whilst technically accurate and resonating strongly with the public, wasn't the whole picture. Just as Gordon Brown knew he wasn't being entirely accurate when, as shadow Chancellor in the 1990's, he attacked the Conservative government by saying "a weak currency is a sign of a weak economy, which is the sign of a weak government."

Both men know that a weak currency is often advantageous to an economy, especially in the long-term. If your currency is weak it harms your import industries, whilst at the same time it strengthens your export industries (and if you have a relatively weak export sector, like the UK, it encourages export industries to develop). It now costs people in the UK more to buy European products, but it also costs Europeans less to buy British products, making British producers more competitive than their European counterparts. Traditionally, an emphasis on exports is seen as a good thing for an economy, as it means there is more money flowing in and less flowing out.

This is why there is some concern over the Swiss devaluation. There is a fear that this could spark a "currency war," as other economies all scramble to devalue and retain their competitive advantage. This happened during the Great Depression, when the international economy got caught in a spiral of devaluations, with each country engaged in a race to the bottom. It was one of the things the Bretton Woods institutions were designed to prevent.

The Russians have already devalued the ruble, and worried economists are now eyeing the Japanese yen (although analysts are also arguing that it is impossible for Japan to devalue the yen without negatively affect trade relations with the rest of the world).

This is certainly something to keep an eye on.

In other economic news, Professor Kevin O'Rourke of Trinity College, Dublin, has published a convincing article arguing why no national government is currently seriously considering leaving the euro as an option. The more I read about this, the more I'm being pursuaded that no member-states will voluntarily leave the Euro, and that EcoFin will not be ejecting member-states. This is obviously an issue of high interest, because this blog has been getting a lot of traffic from people curious about the possibility of eurozone break-up.

Finally, one other titbit: Switzerland is relaxing its banking secrecy rules. This deserves its own blog post, so I'm busy working on one and will upload soon.

Electra (1962)

2009-03-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

[Image: Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon,
Frederic Leighton, c. 1868, Public Domain]

So far in my European cultural odyssey, I've been focusing pretty much exclusively on ancient Greek history. I do want to try to broaden out a bit (eventually!) but Greek history has been the natural starting point. So much of modern European language, identity, culture and history has been shaped by the Greeks (and later, to an even greater extent, by the Romans) that it's easy to forget about everything the Greek's borrowed from other cultures. This is a mistake, and it's something which cinema in particular has often had problems with.

It's also something I'm going to have to bear in mind. As an absolute beginner when it comes to Greek history, one of the ways I've been getting acquainted with it is by watching old movies. I like old movies. They've given me an easy "way in" to Greek mythology. But it's a risky approach. Watching the films before I'm familiar with the original history and mythology may very well be colouring my perceptions of the ancient Greek world.

In particular, the influence of "non-Western" cultures is something rarely highlighted in films. Greek (especially Athenian) culture is always contrasted sharply with, for example, Persian and Egyptian culture. There is no overlap between the different Mediterranean civilisations. The more I read, the more this seems like poppycock. Balderdash. Piffle, even.

The problem may be this: so far, I've almost exclusively been watching Hollywood movies; Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, The 300 Spartans, and so on. All very accessible to me as a modern Western viewer, all with standard tropes and stereotypes, but I may as well be watching Disney's Hercules in terms of how much they're going to teach me about day-to-day life in ancient Greece.

So, for a change, I recently hunted down a non-Hollywood movie by a Greek director called Michael Cacoyannis. The movie is Electra (1962) and, much like Lars von Trier's brilliant Medea, it's based on a play by Euripides. (As a side note, I'm starting to really like this Euripides chap; he was ahead of his time. Women, for example, are usually at the centre of his plays.)

The thing most immediately obvious about Electra (beyond the fact that it's in black and white) is that the dialogue is entirely in Greek. It might sound like a small point, but having watched all these Hollywood movies, it's easy to forget that the ancient Greeks didn't have American accents (or booming, Shakespearean stage-accents with excellent timbre). Greek sounds alien. Foreign. In fact, it sounds (to my untrained ear) closer to Arabic or Persian.

On the other hand, Hollywood's Greek (i.e. English) would have sounded equally strange to the ancient Greeks. To them, all foreigners sounded strange. Foreigners sounded like they were babbling a meaningless stream of noise: "bar, bar, bar, bar" - from which we get the word "barbarian." Foreign languages were "all Greek" to the Greeks and foreigners were just babbling. I suppose a modern take on the word barbarian might be a "babble-arian."

Anyway, I wouldn't say that Greek sounds barbaric (with all the connotations that word entails) but it certainly sounds a lot like "bar, bar, bar, bar." The point is: the language of the birthplace of Western thought sounds almost... Eastern.

Even more important than the language, though, is the costume design. With the exception of Electra (who, following the death of her father, cuts her hair short and wanders about with her head shamelessly exposed) all of the women in the movie are veiled. This is dramatic, and immediately distorts the familiar Greek stereotypes. The veil is something more commonly associated with the Middle East, and to see it being used in the birthplace of the "democratic Western tradition" is striking. Yet, according to an excellent book I'm currently reading on the subject, the women of ancient Greece did go veiled. Almost all of the women in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East went veiled.

Electra, then, is a fantastic antidote to the Hollywoodised version of ancient Greece. To cap it off, there's a hypnotic performance by Irene Papas as Electra, and the artistic use of veiled female bodies (white faces against black cloth) is stunning.

Well worth it.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Review Criteria

Shut the Shops and Sit in the Corner

2009-03-08T08:41:00.000-07:00

[Image: "Open/Closed", 2007, nchenga, Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic]

One of the most frustrating things about Italy (for me) is the siesta.

Between twelve and three o'clock, Trento dies. Yes, the bars and restaurants buzz with activity - but if you go to shops, bakeries, banks or offices and try to open the door, it will resist. A little sign will be in the window saying "chiuso" (closed). Perhaps people inside the building will see you pushing at the locked door, and they will laugh at you. You will be a figure of fun in the streets. For you have forgotten about siesta.

More than once I've taken a jaunty stroll to the local shop to buy some goodies for lunch and found it chiuso. Not so jaunty my return home. The idea of nipping out during your lunch-break to do a bit of shopping (or even a spot of banking) just doesn't exist in Italy.

Why does this frustrate me so? Because there's no flexibility in it. I have to carefully plot my day around the opening hours of shops and restaurants. After three o'clock, for example, all of the restaurants close down and the shops open up again. If I want to buy my lunch from a shop at two? Not possible. If I want lunch at a restaurant at three? Non è possibile. A couple of times now, Elle and I have rushed around major Italian cities looking for a restaurant still serving food for a late lunch.

Compounding this is the fact that almost everything shuts down on a Sunday. In fact, some shops even shut down at one o'clock on a Saturday and won't open again until Monday. If you don't have food in the house by noon on a Saturday, you're screwed. Even restaurants are generally shut on Sundays, so the skinny shadow of starvation looms large.

Some of this is because Trento is a small town. In Rome or Milan, shops and restaurants are more flexible. Still, in general, flexible opening hours are something I really miss about England.

If you do somehow manage to find a restaurant open in Italy, of course, then it's bloody well worth it!

The 300 Spartans (1962)

2009-03-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

I've just finished watching The 300 Spartans [DVD] [1962], a movie about the battle of Thermopylae. It has a fantastic tagline: "Thermopylae... Mighty battle epic of a handful of men forming the invincible "flying wedge" against a killer horde five million strong!"

Catchy.

I can imagine Frank Miller watching this as a child and zooming about the room pretending to be an invincible "flying wedge." Miller, who would later go on to write the comic 300, was apparently heavily influenced by this movie.

It's a classic "good" versus "evil" epic - with not-so-subtle Cold War undertones (there's a lot of talk, for example, of the Spartans fighting for "freedom" from King Xerxes's Eastern "slave empire.")

The movie sees brave Spartan King Leonidas lead his band of 300 Spartan warriors up into the narrow pass at Thermopylae, where wicked King Xerxes throws wave after wave of Persian barbarians at them, all promptly cut down by noble Spartans like the dogs they are.

Goateed King Xerxes becomes a cartoon villain, then - and I have a sneaky suspicion that the film-makers invented atrocities to make him seem even more despicable. At one point in the movie, he orders all of the prostitutes in his camp to be "destroyed," because then the Persians will fight even harder in order to get at the Greek women. I had a poke around the Googles and the internets, and I couldn't find any reference to the real King Xerxes having done this (please correct me at citeur@gmail.com if you can find any information on this).

Meanwhile, the Spartans become complete paragons of virtue. No mention is made of the apalling helot system of slavery upon which Spartan society was based. But then, it might have befuddled the poor audience if Leonidas had given a rousing speech calling on the Spartiates to fight for "Freedom! For the freedom to keep our slaves and beat them into submission! SPAARTAAA!!!"

We shouldn't be surprised at all this. The battle of Thermopylae must be one of the founding myths of Western Civilization. Furthermore, this was a film made by Hollywood in 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Ruskies were busy sipping rum and cokes in Havana. The 300 Spartans was hardly going to portray the Persian Wars as anything but an epic tussle between good and evil.

Once you get past this, there is a fun movie underneath. There are some cracking performances by British stage actors David Farrar as Xerxes and Ralph Richardson as crafty Athenian politician Themistocles. The action is a bit hit and miss (if you'll excuse me) but the scenes of hundreds of Persian soldiers marching into battle are nicely done.

There are some wonderfully anachronistic lines ("they fight like machines!" gasps one Persian general as he watches his men cut down by the unstoppable Spartan terminators). Despite its problems, it's not a bad movie. True: it's not a fair representation of the Persians (nor of the Spartans, for that matter) but it's action-packed enough, and well made. And I did like the "flying wedge" at the end (although it was more of a "floating square," drifting unsteadily towards the worried-looking Persian King).

Not bad.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Review Criteria

The Trouble with Cheek-Kissing

2009-02-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

[Image: Kissing Black-tailed Prairie Dogs, Mila Zinkova, 2006,
GNU Free Documentation License, Attribution Sharealike 2.5]

Theres a lot of stuff I'm still getting used to when it comes to Italian culture. One of the most awkward things has been the clash between the Northern European and Southern European styles of greeting.

In Northern Europe (certainly in the isles), we typically greet our closest friends with a hug. Doesn't have to be a massive bear-hug (unless we haven't seen them in a while) but hugging is common. Men hug women, women hug women and men hug men.

In Southern Europe, cheek-kissing is much more common. Men kiss women, women kiss women, and (only very rarely) men kiss men (much more usual between guys is a manly handshake). This has taken some getting used to.

Cheek-kissing is an almost ritualistic greeting/farewell. Each person in a given group must kiss every other person in the group - and so it can take some time to complete the ritual. In England, in situations like this, we can save time by simply waving at everyone and saying "Hi, guys!" In Italy, however, if someone starts a cheek-kiss, then the entire group has to kiss. I guess it helps a group to form bonds (much like getting drunk every weekend helps a group in England to bond... although, I'm not sure which method I prefer).

Generally, one doesn't actually kiss the person on the cheek in Trento. Instead, you touch cheeks and kiss the air in front of you. You do have to actually touch cheeks, though, because people tend to feel a bit jilted if you don't. One of my Italian friends has been telling me off because I haven't been touching cheeks properly (which she sees as a wishy-washy way of cheek-kissing).

It's difficult for me, being a fairly tall chap and not having had any practice at this, to get it right. I'll often misjudge and end up not touching cheeks (bad form). As cheek-kissing is normally done on both cheeks (mwah, mwah), one usually gets a second chance if the first cheek is a miss.

I honestly can't remember now if it goes left cheek first then right cheek or right cheek, left cheek. I do remember that at the beginning there would be some confusion with this, as one person would turn their face the wrong way and the pair would come face-to-face (wuh-woh!). This is, I suppose, another part of the ritual. As you get to know the act of cheek-kissing, the group harmonises and the act becomes automatic.

These differences in culture are fascinating. They can be little things, like trying to pass by someone as they are heading directly towards you in the street; instinctively you walk to the left (as that's the way one passes other people in England)... and they instinctively make for their right... so you end up bumping into each other.

The fun, of course, is in the learning!

[UPDATE: Because I've been getting so much traffic for this post, I've decided to update. In Italy, I kiss left cheek first, then right cheek. So that means when I approach somebody, first I turn my face to the right, then I turn my face to the left. Can't say for other countries, though!]

Archaeology, Myth, and History: the Minoan and Mycenaean Worlds (2007)

2009-02-26T04:12:00.000-08:00

[Image: Minoan Prince of the Lilies, Knossos, Photo by: Harrieta171, 28/01/06,
GNU Free Documentation License, Attribution Sharealike 2.5]

This podcast is part of a series of lectures from UC Berkeley's "History 4A: The Ancient Mediterranean World" course, made available online for free here. The podcasts were recorded in the fall of 2007, and this particular lecture is number 7 in the series. I'm starting here because the earlier lectures deal not with Greece, but with Ancient Egypt and the Near East.

The lectures are given by Dr. Isabelle Pafford, who has a lively, fun style of lecturing that is worlds away from the stereotypical stuffiness of academia. She begins, for example, by addresing "all of those students who are not in this room, and who are listening to this lecture by podcast... I'm lonely! I miss you! I look out at the sea and I wonder if everyone's dropping my course!"

The lecture begins with a little geography. Pafford argues that the effects of Greek geography (a dense networks of islands in the Agean; a mainland characterised by valleys, mountains, coastline and a relative absense of plains and rivers) fostered both "seperatism" and "connectivity" in the Ancient Greeks, ultimately giving rise to the city-states. We have "a large number of seperate communities," but with a common identity and ethnicity, binding them together and seperating them from the "barbarians."

Pafford then talks about the bronze age, which ran from about 3000 b.c. to 1050 b.c. At this point, early in the lecture, things become a little confusing. Pafford says that the "bronze age begins in the 3rd millenium with the development of metalurgy, with the development of the ability to make tools and bronze, to make weapons. Things are no longer made of stone, according to the archeological record, and this is why we call it also the iron age."

The iron age?!? I thought we were talking about the bronze age! The iron age was (according to Wikipedia - that bastion of rigourous scholarship) 1000 b.c. to 400 a.d. Things get even more confusing, however, as Pafford goes on: "The earliest human habitation of Greece is about 1000 years before the Bronze Age, and the evidence for this human habitation in Greece goes back to about 18'000 b.c."

So was the earliest human habitation within Greece in 4000 b.c. or 18'000 b.c.? This is all very confusing. I think, however, that this sort of thing is a problem with the medium of podcasting more than with Pafford's lecturing. In a live lecture I would be able to stick my hand up and ask for clarification. Furthermore, the fact that, in a podcast, I can rewind time and play a segment over and over means I can pick up on tiny little errors of speech made by Pafford which she may not even be aware of.

So, does a lecture like this work as a podcast? On the whole: yes. It's true that Pafford does use a lot of visuals that we, as listeners, don't have access to - but then she does try to describe everything properly and the slides aren't a large part of the lecture anyway [EDIT: Slides play a much bigger part in later lectures, and the fact we can't view them does become difficult]. Pafford does have to pause a couple of times to rearrange her slides (as a reviewer of one of Pafford's other lectures has pointed out) but this sort of thing is inevitable during lectures, and is only really noticable because it's a podcast and not a live lecture.

Pafford manages to fit an enormous amount of information into a one hour lecture - going from 18'000 b.c. to the end of the Greek Dark Ages. By doing this, however, she manages to keep things exciting by focusing on the most interesting points.

There is a nice question and answer session at the end of the lecture (and students ask questions throughout) all of which Pafford answers well and in an engaging way. Whenever a question comes up, Pafford makes sure she repeats it clearly into her mic for the benefit of the podcast.

Overall, then - this is a fun, interesting lecture. There are a couple of issues, but more to do with the medium of the podcast than with the quality of the lecture. I look forward to listening to more of these!

Rating: 7 out of 12
Review Criteria

Review Criteria

2009-02-24T07:05:00.000-08:00

Reviews are (hopefully) going to be a fairly central part of this blog. So it's about time I explained exactly what I'm going to be reviewing and how I will be reviewing it.

I'll be using a somewhat unorthodox 12 star review system, based on the Citizen Europe logo. However, something will have to be absotively ruddy outstanding to garner 11 stars, and I don't anticipate ever handing out the full 12 stars unless something is so 'gasmic it changes my entire worldview. So, essentially, it will be a 10 star system with an extra two stars available to highlight anything that really, truly stands out. Simple.

THE SCORES

Rating - 0 out of 12

If something scores 0 out of 12, then it is unreviewable. Either it is broken beyond repair, physically unreadable or unwatchable. Alternatively, if something scores 0 then it may have made my brain bleed a little bit.

Rating - 1 out of 12

1 out of 12 might mean that something is almost (but not quite) so pants that it is unreviewable. It may technically be watchable/readable/playable, but it is a serious effort to do so.

Rating - 2 out of 12

A score of 2 out of 12 means I find this item deeply, deeply flawed. I'm a fairly forgiving bloke, but this item is just trash. At least it physically works (although it may even have serious problems in this respect).

Rating - 3 out of 12

In all honesty, something I was reviewing would have to be pretty bad to actually score a 3 or less. Certainly, anything scoring 3 is not something I would recommend to anyone I liked. On the up side, if it scores a 3 then it (probably) at least works properly.

Rating - 4 out of 12

If something scores 4 out of 12, then it actually had one or two elements I enjoyed, although the overall experience was negative.

Rating - 5 out of 12

5 out of 12 is a completely unremarkable product. It is not necessarily bad, but it has nothing to particularly recommend it either.

Rating - 6 out of 12

6 out of 12 has done at least some of the right things. It's not great, but it just about manages to do more stuff right than wrong... Ho-hum.

Rating - 7 out of 12

7 out of 12 is actually not so bad. It may have some genuinely interesting elements - but several things let it down. The overall experience was positive. If whatever this thing is falls within your general area of interest, then it might be worth hunting it out.

Rating - 8 out of 12

8 out of 12 is pretty good. It may have one or two things wrong with it, but these niggly little negative points are outnumbered by the positive things. I would recommend this thing, but not as an absolute "must-see."

Rating - 9 out of 12

9 out of 12 is very nearly great. There is probably only one negative thing about it, and this is something that is only just preventing me from giving it 10 out of 12. Definitely recommended.

Rating - 10 out of 12

10 out of 12 is a nearly perfect product (just look at how excited the little man has become!). If you have the opportunity, you should hunt this down and watch/read/play it. I highly recommend this.

Rating - 11 out of 12

Wowzers! Anything scoring 11 out of 12 is particularly noteworthy. If you can experience only some of the things reviewed on this blog, this should be one of them.

Rating - 12 out of 12

Anything worth 12 out of 12 has genuinely changed the way I view the world. Stop reading this. Find whatever it is I gave 12 stars and experience it. Now.

WHAT WILL BE REVIEWED

Pretty much anything can be reviewed. Articles, books, music, food, places, people, anything.

The only criterion for inclusion is that there must be some connection to Europe. I will be looking at things from a "European" perspective, and specifically looking at how much something can teach me about European history and culture. If I come out of the experience feeling I've learned something, then I will rate it positively.

Generally, the things I review will fit into a historical "theme." I will try my best to work my way forwards, chronologically, through the whole of European history. I'm starting with Ancient Greece, and I will try to finish with modern Europe (c'est vrai: this is hopelessly ambitious).

I'm more than willing to include "themes" that might fit outside the geographical borders of Europe (insofar as they exist) that nonetheless have had an impact on the development of European culture. Ancient Egypt, Persia, and the levant, for example, will probably qualify as "themes" of interest.

Ultimately, this will be a highly subjective series of reviews. I am doing all of this in order to get a handle on what is "Europe," and anything which helps me to meet this goal I will view positively.

By the way, if you can think of anything I should be reviewing, please send me an e-mail at citeur@gmail.com!

Notes from The Carnival

2009-02-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Late last night, we returned home from the carnival of Venice. Elle had been to the carnival as a child, and had often told me about her experience. It always sounded amazing - masked figures emerging from the shadows of twisting Venetian alleyways and covering people in clouds of confetti before disappearing again into the maze. I really wanted to see it!

We almost didn't go this year (for various reasons) but then, at the last minute, we decided to hop on a train and head for Venice. The first stop, though, was Verona - where we went to a couchsurfing fancy-dress party. Elle went as Puss in Boots, and I went with a cheap (but grotesque) pig mask, making me look like something out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We met some really interesting people dressed in some truly bizarre costumes (one couchsurfer, for example, had actually gone as a tentacle from cult video-game Day of the Tentacle. He had made himself a giant painted felt tentacle, and would glide across the floor in a slightly disconcerting way. When he won the prize for "Most Original Costume of the Night," a group of his friends tackled him and jumped on him, causing his costume to ooze blue and green paint onto the floor. Truly bizarre.)

We partied till late and slept in a spare room. The next day (after coffee and biscuits) we caught the train to Venice.

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

We arrived in the late afternoon, and as soon as we left the station we promptly found ourselves lost in the twisting labyrinth of Venetian streets. Despite signposts offering directions to the main piazza, Venice is almost impossible to navigate without constantly looking at a map. This is, however, half the fun. One is never entirely sure where one is.

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

The sun started to set, and things became even more confusing. At one point, we were desperately rushing back to the train station to avoid missing the last train home, and realised that the main street we had been looking for was actually a canal. All those wiggly lines look the same on a map when twilight sets in! Luckily, we found another way to the station.

Despite being constantly lost, Venice was great fun. I love the experience of walking through a crowd at night and of having absolutely no idea what strange sight is going to pop up next. I had this feeling in Bangkok in Khaosan Road, and I got it in Venice during the carnival. I saw parades of snowmen, Village People and Ghostbusters (with accompanying music), medieval kings and knights and more, all against the backdrop of the canals of Venice at sunset.

The highlight of the night, though, was when we stumbled out into Piazza San Marco to find it packed to the gills with crazy costumed people... and a woman tied to a balloon flying through the air to music. It was great fun to watch her swimming and cartwheeling through the air, brushing her fingertips against the crowd below before flying up high and performing a series of somersaults. Fantastique!

[Video: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Il Grand Masquerade

2009-02-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

[Image: Venice Shop Window, 2002, Peter Rimar, Public Domain]

To celebrate me having finished my exams, Elle and I are off to Venice for a couple of days. We want to try and catch the tail-end of the carnival (hopefully I'll get some pictures and post them up here). Exams all went well, and spirits are high. We're off to a couchsurfing party in Verona (of Romeo & Juliet fame) tonight, and then on to Venice tomorrow.

EU 2.0: Europe and The New Social Media

2009-02-15T13:33:00.001-08:00

[Image: Twitter Pack, carrotcreative, 2008, Attribution 2.0 Generic]

"Social media" was one of the buzz-phrases of 2008. It was the year when the new generation of social-networking tools began to seep into the public consciousness - the "new social media" upstarts looking to usurp profits from Facebook and MySpace. Twitter in particular caught peoples attention, the ranks of its users swelling enormously as celebrities and politicians started using it to send out messages to fans. As Obama's campaign has demonstrated, these new social-networking sites have fantastic potential in politics, especially when it comes to closing the much-lamented "democratic deficit." On the other hand, they also have enormous potential for the viral transmission of slander, gossip, porn and humourously captioned pictures of cats.

I've just got into Twitter myself, and in terms of how I adopted it, I have behaved like an absolutely typical newbie. My experience was as follows:

Step 1) The First Tweet

When I first blogged about Twitter a few weeks back, I called it a "glorified Facebook status-update bar." I couldn't see the point. Didn't Facebook do this sort of thing better? But Twitter had been in the news a bit, and Stephen Fry was on board and had twittered all about being stuck in a lift, so I thought I might as well see what all the fuss was about and give it a go.

My first "tweet" was fairly predictable: "Josef is finding his feet with this 'twitter' malarky." Nothing wrong with that, of course. I was finding my feet. But it wasn't long before I'd moved on to stage two...

Step 2) Non-Information Overload

I proceeded to detail my life in excruciating detail - explaining what I'd had to eat, what I was watching, what I was listening to, what I was doing during every minute of every hour of every day. I thankfully stopped short of describing my bowel movements... but only just.

To be fair, Twitter did market itself as a service which, to use correctly, requires you to answer the simple question, "What are you doing?" several times a day. But I found this to be a deeply unsatisfying way of using Twitter. And so did my friends.

After a few days of "Josef is not sure what to do today" and "Josef found a peanut behind the sofa", I started to get posts on my Facebook wall (I'd integrated Twitter with my Facebook status-update bar) complaining that my updates were getting increasingly tedious.

Step 3) Enter The Power-Users

Before long, I naïvely thought I had finally "got" Twitter. It seemed to be the perfect web-feed. I "followed" a bunch of blogs and websites, and their "tweets" would pop up on my desktop (I used Digsby to follow Twitter in real-time), letting me know about interesting new articles and posts as they went online.

Then, as I started following highly-networked Twitter accounts such as Stephen Fry, Barrack Obama and Kevin Rose, the predatory "power-users" began to take an interest. People with 20'000 followers, usually social media "experts," began randomly following my account.

At first, I didn't mind all these new contacts. I followed them back and quickly built up a little network of mutual followers. But it was a flawed network. We had absolutely nothing in common, and they were only using me to bump up their numbers. So along came the fourth stage...

Step 4) The Great Purge

This was where Twitter started to get interesting.

I unfollowed all of the useless power-users who had been cluttering up my data-feed. More would quickly take their place, and at first I would manually block them from following me. After a while, though, I just ignored them. Most power-users run programs which automatically unfollow you if you don't reciprocate and follow them back.

When I became more selective about who I followed and who I let follow me, I began to see Twitter's real potential. I was organically growing a network of contacts tailored to my specific areas of interest. In my case, it was the European Union.

After several weeks of use, I really think I "get" Twitter now. I've said that before, and I've been wrong, but I've had a bit more time with it now.

Twitter (IMHO) has three primary uses:

Information Gathering - Twitter makes a rubbish web-feed. Google Reader is much better at that particular task. But if you run Twitter in the background, then it works like the little rolling infobar at the bottom of TV news broadcasts. And Twitter has the potential to deliver news almost in real-time, well before traditional media. The first pictures of the Hudson river plane-crash came out through Twitter, uploaded by a passenger on a ferry from his mobile.

Promotion - Twitter, out-of-the-box, is a bit pants. But if used in concert with a program like Digsby and a Twitter-specific search-engine (such as Twitter Search) then it can become a powerful little tool for promoting your work. You can search for people who share your interests, and start following them. Over time, you can develop a network of people who are genuinely interested in what you're writing, no matter how obscure the topic. The readership of this blog (although still humble) shot up when I started using Twitter.

Networking - I inadvertently managed to get my blog selected by the editors of bloggingportal.eu as one of their picks of the day. I'm not sure, but I have a sneaky suspicion this was because I'm following some of the editors of that site and have been @tweeting things their way. At the very least, it got my blog noticed. But Twitter is a great way to meet contacts with similar interests. In fact, the whole point seems to be to grow a network of contacts - which makes Twitter a breeding ground for the creation of new and creative collaberative projects.

EU 2.0: When Twitter Meets the EU

In addition to these primary uses, I've been experimenting with a fourth (and slowly emerging) new way of using Twitter. It's only just taking shape, but already (of course) has a portmanteau to describe it: Twitterviewing. To twitterview.

This is, for me, by far the most exciting potential use for Twitter. It's something I've only experimented with a little so far, but it could potentially become a vital tool for journalists, bloggers and (most importantly) citizens. In the European context: public figures, MEPs and other institutional members (such as commissioners) are increasingly turning to new social media that could potentially expose them more and more to questions from the growing ranks of "citizen journalists."

So far, EU politicians and bureaucrats are still finding their way when it comes to new social media. A handful already have blogs (some of them obviously maintained by their staff and used for nothing more than posting weekly itineraries online) and I haven't yet come across any which actually allow comments. [EDIT: Thanks again to Grahnlaw for exposing my sloppy research! Some eurocrats do indeed allow comments on their blogs. They may not often actually respond (perhaps understandably, given the amount of vitriol thrown their way) but they should be commended for at least allowing comments. I want to encourage more people to point out errors in my posts - I will always try to correct them. I have no editors or producers, so my readers are effectively the only content-control I have. Another drawback (and benefit) of new media.] The few "eurocrats" already on Twitter are mostly using it as a web-feed for their blogs. But the potential is there.

It is, of course, the ultimate wet-dream of e-democracy. To have unfettered, 24/7 access to democratically elected representatives who will respond to direct questions from concerned citizens, without a press officer there to hold their hand. It is also, however, horribly unrealistic. No doubt some European politicians and other EU people will be willing to expose themselves to the public eye and dive headfirst into twittering (and good for them!) - but most will be either unsure of the technology, unwilling to take the PR risk or, doubtless, worried about the inevitable accusations of time-wasting. But there is another important way Twitter and the other new social media could positively affect the EU. They could impact upon the developing EU blogosphere by better connecting bloggers with the general public.

One of the ways Twitter differs from other social networking sites, such as Facebook, is that it is a more receptive environment for cold-networking. With Facebook, for example, when the average user receives a friend request from a total stranger, they will reject it as a potential spammer (I certainly do). Cold-networking (networking without any previous contact) is, however, at the heart of the Twitter community.

I experimented a little with cold-networking when I wrote about the recent Swiss referendum. The day the news broke, I hopped onto Twitter Search and looked for accounts from Switzerland (and anybody generally just talking about the Swiss referendum). I put together a short generic question asking people their opinions on the results and I sent it out. Every single person I asked replied. Here's a selection (anonymous because I neglected to ask their permission to post this):

"to me a "Yes" on Swiss vote means openness and a willingness
to take some risks - Swiss people becoming better at both IMO"

"populations are becoming more international
in composition and outlook."

"Another POV is apparent if you look at a map:
look at .ch and its borders, can we really go alone?"

Perfect, bite-sized little reaction quotes for a blog. These people, total strangers, were willing to share their opinions with me through Twitter. Not only that, but several of them have since joined my network of contacts and we've been engaging in a bit of debate. They will (I hope) read my blog and comment. And I will listen to what they have to say (and especially to how they react to my views on their opinions). There is the potential for real, on-the-spot, citizen-journalism in new social media.

And there is, of course, also very real danger here as well. "Bite-sized" can also mean shallow. "Citizen-journalism" can also mean sloppy hack journalism. Early pitfalls have already emerged. When conducting twitterviews, for example, it needs to be made clear that what is said will be posted online, and permission needs to be sought for citations.

One twitterviewee also pointed out the obvious limitations of a platform like Twitter:

Yes you can [ask my opinion], but I will
not be able to answer in 140 characters! :)

In future, then, I think I'll include an e-mail address in my question, so twitterviewees have more of an opportunity to expand upon their answers.

Ultimately, these are still early days out on the European digital frontier. Two new sites have just been launched which could provide a focal point for the EU blogosphere. I've already mentioned bloggingportal.eu, which aggregates EU-related blog posts and has editors select the most interesting posts daily. It could become an invaluable site for blog-promotion, and for anyone who doesn't have the time to set-up a dedicated RSS feed. I'd like to see a bit more transparency in terms of information about the editors and the selection process, but we're promised this will come soon. [EDIT: Andreas of Kosmopolito blog, also involved with the bloggingportal project, has responded to this. Editor profiles will indeed be up soon, but the selection process is subjective, and so it's difficult to make it transparent. This is fair enough, and when Editor profiles are online, (hopefully outlining political views and areas of interest), it shouldn't be a problem].

The second site is an initiative by the European Journalism Centre called TH!NK ABOUT IT. There seems to be some overlap between the two websites, even if it's only that the seemingly omnipresent Jon Worth is involved in both projects [EDIT: Andreas pointed out that his and Jon's involvement in both projects is a coincidence reflective of the small size of the EU blogosphere. I really do see those guys popping everywhere! :D]. TH!NK ABOUT IT is a blogging competition aimed at drumming up public interest for the European Parliamentary elections in June.

The site seems to be experiencing a couple of technical difficulties (some dead feeds and profiles) but this is probably to be expected from any project involving 80-odd members of the public. The roster of bloggers has been picked from the 27-member countries and will be whittled down by public votes and a "grand jury" to an overall winner. There's a good gender mix amongst the bloggers, but it's a sea of white faces. It would have been nice to see more (any!) non-white representation.

Another thing which seems a bit odd is that, from the looks of it, all of the ED!TORS are also simultaneously contributing TH!NKERS, with the possibility of winning the "grand prize." This could be a bit suspect, as the ED!TORS have certain powers when it comes to influencing the jury. Could be fishy... but let's give them the benefit of the doubt. [EDIT: Thanks to Andreas for correcting me on this one. ED!TORS cannot post blog entries, and cannot win the final prize. So, no conflict of interests.]

Regardless, TH!NK ABOUT IT has already demonstrated its potential to succeed in its primary goal; it's encouraged me to start looking into how exactly I'm going to vote in the EU elections in Italy. And if only a small fraction of those 81 bloggers go on to develop successful EU blogs, then the whole project will have been a success.

Like I said, however, it's still early days on the European digital frontier. Let us, as always, wait and see.

Will Financial Crisis Break Up Euro-Zone?

2009-02-14T01:04:00.000-08:00

[Image: Great Depression Marchers in Canada, circa 1930, Public Domain]

Danske Bank, one of the largest Danish banks, has released its most recent report on the current financial unpleasantness. According to Danske Bank, economist types around the world are no longer worried about "systemic risk in the financial sector" (i.e. the entire international economic system tanking à la the Great Depression) and are instead bracing themselves for the deepest global recession since the 1970s.

So 2009 won't be another Great Depression (not even close), but, nonetheless, for most of us the worst is still to come. As the damage seeps from the most exposed sectors (finance, banking, property, construction, etc.) and out into the real economy, national indicators generally are going to continue to slide. Bankruptcies, bail-outs, nationalisations, high-profile takeovers and rising unemployment will be the order of the day.

From the European perspective, though, the most interesting titbit in the report is this one:

"Intra-euroland spreads have exploded on the back of rating actions and an increased focus on economic imbalances. This has fuelled speculation that one or more countries may feel the need, or be forced, to default on their debt and/or leave the euro area."

Translated from economist-jargon: credit rating agencies have decided that some Euro-zone economies are looking a lot shakier than others. Italy, Portugal and Spain have emerged as definite problem countries. Italy, for example, has broken the EU's Growth and Stability Pact for several years in a row. This is a pact signed by EU countries and is a precondition to joining the Euro. It mandates that government deficit should be no more than 3% of GDP, and total government debt should be no more than 60% of GDP.

Italy's debt currently amounts to more than 100% of annual GDP.

The two Euro-zone economies most at risk, however, are definitely Greece and Ireland. Yields from these two countries are over two percentage points higher than baseline yields (measured by good old dependable German yields). In other words, investors and rating agencies have labelled Greece and Ireland as high-risk economies and sealed them up in their own special category labelled "do not invest!"

Danske Bank argues that "it seems highly unlikely that anyone would leave the euro, not least because the cost of doing so would be enormous. On the other hand, 2008 has taught us never to say never." Certainly, the President of the European Central Bank has, in recent interviews, had to rebuff the idea that the Euro-zone could be dismantled.

Personally, I'm not sure any countries will choose now to actually leave the Euro. From the perspective of national governments, there is too much economic uncertainty in the air to seriously consider exposing their currencies - better to wait until times are good again and they won't risk being blamed for tanking their economies.

I can't see the ECB ejecting countries either - it's always taken a "flexible" approach when it comes to the Growth and Stability Pact, and a global recession will probably just increase that flexibility. [EDIT: Thanks to Grahnlaw for pointing out that the Council (specifically EcoFin) is responsible for amending and monitoring the SGP, not the ECB]

Instead of countries leaving the Euro, much more likely is an increase in national discontent as public spending is scaled back (see the recent protests in Italy over cuts in education spending, for example).

Still, let's wait and see.

Snowshoeing Around

2009-02-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Start small. Start with baby steps. That was my problem with skiing. I started by actually trying to ski! How silly of me! Before you can try skiing, you have to try walking, or, more precisely, shoeing.

Snow shoeing.

That's exactly what Elsje and I had a go at yesterday! We took a bus up to nearby Monte Bondone and rented a couple of snowshoes. Of course, snow shoeing isn't really going to teach me anything about skiing... but it might cure my growing phobia of snow.

Tromping about all morning in snowshoes was great fun - especially when travelling downhill. Going uphill was exhausting. I'm naturally a downhill kinda guy at the best of times, but yesterday I'd only had seven hours sleep in about two days. I've been frantically scribbling away at a history essay for the last week, and crunchtime has been brutal.

Elsje had to keep shouting at me to stay awake whilst snowshoeing. At one point, I fell over in the snow and wanted to just stay down there and sleep. In my delerium, I genuinely thought the patch of snow I'd landed in was a great, soft marshmallow.

Luckily, Elsje slapped me about a bit and we went and had hot chocolate. Lovely.

The Swiss... Off with Their Heads?

2009-02-07T01:45:00.000-08:00

[Image: Swiss Guards, Arnaud Gaillard, 2005,
Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 1.0]

Switzerland is not a part of the EU. It is, however, completely surrounded by EU countries. As such, it depends on the EU an enormous amount for trade. Which means it needs access to the EU Single Market (so it can trade with EU countries without paying the tariffs that non-EU countries normally have to pay). To this end, Switzerland has signed a series of bilateral trade agreements with the EU to give it access to the Single Market. But there is, of course, a catch...

A "guillotine" clause exists in the trade agreements. The EU is able to sever all of these agreements should Switzerland fail to comply with certain EU legislation. And thus Switzerland has been forced to adopt more and more EU law if it wants to keep trading on equal terms with the EU. It has no say in the decision-making process (because it is not an EU member-state) but it nonetheless has to adopt the legislation.

Tomorrow, the guillotine may be coming down. Swiss citizens will be voting on whether to extend labour rights to Romanian and Bulgarian citizens (these countries being the two most recent countries to join the EU). If they vote "no" - it could cut Switzerland's ties to the Single Market.

Not a good thing to happen to Switzerland during a global recession.

UPDATE: Switzerland has voted "Yes" - and so will keep access to the Single Market in exchange for opening its borders to labour from Romania and Bulgaria.

Medea (1988)

2009-02-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

[Image: Medea, 1862, Eugène Delacroix, GNU Free Documentation License]

The other day, I watched Lars von Trier's 1988 version of Euripides's play - Medea.

I can never make up my mind when it comes to von Trier's work. I really enjoyed The Five Obstructions, and I found the few episodes that I watched of The Kingdom to be both haunting and surreal (and infinitely better than the dumbed-down Stephen King remake). Dogville was powerful, but sadistic and exhausting... and the whole Dogme 95 idea was never really my cup of tea. Sometimes the constraints von Trier places on his film-making seem to distract from the actual films themselves.

Having said that, von Trier clearly has the ability to make outstanding films when he puts his mind to it, and that is certainly what he's done with Medea. The film tells the story of the eponymous Medea, a witch who falls in love with Jason (he of Argonauts fame) and helps him complete his quest for the golden fleece and return home to Iolcos safely. The story begins after Jason has abandoned Medea at Corinth with their two children, and is about to marry King Creon's daughter in order to become heir to the throne of Corinth.

Until Medea, none of the movies I had watched based on ancient Greek myth had managed to properly match my idea of the flawed Greek hero. Clash of the Titans, The Odyssey and Jason and the Argonauts all interpreted "heroic" to mean brave and noble (although Odysseus in the 1997 version of The Odyssey was somewhat jaded). Jason in Medea, however, is scum. A young Udo Kier plays Jason with a quiet intensity so fierce that he looks borderline sociopathic.

Kirsten Olesen, also, is perfectly cast in the role of Medea. There's something weird and terrifying about her, in her black dress and skullcap, even when all she's doing is skulking about in a swamp gathering berries. And somehow (despite the appalling lengths she goes to for revenge) Olesen manages to play her as a sympathetic character.

The actors, then, do a fantastic job. But the stage they work upon is equally impressive. Throughout Medea, the cinematography is nothing short of stunning. The weather seems determined to drown and batter into total submission everything it comes across before the movie ends, with fog, rain and constant, overpowering wind screaming through each and every scene. The only time the elements take a break and the sun comes out is during the climax of the film, as Medea commits her terrible crime.

In my Greek cultural odyssey, this movie has set the benchmark.

A puzzling one, that von Trier chap...

Rating - 10 out of 12
Review Criteria

On Hookahs & Kalishnikovs

2009-02-03T01:31:00.000-08:00

[Image by urban_data, 2007, Attribution 2.0 Generic]

Elle and I had a shisha party round our apartment the other night. An Armenian friend of ours recently went on holiday to Dubai, and she brought back a shisha and some packets of flavoured tobacco. At the party, we had two flavours: one mixed fruit and one coconut - and the tobacco in both was colourful, sticky and sweet. We had beer, spirits and snacks and we passed around the shisha pipe while we chatted... and interesting things were discussed.

Somehow, at the end of the night, the conversation turned to military matters. At the table there happened to be a guy from Eritrea and a guy from Belarus. Both had done compulsory military service in their respective countries, and both told stories which reinforced to me how strange and alien the world of the military is to people who have not experienced it (i.e. me).

The guy from Eritrea explained that, during his training, his instructor had taught him not to waste bullets by holding up a round of ammunition and saying "You see this? This cost 25 cents of a dollar. 25 cents! The money paid for this bullet would have fed a family for three days. Do not miss, or you will be starving an Eritrean family for nothing."

At this, the guy from Belarus burst out into a broad smile and started reminiscing about his own experiences in the army: "Yes! I remember the Kalishnikov! I could disassemble it in 6 seconds!"

To my untrained eye, both of them appeared completely ordinary. Certainly, neither looked like they had recieved training in how to kill me should I ever try to invade their countries. It was only when they spoke so familiarly about the workings of assault rifles that they seemed in any way unusual.

When Elle travelled around the world on a ship for 100 days, she said that the one thing that struck her in every country she visited was how militarised the world was. Perhaps Western Europe is this little civilian bubble - a place where the military is kept hidden away, seperated from most people's lives by a TV screen. It's interesting to meet people with different experiences.

Vive la Français!

2009-01-30T22:19:00.000-08:00

[Image: Painting of a Sans Colettes, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Public Domain]

I've just started an intensive French course at Uni. Two-and-a-half hours a day, Monday to Friday, for one month. Certes, il est très intensive!

To make matters worse, the course is Italian to French, not English to French (in other words, the teacher assumes that everyone speaks Italian, and so she does all of her non-French teaching in Italian).

Luckily, I've learnt enough Italian to follow what she's saying, and the miniscule amount of French I picked up at GCSE level in England is also coming back to me. I can understand (more or less) everything which is being said, and I feel I'm really getting a basic handle on the French language.

Knowing a little Italian alongside English is also useful, because if a French word isn't similar to the English, then chances are it will be similar to the Italian (through their shared Latin roots). For example, the French word "savoir" doesn't sound anything like the English equivilant "to know"... but it does sound similar to the Italian "sappere." An even better example, though, is "quelque chose" (something), which is just a different pronounciation of the Italian "qualcosa."

I really want to be speaking French (at least at a basic level) when my course is finished. So, to this end, my French friend Arthur and I have agreed to meet up once a week for "French Friday" - which will see us converse entirely en français. I've also arranged for a English/French language exchange with a French/Italian girl from my course. Finally, I'm looking around for a possible pen-friend to practice my French writing with.

I still have a loooong way to go before I can call myself a French-speaker, however. Last night, Elle and I watched a French thriller, Tell No One, with English subs. It was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time (reminding me of a less sadistic version of the Dutch movie Spoorloos) but the everyday French they spoke was totally alien to me and my "classroom" French. Sacrebleu.

Olynthus and Greek Town Planning (2000)

2009-01-28T23:03:00.000-08:00

[Image: Christaras A, 2006, Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.5]

I read an interesting article yesterday about Olynthus, an archeological site in Northern Greece. The article was Olynthus and Greek Town Planning by Nicholas Cahill, in The Classical World, Vol. 93, No. 5, May - Jun., 2000. Olynthus was apparently sacked by the Macedonians under Philip II soon (archeologically speaking) after it was founded. Nicholas Cahill describes it as one of the best preserved and most complete sites we have from Ancient Greece.

Olynthus is also a fantastic example of a town built according to a grid-pattern, which was passed from the Greeks to the Romans and then into Medieval Europe. Houses in Olynthus were built in blocks of ten, divided into two rows, with a drainage alley running between them. Cahill goes into great detail about the actual houses: they had courtyards and symposium (drunken party) rooms, and were likely two-stories tall. They had kitchens, some had toilets, and some even seem to have had shops which opened onto the street (although it's difficult to say for sure from just the archeological remains).

Cahill talks about how modern scholars (circa 2000) thought there was a uniformity to the design of the houses when they were built, which came from isonomia (equality) imposed from above by the government of the polis. The buildings were later modified by their owners depending on taste and wealth. Cahill, however, rejects this notion, pointing out that the building designs varied too much to be purely the work of later modifications.

Writing about industry in Olynthus, Cahill says that manual labour in Ancient Greece was apparently frowned upon by the wealthy. The aristocratic philosopher Xenophon said that working caused a man to become effeminate and treat his friends badly. Which (unless it's a quirk of the translation) actually tells us a lot about how Xenophon viewed the role of women and femininity. Effeminate indeed.

Despite Xenophon's fear of backbreaking, effeminate work, a lot of industry did apparently occur in Olynthus (although only in some parts of the city). There were workshops and large-scale agricultural processing operations.

Cahill finishes his article with some detailed maps/plans of Olynthus and of its individual houses, which helps flesh out his descriptions. The plans have been labeled as much as possible, but there are limits to how much archeology can be certain about. One house, for example, is labeled as either a mint or a counterfeiter - which I found quite fun.

Rating - 7 out of 12
Review Criteria

Twitter... What is it Good For?

2009-01-26T05:00:00.000-08:00

[Image: (c) Twitter, Fair Use - to identify Twitter]

I've been trying Twitter out for a day now, and I couldn't really see the point... until, that is, this morning - when I think I finally "got" Twitter.

Twitter, it seems, does have a purpose. It makes a great little live web feed! I've signed up to "follow" some of my favourite blogs and websites - The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Guardian, Boingboing, Slashdot, Engadget, Lifehack, etc.

Then, using Digsby, I can get auto-updates every time one of those sites puts up something new.

I can't see myself using Twitter for social networking - but I think it could work as a web feed...

EDIT: And now I've just discovered that Twitter integrates into Facebook - so both status-updates can be linked.

January Gadgets Plug!

2009-01-24T23:44:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd plug some of the random web gadgets I came across last year. So here are my top 5 gadgets from 2008:

1) Twitter

[Image: (c) Twitter, Fair Use - to identify Twitter]

The jury is out on this one. It's a bit of a personal experiment - I've just signed up and I'll give it a few weeks before delivering my verdict. Basically: Twitter is a glorified Facebook status-update bar. Or an enormous chat-room with your friends. How useful it is depends on how many people you know that are signed-up to it, and Twitter doesn't have what marketing types call "high penetration" amongst my friends. This is why I'm plugging it in the number one slot: not because it's great, but because it could be great if more people I know sign up to it. You know who you are... :D (P.S. I'm JosefLitobarski on Twitter [EDIT: I've since changed my profile name. Now, I'm CitizenEurope])

2) Digsby.

[Image: (c) dotSyntax, LLC., Fair Use - to identify Digsby]

This little program is pure groovoir sous forme électronique. It's actually the real number one app from 2008! Digsby lets you access all of your online social programs (e-mail, Facebook, gmail, MSN, and tons more) from one place. Once you've set it up, you can have access and manage all of your different accounts at the same time. I have my Digsby managing 3 e-mail accounts, 1 social network (Facebook), and 7 IM accounts. And it'll manage Twitter for me too, when I get the bloody thing set up!

3) Info-War Monitor

[Image: (c) Infowar-Monitor, Fair Use - to identify Inforwar-Monitor]

Infowar Monitor is an online resource/webzine/smörgåsbord of developments in cyberspace. There are some worrying long-term trends in c-space which I had no idea about, and it's nice to have things summarised by people "in-the-know." It's easy to get a bit tinfoil-hat about this sort of thing, but the people at the Monitor write professionally and objectively. It's also edited by a guy I went to University with, so I've been getting his perspective on what's been going on in cyberspace over the last few months. Interesting stuff, and worth a free subscription to their newsfeed.

4) Questia

[Image (via Adam Smith University of America): (c) Questia, Fair Use - to identify Questia]

Questia is an online library of books, just like Google Books. However, unlike Google Books, you have to pay for access. Once you have access, however, there are no limited previews - everything is open to you to search, highlight and print (you can't download books yet). Access is reasonably priced (something like 70 euros a year [EDIT: Erk... more like 90 euros a year!]) - and it has plenty of rare books useful for students and academics. Many of the textbooks on Questia would cost 30 or 40 euros to buy, so for students it's a godsend! In my quest to hold the cultural roots of Europe in my hand and lick the ends a bit, I also think Questia's history section will be pretty useful.

5) Google-Pen-Scanners

[Image: (c) Google, Fair Use - to identify Google]

Finally, this one isn't real yet (AFAIK) - but it should be.... I've already posted about my newfound love of "wiki-reading." I highlight text from chapters of books I'm reading and then look everything up online (typically on Google Scholar/Books, Wikipedia or Questia). I've been thinking about how to streamline the process - and I came up with a sweet idea! I wish I had a pen-scanner instead of a highlighter, which I could use to highlight interesting text and which (with wireless access to my laptop) would then take me straight to the relevent Wikipedia entry. If any pen-scanner manufacturers are reading my blog: please take note.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

2009-01-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

[Image: (c) Columbia Pictures, Fair Use - low-resolution version to provide critical commentary]

I can't exactly remember if I've ever watched Jason and the Argonauts before... I'm pretty sure I watched at least some of it, because I remember the monsters. But then, I suppose these vague and foggy memories of awesome monster fights could have come from "top 100" clip-shows I watched about classic movies. At any rate, in my never-ending quest to dig up the cultural roots of Europe and sniff them, I recently decided I'd watch (or re-watch?) this classic Hollywood epic based on the Greek myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece.

Ray Harryhausen is apparently the name in stop-motion monster effects, and it was he who provided the effects for Jason and the Argonauts. Harryhausen himself regards it as his "most complete" film. I actually watched another of his movies recently, Clash of the Titans, which was originally released in the 1980s. I did enjoy it... but found it a bit cutesy.

At least in Jason and the Argonauts the main character displays a bit of arrogance and ambition. One of the things which irked me most about Clash of the Titans was the fact that Perseus was so bloody nice. From what I know of him, the original Greek character of Jason was untrustworthy, power-hungry and manipulative. Jason and the Argonauts shows some of Jason's ambition, but it ends the story at the point when Jason finds the Golden Fleece. It doesn't show his return journey and his tragic fall. The story of Medea, the mother of Jason's children, betrayed by Jason for his own selfish political gain, isn't even hinted at in Jason and the Argonauts.

Apart from this squeeky-clean remixing of tragic Greek themes and plotlines, there were one or two other things which rankled. The costumes and props seemed a bit mixed up at times. At one point, King Pelias was entertaining Jason in what appeared to be a medieval fairground. I'm no expert, of course.

And yet... there was this one scene where a ruddy great bronze man stomps on people! And another bit when loads of skeletons come to life and fight with Jason! Just when your attention is flagging, the Harryhausen effects come along and redeem things. And just like in Clash of the Titans, I was disappointed... but not completely.

Rating - 6 out of 12

Review Criteria

The Life of the Ancient Greek (1911) - Part Two

2009-01-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

[Image: Scene of Olive Gathering, Antimenes Painter, 520 BC, Photo by: Steff, 2005, Public Domain]

Today I finished the second of two articles entitled The Life of the Ancient Greek by David M. Robinson of John Hopkins University, published in December 1911 in The Classical Weekly. The second article picks up where the first part finished, with the education of a typical Greek (specifically Athenian) citizen. There follows some description of Greek military service, but more interesting to me was the description of Greek farming techniques which came afterwards.

The Ancient Greeks ploughed their fields, but their ploughs were very simple things. They were often just the forked limb of a tree, with the projecting fork making the actual plough-share, sharpened to till the soil. It was pulled along by oxen or mules (almost never by horses), and the field it ploughed would be used to grow grain, lentils, peas and beans. The Ancient Greeks understood the importance of both fertilizing and irrigation.

Crop farming was vital to the Ancient Greek way of life - meat was rarely eaten (except during feasts) because animals were expensive to rear. When harvest time came round, hand-sickles were used to cut the grain. I imagine all of this work was done by men, as women were kept secluded and indoors (more on this later). [EDIT: I'm currently reading a book about this, which suggests that lower-status women probably were outside, working in the fields]

When the grain was harvested, the farmer would bind it together in sheaves and carry it home (leaving one sheaf in the field for luck or as an offering to the harvest gods). The grain would then be either boiled into gruel or taken to a mill, where it would be ground down into flour. The millers had jolly milling songs they sang while they ground the flour, like this one:

"Grind, mill, grind, for even Pittacus grinds, king of mighty Mitylene."

Admittedly, it must have lost something in translation.

After describing farming, Robinson goes on to describe the fashion in Ancient Greece. Apparently, conical felt hats were popular. I imagine this was despite the fact they probably made people look like they were wearing toy penes on their heads. I'm sure they didn't actually look like this - so I'll have to see if I can dig up some images on Google [EDIT: Actually... they sort of did look like toy penes: IMAGE].

I was particularly impressed, though, by the inventiveness of Ancient Greek quarrying techniques. Quarry-men drilled holes into the marble, before driving wooden shafts into the holes and then pouring water over the wood so that it swelled and split off the desired blocks of stone.

Finally, the last section of the article concerns marriage and death. Yes, the author makes all the usual jokes about marriage and death... and so, apparently, did the Ancient Greeks. Robinson writes:

To put death in immediate sequence after marriage may seem to leave a great gap, or may even seem humorously suggestive. "What!" says one character in Greek comedy, "Married! Did you say he was married? Why it was only the other day I saw him alive and walking about."

Robinson explains that the Ancient Greek marriage ceremony was different from the modern conception of marriage. There were no vows or rings exchanged which might mark the point at which the couple were officially married. Instead, the marriage was a prolonged process of feasting and ceremonies.

Interestingly, when the groom married his adolescent "girl-bride" (who would typically be about fifteen years younger than her husband-to-be) he would not yet have seen her face. Women in Ancient Greece were veiled and secluded from men, a custom inherited by the Byzantine empire, and possibly passed from there into the Muslim world. [EDIT: After reading about this a bit, it seems that the practice of veiling was common all across the ancient world, not just in Greece.]

Rating - 7 out of 12
Review Criteria

Night Skiing

2009-01-17T05:05:00.000-08:00

[Video: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

I hurt in parts I didn't even know existed.

Last night, Elsje and I went night-skiing with some friends. I've never been skiing before, and here I was about to try skiing for the first time... at night.

Norwegian Pal, my Norwegian pal (his name is pronounced "Paul"), lent me his skis for the night. Unfortunately for me, they were special telemark skis - which means only the toe of my boot was attached to the ski. These were not skis for a beginner - but to be honest, even in normal skis I would have fallen over. In the end, I was "skiing" for about twenty seconds before I started going down backwards accidently, and then fell over... and couldn't get back up.

So I took the skis off and had a go at sledging. "That'll be nice and easy," I thought to myself. Hurtling down the sledge-course at about 200 kilometres an hour, my face started to melt from the g-force. I was going so fast I couldn't hear myself scream... And I know I was screaming, so I'm pretty sure I must have broken the sound barrier.

There were these huge trenches cut into the sledge-course, and I would slam into them at break-neck speed and jump up into the air, hanging suspended for a moment or two of supreme calm, before crashing down again with a jarring thump. The only way to steer was to jam my boot into the snow on either side, causing shards of ice to fly up into my face. I kept blinding myself, but it was the only way to stop the sledge lurching into the barrier seperating the sledge-course from a sheer drop down into the icy canyon running alongside.

Why do people actually pay for what essentially amounts to a form of torture?

After the first time, I swore to myself I would never do it again. But, for some inexplicable reason, I found myself drawn once more into the ski-lift and ascending to the top. It didn't help that sitting in the ski-lift, the view reminded me of the opening to Mulholland Drive - with the menacing hum of the engine in the background and the path ahead appearing suddenly from a shroud of impenetrable gloom.

The second time down, something strange happened... I actually enjoyed it! I finally figured out how to steer and started to feel less like I was hurtling out of control to my inevitable doom. It's not so bad when you don't think of it like that.

The third time down, Elsje and I tried to go down together. This wasn't so successful. Suffice to say, halfway down the course I let Elsje go down without me and walked the rest of the way.

We all met at the bottom and went for an enormous Mexican feast at a nearby restaurant - and then back to Trento we drove.

Great fun! Winter sports: awesome.

The Life of the Ancient Greek (1911) - Part One

2009-01-15T03:01:00.000-08:00

[Image: Ganymede Holding a Hoop, Berlin Painter, ca. 500–490 BC, Photo by: Bibi Saint-Pol, 2007, Public Domain]

The University of Trento has access to JSTOR from its library, so I've been looking up some interesting articles. I came across an old article by David M. Robinson in The Classical Weekly, Volume 5, No. 8 (December 9th, 1911) called The Life of the Ancient Greek. The article is almost a hundred years old, and much of what it describes may have been revised by now, but it was nonetheless fascinating to read.

The article follows the life of a typical Athenian citizen (so, a "typical" life for somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the population of Athens - the rest of the population being composed of slaves, foreigners and women). It talks about the birth, the naming ceremony, the toys and games and the education of a young Greek boy. Robinson mentions the life of girls in passing (saying that boys were much prefered over girls, and that unwanted baby girls were often exposed to the elements and eaten by wild animals). He also writes that some parents, unable to bear the thought of exposing their daughters, would leave them in a basket on the doorstep of a temple where the "tender mercies of the childless or of lovers of children prevailed to take it home and bring it up." I read a book recently on the subject which argued that abandoned baby girls were probably most valued by the owners of brothels, who would adopt them and raise them as prostitutes.

Despite this, much of what Robinson describes is still recognisable today - especially when he talks about the games children used to play and the toys they played them with. Hoop running, spinning tops, baby-rattles, dolls, hobby-horses, see-saws and swings were all used by Ancient Greek children - and their childhood games included varients of hide-and-seek and a version of blind-man's-bluff called "Chasing The Bronze Fly."

I would love to read a more up-to-date description of life in Ancient Greece, but Robinson's article - which was published in two parts (I have yet to read part two) - was still an excellent read. His language and style are modern for an article published almost a century ago, and if you have access to JSTOR it's certainly worth a look.

Rating - 7 out of 12
Review Criteria

The Odyssey (1997)

2009-01-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

[Image: (c) NBC, Fair Use - low-resolution version to provide critical commentary]

The Odyssey was a 1997 TV mini-series produced by Francis Ford Coppola, later cut into a 3-hour movie and released on DVD. It won a couple of Emmys (for best director and special effects) and was nominated for two Golden Globes (best mini-series and best actor). It follows (loosely) the plot of the epic poem by Homer. I'm watching all the films set in Ancient Greece that I can get my hands on at the moment, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

So, what did I think of the movie? Well... In some ways it tries hard to avoid the usual stereotypes. Armand Assante's version of Odysseus is arrogant, ruthless and violent. He contrasts sharply with the likes of the fresh-faced, dim-witted Perseus in Clash of the Titans. Odysseus is a thug in this movie - an Achaean Rambo.

It's true that Telemachus, Odysseus's son, is the typical snotty-nosed, floppy-haired youth - but instead of having an easy time, he's thrown from one humiliation and degredation to another at the hands of the suitors, until finally being transformed into a believably angry ball of rage, actually displaying characteristics other than "pureness of heart" and chivalry.

These things were appreciated, and overall (although it lags in places), the movie is decent. There are two scenes which really stood out, though...

The first is the encounter with the monster Scylla in the caverns. The special effects were fantastic - and this scene was (for what I assume was a primetime network TV series) actually fairly violent. Not that I'm particularly bloodthirsty - but if used properly, the sight of a six-headed monster chewing up one of Odysseus's crew-members in torchlit gloom can be pretty effective.

The second scene was Odysseus's massacre of the suitors. The suitors had been portrayed as a horrible bunch of bastards throughout the film, but it was still a shock to see Odysseus carry out what was essentially a massacre of unarmed men. The movie's producers decided not to include the part from the play where Telemachus hangs twelve of Penelope's maids for sleeping with the suitors. Or the part where they cut off the goatherd's nose, ears, hands and feet and pull his genitals off whilst he's still alive (feeding them to the dogs). You see - this is what I'm talking about when I say that Greek heroes were horrible!

All in all - I'm satisfied with this version of The Odyssey. It's not perfect, but it's still perfectly watchable.

Rating - 7 out of 12

Review Criteria

Conversations with the Bishop's Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Nephew

2009-01-12T00:26:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

One of my best friends in Trento, Gio, is the last surviving heir of the 16th Century Prince-Bishop of Trento, Bernardo Clesio. The castle Buonconsiglio, just around the corner from my house, used to be his official residence.

Bernardo Clesio was, as a Catholic Bishop, sworn to celebecy, so he had no children. But Gio is descended from Bishop Clesio's brother's line; Bernardo Clesio is Gio's great Uncle, going back 13 generations.

Gio and I went out for a pint last night and talked for a bit about the history of Trento. He gave me a guided tour of the town, explaining the influence of Bernardo Clesio on the various buildings we passed. Apparently, Trento used to have canals like Venice - but the Bishop disliked how filthy the water was, so he had them drained.

Bishop Clesio was perhaps most famous for organising the Council of Trent, which took place in Trento's Cathedral and led directly to the Catholic counter-reformation.

The Wikipedia page for Bishop Clesio is pretty spartan - so Gio and I thought we might try and add a bit more detail to it.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

2009-01-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

[Image: (c) MGM / Warner Bros., 1981, Fair Use - low resolution version to provide critical commentary]

Amongst the mountains of revision I've built for myself to climb, I've cleared a little space to work on my pet-project: learning all about the Ancient Greeks. Apart from discovering that they enjoyed making pornographic pottery, I've been learning all about Greek myths. These are stories I learnt in my childhood, but have pretty much forgotten by now. I remember the Hydra, Medusa, the Cyclops, and so on - but I don't remember all the little details.

So, in order to rectify this, a couple of nights ago I watched the cult-classic 80's movie "Clash of the Titans." The stop-motion special effects were by Ray Harryhausen, who did the effects for Jason and the Argonauts.

It's based on the legend of Perseus, Pegasus, Medusa et al. It started well - very atmospheric shot of the sea as King Acrisius of Argos orders his daughter, Danaë, into a coffin with her infant son to be cast into the ocean. Except, in the movie I think they changed the character of Danaë so she is Acrisius's wife - which is a bit creepy (but very much in-keeping with Greek tragedy).

Then cut to Zeus (played by Laurence Olivier, no less) up on Mount Olympus. He is actually the child's real father and he's pretty vexed, what with Acrisius dumping Danaë and Perseus in a coffin and dropping them in the ocean and all. In the original myth there's a lot more to why Acrisius wants to murder his daughter, but I guess they decided to cut all of that gubbins out.

Where was I? Ah, yes - Zeus is spitting chips, and he asks Poseidon to release the Kraken (called Ceto in the original). This bit is great - it's like a Godzilla movie! There are loads of shots of people running around and screaming and then dodgy shots of someone turning a tap on and splashing bathwater over a model of a Greek city. I kept wanting to shout out "Sploosh!" like a two-year old. There's also a very creepy scene with Poseidon padding about underwater. Today, this would all be greenscreened - but I think they must have actually shot the actor in a water-tank and then superimposed his image onto a shot of a model of the seabed.

Anyway, vengence meted, Zeus orders Poseidon to stop faffing about in his paddling pool and go and rescue Danaë and Perseus from a watery grave.

The movie gets a bit dull from this point onwards. To be honest, the problem might be the hero, Perseus. He's much too clean-cut. In the Greek original (from what I've read) Perseus was cunning and fairly ruthless. In the movie though, Perseus is just some bloke. The gods are essentially holding his hand and walking him through the story, telling him what to do.

Things do pick up right at the end, when Perseus fights with some giant scorpions, a two-headed hound and a satyr-type guy. And, of course, Medusa.

I dug this out because I had fond memories of Jason and the Argonauts, and I wanted to see some more of Ray Harryhausen's old-school special effects. On this count, I suppose I was satisfied. Ultimately, though, Clash of the Titans was mildly disappointing.

Rating - 5 out of 12
Review Criteria

New Year's Resolution

2009-01-05T01:43:00.001-08:00

[Image: Warriors, Prometheus Painter, 570-565 BC, photo by: Bibi Saint-Pol, 2007, Public Domain]

I have a New Year's resolution.

I'm going try to read more European history. I'd also really like to read some of the classics of European literature, starting with the Illiad. First, though, I need to understand the context it was all written in.

So I picked up a copy of Robin Lane Fox's The Classical World in Bologna last week, and I'm sort of "wiki-reading" it. I go through each chapter with a highlighter, picking out anything I don't understand (or anything I would like to know more about), then I hop onto Wikipedia and look up everything I've highlighted. It's like a DIY York Notes.

But "wiki-reading" works best online. This article from Portfolio magazine about the sub-prime mortage crisis is the best explanation of the crisis I have ever read, and I gained a much deeper understanding of it because every time I didn't "get" a concept I stopped reading and opened up Google or Wikipedia.

I wish that there was some way to have a "Wikipedia" button on my laptop's keyboard. When reading an article, it would be great to be able to click on text and link straight through to a Wikipedia article, rather than having to highlight the text, copy it and paste it into the Wikipedia search bar. Ah, well... maybe in Linux!

Hatsuyume (First Dream of the New Year)

2009-01-01T23:00:00.000-08:00

[Image: Zombie Flash Mob, Grant Neufeld, 2005, Public Domain]

In the traditional Japanese calendar, 2nd January is known as Hatsuyume, or "first dream". Apparently, the first dream you have in a new year is supposed to be indicative of how well the year will go for you.

I dreamt about zombies.

I was in some sort of school, and there was an outbreak of zombies. I managed to bludgeon away most of the poor fools, but one or two somehow developed speech. I felt very much like the protagonist in Richard Matheson's I Am Legend - the last man on Earth surrounded by horrors.

But the zombies kept asking me not to bludgeon them and promising in return not to eat my brains. It was an impossible situation - because how could I possibly trust them? Also, the zombies kept wanting to embrace in order to show their friendship, which made me very paranoid that they would take the opportunity to suck my brains out through my nose.

The problem was that I, as a human, was such an obvious outsider in this new world of zombies. The only way I could be sure they would stop trying to eat my brains would be, in a Catch-22 sort of way, if they first ate my brains and I became a zombie. Obviously, I didn't feel like having my brains eaten.

Right at the end of the dream I came up with a solution. In a bit of a deus ex machina, I stumbled upon a magical spell which would either turn me into a zombie or grant my new friends the intelligence they needed not to eat my brains. A happy ending.

Now, I have two interpretations. Firstly, that 2009 will pose many problems which I will spend a great deal of effort on despite, actually, a novel and unexpected solution existing. If I can discover that solution then my life will be that much easier. The alternative interpretation is that I feel a sense of displacement in Italy, surrounded by Italians, and that I am looking for a way to better blend into my surroundings.

Either way, I avoided having my brains eaten - which is a good sign.

Happy New Year 2009!

2009-01-01T12:21:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Having returned from my holidays, I now realise that there are only two weeks left until my first exam. Bum.

But even if I fail all of my exams and exploderise from stress for want of study time and revision - this week away will still have been worth it. We went to Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance! In the middle of winter it was our playground - and I had the opportunity to wander through deserted medieval streets after midnight. Tourists were so scarce that we somehow managed to get in to see Michelangelo's David without queuing - and we were staying in an apartment just around the corner from the Uffizi!

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2009, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

The Duomo (cathedral) in the centre of Florence is awesome in the original sense of the word... it towers above like a great stone phallus scraping across the heavens, crackling great sparks of wonderous potential; a high-medieval power structure - a Renaissance Wall Street skyscraper for the Medici bankers that built it. As you can imagine, I was absolutely thrilled.

Elsje and I met up with Nitya and her brother Prashant, friends of Elsje's that she hasn't seen in fourteen years. I hope we get a chance to meet up with them again, because they were both really great to hang out with! We rented an apartment and all cooked Christmas dinner together. Elsje and I exchanged gifts - we had decided to make things for each other this year. I gave Elsje a little book which I'm writing for her and illuminating in the medieval style with little cartoons of dragons and roses - a biography of her life as told by me! Elsje hand-made me some tokens which I can use to buy massages, home-cooked meals and breakfasts in bed. This will make the next few weeks a bit easier for me. :-)

After three days in Florence we explored Bologna - the food capital of Italy. We couch-surfed with some amazing people and celebrated New Year's with our friends from Trento. A good time was had by all (although the party's host had to remove baby Jesus from the nativity scene for his own safety).

Unfortunately, however, now that I'm well and truly re-energised I no longer have an excuse not to bury my nose in my textbooks and get studying!

School's Out for Winter

2008-12-21T08:28:00.001-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Holidays are holy days indeed.

We're off to Florence and Bologna next week for six days - but I'll take plenty of pictures and note down our adventures.

My first exam is on January 14th (Introduction to Macroeconomics). I'm going to have to revise like a machine - so the next couple of weeks will not be fun (apart from the Florence and Bologna stuff).

In other news: Uncle James is coming to visit! He'll be here on December 23rd.

Christmas Dinner

2008-12-16T04:09:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Wow.

Last week was busy. I finished two presentations (passed them both) and had an Italian test (which I also passed!). I'm now an A1B Italian speaker.

I also finished a bothersome bit of paperwork which had been preventing me from fully enrolling in the University: a declaration of equal value for my English degree. It took two and a half months, but it finally came in the post on Friday. I am, at last, fully enrolled and can take my exams in January. Fantastico!

In other news: Elsje and I met up with our friends the other day for a Christmas dinner. Everybody cooked a dish - I made roast potatoes with rosemary and garlic... easy! (Actually - I mostly just chopped and peeled things - but I provided moral support for everybody).

We also all brought presents for a bit of secret-santa and played a mammoth game of Risico (Italian version of Risk).

Good fun!

Communist Revolution in Trento!

2008-12-12T05:00:00.001-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Today, I was walking into town when I came across a labour union march. There were a few hundred people wearing red clothing and waving red flags (some emblazoned with the hammer & sickle). It was a rally of the Italian General Confederation of Labour. There was "partisan" music playing, and they seemed to be protesting against the government.

This isn't that unusual for Italy. There are some controversial educational reforms going on at the moment, and there have been a series of strikes in Trento by both students and faculty staff.

In other news:

1) The hard-drive on our mac has definitely gone. We're ordering a new one and I'm going to have a go at installing it myself.

2) I will get the results for my Italian test next week.

3) My group handed in the written plea for our mock EU trial (the trial will be next Monday). I'll let you know how it goes!

The Mystery of the Bidet

2008-12-10T23:17:00.001-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Every house in Italy seems to have a bidet in the bathroom. These things are completely new to me, as we don't have them at all in the UK. I always had a general idea what they were for and how they were used - but it was still a bit mysterious. Needless to say, the bidet in our apartment has gone unused since we got here. I wasn't sure, for example, how exactly to go about using it. To be honest, I also didn't really see the point.

So, the other day I asked a friend of ours if people actually use bidets or if they're just ornamental. And, of course, people use them. You can sit on them facing either forwards or backwards (depending on what you want to wash) and you just turn the water on and have a wash. It's also perfectly acceptable to wash your feet in them (which is the most Elsje and I have ever used a bidet for). Apparently, when one is bidet-height as a child, it's not unusual to even drink from the bidet. It still seems a bit unnecessary - it's like having more than one sink. But then, to the Italians it seems a bit unnecessary for people in the UK to have two separate taps for everything - both a hot tap and a cold tap - instead of just one tap which can be changed from hot to cold.

Last night, though, we finally found a use for the bidet. Elsje spilled olive oil on one of her favourite cardigans, so we soaked it in soapy warm water in the bidet. Perfect.

In other news: it's been snowing again. More snow than I've ever seen in my life. As predicted, snow is less exciting after the first time. Still pretty awesome, though.

The Correct Way to Eat a Pizza

2008-12-09T04:57:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

One interesting thing I've discovered since moving to Italy is how to eat pizza Italian-style. They fold their slices of pizza in half before gobbling them up. This is alien to me, as I was taught how to eat pizza by watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Australia, in which the eponymous ninja turtles (or "hero turtles" if you watched it in the UK) ate their pizzas "open" style - and with cheese flying everywhere.

Anyway - in other news, I finally had my Italian test today. I get the results next Thursday, but I don't think I did too badly.

The Demon Bum-Tongues of Fleet Street

2008-12-07T23:28:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Elsje has a new crazy scheme. Her new plan is homemade biltong - which is an Afrikaans meaty snack. Apparently, Afrikaaners go mad for Biltong (Elsje teethed on it as a baby) - but as a recovering vegetarian, it's all a bit new to me.

The Afrikaans word "biltong" comes from the Dutch bil ("rump") and tong ("tongue"). So a rough English translation would be "bum-tongue."

Bum-tongue is a bit like beef jerky - only it's made with vinegar and different spices (such as coriander). It currently lives in a creepy little wooden box next to our sofa, from which an eerie red glow eminates day and night. Opening the door of said little box reveals a row of bum-tongues, lit from below by an electric light to dry them out.

So, last night we were sat watching a move with our little bum-tongues drying in the corner. Unfortunately, the movie we chose was Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd - so whilst Johnny Depp was busy murdering people and cooking them into meat pies, we had to sit next to a box full of bum-tongues.

Not sure if I'll actually try one... I'll let you know.

Coffee & Cigarettes

2008-12-07T02:33:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

I feel dirty.

I'm working on a groupwork presentation for my EU Law class, and my group is helping to defend the tobacco industry from EU directives. We have to go through the Treaty on European Union and look for legal loopholes which will support our case.

We're arguing that:

1) Harmonization of health protection is not a competancy of the European Union and, because banning cigarette advertising is a health issue, the EU institutions (Commission and Council) have no legal basis to propose legislature.

2) If, however, there is a legal basis - it is not the free circulation of goods and services, but some other legal basis (over which the EU will not have competency)

3) If, however, there is a legal basis and it is the free circulation of goods and services, then the total ban on cigarette advertising was not the most effective way to ensure the free circulation of goods and services.

Our written plea (a 3500 word outline of our argument) is due on Friday.

On top of that, on Tuesday I have my Italian test coming up. Then, on Wednesday morning I'm giving a solo presentation on the European Court of Justice and human rights.

It's going to be a busy week...

But last night we had some fun! Elle and I went to a friend's house for dinner. It's become something of a tradition amongst our group of friends to pass around an enormous cooking pot each week, and whoever has the pot will cook dinner for the group. This leads to enormous feasts each weekend - and usually an episode of How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) - which is not so much a TV show as a religion amongst our friends. This weekend, however, a certain person (who shall remain nameless... let's just call him Mr. V.) did not provide the goods - so we will have to do without HIMYM until next week. ;-)

Elsje & I Fight the Zombies!

2008-12-06T01:59:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Uuuuuuurrgggghhh.... braaaaiiinnssss!!

Don't worry, reader, I haven't become a zombie. I'm just really tired and cranky because I went bowling until 3am last night. It was an interesting night - and Elsje helped me fight the zombies!

At the beginning of the night, we went out with the Trento couchsurfing group for drinks at a bar. French Arthur, the most excellent couchsurfing representative in Trento, offered to start a French club with me - which will be fantastic! We're going to smoke cigars and talk about le Republic with teary eyes. And curse that swine Napoleon with every ounce of our being as his soldiers drag us to Madame Guillotine. And he's going to lend me some French comedies on DVD - so they should be pretty easy to understand.

We also met up with a Spanish couchsurfer who is writing his PhD thesis on mushrooms. He might take us out mushroom picking next spring - which would be great! The last time we went mushroom picking we were too scared to eat anything except hedgehog mushrooms.

Anyway - we chatted for a couple of hours, but the conversation kept turning inexorably toward the subject of food and feeding. It soon became apparant that we were all starving, so off we trotted to a pizzeria for a hot, doughy, cheesy pizza made by a guy from Napoli. MMmmmmmm.... brraaaaiiinnns!

We said goodbye to the couchsurfers and Elsje and I headed to one of our favourite little cafés (still open at 9:30pm) for a hot chocolate and a cream-topped-choco-coffee. Mmmmmm.... braaaaaaaaaaaiinnnss!!!!!

It was about 10pm, and we got a phone call from our friend Gio - saying he had room in his car to take us bowling at an all-night bowlerium. We accepted the challenge, but, unfortunately, were not really up to the high bowling standard set by our friends. I won't lie: we're not great bowlers...

But we're apparently well-qualified for zombie removal! There was a House of the Dead III arcade-machine at the bowlerium, with pretend pump-action shotguns. Elsje jumped right in and was quickly blasting hellspawn left, right and centre! She managed to survive the horrors of the zombie-infested carpark for longer than I did, and very kindly gave her gun to me to shoot a few more zombies after I died. In the end, though, I finally died in the IT department - overwhelmed by zombie pirates.

Mmmmm...... braaaaains!

UPDATE: Elsje has pointed out to me that she didn't actually survive longer than me - she just put more money into the machine than me. So the rich will always survive a zombie apocalypse longer than the poor.

A "Day of Disaster"

2008-12-04T03:52:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Here's a joke for you:

Q: Why is the University of Trento's language centre like the European Parliament?

A: Because the ceiling has collapsed in both.

Okay, so that's not really much of a joke - but it's true. The European Parliament was relocated to Brussels this year after the roof of the chamber caved in. My Italian test was cancelled today because water damage from the recent snow caused the roof to collapse above the coffee machine.

As it is impossible to do anything in Italy without coffee, there was no choice but to close down the whole building for a couple of days. Not that I'm complaining - it means I have more time to cram Italian irregular verb conjugations into my skull.

But to compound things, and to reinforce my image of today as a "day of disaster", I came home to find that our macbook G4 won't load. It gets stuck on the grey apple loading screen (the "grey screen of death"). It's like karma - I get a few more days to revise for my Italian exam, but I must pay for it with the loss of my macbook.

I tried restarting in safe mode (by holding down the shift key during the restart) but to no avail. I also restarted in "verbose mode" (apologies for all the quotation marks in today's post) by holding the apple key and "v."

Verbose mode told me that I have a "disk0s3: I/O error" - which is apparently something to do with the hard-drive.

Best possible scenario: I can sort it out with Disk Warrior.

Most likely scenario: I have to format the hard-drive and reinstall Mac OS X.

Worst possible scenario: The hard-drive and/or computer needs replacing.

If this IS karma - then I'm not sure the extra time for my test is worth the loss of a macbook. I guess I must have done something wrong in a past life.

Who am I kidding? I've done more than enough things wrong in THIS life! :-)

Dove noi Vivo (Where we Live)

2008-12-03T08:31:00.001-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

Elsje and I live in an apartment just around the corner from Castello del Buonconsiglio (the Castle of Good Advice). Apparently (according to our tour of Trento) the castle was built on a hill that was originally named "Malconsiglio" (bad advice) - because it was the place they used to hang criminals (who had obviously followed some bad advice or they wouldn't have been hung). When the Bishop-Prince of Trento built his castle there he changed the name.

And I would have too.

First Post

2008-12-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

[Image: Josef Litobarski, 2008, Attribution 3.0 Unported]

So, I've decided to start a blog. I'll begin with something fairly benign and unthreatening - the weather in my corner of Europe.

It's been snowing in Trento, on and off, for the last few days. But by now the snow has become old, brown and slushy. Still, every now and then you'll come across a pristine white patch, untouched and ripe for the jumping.

Actually, the allure of snow begins to wear off pretty quickly. Once you've had a snowball fight or two and made a snowzilla, you're left with slushy brown snow at the side of the road and icy footpaths which disturb contemplation as you wander along them because of the constant threat of falling and dying.