Halfway down the Danube

Bumpy road ahead

Today (or, over the next few days, as time and talent allow) I will upgrade our current MT install. We are hoping for faster speeds and other little gizmos. It might go off without a glitch - but then it might not. I'm doing this on the weekend because the traffic is much slower then, but it will take me some hours even in the best of cases.

Thanks for your patience!

Bucharest: Real Post Report

I recently wrote a Real Post Report for Bucharest.

A Real Post Report is something you find at a site called talesmag.com. Talesmag collects reports from expats around the world about what it's *really* like to live in a place. It was founded a few years back by some US State Department employees (anonymously, of course). It now includes reports from all sorts of people, but it still is pretty oriented towards the State Department.

I'm not a State Department employee, BTW.

Anyway, the idea is pretty simple... they just ask you to answer a list of questions honestly, and then they post the answers on their site. They've got over 100 countries covered. So if you're vaguely thinking of moving to, say, Botswana, there's probably a recent report telling you what it's like to live there.

My report is below the flip. (Oh, and we have an older report on Belgrade from when we lived there, too. 2+ years old, but still there under "Serbia".)

September 2005
By Douglas Muir

Travel time and best routes to this city from Europe or the US: Bucharest has regular daily flights to all major European cities, including London, Paris, and Frankfurt. Travel times are 2-3 hours. From there, you catch a transatlantic flight (another 8-10 hours) to the US East Coast or Midwest. Low-cost budget airlines have just started service here; there's one going twice weekly from Romania to Madrid.

Pollution index? Moderate to Unhealthy. Leaded gas and a lot of dirty diesel trucks and buses foul the air. On the other hand, for a city of 2 million, especially in Eastern Europe, it's not that bad.

Security concerns? We felt very safe on the streets. Petty theft is an issue, as are packs of stray dogs. There are allegedly a lot of scams, but we never had a problem with these—possibly they're more targeted at tourists. Take reasonable urban precautions and you should be fine.

Housing: Decent housing is widely available, but prices can be surprisingly high. I walk to work, but this is not typical. Many expats live in villa-style housing developments north of the city, about a 20-minute commute from the center.

International schools: There are at least half a dozen international schools, from the British School to the Montessori. We sent our son to the International School, and it was excellent. We've had a very good experience with this school. However, it's a bit pricey, and there's a waiting list. So contact them well in advance. Generally, none of the expat families seem to have a problem finding a good school.

Preschool/daycare available: Expats usually use babysitters or nannies instead of daycare.

Is this a good city for families/singles/couples? Yes, yes and yes. It's generally thought to be particularly good for single men, less good for single women. While it isn't as child-friendly as some American cities, there are lots of parks with playgrounds, and you're a reasonable drive from beaches and mountains. If you look around a bit, there's everything from paintball to pony rides.

Is it a good city for gay/lesbian expats? There's a gay scene here, but it's discreet. Romania is an Orthodox country and in some ways rather conservative.

Are there problems with racial, religious or gender prejudices? Some, not serious. Dark-skinned expats may occasionally be mistaken for Gypsies.

What difficulties would someone with physical disabilities have living in this city? Bucharest is not a handicapped-friendly city.

Interesting/fun things to do: Bucharest is a vibrant city; if you can't find something interesting to do here, you're not easily pleased. There's a very active nightclub scene, opera, and classical music concerts nightly at the Athenaeum. There are lots of pop music concerts, although mostly by second-string or has-been acts from the West or local bands you've never heard of. There are twenty or more movie theaters, with most major English-language movies opening a few weeks after the US. You'll find thousands of bars and cafes and hundreds of restaurants with every cuisine and price range. You're just a couple of hours away from the mountains to the north and the beaches to the east.

What fast food and decent restaurants are available? The city has several McDonald's, a couple of KFCs and some Pizza Huts. You can order out for pizza (variable) and Chinese (usually bad). Restaurants include Italian, Hungarian, French, German, Indian, Greek, Swiss, Fusion, and Japanese; and that's just for starters. The restaurants are one of the high points of living here.

What is the availability (and the relative cost) of groceries and household supplies? Bucharest has everything but IKEA. A dozen or so European megastores, like Praktiker and Carrefour ring the outskirts of the city. (For American readers, these are the European equivalents of WalMart and Price CostCo.) Supermarkets big and small are everywhere.

What comments can you make about using credit cards and ATMs? ATMs are everywhere. Both the local bank and your home bank will nail you for a service charge, so each withdrawal will probably cost around $4-5. Economize by withdrawing the maximum amount each time -- typically 2,000 New Lei (about US$700).

Local banks are mostly bad. Oh, your money is safe, but they have no tradition of customer service and will hit you with lots of niggling little charges.

You can use credit cards all over the place, but think carefully first: credit card fraud is a problem here. Don't use your credit card unless you're in a reputable place (like a major hotel chain) and check your billing. If you use PayPal, make sure you notify them that you're traveling to Romania. Otherwise, they may freeze your account! Romania does not yet formally allow PayPal transactions, so PayPal doesn't allow them to originate from Romanian ISPs.

Are local trains, buses, and taxis safe? Affordable? Trains are good if you take the highest categories.

Items you would ship if you could do it again? High-end child care items, like good strollers and child beds, are very expensive here. Ship them. Bring books; there are a few English-language book stores, but if you're a reader, you'll quickly exhaust them.

Availability and cost of domestic help: Domestic help is cheap and very good, but you have to shop around a little. Everyone will claim to have lots of experience, to speak perfect English, etc., whether they do or not. Get and check references. If you're with the US Embassy, ask about the Dacian Dispatch, a weekly newsletter that includes ads for nannies and housekeepers. All of our domestic helpers have been pleasant, hard-working, and very affectionate to our two boys. The biggest problem seems to be reliability: everything from getting to work on time, to consistently doing the job that's asked instead of the one that the maid thinks needs doing. Again, check references. Also be aware that there can be cross-culture communication issues, something Americans in particular can be surprised by (because Romanians "look like us").

How much of the local language do you need to know for daily living? You can get around Bucharest with English, but out in the country it's a lot harder. A bit of basic Romanian (please, thank you, numbers and directions) goes a long way. Romanians are very proud of their language, so learning even a little will get a very positive reaction.

English-language religious services available? Denominations? There is a Catholic church with services in English and French. Several Protestant denominations are present but I don't know about the languages. There are small Jewish and Muslim communities.

English-language newspapers and TV available? Cost? There are two English-language newspapers. Cable will get you CNN, BBC, MTV and Euronews.

Internet access cost and quality: Internet access is everywhere, both dialup and cable. Go with cable if possible. Not only is it faster, but dialup has you paying for the local call.

Size of expat community: At least several thousand.

Morale among expats: Good. Bucharest has its problems, but it's a perfectly decent post. And if you get bored it's very easy to hop on a plane or train and go somewhere else.

Are there decent job opportunities for expats on the local economy? No. Romanian pay scales are far below American and Western European wages. You might get lucky and find a job that needs a trained expat, but don't count on it.

Entertaining/social life: Very active. It's easy to meet people. Romanians love to entertain, and the expat scene is pretty good, too.

Dress code at work and in public: American/European standard. Shorts on men are considered a bit odd.

Any health concerns? What is the quality of medical care available? No major health concerns, but the quality of medical care is an issue. Romania's public health care system is a mess. There are good private clinics. Ask around.

You can leave behind your: Bicycles; Bucharest is not bike-friendly. There are no bike paths, and drivers, who are horrible to begin with, don't understand why a child's toy is trying to take up their road space.

But don't forget your: warm clothes for winter, sun block for summer, and books if you're a reader.

If you're a vegetarian, be ready to cook for yourself. You might want to bring a vegetarian cookbook. Romania is a country of carnivores, and it is very hard to find veggie dishes on restaurant menus. Also, don't forget your patience, especially for dealing with Romanian bureaucracy.

Weather patterns? The country has a continental climate, similar to the American Midwest. Summers are hot and humid, winters cold and dark. Spring and (especially) autumn are very nice.

Can you save money? Yes.

What can you spend it on? Traveling and eating out.

Knowing what you now know, would you still go there? Absolutely.

Any other comments: We've had a very good time here. Bucharest has had an unfairly bad reputation. Our experience has been that an expat can live comfortably here and also have a very interesting time. We recommend it.

Dogs good and otherwise

Lot of dogs in our neighborhood.

That's nothing unusual, of course. There are lots of dogs all over Bucharest. One reason is that Romanians really like dogs. Another is that, since the fall of Communism, crime has increased. It's still pretty low by American standards, but it's high enough that everyone is worried about it. So people get dogs.

Almost every house in our neighborhood has a dog or two. There are a few that stand out, though.

The Neighborhood Dog -- The neighborhood dog is a nondescript mixed-breed. It looks vaguely like a collie but is mostly black with odd bits of brown.

It belongs to the people next door to us (who are running a piping and plumbing company out of their house... long story). But they let it run free all day long. This is unusual in our neighborhood, where most of the dogs are kept behind fences. So it's sort of the whole neighborhood's dog.

It's a good dog. It rarely barks, and never at people. It's friendly, if not exactly effusive. Most of the time it just wanders slowly around the neighborhood. It has a slightly thoughtful, distracted air about it, like a professor who's trying to remember where he left his glasses.

The other morning I watched it for several minutes. It was just standing in the middle of the street. I want to say that it was frowning thoughtfully. We'll put aside the question of whether I had anything better to do than watch a dog from a window, because actually, it was quite interesting, okay?

Sometimes the neighbors go away for the weekend. Then they lock the dog in their yard, which is tiny and piled high with plastic piping and plumbing supplies. They leave food and water, but the dog is alone in a very small space, and after a day or two it begins to crack. More than one Sunday afternoon has been made dismal by the howls of the poor dog, cramped and alone.

The neighbors leave the dog out at night. So in winter, it looks for a warm door. I've sometimes gone outside on cold winter nights to find it standing patiently outside our gate. If I open the gate, it comes quietly inside and lies down, with a great deal of dignity, in front of our doorway.

It's not very interested in Alan and David, but it allows them to get close and pet it. Clearly it knows about small children. It endures their attentions with patience and never growls or snaps. When it's had enough, it walks slowly away.

It's a good dog.

The Snappy Dog -- The snappy dog lives around the corner, near the intersection of Strada Bruxelles and Strada Washington. (Yes, Bucharest has a Strada Washington. Under Communism, the maps all showed that it was named after that great revolutionary George Washington.)

It's a bad dog. Oh, not a very bad dog, but it's a showoff and a bully. It won't bother me or Claudia, but it likes barking and lunging at Alan and David, because they're small. I can't easily forgive this. Also, it becomes much louder and braver when its owners are around. If they're outside, it will lunge for your pants cuff. Or if it's safe behind its fence, it will raise the roof with its threats. Meet it in the street alone and it will slink away.

I have occasionally considered hitting the Snappy Dog hard with a thrown rock. Then maybe the next time I walk past, it will think again before frightening my boys. But that wouldn't be a very neighborly thing to do.

The White Dog -- The white dog lives on the other side of us from the Neighborhood Dog. It's another mixed-breed (okay, they're all mixed-breed) with perhaps a bit of pit bull. Since it's between us and Strada Dorobant', we walk past it a couple of times each day.

It's not a bad dog, but it does have one trick it likes to play. If we're walking past its yard, and we're not paying attention, sometimes it will suddenly jump at its side of the fence, barking madly. If we jump -- and if it catches you while you're thinking about something else, you'll jump, all right -- it sits back down with an unmistakeable air of satisfaction.

If you are paying attention, it won't even try. Make eye contact with it, and it will look away. "What, me?"

It doesn't get out much, and it's bored, so I can't really hold this against it.

The Batsh*t-Crazy Dog -- The Crazy Dog lives down Strada Brasilia, about four blocks south from us. We only run into it when we go to the Deutsche Kneipe, which is maybe once or twice a month.

It's a very bad dog. It's the sort of dog that really, seriously wants to bite you. And it's unpredictable... sometimes it will back away if you just glare at it, other times it will charge. Like most dogs, it's braver when its pack is around; there are two or three other dogs that sometimes hang with it, and they'll really get each other going. But even when it's alone, you don't want to turn your back on it.

It's a yellowish dog, not very big, with eyes that seem a bit too close together, and a mouth that's always drawn back in a snarl. It likes to lurk under parked cars, so you're never sure if it's around or not.

I have seriously considered pegging that dog with a thrown rock. A big thrown rock. And neighborliness be damned. In fact, a couple of times I've picked a rock up, ready to go. But every time I do that, the dog either isn't around, or just snarls from a distance. It definitely knows about rocks.

What bugs me is that the Crazy Dog obviously belongs to someone. I can understand owning a dog like the Snappy Dog, that's a big showoff. But you have to be some kind of asshole to own a dog that really wants to bite people, and then let it run free in the street.

Well, there are jerks everywhere. In Romania, they're just more likely to own dogs.

And those are some of the dogs in our neighborhood.

And then, Rita came

This is scary, on a personal level. Doug's mom is working for FEMA (and before you say anything, she's 74 years old and doing a hell of a job out there). She had been assigned to Beaumont, Texas. If you were listening to the news, you know that this is exactly where Rita is heading at the moment. So, she was evacuated yesterday -- to Lufkin, Texas. I'm hearing at lot about Lufkin at the moment, as that the shelters are closed down due to the masses of people pouring into the city. That there is no food, no gas.

We can't reach her at the moment (which might be due to her volunteering and just not answering either of her cell phones). We think she has reached Lufkin in time.

If you could spare a thought or two...

Dirty but dry

The heavy rains have stopped and the waters are receding. Here is an article about why the floodings were so severe. The picture shows how the situation was in many streets. We also find out that really we are to blame for the flooded streets -- don't shower when it rains, seems to be the morale of the story.

On a funnier side note comes this from Nine O'Clock News:

The Senators worked yesterday in the plenum hall of the new Parliament’s headquarters among raindrops. Rain came through the cupola of the foyer in front of the plenum hall too. But the Senate Speaker Nicolae Vacaroiu had to face the hardest problem, namely had to receive the Jordanian Senate Speaker in the protocol hall, with all the solemnity required, but among drops of rain which were leaking from the cupola inside the room. In the plenum, behind the official tribune where Vacaroiu stands, rain was pretty obvious. The first victim was Democrat Senator Jan Vraciu, who opened his umbrella. Several Senators rushed to help him and wiped his desk. Finally, Vraciu moved to another desk, between UDMR and PRM. The Power Senators and those from PRM blamed the Speaker and the secretaries of the Chamber of Deputies, who were the coordinators of the works that were conducted in the People’s House wing which hosts the Senate.

In other parts of the country, the consequences of the rains were much more dire, though. (There is no permalink for this article - if you can't find it, look under "Headlines". It might expire in a few days, though.) It's not been a good year so far.

I don't understaaaaand

I am utterly bemused and confounded by this:

"I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down."

I guess Chang is sort of like the LORD, except he's a martial artist too. Then there's the ceremony:

Bush then unsheathed a golden sword and gave it to Rubio as a gift.

"I'm going to bestow to you the sword of a great conservative warrior," he said, as the crowd roared.

Like, did Jeb have the sword at home in a cabinet? And what will Chang think? Is Jeb no longer under the protection of Chang? Are there other mystical warriors and/or weapons in the employ of the Powers That Be? Or was Chang simply using Jeb, and now has a better, more pliable puppet to work through?

Because a picture is worth a thousand words.

World dominance failed, again

This seems rather silly. Surely it's better to be a little hungry than risk foreign contamination. Who knows what the British pack into their army rations! It might be mince pies! Mint sauce! Baked beans! The horror!

This piece of news is actually not all that new. Ten days ago, The Spiegel reported that German Care packages were turned back because it was feared that they were infected with Mad Cow Disease.

[They saw through us. Darn. And we thought we had found a new way to world dominance!]

There is only one fact that bugs me about this explanation. Those food rations are NATO certified Mad Cow Disease-free and, gasp!, are cleared for consumption by US army personnel, e.g. in Afghanistan. When Der Spiegel inquired, the US Embassy in Germany rather sheepishly declared that the ban on the NATO food rations would be lifted again.

I'm watching this with bemused curiosity.

More rain

It's been raining hard those past two days, almost without interruption. It is still raining hard. The sewers can't take all the water anymore and the soil is quite thoroughly saturated by now. So the water collects in the dips and potholes. Entire streets are flooded.

This gives car rides a certain thrill -- how deep is the water? Are there any scary potholes hidden under that giant puddle? Will the car in front of you break down and have you stuck in water up to your car door? And just in how deep water can you drive this particular car?

Alan especially loved the ride to his school this morning - the water splashed up on either side of the car, right to the rooftop. Any pedestrians on the way - we apologize, but you really have no business walking next to this new lake on the street. That was just careless of you.

The rain is supposed to stop tonight, then resume and finally give up on Thursday. We can hope.

Still nice weather in NYC, some pie blogging

Sunny, and not humid.

Last weekend Bad Mama, Big Daddy and Peanut came to visit from the motherland, Wisconsin! (These are their pseudonyms, of course. For instance, Peanut's real name is Cashew.) For opening day of football season I took them to New York City's premiere Packer bar, Kettle of Fish at 59 Christopher Street, owned by fellow Wisconsin expatriate Patrick, who is a prince among barmen. I also made them pancakes (which they all had) and jambalaya (which Big Daddy and I ate).

I may have caught some lurg from playing with Peanut, who is utterly charming and has an intriguing variety of stuffed animals which learned to speak when I was around. (Then again, it might have been from the subway.) Peanut's favorite word is "No!", which she wields with a dexterity that rivals Vyacheslav Molotov's.

I was going to make them all bisteeya, which I have lately become obsessed with, but they left and I had to eat it myself. Bisteeya is Moroccan pigeon pie, except who wants to eat pigeons after living in New York? So I made it with chicken thighs. You boil the meat in spiced broth until it's tender. Then you curdle some eggs in the broth, maybe after adding some lemon. You strain it out and mix it with the meat; this becomes the savory filling. Also, you toast some almonds and mix them with a little sugar; this becomes the sweet filling. Then comes the demented part: you use both in the same pie.

It's a Mediterranean pie, so I used phyllo dough. A little like making strudel. Two layers of phyllo dough, brushed with butter, then a circle of the nut mixture, then a larger circle of the savory mixture -- you want this to be moist, but not wet -- then top that with some more of the sugar and almonds. I folded the edges of the phyllo sheets over until I had a sort of roundish shape, which I glued with more butter. Then I slid this onto a plate, prepared two more sheets of phyllo (more butter, mmmm!), flipped the pie onto them, and wrapped it up the other way. This was on a baking sheet already, since I had planned ahead, having had too many strudel-related mishaps in the past.

I had enough filling for two, so I made another on a plate, and slid it onto the sheet with less harm done than you might think. I baked them at 350 F / 175 C for about thirty minutes. Some of the melted sugar leaked out, caramelizing and then charring on the sheet. What can you do. You're supposed to dust them lightly with confectioner's sugar or the like, but frankly, I was starving.

Wow, that sweet and savory combination is damn good.

This was "sweep the kitchen" style bisteeya. I compared a bunch of recipes and pared them down to something a lazy, semi-skilled cook like myself could make without wrecking the basic flavor idea. Paula Wolfert I am not. So: three boneless chicken thighs simmered in water which had a chopped onion, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a teaspoon of ground ginger, a pinch of saffron, and a tablespoon of butter. Three beaten eggs. The juice of a lemon in the broth, and I didn't even squeeze hard. Very little salt, and that was after straining the chicken and egg mixture. I dunno, 75-100 grams of almonds? And less than a third of that sugar. Eight sheets of phyllo, and because I am a vulgarian, I thought about what a completely bitchen egg roll this would make.

The leftover broth I used to make rice.

The first day of autumn

Cold and rainy today, after two weeks of beautiful weather.

Yesterday, I took Alan and David to the northern part of Herestrau Park. I've mentioned Herestrau before, yes? It's the big park north of the city, about 15 minutes' walk from our house. Turns out it's so big that, even after two years here, I haven't explored it all. The northern end of the park (the part on the other side of the lake, for you Romanians) has a whole hidden region I'd never seen before -- with sculpted hedges and gardens, long broad paths for strolling, playgrouds, and even a Ferris Wheel. Who knew?

It was a beautiful afternoon, breezy but sunny and warm, and the boys had a great time. We ate pizza, then spent an hour just wandering around. The boys picked up sticks and vigorously defended us from dangerous trees and bushes. People were flying kites, and we stopped for a moment to watch. It was nice.

But this morning dawned grey and cold. Then the rain began. It's been raining for hours now, and blowing hard too... I was downtown this morning, and my umbrella kept turning inside out. (Of course, it was a cheap one that I bought for 100,000 lei outside the subway at Piatsa Universitatii. Still.) Now the grey day is darkening into a cold, wet, blustery night. Farewell, summer.

-- Speaking of the German elections: In my copious spare time, I sometimes blog over at A Fistful of Euros. They're covering the elections there, and doing it very well. (Not me. I write posts about Albania and such.)

Nobody interested?

One of the more amazing things about the German elections (to me) is how little the (US) blogosphere seems to care about it. Like, not at all.

I'm a little hurt. Don't you guys like us anymore?

(That is not a serious question.)

So, I voted

I can't say I'm happy about it. The choices were really bad this time around. I don't like Schröder, I dislike Stoiber, I am really not sure about Merkel, I don't think the Greens have been doing such a swell job, and there is no way I'm voting for the FDP.

However, I did vote for one of those. (I'm not telling but people who know me will have no problems guessing.) Because I believe that one ought to vote, even if the choices are quite limited, and I don't want to throw my vote away by giving it to a party that cannot possibly make the 5% cut.

Now, all I can do is wait and see what tomorrow brings. It'll be interesting, to say the least.

The Power of Bable

A conversation between Alan and his mother yesterday.

Alan: We speak many languages.
Claudia: Yes, we do.
Alan: American and German!
Claudia: And Romanian!
Alan: Yes. You speak German and Daddy speaks American.
Claudia: And what do you speak?
Alan: I speak American and German and Romanian.
Claudia: I also speak English and Romanian.
Pause.
Alan, diplomatically: A little Romanian.

(I should add that this conversation took place in German, of course.)

Romanian Etymology Friday

Today's Romanian word is sat, "village".

Sat is one of those Romanian words that comes from Latin, but in a non-obvious way. There are a lot of these. For instance, the word for "earth"? Both in the sense of "the dirt, the ground" and "the planet"? It's piment. (Romanian diacritical marks not included. The actual pronunciation is something like "pummunt".)

That comes from the Latin pavimentum, which is exactly what it sounds like: stones, pavement. Why the medieval Romanians chose this instead of the perfectly good Latin word terra, I don't know. (Unless it's because they were busy turning terra into tara, which is the Romanian for "field, land, country".)

But I digress. Sat is interesting because it comes from the Latin fossatum. That's the gerund form of the verb fossare, "to dig". Fossare survives in English in the scientific term "fossorial" -- meaning digging animals, like moles -- and the word "fossil", a 19th century neologism meaning "that which is dug".

Anyway, in Latin, fossatum literally means "(the) digging". It was commonly used as a military term -- you'll find it in Caesar's Gallic Wars, for instance, applied to defensive trenches, ditches and moats.

The best guess -- and this is just a guess -- is that back in the Dark Ages, Romanian settlements were surrounded by just these sorts of defensive trenches. To the point that the Romanians started referring to settlements as "diggings".

Totally random note: when J.R.R. Tolkein designed an artificial language for his hobbits, he did much the same thing; there are hobbit towns called "delvings". Although in that case, it was because hobbits liked digging, not because they were living in terror of barbarian war bands sweeping down from the steppes and burning them all alive.

This has been a Romanian Etymology Friday. Thank you.

The next step

Did you know that Boas can cut their pregnancies short by up to 100 days simply by basking in the sun?

I call for this as the next evolutionary step in mankind. Womankind. Whatever.

I'm perfectly serious. Really.

The nicest bathrooms in town

When we moved to Romania in 2003, my (up-to-date!) guide suggested that if we were to go out to a restaurant, we should take some toilet paper with us, as this is not always supplied.

Even back then -- two years ago! gasp! -- this wasn't true. We've seen some truly disgusting toilets in Romania, yes. Some were just not usable at all. And were out of toilet paper. But the Bucharest restaurant toilets were usually OK. However, we did notice a trend over the past years.

Bathrooms are getting some attention now. The new (and old) restaurants are using their interior designers not only for their eating areas but also for their bathrooms. Some go a bit overboard but when a new place opens, it's always fun to check out the bathrooms for some innovative ideas.

My favorite ones are:

1. Mica Helvetia -- The toilets in this Swiss restaurant have their seats covered in a nice Heidi theme. You almost don't want to sit down.

2. Piccolo Mondo -- The Lebanese/Turkish restaurant sports a regular big well in the anteroom to the toilets, complete with a nice hanging basket of plants over it and big stones at the bottom. Both Doug and I walked back and forth some little while in search for the sinks until we realized that the well was the sink. The taps are hidden in the hanging basket and the drains are below the stones. It's -- different.

3. Rogue Cafe -- Very modern, very stylish with brown mosaic in white washed walls and a sleek, elegant sink. Quite my thing. Just the big mirror in which you see yourself pulling down your undies is somewhat disconcerting.

Any suggestions for other contenders? We are looking for the coolest restaurant bathroom in Bucharest. Of course, it would be more impressive for our readers outside of Romania if we supplied pictures. Maybe one day.

Romania's first refugees

So there are these Uzbeks in Timisoara.

Some of you may recall that, back in May, there was some unrest in Uzbekistan. To make a complicated story short, the Uzbek government -- a dictatorship run by an unpleasant fellow named Islam Karimov -- gunned down several hundred protesters. The Uzbek government calls these people "terrorists", but most of them seem to have been unarmed civilians protesting against the regime.

I saw a few buses in front of us that blocked the road. People pushed one of them aside and made their way through. The shooting resumed. I heard a scream behind me. I looked back and saw a man with half of his head. The shooting became heavier. The number of wounded was more than those killed. They fired at us with all kinds of weapons. There were [red] tracer bullets. People got down on the ground and the shooting stopped. Then we got up and walked again. After we walked twenty meters the shooting resumed...

Just a hundred meters ahead, APCs were parked across the road, effectively blocking the main escape route of the crowd, and trapping the crowd in a sniper alley. In front of the APCs, soldiers were laying down on the ground behind sandbags. As the first group reached this area, they were wiped out by the fire from the APCs, the soldiers behind sandbags, and soldiers shooting from the roofs of nearby apartments. The second group similarly came under heavy fire, causing massive casualties. “As we moved ahead on Cholpon Prospect, we saw the APCs and the soldiers lying down in front of them,” one survivor from the second group stated. “We were just shocked. It was like a bowling game, when the ball strikes the pins and everything falls down. There were flashes from the APCs, there were bodies everywhere. I don’t think anyone in front of us survived,” he said.

Thousands of people fled from the killings. Most didn't get out of the country, but some did. Of those, the single biggest group to leae the region -- 439 men, women and children -- ended up in Romania, in an internment camp near Timisoara.

This is a rather odd place for them to be, but on the other hand it makes a certain amount of sense. Moving them directly from Uzbekistan to, say, Britain or the US might be somewhat disorienting. And the Romanians -- perhaps from having lived under a government that was perfectly willing to shoot protestors -- have been pretty sympathetic.

Most of the 439 Uzbeks are men, but there are about 70 women and 30 children. Some are in family groups, but most are not. The Karimov regime has declared them all to be "terrorists", so they're not going home any time soon. They are refugees, and will have to be settled... somewhere. They don't have a clear destination yet.

Good news: dozens of people have volunteered to provide medical care, orientation, and to teach the refugees English. This includes both Romanians and Americans. There are former American Peace Corps volunteers who have offered to pay their own way to Romania in order to help the Uzbeks.

Less good: the refugees are in a compound, and are allowed only limited contact with Romanians. They're not being allowed to do anything productive. One donor offered them several sewing machines, so that they could sew winter clothes for themselves. This was good, but then the refugees wanted to know if they could make clothes for sale here in Romania. (Apparently Uzbek women are famous for this.) They were told no -- refugees can't engage in commercial activity. This seems like one of those rules that has a good underlying reason, but may be misapplied in this particular case.

Anyway. This story hasn't been reported on much, but the Uzbeks have been here for a couple of months now, and will probably be here until at least the end of this year. After that... well, it's up in the air, really. Some kind country will have to offer to take them in.

(But this story does mark an interesting milestone here. Romania, a country that was producing refugees just fifteen years ago, is now a country that receives them.)

Walnuts

On the corner of Strada Brasilia and Strada Bruxelles, just across the street from our house, there's a walnut tree.

It grows in the corner of a garden, behind a cast-iron fence. But its branches arch out over the sidewalk and the street.

Two years ago, at the end of our first summer here, we saw an old woman and an old man out collecting walnuts. Alan was a toddler then, 18 months old, and David was a tiny baby. The old man and the old woman had very long sticks, fifteen feet (5 meters) or more. They hit the branches with the sticks and the walnuts rained down on... on the garden, on the sidewalk, and on the cobblestones of the street. Then they got bags and collected them.

Last year, we saw them again. Whack, whack the sticks. Patter-patter, the nuts. Alan was two and a half, David fourteen months.

This weekend, we saw the walnut collection one more time. I was taking Alan and David for a walk down Strada Brasilia, to look at the motorcycle shop. (Wow, do they love the motorcycle shop.) But walking down Strada Brasilia is always interesting in its own right. There are dogs both friendly and not so friendly; big old houses with overgrown gardens behind fences; cats zipping across the street, or basking on top of concrete walls; snails hiding in cracks, waiting for the rain so they can come and raid the gardens; abandoned cars slowly rusting in place. Always something to look at.

And this morning, there was the old lady again. The old man wasn't there this time. I don't know why. But she was still going strong with that stick. She had opened a second floor window and was attacking the top of the tree.

Alan is three and a half now, all scraped knees and wild hair. David is just past two. We were walking slowly up the street, looking at fuzzy caterpillars -- there were a lot of them suddenly, fallen from the treetops I suppose -- when we heard the whacking. The boys rushed to the fence and clung. (Alan had to be firmly dissuaded from climbing over it into the garden.) Eyes wide, they watched the nuts falling, bouncing, the green husks breaking open to show the fresh brown nuts.

After a few moments, the old woman came out of the house. She immediately began smiling and laughing with the boys, chattering away in rapid-fire Romanian. Alan and David were a little shy at first, but this just made her more enthusiastic. She filled their little hands with walnuts. The boys, excited, passed the nuts back and forth, stared at them, tapped them against the ground, stuffed them into their pockets and mine. She gave them more.

I finally had to leave -- to flee, almost -- because there were so many walnuts. And she wasn't going to stop giving them to the boys. As soon as a hand was empty, another nut was pressed into it. By the time we left, their pockets and mine were bulging. We all waved goodbye (which felt a little odd, since we were just crossing the street) and left with many a "la revedere!", "multsumim!" and "traiasca!"

We sat on the kitchen floor with Claudia and cracked the walnuts open. Fresh walnuts are a little softer than the ones you get in stores, and the nutty taste is much stronger. There's a little skin, right by the flesh of the nut, that you can peel off; if you leave it on, it's edible, but adds a bitter aftertaste. The boys broke shells, picked through the bits, dug soft nut-flesh out, and laughed and laughed.

Mostly filler, some circus animals

Posting always seems to come in clumps. So be it! Here in NYC, Bad Mama, Big Daddy, and the wonderful pixie Peanut are visiting for the weekend. Peanut is especially adorable. (That loud ticking sound you hear as the page loads is my biological clock. Wow, I am so single. I like going to art galleries, quirky books, and cooking for two. [Update: must be gridiron-sympathetic.])

I encountered a flutist in the subway station the other day, playing at exactly the correct acoustic position. You could hear the music at the subway's entrance, a gorgeous wall of sound. The station extends for at least 100 meters -- a long tunnel that is weirdly under-utilized -- and at the top of the steps leading to the lower platform the man stood lost in his music, looking like a figure from a Greek vase. Pure improvisation, and quite beautiful. The flutist's name is Linton Pate, and while he has a CD (he shyly warned me, "it's unconventional," but hell, I listen to Harry Partch) he has no web presence at all as far as I can tell. Well, now he does.

On the same subway ride I saw a guy with his surfboard out to catch some waves.

I haven't recommended any books lately. Here are two good ones: Encounter with an Angry God, by Carobeth Laird; and Nerve Cells and Insect Behavior, by Kenneth Roeder.

Closer...

Every day, Romania creeps a little closer to joining the EU.

Here's the short version: Romania and Bulgaria are scheduled to become the 26th and 27th EU members on January 1, 2007. That's less than 16 months away.

But! The accession treaty has a special "safeguard clause", providing that if the candidates don't show enough progress, accession can be delayed by a year -- pushing it back to January 1, 2008.

And accession could also be delayed if any of the 25 EU members don't ratify the accession treaty. This has never happened, and it probably won't happen this time... it would create a major crisis if it did. But it is out there.

So what's the status at the moment?

-- Only two of the 25 have yet ratified Romania's accession: Slovakia, about a month ago, and Hungary, just this week. Given the sometimes troubled relations between Hungary and Romania, this was a nice gesture. None of the "Old 15" have ratified yet.

-- German Chancellor Schroeder, however, once again expressed his support for Romania's membership. This would be more encouraging if Schroeder were not in grave danger of losing his seat; Germany has elections next week, and Schroeder's party is running neck-and-neck with the Christian Democrat Union opposition.

Worse yet, the CDU is distinctly cool to further EU enlargement. If they win next week, then the EU's largest member will be run by a party that wants to slow or stop expansion. At a minimum, they'll probably push for activating the safeguard clause.

-- A recent (last week) EuroBarometer poll shows that only 45% of EU members’ citizens support Romania’s accession

Croatia got a support of 52%. (Croatia has, IMO, a much better reputation than it deserves.) Bulgaria received 50% and Turkey only 35%. Out of all EU members Sweden, Greece and Denmark gave the strongest support for Romania, while he countries with the least support were Austria and Germany.

Head of the European Commission Delegation in Romania Jonathan Scheele said: "I am worried by the 45% support that Romania has received. You have to try hard to become more popular. Romania is the least known country in the EU".

'You have to try hard to become more popular'? What is Romania supposed to do? Get a makeover?

(Seriously, this is something that deserves a post in its own right. Romania has a pretty negative image in Europe. Basically, it's Ceausescu, Dracula, orphans, poverty, corruption, and maybe guest workers. It's ridiculous that a country with so much to offer is stuck with such a stupid set of stereotypes, but there it is.)

-- The recent bout of mild political instability has not helped. The on-again, off-again elections, the Cabinet reshuffle, the constant blowing hot and cold on key issues (we won't raise taxes! Yes, we will! No, we won't!) don't look so good. I posted recently over at A Fistful of Euros about the EU punishing Albania for severe political immaturity; it's not impossible that something similar could happen here.

On the plus side... every day helps. The closer Romania gets to January 1, 2007, the harder it will be for the EU to activate the safeguard clause.

The next big hurdle? The annual report on Romania's progress, which will come out next month.

The odds? At this point I'd say they're about even.

Little European boys

My mother-in-law's greatest fear is that our boys will be too European to ever fit in once we get back to the US. I don't think that's really an issue - kids are adaptable and if they are not quite like other US kids, well, then I'm sure it's for the better, not for the worse. (At least, I'm keeping that hope up.)

However, this morning, my dear husband was compelled to comment: "They are such little European boys."

Why, you ask?

We usually have a breakfast that looks something like this - homemade granola, cereal, yoghurt, milk, fruit. I guess the yoghurt makes it a bit more European but granola, milk and fruit should be not too subversive, right?

Weekends are different, though. Around 8 this morning, Alan started demanding food. Not any kind of food. No, it had to be a "long bread". (This is a baguette, for all those who don't understand Alan-speak.) So he went to rouse his Dad, who is the bakery person in this household, and together they went and got long bread. Two long breads, actually - one for Alan and one for the rest of the family. Alan doesn't like to share his long bread. And, of course, chocolate croissants. So he and his Dad walked back home, with Alan carrying two baguettes under his arm and swinging a bag with croissants.

I guess you could call that European.

Easier than expected

We got a passport for David yesterday.

Oh, we didn't actually get the passport. But we both went down to the US Embassy downtown and submitted the application... birth certificate, photos, all that good stuff.

A friendly person at the Embassy had tipped us to come on Friday, because the visa section -- which generates a lot of traffic, long lines and whatnot -- is closed on Fridays. And sure enough, the Embassy was pretty quiet. We were able to zip right through security and get our stuff done in just a few minutes, while David sat on the counter being cute.

"Why, hello there, young man. What's your name?

"David!"

"And how are you today, David?"

"David!"

etc., etc.

Good thing: everything went really briskly and everyone was pleasant and friendly.

Less good thing: every US Embassy in the world everywhere is a damn fortress. Barred windows, reinforced doors, security checks, bulletproof glass. One street that runs by it is closed; another has concrete bollards, to prevent a car bomber from getting too close.

I am just old enough to remember when this was not so. But I suspect it will be like this for the rest of my life.

Maybe David will see a time when the bars come down. I'd like to think so.

Iliescu, still

Ion Iliescu is still around.

Back in May, I blogged a bit about how Iliescu was getting on in the aftermath of last year's election.

Not a lot has changed since then. Iliescu is still out there. He's still in the paper or on TV almost every day, and according to some polls he's more popular than ever. He's still locked in a complex relationship with PSD: they don't want him in charge, but they can't do without him.

One new development: Iliescu announced recently that he's forming a new "center-left social platform", in alliance with -- among others -- former Prime Minister Petre Roman.

(This is a bit amusing, because Iliescu and Roman were political allies in the original National Salvation Front -- the government that took power after Ceausescu, in December 1989. That alliance was short-lived, as Iliescu sacked Roman in 1991. But now they're friends again. This has caused some wits to say that the new movement is a National Re-Salvation Front.)

Now, notice that this isn't a new party. Nonono. It's a new "social platform". What exactly does that mean? Well, probably it means that Iliescu is strengthening his position vis-a-vis the disrespectful young whippersnappers in the PSD. If they don't bow down and start licking, then in a year or two he'll turn the platform into a party, instantly sucking away tens of thousands of loyal Iliescu voters. And quite possibly, hundreds of senior PSD leaders too... a lot of them are still loyal to Granny.

What's he after? That's easy. Power. He can't be President any more, no. But he can still be the grey eminence, the power behind the scenes.

Why? Why won't he go away?

One, he's an old Communist. Those guys never go away. Unless utterly and totally discredited -- like, thrown in jail for a while -- Communist leaders of the old school keep coming back until they die. They don't think of power as something you walk away from.

Two, he's firmly identified with a particular ideology. While many politicians are seen as opportunist (Nastase) or as driven by personality (Basescu), Iliescu is seen as a true believer in socialism.

Three, he's still really popular. There are a number of reasons for this, but here's a key one: he's never made himself rich. Oh, he presided over years of massive corruption, and his close friends and allies found wealth beyond the dreams of avarice... but Iliescu himself has always lived rather modestly.

Which leads to Four: Iliescu only cares about power, getting and holding it. This gives him a major advantage over politicians who are interested in power as a means to an end -- making themselves rich, or serving the national interest, or whatever.

And Five, he still has deep links to the security services. It's widely believed that he has dirt of some sort on pretty much every major player in Romanian politics and business. Whether that's true or not, the belief itself has a significant effect.

In sum, Romania is going to have Ion Iliescu around for as long as his health allows. Iliescu is seventy-five years old, and has had at least one heart attack. On the other hand, Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist is 90, and he's still going strong. So who knows.

Romanians and "EU values"

Andy over at Csikszereda Musings reviews a recent study on Romanians and "EU values".

There's lots of interesting stuff in there. Andy's short review is a good one, but it may be worth your while to read the whole thing. (pdf file.) Okay, maybe not the whole thing -- it's 85 pages long -- but you can find the executive summary on pages 8-14.

And if you're interested in a foreigner's-eye view of Romania, check out the rest of Andy's blog, too. It's very good.

But how relevant is this to Romania?

This is very funny. Now I wonder: how much would Romanians think this applies to Romania as well? You know, since Romanians are sort of the lost cousins of the Italians...

(Warning: I think it's hard to view this link in a modem connection.)

Be merry

I am sure everyone is a little worn out from bad news. So, no posts about the administration that couldn't organize an orgy at an Ibiza rave. I don't really have anything to say to those people for whom ideology trumps evidence.

Instead, food! When I am stressed out, I cook. Yesterday I made cornbread pancakes, chicken and sausage jambalaya, and Key lime pie. (And now you see why I work out like a sonofabitch.) The pancakes used a Jiffy cornbread mix, so no recipe.

The jambalaya was sort of like Belle Waring's Red Rice recipe, except I only had one strip of bacon, so I fried that and put in two tablespoons of butter in the grease. Then I sauteed about 400 grams of chicken thigh meat before putting the vegetables in. I chopped four stalks of celery instead of just one, and instead of a carrot, a seeded and diced green bell pepper. I also threw in a few cloves of chopped garlic and some chopped parsley. Some olive oil too.

I sauteed until the onions were clear, and added about 400 grams of sliced kielbasa and about one and a half cups of long-grain rice, and stirred it until all the grains of rice were coated with oil and were looking clearish. Some salt. Screw hypertension!

I poured the mixture into a pot and added maybe 3 cups of tomato juice. Some squirts of Lea & Perrin's (Worchestershire sauce). Stirred it up -- you want a larger pot for this, I'd underestimated the size, and it was nearly to the brim -- brought it to a boil, covered it and let it simmer. I haven't tried Belle's magic Carolina Rice Cooker, but I stirred this every few minutes to prevent it from sticking and burning; and I added some extra tomato juice and hot water twice when it was getting dry.

It's done when the rice is cooked and the fluid absorbed. If you want it spicy hot, Tabasco sauce &/or a sprinkle of cayenne pepper. Feeds one hungry bachelor trencherman two meals; makes great leftovers.

And the pie! This is so easy. The juice of three limes, three eggs, and a can (400 g) of condensed milk. Mix well. If you're squeamish about curdling, add the eggs to the lime juice first. Pour that into a pie crust -- and now that I have the space, I can make them from scratch, yeah! although I didn't here -- and bake at 350 F / 175 C for about 20 minutes, until the custard sets and the crust turns brown. Let it cool. Put on the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and give some more cash to the American Red Cross. Live.

Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin

"I don't care if I get blamed for it," Gibson said, "as long as I saved my people."

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

So Fats Domino and his family ended up staying with Louisiana State University's quarterback in Baton Rouge, along with twenty other people. Looka! has an ongoing update about New Orleans' musicians (scroll down a bit for today's update here). Antoinette K-Doe and Alex Chilton are still unaccounted for. The blog's proprietor, Chuck Taggart, is also the producer of "Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens: The Big Ol’ Box Of New Orleans", whose profits will be donated to the American Red Cross. (And hell, even if they weren't, it looks mighty tasty.)

[Update September 7th: according to Looka! Alex Chilton and Antoinette K-Doe are alive and have been accounted for. Be of good cheer people of Google.]

Anyway, here are two poems on Louisiana and football. Trust me, you'll like them:

Excerpted from "A Good Memory", from Neon Vernacular, Yusef Komunyakaa

9. White Port & Lemon Juice

At fifteen I'd buy bottles
& hide them inside a drainpipe
Behind the school
Before Friday-night football.
Nothing was as much fun
As shouldering a guard
To the ground on the snap,
& we could only be destroyed
By another boy's speed
On the twenty-yard line.

Up the middle on two, Joe.
Eddie Earl, you hit that damn
right tackle, & don't let those
Cheerleaders take your eyes off
The ball. We knew the plays
But little about biology
& what we remembered about French
Was a flicker of blue lace
When the teacher crossed her legs.

Our City of Lights
Glowed when they darkened
The field at halftime
& a hundred freejack girls
Marched with red & green penlights
Fastened to their white boots
As the brass band played
"It Don't Mean A Thing."
They stepped so high.
The air tasted like jasmine.

We'd shower & rub
Ben-Gay into our muscles
Till the charley horses
Left. Girls would wait
among the lustrous furniture
Of shadows, ready to
Sip white port & lemon juice.
Music from the school dance
Pulsed through our bodies
As we leaned against the brick wall:

Ernie K-Doe, Frogman
Henry, The Dixie Cups, & Little Richard.
Like echo chambers,
We'd du-wop song after song
& hold the girls in rough arms,
Not knowing they didn't want to be
Embraced with the strength
We used against fullbacks
& tight ends on the fifty.

Sometimes they rub against us,
Preludes to failed flesh,
Trying to kiss defeat
From our eyes. The fire
Wouldn't catch. We tried
To dodge the harvest moon
That grew red through trees,
In our Central High gold-
&-blue jackets, with perfect
Cleat marks on the skin.

"Correction and Amplification", from Between the Chains, Turner Cassity

"Boudin, the dark, unbelievably hot sausage beloved of the Legionaries, is unknown outside of North Africa." -- Charles E. Mercer, Legion of Strangers

High stumps that were the palm trees are the lights;
The low palmettos fence the stadium.
The high-school football team of Lafayette,
Louisiana, runs out on the field
In contact lenses and an endless text
Of Cajun names. It is the Catholic
High school; a jewelry of Crosses tics
Among the cheering section and the band,
Whose majorettes are Vietnamese. A priest --
Ex-chaplain, or of some sophistication --
Sees to it that the pom-pom is confined
To two cheerleaders, who are blond and male.
The buzzing mildness of the winter night
Is all we have of Indochina; that,
And rattling in the unbeheaded palms.
Sahara is the stronger presence felt,
Although the locals have no sense of it.
Although the caps are not the kepi quite,
It's

Hot Boudin! Cold Coosh-Coosh!
Lafayette Our Savior! Push! Push! Push!

The south of I-10 vowels make the rhyme,
And couscous here is cornbread. Boudin, though,
Is boudin, even if it's made with pork,
And with the pig's unspeakables at that.
Our Savior's opposition does not flinch.
A little of the march-or-die is there,
As well it might be. That opposing team
Is Algiers High. Algiers, Louisiana,
Opposite downtown New Orleans,
but post-colonial is where you look,
And if the march sounds French, all marches do.
Take back the pom-pom, Girls; Algiers, rip up
The infidel and make that next first down.

Marquis de Lafayette knew revolution too.

A modest proposal

In 813 AD, the victorious Bulgarian khan Krum turned the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus's skull into a drinking cup, or so Theophanes recounts. Later it was used as a Quidditch trophy. The Lombard king Alboin did the same to the king of the Gepids, but this ended badly. Lord Byron found a skull on the family estate (a former monastery Kelo'ed by Henry VIII) and had a jeweler work it into a cup; being Byron, he wrote a poem about it. And admirers of the pirate Blackbeard turned his skull into a mug, or (accounts differ) the base of a punch bowl. The kapala has played an important role in Tibetan religion, while in Fiji the skull-cup helped give conflict resolution a sense of closure.

I call dibs. Because, you know, it's never too early to plan ahead.

A New York distraction

Yesterday I was walking through the completely unhip part of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a neighborhood of immigrant and working-class apartment complexes, near the East River between the bridges, adjacent to Chinatown.

There's a crowd of people standing next to an ambulance. Happens all the time in New York. I walk past them.

There's a bearded young white guy wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt obviously stoned out of his mind, trying to stand, standing, laughing, and then lying down on the street to rest before repeating the process. I walk past him, wondering WTF? The ambulance is right there. I should go back and let them know.

I turn around and see the EMS guys with a gurney coming to take care of him. OK. The situation had me confused, because usually, if there's informal street theater in NYC, the crowd circles the event. Everyone wants to make sure the right thing is done. But here, due to the geometry of the neighborhood, they were all clustered to one side.

There were only three white people in the area, including the stoned guy. (I'm from the Midwest, I notice these things.) The crowd -- who had obviously just cell-phoned for help moments before -- was Chinese, Hispanic, and black. The EMS guys were black. And there were two white women at the far side of the events, near a micro-park, looking lost, obviously wondering what the hell was going on.

They come up to me: German tourists! much is explained. As Claudia well knows, my German bites the wax tadpole, but their English is good. They are looking for two things: how to get to the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge, so they can walk across it back to Manhattan; and the nearest McDonald's. I offer to walk them to the McDonald's, which is near the nearest subway stop to get to Brooklyn. Only a few blocks away, but the directions a little complicated.

(No, Carrie, this is not a boom-chicka story. If it were, I wouldn't post it.)

Their map, from a German travel guide, while strictly speaking accurate, lacks essential detail. I was a little shocked. They ask me, that man, what was going on there? Oh, a college student, overdosed on LSD, I reply (although it probably wasn't LSD, there's been a drought; and he might not have been in school; but close enough, close enough).

Are there a lot of drugs in the city? No, not really, I answer. This part of Manhattan isn't very glamorous. In fact, it's downright industrial in spots. And there's trash on the sidewalks, so I understood their confusion. But it's not a slum. It's just... unkempt.

We walk past the Knickerbocker Village complex. They see the sign and crack up. An entire apartment building filled with people wearing plus-fours!

I love this city.

Fine lines

Meanwhile...

Source: Deutsche Welle Radio Online

I'm very torn on the issue of looting. If my kids were dying of thirst, I'd raid a supermarket for water any time. I might even take some candy bars, hygiene products, bleach, and batteries.

But TVs, computers, Nike shoes and designer clothes are a different matter altogether.

Because that's what friends are for

The German government has offered help to the US. The German Red Cross and CARE Germany are collecting donations. Merck has pledged 2 million Euros in food and medical supplies.

Germany doesn't stand alone. More than 20 countries, among them France, China and Russia, plus the NATO and the UN have offered help. They could supply doctors, boats, airplanes, tents, blankets and generators. Food. Water. Expertise.

George Bush said thank you but no, thank you. The US are capable of dealing with this by themselves.

What the hey?

The need is very plain for all to see. The people are dying on the streets. Babies are dying in the Superdome. I'm sure the people don't really care which country the food comes from when it drops out of the sky.

It's not dishonorable for the US government to accept help from its friends because that's what friends are for. So what if you had a spat before and disagree on certain issues. So what if you were drifting apart a bit. Big deal. It's obvious that help is needed, so help should be accepted.

Think of your people first, George, and of your petty grudges later.

Qualis artifex pereo

From The Times of London:

By his own admission, things are going badly for Sheriff Harry Lee and his crisis management efforts. Outside his mobile headquarters truck, two officers grip a stepladder while a third stands on the top rung waving his mobile telephone in the air, searching for a signal.

Inside Sheriff Lee, of Jefferson parish in New Orleans, is sitting at a table, fuming. He is doing his best to alleviate the biggest catastrophe he will ever witness, but lacks even the most basic of resources.

Some of HDTD's readers will know of my long-standing interest in the peculiarities of Southern politics, and will not be surprised that I actually have Harry Lee's biography. Like many Southern lawmen, he's been a little, um, controversial. Here's the official online version, and an article about the man. But man, is he pissed off now:

"It’s not getting better -- it’s getting worse," he says. "This is probably the largest national disaster in the history of the US and the co-ordination that should be in effect all these days after the event just isn’t happening. It’s lack of proper planning and lack of co-ordination. There are plenty of Indians, but no chiefs."

"My chief deputy said some of the other deputies are quitting on us. They want to be with their families. Well, I want to be with my family too but you don’t quit in the middle of a crisis," he said. "My daughter rang me, crying. She said, ‘Daddy, can’t you leave?’ I said ‘Yes, I can point my car west and step on the gas, but can I go and leave these people here? No, I cannot."

Meanwhile, Fats Domino is missing.

Update: Fats Domino has been found, and my friend Dana's grandfather (who was in a New Orleans nursing home) has been found! They're both OK.

But our president has a new guitar!

Oh, it makes him so happy! Do you think he will play it for us?