Ruminations, mostly editorial
June 9, 2007strictly editorial
Electronic editing
HGC | Saturday, Jun 09, 7:22 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
May 20, 2007strictly editorial
Bureaucrats and diplomats #1
The manuscript is a monograph— Belarus: Europe's Next Flashpoint? It will pay well (has in fact already paid 50 percent up front). For a week or so I harbored a sense of potential guilt that it might pay too well. I have changed my mind.
It’s hard to argue that most of it was done not because the national elite, as was the case in neighboring Baltic states, had both the plan and the overwhelming support of the population. On the contrary, in the early years of independence Belarusan nomenclature, that continued to dominate in the government, with various degrees of vehemence and success fought against many democratic and economic reforms. The government of the then premier Vyacheslav Kebich pursued, as it seemed, the only viable policy—staying in Russian economic space as long as possible by bartering its goods in exchange of preferential prices for energy. It was the government of Kebich which first introduced the issue of a monetary union, which to this day continues to haunt bilateral relations between Minsk and Moscow.
Most of the advancements in nation-building should be attributed to the efforts of national-democratic opposition, which has been able to wield significant influence on the country’s political life. The brief democratic thaw of the late perestroika period and the years before Lukashenko’s coming to power, along with the modest media exposure, allowed them to lay solid foundation for the edifice of future Belarusan statehood.
In contrast to the Belarusan governments’ inertia, resulting partly from unwillingness, partly from incompetence in state building, Baltic states all have embarked on a road of ambitious market reforms, supported by national consensus. Russian government, headed by liberal reformers under Yegor Gaidar also started a radical economic program, and in Ukraine all the branches of the government supported state and nation building and pro-Western foreign policy.
But a retrospective analysis of the events of the early period of Belarusan independence should be based not on criticizing past mistakes and blunders, willfully or inadvertently committed by the then government of Belarus, but on acknowledgement, that sheer complexity of the task, facing the government in 1991-1992 clearly surpassed many similar attempts, known to political science in other historical circumstances and regions of the world, let alone anything Belarusan nation faced in its previous history.
In dismissing the progress made by Belarus in the first years of its independence many commentators remind of some events of this period, that show reluctance of the then government to fully invest its energy into nation- and state building. Among such events—enthusiastic support by Belarus of the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent State, which was perceived as an attempt to preserve at least some Soviet heritage, the signing of an agreement on military co-operation with Russia, decision to join the CIS Collective Security Treaty, which undermined the neutral status of Belarus, proclaimed by its 1990 Constitution.
Nevertheless in the same period, Belarus democratically adopted new constitution, which formalized its status as independent and unitary republic. This constitution, with all of its imperfections, which has become later exposed by Alexander Lukashenko’s cynical manipulations, was based on the universal democratic principles, it declared the separation of powers, rule of law, respect for human rights and individual freedoms of Belarusan citizens. With several exceptions, which, when compared in retrospect to gross abuses of power by the Lukashenko regime, today look trifling , the then powers did not prevent emerging Belarusan civil society from laying foundations for true democracy, the rule of law and market reforms.
A translation will, in time, follow… Right now I struggle with a Sunday afternoon —and spring has finally arrived to stay— and other things I'd rather do, though the day is already well spent on other things. This morning, the final nine reviews for the DCShorts film festival, and taking the bicycle downtown to return those films. This midday, finishing The Professor and the Madman, which has been sitting on my shelves since I borrowed it from my father eight years ago. I digress, again, by way of putting off Belarus, in hopes that it might go poof in a puff of something definitive and final…
HGC | Sunday, May 20, 4:14 PM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
April 29, 2007tangential
Global warming
A lovely spring dawn, windows flung open, birds chirping, sky clear. I sit at the desk, bound and determined. Chapter 12 stares balefully at me. Behind it, an incomplete style sheet, and beyond that a stack of paper, the artwork, one figure, numerous tables, and several sharpened red pencils. When all that is done, the review of the edits. A lovely spring day, sigh ...
By way of putting off the inevitable, I turn to the funnies and lo and behold— my father (1915–2006) ... protesting again ....
HGC | Sunday, Apr 29, 6:25 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
April 27, 2007tangential
Warning lights
I went out this morning, walking past the cheetahs and the vistor center in the rain at about twenty to ten. He was out already, up above the rocks. "Hallo there, dear man!" I cried. He stood up, looking toward me, looking at me. By the time I had drawn near enough, he was down from the rocks, moving toward me. His muzzle fogging the glass. "Mah man!" I said again. We talked, then, for five minutes, nose to nose. Merlin. I shall miss our morning meetings.
They told me later, toward the end of the watch, that sloth bears are responsible for more human deaths than any other species of bear. A public broadcasting camera man filming in India not too long ago watched one burst from the woods to chase a 500-pound Bengal tiger away. O mercy. All this and 95 percent of their diet (that's the sloth bear, not the tiger) is ants and termites. How good to know that M and I are friends.
On the drive home through the park, six miles along Beach Drive, I noticed a light on the dash. CHECK ENGINE. Heart moved to throat. I chunked the final three miles home at 28 miles an hour. "Was it flashing?" asked the dealership service fellow. "No," said I. "That's good," said he. "O god," said I. We made an appointment. "What do I do if it starts flashing while I'm driving?" I asked. "Pull over," he said. I'd rather not think about that.
I hung up the telephone and looked at the computer screen, where I had just sat down. On the task bar, the Internet connection icon sported a yellow dot flashing at me. "Limited or no connectivity," it explained. Make that no connectivity. Five hours, three telephone calls, and never mind the technical details later, I contemplated another wasted day.
Is there time, I wonder, for a bike ride before settling down and finishing the final two chapters before going to bed? You've heard tell of the hollow laugh. And what do I do about Emma, which I haven't finished watching? How do I sell the old bike at the swap tomorrow if I have to be at the dealership?
How, as they say, was your day?
HGC | Friday, Apr 27, 5:54 PM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Breaking up
I stare down the muzzle of chapter 9, one of twelve in Unmarried Couples with Children, each of which touches on the theme of breaking up. As usual in 2007, the Year of No Time, I have left the bulk of the work until the last moment (read eight days). Do I skip writing class, cry unavailable for volunteer duties, beg off a massage, and eschew random bicycle jaunts? Ask a silly question...
Earlier, at dawn, it poured with rain. This has abated but the sky remains gray and dank and the day promises both more of same and more downpours. Having gotten in fact halfway through chapter 9, I had wanted to finish it before leaving for the Zoo, which leads me to ...
Alas, I have a tête à tête with my boyfriend this morning, our last. I daresay I might catch a glimpse of him now and again, but our liaison ends officially today. Sigh.
I shall miss him, that lumbering sweetheart.
HGC | Friday, Apr 27, 7:40 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
April 18, 2007tangential
Responsibility?
Moving on with the reference lists and text citations of this edited manuscript (Unmarried Couples with Children), it occurs to me that the parents of the shooter — who run a dry cleaning business in Centreville — we forget this in thinking of the thirty-two dead who shouldn't be — have themselves lost a child but as well and perhaps more significantly seemingly must have some sense, perhaps an overwhelming sense (misguided or otherwise), of responsibility for what happened.
How desperate, how agonizing, such a feeling would be ...
HGC | Wednesday, Apr 18, 11:27 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Blacksburg
Today would be my parents' sixty-fifth anniversary. This past weekend was my thirtieth college reunion. I had intended to write about the event and the visit to Richmond, but all that is on hold. My friend Corby from Queen Anne and Westhampton wrote on Monday afternoon.
It was wonderful seeing you Saturday... Ken and I both enjoyed our too short visit with you. You look terrific and you have had so much happen in your life, both good and bad.
I was frantic this morning , as you might guess... since Chris [older son] goes to VA Tech and some of the shooting happened in his very dorm... took several hours to get a hold of him to verify he was safe... had slept through it all (as did his roommate) since their classes didn't start till later in the day this morning. Thank God. I can't imagine how someone could walk on to a campus (or anyplace else) and commit this heinous crime. Figure has risen to 31 dead now.
The papers today are naming most of the victims, having begun later yesterday, including photographs and bios, which catch at the throat. The numbers become people, students most of them, amazing smiling very alive people, all of them. Were. Liviu Librescu, to survive the Holocaust and communist Romania and achieve international renown as an aeronautical engineer so that he might block a doorway so that his students might escape through windows ...
What does one say?
HGC | Wednesday, Apr 18, 8:44 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
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