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Saturday, October 16, 2004


GYORGY

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‘I read Stalin’s work and I realized that he was quite a bad author, and much worse than Lenin, although Lenin is also much worse than Marx’

Gyorgy Konrad

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I entered the cafe at the corner overlooking the entrance of a 5-star Hotel and a main pedestrian thoroughfare. The location, one of my favourites; funnels students, hotel visitors and scattered tourists into the busy maze of narrow streets and alleys of my hometown. As I entered the cafe, a popular student hangout filled to capacity with mostly native and foreign adolescents, I was lucky to occupy a just vacated table. I took out my paper and folded it over the cluttered table’s remaining space. I ordered a coffee and sandwich and scanned the cafe briefly to check its occupants. I noticed nothing special, until I observed the elderly gentleman sitting at the first table located in the alcove close to the entrance door. Looking closer I saw that the demure and scholarly gentleman stooped over the table with both of his arms resting onto his knees, while reading the Neue Zuercher Zeitung was none other then Gyorgy Konrad.

Konrad, the nomadic Jewish-Hungarian writer, humanist and dissident, and the recipient of the 2001 Charlemagne Prize, awarded to him for his outstanding commitment to the cause of European integration- had just paid for his lunch. For a few minutes he finished reading the remainder of his paper until he refolded it, casually taking out the financial section, and brushing it aside. Slowly he rose to his feet, and with difficulty slipped into his coat, all the while oblivious of a young couple trying to squeeze past him towards the exit. After a minute or two he acknowledged their presence and with a wry smile waved them past.
Meticulously he buttoned his coat and left the cafe. Once outside, he passed by the windows, in a slowish slightly stooped gait and disappeared into the city’s labyrinth, indistinquishable from the packs of senior travelers visiting on weekend budget transits.

Konrad, currently based in Berlin where he is President of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Arts has been a champion of a united Europe that includes the East. In an interview he said: ‘I think that Europe is the continent which is most interested in other continents and their cultures... I wouldn’t draw any sharp borderlines inside Europe. Such borders are as artificial and temporary as the so-called ‘iron curtain’.

I couldn’t but wonder- if Gyorgy Konrad should be considered a beacon of moral and political consistency if he writes that ‘Capitalism is the price we have to pay for democracy’ and whether that hard-won personal experience would clarify why he has been one of the few prominent European intellectuals to support George W.Bush’s war in Iraq?

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posted by Walter at 10/16/2004



Tuesday, October 12, 2004


No More Whiskey In The Jar

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As I was going over the far famed Kerry mountains
I met with VP Cheney and the money he was stealing
I first produced my pistol and I then produced my rapier
Saying "Stand and deliver or the devil he may take you"

Mush-a pain dum-a do dum-a da
Wack falls my daddy-o
Wack falls my daddy-o
There’s Whiskey in the jar

I counted out his money and it made a pretty penny
I put it in my pocket, and I brought it home to Condy
She swore that she loved me, no she never would deceive me
But the devil take that woman, for you know she tricked me easy

Musha pain dum-a-do-dum-a-da
Wack falls my daddy-o
Wack falls my daddy-o
There’s Whiskey in the jar


Drunk, but committed I went up to Condy’s chamber
Taking lusty Condy with me, but I never knew the danger
For after six- maybe seven- Fuck! In walked VP Cheney
I jumped up and fired my pistols, and I shot him dead completely

Musha pain dum-a-do-dum-a-da
Wack falls my daddy-o
Wack falls my daddy-o
There’s Whiskey in the jar

Now some men like the fishing and some men like the prowling
And some men like to see and hear the cannonballs a-roaring
Me I like sleeping, preferably in Condy’s chamber
But now I am held in prison, wasting my pity life’s remainder

Musha pain dum-a-do-dum-a-da
Wack falls my daddy-o
Wack falls my daddy-o
There’s Whiskey in the jar


If anyone can aid me it’s my cousins in Arabia
If they survive battle in Fallujah or Samarra
And if they’ll come to free me, we’ll go rovin’ with John Kerry
And I’m sure he’ll treat me better than my own a-scheming Condy

Musha pain dum-a-do-dum-a-da
Wack fell my daddy-o
Wack fell my daddy-o
No more Whiskey in the jar

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Based on -WHISKEY IN THE JAR- The Dubliners

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posted by Walter at 10/12/2004