It's All There

Old habits die hard. i'm still on the Multikulti Amnesty International-Hungary mailing list and yesterday received this: Two Protests! Against Reagan Statue & for Iranian Democracy! Ah, the irony of it all, n'est-ce pas? Evidently the de-republicanized nationalist government now wants to look out the windows of parliament and see Ronald Reagan, standing tall, gazing out over the Danube over an inscription that reads There's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse. As Molly Ivins put it: 'This is the man who proved that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency." Such are the iconic values of the current Hungarian government.

On the topic of nationalist cajones, tomorrow is Army Day in Azerbaijan and Baku has been awash in camoflaged-clad men all week, setting up for the big display, apparently to be a classic 'we will protect ourselves against all forms of aggression' parade (in lieu of other parade themes seen throughout the world this month). It will be interesting to see who from the US government is in attendance, since they've just concluded talks on the 'importance of ensuring security of energy infrastructure in the Caspian Sea and ... the readiness to continue joint efforts to prevent the threats to it.' Considering that no progress was made in this week's Russian-sponsored summit to come up with a peace process for Nagorno-Karabakh, i suppose some Azeris may want reassurance that their military is ready and willing to prevent further national tragedy. Some here believe that if Azerbaijan is forced to go to war again with Armenia, Turkey will have to fight alongside them - or maybe for them - but right now, the Turks are busy doing this, and have more pressing, internal issues to worry about.

Personally, i'm with Ronald Reagan when it comes to wasteful government spending, though there's a bit of divergence in what we each would delete from the national budget. In that spirit, the hope that the entire Caspian region may one day evolve into a conflict-free zone, i give you this from the late great John Lennon. 'All we are saying' blahblahblah but you know, if we don't at least think it, we can be relatively certain it will never come to pass. Happy Nuclear Abolition Day!