An Alaskan Abroad

Surprise, an audience

A strange thing is starting to happen with this site. People are actually starting to read it.

I hadn’t considered that.

I started writing this as a sort of online diary. Honestly, this is just a collection of things I would normally come home and tell my wife. But she’s not here and the dog doesn’t seem at all interested. I guess it’s really just a way to remain sane in a silent world.

It does seem peculiar, though, that validation would come from strangers. I can understand the fellow Prague-based bloggers; we form a cyber-community of sorts. But I’ve discovered sites from New York and beyond linked to this site. Who are they and what interests them? I ask because if there’s a thread that connects us, it’s one I’m unaware of. I guess it's the same thing that attracts some readers to certain novels of merit and others to the crass best sellers. I don't pretend to know which category this blog falls into.

I do appreciate those who find this site interesting. If you do decide to link to this site, send me an email and let me know why. I'm curious. I have turned off the publication of comments just for that reason; I want people to be able to comment without having to fear having themselves exposed.

Not to mention that my mother was commenting to tell me what a wonderful child I was. While I appreciate the support, having my mother post a comment wasn't exactly validating my writing.

I don’t have a lot of time to search for new blogs. I tend to check out the same couple of blogs every few days. One of my favorite new diversions is to randomly click on their links and see where I end up. It’s fascinating how much of a circle one can travel by checking out other blogs’ links. It's like a new version of six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. Each site’s links is the result of an individual’s perspective and preferences. I am linked to some blogs that link to me, but for the most part my links have nothing to do with me. They are just sites that interest me.

Perhaps I should put a list together of all the sites that link to me and post it. Then we can see if there's a common thread. Send me your links.

The sky is falling, Mr. Lysak

There’s not a lot of things lately that I look forward to. I work a lot and spend a lot of time with Kuba; that’s about it. But Thursday I was supposed to attend the official opening of the World Press Photo exhibit.

I spent the morning setting up business meetings at the Prague Post and generally trying to get a handle on the local business scene. At 3 p.m. I went to a meeting with a woman who used to work for my photo agency. I had planned to meet her and then meet one of my employees to go to the exhibit opening.

That’s when my mobile started to ring. An air crash near Brno killed six British soldiers and the UK papers wanted art.

Here’s the caption I sent with the photos:

Six British soldiers died Thursday when their Lynx helicopter crashed in a small river near the village Kuroslepoy, Czech Republic, about 30 kilometers from Brno. The crash happened about 1 p.m. Thursday during joint British-Czech military exercises, Flying Rhino. The helicopter struck powerlines in a small wood at the edge of a farmer’s field and crashed into the river killing all aboard.

I sent a photographer down to Kuroslepoy, but he said he didn’t have a computer that could send the photos from the site. It was late in the day, so I offered to come along and use my computer.

World Press Photo would have to wait for another day.

When the photographer showed up, his father and mother were in the front seats… and, I kid you not, mother had brought the family poodle. Seems the photographer, who is well into his 30s, asked to borrow his father’s car; having nothing better to do, the father decided to make it a family outing.

I sat in the back with the photographer and thought about the absurdity of being driven to an assignment – a disaster, no less – like teenagers being driven to the movies.

I have to give Father credit; he drove fast. And Mother complained only a little.

When we were about five miles from the crash, though, Father stopped the car without warning. “Why’d we stop,” I asked. The sun was going down and I was frantic to get pictures before it was too dark. “Mother has to pee,” came the answer.

“What!?”

I couldn’t believe it. Here we were just minutes from the crash, the sun was quickly setting, and Mother couldn’t hold it for a few more miles?

We finally reached the site of the crash and, of course, there was nothing to see. Just dense woods and military police everywhere. We tried the front door; blocked. We then slid down a steep embankment, landing behind the police line.

I was calmly walking in front of two city policemen (the local cops were pretty uninterested, but the military police, who were in control, were unswayable) on a small dirt road near the crash site when my mobile phone started ringing. I’d forgotten to turn it off. It was the client in London wondering how it was going; I told them it was a bad time and hung up. The cops didn’t seem to care, but just as I was about to slip under the red-and-white police tape, three military police popped out of the woods and stopped me.

We tried a couple of different approaches after that, but all of them were blocked. Everyone was very nice about it, but no one wanted their picture taken. Anytime the camera came up the Czech soldiers turned their heads, removed their insignias, or left the area completely.

At least they had a sense of humor about it. We gave them a hard time and shared a laugh over it. Still it was frustrating.

The press corps, what of it that had assembled in the village, met in a cottage behind the crash site in the home of Jiri Lysak, a colorful character who had snapped a few shots of the fiery crash minutes after it happened.

There’s a Czech military airbase near Kuroslepoy and the locals told us their greatest fear was that a helicopter would crash into one of their homes one day. For Lysak, that fear had almost come true and he wanted proof.

Lysak was in a pretty good position because the military police had kept everyone away from the area. One or two photographers were able to get distant shots of the wreckage, but most of us had to settle for soldiers running our colleagues off the scene. Lysak made a tidy profit selling his photos to the international press corps. He was quite happy about it and brought out the slivovice and cakes to celebrate.

For once I’d like to cover a story in Eastern Europe without having to do shots of homemade slivovice. I’m not big on fire water, even if it is called a brandy.

We spent the rest of the night wringing our hands as the painfully slow dial-up connection we borrowed from a local villager, sent our photos around Europe.

The client seemed to like the images, but they would have preferred to have them sooner. I missed deadline by two hours and most of the British papers were waiting to see what was available. I guess someone in London will have to tell me what they chose to publish.

Oh by the way, I sent Father and Mother home early and caught a ride back to Prague with another photographer.

A toast to Mr. Lysak, who was both lucky to escape disaster and to make a little money as well. He was a gracious host, as were all we spoke to in Kuroslepoy.

The semantics of death

Is anyone else tired and disgusted with the argument over the definition of the word "genocide?"

It's been more than a month since the West started crying over the slaughter in Darfur and still nothing substantial has happened. There's plenty of talk and passing deadlines, but no sanctions and, more importantly, no military intervention to disarm the murderers.

Meanwhile the Sudanese government has used the Milosevic Method to great success.

The Milosevic Method: Deny, deny, deny – and when that position becomes untenable, agree that the situation is horrendous and promise to do something about it; of course you never do. By the time the Western powers actually screw up the courage to make some meaningful action, you've already accomplished 90 percent of your goals. Relax and rest assured that regardless what happens now, any outside intervention will not attempt to roll back your accomplishments.

America and the rest of the great powers can't even call it what it is: genocide. If they did it would require them to act according to United Nation bylaws. Why pass these high-minded resolutions meant to raise man out of the muck and mire of history if there's no stomach to actually put them into practice.

There's too much talk; give me a gun and lets go settle this.

What is evil?

The question of the existence of evil came up in drunken midday conversation the other day. Keep in mind that the discussion of evil was based on the Christian idea of Satan and pure evil as a counter-balance and spoiler of good. My arguments here are in no way meant to justify the heinous acts of these historical figures. So much for the disclaimer, read on.

Someone finally asked me if Adolph Hitler was evil. I said his actions and motivations had to be considered in historical context (there's also his psychological profile to consider, but let's stick with the "created by his environment" argument for now).

That went over like a lead balloon.

But I still say that Hitler wasn't evil. He was cruel, ruthless, cold-blooded and a lot of other things, but he wasn't pure evil as defined by Satan. Evil is all of those things, but, most importantly, it is devoid of the idea that bad things are necessary for the betterment of one group over another. Evil is the opposite of good.

Why wasn't Hitler evil?

My basic argument against Hitler being evil is that Hitler did what he thought was good for the German/Austrian people. But let's look at the historical context first.

There are millions of little Hitlers running around in the world, but only rarely do the exact set of circumstances come together that allow one of them to thrive and so dominate a nation.

Hitler could have never succeeded without the Treaty of Versailles and the harsh penalties it placed on Germany after World War I. Hitler rose to power because the German people were looking for a strong leader to give them direction and make them great again. (Remember that nations generally believe in their natural superiority and right to exist.)

Hitler successfully did just that. He took back what the rest of the world had taken from Germany and then he did what many leaders have done in history, he took more. He believed in German/Austrian superiority and believed it should rightfully dominate the world.

His actions were incredibly destructive, heinous and had horrible consequences for whole races of people, especially Europe's Jewish population. But was he evil? And by evil remember the definition is "pure evil" as embodied by Satan. I say no.

And the reason is that one must consider environmental factors, without the right set of circumstances, Hitler would have been nothing more than a frustrated Austrian artist. Hitler did what was best, he thought, for the German/Austrian people. He lifted them up at a time when the rest of the world was profiting from their downfall.

Remember the Nixon defense: Any action is justifiable if done in the best interest of the country.

Nixon believed that the actions of the Plumbers was righteous because, as president, he was doing what he thought was best for the country. He knew he broke the law, but breaking the law was OK if you're president. Being president, or any kind of leader, gives you mandate to do what you think is best for the group. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

My point here (I know I ramble) is that our actions, the actions of our leaders have long-term consequences on the world. We do things in our personal best interest, both as individuals and nations, that change the future for the entire world. And, for the most part, we completely deny responsibility.

Ever sleep with someone else's girlfriend and later have that person hunt you down and beat the hell out of you for messing up their life? Same thing on a grand scale. Putting one's self interest above the interest of another. Selfishness. Human nature.

Now I'm really going to piss people off.

By the same token I don't think Bin Laden is evil.

Bin Laden could never have flourished if America was not hellbent on undermining Soviet Union influence in the world. Bin Laden most likely would have faded away if America would have helped rebuild Afghanistan after the withdraw of Russian troops in the 1980s.

And let's not even talk about why some in the Muslim world considers us the Great Satan. I would have a hard time defending our policies in the Middle East for the past 50 years.

There are plenty of ifs to argue over, but the fact remains that Bin Laden did not just rise from the pits of Hell bent on destroying the Judea/Christian world. He was created by a country that looked after its own best interests to the detriment of another group of people.

(Side note on Bin Laden: America will track down and kill him eventually and we will have to deal with his ideals and methods for generations. But you would think that the people who would most want to silence Bin Laden would be the moderate Muslims. I say this because Bin Laden's holy war on the West gives America and other Christian countries, and lets not forget the Jewish nation of Israel, justification for suppressing the Muslim faith and for dominating the region and its people.)

Other so called evil people:

Milosevic.

No, I will argue that Milosevic was a genius who took advantage of Serbian nationalism (and doesn't all of this come down to nationalism) and world indifference to enrich himself and attempt to create an empire. Nothing more than just another Hitler we allowed to get away with murder.

Bush. Or Lil' Bushy as he's supposedly called around the house (according to his daughters at the Republican convention in New York last week).

(Side note: Someone should write a book entitled: "Lil' Bushy Goes to War." It would be an instant best seller for the name alone.)

Bush is a true believer in American dominance and might makes right. He really believes he's making America stronger. The guy's delusional and surrounded by war mongers, but he's not evil. I'll accept stupid and dangerous, though.

Why does this discussion about what is evil matter? Consider this tirade from the opinion page of the Belfast Telegraph.

The difference being, that in Beslan, it wasn't machinery wearing out or breaking down which caused its notoriety, but the simple presence of evil.

And it was evil.

As clearly as in Belsen or Auschwitz or Treblinka, what happened in Beslan was systematic, deliberate, savoured, unprovoked and demonic.

No it wasn't.

Last week's horrible events at the school in Beslan came about because an extreme group of people felt they had to go to extreme measures to get their point across. They are murderers and many other terrible things, but they can justify their actions to themselves.

That is the difference. Self-justification. Be it delusional or simply insane. People do horrible things when they think they are either in the right or have no other choice.

Russia feels it is in the right to suppress Chechen independence and Chechen rebels feel desperate to make the point that they won't be silenced. Insert "America" and any Latin American country for Russia and Chechnya and you see the pattern.

Too often we throw out the word "evil" to explain why horrible things happen and all of a sudden it alleviates us of responsibility. And often to the justification of further atrocities as we seek revenge against those evil bastards over there.

On a lighter note, check this site out:

http://home.att.net/~slugbutter/evil/

I'm happy to say I was deemed neutral by the powers that be, whoever they are.

YAPs

YAPs stands for Young Americans in Prague; it was a sobriquet we were saddled with in the early 1990s. There are varying estimates of how many Americans were living in Prague in between 1990 and 1994; whatever the number, there was surely too many of us.

Two things have me thinking about those years tonight. The first is that a friend loaned me, "Pink Tanks and Velvet Hangovers, An American in Prague," by Doug Lytle. A wonderful book that will never be at the top of any best-seller's list, but is still enjoyable for the time it captures on paper. I hadn't read Lytle's book before; even though I lived here during much of the time Lytle describes, he didn't publish until 1995, a year after I'd left Prague for Moscow.

I'm glad I hadn't read the book before. It would have been wasted on me when I was fresh from the country it describes. Reading it now a dozen years later reminds me of all the wonderful adventures I had while settling into this extremely foreign land. Lytle describes a country that no longer exists, but he's dead on in his description of the time and place.

I shared many of the same experiences he describes, eerily similar in fact, and I look forward to buying him a beer and toasting the world we were allowed to glimpse for a moment in time.

Like my first day as a teacher, when I was led into a classroom with 15 wide-eyed teenage girls and not a boy in the room. I turned around and found myself, just 22, alone with a room of raging hormones. I ran all the way to the principal's office and told him there was no way I could teach that class. The faculty members hanging around in the lounge just laughed and one of them dragged me back to the room and threw me in. I survived and the all-girl class ended up being one of my best classes; they actually paid attention. Even if one disconcerting redhead spent the entire semester sitting in the front row, staring at me and never saying a word.

Or when the post mistress refused to deliver my mail until I went down to the post office and shook hands with the entire staff  – They'd never seen an American before.

Or the two 50-something gentlemen I met one night in a Vlasim bar who learned all of their English from listening to Beatles' records. We had a wonderful conversation... "Love me do."

The second reason I'm thinking about the early 1990s, is a conversation I overheard tonight at dinner. A young American was chatting up another English speaker and telling her all about the failed Americans who came and went in the 1990s. When I got up to leave I asked how long he had been in Prague, assuming he'd been here since the beginning of the "Left Bank of the '90s" fallacy. 1997, he said.

Were Americans still coming to Prague in mass in 1997? Why? It was all over by 1995. And even before that the fantasy had fallen apart and the reality of poverty and alcoholism had started to set in. You can't teach fucking English forever. It was time to grow up and go home or at the very least find somewhere else to squander the precious years of youth.

The Beef Stew had gone rancid and the Prognosis was certain death.

But obviously they continued to arrive, lured by the fantasy of cheap beer and beautiful women. (I don't know what attracted the women, perhaps the same things.) I'm told they continue to arrive still.

But the Prague that was, is no more. The city is still here but the people have grown and changed with the times.

And thank god.

We were bastards. Bloodsuckers. We descended on the city in a hyper state of drunkenness. There were those who came with their bank accounts intent on building a financial empire. There were the poets and actors who wanted to create. And there were those who just wanted to drink and avoid the reality of the American job market. (I remember losing a job delivering dry cleaning in Indianapolis because I had a tattoo.) There were plenty of idealist tossed into the mix, but they were easily ground up by the reality of life in a gray world. The cynics did better, they fit in well with the national character and found amusement in being told "to neni mozne." (It's impossible.) To which I always replied, "je me to jedno." (I don't care. [My students actually made me a T-shirt with those words on it after my first year of teaching.])

But the Czechs were smarter than us. They welcomed us with open arms and took everything we offered. While we were running wild through the cobblestone streets, they were paying attention to our slurred conversations and learning to speak English. They took what they needed and then they did what was required to push their society into modern Europe. Most of the expats were left behind. Oh, many of us adapted, learned to speak the language and put our educations to work as journalists for the foreign media who could afford to pay us a living wage. But a lot of people got upset when prices started to rise and they could no longer live on one or two dollars a day.

The Czechs had no intention of being Mexico. They never wanted to be a cheap tourist location or the place bohemian yankees go to write their first and last novels. They wanted to be American or better (I'm praying for better.) That's the lesson most expats missed; while we were trying to escape consumerism and what we considered a shallow culture, the Czechs were trying to attain a similar level of material wealth so that their kids could one day lay around some third world country and drink cheap beer.

There remains remnants of communism and a bloated bureaucracy, but for the most part the Czech Republic is a modern nation. The country is no longer the bargain it once was. Still not expensive, prices in Czech have closed the gap with the rest of Europe thanks in large part to a more than 22 percent value-added tax. And the Czechs are quickly reaching their goal of material wealth. They still have a long way to go, but I'm amazed at the changes in just 10 years.

I don't know why young Americans continue to arrive at Hlavni nadrazi. They arrive in a much different city than the one I knew a decade ago.

A better city all the same.

Stinky

There is good news if you know where to look.

Stinky Inky, as special a feline as Kuba is a canine, is doing well in his new home. I had reservations as Jane's husband threatened to toss her and the cat out if she brought him home – they live on a converted tug boat in Alaska. But Stinky is a man's cat and he quickly won over the gruff husband. Stinks did have to undergo a name change, though. He is now christened Grissom. well, if he doesn't mind, I sure don't.

Of course, as with all great names, there is a story behind how Stinks was so named. Bob the veterinarian sent me a kitten as a gift for my wife after we lost our first cat. (The owners who had left it behind when we bought the house called six months later and begged us to ship the cat to them in North Carolina. It broke my wife's heart.) So this little gray furball arrives on Alaska Airlines from Anchorage and he has pissed himself silly. The cat reeked. But he was still adorable, with dark gray boots and a lighter gray body. My wife named him for both his stench and appearance.

It was always a name he responded to.

Good luck to Stinky and his new family.

Black cloud over favorite pub

I returned from walking Kuba the other day to find my street filled with police and ambulances. My favorite little bar, which is next door to my apartment building, was awash in emergency responders and bystanders. I didn't linger long and instead went straight into my building. The next day a typed sign appeared on the door that said the bartender had died. I'm not sure of the details; my Czech is pretty poor.

The bar has been dark ever since.

I hadn't lived here long enough to know anyone by name, but the small pub always seemed a jovial place. You have to belive that had a lot to do with the people who worked there.

God bless.

Greedy little bastard

For those of you who know I already have a 15-inch Powerbook and question my need for a second one, well ... shut up!

Seriously, The 15-inch is dedicated to the photo agency and gets plenty of work. I sold my old G3 Powerbook for 1/3 of what I bought the new 12-inch one for, so I justify it. Plus, the photo agency is starting to take off, so I need the 15-inch for my staff at the agency. I will leave the 12-inch at the Post. If I need to, I can always sell the 15-inch, which is four years old now, and use the 12-inch for the agency.

That's my justification and I'm sticking to it.

Mi Amore Powerbook

I had to do it.

A week at the Post doing battle with their outdated computers was just too much for me. I finally surrendered tonight and bought a used G4 12-inch Powerbook. (Note to Tina: Yours is slightly slower, but I don't have the DVD-writable drive.)

I never thought I'd see a place with more outdated computers than Alaska Newspapers Inc., my former employer, but I was wrong. The Post struggles forward with old G3 iMacs with less than 100mb of memory each. I think mine has 64mb. I wasted several hours today trying to open QuarkXPress to write headlines and captions.

I'm old; I don't have that much time to waste.

So I ordered a Powerbook and extra memory for the Post's computer. I can always write it off my taxes.

Pay attention managers: Technology is neccessary. Wasting productivity on old technology only loses a company money and pisses off the staff. There's no need for the latest gizmos. But if you give fast computers to the people who truly need them, then you can pass on their computers to other staff who have lesser needs. At a newspaper, the design and photo staff need the best computers because of the programs they use. You buy them new computers and give their old computers to the editors who need the second-fastest computers. You pass the editors' computers onto the reporters who just need word processors and Internet terminals. Do this every three years and everyone is happy.

Don't do it and you waste a lot of time on lost man hours while the staff deal with crashes and freezes.

Simple.

The problem with...

The problem with travel is that places change with time and you have to go back.