Two conferences, three papers and one ppt. presentation destined for mistrustful economists and philosophers of science were enough to keep me away from this blog for more than a month (hope I am excused). That it simply took one Zizek appearance to induce a short comeback is certainly indicative of the bad state of my [...]
Sometimes a photo just hits you in the face. Like this one. Ettore Sequi, the EU Ambassador to Albania is a man with an attitude. It’s a man that loves to hear himself talk. It’s a man who melts for press conferences. But it’s also a man who loves to dress up in costumes [...]
Already some time ago I found online an example of the 2013 ballot paper to be used during the parliamentary elections of June 23. It was a model issued by the KQZ (Central Election Committee), which currently consists of 4 majority party members and 3 vacant seats with no solution in sight. I think [...]
The last few days, finally on a short holiday in Istria (and my dear are these Croatians afraid to enter the EU on July 1!), I’ve been trying to think what to write about, or at least, where to start on reporting about the current Albanian pre-election situation. A small recap: about two weeks [...]
On Sunday I woke up around 11 am to the sound of the nationalist song “Xhamadani vija vija” (YouTube terror). Somebody was playing it loudly on a car stereo or maybe the wind brought it to my window from Skënderbeg Square where nationalist party Aleanca KuqeZi was holding their “peaceful” rally “against” Berisha. I [...]
To join a climbing gym has definitely been one of the better decisions I took so far this year. Not only is my fear of heights drastically decreasing (at least up to 5 meters), it also teaches me to trust my body, which for an anti-physically oriented person like me can be quite exhilarating. [...]
It has been a while since I posted for the last time about Albania, but now that finally the first rays of real spring sun are shining through the window of my study and the new washing machine has been installed, I feel ready for some political commentary. Two days ago when I was [...]
Since its first edition, Kosovo 2.0 has been a groundbreaking, border-crossing, and taboo-transcending initiative. Not only is its website a platform for many young creators and writers, it is also one of the few initiatives that refuses the ever increasing nationalism in Kosova and Albania, and consistently publishes in the three official languages of Kosova: [...]
Yesterday the Conservative chancellor of Great Britain gave his Autumn Budget (yes, in winter). As the image here shows, Autumn is the leafy, golden one, with people picking apples, bottom right. Winter is the snowy, ice-hockey one, top right. chancellor osbourne (he doesn’t get capital letters) might need such nursery learning resources so that in [...]
Thus was the main event of Albania’s 100th independence day. A cake fight. Thousands of people had gathered at the central Skënderbeg square as Mayor Basha of Tirana cut the giant supercake (a world record) with an extended pizza knife and presented the first piece to Kosovar president Jahjaga. After several pieces of cake [...]