Friday, September 30, 2005

international tongue twister

i thought you might like this http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/index.htm. it's probably the world largest tongue twister website. i loved the persian and polish sections. this is a great resource for afghan media espicially radio to use and update, or maybe create their own. interactive programs are still very few in afghan radio sector and it's one of the most important part of the radio industry. this could be used to create interactive radio programs. i think tongue twisters, jokes, proverbs and poems are a profound part of afghan culture and bringing afghan culture into the media scene is something which needs to happen. if i ever get to have some free time i'll create a website with afghan proverbs, jokes, tongue twisters and folkloric stories to be used as a resource center by media.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Warsaw Diary

I’ve got a camera now, and I could start to do my program. I would like to find someone who could be part of it and help around, it’s not gonna be a lot of fun if I just do it all by myself. We are meeting with the minister of foreign affairs, Adam Daniel Rotfled. he is apparently a super clever guy. He is widely respected by Sejm, the government and the public. Foreign ministers have become extremely important and it’s one of the strongest positions in the government since the beginning of 90s.
In the volatile period of 1989 -1993 there was a lot of struggle in side the government and state to push their agendas and priorities and they were stepping on each other toes regularly, but one thing lech walesa, Hanna suchacka (as head of government) and sejm agreed upon was to have a strong foreign minister who is dealing with international policies. I’ll try to film the meeting/ceremony; not exactly sure how long it’s gonna last and what we’ll discuss, but I guess he wanna make sure that we don’t party too much as his ministry is paying for us ;-) just back from partying with guys who’ll leave for Poznan, Krakow and wroslow and it’s 0505 in the morning

Monday, September 26, 2005

Went to the theater today to watch a famous polish play called z’ezdenia ‘the slaughterhouse’ by amirslov xx. It was about an artist (musician) who was at the same time a butcher; it’s about his struggle to find his place in the world among art, love, family and intellect. It’s a post modernistic play with weirdly linked scenes and an unexpected ending. At the end the guy committed suicides as he thinks it’s some kind of achievement not many people gets to do ….. I know …it’s bizarre …
it’s different than common plays now days with the very American influence of happy ending. shit happens but at the end every thing is zaebicz It’s getting too much… I don’t like it much anymore.
I like amirslov, he has got his own style. I’ve been looking in museums for one of his famous paintings, but no joy yet. It’s the simple portrait of a man with single lines forming his body, hands and legs. Several circles one inside another is shaping his head; and it says at the bottom “Why didn’t De Vinci paint me?”

Sunday, September 18, 2005

warsaw diary

Tima (sorry if I have misspelled your name) just walked to me very happily in the library and whispered
- wylbory
- what
- afghanchikam wylbory
- the election?
- Tak
- Yes, polling is today.

Not everyone in Poland knows that election is happening in Afghanistan. But a lot of people knew about it today. So, the election is happening, I think it’s a political process not a change. It’s not gonna change anything; it’s a step toward a stable Afghanistan. There is gonna be a lot of problems (I’d rather call them issues) after the election when the national assembly start working. I think the SNTV sets up a bad precedent the way parliament will function. It’s gonna be drastically fragmented and hard to get any legislation out of it. There is gonna be no parties and it’ll be very difficult for civil society to lobby the parliament. not many parliamentarian will be educated, even not at least high school degrees. The parliamentarian will come from rural Afghanistan and they are commonly illiterate. They will be super dependent on professional staff and deputies; and the same thing which happened in Poland between 89-93 will be repeated in Afghanistan …. (visit congress library for info)
This is the best case scenario.
The worst would be if there are bad intentions, and that would be when warlords, extremists, westernists, mullahs, karzaists and etc start fighting each other.