It’s been a “look at a Government website” week, I suppose. Starting with the White House and ending with Slovenian ministries. It seems that on the English part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the former Minister held on to his eternity at least in the URL field (click the image to enlarge). Sloppy webmaster.
Polde Bibič reciting Slovenia’s national anthem Zdravljica by France Prešeren (the lyrics are worth reading, click the link)
Courtesy of Radio Kaos
On 8 February each year, Slovenians at home and in communities around the world celebrate the Slovenian Cultural Day or Prešeren day as many call it is annually on in Slovenia and among Slovenian communities around the world in celebration of the rich cultural heritage marking Slovenians as a nation with a distinctly recognized identity.
France Prešeren is widely regarded as the greatest Slovenian poet of all times and on this date, the prestigious Prešern Award is presented to deserving persons in the area of culture with a lasting impact on our society.
For me, personally, the most enjoyable part of the day is the recital held on Prešeren Square in the centre of Ljubljana at noon. As I’ve moved to Luxembourg, I am even more thrilled that I can watch it and listen to it live on the internet.
Prešeren’s poetry is about love and peace. Hearing his works presented by the very best Slovenian and guest performers is a treat! So I’d like to invite you to visit http://www.radiokaos.info/ this Sunday at noon and catch glimpse of my beautiful home town and listen to our poetry. You may not understand every word, but you may very well “get” the atmosphere.
Cheers!
PS: If you have a Facebook account, you can keep up with the event here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=48908602146
Thanks to Had’s note, I read an interesting article on the redesign of the whitehouse.gov website. I’m no expert on design and my opinion is irrelevant, but since this post is listed under ‘ramblings’, I might as well saay that I find the design sufficiently clean, but not striking in any way. I’d have preferedan even cleane, simpler design with less variation as to fonts. Two at the most with less or no italics.
What really caught my eye immediately, however, is the display of Sony logotype on the TV set in the first photo on the very first page of the site, carrying an image of a rather tired-looking President. This ad must rival those of the Super Bowl commercials when it comes to audience reach. Could our governments start advertising companies instead of offering them straight out financial assistance? Hey, costs us less. Possibly.
Conspiracy theories are far too compelling to give up as entertainment on Monday mornings, and in view of Sony’s trouble helping the company through arguably subliminal advertising sounds nice enough. Reading up on the company, however, I’m confused as to what country it pays its taxes to and where most of its employees are.
Nice website, though. Really.
Ramblings over.
Photo taken in Paris, France by dr. Fil
Having just watched the Frost/Nixon movie I couldn’t help drawing lines between its subject matter and some actions or omissions in current politics.
The movie’s tagline is “400 million people were waiting for the truth.” Actually, for an apology after Gerald Ford granted a pardon for “for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from July (January) 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.”
Many were surprised by the not only polite but rather kind attitude of Barack Obama towards George W. Bush. In his NYT column entitled “Forgive and Forget?“, Paul Krugman, for example, states that failure to investigate what happened during the Bush years would mean “that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power”.
Ever since coming into power, Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor has been going out on a limb to make a point that his Government was going to act differently than the one defeated in the elections.
There are of course big differences between the action of Gerald Ford and the anticipated inaction of Barack Obama and Borut Pahor, one of them being the fact that Ford was never elected, not even to the position of the Vice President, while both Obama and Pahor won elections in clear opposition to their predecessors.
Just at the end of last week, the party of the former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, which still holds that it should have (or even actually has) won the elections, obstructed the work of the Parliamentary session that was to vote on the ratification of Albania’s and Croatia’s NATO accession protocols. Taking the country’s international relations and repute as hostage, the party stated it would continue to obstruct the ratification process until the Parliament verifies the state budget report drafted by Janša’s cabinet for 2007, which was refused due to irregularities found by the state revision revealing a deficit instead of an alleged surplus.
It will be interesting to watch how this move will affect the Pahor’s benevolence in the future. And how last week’s Republican display of zero support will influence Obama’s.
