Hungarian adventure for OLGS

Guest post by OLGS--

Hello from Debrecen, Hungary, where I am taking a two-week course in Hungarian language and culture. I arrived yesterday after a lengthy flight and railroad passage. The University of Debrecen has been offering summer school in the language since 1927 and when Joe College-on-Leave and I visited the Hungarian-speaking part of Romania in 2005, our hosts urged me to work on learning the language by attending a course at Debrecen. So here I am.

Today I took my placement test and did ok. I find out my placement tomorrow morning, as do the other 200 or so summer campers here. Then it is off to language class from nine to noon, history lessons in the afternoon, language lab before dinner, folk-singing after dinner, and finally, Beer-Twenty at 20:00.

I am staying in one of the college dorms. I am glad I asked for a single room because, although very comfortable, it would be cramped with one or two more roommates. My room has a bathroom with shower & toilet and even cable TV. All the channels from Europe and the US are dubbed in Hungarian, at least as far as I could tell on one spin around the dial. Like most college dorms, this one is not air-conditioned, so this afternoon, I went on a shopping trip to the Hungarian version of BestBuy to find a fan. “MediaMarkt” is the store and I got a German make called “Das HausMeister 8400.” It required some assembly, as did the one I bought at Target last week for our home in Minneapolis. Alas, I don’t have Joe High School to do the assembly, but I managed to fumble through the Euro instructions (thank God for old French lessons) and got the thing put together and working. My room is much more comfortable now.

I have met some nice people already from Canada, Denmark, Germany, and France. There are quite a few Americans here, too. I’ll post some stories about my classmates as I proceed through the class. I explored quite a bit of the city of Debrecen today by tram and on foot. The tram is very dependable and runs every four minutes from the railway station to the University. The generic photo above shows you a tram stop scene in town.

That’s all for today. I’ll try to keep up a regular travel posting as a guest on Domestic Tranquility, the International Edition.

In the twinkling of an eye

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July 17th update...see below at end of post
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Something terrible has happened. A good friend of Joe-College-on-Leave (Joe COL), Joseph Sodd III, was murdered last week while riding his moped home late at night. Joe was a high-school classmate of my Joe for three years, leaving South High in his fourth to follow his dream of becoming a dancer. He went to the Perpitch School for the Arts here and went on to dance school in Seattle. He was home for summer vacation.

I can't imagine what his family has experienced. What I did see is the amazing network of college juniors who descended on Minneapolis after Joe died. From all over the country they returned to the city to mourn and celebrate. By the time Joe's death was reported in the Star-Tribune, my Joe already knew about it at the meditation center north of Chicago where he was helping in the kitchen. These young people are connected to each other in remarkable ways, in part because of cell phones but also because they seem to understand the importance of being together, especially in terrible times.
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July 17 update, by OLGS. Louise and I were away for a bit. Minneapolis Police have not made an arrest in the case. The Police are still seeking information about the murder. The phone number is 612-692-TIPS (8477)
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Pizza Dude (aka Joe H.S.) Delivers !

by OLGS, guest blogger

A very nice Father's Day in Minneapolis. Louise and I did some yard work and other outdoor chores on a cool, but sunny day. Joe College Graduate and Joe College on Leave called in to talk. Last night was Game Five of the NBA Finals. The three Joes and I spent many years watching the great Kevin Garnett play for the Timberwolves in Minneapolis, shown above in a file photo. Finally, he's getting a chance for an NBA title with Boston, but alas, it did not happen last night. Pizza Dude Joe High School did make up for the disappointment by bringing home a large "Veggie Delight" in time for the 4th quarter. What a taste treat--Thanks, Joe! Kevin and the Celtics get another chance at closing out the Lakers in Game Six on Tuesday night.

School lunch

Got a notice the other day that Joe High School's lunch account will expire. Given that I'm a gal of a certain age, the notion of an online lunch account, where no sordid money ever changes hands, is quite wonderful. The lunch account manager just sends you an email when there is no more money in the account, you transfer money from your checking account, and bing, it's done. Ain't modern technology grand?

All very interesting. What's even more amazing is that Joe High School now actually eats lunch (or did until Tuesday, the last day of school in the benighted Midwest). When I made lunch for him or he made his own lunch, it was seldom eaten and the dead PB & J sandwiches turned up in his backpack months later with interesting turquoise blue mold on them. When I gave him cash to buy lunch, it was usually spent on candy or potato chips because, he said, school lunch was incredibly bad. Now he eats lunch. I can tell because there's a report that one can access online. Because of the beef tacos consumed (he's a vegetarian) I suspect that he's also feeding a dozen or so close personal friends from his lunch account. Whatever.

Senator Obama yesterday at “The Place where the Pike are Caught”

By OLGS, guest blogger

The presumed Democratic nominee for president keeps showing up at places of interest to me—last week at the “X” in St. Paul, yesterday in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. I heard his speech on C-SPAN radio as I happened to be driving to the Stockbridge-Munsee Indian Reservation in Shawano County, not that far from Kaukauna.

The senator gave a speech on his plan for a middle class tax cut. As I understood him, he planned to propose a $500 tax credit for wage-earners in a household who are not dependents. Let’s see…Joe College Graduate, working in Los Angeles would get $500. Louise and I would get a combined $1,000. Not bad. Joe College-on-leave and Joe High School (aka "Pizza Dude") both earn wages, but we still claim them as dependents. The people in Kaukauna seemed to like the plan, as measured by the audible applause.

Whoever introduced Sen. Obama did not tell him or the audience about the history of Kaukauna. The French were the first to write of it in the *Jesuit Relations* in the 17th century as the place on the Fox River where the Sauk Indians, the Outagamie (“Fox”) Indians, and the Menominee Indians went to catch sturgeon and also pike, hence the name in Menominee: okakaning meaning "the place where the pike are caught." Father Claude Allouez reported in 1670 that:

we passed the portage called by the natives Kekalin, our sailors dragging the canoe among rapids; while I walked on the River-bank, where I found apple-trees and vine-stocks in great numbers.

Kaukauna is the fall-line on the Fox River below Green Bay and above Lake Winnebago. The Stockbridge, Munsee, and Brothertown Indians moved there from New York State after 1822 and set up their first village in Wisconsin, with the permission of the Menominees. In 1831, the Menominees formally ceded Kaukauna to the United States in a treaty. In a separate treaty, the Stockbridges and Munsees ceded their claim to Kaukauna to the U.S. and took reserved lands about 40 miles away on the east side of Lake Winnebago. Thus, Senator Obama was speaking yesterday in lands once in possession of the Menominee Indians, and for about a decade, in joint possession of the Menominees and the Stockbridges and Munsees.

I like to think that Sen. Obama might have been interested to learn some of this history. The Stockbridges, Munsees, and Brothertown tribes were all composed of mixed Indian-European-African people. Had Senator Obama’s ancestors from Europe visited, or his ancestors from Africa visited, they might have found Kaukauna in the 1820s one of the few places in Wisconsin, or for that matter, the U.S., to welcome a European and a free African at the same time.

Rain in June, Minnesota-style

Historically, June is the rainiest month in Minnesota. And this year is no exception. It's been raining, off and on, for at least a week. Why do brides in the state with more than 10,000 lakes risk ruining their big day with even more water?

I remember six years ago, when Joe College Grad was supposed to graduate from Minneapolis South High. He wasn't even at the ceremony, because he was off at a debate tournament. It rained and rained. In those days, the ceremony was held in the grubby football field outside the school -- the backup plan was the near-by YWCA basketball arena. There were no seats in the arena, except for the grads. Pretty terrible, so I'm glad he wasn't present.

By the time Joe-College-on-Leave graduated, the ceremony had been moved permanently to the Augsburg College fieldhouse. Much better, although there is something to be said for the great outdoors. But not in June.

''Sometimes,'' he said, ''I feel like I'd like to wring somebody's neck.''

by OLGS, guest blogger

''Sometimes,'' he said, ''I feel like I'd like to wring somebody's neck.''

--Former Secretary of State George P. Schultz, testifying before the Joint House-Senate Iran-Contra Committee, July 25, 1987

Twenty-one years ago, I remember staying at home during the summer taking care of then pre-schooler Joe College Graduate, and the still-in-diapers Joe College. In between feedings, walks with the stroller, and diaper-changes, I spent my days watching the Congress hold hearings to investigate the secret White House- led covert operations in Iran, Lebanon, and Nicaragua. Perhaps the only witness appearing under oath who emerged with any of his or her reputation undamaged was Secretary of State George Schultz, shown above on the Stanford campus. The secretary testified that the White House and the National Security Council had kept secret from him and his State Department the sale of weapons to Iran and the transfer of funds and weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua, both actions in violation of U.S. law. Schultz’s feeling that he wanted to “wring somebody’s neck” was directed mainly at the President’s staff, who served their president badly, he testified.

It's summer again, and today's headlines reminded me of the summer of 1987 and Iran-Contra. Yesterday, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued two reports. The first one, known as Report “Phase IIa,” recounted what had long been reported in the press: from August 2002 through February 2003, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Powell made statements about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction based on shaded, exaggerated, or sometimes on no intelligence at all. Here’s the link to the summary of the Phase IIa report:

http://intelligence.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=298775

The full report is also available from the Committee as a pdf file and is well-worth reading.

Almost overlooked was the second report, which brought Schultz’s 1987 comment about the White House and National Security Council to mind. The “Phase IIb” report made public that starting in 2001 and continuing through 2003, the National Security Council’s deputy director (Stephen Hadley) and the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Paul Wolfowitz), and the Office of the Vice President (Dick Cheney) approved a covert operation meant to lead to “regime change” in Iran. Who was the essential middleman to put the U.S. in touch with so-called “Iranian moderates”? None other than one of the arms dealers in the Iran-Contra affair, Manucher Ghobanifar, shown here in1987.

Just as Robert “Bud” McFarlane, Admiral John Poindexter, and Colonel Oliver “Ollie” North, kept the State Department in the dark about their dealings in Iran and Nicaragua, so, too, did the Bush Administration’s wannabe-spooks led by Hadley, Wolfowitz, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and also Elliot Abrams (another Iran-Contra figure) keep Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet uninformed about the 2001-2003 Ghobanifar-inspired attempt at regime change in Iran. As much as $25 million dollars was funneled through Ghobanifar between 2001 and 2003 to promote “regime change” in Iran. The Phase IIb report also suggests that the Ghobanifar initiative was manipulated by Iranian intelligence to send false information directly to the White House. This reads like a reprise of the Iran-Contra affair.

One of the regrettable outcomes of the Iran-Contra investigations is how few Reagan Administration people were indicted and sent to jail. One of the regrettable results of that failure is how many have surfaced with responsible jobs in the Bush 43 Administration. Is it too much to ask the Senate Intelligence Committee to refer to the Justice Department for prosecution everyone involved with this second Iran-Contra scandal? Is it too much to ask to send Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Elliot Abrams and others to jail before they can start work on a third covert operation to effect “regime change” in Iran through Ghobanifar’s “Iranian moderates”?

The Twin Cities last night: Joe High School at the "U", Sen. Obama at the "X"

by OLGS, guest blogger

Last night, Joe High School and I went to an orientation session at the University of Minnesota (the "U") for metro area students admitted into the PSEO program. PSEO stands for Post-Secondary Education Options. The Minnesota state legislature provides funds for hundreds of high school seniors to take college-level classes on college campuses. Joe applied and got admitted for next year and last night showed up for orientation.

The "U" staff tried hard to keep the attention of the 400 or so students and family members in attendance. The staff provided handouts, pocket planners, a PowerPoint show, cookies & lemonade, but still, no high school kid wants to sit still through a two-hour orientation session. Even I got a little bored with trying to follow the specifics of how to read the online class schedule and how to pick a Chemistry lecture and lab section. Mercifully, the PSEO orientation session ended a little after 8:00 p.m.

When Joe and I got to the car, we turned on the radio to listen to coverage of Senator Clinton's expected end-of-campaign speech from New York, and Senator Obama's expected victory speech from the Excel Energy Center (the "X") in St. Paul. The radio reporter live on the scene at the "X" said that the senator was in the building and that only about one-half the seats were filled. I asked Joe: "Should we drive over to the X and see the next president for ourselves?" Joe answered: "Let's go home and ask Mom if she wants to go." Mom--Louise--had baked a rhubarb cake. Joe dived into the cake and forgot the next president getting ready to speak in an arena with apparently plenty of empty seats and only about a ten-minute drive from our house. Under questioning from Louise, Joe admitted that he had homework that he had not completed. Therefore, Joe, Louise, and I passed on the chance to go see Sen. Obama deliver what some commentators said was the first of two nomination acceptance speeched (the other one to come in Denver in August).

Meanwhile, at the X, about 40,000 people had lined up for the 18,000 seats inside. The reason the arena was only half-full when the radio reporter gave his account was that so many people were still outside waiting to pass through security and the metal detectors. By 9:00 p.m., the place was packed and 20,000 people outside followed along on outdoor giant screens.

Louise and I listened at home on the radio. The senator mentioned four places in American history where Americans made their own history: Philadelphia in 1787, Antietam and Gettysburg in the Civil War, Omaha Beach in 1944, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965. The people in the X last night certainly felt that they were making history watching their candidate accept his party's nomination.

Farewell to the lawyers

My job with the lawyer marketing guys in Eagan is over. Now I'm off to write web content for a career college web site. This has been heady week, full of tributes to my skills (all of which can be had for the price of a liberal education)and hugs and best wishes. These are remarkable people, and even those that I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with are very interesting and talented. In this day and age, that's a pretty good gig.

Joe High School's new job....

by OLGS, guest blogger

Joe High School started a new job this month at a local independent (non-chain) pizza parlor in South Minneapolis. One of his friends told him that the pizza place was hiring and Joe applied and got hired. His entry into the pizza business brings back memories to me, OLGS, because my first paying job at age 16 was also in a pizza place in suburban Chicago.

Joe started his first night as the "dough-roller," that is, the person who takes dough out of a trough and sends it through a rolling machine twice to get the crust to the right thickness. By his second shift, Joe had advanced to "Sauce Dude," the person who drops a ladleful of sauce on the rolled-out pizza dough and smooshes it around to the edges. Bright lad that he is, he also mastered pepperoni-placement and cheese distribution. By the time of his third shift, Joe even used the '97 Subaru to make a delivery to a residence and got to "keep the change" from a twenty on the bill.
Good work, Joe. We're proud of you.

Our first $60 fill-up

by OLGS, guest blogger

Well, that didn't take long. Last week, I blogged about paying $51 for a tank of gas in Minneapolis. This weekend, Louise, Joe High School, and I motored to Belgium, Wisconsin for a wedding. In case you are wondering, Belgium is south of Denmark, also south of Holland, south of Luxemburg, and while I'm dropping place-names, south of Oostburg. Joe High School did most of the driving and was very steady on the highways.

The wedding was delightful on the shores of Lake Michigan. The bride was lovely and Joe's second cousin, the groom, was very handsome. Louise and I enjoyed seeing a lot of relatives, including Joe's aunt & uncle. We learned one Wisconsin wedding custom: at the sit-down dinner, many of the guests repeatedly banged their forks on their water glasses. Louise, Joe, and I looked around for someone to make an announcement, a toast perhaps, but no, the noise was a prompt for the bride and groom to smooch for the crowd.

This morning, we set off for the long drive back to Minneapolis. The gas gauge was on empty so we pulled into the BP/Amoco in downtown Belgium. Sixty dollars later, at $4.11/gallon, we left Belgium.

While we were at the wedding, President Bush struck out in asking the Saudis to pump more oil. Meanwhile, in that other Belgium, the price of gas is $5.91/gallon, and the Danes are paying $5.93 per gallon. At this rate, gas will be cheaper by Labor Day in Oostburg, Netherlands than it will be in Oostburg, Wisconsin.

Sping flowers in Minnesota

A lovely spring day in flyover land. Tulips are up, as are many weeds. I feared that the daffodils were not coming, but they are reluctantly peeking up and, for a few, out. I must have planted them too deep.

As a tribute to the weeds, OLGS and I were out in the gardens this morning. Mitzi the cat was frolicking about, chasing blowing leaves and generally making a fool of herself. The neighbor cat, her spittin' image, was also out, trying to throw his weight around by playing alpha male. The problem: she is twice his size. You go girl!

Daffodil Society of MN

My first $50 fill-up: ”Who could have expected such a thing…”

By OLGS, guest blogger

Well, it finally happened. It cost $51 to fill up the car. It’s the first time I had to pay fifty dollars for a fill-up. Sure, I’ve seen other motorists spend that much and more to fill up their SUVs and their pick-up trucks, but not for a car. Gas in Minneapolis is in the $3.65/gallon range. Joe College-on-leave tells me it is at $4/gallon in Southern California. I suppose we will see that $4 price-tag in Minnesota by Memorial Day, if not sooner.

Today’s crude oil futures are selling at $125/barrel and are also likely to go up. Secretary of State Rice’s standard answer to difficult questions “Who could have expected such a thing” is literally true in this case, but also misleading.

In my spare time, I’ve been reading some of the unclassified and now published documents of the Bush Administration in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Last fall, the Senate Intelligence Committee published two documents written in January 2003 for the Administration, one on the likely effects of invasion on Iraqi society (short summary: unwelcoming to U.S. occupiers for a year or so, but they’ll get over it), and the second on the likely effects of invasion on other Middle East countries. One item particularly caught my eye—crude oil prices might skyrocket from $15/barrel to as high as $40/barrel, but that after a period of uncertainty, the prices would decline because western oil companies would come in to modernize the Iraqi oilfield production and increase output from Saddam’s 3 million barrels/day to perhaps twice that figure. So the Administration, and in particular, Dr. Rice's staff, was warned that it might have a difficult first year of occupying Iraq with corresponding higher oil prices, but that by 2005, the promised liberation would start to reward the invaders. Here we are in 2008 with $4/gal gas and $125/bb oil….Who could have expected such a thing….

Urban turkey...

by guest blogger OLGS

Quite a spring in Minneapolis. Louise and Joe H.S. saw two wild turkeys last week in the front yard, but did not get a snapshot. Yesterday, Joe College-on-leave was home, and he and I had this downstairs-upstairs exchange:

Joe: Dad, there's a turkey outside.

OLGS (with snark): Tell Gov. Pawlenty we already paid our Minnesota State Income Tax

Joe: No, there really is a turkey in the yard.

OLGS (grabbing camera): This I gotta see...

Note: the first snapshot is of Mitzi (below) running back inside from the wild gobbler. The second, shown above, is of the turkey next store on our neighbor's walkway, right by the "Minnesota" paving stone.

Candidates in Selma

I was browsing Louise’s January 20^th post about the family trip to Selma, Alabama. She mentioned that Selma in 2008 is filled with churches, both established and storefront. When the family visited there just after the New Year, the presidential selection process had passed through Iowa and New Hampshire and on the Democratic side, the race was down to the big two, Senators Obama and Clinton. Both senators had visited Selma the previous March to honor the 1965 voting rights campaign that was centered on Dallas County, Alabama. Senator Obama spoke at the Brown AME Church, just down the street from the pecan wholesaler. Senator Clinton spoke at First Baptist Church. Last week, Senator McCain made a visit to Selma and spoke outside the St. James Hotel (also just down the street from the pecan wholesaler), where our family stayed in January.

Look at the photos of the three candidates speaking in Selma. Notice anything unusual? Readers of Domestic Tranquility are invited to post their answers in the comments section.

--OLGS