Sveika, Elizabet!

I really, really do have to get back to work… this was my after dinner relaxation… but thanks for the comments. And Pimenov was indeed the first person I thought of when making that remark. I’ve met him a couple of times, and we discussed these subjects at a dinner. I was impressed.

Visu labu,
/P

Elizabete,you are so up on Latvian parties and their candidates, I thought you lived there. For a while I tried to keep abreast of the election and its outcome but my other life took precedent and I could no longer follow. Things got so complicated that I didn’t really understand what Zatlers was trying to do toward the end of his term. And I’m not at all crazy about Berzins.
And as for the demonstrations in Russia, it’s true I was overly enthusiastic over what I was seeing and reading in the media.  Russia has never had such demonstrations before and the demonstrators even have the Orthodox Church on their side.  But,Peteris is right. I shouldn’t get too excited over the fact that they are happening and are allowed to happen.  I was just as enthusiastic about the demonstrations in Egypt and the whole Arab Spring movement, but the final curtain has not yet come down so no one knows how that play will end.
Peter, even though you say you were painting with a broad brush what you perceive is happening in Latvia now, it made for good reading and pondering.  Thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts down.

Peteris,
See how your style of writing - “not a few” - misleads cretin - whoops - certain readers.  And love those LOL participants so connected to “Latvians” that they have to seek you in some remote space in LV to get the haps, like Latvians don’t have better news sources than you.  Of course. they get the usual twofer-  your news and your perspective - and of course thrown in frequently is that of dead Rainis whose thinking you’ve embalmed in time and warp back at us a century later.  If only Rainis could speak for himself and express that Rislaki-like case for the nation state of Latvian-speaking Latvia that I am certain he would have passionately expressed.  You know, Peteris, there is a difference between sharing info about all the countries that have co-official languages and explaining to the 190,000 Russians who signed the Russian language petition (and some LOLers who go to you for info) that these are irrelevant examples and inapplicable to Latvia and need to be dismissed, not pondered.  That’s what Rislakki did when he unequivocally, unambiguosly explained why the example of Finland should be discarded as an argument to support co-official Russian in Latvia.  You know that hostile Russian-speaking occupants of Latvia aren’t looking to ponder anything but have been ignorantly misusing whatever little knowledge they can to push the basic “co-official” fact without the co-official comprehension.  Thanks, Juka, Laiks, Latvijas Avize.  Now that we don’t have to distract with more meaningless examples, what’s to be done about getting the Russian-speakers to love Latvia and being Latvian - like did Rainis.

As usual, you have written much that begs to be addressed and challenged.  I did not have time to read closely all that you’ve written, and I have too much to do right now to get stressed by some Latvian who chooses to live among Latvian-speaking Latvians in some Latvian area of Kurzeme when he could be living in the midst of multilingual multiculturals in a some Riga ‘hood.

I’m starting to suspect the Forum Administrator took a cue from Saki (H.H. Munro) to keep the discussion bubbling when things get slow:

“She’s invaluable,” said Reggie; “she’s my official quarreller.”

“Your—what did you say?” gasped his sister-in-law.

“I introduced her into the house-party for the express purpose of concentrating the feuds and quarrelling that would otherwise have broken out in all directions among the womenkind. I didn’t need the advice and warning of sundry friends to foresee that we shouldn’t get through six months of close companionship without a certain amount of pecking and sparring, so I thought the best thing was to localise and sterilise it in one process. Of course, I made it well worth the lady’s while, and as she didn’t know any of you from Adam, and you don’t even know her real name, she didn’t mind getting herself disliked in a useful cause.”

Admit it, this explains a lot.

This cretin would much rather get information on what is taking place in Latvia from Peteris C. than you, Ambersun.  I find your rants nauseating and you really are beginning to sound a broken record.

Arija,
I apologize if you took offense in identifying with “cretain” (certain)  - which I intended to write.  I was merely amusing myself and took the opportunity when I saw this word play possibility.  Maybe I had just read a Mikus post.  Anyway, I have to do something to laugh rather than cry after taking a glance at certain LOL posts.  By the way, I thought you were subscribing to Laiks.  You missed some good articles by people who live in Latvia like Ojars Celle and Salija Benfelde.  Even Karlis Streips.  Franks Gordons lived in free and Soviet Latvia.  (I think he likes Latvians more than do some LOL Latvians.)  I also find it interesting that so few posting here with such trimda and Latvia authority barely spend time in either world (one concert, one vacation) yet have such strong opinions and feel so empowered to express their certain opinions, like Peter Kalnin, who occassionally seems to also be Peteris Kalnins.  Then there’s Peteris Cedrins who can’t imagine being Peter Cedrin but calls Daugavpils Dvinsk.  Oh well. See why I try to find ways to amuse myself when reading LOL.  Also, Celle on the Old Believers of Latvia is more believable than Aleks on the Old Believers.  Well, there I go again.

...they have to seek you in some remote space in LV…

I’m getting enamored of this theory. Just which part of Latvia must one live in, in order not to be remote? What’s not remote, Embi? Ann Arbor?

Similarly, in response to Gospodin Leaves of John’s-grass—

I’d hate to burst your bubble, Jaņdž, were that possible—but a thread is not a site (as has been pointed out to you repeatedly—but, then, it must be hard to hear beyond your bubble), and any thread incessantly refreshed for nearly three years would get many a click. Clicks accumulate. I click on your threads now and then just to get a laugh out of the latest in groundless etymology and baseless pseudo-history, for instance. Has anything clicked?

I came to live in Latvia two decades ago this month, Jaņdž, and I suspect I’ve seen more of our country than you have. No, I wasn’t born here, which does indeed make a profound difference—but not the difference you seem to think it makes. I did not experience the occupation, for instance, arriving just as the Soviet Union imploded—but the same is true for anybody in the younger generation born here. How is my experience lesser? Because I have another experience? In that case—how is yours greater?

I love to get to know people—individuals—from all walks of life, and the diverse work I’ve done here has made that delightfully (also sometimes gloomily) and quite amazingly possible—I’ve met mad composers, heads of state, many a subsistence farmer, countless nihilists, brilliant entrepreneurs, frightful stagnāti, powerful magnāti, many individuals who were at the forefront of the Third Awakening, cynics galore, retired Soviet officers, scientists with and without laboratories, a cow named Laima, poets from Heaven and Hell, welders, urlas, dreamers, dropouts, more bureaucrats than you can shake a stick at, National Bolsheviks, investment bankers, a host of former Legionnaires, and not a few ghosts. What am I missing?

An ideology? Like you lack one, buddy.

Visu gaišu,
/P

Franks Gordons lived in free and Soviet Latvia.

Really? As far as I know, he lived here during the Ulmanis dictatorship and in occupied Latvia. Never in a free Latvia.

He has visited—even in Daugavpils, around the corner from my house in Daugavpils, for example, at Vārpa… but no, he lives in Israel.

/P

...irrelevant examples and inapplicable to Latvia and need to be dismissed, not pondered…

Just so you know—this is where you really piss me off. No, sorry—the parallels & examples may be far; but I won’t dismiss anything. I would rather dismiss the insane idea that Latvian suffuses Latvia as in a normal nation-state (see the use of the word “normal” in post-Soviet space)—sorry, but it doesn’t work, and it won’t work. There was never such a period, unless you count the golden age of Ulmanis, invoked by such as Ruks, incipiently retarded. This unique uniqueness jazz is ridiculous.

/P

ambersun wrote:

...irrelevant examples and inapplicable to Latvia and need to be dismissed, not pondered…

to which Peteris replied:

Just so you know—this is where you really piss me off

She didn’t piss me off, but she did make me laugh.  How exactly does one come to the conclusion that an example is irrelevant, inapplicable, and suitable for dismissal, unless one ponders it?  Furthermore, unless they’ve pondered it, how can anyone give a good reason for dismissal beyond the conclusory “it’s irrelevant and inapplicable”?  WHY is it that way?  What makes it irrelevant and inapplicable?

ambersun - 16 December 2011 06:52 AM

I also find it interesting that so few posting here with such trimda and Latvia authority barely spend time in either world (one concert, one vacation) yet have such strong opinions and feel so empowered to express their certain opinions, like Peter Kalnin, who occassionally seems to also be Peteris Kalnins.

It’s true, ambersun, few of the people you complain about barely spend time in either world. 
Most of us spend a considerable amount of time interacting with real live Latvians.
Your logic is airtight, which is a welcome change.

And I include my name in both languages so people can know who I am. 
After all, who needs another anonymous troll on the internet?

How exactly does one come to the conclusion that an example is irrelevant, inapplicable, and suitable for dismissal, unless one ponders it?  Furthermore, unless they’ve pondered it, how can anyone give a good reason for dismissal beyond the conclusory “it’s irrelevant and inapplicable”?  WHY is it that way?  What makes it irrelevant and inapplicable?

She Guevara’s curious stab at logic recalls a top 10 Jingo Johnnie Greatest Quotes of All Time:

“I didn’t bother to read your last post and I disagree with it completely”

Coincidence ?

& just out of curiosity, Ambi—why am I, & why is Alyosha considered traitorous, when it is the, er, ultra-Lettish Jaņdžs who is gleefully advocating co-official status for the Russian language? Something neither I nor Aleks have ever supported in any way, & have been explicit about opposing?

/P

Don’t know…  I might have the wrong thread - but it was where Peters C suggested I read an article in the “New Yorker” re Putin…  anyway - I’ll post my thoughts on that article here:
A quote from the article (at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/12/19/111219fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all )  Great article - by the way!!

<quote>Their fear is that after the March Presidential elections Putin will put more pressure on civil-society organizations and on the Internet. A wounded, angry Putin will not be a pretty thing. Last week, Yevgenia Chirikova, the leader of the Khimki Forest movement, was strip-searched by border guards out in the open at Sheremetyevo Airport—a two-and-a-half-hour episode of pure harassment. “Medvedev played with openness,” Sasha said, “and now Dad will come home and make everyone clean their room.”</quote>

I too think an angry Putin will not be a pretty thing for Russia!!  :zip:  Also, I too was strip searched for 2 1/2 hours by security in the same airport, back in 1977…  NOT a good experience!!!  LOL!  Of course, I didn’t have ANYTHING that was confiscated - to this day I have NO idea WHAT the F**** they were looking for!!  :coolsmile: