5/17 Reflections and Sharing Time

 This is the round up of the past 7 days. Short news blurbs/my opinions on them, and some cool stuff I tweeted about for those who don't follow me/scroll through the little box to the right.

What in the World?: Reflections on 3/29

Another delightful recap of what impressed and intrigued me over the past week.

News

My CEE corner of the internet BLEW UP when Berezovsky died.  I read multiple articles on him because  I had no idea who he was.  He's an important figure since he created the monster that is Putin.  Too many articles to link here.

I am following what I need to about Cyprus, but all I have to say is: whoa.

Art, Music, Articles

Since I have not been following the news this week (which I am sure to regret since that's when EVERYTHING happens!), I can't do a summary.  I'm very sorry.  However, I do have a bunch of fun links and that's always a good time.  You're welcome.

Friday Round Up - 3/8

I have been all atwitter on twitter this week!  Lots of stuff going on in Europe these days, particularly the southeasterly neighbors in the Balkans.  Europeans be trippin', as they say.  There were so many happenings that this post is all news and very little play.  Scroll through my twitter for some of the fun diversions I found!

In Case You Missed It...

Capturing the last week in a nutshell.  Easy to read and easy to stay up to date on the cool, the crazy, and the communist.

There has been some political developments and almost as exciting as last week's!  Slovenia, not to be outdone by Bulgaria, democratically hoisted and defenestrated their PM Janša.  No dignified resignations, but a simple oust through the operations of government.  They get extra gold stars for a functioning government (am I bitter because of the American sequester? MAYBE). Others are trying to do the same. 

Roundup of the Week

Today's post is rounding up both the big news from Europe and some discoveries I've made. 

 

News

Bulgaria: This is the most recent and biggest news in Europe.  If you haven't followed up on it, simply scroll through my twitter feed to the right of this post to find numerous sources on it.  Borisov has made a somewhat unusually gallant gesture by stepping down, but it's also just that: a gesture.  His choice of words were, at the very least, an excellent homage to the fundamental ideals of democracy: "The people gave us power and today we are returning it."  Politics is part performance and that's part of its power, but the other part comes from action and there hasn't been much movement on that front.  It has been remarked that Borisov is the tip of the corruption iceberg, hence why people are still protesting.  Presseurop did publish an article showing the cyclical patterns in Bulgarian politics and pointed out that this isn't exactly new fare for the impoverished nation.  It shouldn't be surprising that Bulgaria has struggled so much to shake the weights of the past since it was the most loyal USSR satellite and had the most centralized and sovietized economy in the bloc.  Like everyone else, I'm waiting to see the results of these protests and if they will materialize into either a real political movement, simply a reactionary movement with no clear agenda, or a knee-jerk reaction to austerity that will mirror Greece. 

Monday Book (and Lecture) Review

This week's review is a double.  I wanted to review the lecture I attended at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs back in early December, but I didn't think it made much sense to do so without including the book.  I saw Anne Applebaum speak about her new book, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944 - 1956 at CCGA.  I bought the book at the event since I had read glowing reviews and I totally jive with the subject matter.  I find the era leading up to the establishment of communism in Europe really fascinating (which was my favorite part of this book, actually) primarily because it was such a tumultuous time period.  The geo-political landscape had fundamentally altered after the most (up to that point) devastating war and there was a lot of assumptions, grievances, and fears thrown into the pot at once.

Riga Fashion Week

This week is Fashion Week in Riga, and I'm tweeting all about it! (See left-hand side of blog)  I've already written about a few here, but now that Twitter has expanded my world, I can do a more full report on the whole week of fashion and what I loved.  So far I loooove Triinu Pungits as much as ever, but Janis Šnē totally gripped me with (what I will consider) icicle inspired designs, possibly origami inspired since they look like paper.  Plus, putting icicle-origami daggers where your eyebrows are is totally what I'm into.  Because, FASHION.  People who have no imagination hate on haute design because it's inaccessible, but people who understand flights of fancy and the power of image through clothing get it.  I love me some practical wear, but I love some crazy shit that I would never dare wear outside the house because I am a timid person.  It's fun to see clothing be a wearable piece of art instead of the boring reasons we all wear clothes.

So follow my handle for some more fashion updates before I do a round-up of my favorite Riga fashion moments. (I am really hoping mareunrols shows up because their stuff is BOMB, too)  If you need the lowdown on a few designers in CEE to fully appreciate my tweets, read up here.

To The Next Level

I finally got a Twitter handle.  I figured it was time to join the social networking side of things to expand my reach, my research, and sometimes it's easier to retweet a good article than to do a post for it.

Follow me @whysored!  I'll put it up in the sidebar so you can follow me and see what I do.  I'd love some feedback on who to follow.  I almost added Donald Tusk, but then I remembered I have no comprehension of Polish and that's a problem.  I added Viktor Orbán because I like to pretend I know enough Hungarian for it to make sense, but as for German politicians, I legitimately can read and understand.  Does following Orbán make me look bad?  I'm just intensely curious what politicians tweet about; best I can tell, Orbán's tweet was about bread and the Chain Bridge.  I knew those words, so I felt pretty proud of myself.

Follow me on Twitter.  If this goes well, I might expand to Facebook. ZOMG.