Being the mayor of Ljubljana can really take it out on you…(photos by Pengovsky)
Although it may seem that I’m making fun of the man, I actually feel slightly sorry for mayor Zoran Janković. I mean, I know he brought it upon himself by running for office, but here you can see what four months of public service can do to a man. The pictures may not be of the highest quality and I’ll admit that his poses are different in every one of them, but I think that the burden of the office is apparent.
BTW: according to Manager magazine, Zoran Janković takes “only” 47th place among the 100 richest Slovenians.
A note on the photos: The first photo was taken a day after he anounced his candidacy, all the others were taken while je was already in office. The bottom ones were taken with a Nokia 6680 phone (2.0 megapixel), the top two were taken were taken with a Sony Cybershot (also 2.0 megapixel). All four pictures were taken under artificial light, with all but the first one taken in the same room during various press conferences.
Oh, and my ladies… Happy Women’s Day! 😀
A rose… a beautiful one. Still, let me come out of the closet: I hate 8. March. Everything I seem to remember are drunken women celebrating themselves in ways that are diametrically opposite to showing dignity and stuff.
Of course thid does not describe the meaning of this day in any relevant or adequate way, but I wonder how many other people share my memories…
I don’t… I mean… If I delved deep into my unconscious, I might discover images of drunk horny women…. That might explain a lot 🙂
No thoughts on the degraing mayor?
I love holidays in general as long as they’re not overdone. Me and my mother received a rose this morning and I like it. No need for anything more. And thank you for the one on the picture as well. 😉
And I have many fresh thoughts about the mayor. They’re just not appropriate to express them publicly. 🙁 🙁
Mayor… Well, Danica Simšič changed a lot, too, didn’t she? I mean, there are positions that make you look “ripe” and “wise” quite soon, it does not surprise me at all…
Yes… Mayorship wasn’t kind on Danica
Pengovsky: how many times a week am I allowed to comment on your music programme 🙂 ?
As often as you like… Something wrong about it?
No. I like it a lot, as I said before. But I want to retain my credibility and I don’t anyone to think I am just flattering you, so I (in a traditional German-like way) need firm time intervalls for my little surges of enthusiasm. 😳
Oh, OK 🙂 Say twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays? 🙂
Twice a week? Will try. 😀
As a socialist and feminist, I’ve always kind of liked International Women’s Day. Glad to see it’s still being celebrated. We witches of the Karst are having a wild party tomorrow night. According to the invitation I received yesterday (personally delivered by three village women), “najprej bomo zenske na kresu zazgale venec iz metel, simbol vsega kar nam gre na zivce. Potem bomo pri kalu posadile novo drevo, ki bo moc crpalo iz nasih las [nb: I had to provide a lock of my hair for this purpose]. Nato pa sebomo odpravili k stari soli na veliki finale. Da oa nam ne bo dolgcas, smo povabili tudi idrijske muzikante, skupino PUTRAUKE…”
This sounds rather more exciting than the 8 March village celebrations I remember from previous years, when little kids would recite poems and present bouquets of snowdrops (zvoncki) to all the women (though that was also kind of nice). Are yoou cosmopolitans out there doing anything special for the occasion? Sometimes I think we peasants have a much richer cultural life than you city slickers.
You do.
@Jean: by cosmopolitans you mean alcessa, right? 😉 I mean – as much as we try, Ljubljanians can hardly qualify as cosmoplites 😉
Oh, I’m not. I come from Murska Sobota, I lived in Ljubljana for…9 years and now I live in a small German town (like: 40.000 inhabitans). I’ve never lived anywhere big.
No, I was actually surprised at Jean’s today’s programme… And I am ready to agree with her on the quality of her cultural life if compared to mine. Mine consists of cinema, some Terry Pratchett and blogging (?). Not that I am complaining, it is just that she is probably right…. 🙂 Happy Woman’s Day to you, then.
@ Jean : Sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than the boring lectures the poor women of Belgium will have to swallow all day long (pun not intended). Leave it to the witches to come up with a good way to celebrate Woman’s Day!
And should I remind anyone that every Monday is Woman’s Day at this here blog? (or every Friday, depending on how much of a male sexist pig you are ;))… 😛
ARF: ROTFL! 😀
The Lord Mayor appears to be making time for regular visits to the barber shop, but he’s definitely not making the time for a daily jog.
I spent virtually all my life in the US, and don’t ever recall Int. Women’s Day ever getting much, if any attention, besides a few events that were largely limited to college campuses. (Not a big surprise, I know.) There was one I remember, in the college town I lived in, where groups on the left and right would always host their own events on opposite ends of a big common area. On one side there were speeches and songs from latin America and Africa and Asia, and on the other was a small group that kept singing, ‘Stand By Your Man’ over and over again.
@pirano: Dare I ask which group you were in?
@ARF: An alternative interpretation–every Friday is Straight Men’s Day here at Pengovsky, and every Monday is Gay Men’s Day.
Believe it or not, despite the socialist origins of the holiday, the United States is listed among “governments supporting IWD”:
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
So maybe we can look forward to a statement from Bush commemorating the occasion later today…though his style is more to commemorate “National Sanctity of Life Day”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070119.html
which just happens to have the same date as the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Subtle, eh?
Speaking of the US and the sanctity of life, on Monday American planes dropped two 2,000 lb bombs on an Afghan family’s mud home, killing children aged between six months and five years.
But back to IWD–actually, our village bash tomorrow night is also in honor of “40 mucenikov” (March 10) as well as IWD. I had no idea what this 40 martyrs reference was all about, so I asked a knowledgeable (male) friend for help, and got this response back:
“For historic parameters, see: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06153a.htm
In Slovene (non-Catholic, pretty modern) popular culture the Day of 40 Martyrs (March 9 or 10, depending on who you ask) is the unofficial equivalent of “Dan zena” for men – since all men are martyrs, martyred throughout their
lives by women!
The appropriate gift for your favorite male is something symbolic decorated with a crown of thorns or at least a thorny branch; small chocolates skewered on thorns are quite popular.”
Pengovsky, please do not use the above as inspiration for tomorrow’s photos.
Pirano: this is a joke. They weren’t. Common, I am too dumb to know whether you are joking. They did not, did they? Sing “Stand by your man”, I mean?
There’s a 😳 missing.
It should be “Common, I am too dumb to know whether you are joking. 😳 “
😀 Sunshine, gradually the time will come for me to say something about mind-reading and stuff 😀 But aren’t you itching to find out whether there is any truth in this? Jesus, I’ll be 35 soon and I am not able to decide whether something is irony or not when I see it 😳 😳
It must be because I am a peasant, as Jean said. 😳
My cultural activies today mostly consist of trying to catch tommorrows deadline for a tender by Minstry of Culture, so that’s basically it 🙂 so Jean is better of in any case 🙂
As for the IWD: In Slovenia it’s called “Dan žena” and I remember that as a kid I couldn’t understand why we had to congratulate all women and not just those who are married. For “Žena” stands for “a wife” in modern Slovene. But in the old days it meant “a woman” as well.
@Jean: Don’t worry – tommorow will be just an ordinary day as far as this blog is concerned 😀
alsessa – no joke, but it was relatively amusing. Various right wing groups, who usually called themselves the “Young Americans for this, that or the other”, would regularly keep tabs on when various other groups would plan demonstrations or events, and then quickly organize their own. Even with benign things like International Women’s Day, which they obviously viewed as some UN-inspired socialist conspiracy run by child-aborting heathens and lesbians. That one stands out because it was so ridiculously absurd. The late 80s were great. For awhile I think I spent more time helping organize various things than I actually spent in class. 🙂
@Jean – you need to ask? I was dancing along with the Latin all-star band. Much better than the psychology class (or whatever) I was blowing off.
Uff, THX for answering. I’ll be back when I finish laughing. 😀
@pirano: There you have it. The final proof that right wingers are reactionists. Because they only reacted to such events 🙂
International Women’s Day is benign? Are you kidding? According to a noted authority on the subject, “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”
Anyone want to guess the author of that quote? And no google-cheating!
I have it on a T-shirt which I think would be appropriate apparel for tomorrow evening’s witch-fest. We’re planning to throw our husbands and children onto the bonfire before we collectivize everybody’s private property. Afterwards, we’ll celebrate with a group orgy lesbian-style.
Or maybe I should wear the one that says “I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” (who said that one? No googling!)
@pirano: want to come dance to Putrauke tomorrow night? You can borrow one of my T-shirts for the occasion. It’ll be much more interesting than editing a website. Okay, a certain amount of risk is involved, since we’re planning to murder all the men (except for the musicians, we need them), but I’ll try to arrange for you to be exempt, and act as your bodyguard.
@jean – Wow, I must have missed that noted authority while I was blowing off a class.
Thanks for the invite to join the wicked witches of the west, but I’ve already made other plans. Next time? Be sure to take lots of pictures!
@Jean: Bodyguard? Gurading from whom? Other feminist lesbians defiling God and white male supremacy by chanting socialist and liberal slogans and trying to procreate, thus reducing the “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” mentality that has sustained this society for centuries to a pile of rubble?
Somebody call Karl Rove or Edmund Stoiber! They’ve got a new spokesman here
As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women’s children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.
(listen here: http://www.adorjan.ca/echo/BreadandRoses/)
So, Pengovsky, since Pirano cruelly rejected me, would you like to be my escort instead? You bring the roses, I’ll supply the bread. Just try to avoid buying ones whose production contributed to the oppression of women laborers in, e.g., Kenya:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2012105,00.html
When do the festivities start? I’d love to, but it depends on the schedule – as I said before, we’re completing an application for a tender – deadline tommorow, so I’ll be tied up until evening.
This just in: I’ll have to disappoint you as well.
Your loss, guys. You’re missing the biggest celebrity cultural and social event of the century.