Dvorak Embraced Spillville, Iowa; Spillville, Iowa Embraced Dvorak

When I left the Czech Republic last year, I flew back to the American Midwest. Within two weeks, I needed to go to my home state of Iowa for my Uncle's funeral. My mom, knowing how blue I was to have left Prague when I loved it so, suggested we stop in Spillville, Iowa to see the Bily Clocks/Antonin Dvorak exhibit.

Haven't heard of it? I'm not surprised. Spillville, Iowa has all of 400 people.

When famous Czech composer Antonin Dvorak was in New York City composing his New World Symphony, he longed for the company of his Bohemian countrymen. Rather than going all the way back home for a dose of "Czechness," his secretary urged him to go West instead to the tiny village of Spillville, Iowa which was chock full of Czech immigrants.

The building where he and his family lived has been turned into a museum. It showcases two themes: Dvorak's summer in Spillville, and the breathtaking woodworking creations of some bachelors farmers who became famous handcarving incredible clocks. They are called Bily Clocks and they have to be seen to be believed. It's hard to conceive that the two craftsmen who created them never traveled more than 35 miles from Spillville and only went to school through 5th grade. The tour guide winds up every mechanical clock and shows you it's movements.

It's not every town of 400 people

that have an honest-to-goodness

tourist attraction like this.

If you are the slightest bit interested in woodworking,

creativity, or spirituality you should see these clocks.

The farmers viewed them as a way to glorify God.

Museum guests are not allowed to take pictures of them.

The building can't be missed.

It's on the main thoroughfare through town.

I teared up when I walked into the gift shop

and was surrounded by a whole room of Czech stuff.

Fairy tales written by the famous Czech author

Božena Némcová

I enjoyed learning about Dvorak's stay both in New York City

where he completed his New World Symphony

and in Spillville, Iowa.  

There was lots of interesting background on
American reaction to his Symphony.

Americans, including Dvorak's patroness,

were determined to develop "American music."

When Dvorak, himself an "oppressed person,"

if you want to call him that

as a Czech in the Czechlands

during the Austrian-Hungarian Empire,

suggested to Americans they had all the material

they needed for a grand American-style music

in the music of African-Americans and Native Americans.

White Americans derided his ideas

with a bemused "Imagine he said that!" attitude.

White America said it in Decorah, Iowa
where this article is from.

But they said it in New York City too.

Dvorak was ahead of his time.

His first morning in Spillville

he went down to the Turkey River

and enjoyed the birds singing

even before he talked to anyone in town.

I can imagine being in Spillville
felt very much like being in a Czech village.

Since I worshiped at St. Clement's Church in Prague,

I was delighted to discover a St. Clement's Church in Spillville.

Other signs of Czech life:

the oldest Czech school in America.

The church  and church cemetery
at St. Wenceslaus Church.

Dvorak liked to play the organ here.

A few years after the Velvet Revolution happened, the tiny village of Spillville was newly energized to put on a festival costing $60,000 celebrating their Czech heritage.  That's a lot of ambition for a tiny town of 400.
Bravo to them.  Click on this link to read about it.  Click on my title for more information about the museum.

Easter Weekend in Plsen

One of the most beautiful times I had in the Czech Republic last year was when I went to Plsen on Easter weekend to visit Hana, my longtime pen pal of twenty years.  We had started writing letters back and forth years ago, when an organization called World Contact Network was looking for Americans to correspond with newly-freed Czechs adjusting to the West.

I had fallen in love with the Czech Republic watching the Velvet Revolution on TV and was deeply fascinated by any nation so cultured as to elect a playwright for President.  I had to know more about Czechs!  Hana and I began writing and eventually Hana's daughter, Lenka, came to live with my family for a time in America.

I took over 250 pictures of my weekend trip to Plsen! I had looked forward to this day so much. Hana and I had raised kids at the same time. We both divorced about the same time.  We taught each other so much about each other's countries.

Unfortunately, on the train back to Prague, a train employee asked everyone in my compartment to switch to a new compartment. In that move I lost my camera. I don't know if I left it on the ledge, the seat, or someone took it out of my bag.  I was sooooooo disappointed because I had such a wonderful weekend there.

Hana and her family went to great lengths to show me a fabulous time in their city. It's taken me over a year just to accept that I wouldn't have those pictures to share with this blog post because I felt the loss so deeply.

Hana and her son picked me up at the train station.  I went first to meet Hana's parents and to see her son's village home which he was renovating.  Jiri took me out to the backyard to see the animals he raised for food.

Have you ever heard of the animal Nutrea?  I hadn't.  Hana's son, Jiri, said their meat was very tender to eat.  There were four or five pens with 2-3 animals in each. I thought "wow, I'm really in a European village now.  Hana's family is actually raising their own livestock in the backyard!"  Later, I laughed about how exotic and foreign I thought this was at the time, because it turns out that a very hip, very growing trend in Madison, Wisconsin where I would subsequently move, is to grow chickens in the backyard.  Madison has a whole web site for chicken farming aficionados called "Mad City Chickens."

On Saturday, we started with a tour of the Brewery Museum.  It was fun to see how beer has been created throughout the centuries.  After a tour of the museum, everyone gets a free beer.  We had ours on the back porch of the museum and put all of our new knowledge to work tasting a rich Czech beer.

Later, we went downtown to walk around lovely Plsen.  There was a wedding outside the fascinating, centuries-old Main Hall and I tried not to take pictures but it was hard!  Everything was sunny and blue, the bride was beautiful, and I was in the middle of a picturesque town square in the middle of Europe!  Eventually, they dragged me over to the beautiful church,  St. Bartholomew Cathedral, that's right in the Main Square.  We went inside to see the baroque interior and to climb the steps to the top of the tower.  I have no idea how roofs in the Czech Republic ever get done because the steep angle would terrify me if I was a roofer (thank you to those of you who are; I appreciate how dangerous it is and am grateful that someone else takes it on).  It was fun to see all of Plsen from every side and to look down and see the Plsner beer tent and all of the other kiosks set up to celebrate Easter.  We climbed down and had a Plsner beer in the Plsen beer tent in the middle of Plsen.  Gosh darn it, I want a picture of that!

That evening, Hana and her sweetie, took me to the Plsen Opera House for an evening of opera.  It's cozier than the Prague National Theatre (I haven't been to the Prague Opera) and it's just as beautiful. Again, it kills me that I can't show you the pictures because Europeans create the most breathtakingly beautiful performance spaces. Wait, have I been in other nation's performance spaces?  No.  Let me revise that to what I have personally witnessed.  Czechs make the most gorgeous performing spaces!  Everyone was dressed up too. We looked great! It was nice.

The next day we ventured out into the countyside to see Kozel Castle.  If I could have teleported my mother from Colorado to that chateau for their tour, I would have.  It was divine! My mother would have gone absolutely nuts seeing that place.  It was a hunting chateau in the middle of an idyllic lakefront setting.  The home was beautiful, yes, but it was the lightness of the decorating that I would have loved for my mother to see.

Every room in that hunting chateau suggested "play."  The ceramics and the dishes were exquisite! In each room, there were fresh flowers in manor-sized containers.  It was worth it to go on that tour just to see a gorgeous, resplendent arrangement of flowers in each room on that elegant scale over and over again. With most tours, the tour operators wouldn't go to the trouble of giving you the feeling of being in the room as it was meant to be at the time using fresh flowers.  But the people who run this castle did.  Fantastic! The final room was the best of all.  We walked into a magical family-sized theatre.  I could just imagine the people putting on a play for each other's amusement in the 1830's.  Oh, it was painful not to have my mother by my side for that tour! She would have just appreciated it so much. And I can't even show her the pictures!

After that fabulous experience, we went into town to a new brewery and restaurant that had started in Plsen.  I would share the name of it with you but where would I get that from...you guessed it...my pictures.

I went home on Sunday night.  If I had been more educated about Czech Easters, I would have known I would be expected to stay through Monday.  Monday is also part of the Czech Easter holiday.  I did not know that though until Prague friends asked me why I came home early.  Now I know.

I had a WONDERFUL time at Hana's.  It was so meaningful to connect in person after all those years of letters.  It's my pen pals who really continued and built on my initial fascination with all things Czech.  If you can't see a picture of Hana and her family, I hope what you can feel is their hearts: open.

"Advancing Europe's Security" by Joe Biden

Joe Biden has an excellent piece in the International Herald Tribune this week about advancing Europe's security.  As an American citizen, what I appreciated when I read it was a sense that American foreign policy isn't "coasting" in Europe, with a "no problems, no-need-to-pay-attention" attitude. They're recalibrating all the time.  It's been quite well-reported how much Central European leaders worry about American "drift." Click on my title to read his opinion piece.

Smetana's "Ma Vlast" is worth knowing

One of the great attractions of living in the Czech Republic, is that high culture is so alive, so affordable, and so accessible.  Give it another twenty years of capitalism and it may not be so. 

No American could imagine a scenario where every single person in our country knows a specific composer and his works. We all come from too many different backgrounds as citizens.  There is American classical music, but do you think more than 10% of the population knows Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" or Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man?"

When I hear those American-composed pieces, they move me in a way that I consider almost nationalistic because they so perfectly capture an "American" sound and feeling. I wish I could share that pride with every other American when the music plays.

There is a shared culture that everyone knows based on being Czech here in the Czech Republic.  You can assume that when a Czech hears the opening bars of Bedrich Smetana's "Vyshrad" tone poem from his symphonic creation "Ma Vlast" (or "My Country" in English) whenever a Czech train station announcement is played overhead on the train station loudspeaker, they all instantly recognize the opening bars of the music.

One of my blog followers told me that Czech Airlines plays "Ma Vlast" every time they land a plane in Prague coming from out-of-country.

When the Prague Half Marathon began last year, and President Vaclav Klaus set the runners off, the athletes ran from the starting line accompanied by the second tone poem of Smetana's "Ma Vlast" entitled "Vltava."   I can see why.  "Ma Vlast" is a gorgeous, stirring piece of music.  I don't even feel the nationalistic pride that a Czech would but I can imagine how it must make their chests swell.

I recommend a specific album called "Smetana Orchestral Works" recorded by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in Municipal Hall in Prague in 2001 if you are new to Bedrich Smetana's music.  It was recommended to me by the music library staff at Prague Municipal Library.  "Ma Vlast" is included, along with another piece of music that is played often in the Czech Republic called "Wallenstein's Camp."  Click on my title to get your "Czech music soul" stirring and see the album. Where else is Smetana's music used within the Czech Republic in ways that touch citizens?

Do you have favorite pieces of classical music that represent your homeland or that you associate with a specific geographical place?

Can Anyone Tell Me About this Beautiful Czech Pottery?

Twenty years ago, when I started corresponding with my Czech pen pals, one of them sent me a vase like the one pictured in the second picture below. I fell in love with the beautiful folk pottery! It's Czech, but I have never seen it offered for sale in Prague.

These pictures are on display at Celetna Crystal on Celetna Street. When I asked the salesperson about them she shrugged and said "too old fashioned." Say it ain't so! It's classic folk pottery. So who knows anything about these beautiful things?

Are they Moravian?

Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt | Video on TED.com

Here's an NGO (non-governmental organization) you should know about.  It's called Transparency International. I never heard of it until I came to the Czech Republic and I saw it advertised on buses, trams, and on T-shirts. I knew it fought corruption but I didn't know how. What a wonderful vision this man has of the difference he can make in improving governance throughout the world! Nobel peace prize people, are you listening?

Take 16 minutes by clicking on my title or the link below to listen to his TED talk describing his work organizing suppliers to create a corruption-free business culture. Just by listening to his arguments, you help create a less-corrupt environment that honors great products rather than corruption culture in developing markets. Think of the cynicism this man is helping to prevent! And is there anything that keeps more people from political action than cynicism? I think not.

Can you share his ideas with one other person, especially someone who works at a global company? You, as a member of civil society, can help reform cultures across borders by developing beliefs and expectations that this can change. It can change, you know. Believe.

Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt | Video on TED.com

The Journeys of Captain Oddsocks

When you decide to move to a country and want to learn all about it, one of the best things you can do is read the blogs of expatriates who are already living there.  Today I want to give a shout out to an expatriate blog about the Czech Republic that I have loved reading and that has introduced me to parts of the Czech Republic beyond Prague.

The Journeys of Captain Oddsocks is such a well-written blog.  Here's one of the posts I appreciated the most: "What and Where was the Sudetenland?"  For example, one of the things I learned from Captain Oddsocks' post that I didn't know before about the Sudetenland was the role reversal of German-speaking citizens governing the country at the time from a majority position and then all-of-a-sudden becoming the minority.  There's a similar parallel today with the Sunnis in Iraq who used to govern the country and are now getting used to a new role.  I hope it turns out better than the Sudetenland did!

I will know that I know the Czech Republic really well when I start winning Captain Oddsocks "Where the Czech?" photo contests.  Haven't won one yet!  Have you? Another post he did I totally love is "100 things about the Czech Republic."  How many items on the list did you know about? What makes you smile?  What would you suggest to him as an addition?

Yesterday, Captain Oddsocks started a series on Czechland architecture with an initial post: Baroque for Beginners.  Who can resist a name like that?  I didn't want you to miss a single entry! I recommend signing up to follow Captain Oddsocks on his blog or through Facebook.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Jana, center, invited colleagues

Justin and me

to join her at a reception

for a Czech photographer's

exhibition of Tibetan culture.

It was the 50th anniversary

of the Dali Lama's exile from Tibet.

I predicted that one of my students

with a thing for Tibetan culture would be there.

This was the only time I ever played hooky from class.

I guessed, correctly, my student would be playing hooky too!

We rescheduled the class for another time.

The reception was at one of the Czech Parliament Buildings.

Here is the receptionist's nifty period in-and-out-board

for knowing which official is in the building

and which isn't.

Prague is full of beautiful cloak rooms

with pleasing period fixtures.

and a few toys.

The librarian in me was completely enthralled by

these glorious documents on display

on the way to the reception room.

Look at the "signature" seals on these things!

The explanations were only in Czech

but I believe the document below is a

Czech constitution from some moment in Czech history.

The reception was very intimate

and felt more so due to a light rain outside

falling on the skylights.

Yet, this government-sponsored reception

felt completely accessible, open, and friendly to

anyone with an interest in the topic

whether they were Czech or from some other country.

I love that about the Czechs.

I never get the feeling of "exclusion - natives only please."

There were all kinds

of interesting people in attendance.

The guest of honor: the photographer

who took the beautiful photographs on display.

A sample of her photographic work above.

Czech people know what it is to be a tiny country

that feels forgotten.

I came away from this evening understanding that

there are supporters of Tibetan rights
all over the world, not just the USA.

Jana was excited to meet Kateřina Jacques,

Vice Chair of the Czech Green Party.

"She is like our Obama!"

Jana explained to me that Kateřina Jacques

had become famous throughout the Czech Republic

ever since a You Tube video surfaced

of her 'treatment' by authorities at a political rally

at the start of her political career.

Jana was toying with getting involved in Czech politics.

I admired my friend for that because

my experience so far had been that Czech people don't see how their

individual involvement in politics can make a difference. 

It can! It does!

And to end on something lighter than politics:

my favorite food discovery of the evening

was this Czech pastry I was

introduced to that night - věneček.

It's the one second from the right.

Totally, totally worth the calories.

Artist David Cerny: "I Painted Tank Pink to Get A Girl"

David Cerny

Czech artist David Cerny is so endlessly entertaining.  He always makes me laugh.  Turns out he painted the Soviet tank pink back in the 1970s to get a girl.  Read the full story on the Radio Free Europe web site by clicking on my title.
Related posts:
It's David Cerny Appreciation Week and
The Saturday Profile: With Sharp Satire, Enfant Terrible Challenges Czech Identity

A Man With a Biking Plan

I want to give a shout out to an English-born blogger who is currently living in Prague.  Simon is a man with a plan.  What is his plan?  He is going to circumnavigate the Czech Republic on his bicycle.  I don't think he has started yet.  This looks like it will be an awfully fun adventure to follow.  Why not sign up to follow his blog? Or for that matter, I invite you to sign up and follow mine! Click on my title to reach his blog.

Behind-the-Scene Pictures of Barack Obama in Prague, 2nd Set

Air Force One Arrives in Prague

The United States Embassy in Prague has shared a second set of behind-the-scene photos of Obama in Prague.  Click here to see the photos.

An Evening of Jazz at the Reduta

 At the Reduta Jazz Club

All of this "Obama in Prague" commotion, took me back to a wonderful memory from "Obama in Prague" weekend last year.  My President had just arrived in Prague, it was the night before his big speech and the entire city was jazzed.  What would be a better thing to do than to go hear some jazz?  Actually, that's what the last democratic American president did when he was in Prague in 1994.

A display of photos from that special night in 1994

of the "Two President's Gig"

Vaclav Havel took Bill Clinton down to Prague's most famous jazz club, the Reduta, and therein a night of magic was created.  It's gone down in history as the "Two President's Gig."  President Havel presented President Clinton with a saxophone.  In this small intimate club, so tiny it could almost be someone's rec room, Bill Clinton played "Summertime" on his new sax.  Czech musician Jan Konopásek, now living in Florida but keeping a home in Prague 1, had also created a piece of music that was a blend of the two nation's hymns.  It was played.  Our Secretary of State at the time, Madeline Albright was also there, which was fitting since she has Czech roots. This evening was beyond statecraft.  This was friendship.

 I knew President Obama wouldn't be there on the eve of his speech.  Lightening doesn't strike in the same place twice -- or at least so I'm told.  But I had a very special invitation from Czech bandleader and clarinetist Pavel Smetáček to come hear his Traditional Jazz Studio band play at the Reduta on a breathtakingly beautiful springtime evening.

 Reduta Bandstand

The evening to me was a celebration of deep roots.  Pavel Smetáček's band has been in existence for 50 years.  When you think of how fashions in music come and go, and personnel come and go, and then you add a totalitarian regime harassing musicians on top of all that -- it's hard to underestimate the accomplishment.

The crowd forming - 

music begins at 9:30 p.m.

Pavel Smetáček's band was not the only Czech jazz institution to have lasted for so long and with such a grand reputation.  The Reduta jazz club has also continuously operated as a jazz club for 50 years as well.  Sometimes I think jazz is celebrated more here in Prague than at home! What wonderful memories Pavel must have created over the years at this club.

Vojtech Hueber

Announcer for the Evening

So there was not only Pavel's 50 years of musical leadership present, and 50 years of Reduta jazz history present, there was also the incredible long-standing friendship between Pavel Smetáček and his friend Vojtech Hueber, PhD present. Spending time with them, it's obvious to see how lucky these two men are to have each other as friends.

Vojtech, associated with Czech Radio's jazz department, also has a lengthy career history in international affairs.  These men have their love of jazz to discuss and also global politics.  Pavel helped represent the Czechoslovakian government with new democratic faces after the Velvet Revolution, having served as the Ambassador to Italy in the early days of democracy.

 The dreamy Smetáček brothers.

Pavel on the left, Ivan on the right.

Wait...

this picture is better.

Pavel on the left, Ivan on the right,

and me chillin' with the dreamy Smetáček brothers!

Oh, and one other long-standing partnership was on display. Pavel's brother Ivan, was also present that evening.  Ivan played the trumpet for years and no longer plays since his embouchure has taken a well-deserved retirement. Both Pavel and Ivan carry themselves with an urbanity quite uncommon in today's world. Can we bring it back?

 I asked Pavel, "where did you learn to be so elegant?"

"From my father, Václav Smetáček; he was a symphony conductor.  He died in 1986 at the age of 80.  He was known for his handsomeness."  He wrote a piece of music for Pavel's band called "Ragtime Echo."

 I haven't met Pavel's son Stěpán, representing a third generation of musical leadership, but he has his own modern band called the New Orchestra of Dreams (Pavel plays traditional dixieland jazz although he says he's a "tolerant traditionalist!"). Dasha, Pavel's wife, is a flautist.  She played in Pavel's band for 10 years.  She now teaches and has a chamber music ensemble with flutes and cellos.

The depth of all these connections was moving!

The band began to play with a power that just blew those of us in the front row away.  Wow, I want to be like this when I'm his age.  It was so fantastic.  They started off the first set with the song Nobody's Sweetheart. and continued with:
Careless Love,
Some of These Days,
I Can't Give You Anything But Love,
and Oh, Lady Be Good.

I was touched when Vojtech introduced me to the crowd as a special guest of the band.  While many of the people were local, quite a few in the crowd were Asian tourists.  Would I be as hip to their fabulous music if I went to their countries?

The trombone player was adorable.  Anytime he did an extended solo and the crowd clapped he did this very cute "aw shucks" schtick that did not get old. He not only played the trombone, he had a trombone 'kazoo' that he would bring out for fun.

The second set, the band played:
All of Me
Pennies from Heaven
Burgundy Street Blues (arranged by George Lewis)
When You're Smiling
Strutting' With Some Barbecue

The third and final set the band played:

I've Found a New Baby
Ja-Da
C-Jam Blues
St. Louis Blues
Sweet Georgia Brown 




I especially appreciated hearing St. Louis Blues because one of the seminal jazz moments in my life was hearing Count Basie's band accompany Joe Louis on that number in Nice, France when I was 17 years old. I remember it like it was yesterday! It was yesterday, wasn't it?

Band members on stage:

Armin Reich - drums
Ondřej Cernil - bass
Antonin Bílý - piano (not pictured but jamming in full force!)
Jaroslav Zelený - trombone et al.
Vitězslav Marek - trumpet et al.
Jan Chvosta - tenor sax
Pavel Smetáček - clarinet

Pavel and Vojtech also gave me some tips on who I should listen to in European jazz. I'll keep those recommendations to myself.  I wouldn't want to say anything that harms a diplomatic legacy.   Thank you gentlemen, for an unforgettable evening of music and terrific fellowship!

You might enjoy this earlier post about Pavel's band:

I Could Have Danced All Night

In Karlovy Vary, Pact With Russians Raises Old Specters

The Streets of Karlovy Vary

in Western Bohemia, Czech Republic. 

It's a spa town so popular with Russians

there are direct flights.

Old memories die hard.  The New York Times asked the citizens of Karlovy Vary what they thought of the treaty signing in Prague and the building friendship between America and Russia.  It was an inspired choice since there are no communities in the Czech Republic who have more interaction with Russians on a daily basis.  Click on my title to read the article.

Behind-the-Scene Pictures of Barack Obama in Prague

President Obama and President Medvedev

signing the START Treaty at Prague Castle

The United States Embassy in Prague recently posted behind-the-scene photos of President Obama's visit in Prague.  Click on my title to see the photos. 

If you are an American or Czech who worked to make the President's trip a safe success, thank you!

"We are here because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change!"

 In honor of President Obama's achievements in signing a new START treaty with Russia this week in Prague, I'm reposting my original blog post about his Prague speech on nuclear weapons.  Having just watched the speech again yesterday, I was struck by how clearly he laid out exactly what he was going to do and his timeline for doing so. He accomplished exactly what he said he would accomplish in the first year.  Congratulations President Obama!


What's Latin for "they came, they saw, they charmed?"  That's what President and Mrs. Obama did when he spoke to the Czech people on April 5th, 2009 on a hazy Sunday morning at Hradcany Namesti (Prague Castle Square).

Beginning with Czech history from Chicago (something well-known to Czech people and hardly known outside of Chicago within America), President Obama shared his Chicago roots in a way that charmed the Czechs and Americans like me in the audience.  He honored Czech people for things they love about themselves and by extension, that Czechs teach foreigners to love about them as well:  their humor, their high level of culture, their "unconquerable spirit despite empires rising and falling, and the "revolutions ... led in arts and sciences, politics, and poetry. "

My very favorite part of the speech was one I did not expect.  When he was establishing connection with his Czech audience, President Obama talked about the improbability of him serving the United States as President and of Czech people being free to live their lives in democracy:

"We are here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change." 

What a perfect thing to say to a nation of skeptics who don't believe that democracy will change anything, who don't believe that corruption can ever end, and that don't believe their politicians will stop arguing and start governing.  President Obama was asking Czechs to believe.  It was easily the most moving part of his speech.

He was asking them to recognize their own power as citizens and visionaries if they organize and work for and believe in change.  After all, it was their first democratically-elected President, President Vaclav Havel, who proved that "moral leadership is more important than any weapon." Believe, Czech people, believe!

He did not come here to argue the merits of the proposed missile defense system to the Czech people.  He aimed much bigger than that.  He came to propose a nuclear-free world.  Now if any other politician proposed such a thing in a speech, I have to admit, I would roll my eyes that he expected me to believe such a Pollyanna vision is possible.  But if there is anything I have learned about my President is that he accomplishes things that others might not even dream up.  This is a man who had his credit card denied trying to get into the Democratic convention in 2000 in Los Angelas just so he could attend and eight years later was the nominee of his party.  I'm not discounting the possibility that he could actually do it.

He broke the whole idea of eliminating nuclear weapons down to manageable short-term goals, any one of which would be an accomplishment in it's own right. Godspeed, Mr. President.

He even labeled the Czech Republic as a being in the heart of Central Europe, not Eastern Europe!  Americans labelling the Czech Republic as "Eastern Europe" drives Czech people crazy. We Yanks can't help it, we still have that Iron Curtain line in our heads.  When I talk to Czech friends my age, I realize they do too.  It is a new generation, born in freedom, that has a new reality.  Major charm points, President Obama.  Thanks for coming to the Czech Republic!

There are great photos of President and Mrs. Obama in Prague on the White House blog dated April 9, 2009 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog.

After Prague, What's Next for Arms Control?

Often Americans hear news reports from countries around the world crying out "why won't America lead on this?"  Here's an exciting article that shows just the opposite.  When it comes to nuclear weapons, we've got a prophet, he's got a plan, now he just needs some followers. Click on my title to read the essay.

Growing U. S. - Central European Ties

How to reassure Central Europe that America still cares since the missile shield moved elsewhere? Two Americans with strong ties to the region argue that America can help grow the bond between Germany and Central Europe so that the tie becomes as important to the EU as Franco-German ties were to NATO in the 1950's.  Click on my title to read the essay.

In Prague, you can enjoy reading the "Cafe Europa" at the Cafe Europa

Slavenka Drakulić continues her look at life after communism in the book "Cafe Europa" her sequel to “How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.” It's a great read and an honest read that rings true still 14-18 years after she wrote it.

If you think regular consumers in the West sometimes have trouble recognizing that TV advertisements and media showcase a fantasy, unobtainable lifestyle, imagine how hard it was for people exiting 40 years of communism to know what’s real and what isn’t.

Croatian novelist and essayist Slavenka Drakulić says that every Eastern and Central European formerly-communist capital expresses their longing for the perfect Europe of their imagination with a Cafe Europa.  There's one in all the major capitals; indeed, the one in Prague is spectacular.

One of the most powerful parts of her book discusses the complicity that citizens of fascist/communist countries feel having worked to sustain a system that is now on the dustheap of history. As countries like Croatia tossed aside old street names, square names, and place names to reflect the change in power from communism to democracy, citizens saw their own personal history erased at the same time as everyone glossed over how they participated. She discovers that nations as a whole, don’t look back with probing insight. When the author went to Isreal and was questioned by the citizens there about Croatia's role in the Holocaust, Ms. Drakulić realized with shock that people there were asking her questions about history that went unexamined back home. It’s hard to take responsibility, on a personal and a civic level if that isn’t part of the civic culture.

I enjoyed this book because the author beautifully explains that many of the emerging democracies infantilized under communism are actually stuck in feudal behavior as much as communist behavior. The political system may have changed for the better, but it will be years until citizens know how to work the system, rather than subvert the system (the old way of surviving) and also how to look to themselves as personally responsible.

Celebrating My Accountable President Returning Once Again to Prague

One year ago today, my President was in Prague, giving a speech calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.  That speech contributed greatly to his Nobel Peace Prize.

Exactly one year and three days after that speech, he will return to Prague to sign a treaty with the Russians lessening the number of nuclear weapons in their respective arsenals. It probably helps that both of them need to find ways to save money.

In addition to the treaty, President Obama has eliminated the vagueness from America's policy of exactly when it would use nuclear weapons and when it wouldn't through a process called the Nuclear Posture Review.  He has taken a more measured, deliberate and probably honest approach to exactly what circumstances would merit a nuclear response.  To those who decry eliminating the vagueness and instead that we should keep our enemies guessing, I would ask them to look where bluffing got Saddam Hussein.

If that were not enough progress toward the goals outlined in his speech, this month my President is hosting the largest gathering of world leaders since the founding of the United Nations 65 years ago to discuss how to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists.

I don't see how lowering the number of nuclear weapons in the world could be a bad thing.  I have no opinion on whether lowering the temperature on nuclear response is good or bad.  I am not an expert although I am a big fan of clarity.

What I celebrate today, is the sheer joy of having a President who feels accountable and reports progress.  He did it by returning to Iowa City, Iowa where he had first called for health care reform on the campaign trail to report that he had done it.  One year later, he returns to Prague to report the steps he has taken to make the world safer from nuclear weapons. I like many others who heard the speech, have closely followed what has or hasn't happened on the issue.  My President feels and acts accountable to the people and reports back to the initial audience who heard his goals.

To have a President of the United States that I both respect and love is just a completely joyous, wonderful thing.  And I agree with his politics.  It's a political trifecta! I and many other Americans, are the beneficiary. Godspeed, Mr. President. Congratulations on your achievements. Thank you for "ignoring the voices who said the world could not change."

Czech/American marriages

I heard a funny story from an American woman married to a Czech.  I asked her if she would recommend marriage to a Czech man.  "No actually, I recommend the other way around," she intimated with a laugh.  "Czech women are raised to do everything domestically and expect nothing from a man around the house.  He gets away with doing less than he would have to do married to an American." So when a Czech woman marries an American it's a very peaceful marriage because both people are getting more than they expected.  She continued, "but when a Czech man marries an American woman and he doesn't do anything and she expects the same sort of help an American man would give, it's not at all peaceful."

There you have it.  Choose accordingly!

The Need for Mythic Narrative

Scratch any American and you'll find someone in love with the mythic narrative of his or her own country.  That's why I could never understand George Bush's invasion of Iraq.  He was depriving the Iraqi people of the opportunity to create their own mythic narrative to cherish as we cherish ours.

That love and nostalgia of one's story is a deep human need.  I read this New York Times story about an underappreciated photographer of Eastern European Jewish life pre-WWII with the full knowledge that I have this same need as much as anyone for romanticized mythic narrative about my own people.   

Scholar Maya Benton studied the photos which represented her parent's past and wanted to know more.  She began to look into the photographic narrative of Roman Vishniac, known for his pious poverty-stricken pictures of Eastern European Jewish life taken pre-WWII and she wondered at the specificity of his photographic focus.  As she researched, she discovered that Vishniac's view of shtetl life was too narrow and much of his best work was unpublished because it didn't fit the requirements of the mythic narrative being constructed.

Who knows what romantic notions I hold about the mythic narrative of my own country that may be selective rememberings?  But as Ms. Benton says, "the fuller picture is so much more interesting." She continues, "Even the selection of what Vishniac chose to publish now seems, broadly, like a distortion. “It’s as if we took pictures of homeless people in New York and then the city fell into the sea, and 50 years from now people looked at those photos and thought, That’s what New York was.”  Click on my title to read the whole article and to see a selection of Mr. Vishniac's photography of Eastern European Jewish life.