I’ve used up another 15 seconds of fame, this time in the Monday, September 29, Vitebski Kurier: Translation: Did expectations come true?.. Our attempt to have a conversation with one of the long-time observers of OSCE, coordinator Gary Ouellet from Canada were not successful. He providently refused by phone or other means to make any [...]

Amid constant news of contraction and decline this week, there is (slightly old) news of yet another small but significant expansion: machine translation to and from Slovak.   Machine translation is old news these days (though it is no less remarkable for our acceptance of it) and is no panacea (it is still bad enough [...]

Ceremonial president of former Czechoslovak republic seeks same. Must be medium height and and medium build, with grey hair cut short, and not unstylish glasses. Trimmed grey moustache and willingness to support the current governing coalition a plus. It has taken 15 years, many elections and several hairstylists, but Slovakia and the Czech Republic have [...]

(or why Dr. Sean hits the nail on the head) Kudos to Sean Hanley for his recent post, Do Slovak and Czech Christian Democrats have a prayer? Dr. Hanley, whose blog (Dr. Sean’s Diary, http://drseansdiary.blogspot.com/) has long been my model for public, academc discourse on postcommunist Europe, yet again calls attention to precisely the questions [...]

I used to wonder at blogs that dwelt on the minutiae of servers and hosts. No more. If you are reading this, then this blog (like Slovakia) has made a successful triple transition: a new platform (WordPress is proving worthy of the switch), a new host (many thanks to Joe Oravec at Wayne State for [...]

This week’s discovery presents the perfect opportunity to express my ongoing gratitude to my dissertation adviser, A. James McAdams. Among the many other ways in which he has shaped my work, Jim sent me off to my first year of fieldwork in 1993 with one of the most productive tools in my research I have [...]