Nomination of  Heather Mills McCartney

for her generous support toCroatian people

An international organization called the "Women's eNews" is an independent daily news source covering issues of particular concern to women which they distribute daily via e-mail and post on their Web site. Every year they invite their readers to nominate individuals whose work for women has not received sufficient recognition. This year's nomination, called "21 Leaders for the 21st Century" has been submitted by me nominating the Croatian Women's Human Rights Group called "B.a.B.e." Specifically, I named Nevenka Sudar who works for B.a.B.e. www.babe.hr/eng Read about their latest work from Croatia in the article "16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women".

The second person I nominated is Heather Mills McCartney for her generous support to Croatian people and other needy countries with her work at "Adopt-A-Minefield" organization www.landmines.org 

Among thousands of nominations, the final selections will be announced on December 31 on their Web site and e-mail news www.womensnews.org


Katarina Tepesh tepeshk@aol.com

16 days of activism against violence against women
Nov. 25th - December 10th 2003

PHOTO ALBUM of ACTION in ZAGREB

PHOTO ALBUM of ACTION IN SPLIT

Reports about Campaign from various Croatian towns

Croatian Women's Network celebrated November 25th as The International Day Against Violence Against Women and the beginning of the international campaign "16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women".
20 silhouettes of women killed by their spouses and partners in the course of the past year and a half were placed at main squares in Zagreb in order to show the seriousness of the problem of domestic violence and the necessity for the state and the society as a whole to treat this problem systematically and efficiently.
With questions: Why are they silent? Why are they not among us? we ask ourselves and all of us what has been done in order to prevent these crimes. The question Who is next? warns us and demands urgent action. The laws, no matter how imperfect they might be, exist, but the willingness to implement them on daily basis is still lacking. Social care centers, police, health care employees, courts have not succeeded in prevention of domestic violence. Without cooperation, long-term planning and agreements, there will be no substantial improvement.
Croatian Women's Network produced and shot a video named "Violence Against Women is a CRIME, what is the PUNISHMENT?" which will be broadcast on Croatian public television during 16 days. 2000 posters and 2000 postcards have also been printed and distributed. 20 silhouettes made from plywood were placed at public squares of various Croatian towns (Slavonski Brod, Zagreb, Karlovac, Virovitica, Pula, Zadar, Split, Virovitica, Vukovar and Osijek) as silent witnesses of murdered women.
Nobody builds monuments for women victims of violence, they do not receive medals for bravery. We can't let them be forgotten and at least for a day, for an hour, we shall make the citizens of Croatia think about the reasons why so many women and children have been deprived of the safety of their own homes, why do they have to live in it in violence until one day they are murdered because the society can not protect them.
This year the Campaign 16 days is coordinated simultaneously in 20 countries of the region. The project has been made possible thanks to the financial support of the Open Society Budapest and the Croatian Office for Human Rights and the Committee for Gender Equality.

CROATIAN MEMBERSHIP OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: OBSTRUCTIONIST TACTICS MUST BE UNMASKED!

17/12/2003 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brussels, 17 December 2003. In the process for enlargement to the countries of south-east Europe, the European Union has laid down that the conclusion of the process of ratification of the Association and Stabilisation Agreement (ASA) is a necessary condition for the formal commencement of membership negotiations. According to well-informed sources, it seems that 13 of the 15 Member States are finalising the process of ratification of the Association and Stabilisation Agreement with Croatia, while the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have frozen the process because they claim that Croatia has not fully respected its commitments towards the International Criminal Court for Crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (ICC).

Question from Olivier Dupuis, Member of the European Parliament, Radical, to the Commission:

"Is the Commission aware of this difference of opinion between 13 Member States on one hand and 2 Member States on the other, founded according to some sources on the question of Croatia’s respect of her commitments towards the ICC, and according to others on the will to link the membership of Croatia to that of other (or the other) countries of south-east Europe? Does the Commission believe that the recourse to a de facto suspension of the process of ratification of the Association and Stabilisation Agreement by two Member States is opportune? Does the Commission not agree that it should urge the Council to come to an immediate decision regarding Croatia’s compliance with the criteria of the Association and Stabilisation Agreement, committing the European Union and all its Member States and putting an end to time-wasting tactics?”

www.radicalparty.org

http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreleases/press_release.php?func=detail&par=6411

Merry Christmas

http://web.icq.com/shockwave/0,,4845,00.swf

Turn on your speakers and click.

General on trial over Dubrovnik

Strugar denies war crimes charges

A former general in the Yugoslav army has gone on trial over the shelling of the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. Pavle Strugar is accused of murder and other war crimes.

He denies the offences, during attacks on the historic port, on Croatia's Adriatic coast, in 1991.
"The people of the world witnessed the sustained and senseless shelling of the old city of Dubrovnik by forces under the control and command of the Yugoslav army," said prosecutor Philip Weiner.
The shelling, which lasted for three months, killed at least 50 civilians and injured hundreds of others.

Dementia plea

It also inflicted serious damage on most of the city, which is a Unesco world heritage site. The indictment against Mr Strugar says 68% of the buildings in Dubrovnik's old town were hit.
Mr Strugar was in charge of a military campaign in the Dubrovnik region. Dozens died in Dubrovnik shelling He is accused of violating the Geneva conventions on the protection of civilians in wartime, and of violating the laws and customs of war.

"The accused gave a green light to forces under his control to once again shell with unprecedented ferocity the old city from early in the morning until the evening," say prosecutors, describing a date in December 1991.

Mr Strugar faces nine charges including murder, cruel treatment, attacks on civilians and devastation not justified by military necessity.

His lawyers tried unsuccessfully to postpone start of the trial, until Mr Strugar, said to be suffering from dementia, can undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

Navy admiral Miodrag Jokic pleaded guilty to similar charges in August and is awaiting sentence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3325057.stm

Milosevic Knew of Srebrenica Plans, Gen. Clark Says
Thu December 18, 2003 01:46 PM ET

(Page 1 of 2)
By Paul Gallagher and Melanie Cheary
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic knew Bosnian Serbs planned to massacre Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995, ex-NATO commander Wesley Clark told The Hague tribunal in evidence prosecutors said on Thursday was central to their case.

Clark, a U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful who helped negotiate the Dayton accord that ended the Bosnian war, told Milosevic's war crimes trial he discussed the July 1995 massacre of 7,000 Muslim men and boys with Milosevic a month after it happened.

The ex-Yugoslav president, charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, denied he had spoken to Clark about the atrocity, Europe's worst since World War II.

The 62-year-old former Serb strongman dismissed the testimony as a "blatant lie," saying he had been a peacemaker in the Balkans.

More than 200 pages of transcripts of Clark's testimony were posted on the U.N. war crimes tribunal's Web site after the retired four-star general gave evidence behind closed doors on Monday and Tuesday at the request of the United States.

U.S. peace negotiators trying to establish if they should deal with the Bosnian Serbs or Serbian leadership to hammer out a peace deal to end the 1992-95 Bosnian war were told by Milosevic in 1995 to deal directly with him, Clark said.

FACE TO FACE TALKS

"I said, 'Mr President, you say you have so much influence over the Bosnian Serbs, but how is it then, if you have such influence, that you allowed General (Ratko) Mladic to kill all those people in Srebrenica?" Clark said.

"And Milosevic looked at me and paused for a moment. He then said, 'Well, General Clark,' he said, 'I warned Mladic not to do this, but he didn't listen to me,"' Clark said.

"It was very clear what I was asking was about the massacre at Srebrenica. When I said 'kill all these people,' it wasn't a military operation, it was a massacre...It was also, to me, very clear what Milosevic was answering," Clark said.

"He was answering that he did know this in advance, and he was walking the fine line between saying he was powerful enough, influential enough to have known it but trying to excuse himself the responsibility of having done it."

Milosevic and wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic are both charged with the Srebrenica massacre. Mladic remains at large and is the U.N. war crimes tribunal's most wanted man alongside Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
"General Clark, I, for example, believe firmly until the present day that General Mladic did not order any execution of people in Srebrenica. I believe this was done by a group of mercenaries," Milosevic said.

Prosecutors said Clark's evidence was crucial to their case against Milosevic. Prosecutors said they want to prove he had "command responsibility" for ethnic cleansing.

"It's extremely important for us because it gave us direct evidence that Milosevic had advanced knowledge of the mass killings at Srebrenica," prosecution spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said.

Clark, who directed NATO's 11-week bombing campaign to drive Serb forces from Kosovo in 1999 during a crackdown on Kosovo Albanian separatists, also said it appeared that Milosevic controlled Yugoslav army generals during the Kosovo conflict.

Milosevic ordered a partial pullout of troops from Kosovo in 1998 under threat of NATO air strikes. Clark, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander at the time, had gone to Serbia to tell Milosevic's government to reduce its forces in Kosovo or face air strikes. NATO launched the strikes in 1999 after the failure of peace talks.

"He certainly indicated the ability to control his generals, absolutely. No question about it," Clark told the court.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4017150

The Bacich Saga (An American Story)

In the California of the 1980s, the experience of a large family guided by the tenacity of a mother certain of finding a more human Christianity. An exchange of letters, some books in Italian, and finally an encounter…

BY ANNA LEONARDI

North of San Francisco is Napa Valley, the most famous wine country in America. This is the point on the globe where our story starts, in the mid-1980s, in the small town of St Helena, where a family with a Dalmatian-Croatian surname was living: the Bacichs–mother, father, and six children. But the parents’ relationship was troubled and they decided to separate. Life became even more challenging for the mother, Christine, alone with six children. Her loneliness grew even deeper when their closest friends, scandalized at the subsequent annulment proceedings, turned their backs on her. “In the Church in the United States at the time,” the eldest son, Damian, recounts, “there was fierce opposition between conservatives and liberals. My mother was the victim of an intransigent Catholicism lacking in charity.” And yet, Christine did not give up. “She was sure,” Chris, the second son, goes on, “that there was a human way to live Christianity.” It was this certainty that wove together the threads of an experience that would go far. In 1984, she read an article in the National Catholic Register on the Communion & Liberation Movement. It was like being struck by lightning. She took pen and paper in hand and wrote a letter to Italy, where the Movement had its headquarters. The reply was not long in coming. Damian still remembers the package in the mailbox: “It contained what was then Litterae Communionis, some books by Fr Giussani (in Italian!) and a letter in English that said, in so many words, ‘Dear Madam, we are sorry to tell you that at the moment there is no one from the Movement in the United States, but please be patient and you will see that something will happen soon.’” At that point, all Christine could do was tackle the books. She set Damian, who knew Spanish, to reading and deciphering “CL Italian.” Then, dissatisfied with her son’s results, she took all that printed matter to an Opus Dei center, where they translated some passages for her.

Time to move
A year later, it was time for Damian to go to college, cutting the umbilical cord with his family. In Damian’s case, maybe because San Francisco is so close-by, and maybe because Christine did not slacken the reins, this did not happen–indeed, quite the contrary. Their separation set off a chain of events that would make them inseparable. But let’s take things in order.

Going to San Francisco to study history, Damian had taken with him a piece of paper on which he had written an address: the parish of the Dominican House of Studies in Berkeley. The priest in his town had advised him to go to Mass there. Thus, Sunday morning, Damian went there, and “obviously” his mother joined him, bringing her daughter, Annemarie. After Mass, the priest invited everybody out for a pizza. Imagine if Christine hadn’t joined them! The only thing that bothered her was a man who had stared at her and Annemarie all during Mass. He looked like a foreigner to her. She was right: he was Italian, a researcher in astrophysics, whose friends called him “Binocolo” (“Binoculars”) but whose real name is Marco Bersanelli. He had watched them in church because he was amazed that a 13-year-old girl was following the liturgy so devoutly. During lunch, he got up and handed out some flyers. “He is here, like on the first day,” was written on them, with the date, time, and place for a meeting called “School of Community.” Christine’s eyes scanned down the page to stop only when at the bottom she read “Communion and Liberation.” Touché!

From that moment, Christine threw herself into this adventure. Meetings, parties, trips… It didn’t matter that she had to drive two hours to get to Berkeley and the tiny group of Binocolo’s friends, it didn’t matter that they were all young and she had children in college. Ah, yes, her children: how could she get them involved? Damian confesses, “I wasn’t really interested in this. Finally my mother managed to drag me to a dinner, where I came upon Binocolo–the freest man I had ever met.”

Healings
What about Chris? “At the time I was in my next-to-last year of high school,” he recounts. “I was very wild, and my whole life revolved around school, girls, and friends. I viewed the Church as a place of moralism, even though I had never doubted the truth of Christianity.” Indeed, Chris had grown up with the inner certainty that Christ exists. Born with cancer, he was close to death. His mother prayed and had all the relatives pray to Our Lady, and brought the baby a rosary given to her by a healing priest. Against all medical expectations, Chris got well within a month. “Ever since then, as long as I can remember,” Christ recounts, “every evening at our house we recited a Rosary on our knees. This is why my mother maintains that our family encountered the Movement through Our Lady’s intercession.”

The encounter with Binocolo forced Chris to rethink his position regarding the Church. “I saw a Catholic who not only was not a moralist, but was really cool.” He too began attending School of Community. But when Christine was forced to look for a new house for her family and decided to move to Sacramento to be closer to the community, Chris was against it. He wanted to stay in St Helena. He rented the family garage of a friend of his and found a job. His brother Martin, just 16 years old, decided to stay with him. Christine swallowed it, but as soon as she had the chance, she set out to get her children back. “It was time for the community vacation,” Chris explains, and this time my mother gave me no choice. ‘I am your mother, and you are coming.’ I returned happy, and certain that my life, the United States, and the whole world had to be like those three days. I left my garage apartment and my job and went to live in Sacramento.” Martin too, despite his reticence, gave in when he saw his brothers “transfigured.”

A rare pearl
1987 is a year that Damian and Chris remember well: Fr Giussani came to California. “We had read his books, we had heard our Italian friends talk about him,” Chris said excitedly, “but finding yourself in front of him was completely different. He had blown away all our expectations. The first was his name: we were convinced that Don, the title Italians use for priests [“Father”], stood for Donald!” Chris pulled out the question he was waiting to ask: “I want to come study in Italy; I want to get to know the Movement better.” “No,” Fr Giussani replied sharply, “you have to make the Movement here.” And this is what happened. Chris enrolled at the University of San Francisco as a history major and went to live with Damian at 3030 Turk Boulevard #8–the first “CLU” apartment. Together they had dinner at least once a week, housecleaned, prayed, and decided on not too much TV. These four golden rules seem to go against the typical American lifestyle, but they transformed the Bacich brothers’ apartment (in the meantime, Martin too had joined them) into a rare pearl on campus, and thus a magnet to many.

If you are waiting for the end of this story, relax–you won’t read it here. Here is a bare-bones report of life since then: Chris, a member of Memores Domini, teaches history at a Catholic high school in Brooklyn; Damian lives in Los Angeles, finishing his PhD studies in literature; Martin is married with two children, working as an architect in San Francisco, Greg is studying Computer Sciences at Fordham and is involved in CLU in New York; Annemarie has also joined a Memores Domini house (in Maryland) and is a high school teacher; and Marguerite is about to get her degree in Public Relations in California. What has happened to Christine? Paying no attention to her age, in her 50’s she earned a university degree and now works with learning impaired children (“special ed”). She is not afraid to talk about Christ even with them. And many of them, thanks to her, have found faith. She continues to live in the San Francisco area. And in the little free time that remains to her, to safeguard the fruit of her relentless entreaty that something real happen, she stays in touch with her California brood, and makes frequent bicoastal phone calls, very much involved in the adventure of life.

http://www.traces-cl.com/nov02/thebacich.htm

Annual Croatian "Bozic" Party at Hrvatski Dom

Christmas Night - December 25th, 2003
9:30 pm

Entry Fees:

---FREE Entry for MEMEBERS who joined at the last party and current members. We will have a list at the front so we can check off your name. We will also have your 2004 membership card available for you..
---$10 General Cover Charge
---$15 Cover will get you in and includes Automatic Membership to Croatian Hall !!

-----Being a member of the Croatian Hall will:
1) Help support & maintain our Hall - the center of our culture.
2) Discounts on some future events....
3) Ability to vote on Croatian Hall matters and become a board member.
3) Receive the periodic newsletter, which includes events at the Croatian Hall, Saint Anthony's, Croatian Cultural Center, and other Croatian functions.

REMEMBER, WE ARE THE NEXT GENERATION TO TAKE OVER THE CROATIAN HALL AND ALL IT TAKES IS 5 DOLLARS MORE TO PAY AT THE DOOR.

From the donations the Croatian Hall received last time, as well as the membership fees from all our new members, we have earned enough money to buy a new amp and speakers. We will have a new and improved system for all our future functions in 2004 !!

For all updates on Croatian events and festivities, keep checking the frequently updated website: www.geocities.com/socalcroats 
SoCal Croats - Southern California Croats
Please forward this email to all your Croatian friends and email us if you would like people to be added to this list !!

Sretan Bozic, i vidimo se na festi,

Mihaela & Danny

<<< HRVATKO >>>

FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE STUDY

I am forwarding information about
fellowships available for language study and research in the CEE region as received.

VP


FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE STUDY IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE

The American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS is
currently accepting applications for fellowships supporting research and
language study in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe.

Fellowships can be used for research, language-study, or a
combination of the two in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria,Croatia, the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

CENTRAL, EASTERN AND SOUTHERN EUROPE RESEARCH PROGRAM:
http://www.americancouncils.org/program.asp?PageID=83&ProgramID=39

Provides full support for three-to-nine month research trips to
Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. Fellowships include round-trip
international travel, living stipends, visas, language instruction (if requested),
insurance, and affiliation fees. Typical awards: $5,000 to $15,000.
Funded by the U.S. Department of State's Program for the Study of Eastern
Europe and the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union. Open to Ph.D.
candidates, post-doctoral scholars, and faculty.


CENTRAL, EASTERN AND SOUTHERN EUROPE LANGUAGE PROGRAM:
http://www.americancouncils.org/program.asp?PageID=83&ProgramID=19

Provides international airfare, tuition, insurance, and living
stipends for intensive language study at major universities throughout
east-central Europe and the Baltic states. Summer, semester and academic year
programs are available. Funded by the U.S. Department of State's Program for
the Study of Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former
Soviet Union. Open to graduate students at all levels, post-doctoral
scholars, and faculty.

All applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

For more information and an application, please contact:

Outbound Programs
American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS
1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Ste. 700
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 833-7522
outbound@americancouncils.org

 

STO HRVATSKOJ ZNACI ZNANJE?

In a message dated 12/17/03 5:54:26 PM, Davor Pavuna writes:

Veceras (17. prosinca 2003.) oko 22:15 u emisiji 'Znakovi Vremena'
http://www.hrt.hr/htv/emisije/znakovi_vremena/rijec_urednika.html
"STO HRVATSKOJ ZNACI ZNANJE?''
urednik, gospodin Branimir Bilic me je telefonski upitao:

Kao svjetski renomirani fizicar, vanjski suradnik Institutu za
fiziku u Zagrebu, koji stalno djeluje u Lausanne-i u Svicarskoj, gdje cini se je i mnogo
Hrvat(ic)a ...

... kako Vi vidite situaciju u Hrvatskoj ?

Odgovorio sam:

Pa, moji kolege na Institutu za fiziku u Zagrebu su strucno izvrsni,
no nas je trenutno problem da mi sad u Lausanne-i, na Svicarskom
Institutu za Tehnologiju, imamo tridesetak mladih Hrvat(ic)a koji
rade doktorate i eto postali smo drugi najveci centar hrvatske
fizike nakon Zagreba ...

Ti mladi ljudi su briljantni, te su podigli ugled nase nacije, ali to opet
pokazuje kako smo slabo nacionalno organizirani ... kako stihijski
ostavljamo mlade ljude bez koherentne institucijske podrske ...

Cesto imamo izvrsna znanja, ali nam treba vizija, strategija
i optimalna organizacija nacionalnih znanja i strucnosti ...


Zato predlazem da se o tome i na HTV-u nastave emisije, te konkretno:

1) Povezimo strucnost Hrvata iz inozemstva sa domacim znalcima
kroz jedan Centar koordinacije na visokom nivou - time cemo cak
i financijski zaraditi jer znanja nasih strucnjaka jesu vrijedna ...

O tome sam razgovarao s mnogima, konkretno prosli tjedan
s Prof. M. Radmanom (Pariz), a ranije i s Prof. N. Banom iz Zuericha
te mnogima nasim strucnjacima u USA i drugdje po Planeti ...

Mi smo brojni povezani Internetom i slazemo se da to treba ostvariti ...


2) Moramo povecati postotak znanstvenika i inzenjera >1.5% !

Vec sam 5 puta bio u Juznoj Koreji koja je odlican primjer ...

Imali su samo 1000 inzenjera 1945. kao kolonija a sad ih
imaju 1.8% na oko 50 milijuna pucana i najveci ekonomski rast ...

Nemam nista protiv drustvenjaka, ali poznato jest da inzenjeri
i znanstvenici stvaraju tvrd 'dohodak' i zato nam treba vise
elektronicara, strojara, biotehnologa u Hrvatskoj ...

To su sve poznate, dokazane cinjenice o strucnom profilu nacije
i to treba svakako ostvariti i u Hrvatskoj ...


3) Sustavno saljimo studente, odabrane po ozbiljnim kriterijima,
u Harvard business school i slicne centre moci da bi stekli
veze i poznanstva u igri mocnika ... jer to jako pomaze naciji ...

Dakle u igri svjetske moci i utjecaja - kopirajmo npr. Izraelce
... i tu moramo imati sustavnu strategiju, kao i Centre publiciteta
(PR centers) u New Yorku, Washingtonu, Bruxellesu, Parizu ...
... tako se utjece na okolis nuzan za procvat nacije i nasih znanja ...


Ali, na kraju, i SVATKO OSOBNO mora radit sam na Sebi i svom duhu ...

Mi imamo deklarativno vise od 80% Hrvat(ic)a Katolika vjernika,
ali ja tu vjeru u praksi ne vidim ... kad sam 1982. doktorirao
i drzao seminare po Harvardu, Parizu i drugdje ... na koncu
sam dosao u Zagreb kod Dr. Tomoslava Ivancica i fra Zvjezdana
Linica na duhovno iscjeljenje i to mi je jako pomoglo ...
Dr. Ivancic je objavio knjigu ''Susret sa Zivim Bogom''
... ma, sve je tu opisano ...

Naucio sam se i moliti i zivjeti vjeru ... to je jako vazno da svatko
Snagom Duha i sebi pomogne - onda svi mi postajemo Kostelici ...

A obitelj Kostelic jest divan primjer uspjesne hrvatske obitelji,
no, tko im je (institucijski) pomogao ... opet su se sami morali probijati ...


B. BILIC: A zasto je tome tako ?

Pa, to Vam je posljedica 50 godina sustavne indoktrinacije : Zivio Vodja,
nasa partija, razne floskule i samoupravljanje ... time se kreativni
Duh ubija ...

... a takve licnosti='drugovi' su i danas vecinom pri vlasti u Hrvatskoj ...


No, bez obzira sto ce polit-oligarhija ili tzv. polit-elita' uciniti,
MI domoljubi, katolici i strucnjaci cemo uspjeti i ostvariti NASU
viziju nacije: siguran sam da ce nam brojni domoljubi pomoci ...

Sve sto rekoh (i jos vise) sad ide na Internet nakon emisije i
moji brojni prijatelji i ja Vam svima stojimo na raspolaganju ...

... eto to Vam je taj mali Bozicni poklon :-)

... jer mene nije problem pronaci (google.com) i cesto mi pisu mladi ljudi ...
... i svima odgovorim cim stignem ...

Dr. Davor Pavuna
http://ipmc.epfl.ch/page31440.html

Death of the Essay?

Posted, Dec. 17, 2003
Updated, Dec. 17, 2003
Eavesdrop (and chime in) on the ongoing conversation about the behind-the-scenes world of books, publishing and reviewing.

Death of the Essay?
Solid reporting and skillful storytelling are the hallmarks of contemporary journalism. Does this formula leave something by the wayside?

By Margo Hammond (more by author)
Book Editor, St. Petersburg Times E-mail this item
Add Your Comments on this Article

Hi Ellen,
In the latest Boulevard, a literary magazine published by Saint Louis University, there is a symposium asking various writers, editors, and publishers, "What is most heartening and/or disheartening about contemporary publishing?" I am one of the participants, cheering on the energetic small publishers like MacAdam/Cage and the University Press of Florida, which have taken on the bigger, consolidating New York conglomerates. Most of the others dwell on the disheartening factors in contemporary publishing, of which there are many. One of them insisted that one of the most disheartening things in contemporary publishing has been the demise of the essay collection.

E-MAIL NEWSLETTER
Check out Margo's Book Page.
Sign up to receive Book Babes by e-mail:
*Click here (sent Thursdays)"For a half a year, I think around 1994, people actually looked for essay collections, found them exotic and new. And then they found that the very word 'essay' killed the sales (as did the misnomer 'creative nonfiction') since the essay sounds too thoughtful and therefore strenuous to the cheerful American public," writes Josip Novakovich. Novakovich says that publishers are interested in work that can be sold as a memoir (if there's enough voyeuristic potential) or a true story, but that they don't think a loose collection of essays will sell. What publishers (and supposedly readers) want is a unified, gripping, and continuous story of "survival and redemption or victory of the human spirit or some such sunny clicht?." A series of random observations stands little chance of getting published.
At first I thought that Novakovich, who teaches at the Penn State University main campus, was just a victim of sour grapes. He admitted he had trouble publishing his own essay collection, "Plum Brandy: A Croatian Journey" with the larger publishers that told him essay collections don't sell. He ended up publishing what he calls "a series of journey stories, my visits to Croatia and Bosnia over the last decade" with the smaller White Pine Press.

But then I checked Houghton Mifflin's latest edition of "The Best American Essays." In an introduction, Robert Atwan, the series' editor, pointed out that this year is the bicentennial of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but that America's greatest essayist is "not read much any longer outside college literature departments, and even there his presence has diminished." He also confirmed the notion that publishers have shied away from "using the dreaded word 'essay' in any way, shape, or form."

So now I'm wondering, Are we ó both in journalism and in the publishing world ó too fixated on the idea of a narrative thrust? Are we afraid of the rambling nature of the essay? Taking its name from the French word essai, meaning "attempt," an essay doesn't set out to tell a complete, narrative story, but rather simply tosses out an idea like a trial balloon. Are we too polarized these days to welcome such an art form that doesn't bother with neat, tied-up-with-a-bow conclusions?

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=57&aid=57662