In the United States, most people know that when the president's State of the Union address is broadcast, it is time to turn off the television. State of the Union addresses are required to be so boring as to put the viewer to sleep with the first five minutes of airplay.
Czechs have an utterly different tradition. Listening to the New Year's speech by the president has often been a cause for pride and reflection, as was the case during the days of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk's First Republic or in the post-Velvet Revolution era with Vaclav Havel. Czechs took stock of themselves and their country and then debated what the president was trying to tell them.
Klaus' mind was clearly influenced by 1950 secondary school textbooks from communist Czechoslovakia, which spread red nationalism
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Talk on the Wild Plastic Side
Two old friends to chat in public about crossing borders. Reed's band, the Velvet Underground, was a major influence on the Plastic People of the Universe
It's not clear if Vaclav Havel is a bigger fan of Lou Reed or if Reed is a bigger fan of Havel. The two of them will be together for Stage Talk, as the series of public conversations at Svandovo divadlo is called.
When rock musician Reed was in Prague for a May 2000 concert, he had high praise for then-President Havel. "I think in this world it is very rare to have some heroes. I think President Havel is a real genuine 100 percent hero," Reed told The Prague Post at the time. Havel, on the other hand, has credited Lou Reed's music with helping to set off the chain of events that ended in the Velvet Revolution.
Wives of jailed Cuban dissidents held a holiday party Saturday for the children of political prisoners, handing out gifts paid for by a powerful exile group in Miami. The allotment wasn't to go out, or enjoy ourselves, because we are full of pain. It was to provide two hours of happiness to our children From my recollection of my time at Traiskerchen (sic) and Villawood the children were the ones who seemed to suffer the most ... They were the innocent victims. As an adult, one copes with just about anything, but babies ...
• The arrest of the Plastic People in 1976 led to Charter 77, which Havel was closely involved with [The Velvet Underground became the Velvet Revolution: Public lectures are Becoming part of Velvet renaissance: Meet the new Fockers & Intellectuals]
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• · · · · NELSON MANDELA announced Thursday that his only surviving son has died of AIDS, going public with his grief in order to help remove the enduring stigma of the disease. In Mandela's South Africa, 600 people die every day as a result of the silence rooted in shame. Nelson Mandela's loss
• · · · · · When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Washington mounted its largest covert aid program since Vietnam to help the Afghan resistance; when Somalis were starving in the early 1990's, President George H. W. Bush sent 25,000 American troops to help relief efforts; when Serbs were massacring Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990's President Bill Clinton (belatedly) directed the United States Air Force to bomb Serbian positions, which led to the Dayton accords. Brothers in Alms ; [Government pledges of relief top $3 billion. Why some recipients say, 'No, thank you.'The shifting politics of global giving]