We had our parliamentary elections in April 2006 and history was made when the Socialists (MSZP) became the first party in the rather short history of the Republic to win re-election. One would have thought that this ushered in a new era, but, alas! this is Hungary. In a rather bizarre development, the Prime Minister was secretly recorded during a convocation of major party figures to plan the legislative agenda for the new session during which he admitted that he had lied about the state of the economy during the campaign. In the USA we would have attached no significance whatever to this; we would have to pick our President out of the telephone directory if lying during the course of the campaign were a disqualifying offense. But here the citizenry, egged on by the oft-defeated Right-wing party, was in an uproar. what followed was a series of demonstrations---some quite riotous---followed by a resounding defeat for the government party in the local elections held across the country in October. In my town, which is a Far Right stronghold, the Right won all twelve seats in the city council, and the mayor, who is also our representative in Parliament, won re-election with nearly 75% of the vote. We are currently experiencing a succession of demonstrations by various interest groups against the government's legislative program, which, in a budget-balancing initiative, will impose tuition charges for the first time in the institutions of higher learning. there is also talk of instituting another outrage: higher co-payments for prescriptions, and for the first time for doctor visits. Now the school teachers are on a kind of mini-strike over having the teaching day increased by another half-hour or such without more pay. And there are plans---we say discussions---about having a national road-use fee for autos and trucks. What makes this particularly offensive to Hungarians is that this fee was recently instituted in Romania, and to Hungarians nothing could be worse than doing something which the Romanians have done. Why these changes? As a member of the European Union we are obliged to adopt the euro; but in order to do so we must have a budget deficit no higher than 3%, a figure currently exceeded by France. Germany, and Italy, the largest euro-currency countries. But whereas they have exceeded the limit of the stability requirement by only 1% or 2%, Hungary is currently running a deficit which makes the Reagan-Bush,Sr.-Bush,Jr. deficits seem like a pocket-change, a whopping 10% of Gross National Product! It is as though we got a Visa card and decided to buy gifts for all our relatives and friends while having only a part-time job in Burger King. Something drastic obviously must be done; but pity the party that does that Something!
Hungary at Christmas is rather different than USA, though in some respects (mostly having to do with shopping) it is becoming less so with each year. Under Socialism, which is to say the Socialist System (which we referred to in USA as Communism), there were no airplane flights into or out of Hungary on Christmas Eve, Christmas, or the Second Day of Christmas. they are still holidays of course, but the airlines function normally. Parking fees are suspended however except for three small districts in Buda that are not easily accessed by car anyway. I remember the first year they had public Christmas trees under the Old System; it was in 1978, and people here were shocked that the government even telecast readings of the Christmas Story and other programs that are commonplace in the West. Curiously, I have not seen any Christmas programs as such on TV thusfar and it is Christmas Eve already. Of course they will have religious services on TV as usual. I customarily attend services at the Unitarian church here on Christmas with friends of mine who are all Unitarians, a religion which is miniscule in USA and even in Hungary, but a major religion among those from Transylvania (Erdely), which is where these friends of mine are from. Today is quite overcast, but it is unlikely there will be snow. This evening Anna and I go to have dinner with her brother and his wife at the wife's parents' home here in Vasarhely. Tomorrow we have dinner at friends' in Ujvaros which is a section of Hodmezovasarhely---it means New Town---and then on the following day we have dinner at another friend who lives about five minutes walking distance from me to celebrate his name-day. You may remember that birthdays are not commonly celebrated here in Hungary except by the very young and the very old, though this practice of celebrating birthdays, too, is becoming somewhat more common. Instead persons celebrate their name-day, which is similar to celebrating your patron-saint's day for Catholics, an old European custom. The following day we celebrate Christmas at the home of friends who live at the other end of the district where I live, in the section called Kertvaros---it means Garden Town, and applies to districts which are residential and made up largely of low-rises and family homes.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!
Yes. it is 2007 now. As usual I slept through it all. There was a big party here where I live, but I did not attend. I am not much of a mixer among persons I do not know well, and my acquaintanceship with my neighbors here in the community does not extend beyond facial recognition in most cases, when it reaches that far. I stop for conversation and occasionally sit down and have a cup of coffee and talk, but rarely more than that. There is an American here from New Jersey who lived in Delaware County, New York (!). We used to get together regularly and have a glass of wine and talk, but for reasons quite unknown to me he stopped coming and, for a while, stopped speaking. I have not gotten around to asking him why and am not sure I ever will, though I found his company quite pleasant. Another man here lived in USA, but was actually born near here and left for America with his family when he was twelve years old. We talk together now and then. But for the most part my socializing is done with old friends and acquaintances of many, many years.
It is in the mid- to upper-40s here at present. Thusfar we have had no snow and, hopefully, will have none in the next day or two, as I go to Debrecen Wednesday. I take the train, so the weather is not a serious problem. In a way today, New Year's Day, is a day of mourning here in Hungary. I am speaking somewhat facetiously, because the "mourning" is about price increases for train travel--substantial--electricity, gas, and heating---also substantial--and some other things. In Hungary price rises take place on January 1, as well as all wage increases. The government furnishes financial support for fixed-income persons and families with children to offset the cost of these increases. I received a form to fill out for my support but did not fill it out as I do not feel entitled to support, given the size of my pension, which is considerably higher than the annual earnings of most wage-earners. Among the new increases is a requirement for co-payments for doctor visits. I believe it will be $1.50 for a doctor-visit which does not result in a hospital admission or referral for treatment, and some increase in the prescription co-payment. But the prices of pharmaceuticals is relatively low here in Hungary, unless you are taking really serious medication, meaning for cardiac, oncological, or problems of similar magnitude. A two-month supply of blood-pressure medication for me, for example, costs me $5.50. Since as a senior I do not pay for any domestic transportation, be it by train, bus, or otherwise, I tend not to worry about price increases very much.
USA POLITICS
I can't believe the Democrats actually won back control of Congress; I persist in the belief that the Republicans simply lost it. Whatever the case, I heartily approve of the result. Hopefully the Democrats will not succumb to the temptation of engaging in an orgy of triumphalism and will instead settle down to the serious business of trying to straighten out The Big Mess. I am not speaking of Iraq. Iraq is not a mess; but the Bright Ones have succeeded in messing up Iraq by the most childish of mistakes: to assume that everything will turn out the way you hope it will. I feel very deeply about the whole matter, even more so because Bush is about to venture forth on his next Great Delusion and send tens of thousands of military personnel back for their second, third, or maybe even their fourth tour of duty in Iraq, among them my cousin's son, who is a colonel in the U.S. Army. Do I hear someone saying he wouldn't do that? Well, if he plans to have a "surge" of forces, where do you think he is going to get them from? Since one of the cardinal principles of the strategic planning of the Bright Ones was that we did not need a large ground-force army, but rather high-tech weaponry that would make every GI the equivalent of seven or eight Viet-Nam Era GIs, the only other way the President can conjure up the 30-40 thousand troops for the surge would be by drawing down forces in South Korea, South Dakota, and South Carolina---for starters.
As for domestic politics---which is to say the impending proliferation of exploratory committees, meditations in the wilderness, and other rituals precursory to the unsurprising decision of WHO????????? to announcing his/her candidacy for the nomination of his/her party for the Presidency---I have to say I am underwhelmed by Edwards' decision to be a candidate. I grant that he has an engaging personality, a pleasant voice, and a handsome face; but his contribution to the ticket in the last campaign was rather feeble. If you can't outscore Cheney in a debate, well, what is to be said for you? To be fair, he wasn't as bad as Joe Lieberman in 2000, but then the only running-mate in my lifetime worse than Lieberman in 2000 was that Admiral who was Perot's running-mate in 1996. Edwards did not help Kerry to take any state where he was supposed to help. Granted that that can be attributed as much to Kerry (himself a very disappointing performer on the campaign trail) as to Edwards. But I just don't see him. He had minimal and undistinguished experience as a Senator, and I have to keep coming back to my main theme: if you can't outpoint Cheney as a debater, well you have to seriously ask yourself if you aren't in the wrong game. As for the two names most being bandied about these days, Hillary and Obama, I must say that I am a bit uneasy about both as candidates. First, let me say that I happen to believe that Hillary would make a very good President; but I fear she would not be successful as a candidate. There is a sizable hard-core anti-Clinton bloc in the electorate that simply would not vote for her under any conditions whatever. Granted that there is an equally sizable bloc of hard-core supporters in the electorate, but, as in 2000, I think this election is for the Democrats to lose, which is to say that they should win unless they do something very ill-advised, which, to my mind, might very well include nominating Hillary. I really want to believe otherwise, believe me, which means that I am open to being convinced. As for Obama, I feel he is vulnerable on more numerous and more substantial grounds, beginning with Experience. Well, you say, Junior had no experience to speak of, and of course you are right. But you see where Junior's lack of experience led us. I am not suggesting that Obama---or anyone else for that matter---could possibly match Junior's Team when it comes to making Colossal Blunders; but at this point I don't think we could survive even a few minor ones. His name certainly does not help, either. I mean no offense to him, but to most Americans one hundred miles from the coasts he sounds like he might be an illegal alien, if not a From Out There Alien even. All right, you argue, he didn't sound like that to the good people of Illinois; and of course you are right. And I admit I don't have a rebuttal for that, so I shall go on to the next item, the R-factor. Now I have to concede that I have been pleasantly surprised by the American people numerous times in my brief lifetime; but I do not believe this will add to that number. And the worst part of it is that after his almost certain defeat in the election, we won't have any way of truly determining why he lost, since Inexperience will be confounded with Race. The likely result of that will be that neither party will nominate a candidate who is inexperienced or a candidate who is a minority of any kind for the next fifty years.
PERSONAL NEWS
All the traveling these days is being done by Anna. On the 12th she goes to London for two weeks. In October we were to Ireland for a week. It would not have normally occurred to me to go, which is true of all the UK area; I enjoy being there, but it does not often occur to me to go there. Neither of us had ever been to Ireland, but a colleague---Gigi Sesti, if you know her---was going, so we decided to join the group in Dublin and get to spend some time with her while partaking of a new experience. It turned out to be extremely enjoyable. Now Anna is going to London, where she lived for several years after leaving Hungary and before coming to USA. In March she will join the group from OCCC in Milan for ten days in Italy. The end of April we go with friends to spend a week in a national park in the northeast of Hungary called Hortobagy; I was there with the same friends in the same week of April 2006, but Anna was in USA at the time.
ABOUT THESE POSTINGS
You can check this site monthly, around the 7th or thereabouts, to see if anything new has been added. We are discontinuing the practice of mailing out newsletters. All our correspondents will be notified as to how to access this site. If you do not have a computer, you must surely know someone who has one and can provide you with a print-out. If you do not know how to use a computer, then any of your (grand-)children will cheerfully access it for you. We'll be in touch. By the way, if you want to e-mail us, our address is: alex@lewisbrooks.net
