I'm Baaaaccckkkkk!! :)

Well folks, it's been a long, long time since I've tended to this blog. Wasn't intentional, wasn't planned, but like so much in life, it "just happened". Part of the reason I haven't blogged in such a long time has to do with my problems with SAD (seasonal affective disorder). In short, winter, even a relatively mild one like we had this year here in Wisconsin, sucks big time for me. Another part of it has been because I just felt like this blog wasn't making any sort of a difference anyway. Neither is a valid excuse though, IMO. But I am back now, and back to stay! I promise I will be making every effort in the future to keep this blog relatively relevant, fairly current, and to make it a force for promoting awareness of the Albanian people and their issues, and also to help improve the situation of the Albanian community both in the local diaspora, the worldwide diaspora, and in the "vendlindje" (homeland).

That being said, a lot has been going on since I last blogged, back in November. The tragic passing of Kosova President Ibrahim Rugova from cancer (qoftë në krahut të Zotit), the death of that subhuman scumbag Milosevic (thiftë karin e shajtanit përgjithmonë), and the fast approaching final talks on the status of Kosova, just to name a few of the more significant ones.

But the most important thing of all IMO has been the stepped-up attacks on Albanians both in Kosova and elsewhere by people like Michael Savage (ne Weiner), Michael Reagan (the president's adopted son), Don Feder (http://www.donfeder.com), a former Boston newspaper columnnist, now contributor to such "reputable" news sources as Cybercast News Service, Townhall.com, WingNutDaily, errr, WorldNetDaily.com, FrontPageMag.com (though in fairness, FrontPage has run some pieces by Conservatives who are on the side of the Albanian people, too), etc., Julia Gorin (http://www.juliagorin.com), a far right Republican columnist/blogger, would-be comic, whose stuff can be found on most of the same sites as her buddy Feder, Mary Mostert, and the newly formed anti-Albanian, pro-Serb lobbying group American Council for Kosovo (http://www.savekosovo.org).

These miserable excuses for humanity (though I'm half tempted to give Feder and Gorin, even though I detest them both to begin with because of their generally repugnant opinions, the benefit of the doubt, since both of them may have been co-opted by and bought into the lies of the part of the Serbian National(social)ist movement that hypocritically seeks to kiss up to the Jewish community with lies about how the Serbs, and only the Serbs, saved Jews in the Balkans in WWII; that the Serbs suffered the same attempt at genocide from the Nazis as did the Jews; that the Serbs and only the Serbs resisted the Nazis, and did not cooperate with them, and other BS) are launching an all-out attack on the Albanian people, especially in Kosova, in a pathetic attempt to get the US and the UN to deny them independence.

Now this is likely doomed to failure of course (well, as long as the Albanian community, it's friends, and decent people everywhere continue to make themselves be heard), but it doesn't take an Einstein, if one reads (and even more importantly reads between the lines of) their propaganda, to figure out that they have a nice little "collateral damage" planned if they don't get their way; namely the slandering of the Albanian people as Islamofascists of the worst possible sort-real charter members of the Taliban fan club, and the first wave of a force that will seek to dominate "Christian" Europe (never mind that Albanians were Christians for 1,300 years before the first Turk ever set foot on Illyrian soil, and are still 30-35% Christian) and introduce all sorts of cuteness like Sharia, Dhimmitude, the Caliphate, etc.

Now of course, anyone who *really* knows Albanian people, and knows anything about Albania, Kosova, or anything else, knows that these aspersions are patently absurd. Albanians have had a reputation for centuries as being the most religiously tolerant people in the Balkans, and one of the most religiously tolerant peoples in the world. Not to mention that they are also the only people in the Balkans who define themselves by nationality first, then religion (making yet another thing they have in common with Americans), and do not mix the two. But there are a lot of people out there who *don't* know that, or that Albanians managed to save every Jew living within or that was able to make it inside their borders, or many of the other good, positive things Albanians have done or contributed to the world. And that's just what the American Council for Kosovo and it's mouth pieces like Gorin are counting on. They are counting on attracting people to their message who are of the same political persuasion (right of center) as they are, but who know little or nothing of the situation in the Balkans, and who they figure will just "take their word for it", based on the fact that they share the same world view. (The left already has such slimy websites as emperors-clothes.com and it's "editor", Jared Israel, to cover their end of things, and the pseudo-libertarians have Justin Raimondo and pretty-boy Bosnian Serb Nebosja Malic to cover their part of the political spectrum.) So what to do about it? Well, that I will deal with in my next post. For now, it is enough to get the word out about those who would attempt to damage the community that I have called not just my friends, but also "my family" for over a decade. And to hope that at least some of you reading this will consider it for what it is: a call to action. For, as the old sayings go "E vetmja gjë e nevojëshme për e keqja të fitojë është për njerëz të mirë të bëjnë hiç", dhe "Çmimi i lirisë është vigjilancë e përherëshme".