Most Popular Question I Get Asked
Will the torture of Iraqi prisoners affect the outcome of the presidential election?

Learning Cyrillic
My years of studying Spanish and French are just not paying off in Serbia. Anyone remember the old Saturday Night Live skit where George Bush cannot pronounce the names of the various leaders of Yugoslavia and starts referring to them as “Guy #1, Guy #2, and Guy #3” so he won’t have to say their names? I’m almost as bad. I sent a crowd of students in Kragujevac into gales of laughter when I tried and failed to correctly pronounce the name of one of the current presidential candidates. I can now finally do it after seeing the name in Cyrillic but please don’t expect me to spell it here!

Fortunately for me, he seems likely to lose. This may not be so fortunate for Serbia. The Serbian Radical Party candidate, Nikolac, has a real shot at winning. Historically, the leaders of this party made Slobodan Milosevic look cuddly. In an effort to look tolerant (not exactly this party’s major strength), Nikolac opened his campaign at a mosque. Luckily, he chose a functioning mosque and not the one burned in Niš after similar attacks on Serbian Orthodox churches in Kosovo.

Gynecologists
Serbian and American women have remarkably different attitudes about gynecologists. (Not nearly as weird a topic of conversation as it sounds. I met a Serbian woman who is married to a gynecologist.) My new Serbian female friends were extremely surprised when I explained that there are very few male gynecologists remaining in the U.S. They will be more flummoxed when I explained that American women believe that female gynecologists understand the impact of various female healthcare issues better than any man possibly could.

The women who work down the hall from me in American University’s Center for Women and Politics will be stunned to learn that Serbian women prefer male gynecologists. Indeed, I bet they think that I misunderstood them or had a bad translation but I can assure them that they all spoke excellent English. Serbian women think that male gynecologists are more sympathetic precisely because they are not women. For example, a female gynecologist might say “You can bear the pain” when a male gynecologist might do something about it.

Yes Virginia, There is an Albanian Lobby
A few days ago I wrote that I knew nothing about an Albanian lobby in the U.S. and did not think it determined American policy. Part of traveling is that you discover your ignorance about all sorts of things – and not just about foreign attitudes toward gynecologists. Apparently, there is a pro-Albanian lobby and it is quite strong. It is headed by former New York Republican Rep. Joe DioGuardi. (A stellar Democrat, Rep. Nita Lowey, defeated him for the seat.)

I am also informed that Serbian Americans are not nearly as well organized. I would be curious to know if anyone has good information about the level of influence of the pro-Albania lobby on our decision to invade Kosovo and our current policy in the area. Do any non-Serbian sources think they tipped the balance in favor of our getting involved to protect Albanians in Kosovo? Or did the media photos of Kosovar Albanians, including women and children, being dumped by the thousands across the Macedonian border drive public opinion and the Clinton administration response?