GORI, GEORGIA — The keychain costs about 50 cents. It comes in a little plastic bag with a staple through the middle, and is sometimes given away free to visiting foreigners. On one side of the keychain is a thumbnail size photo, a scratchy black and white of the revolutionary when he was in his early 20s. On the flip side of this cheap souvenir is an image of the same man about 30 years later, no longer a revolutionary, but a despot who commanded one of the most heinous reigns of terror in the history of mankind. Welcome to [...]
Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, is a city that brings to mind three images: hospitality, khachapuri (a delicious cheese-filled heart attack encased in dough), and George W. Bush, whose larger-than-life visage graced the surface of numerous billboards on the stretch of road that linked the airport to the city in August 2005. The billboards went up after Bush visited Georgia in May 2005, and not long after that, this main drag officially became “George W. Bush Street.” Cab drivers got a kick out of pointing to the billboards and giving Americans smiles — the type people give each other to [...]
The good news is that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rica turned up at the regional security forum in Malaysia. The bad news is that she broke with a 12-year tradition and didn’t give an amusing after-dinner performance. Her State Department predecessors were much more entertaining at the annual networking event of the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN). Madeleine Albright did an Eva Peron impersonation, and Colin Powell is remembered for singing the disco music hit YMCA. But Rice played a somber Brahms sonata on the piano in Kuala Lumpur to reflect, she said, the grim situation in the [...]
