TBLPOD16jan2014

Entrepreneur support, prison min says Vano BSing, more Bacho charges, Wikileaks on Geo gun ban, thug wrist slap & Margvel comments, IMF on growth, 24 hour Larsi, UNM Putin plans, Hungry recs Geo no-status docs, ex-proc German cop slap, BS crime stats, crank call crack down, new IDP buildings, Tbilisi Canton plan, Nigerian beat up, Abkhaz McDonalds, GoG Abkhaz FB page, hotel in Vake park protest, rich Estonian in hydro, lari fall plan, 30k jobs, Forbes like Bachiashvili, Patriarch has employment plan, Ilia file, two Muftis, Zhvania foundation, cheap Hep C drugs, AIDS, Sochi flights, Washingtonians of the year to synths, Opera guy resigns, Radio Muza closes, Will on food, new Zebra, parliamentary Tbilisi trick, Radical Partisan Guerrilla Girls post, read Usupashvili and Slade, biz index.

3 thoughts on “TBLPOD16jan2014

  1. Poor Will. The much-maligned British cuisine and Georgian cuisine share a common attribute. Both require very long preparation and ideally should be served within a very narrow time window to be at its best. Arguably neither is well suited to the restaurant format where patrons demand rapid preparation and service. As in Georgia, the best food in Britain is found in people’s private homes, and it is often unbelievably good.

  2. In Parliamentary news: The parliament is discussing a loophole to move the parliament back to Tbilisi. Georgian Dream MP Zura Tkemaladze proposed bypassing a constitutional amendment and simply giving legal ownership of the former parliament building located on Rustaveli Ave. to the city of Kutaisi. Doing so will get around the need for a constitutional amendment which would require three quarters of the MPs to approve it. Tkemaladze’s full comment: “First of all I’ll tell you that moving parliament from Kutaisi to Tbilisi is the desire of not only the ruling majority, but the most of the parliamentary majority. The whim of the National Movement representatives hinders support of the constitutional changes. It was a whim to build parliament’s building in Kutaisi and changes were carried out in the constitution, according to which Tbilisi and then Kutaisi was determined as the location of parliament. I would like to tell you that the Kutaisi building was designed so that parliament had to be in Kutaisi and Tbilisi as well. The building of parliament in Tbilisi and Kutaisi are on balance of parliament. This is so as parliament wants this, and not because the state commission has not exploited the building in Kutaisi. I reiterate that we violate any law and exploit the building that doesn’t belong to parliament and is not the state property. It’s a paradox that parliament functions in Kutaisi and the building doesn’t belong to parliament. Let’s call this territory of the building a part of Kutaisi. For instance, Gudauri was made part of Tbilisi by our previous government for a certain period – Gudauri was not in Tbilisi, but it was Tbilisi. There are many such examples, embassies, when you cross the threshold, you’re on the territory of a different country. There are countries that are placed in one town, but are considered independent states. There are many such examples. The building in Tbilisi may be in Kutaisi local government and one hectare of land where the building is located, is the territory of Kutaisi and as soon as we enter it, we enter Kutaisi.”

    The MEME this week
    A group calling themselves radical partisan guerilla girls posted a satirical video on Facebook about the Patriarch’s Epistle. The video tells women to “enjoy your time between the christmas epistles” and shows images of a woman cleaning and cooking with a veil over her hair, her face covered and a big cross in her cleavage. The video protests women’s patriarch-approved role in the family and was very widely shared. It is an extremely interesting development. Watch it, we will keep our eyes posted for more. Because most backward looking social views have now become closely allied with the church and the church is sadly against almost all progressive views in Georgia, how Georgians, most importantly young Georgians look at the church is the location of Georgia’s most important societal discussion. And as we know all important discussions now take place via short music videos. Link: http://goo.gl/hBtHWr

    THINGS TO READ
    An article by the chairman of the parliament Dato Usupashvili titled “Georgia’s dream: Europeanization as democratic consolidation.” According to Usupashvili, for years the Georgian Parliament was an uneventful political battlefield. The courts and prisons were where the real political contest took place. However, 2013 changed this. The author talks about the two concerns of Europeanization of the country: First, that being in Europe is not an anti-Russian statement and the second, across the 28 capitals of EU member states, the Eastern Neighborhood does not occupy the same significance. At the end, he highlights that the Parliament rather than the Constitutional Court or the Prosecutor’s Office must become the epicenter of this Europeanization-as-consolidation process. It is a really great piece, and anybody who wants to understand Georgia should read it. Link: http://goo.gl/0QJIv2

    An article by TI Georgia about the candidates for a vacant leadership position in the Georgian National Communications Commission. This time, the president’s administration published not only the names of the shortlisted candidates but also their CVs and the documentation submitted by the 23 candidates who applied for the position. The government and the President recently agreed on three candidates for the position and TI Georgia examined their public records to determine if past private sector activity might result in conflicts of interest. The three shortlisted candidates are Kakha Bekauri, Tamaz Inashvili and Sergo Shavgulidze. TI Georgia did not find any apparent risks for conflicts of interest if the candidate were appointed to the GNCC leadership. None not made party donations and their companies have not won any major government tenders. Link: http://goo.gl/neqAXO

    A really brilliant article by Gavin Slade on OpenDemocracy.net about migration and Georgia. He says Europe’s politics of migration control are exported to Georgia with potentially dangerous results. Georgia is being told by the EU that to get facilitated visa arrangements, Georgia will need to have very strict visa laws itself, setting up a Georgian buffer zone for the EU. This would be a bad thing for Georgia because although under the previous regime, things were much to casual, they could be kept open although more systematized, whereas the EU us pushing for more strict and greater internment. Very important, read this. Link: http://goo.gl/EMdmvT

    An article on GeorgiaToday.ge about the book by Zura Karumidze titled “Dagny or a Love Feast”. Dalkey Archive Press, a nonprofit organization, published the book. Dagny Juel Prib-is-evska, a main character in the novel, was a Norwegian poetess and dramatist, who was killed in a hotel room in Tbilisi in 1901. She was an inspiration to celebrities like Edvard Munch and was the “Queen” of Berlin bohemia in the 1890s. Some of the characters of the novel are historical, such as Joseph Stalin and his terrorist friend Kamo. Other characters of the story are the Georgian poet Vazha Pshavela and Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani. Link: http://goo.gl/lGVFev

    ANNOUNCEMENTS
    On the 20th of January at 8 PM within the framework of Ciné DOC-Tbilisi Amirani Cinema, hall 3 is a screening of documentary film “Linar” about a Russian boy who travels to Italy to get a new heart. After the screening will be a discussion with invited moderators. Entrance is free.

  3. You know, I like Georgian food, but I think Dunbar has a point. And Georgia though having a “national cuisine,” does not really have one that is all that unique. Consider pide and then think Khachapuri; Khinkali- dumplings are all throughout the world and especially common in the Caucasus, Central Asia and wider Asia as well. Also, I forget which Georgian social scientist had pointed it out, but its referenced in Paul Manning’s book on Georgian Drinking, and the guy(Georgian, not Manning) says that Georgian food is basically a permutation of a few different basic ingredients into different dishes.

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