Wordpress has to be one of the most powerful blog software products out there.
Too powerful for those of used to the blogspot, livejournal level.
So my comments were set to “moderated” and that’s why they weren’t showing up. I noticed a couple of you posted multiple times.

Sorry. that’s fixed now.

Also in the future–a color scheme!!!!

I was watching the news today on Khabar and I caught a Ministry of the Interior official saying something about how the incident would be investigated thoroughly. He also warned that the opposition was not the opposition, but ordinary citizens with the same responsbilities as any other citizen and that no one had the right to interrupt the stabilty of the country, or push for armed revolt or anything of that kind. There was also something about having spotted followers of Tuyakbai or not having spotted followers of Tuyakbai–I admt I got lost. I assumed he was speaking of the murder of Nurkadilov, but now I see on RFE/RL

“that two nephews of opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbaev have been hospitalized after three off-duty police officers severely beat them yesterday

. Sarsenbaev we will remember from just before last year’s parlimentary elections is co-chairman of Ak Zhol, a pro-Presidential opposition party, so to speak. He was appointed Minister of Information just before the elections, and then essentially forced to step down in order to not appear to be using his post. A number of controversial reforms to the press were being proposed at that time in response to claims that opposition were not getting equal time and that the President’s family had too strong a hold on the media.

Sarsanbaev is being cautious:

“I’m waiting for the end of the investigation,” Sarsenbaev said. “If police try to shield them [police officers involved in the incident], then we have to consider it as politically motivated incident. If they are punished in accordance with law, then we can consider it as an incident perpetrated by police officers acting as a bandits.”

Again, the sad part is that what had promised to be a peaceful election is getting ugly.

The 14 year old daughter of Yelena Nikitina, who works on Tuyakbai’s campaign, is apparently still missing.

We remember that earlier Tuyakbai and his supporters were pelted by rocks when they tried to meet in different parts of the country. And after that there was relative peace.

I will at some point in the next few days review the pre-election scene in Astana, including how I failed to get a Nazarbayev cap and shirt even though I pretended to be a law student…

Eurasianet.org is reporting on the murder of Zamanbek Nurkadilov who was once akim of Almaty, among his other government posts. He is one of those who like Tuyakbi, opposition candidate for President, made a sudden break citing corruption in the Administration and so on. Many of course wonder why he didn’t mention this corruption while he worked there.

It’s being reported as a suicide but it’s hard to shoot yourself 3 times and it isn’t clear why he would kill himself. The Eursianet article cites a claim that he was about to reveal corruption in the Administration. The fact that his own pistol (a gift) was found near the body seems like a weak attempt at framing.
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Borat first came to my attention when a Kazakh friend of mine was asked, very apologetically, if she had heard of him. She hadn’t and the guy sent her an article from the New Yorker from the Kazakh Embassy in Washington. My reaction then was probably typical of most Americans: What’s the big deal? This guy is yet another in a long line of shock-comics. I’ve never found this sort of thing funny but it was obvious he had no connection to Kazakhstan and it wasn’t clear where the harm was. I was slightly amused by the fact that Vassilenko, the Embassy spokesperson was reluctant to admit that one of the traditional sports of Kazakhstan, kokpar, involves using a headless goat or sheep carcass as a ball. It has been noted that Kazakhstan as a nation wants desperately to be taken seriously, however trying to disown genuine traditions is not necessarily the best path to that. There is no shame in Janybek never having closed negotiations for a joint venture with Adidas in the 16th century.

Borat returned to my attention after I had spent a year in Kazakhstan, and was at a housewarming party. Two guys started asking me if I had heard of Borat and if what he said was true. I told them it wasn’t in any way based on truth but they insisted that he wouldn’t have named Kazakhstan and just made everything up. I explained that the joke apparently was on ignorant Westerners willing to believe that other nations are primitive. One of them pointed out that the USSR was known to be anti-Semitic (this was after this Borat stunt) and Kazakhstan probably was too. I pointed out that half the world had a history of anti-Semitism. They pressed—granted we were at a party and drinking and all that. I began to get annoyed, especially when they pressed on the question of women and how Borat’s “traditional” costumes were very revealing and how could it then be that traditional Kazakh dress is very modest? Surely, Kazakh women were sluts. (more…)