Author Archives: Doug Merrill

About Doug Merrill

Freelance journalist based in Tbilisi, following stints in Atlanta, Budapest, Munich, Warsaw and Washington. Worked for a German think tank, discovered it was incompatible with repaying US student loans. Spent two years in financial markets. Bicycled from Vilnius to Tallinn. Climbed highest mountains in two Alpine countries (the easy ones, though). American center-left, with strong yellow dog tendencies. Arrived in the Caucasus two weeks before its latest war.

No More Days in the Life of Aleksander Isayevich

Posted on by

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn has died at age 89. Not much to add to all the obituaries, just my two kopecks’ worth that A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was the most important book published between 1950 and 1975. Just when you think Solzhenitsyn is finished with his tour de force, the last sentence falls like a hammer blow.

Most of us are fortunate enough to live in countries that do not need their writers to become prophets and catalysts of change. He was not, and what he wrote helped to crack open the Soviet system. Russians will always be able to draw on his courageous example.

Obama in Berlin

Posted on by

Can’t find any pictures yet, but I’ve seen blogs of people coming up from Prague just to see him. That’s about a five-hour trip each way by train (no ICE connection yet). Expectations on the radio this morning were that the event would be huge.

Wish I could be there, but we’re getting packed up to move to Tbilisi, Georgia. Which of course means no more TV, so here are streams from German media. The top one will have commentary in German; the lower says it is in uncommented English. Speech starts at 18.50; presumably the streams will begin a bit before.

Update: Screen cap from ARD. The stream is spotty, wonder if the online flash crowd is too big?

Who wants to see Obama?

Who wants to see Obama?

Ok, this is huge.

One joojooflop situation

Posted on by

The Prime Minister of Belgium has offered to resign, setting up an unwanted rematch with Serbia to see which European parliamentary republic can go the longest without a national government. Serbia’s recent entry in the contest is a mere 57 days. The BBC says that the last round took nine months to give birth to a government, but as Ingrid Robeyns notes, the deal was hatched in December after merely 192 days. That will be a tough mark to beat, and serves as a reminder to mere potential candidates what a full EU member is capable of.

Irish Referendum Tomorrow

Posted on by

Henry of Crooked Timber, whom I know from way back, is in Ireland and has written up how the country’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty looks the day before voting. There’s also a more academic version, for those inclined.

I hope that it will be a moot point, but I’m curious about how things would work if this treaty gets shot down. Presumably a couple more years of muddling through and then try again with another version of institutional reform. The house that was built for six is getting rather creaky with 27 and definitely needs renovation on its way to nearly 40.

One of the things that comes out in his post is the Irish flavor of fringe opposition. Whereas in the UK, for example, the fringe sometimes sees the EU as a Papist conspiracy (Treaty of Rome!!!!), in Ireland apparently the “wrap-the-green-flag-round-me nationalists and ultramontanist religious loons [are] convinced that the EU is a plot intended to foist devil worship, abortion and gay divorce on the country.”