From the monthly archives:

May 2004

Weekend celebrations

by Eszter Hargittai on May 1, 2004

This is an eventful weekend. From a distance, I’m following the festivities surrounding Hungary’s EU membership. Locally, I’m taking part in the 125th anniversary celebrations of my School and look forward to the debate in a couple of hours by alum members of our dozen national championship winning Debate Team on “Resolved: That John Kerry should replace George Bush in the White House.”. (By School I mean the School of Communication, the University is older than that.)

John has already mentioned the significance of this day for the EU, but I had to comment myself given that in the CT crowd, I’m the one most immediately affected by this event. I remember back in the early nineties hearing that perhaps Hungary would join the EU by 2004 or 2005 and thinking that those years seemed so immensely distant they would never come. It is hard to believe that we are finally here.

I started writing a much longer more reflective post on all this, but I have decided to table that for another day. I am happy to remain in celebratory mood for the day and postpone some more critical comments for another time.

Those in Chicagoland should come join in on the School of Communication birthday events this weekend!

Mayday

by John Q on May 1, 2004

It’s already 1 May in Australia, so I get to make what will no doubt be the first of many posts on the significance of the day.

First, and still the most important in the long historical view is the holiday (a public holiday here in Queensland) celebrating the achievements of the labour movement.

Second, there’s the admission of ten new members to the EU. As far as the historical significance of this event goes, I’m waiting to see whether Turkey is admitted to accession negotiations later in the year.

Thirdly, and of most immediate interest, the anniversary of Bush declaration of victory looks as good a time as any to date what seems increasingly certain to be a defeat [at least for the policies pursued for the past year, and for the objective of a stable, pro-American Iraq]. Of course, this judgement may turn out to be as premature as was Bush’s statement a year ago, but the decline in the US position has been almost as rapid as the collapse of Saddam’s regime, and the events of the last few days have seen the process accelerating.

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