I am looking for a job teaching english in Budapest.  I would like to find
a position for 6 months in Budapest.   Most places ask for a one-year
commitment, and  unfortunately that does not work for me.  My hope is to
be able to find a short term postion while I study music of the "tecaru"??
 (the hurdy-gurdy).  I am a reading teacher here in the U.S. and, though
not certified in ESL, I have taken English as a Second Language classes.
Does anyone know of a good connection to english language schools, etc...
I have these names of schools/organizations.  Do you know anything about
any of these?
Bell School  in Budapest
Budapest Pedagogical Institute
English Teachers' Association of the National Pedagogical
           Institute
International House of Language
I believe these may be private schools.  I would be interested in
government schools, as well.  Any information or advice would be greatly
appreciated, particularly if you e-mail it to me.  Thanks!!

Cynthia H.

I received this e-mail a few days ago and post it for interest's sake.

Tom Monostori is a sixth generation Hungarian winemaker.  He is the
senior winemaker at Parducci Winery in Ukiah, Mendocino County California.
His father Joe was the senior winemaker at Parducci from 1972-1985.  Both
are natives of Hungary.

Parducciwine.com will be up and running on August 1st.  Give us a visit.

Paul Hansen
VP-Operations, Parducci Winery

I do not wish to continue the fruitless discussion with George Antony.
 Clearly our experiences and opinions of the Kadar regime differ greatly.  If
he had no problems traveling abroad in the sixties and seventies, good for
him.  But for most, it was not so easy.

Ferenc

At 10:26 AM 6/13/96 -0400, Martha  wrote:

>Why is it that just about the 7 years' anniversary of the bloody events
>of Tiannanmen Square, the USA is ready to give a "most favorite nation"
>treatment to Communist China?  Why are we so eager to flood them with
>Coke and hamburgers, and get deluged by - in most cases, unnecessary -
>stuff from them?

There are more than a billion answers to this question: the (potential)
Chinese consumers of American products.

>
>* Levi Strauss Associates Inc. to give its employees a bonus equal
>  to a year's salary in 2001.
>    - bonus for 37,500 workers contingent upon company meeting its
>      financial goals.
>
I hope it applies to the plant in Hungary too.

Gabor D. Farkas

At 11:12 PM 6/10/96 -0400, you wrote:
>At 07:16 AM 6/10/96 -0700, Eva Balogh, responding to my comments about
>groupthink, wrote:
>
>>        One cannot make a blanket statement like this. Just the other day
>>one could read the obituary of Timothy Leary, the promoter of LSD. He was
>>different all right, he didn't "groupthink." He just swallowed enough LSD to
>>fry his brains out. And he urged other young people to do the same. And
>>thousands followed him. At age of 75, judging from his picture, he looked as
>>if he were 95. Not all "difference" is good or acceptable.
>
>Now you're talking about things you know knothing about.  How many hits of
>acid have you done, Eva?  None, I bet.  But you feel perfectly alright about
>discussing its effects.  LSD does not fry brains and it does not age people.
>It's not like the reverse chemical compound of Oil of Ole!  It is simply an
>hallucinogen.

It's a close relative of ergot, and can have some legitimate medicinal
uses--like for migraines, but most often does not.  Its negative effects can
persist awhile, but unless the user repeats, are not permanent.  However,
the negative effects, can be quite something.  Unfortunately many drug users
are not emotionally or mentally stable in the first place, and thus there is
a somewhat greater potential for the negatives.  One of my teenaged nephews
while high on LSD attempted to kill his mother, believing her to be an evil
being.  It took 3 adult police officers to pull him off her and restrain
him.  When young, whatever temptation I might have had to try the stuff got
rather quelled when a party I attended got disrupted by a friend high on the
LSD spiked punch who decided he'd like to redecorate the ceiling and make it
kind of a lacework--with a shotgun.  Unfortunately, what was worse, he
forgot there was another apartment above us.  Most of us cleared out as soon
as we saw the shotgun, and didn't stick around to admire the results...  We
heard the police displayed no admiration whatsoever.  Guess they just
didn't/don't appreciate art...

LSD was also used by the CIA, quite successfully for years as a psychotropic
agent to get people to do and believe things they might not normally be so
inclined, or say things, or whatever, and also in combination with hypnosis
to deprogram agents and contractors leaving the "service."  Most of them
suffered weird flashback dreams, and hallucinations for some years
afterwards, but they did eventually go away.  It's a heck of an experience,
though to suddenly have one and lose control of one's immediate
consciousness while driving a big rig on a highway...  The neighboring
vehicles' drivers don't seem to enjoy it either...

Long-term use can cause a personality change, and the changes in the brain
tissue have not been thoroughly studied, for long periods after long-term
use by humans.  Unfortunately no one thought to examine many brains before
the first use, including Mr. Leary's... ;-)  And I kind of have to wonder
about the innocuousness of any drug that the CIA _really_ likes... ;-)

Myself, in my even more eccentric youth, I used to prefer the good old
fashioned "Midwest Green,"--you know like the old varieties of wild roses
before intense hybridization to artificially emphasize just one darned
thing. ;-)  It made absolutely miserable fudge though, much better in
brownies.  And whatever you do, don't even accidentally put it into
home-made wild-root beer.  I still think that's what made all those bottles
blow their corks (and the top part of the bottles, usually) in the pantry.
A little LSD probably would have been better in that instance. ;-)

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA

N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA

At 12:06 AM 6/4/96 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello Everyone!
>
>On another listserv there is a discussion on superstitions - regional or
>in different countries.
>
>Would you like to cite some?  I will forward it to that list.
>If you know the origin of it or anything about it, like: it is common in
>another country; known only in a certain region, etc.
>
>Please include any and all information that could be of general or
>particular interest.
>
>Thanks!
>Martha
>
>p.s.  If you want to send some from Slovakia, Romania, etc., it would
>also be welcomed.
>
>

I don't know how extensive these were beyond Balaton Kerest-ur, Somogy
County, and nearby villages, but here are a few my late grandmother told me.
Bear in mind, please that she was remembering pre World War I Hungary.

The left hand was the hand of the devil, being born left handed meant the
devil could influence one's actions more easily.  Thus left-handed children
were forced to become right-handed.  (a younger sister became a victim of
this when she broke her left arm--what a wonderful opportunity, grandmother
and father thought...--Father didn't really believe this junk, but it was a
lot easier to give in than listening to a whole lot of nagging from all the
little old ladies in the parish every time he visited the neighborhood...)

If you are a girl and you have misbehaved during the day, you must ask
forgiveness of whomever you have wronged, and be sure to say lots of extra
prayers before you go to bed, or else Countess Bathory--the vampire who
preyed on girls--will come and get you.  (As children, my cousins and I
never took any chances--we also made sure there were crucifixes hanging over
our attic dormer windows and doorways--just in case we forgot something).

Before her time, it was also believed, she claimed, that if you didn't build
a house, no matter how large or grand, with an earth floor for the first
floor, you would not be able to keep in harmony with the earth and your
crops would fail, and so eventually would your family.

Persons who had eyes of two different colors--including two colors in both
eyes together, (or had unusually bright eyes or intense stares) were born
witches (and could be good or bad, but generally the latter).  Persons born
with green eyes or green-gray eyes were generally thought to be descendants
of Genghis Khan.

Finally,but not least--that any wrong, no matter how bad, could be
rectified, at least with God, with enough rosary Novenas.

Cecilia

N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA

Charlie Vamossy wrote:

>By the way, as I understand it, the Marshall Plan was offered to all
>countries in Europe, but Hungary, along with  others in the socialist
>camp -- and based on advice from the Marxist economic sages in Moscow
>-- proudly turned down the offer, preferring instead to build their
>workers paradise.

To be precise, it was Soviet pressure, not advice, that resulted in Hungary,
Czechoslovakia and other occupied countries turning down participation in
the Marshall Plan.  These countries wanted very much to take advantage,
but the respective communist parties (butressed by the occupying Red Army)
 forced rejection of the offer.  Pride had no part in those decisions.

Ferenc

Dear Gabor and group;

Well, this time if it gets too bloody, I'll get the director of
communications of Silicon Valley for Democracy in China to jump in. Putting
my own tootsies into the water and hoping no sharks without dolphins are
lurking nearby, I'm going to try to add some information--and hopefully not
shark-bait (or is that more correctly called chump-chum..). ;-)

At 03:15 AM 6/14/96 -0700, you wrote:

>At 10:26 AM 6/13/96 -0400, Martha  wrote:
>
>>Why is it that just about the 7 years' anniversary of the bloody events
>>of Tiannanmen Square, the USA is ready to give a "most favorite nation"
>>treatment to Communist China?  Why are we so eager to flood them with
>>Coke and hamburgers, and get deluged by - in most cases, unnecessary -
>>stuff from them?
>
>There are more than a billion answers to this question: the (potential)
>Chinese consumers of American products.
>

Yep, and that's the problem with the Clinton administration, and some
members of Congress.  They don't understand why it's just a "potential"
market, has been despite almost 15 years of so-called reforms and is likely
to continue to be just that for maybe another 15-25 years if not more.  But
then, if they really understood business, money, markets and how to make
successful good products and services and companies, etc., and influence
people by running successful corporations, maybe they wouldn't be in
government for life-long careers.  Consider the education and experience of
most of these people.  When was the last time they ever held a real job or
personally provided a service to anyone?  And how many schools does anyone
know of anywhere (not just in the U.S.) that requires as a core requirement
for either graduation from high school or college a course on the
understanding of money--capital, currency, what it really is, how it's
backed up, used, etc., and the basic elements of providing a good and
profitable service or product and building a company or non-profit
organization around the same?

Heck, many of those corporate campaign contributors who are salivating over
the "potential" of China and to whom the government officials are listening,
aren't much better.  The MBA programs that most of them went through have
also been widely lamented recently by entire industry organizations,
employee organizations, etc. as not having taught either a basic
understanding of money--not finance with it, but money itself--or how to
create, build and successfully market good products/services and build
companies around them.  The degrees train caretakers of existing companies,
not entrepreneuers, not people who can create, or run production lines, or
innovate the nuts and bolts of manufacturing or even many service companies.

There are many more good companies and international investors around.
They're not in Washington DC because they're doing well without the Chinese
or Russian mirages and don't need any taxpayer handouts.  We're seeing the
effects of the less successful and smart business and financial people, not
the more successful and smarter ones.  But isn't it the usual thing for
people who are unhappy to complain and be noticed than for happy people to
make an effort to say something and be noticed for that--especially when it
comes to communications with governments?  The squeaky wheel gets the grease
and all that.  One never notices the wheels that don't squeak, unless they
think about them.

They also seem to overlook the slight problem of what's going to happen when
the putrefying body of Deng is finally seen by someone outside of his family
and his closest remaining still alive octogenarian friends, and the nation
as a whole finally admits he really is dead.  There are at least four
contenders for the top, all of whom have been soliciting the military for
support.  This does not look like a "peaceful transition" shaping up in the
very near future.  Can anyone remember the last time that a business outside
of the armaments industry thought a civil war was good for business and
investment--in the country that's having the civil war?   That's some
potential, indeed, that China has.  Oh well, perhaps they're no longer
inhaling in Washington DC, because they've already overdosed. ;-)

However, there are in the meantime quite a few determined groups and
individuals around attempting to break both U.S. and corporate officials of
their hallucenogenic habits in this regard.  Wish them luck, I think they're
going to need it awhile longer.

>>
>>* Levi Strauss Associates Inc. to give its employees a bonus equal
>>  to a year's salary in 2001.
>>    - bonus for 37,500 workers contingent upon company meeting its
>>      financial goals.
>>
>I hope it applies to the plant in Hungary too.
>

It's supposed to, but you can write to Levi Strauss, Inc. in San Francisco,
CA (where the HQ is) to double check.  If anyone's interested, I can get the
address, and the name of the CEO, from Harry Wu, when he returns from
Hungary.  He should be back by the end of the month.

Sincerely,


Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA



N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA

In article >,
 says...
>
>Ferenc Novak wrote:
>
>> Anyway, I don't think anyone ought to be upset because some people
don't like
>> the term "szabadsagharc". For example, it would be folly to expect
communists
>> or their sympathizers to do so.  There is another group, the one-time
liberal
>> communists as well as non-communists who, in exchange for certain
privileges,
>> agreed to serve, or at least not to oppose, the Kadar-type "soft
>> dictatorship".
>
>This very neatly includes most Hungarians, with the exception of those
who
>did oppose the Kadar regime with samizdat publications, etc.
>
>> A thin layer of society thus managed to live quite well,
>
>Indeed, especially the Party apparatchiks and their yesmen who were
allowed
>into positions of social privilege such as Csurka, Antall and Boross.
>
>> even travel abroad
>
>Actually, travel abroad was not restricted to the wealthy.  Hungarians
have
>been allowed to travel even to Western countries since the 1960s and did
so
>with a vengeance, on next to no money.
>
>> and send their children to be educated in the West.
>
>Well, not even high-ranking Party officials had extensive
foreign-currency
>accounts necessary for the Western education of non-residents.  The only
>people who had such accounts were those who sold something in the West
>(artists, scientists with royalties from Western sales of their works)
or
>foreign-trade officials who put their kick-backs into Western accounts.
>
>>  Unfortunately, until 1989 only such loyal types and their offspring
were
>> allowed to come to the West,
>
>"allowed" by whom ?  You are hopelessly misinformed about the
consolidated
>Kadarism.  As I already pointed it out, the regime mostly allowed people
to
>travel: denial of exit permits was the exception, not the rule.
>
>> and today they comprise the majority of young
>> educated Hungarians  abroad.
>
>Really ?  Please do present some statistics to prove this point, least
some
>think that you are merely waffling.
>
>> Now that spoiled generation is serving as
>> apologists for the defunct regime, if not openly, then by trying to
discredit
>> those who fought against the communist oppression.  Their dishonesty
is the
>> lasting legacy of the corrupting influence of the Kadar years.   We
might as
>> well give up on this group and hope that now that no one in Hungary
needs a
>> party secretary's approval to be admitted to college and to travel
abroad,
>> another generation will come that will not have theideological baggage
of
>> some of the current crop and is willing to see things as they really
were.
>
>You sound like an embittered man, unable to accept that there was life
under
>Kadar: the majority of the population did not die on the barricades in
1956
>and made its peace with the regime for a modest material living standard
and
>some civil rights that were not available in most other Communist
countries.
>Most (not all, but most) people who wanted to leave could do it with the
>relative dignity of a pretence trip to Vienna.
>
>Moreover, some people actually managed to do well due to their
intellect.
>To be sure, the latter was only available for a brilliant minority
without
>joining the Party or becoming its lackey.  But to deny that there were
such
>people is merely sour grapes on your part.
>
>George Antony

I fully agree with you, George.  I returned many time to Budapest since
56 for a visit, the last time in the spring of 1995.  All my friends and
relatives (wide economic scale) were wondering that why did they need the
"change", if they live so much worse than before?  It is  very
difficult to change the mentality of people, especially the younger ones,
who never knew anything else.  And for the pensioners, they have no
savings because they were used to getting everything they needed;  also,
there was no financial planning, what we have here.  People in Hungary
still don't use banks.  The financial system is unbelievably
antiquitated.  Anyway, people are not happy, and it was no use to explain
to them the were in a global crisis.

In article >,
 says...
>
>        There is an excellent article in the Magyar Narancs #69 which
>arrived to subscribers this morning. Unfortunately, it is in Hungarian
but
>those who can should. It is an editorial and it deals with current
politics
>and economics. I think that it's on the money.
>
>        Eva Balogh

Where is it available?  Is this something you subscribe thru the net?  If
not, would it be too much trouble to type it in?  As I am reading these
discussions, I am convinced 90% of the participants would have no problem
reading something in Hungarian!

Agnes

Wasn't this thread started by someone having said what a
beautiful commemoration of Hungary's 1100th year of statehood was that
he was a part of in A Catholic Hungarian Church in New York?

        .....think of that.....   hehehe

Mike.  :)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You wrote:
>
>Charlie Vamossy wrote:
>
>>By the way, as I understand it, the Marshall Plan was offered to all
>>countries in Europe, but Hungary, along with  others in the socialist
>>camp -- and based on advice from the Marxist economic sages in Moscow
>>-- proudly turned down the offer, preferring instead to build their
>>workers paradise.
>
>To be precise, it was Soviet pressure, not advice, that resulted in
Hungary,
>Czechoslovakia and other occupied countries turning down participation
in
>the Marshall Plan.  These countries wanted very much to take
advantage,
>but the respective communist parties (butressed by the occupying Red
Army)
> forced rejection of the offer.  Pride had no part in those decisions.
>
>Ferenc
>

Feri  -- of course I know what the reality was in those years, so
please forgive my personal brand of sarcasm.  Without meaning to split
hairs, though, it's my impression that in those days Moscow's wish was
Rakosi's command in Hungary, so maybe I wan't so far off base.  Also,
although I am not certain, I think Czechoslovakia and Romania at least
were not occupied by the Soviet Army at that time., Still, they took
their  "suggestions" from Moscow quite seriously if they did not want
to be occupied.

As far as pride s concerned, I think Rakosi and the other country
chiefs did in fact take pride in being good soldiers in carrying out
Moscow's commands.  Of course, hardly anyone else did...


best regards


Charlie

Hello again!

When I posted these items, one was about China, the other about Levi Strauss.
Those two had elicited some discussion.

I am puzzled by the quiet - no response - attitude about this:

* The State Department has announced a formal decision to give $6.2
  million in emergency food aid to North Korea.

I am not suggesting that *we* let people starve.  It is, however, as in the
case of Iraq, an internal decision: production of arms takes precedent
over feeding the people.  We act as enablers.

They tell parents to use *toughlove* with their wavering children.  Can you
see a parallel?

Any insights, anyone?

Martha