October 10, 2004

• Too bad flashboy didn't get to write it. He could have really turned it on, what with the extended reflection on the topic and all. An article from bees may have spooked the horses, and I mean this in the nicest possible way.
• I'd be curious to see a English translation of the Rukhnama. Just to see if it is as freaky as I suspect it is.
• Apparently a substantial chunk of it is plagiarized.
• "we are all worms." Hey, I'm sure Monkeybashi is burning countless midnight-oil filled lamps, but against the unfortunate event, did anybody archive the old 'Bashi thread? It would be so sad were bees' epic poetry slam to disappear before it could be properly prepared for print.
• I'm sure you can find a Google cache.
• English version of Rukhnama, squidranch. languagehat, I'm delighted to see that, because reading the Rukhnama gave me the impression that a set of not very extensive notes on Turkmen history and folklore were cobbled together with various autobiographical remarks and gropings to product the Rukhnama. A couple of articles I happened on indicated the work may not even be all Turkmenbashi's own doing, but that of his assistant(s). Who knows? Or cares? Drivel is drivel.
• Yeah but, when you think about it, drivel makes the world go 'round.
• O Drivel, great God of Lubricants, thou Tireless Twirler of the globe upon its axis, please send PatB a perfect banana every day for a year.
• 'Bash made it to NPR this week. The show has a "bluff the listener" question where 2 news articles are made up and 1 is real. The real one was about Bashi - just the usual that Monkeys are all aware of - the gold statue, the gold teeth, the Rukhnama, renaming the months, etc. The contestant thought it was too wild to be true and picked one of the made-up news stories. heh.
• Yes! I heard that when I was out in the garage on Saturday, staining some furniture and adding beer-related lovehandle girth. I found myself wishing for a bees ode to 'bashi, preferably read by Carl Kasell.
• Bashi's statue is covered with gold and rotates three hundred sixty degrees, the statue wears a gold suit and a big gold cape -- and the local folk call it the rotissirie.
• I think that i should never see A poet so good as beeswack-y His 'Bashi thread is legendary His postings are zen-literary So raise a glass, and give a cheer The 'Bashi thread isn't gone - it's Here! *quaffs*
• Ta, ta, and ta, pete, kindly said. Standing a glass o' cockpunch to all your incarnations. *hastily opens billfold, and peers inside, relaxes as notes ten credit-cards*
• This page is not a report on human rights abuse and dictatorship in Turkmenistan. It's simply a collection of photos and things that I've seen on my trip through this country, that illustrate the level of mind control in Turkmenistan and its flourishing personality cult. *puts money in the beespoetry jukebox*
• Tho The statue of 'bashi is regal His rule is likely illegal Although to be fair, He's got awesome hair - A trait he'll most surely inveigle. Burma Shave
• Onlookers say Bashi is vain and never gets tired of seeing his name or his bust or his statue which litter the land, so his face is always staring at you. Niyazov was the first to call himself Turkmenbashi, (somehow none of his associates cared to tell him this was trashy), and since then it's been Turkmenbashi Avenue and Turkmenbashi town and Turkmenbashi airport and Turkmenbashi school -- and we'll sip Turmenbashi vodka in the Turkmenbashi swimming pool.
• Onlookers say Bashi is vain you're so vain/ you probably think this thread is about you/ don't you? don't you?
• *zing!* drjimmy11! Bashi is red-faced His zeal is mis-placed His haughty couture is a disgrace Tho heavenward bound He fails to astound With works of his Bashiness' grace
• *applauds* Nice work, pete_best! -- from which ever one of ye it comes.
• *bows to bees* Yeah after that one we pete_bests dogpiled at homeplate. ;) like those ALCS-winning Boston Red Sox . . .
• Speaking of socks, have any of you petes seen a green sock lyin' around?
• I don't what we'd do without a statue or two of Bashi He's the one famiiar face I see almost every place Our Bashi He takes each opportunity To look and smile at me From his posters on the walls His picture plastered in the halls One hope cheers me every day As I live the Turkmen way For I plan to get away From Bashi
• Updating your Bashiland calendar for October: On the 14th, Ramadan began throughout the length and breadth of Bashiland. These happy happy days, the twenty-second to twenty-fourth, at last the great mosque opens in President-for-life Bashi's place of birth. In Turkmenistan the twenty-seventh is celeberated, this fastal occasision's Indepedence Day from the USSR for the Turkmen nation, but since Bashi through the time of transition till now keeps ruling his country the Turkmen people are still by no menas free.
• October 23-25, the People's Council meets; this is the highest legislative body in the country, often called Bashi's rubber-stamp parliament. Bashi announces, prior to November 9, 2004: Nine thousand prisoners will be set free under the annual amnesty Bashi grants, in the prisoner-packed land of what was formerly Turkistan. No political prisoners will be let go, only lesser offenders, and criminals, including 150 foreign nationals.
• This is wot you get to do if you're Bashi and people are afraid to speak out against you. You get to write a book of so-called poetry and require this be taught in every school; you make sure each one applying for a driver's licence must take twenty hours instruction on your text and learn it rule by rule. Even better, in the mosques, require lines of Bashi-text be placed directly next to lines from the Quran, and make sure anyone who objects is charged with treason, being Bashi, ye don't need any better reason to imprison mullahs as readily as other fellows.
• "You are given to us by God and therefore any talk about presidential elections should be stopped."
• O teh horror!
• He has had a meteorite named after him Bashi's face Shot through space A burning urn of churning funk His country's place Is in disgrace Bashi's powers have clearly stunk
• Bashi is 64 years old. He has not groomed a successor. He has said he will step down when he turns 70. He has said other things and not done them. He lets the People's Council call him President-for-life. /skeptic
• Yea verily - Tho He rule o'er the land of Turkmen In his reign as Bashi he's a has-been He stayed much to long Now everything's wrong This pig needs to get from his pig-pen! *rants / raves*
• You are all spelling his name wrong. It's Türkmenbaşy.
• For thousands of years, our ancestors have protected their self-identity and their consciouness of being one nation, and they have perceived this mission as a sacred value. It was not easy for them to overcome the great impediment of history. --Turkmenbashi the Great, Rukhnama "Overcome the impediment of history" -- does this mean be fanciful in writing history texts? Or what?
• Bashi's neither god not prophet, though his own words have been set, inscriptions from the Rukhnama, on the new mosque, alongside those of Allah. Most Turkmens are Sunnis, of the Hanifi Fiqh school, most lenient of the four main Sunni schools of thought. When Bashi was a communist, he was not. But when the USSR collapsed, Bashi said he was a Sunni again.
• That Benedict Bashi That Turncoat! Whose gold teeth we abhor, I grow my beard at you! His theology is mushy That old goat! Will Turkmen stand more? Will truth at last ensue?
• I grow my beard at you! [banana]
• Turkmenbashi, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting, Writing endless lines of garbage, upon Ashgabat's throne. And his eyes have all the seeming of an authoritarian gleaming, As the sunlight o'er him streaming lights a megalomaniac bore. All while his good old pal Putin, speaking from nearby Ukraine,    Says he'll run for president—nevermore.
• October 27 Independence Day: a long parade in Ashgabat went by. First the army marches, chanting "Turkmenbashi", on and on, then come riders with gold sashes atop black horses, their gilt hooves shone, and the final treat -- a huge model of the Rukhnama surrounded by dancing school children, all overseen by Bashi from on high.
• You know, many things are unclear in the land of Turkmenistan. How many places named after Bashi are there? And why is Turkmenbashi so hung up on hair? First it was beards, and men's chins had to be shaved. Now girls and women must wear their hair braided.
• I didn't before But now I have hope The fine muskmelon Is a cantaloupe!
• *braids hair in (dubious) honour of the 'Bashi*
• Excessive displays of fillial piety are just in Bashi's style, and cost a lot of what the average Turkmen simply hasn't got: money. (These excesses ensure they will, in future, not.) Dedicated to Bashi's dead mother, Gurbansoltan, a lady known throughout the whole of Turkmenistan, is this new mosque ($100 m is its rumoured cost). Gold and white, it has four tall minarets and a large dome, and stands in the village of Bashi's childhood home. Now it's open. Some Turkmen eyes also widened in surprise when they saw text from Bashi's hand carved into the wakks beside inscriptions from the Quran. Bashi says it's only sensible to have inscriptions ordinary Turkmen can understand, which would imply text from the Quran is not sensible, a position other muslims must view as indefensible.
• A roof or just a tent overhead, warm clothes to wear as winds begin to bluster through, bread in the oven, and some assurance tomorrow there'll be more -- in this village these needs we have to have fulfilled to live, to vanish taut-strained lines about our eyes, hush our children's hollow crying. Bashi's needs are very great, ours center on enough to fill a plate.
• Those who continually kiss his arse, fearing his errors or omissions could remind their Bashi to take drastic steps, do him no favours, as one day he'll find. His life as a ruler has been one long farce he's especailly noted for plans which seem odd his eccentricities get him noticed, unfavourably, of course, and it's quite clear Bashi wants to be treated like a god.
• Well, the Cyrillac alaphabet just won't do so it is to be replaced by something new according to Bashi. This year's summer saw a leaflet campaign in Ashgabat, the capital, calling for the overthrown and trial of Bashi and because no arrests were made in the country following this, Bashi, on national television, fired the interior minister, who will not be rehired, and also the director of the police academy on the grounds they did nothing to stem crime. So when recently Bashi said he planned to resign in a few more years, the People's Council said no, dear President-for-life you must not go. And so life goes on in Turkmen land where Bashi rules with an iron hand and people fear to naysay or criticize the Bashi, whom they laud as wise.
• Paging the grim reaper . . one from Turkmenistan to go please.
• Coming right up your bestness
• Religious leaders in Turkmenistan are now barred, by decree of Bashi, from studying abroad. In future, they are to study inside the country or at the Turkmen State University. Previously, most mullahs have studied either in Saudi Arabia or Turkey; now neither is acceptable, Bashi says he doesn't want outside interference. This policy gives Turkmen's isolation even more coherence -- first it was teachers with foreign degrees who were dismissed, now it seems the current crop of mullahs may be sent away, with this new twist.
• Far be it for me to sit and gloat If the president's eyes are not flashy Instead of reacting he spoke of a goat That's our sad BushyBashi. wait, isn't this the Bushybashi thread? *checks title*
• Here's hoping Bush will be bashed beyond recall today, pete_best.
• Are petebest and pete_best the same person?
• *does a little dance*
• I have no idea, fuyugare, but this latest pete best joined yesterday.
• Yeah, it's me alright- it ocurred to me that when the db got cleared out i could re-register for my original login - and it worked! Hee hee!!
• Heh. No wonder you're in high spirits today, then, pete -- and you're always best with monkeys!
• Don't encourage him now, you know how that Pete gets.
• This is so not fair. If I tried to sign up as Pat_B or pat_b or pa_tb or even p_@b, I'd be nixed.
• BlueHorse is stalking beeswacky, dammit.
• This what a stocking horse does! Wait. Did anyone say 'socks'?
• I waited I voted I pouted In a flashy it's Bushybashi
• Too glum to hum...
• did someone say BlueStocking?
• beeswacky's feeling bushwacked. 'tis an a-pollen sit-tee-ashun.
• *bows to the holy trinity that is bees, pete & fish*
• I am not worthy of such august scribes.
• such crimes run incessantly 'bout every society
• A quasi-religious leader who won't go away It's about the war, the earth, not the people who are gay skreeeekk *Cut! Take two!*
• Beware, beware! Mockers are abroad! They're everywhere! These mockers do not understand the rules! The real rules! Sneering at the new mosque in Kipchak, They'd better be prepared to take their jeering back! So what if it has graven inscriptions From the Rukhnama as well as the Quran on its walls.? Outer walls are only outer walls -- not part of the mosque! So there. All wrong. Away with such ignorant fools! And what's more, all those towers and minarets Are not part of the mosque! No, nt the real mosque! They're just towers and minarets Which happen to be structurally attached to the mosque! Why, you could say they're happenstancically attached! Or accidentally! And black is blue and blue is white and everything I tell you is of course quite right! That's right. All right, then. Yeah.
• Werd up bees - I'm seeing more and more a fusion of Turkmenbashi with the Bushybashi And black is blue and blue is white It's not about the war, it's about morals! (ouch)
• You guys won't believe this -- Turkmenbashi made The West Wing last night. Not a personal appearance you understand, but they mentioned him and his fondness of the muskmelon repeatedly on the show. Josh Lyman eventually sent him some pizza.
• Any indivual equal to a real bastard is therefore equal to any another real bastard, pete. /axiom of The Hive
• bzzzzzz! PS> hey MCT, find us the quicktime of that ;)
• Yeah, I was thinking "Monkeyfilter!" all during the episode. Too bad they didn't use some of beeswacky's glorious lyrics.
• It's nice to see, now that we've licked our wounds a bit, that we're back to the really important business of this site. This is not sarcasm.
• Not sure what our important bees-iness is, but whatever it is, we must do it with all our mites!
• Turkmenistan's flag is distinguished by one fact that is hard to forget: Five carpets are depicted on it. It seems to be the only national flag in the world to feature these; They give a much-needed homely touch to Turkmen's dignities. Turkmen carpets are far-famed and costly, But, for a price, can be smuggled out of the country.
• No dice on a *.mov file. I guarantee you there's an episode floating on a P2P somewhere, but I could find no download site. There is, however, a LOT of pornography out there. Is there nothing the internets can't do?
• Tho 'bashi may call on society To act with enamel-toothed piety Or raise a gold statue Of his glorious self that you Feel his reign lengthy and mighty Don't be forlorn For the Internets' born for the purpose of downloading porn. oy!
• Turkmenbashi now seems even balmier Than he did ten years ago; surrounded By sycophnsts, and never contradicted, His judgement grows uncreasingly ungrounded. Bashi's growing old. he has a heart condition, And has been careful to discourage opposition; Once Bashi dies or topples, there's no clear succession, So experts worry about violence and regression.
• When Turkmenbashi has nothing better to do he sits with his ministers, and without more ado he tells them the things that aren't being done right, and this was his complaint on Tuesday night: "Despite the best modern fleet of aircraft and airports, from Bashi's scrutiny you lot are never out of range; You've forgotten how to serve the passengers-- You're all bad, bad, bad! Your attitudes must change!"
• whenever I am twisted from the true to one place I come running the serried hills and the sea blue on blue draw the grief from me
• The 14th of Nevember this year is to be Oraza Bairam, a Muslim holiday Marking the last day of Ramamdan. This was discouraged when Turkmenistan Was ruled by the Soviets, but now Bashi Has OKed it by a President-for-life decree.
• What will become of this wretched land once Bashi dies? Though underneath the ground and sea an oily, gasy treasure lies, The proceeds don't help the plight of a suffering humanity too long forced to acquiesce with Bashi's insanity. The curtailed system of Turkmens' education makes the future look grim for this sad nation.
• This gives a rare glimpse inside Ashgabat by a foreign observer.
• I want Turkmens to live the golden life, in the golden spirit, with pride and unity. I want you to live with the qualities of unity, cooperation, charity, and high moral values. I have prepared Ruhnama for the Turkmen nation to be a light and a guide on its journay towards its goal. --Turkmenbashi the Great, Rukhnama
• I guess we should be thankful that Bushibashi can't string two words together to save his life - otherwise we'd all be reading the Jerknama before taking our driver's license tests.
• autumn nights are long rain rattles on my roof I come home slowly to an empty house I smile to hear the cricket calling by the stove
• Cricket calls, And I warm myself. Cricket calls, And I drink some tea. Cricket calls, And I eat some bread. Cricket calls, And I burst out weeping. Eat some cheese, And I remember (Cricket calls) When life was sweet.
• )))!!!
• Lovely, path.
• weepingly sweet
• *snif* )
• In 1001, Turkmenbashi promised to turn his country into a second Kuwait; but it's doubtful Turkmen learn Turkmen are victims of geography: the land has no access to ocean ports, though it's on the edge of the Caspian Sea, which is landlocked. Oil or gas can't be shipped directly, without making a deal with some other country.
• from my window I watch a new moon slowly transit two mountains, while I lie here alone
• Mountain Man from Turkmenistan who will cool thy heels? The land is awashy in grate Turkmenbashi but nobody knows how it feels?
• i think obviously we need a mofi meetup in turkmenistan
• Yes, the moon! Her cold fire warms the soul. Send your heart to touch her. She'll take you on a flight. Dark clouds run past her face So she sails while she's still. And when she moves she swirls The clouds into silk robes That fade into the night. Then blossom into pink Wisps of coming dawn. Perfectly poised en pointe, She leaps from peak to peak, Then disappears into Tomorrow, while you Hug the covers closer, And dream that you can speak The language of the moon. And when you awaken, You find comfort in the Journey with Selene. I know I stole the "cold fire" thing from somewhere, but I don't care.
• In observation of path outright ruling I will now go to bed :)
• path, this is fine stuff you're weaving these days!
• Bees - you keep giving me themes to play with. Kinda like dueling banjos, but more flirtacious than dueling. If my attention span were longer, I might even make the doggerel rhyme more than once a stanza. In any case, take it as homage to your mastery.
• path, as far as I'm concerned, there can't be too many poets. I love this. Keep it up!
• Visit Turkistan, if you dare, There's no thriving tourist industry there. Turkmenbashi keeps the Turkmens locked in -- And keeps others folk out, so they won't criticize him.
• Turkmenbashi is a fool a tool - a raving lunatic of the old school His ass does not shine in rhyme - or for that matter, at any time Screw his personality his reality - does not exist in actuality Fellas! Can you hit me on th' one! *good foot*
• Mother Bashi (You Got To Have A Bashi For Me)! Bashi Don't Take No Mess!! Say It Loud-I'm Bashi And I'm Proud!!!
• Bashi's Got A Brand New Rukhnama Get Up (I Feel Like Being Dictator For Life) It's a Bashi's, Bashi's, Bashi's World
• Uzbek's dictator Islam Karimov met with Turkmenbashi in Bukhara. It's unknown if they discussed the Rukhnama; but the two signed a pact between their nations, ending long tension between their countries without further ado. The two Soviet-style leaders hadn't met in four years but it seems Bashi's set aside his former fears of Uzbeks being behind an attempted assassination back in 2002.
• when the moon hides behind clouds what consoles a late traveller relying on moonlight how patiently her lover waits in the garden where only the fountain breaks the silence
• Over the desert Beside a small sea, There sits the Bashi Smiling with glee; The Turkmens have little, But Bashi is rich Because he's that kind Of a sonofabitch.
• There was an old Bashi whom everyone knew; he'd many poor Turkmen whom he told what to do; he promised them this and he promised them that -- his golden promises are hollow. But all that Turkmen have to swallow.
• ...this fertile and powerful land is a remedy for thousands of ailments and problems. When you touch the soil of this land to the face of a miserable exile who has become blind through weeping over his loneliness, he will surely see again. This land will will open his eyes. --Turkmenbashi the Great, Rukhnama
• So very true. Or utter bullshit. Either works, actually. Such is the grateness of the 'Bashi.
• pete, best not to rub the dirt into his eyes.
• I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry. --John Cage
• Who the Turkman!?
• For petebest: Why does Bashi have a giant shoe? To step on the likes of me and you.
• Wow - 'bashi is gettin' on the good foot! Unh! Goot gawd!
• In Turkmenistan, no one tells the kids not to eat dirt. In fact, Mum will often say to the kids "Have you eaten your dirt yet?!"
• That could be closer to the truth than we like to think, dj. Down, down, down, Bashi's economy has gone, Ever since Bashi took over in nineteen ninety-one. People are loosing jobs, many paychecks aren't being paid, Zip! into Bashi's pocket those sales of gas are made.
• Bashi is a gas head He's such a pompous bast-ad Shame him, blame him It's time to change the masthead! to the tune of 'ring around the rosie', obviously
• Reporters concerned with Bashi's fiefdom rank it poorly in terms of media freedom, it's near the bottom of their list -- just three nations are considered worse. Bashi's hand is always closed about reporters' throats. In a dictatorship it's pointless counting 'votes'.
• Bashi's cut a number of social services, and education for children in the nation has been cut back; the Rukhnama's a required subject, to which no Turkmen dares object. Step by tiny step, back into the dark ages are swept both Turkmen scholars and the sages.
• The Rukhnama, part I, has been tranlated into many other languages. And Part II, which came out this August has already been translated into seventeen languages. One of Bashi's shameless minister's is reported to have raised the Precious volume thrice to his forehead on introducing it. He said it brought tears to his eyes. Mine, too, for I have read Part I and am not yet recovered from the experience.
• Yeah bees you are fearless in pursuit of the bashi muse. The only thing scarier would be an in-depth investigation into NASCAR. Anyone know where I can get some bashi wrapping paper for the holidays?
• You might get sent some lovely Bashi posters, if you wrote to the Turkemenistan embassy. Politely.
• When Bashi spends money on a big machine, then Bashi wants results which can be seen! Bashi oversaw and OKed all this, But in the plan was one omission -- the cotton plants must be rather dry before the picking machine comes by. Wet fields this year left plants still green so harvest went slowly with the new machine. This plan and project was Bashi's own idea, Yet one thing is unfortuneately clear -- it won't be Bashi who gets any blame! He fired a deputy minister, and a provincial deputy -- they both have big black marks against their name.
• Nice. At least he abandoned plans for the escalator to nowhere . . .
• I hear he's working on a submarine with windscreen wipers.
• Did they get the screen door on that fixed?
• Across the sea, and mercifully far away from we is the sadland of Turkmenistan, ruled by a golden Bashi in a cape, an unpleasantly dictatorial man whose policies make the whole world gape.
• Yes, Bashi leaves a great deal to be desired. A difficulty with dictators ia that they can't be fired.
• I do NOT want to be exposed to your gaping bashi.
• Bashi's state-controlled media ignore the unrest in the Ukraine following their disputed election, and the decision to do it all over again. Sowing doubt about Basho's policy will result in life imprisonment according to Turkmen law passed last year. So will provoking discord between the state and the people. So in point of law, in theory, Bashi has nothing to fear.
• Oh, dear! Wot can the matter be? Dear, dear, we're stuck with the old Bashi, He promised us jobs and he promised us cash, he Is fonder of Bashi than us. He promised he'd build us a palace of ice, But wot do we get but his secret police, A spa for his horses, a lake in the desert, And Bashi's seen to it our days are recalendared.
• Four threads and seven posts ago, Beeswacky brought forth, upon this 'filter A new meme Conceived in punditry And dedicated to the proposition that Bashi is a nut with too much power.
• A Bashi there lives whom you may see Crushing a land by the Caspian Sea, And this Bashi rules with no other thought Than to stop everyone who might scheme or plot To oust the Bashi from the topmost spot.
• It was flashboy who initiated the original Turkmenbashi thread, long ago and far away in another time when monkey-memory was immediate and accessible.
• It's not the first slightly eccentric ruling that the Turkmenistan dictator has introduced (he likes melons, it seems.) Cobblers! It's not all fun and games, though. But at least it's not Uzbekistan. There's technically a self-link in there, but 'tis only something I had to rescue from a google cache. No ads for my new credit card service. posted by flashboy at 06:12AM UTC [trackback] (1261 comments total) True enough Sir Bees, but I think there's enough of a mandate to confirm you as titular owner of the thread. (*snkkk*) i said 'titular'
• Now ye've got me contemplating those oddities, titular heads... a john by any other name would smell as sweet and flush the same
• Here are three articles written by a Pakistani, Shabir Ahmad Khan, regarding Turkmenistan, for those interested in what a non-Westerner from a nearby country finds interesting about Turkmenistan.
• On the lake one wave nudges the next the smooth glass breaks into brilliants
• It seems that the Turkmen will soon be pleased to find in their midst, the Japanese An embassy built, they'll have one of these For pipeline concessions, no doubt, i mean please And rhyme without merit, please hope me bees! maybe neat, with a twist? on the rocks is fine too
• Hey -- you're not doing badly, petebest. Keep it up! Turkemnistan is rich in oil and natural gas, but shipping is hard, since overland these must pass through rival countries also eager to buy or sell and have no interest in seeing Turkmenistan do well. Pipeline concessions may sound good, but it's not a very friendly neighbourhood.
• Decenber nineteenth in Turkmenistan -- elections will return the same old yes-men to never question Bashi, never contradict, which is why they're called 'hand-picked'.
• News: Turkmenbashi the Great has created A mausoleum of gold and precious stones. And into this new vault has relocated His father's, mother's, brother's bones. Whilst fighting for the Soviets, In war his father's life was taken; His brother and mother, in Ashgabat, Were lost in the great earthquake. The inspired Rukhnama's author; The President-for-Life; Saparmurat grew up an orphan, And has known his share of strife. And one day, when, God forbid! Niyazov himself departs this fleshly domain, The holy place of pilgrimage Will also hold the Bashi's own remains.
• Will Bashi's giant hand e'en wave From somewhere beyond his giant grave?
• ))) for ThreeDayMonk! Bashi never got over the blunt fact of death, And will probably miss his family till his dying breath. It's been tragedy for his country, and comedy for the world, For Bashi's grown peculiar, and thinks gold and precious stones Will honour the parents' and brother's and his own bones. But the sad fact of the matter is that since he lost his family he's needed to centre himself in his country To substitute national affection lending Bashi a feeling of safety.
• In Bashiland, December 19 will be Election Day for 50 members -- that's just over a week away. The last time this body met, they did not forget to grant Bashi unlimited powers -- and I can hardly wait to see what new dreadfulness they will commit in the name of the Turmenistan state.
• Seven hundred thousand tons of cotton is all the harvest this year has gotten, that's just a third of the expected yield and Turkmenbashi blames middle and junior managers who failed to integrate work well in the cotton fields.
• Great day, great news for all Turkmen whose desire is to marry with a fancy wedding -- by October of next year, a new palace will be there -- where all the happy couples will be heading -- Bagt Koshgi, the Palace of Weddings, if not marital bliss, opens then, something wedding-celebrants will not care to miss. The cost appraoxheds four million US bucks -- let's hope this enterprise brings the Turkmen people good luck and is not a cause of further sighs.
• is Bashi married?
• [Bashi's wife played by Marion Ross, and referred to by subserviants as "Mrs. B"]
• Bashi is married, yes. To how many, I don't know, he's at least nominally a Muslim. Has two offdpring, a son who's a builder who's been in charge of some of the Ashgabat construction projects.
• The desert canal loses water through evaporation. But, even more destructive to the soil of the nation is water soaking the soil because the canal keeps leaking. Salts in the sands rise to the surface from the water seeping so that plants can't grow there long even when the area's irrigated, and the more it's watered, the worse the agricultural outlook must be rated.
• KNow Bashi's ways are always plus -- or you disappear without much fuss.
• Lest ye avoid Bashi's abusings So shall ye read Bashi's musings Rukhnama!
• Not that he's wishy-washy, but Bashi won't let any of his ministers stay very long in office lest they became so entrenched in power they try to raise a fuss that might oust Bashi. "The man's just too soft-hearted!" and so Bashi's old minister of security's departed before his authority could be much exerted. As for the old interior minister he, too, is finished.
• 140 candidates for 50 seats in Turkmenistan's parliamnent (Mejlis), tomorrow's elections are called 'free and fair' by the government. But opposition leaders and foreign observers alike doubt this. Bashi is the one who decides which candidates can run, it will not do, no, no, to elect just any sonuvagun -- they must be "very educated and intelligent", last week Bashi said, "Lawyers who know how to write laws and those who will defend Turkmenistan's reputation in internastional organizations." With Bashi making all decisions, it's not clear how those elected can make the slightest difference.
• Hurray! Hurray! it's election day, the first in five years, but awfully queer how people aren't crowding the polling stations in Turkmenistan, among the foremost of benighted nations. So slack was morning turnout that the poll keepers said they might have to carry voting boxes door-to-door instead.
• On Turkmen TV a journo made the statement A goodly turnout of at least sixty per cent All happy to take part in de-mo-cra-cy Where all support the greatest Bashi The doubters are wrong, they are mistaken For our faith in Bashi, will never be shaken. He's better than Stalin, sexier than Mao If you don't believe us, we'll take your cow!
• beauty dj - Mooooooooo! I voted for Bashi 'Cause the pollworkers watched me on election day the county clerks rough it The options are clear I'll take my vote here And tell the good Bashi to stuff it
• )))!!! for dj No opposition politicians ran In overcontrolled Turkmenistan -- No wonder since belonging to any other Party is outside their laws. So, where is the opposition? They've all vanished, some are banished internally while other fled the country. Turkmenistan is very isolated, its educational system badly outdated; the people don't see any foreign TV and aren't familiar with other politicasl systems in use bacuse they aren't shown on the national news. One surprise there was to this election show -- reported voter turnout was only 77 per cent compared with 99.6% five years ago. Actual turnout may have been far lower, But no foreigner is really sure. Foreign observers were rejected, so didn't witness how and who got elected. .
• First-time voters at Ashgabat University -- in what seems like Bashi-addled perversity -- were given a new copy of -- what else? -- the Rukhnama, a book students are taught along with grammer.
• At the moment of my betrayel to my president let my breath stop. --aoth from Rukhnama, by Turkmenbashi the Great This week has been enlivened by the attempts of the Turkmen government to defend the election results. It's now being reported that residents of Ashgabat were pressured to turn out in order to make the election results look good. Since all candidates running were members of the only political party to which ii is lawful to belong, voter apathy seems to have run high.
• Tomorrow will see an election in neighbouring Uzbekistan, so recently reconciled to neighouring Turkmenistan, as well as the more widely publicized one in the Ukraine.
• Through the world's hottest desert he plans to build a river; his name is Turkmenbashi and he plans to live forever. Despite the desert heat Turkmen children will wear ice skates on their feet -- yes, Turkmenbashi builds ice palaces in the air.
• Ukraine elections place Yushchenko in the lead. Plenty of international observers to keep it more honest than the previous fiasco, one hopes. No surprises in the Uzbekistan election -- this being one of the many boring features of a dictatorship. Members of opposition parties had their applications rejected. Ho hum. The foreign observers are predominantly Russian; they report the elexction was a model of democracy. And pigs have wings. /sarcasm
• BULLETIN! turkmenbashi spotted in the latest Economist!
• Ooo, nice find on the Badnesses of Bad Men, SideDish! This is my favorite part of it: But the most obvious reason that despots behave badly is because they can.
• At the moment of my betrayel to my president let my breath stop. Isn't this from the Bush/Cheney 2004 candidate speech loyalty oath?
• A man would have to have bats in his attic to belive Turkmenistan's elections are democratic.
• Russia is reporting that Bashi wants to get a lot more cash for sales of his country's natural gas -- which through a foreign pipeline now must pass. Supposedly, no contract has been signed, and Turkemenistan is not resigned to selling at prices below market levels, but until they have a pipeline of their owen laid it's hard to see such changes being made.
• Russian literary celebrities bow before Turkmenbashi the poet The translation (from Russian) is Babelfishy, but the content is clear and repellent. Can you imagine a serious writer stooping so low as to praise a vicious tyrant without the excuse of being under said tyrant's thumb? *remembers Sartre and Stalin, falls silent*
• I can imagine an entire nation's media being under the thumb of a particularly violent and reckless administration with nothing more than the threat of not being allowed in the room with them. Huh . . looks like my Pat Boone Christmas record didn't repeat automatically . . . let's just fix that here . . . aaannd a little more holiday cheer . . *shhlllrp* . Ahhhh. All better!
• *grabs petebest's holiday cheer, takes a swig* Ahhh! Feelin' a lot merrier now!
• Apart from his the abuses Bashi inflicts on other people, the thing that annoys me most is his labelling himself a poet. And the seeming acceptance of this by others. Bashi no such thing -- he is merely a propagandist. And the thing that annoys me most about the reams of written about the incredible Bashi is that almost no one bothers to excoriate him for writing lousy drivel which no thinking being can term poetry. As long as Bashi is called a poet it's insulting to all other poets, living and dead.
• Will he or won't he -- turn off the gas at midnight (during the coldest time of the year)? The answer so far isn't clear, so this one is going right down to the wire, for Bashi wants gas prices set higher. Russia, by some oversight, has neglected to pay anything like what world prices are elsewhere today. So Bashi's plan is to turn off the gas for a week and see if this will bring about the price he seeks. But wait! a phone call earlier today from Putin may put an end to this disputin'.
• Did he or didn't he? Yes, Bashi did his worst -- natural gas stopped moving on January first through the pipeline into Ukraine and on to Russia, and now diplomats have talking to do. Bashi sent a delegation to the Russian nation where talks will be conducted without much public information.
• May my Turkmen people prosper, May they live happily from century to century, May the flag fly like a green bird into the mists of time, May every step of his people be sunny. -- Turkmenbashi the Great, * More incredible praise for Bashi's drivel. In conclusion: They want that gas very badly.
• May the flag fly like a green bird into the mists of time Fuck, this guy knows how to mix a metaphor.
• Turkmenistan signed a contract yesterday -- supposedly gaining a better price for bargaining its underpriced gas away. Since purchasers will continue to pay half the total in 'goods and services', whether this is any actual improvement isn't so clear to skeptics today.
• No word yet on what Bashi's responce is gonna be, to fellow Islamic nations hit by those tsunamis -- but don't hold your breath waiting for Bashi to part with any of his precious cash.
• The cash of Ashgabat Is rooted in the pocket Of Bashi Cold, crinkled, and kept
• On December 31, Turkmenistan cut off its gas shipments to Russia and Ukraine, then sent a delegation to Moscow to renegotiate terms again. Russia termed this behaviour from Bashi as 'mercurual' for Bashi's strange behaviours are approaching the proverbial. Bashi acted in the best interests of ?Turkmenistan -- he maintains -- though Turkmens are unlikely to see much increase in fees gained.
• The plot thickens! Today from Ulraine sad cries rise again. Why? the gentleman who's the head of the state gas monopoly has no right to sign contracts, the Ukraine government said. Still, a contract's already been signed between Turkmenistan and Ukraine -- so in future will they find this has to be done over again? Or will they simply deny the whole thing? O such a quandry to find one's nation in!
• Ay - Wen Big Bashi sez youse ain't gotta contrack - you ain't got gas . . capiche?
• the gleaming car recedes and your face in the window if only I could fly to the garden to the flowers blooming within you
• Who casts his shadow far across the land And builds more palaces than we can understand? Yes, it's Bashi, who, with all his faults, Keeps prisoners pent in his gaols and vaults. See his gold-cloaked statue, tour his stable, Other Turkmen might like to but are not able.
• Tibet and its people were long isolated, their knowledge of world affairs non-existent or dated -- not knowing what went on in other lands, they'd no allies by treaty bound. When the Chinese came in, Tibetans, forced to revize, learned such stand-alone tactics are sadly unwise. Now Turkmenistan grows more isolated with each Bashi-ridden year. Young Turkmen, sadly undereducated, will have a future hard to bear. Once Bashi dies, what will the country do? They're already a century behind. Or two. Ignorance is never lasting bliss; in the long run it's highly dangerous. In a world of shrinking petroleum resources, Turkmen in midstream will be changing horses -- for underneath their nations's shores and soil lie those scarce-tapped reserves of gas and oil.
• Ukraine's agreed to a thirty per cent hike in price of gas, and so did just what the Bashi liked. Now if only Russia will go along with the new price Turkmenbashi can celebrate a suceesful role of the dice. I'd be all sincere admiration if this should beneifit the nation, but into Bashi's pocket most of it will go, giving each Turkmen very little dough.
• Somehow, I imagine Bashi in front of the press, both hands gripping the podium, scowling, before intoning in a rich baritone: "I . . am not a crook"
• A Bashi Song No, by no means, I'm not a crook! Circumstance just has that ugly look! I'm good and kind and just trying to find a way to get my sweet self off the hook!
• In the colder days of Turkmenistan, A Commun-ism spread o'er the land A clime so harsh, so red, so thick - It made me yearn for Tricky Dick *victory scowl, boards chopper*
• Bashi has the media in his country sewn up so tightly finding out what Bashi's up to is never very easy. Foreign reporters have beaten and drugged by Bashi's Bashi's henchmen, and Bashi only shrugged.
• =have been beaten
• Ah, Bashi, I could see you fall without remorse, but I would feel sorry for your horse.
• *whinny* *snort!*
• Russia wants Bashi's gas. They need it because they're selling Russian gas to Europe, leaving less domestic product for Russians. They say higher prices aren't necessary. Bashi says, 'More money for Bashi!' His motive's strictly mercenary, he's upped his price from forty-four to sixty -- [suspense music begins to play]. Now, negotiations are underway. What happens next no one can say.
• Bashi now keeps dreaming by day as well as night, and as he dreams his price keeps climbing like tendrils of a melon vine winding themselves through a garden trellis. Bashi, won't you wake and tell us what's going on inside your palace?
• Muskmelons! You saucy, luscious melons We salute your swollen rinds! thank you
• Now if I had eggs to put in one basket I would not ask Bashi to carry it, for Bashi's unreliable, he might well find them fryable, or have them boiled or deviled. His taste for gold is undeniable and eggs have golden yolks, and Bashi doesn't much regard the needs of common folks.
• I eat bread and sour curds on the flank of the mountain if only you were here I would sing always
• For now, Russia says 'no' and Bashi negotiators seem still in Moscow. What does the glorious future hold? Bashi's determined, and Bashi is bold. Putin says the old contract holds until 2028 -- Bashi holds it's out of date.
• happiness is when all your ewes drop twin lambs say the old men say the old men should girl cast eyes young man think otherwise
• If no news is good news then good news today, though there's no word on gas talks or what price Russia will pay.
• A flower blooms. The world goes on its way. Of Bashi, news seems much the same as it was yesterday.
• What part of the Bashi brain Flees in terror when life regains It's tenuous hold on matters sane And reasonable to all of us? Is he just a powerful nut? Would psychotherapy help him thus? Psychotherapy psychotherapy psychotherapy is what they wanna give me . .
• Bashi's sure that Bashi knows best how to balance the demands of the East against the West or Russia against Bashiland and in this case, he might just be right for Russia, stripped of her former might, is trying to stay afloat by inviting former satellites to climb back into the Russian boat. Basshi I think is a horse-trading man astride the tireless horse that is Turkmenistan racing at a crazy pace out of its stable ridden by Bashi the Unpredictable. Bashi will continue riding as long as he's able to sit a saddle, doing what will lead to Bashi's ends, for in politics -- there's no such thing as 'friends'! Bashi got what he set out to from Ukraine and I wouldn't be surpised if he maes makes some gain with Russia, who's put itself over a barrel -- with Bashi Putin can't afford right now to quarrel. Russia's selling gas to Europe in quantity which means Russians could run shy of what they need if Bashi doesn't come up to scratch Russians could be up the Volga without any paddle. Meanwhile of gas negotiations -- not one word's public yet as to the final verdict.
• Large reserves of gas and oil have been found under the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea. Whatever that may consist of. Countries bordering the Caspian Sea have yet to work out a mutual agreement concerning development of undersea reserves.
• Isn't the Caspian Sea a place where caviar is harvested as well? Not that i'm in to that kind of thing . . .
• Yes, it is, the best-known, from beluga strurgeon, seems to be harvested more from from Russian-Iranian waters of the Caspian. Does Bashi eat caviar? No one knows, or if they do they're not confiding Bashi's taste in fish roes. Bashi's picture appears on vodka bottles -- I wonder just how far is that from eating caviar?
• the river floats me through fields where men cut hay under the ache of a soon-to-rain sky
• the Caspian sea Casper the friendly Bashi Capture the Turkmen Roe-fully.
• Heh! pete roes his boats as best he may.
• one small caviar - I don't actually own a boat.
• cut the caspian caviar cacaphony, cabbie.
• Asinine question of the day: Wot's the plural of Turkmenbashi? Asinine answer: Turkmanybashi (and heaven forfend him being cloned)
• Still not a word, no one's heard what the price of gas is to be; no triumphant hooting from Putin, and so far, no glad cries from Bashi.
• when it rains my roof leaks water, the rest of the time, sunlight and stars
• That one is particularly beautiful. Bravo!
• We know they're up to something, but we don't know what it is; is Putin scheming, or is he beaming now Bashi's in the gas and oil biz?
• If I were a bird for distance flying to Bashi's palace I would soar and see what mischief Bashi the Great's up to since Turkmen media don't give news any more.
• Love, I hear a small bird singing home the morning as I walk the path to your front door. Then it's time to leave and I walk away, with never a bird singing any more.
• *Waaahhhh!* *snif* Do a happy one!
• I strolled in the spring past the lambs capering, as I placed hives of bees under blossoming peach trees.
• Eighty per cent of Turkmenistan is sand, the wastes of the Karakum Desert. Bashi's plans for a lake there are far too grand according to water experts, for water's always in short supply, and what little they have is wasted by evaporation and leaks from the Karakum Canal. Now Bashio's son's company will add to the fallal with a twelve kilometer river through the capital.
• We'll plan for our summer by the river's bright shimmer, and soon leave the glamour of the city by the river. For we've taken the measure of all Bashi's pleasures, and mutter and splutter about the old dictator.
• Now if you'd told me That rat bastard screwed fishes I'd have to wonder About his erotic wishes But now I see, words from the bee Mean 'Bashi's got problems With water issues. Grrrrr!
• He has issues with Bashi, for everything is Bashi as far as he can see. All that he can touch is Bashi, all that he can feel is Bashi, and yet it's not enough. Though Bashi's at the centre, and at all the edges as well Bashi's numb to other people, and this is what it means, I think, to truly dwell in hell.
• I'm telling ye, Putin, you need not be so high-falutin'! You think to bargain down the price I ask for gas, but my agents won't harken, so your objections do not pass. The year is new, the signs are all auspicious: the sky over Bashiland is blue and the sun is a golden ball above -- and soon I will have the cash I love for in bargining I can be quite vicious. This Bashi heart now fills with glee, thinking of money for glorious ME!
• O bah! O Bashi, O horror! O nausea! Now comes a third book To inflict On long-suffering folk Of your country because of ye! Aye, this is sad news For his unhappy nation -- Though, of course,it could be worse: Bashi's had published a third book of "verse". The Spring of My Spirituality is the name Of the third execration For which Bashi's to blame.
• When one thinks of the concpet of time in its peculiar conditions, one can see life shrink into a single entity of being. That being neither speaks not hears. However it expresses itself through the winds whirtling over the endless Garagum desert, and the winds surfing through the peaks of the waves of the Caspian Sea, and the gentle breezes that flow down from Mount Kopet. And this has a bearing on the Turkmen spirit. -- Turkemenbashi the Great, Rukhnama Hot winds sweep the land of the Turkmen, and some find the hot air delicious, but it gives politicians a bad example, and encourages one to write jibberish.
• Continuing the Turkmenbashi hot air motif: THE YEAR OF RUKHNAMA (Spirituality) is here!!!! Yes, it's true. In honour of Bashi's book, the year 2005 has been offficially declared a year of Ruhnama/Rukhnama by Turkmenistan's parliament.
• cricket sings with passion of brief life's passing this works he sings he gets her but my girl just laughs this demonstrates she's no cricket I demonstrate I'm desperate
• MoFi should declare a year of something. Bashi already has a year. Or a lifetime, I suppose. 2005: Year of the cockpunch?
• Why not, pete? 2005, THE YEAR OF COCK PUNCH! /cock punchy?
• Today's another day of hot air: Bashi addressed the Turkmen parliament and business was conducted there with Bashi hearing never an argument.
• must be tough to be surrounded by "Da" men.
• Mark your calendars: Bashi's birthday is February 19th!. He'll be 65.
• Oh, hell, my mom's is on the ninth. Thanks for jogging my memory! She, by the way, will not be 65, and is not a lunatic dictator who hates beards. She's a lovely woman.
• Heh. That's the best thing Bashi's done in ages, then, mct.
• Turkmen people, don't get your hopes up, or your fears. Bashi's told parliament that new presidential elections with three or four candidates should be held in a few more years. We shall see; he's said this before, and in the meanwhile has discouraged all who might fill his shoes. So I expect you'll suffer the same old woes.
• At last, news about the gas dickerings: Russia's saying now it may not buy any gas from Turkmenistan; there's been a month of bickerings And so far not much but hot air's been passed. Russia says that Bashi's agents wants a new contract at Bashi's price in time for Bashi's birthday which falls on February nineteenth. It remains to be seen if this reason will suffice.
• Don't think Bashi's crazy. He's calculating and sly -- simply to have stayed in power as the years rolled by since Russia came to pieces, and he became number one, and I think my money's on Bashi getting the best of Putin.
• To miss Bashi's b-day Mould make me a felon A worse day to miss Is the day of Muskmelon
• across the fields of golden melon blossom I wave you out of sight then cry O love, come back if only in my dreams
• You'll never know you're in a desert If your entire head Is encased In muskmelon. Chompy bits Sluicing slurpy sweetness *Barrunch* smackswallowgulp
• To get my head in melon stuck would probably be just my luck.
• when cold wind scours the pass with small flakes of snow I pull my jacket round me and warm myself by thinking of my girl
• February 18th is due to see a delegation of gas folk from Russia in the Turkmen nation -- according to the last reports from Tass, there has been no progress made concerning gas. But talks go on, and since they'll meet next in Turkemenistan, the Russians may be hexed.
• Winter's almost passed; The muddy ground be-grassed. The sun's come out at last, And shorter shadows cast. Yet still I pine and wait; My darlin' boy is late. I hope the spring will send Him home to me again.
• waiting for you feels like a stone lion guarding a gate winged but motionless I wait here as the wind sleets me with sand so I am worn thinner than a whisper and the sun simmers all the baked air for eons around me
• That's beautiful, bees. Very much like how I feel now....
• Ach, would give ye a hug, Alnedra, but these electronic arms are so awkward when ye're just a bug.
• What does all that poetry Have to do with Turkmenbashi?
• What you say? Make your time! The bees doth educate In Bashi rhyme! Tho the Rukhnama Is Bashi's attempt, Bees' opus on MoFi Makes us all verklempt!
• Bashiland remains reclusive for little news comes out since foreign reporters find the place abusive. The gas talks with Russia are still abusive. Big Davey, threads are shaped by the input of those who comment; Bashi's reputation as a poet makes rhymed response inevitable, not just here, but in the original thread and its intermediate successor.
• This February 27 will mark the anniversary of Bashi on mokeyfilter. (Ugh.)
• Sorry, should read original thread and intermediate successor
• Wow a one-year thread eh? We'll have to have a party . . .
• All that oil, Russians, and desert people.... Hmm. No war yet? Mabye the physcics are wrong? why didn't Russia just drive some tanks in or something. Seems very civilized. But I bet you, when I get there, there won't be any free cattle left.
• Say again, this is the desert Utopia I've been hearing about? Supposed to be a model for Communism or something? Even the peasants drive Mercedes? Thats bril!
• Ye have the wrong desert utopia, alas. Many countries are interested in the natural gas, but the money for what sold of it goes directly into Bashi's coffers -- and tribal Turkmen don't see much of it.
• So far, neither side's flinched -- but Russia's in a pinch since Russia has planned to sell gas to Europe that's bought from Bashiland. Bashi, having hiked the price for Ukraine, remains intent on doing it again.
• thousands of girls with braided hair but only one has me ensnared fields of melons baskets of peaches my girl's surpasses Bashi's riches
• Yow!
• You wax so eloquently, but my friend it is so far from elementary? Six star will get you far, but at a stool I'm but a tool. They call me the watermelon man not the daughter sellin' man, A life of strife, rife with kife, your a bit blogging, but still try jogging, Alas, this may sound crass, in a carfuful I can shufull, although short of luck, and long of tooth, so says puck, sit n'drink vermooth
• Turkmenbashi is no. seven here. I was going to make a joke, or a haiku, but shit. Even though this is reported in Parade Magazine, it's still a bunch of oppression and wretchedness.
• this thread won't be any more fun without bees. *sigh* i miss bees.
• ??
• bees is gone, pete. *sniff* *SOB!*
• Yeah, well . . . I was gettin' tired of him anyway. *snif* *kicks dirt*
• who ever thought that bees would go before bashi did?
• please excuse me, but did you say bees is... gone?? I do not understand, why would bees leave?
• Get in line minda25 - I think a few of us have the same question, although whatever the reason is, it still sucks.
• Game over man, game over! /hicks
• I saw 'bashi on the news the other night and regaled my housemates with tales of melons, golden statues and general 'bashi insanity. I hope we don't have to lassoo another poet laureate (get it, get it?).
• I
• And another thing, if ye don't got da bling, or cannot sing, do not bow or don't know how, taxes can be paid, as long as sun is rayed, I except gold if I may be so bold, don't 'ave any? ye children will be sold. I am the funky monkey junky, and this is my link, what? I make ye think? I got th' oil, I'll make ya' toil, don't it make your blood boil?
• minda, bees had been recently saddened by the increasingly "mean" overall feel of mofi. i haven't seen that but everyone perceives things their own way. i miss bees terribly.
• I think it's mean of beeswacky to blow town without so much as a parting word, or poem. That's what I think is mean. But I'm being selfish about it. Hope your prostate is healthy, and hope you come back, sweet versifying bees.
• Well, I suppose that when communities go through periods of change, some old-timers can't reconcile the differences, and leave. Dizzy, Nostril, Bees.... and I've noticed that quite a few Mofi fixtures haven't been around nearly as much lately. What a pisser.
• i wonder if any/all of them will/have come back as "someone else"...
• *eyes Crackpot suspiciously*
• I blame Crackpot. Because I hafta blame sumbuddy... Word to your bashi.
• goddammit.
• .
• A missing friend an absence noted "Come back, bees!" the silence shouted. Hey- it sounds like bees is feeling a little better about the world. Maybe if we all concentrate on thoughts of peaceful banana-y goodness, he may sometime rejoin us. I'm crossing my atheist fingeybones, anyway.
• Heh, I read "rejoin" as "reign".
• Do I smell an abdication? Heh.
• no way. bees already rules. But there can be only one (Monkey)bashi.
• Axh, ye miserable slackers! Bashi's birthtday fell on February nineteenth which was Flag Day as well. All Bashi wanted for his birthday was to get his own way; now it's anybody's guess, for Russia's still dickering and bickering over the price of Turkmenistan's gas. So Turkmenbashi's birthday came and went with surprisingly little public comment.
• bees!! *hugs beeswacky and does the little happy dance*
• Our bees is with us! The ice palace of my heart melts for pure joy. No monkey's foot could fill the giant empty shoe of loneliness. As the sun appears the golden monkey statue turns to bask in it.
• *hugs mothninja* Pallas Athena, that's delighful! I am especiaslly smitten by the giant empty shoe of loneliness -- an exquisite metaphor which reminds me of Earnest Bramah's Kai Lung -- thanks!
• hee hee-- hope the giant shoe didn't inflict too many bruises! Thanks, yourself.
• Heh. Wot it is with all these footloose shoes and socks straying from their designated owners? *fingers gingerly the Big Giant Bump on his head*
• His Turkmen know they must kowtow -- For Bashi makes the sun come up and Bashi hangs the changing moon and Bashi's ordered up the constellated sky where stars like melon blossoms bloom. Now Bashi wants his money soon and does great Putin gas deny. I can't think that Bashi's crazy, I suspect that Bashi's very sly.
• The gas standoff continues -- as we grow more creaky in our bones and stiffer in our sinews.
• The end of February is here and at this point darn little else is clear; neither side will budge an inch, both parties in protracted clinch.
• I have a lover I have a dog I have a mortgage (or "death pact") Still I wonder on Bashi's Blog About the Turkmen's gas contract 2005. It adds life.
• Rah rah the rascal Putin did sit down with the Bashi and tried to nut out a deal that would make each other happy Meanwhile on Red Square and the streets of Ashgabat they gathered round the fires too poor to be warmed by fat
• ))) for our petes!!! And ))) for jb!!! These monkeys do break out in bashi-ing poetry.
• Rural healthcare unneeded, declared Turkmenbashi. If they are sick, let them come to the capital. And with that, he issued a decree For the closure of every provincial hospital. So, everywhere except Ashgabat, Medical facilities fall into disuse; Doctors and nurses are getting the sack So that 'Bashi can buy yet more gaudy gold statues.
• Fine work there, ThreeDayMonk! Roughly once a month the Bashi unfortuneately does something that seems uncalled for to the rest of us: now he's finishing the demolition of national health care in his nation, a program he began last year when trained medical personnel were suddenly replaced by untaught members of the army, and which the world was swift to jeer. Some folk say Bashi's balmy. But I say he's cruel and calculating and also that he is no fool. His object is to have what's best for Bashi, better for Bashi, and good for Bashi! And if that means subject the rest of his countrymen to disease and death the Bashi won't fail, he'll past every test of selfisness and self-interest -- for he's never wishy-washy.
• This is all speculation, mind. but, Assuming Russia's not paying Bashi until the gas dispute's resolved, that would leave Bashi short of money -- so cutbacks come, like having his land unhospitalled. Because there's never enough of the really good stuff just for Bashi, never enough cash, never enough gold, never enough praise to keep a Bashi flashy or from knowing he's grown old, and won't have many more good days. And, those Russians were BAD to him on his birthday, so he had to manage something else to do, since they didn't give Bashi the present he wanted, and Bashi's not used to being said no to --. he allowed himself (by way of compensation) to take something people need and want from the Turkmen nation. Because nobody's ever been really nice to Bashi. He gives all sorts of useful advise, but never has any fun. Oh, yes, even a dictator can tell when his people don't like him very well -- why, if they liked him, they'd have made the Russians finish the deal that Bashi had begun last month and do so at once!
• February nineteenth is Bashi's birthday. rejoicing is the wisest course in this sad nation; it's also Flag Day in Turkmenistan. And if these aren't cause enough for celebration, it's also Police Day, which must be grand since Bashi uses at least three separate sets of secret police to keep order in this secret police-ridden land.
• Today is three-four-five and Bashi's presumably still alive, and yet the gases do not flow from Turkmenistan to Moscow. Report of the undoing of the hospitals outside the capital contunues. Turkmen, don't get sick! That's all.
• it's a long way from here to the border and Ashgabat lies just as far from our clinic which has no doctor n this village we are torn apart like paper carried by a dying man and dropped to scatter on the empty sand
• the land holds paradoxes a river runs cupped in concrete the old canal leaking water that lifts salts up to the top of the dry soil spoiling it for planting here wind sweeps grains of black sand from the dunes' faces the process shifting things by only small degrees and yet the end inevitable as a tunnel mice gnaw lengthens one mouse-mouthful at a time to reach at last a store of wheat
• Who hasn't read the online English transalation of the Rukhnama by now may not have a chance to for quite a while, since the URL mentioned above has altered the site. Believe me, ye've not missed any poetry, just snatches of plagiarized folktales, unattributed legends, and Bashi's hypocritical poppycock.
• =translation
• transubstantiation? And yet somehow I feel less well read for having consciously avoided it like the plague.
• A fair number of excerpts in the various Bashi threads -- enough to give a person the pedestrian, plodding flavour of it.
• Oh had I read the book, of Bashi's sagely wisdom even just a little look would have rendered me not senseless but sensed my time thus wisely spent Now the vagaries of the web conspire against me hiding greatness from this pleb who dares to pen a line or two about the Bashi, that great man greatest leader of Turkmenistan
• ))), dj!!!
• Most rain that sampens Bashi's land falls in the first five months of the year, so now the growing season's underway and green things sprout and crops uprear. As the year winds on, crops are gathered till the harvest's done; Bashi keeps saying schoolchildren won't be made to harvest cotton, working long hours with their teachers in the fields, but Turkmenistan's economy depends in part on those high cotton yields. What will happen this year will probably be like the last, with pupils and teachers working in fall while their schoolrooms are unclassed.
• beauty one dj! "You're like the cotton harvest in Turkmenistan . . . nooo claass!" /Rudy
• For sampens please read dampens
• I prefer 'sampans'.
• Ye would, ye divvil!
• If ye wonder where the fishes are that give the world real caviare, they're mostly swimming in the seas off Russian and Iranian shores, as opposed those of Turkmenbashi's.
• = as opposed to those
• Bashi's turning over his cabonet again. He doesn't want to encourage politically ambitious men, so he only lets ministers serve in higher office a few years, before he claims they're incompetent then throws 'em out without much fuss. This makes it look like Basho's the sole man in the land to seem remotely competent and look consistently grand.
• =Bashi *apologizes profoundly to the shade of Basho*
• If the poet Basho led this land his poetry would seem no joke.
• Don't look now It's not evident at first but Basho Has a goatee. You see He is the evil Bashi. Or the good. It's a mystery.
• Nah. Think ye may be thinking of Busho, petebest.
• On his hat of cypress he wrote: Nowhere in this universe have I found a settled home. Death took his hat off. As he should. But the line stayed with us. Only in his poems could he live.... -- Cees Nooteboom, from "Basho III"
• Don't let me give Bashi no jive Is there a more lifeful dictator alive? I think nothing I speak of things Turkmen and No not Yo.
• Doubt that now Bashi will travel far from the capital since only there remains a functioning hospital. He's been dismantling the school systems as well: the only safe jobs are for police or military personnel.
• And what's a sick policeman to do Cop an attitude? Rudness abounds on Bashi's watch Time for a change.
• He will have to go to Ashgabat like everyone else ... except Bashi. Radio Free Europe has an article on a syndicated political cartoonist named Ted Rall whose area of concentration is Turkmenistan and Uzbekhistan, and in which he says Bashi just went to Germany for an eye operation. [http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/3/ C6BB8FEB-CAA8-426F-8F51-E0BE24A2B671.html"] which I can't access through the FF browser].
• here and here. I know Ted Rall. i forget the name of that strip of his I know though. . . Most seem to be about the Uzbek or other central asia places. Bashi could have a full time editorial cartoonist. Besides you, of course bees :)
• Haha! Great links, petebest! First time I've seen Eall's work -- he's definitely a man after my own heart!
• PS -- I'm no cartoonist, just thoroughly pissed off by people calling this Bashi's maunderings poetry. Enjoy caricature, though.
• I've always liked Ted Rall's style. He's always focused a lot on tinpot dictators, and US's involvement with such, but I never (while in the US) noticed a specific focus on T-bashi. Santa Cruz monkeys: is the Comic News still around? If so, make sure you read it. Ted Rall used to be a regular feature.
• Said in the RF Europe article he knew other political cartoonists living in Central Asia, but that they were unable to publish their work. "Rall said Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan provide a treasure trove of news that is of interest to an American audience: Turkmenistan because of its eccentric president, and Uzbekistan because of its role on the war on terror." "In his cartoons, Rall covers issues ranging from the political opposition in the five Central Asian republics to attacks on the press. He also covers developments in nearby countries, including Afghanistan and Azerbaijan."
• Bashi-centred news is all the news we usually get from Bashiland, where all the local media are under Bashi's hand, and foreign journalists all understand Bashi's police can maltreat them with impunity -- so reporting there's a limited opportunity.
• What these silly critis fail to understand is how simple education is in Bashiland. Who needs all those tedious years of school when geography lessons boil down to one simple rule -- if its a town or a street then Turkmenbashi is the name -- for simplifying learning Bashi is to blame. And why bother with history or literature since anything of interest must occur inside the covers, neatly bound, of the Rukhnama which dear Bashi wrote and from which an ignorant populace is forced to quote. /it gets sarcastic here from time to time
• A Russian journalist, escorted in handscuffs to Ashgabat's airport, boarded a flight to Moscow (better than appearing in one of Bashi's courts). But no one's saying why or how he lucked out in being sent to Moscow.
• It appears that the Nevada National Guard has a "State Partnership" with Turkmenistan. Seems fitting, given the surreality of both Las Vegas and Ashgabat.
• The US military has a number of bases in areas of Central Asia, some negotiated following the 9-11 attacks. And some military equipment has been given to Turkmenistan, although it's by no means a central player in the region. But never in my wildest flights did I make an Ashgabat-Las Vegas connection before. Thanks for the long strange trip, islander.
• Bright Lights Ashgabat gonna set my Bashi Gonna Set my Bashi on fire Gotta whole lotta freedom that's a-ready to burn So set that statue up higher Bashiiiiiiii . . . Las Vegas! /gyrate
• To Ashgabat, I say, to Ashgabat, that's where the action now is at! Today the president of Ukraine flies in for two days of energy talks with Turkmenistan.
• To Ashgabat, I say, to Ashgabat, that's where the action now is at! Today the president of Ukraine flies in for two days of energy talks with Turkmenistan.
• Nothing says summertime in Turkmenistan Like a double-dipped bees missive at hand.
• Bashi's got gas He needs to pass On to the Turkmenistan people. Bashi's negotiations In these situations Need promises he'll honestly keeple. train wreck in two stanzas for table five!
• One fact that wont go away -- Russia needs Turkmenistan's gas today. Now Yushchenko and Bashi continue their energy talk possibly calculated to make Russia squawk. The new plan, some think, is for Turkmenistan and Ukraine to ultimately sell Turkmen gas to Europe, direct and plain, instead of letting Russia buy it up, then ship by aging pipeline, to northern Europe. Bashi's doing fine at getting Yushchenko's backing for all this, since if Russia's bypassed, it won't be missed.
• Events move fast today in Kyrgyzstan -- protestors have control now of government offices and the airport, and are chanting in the streets, and all in all are brewing quite a fuss. Is this a Kyrgyzstan revilution? It's bringing recent events in Ukraine to mind. All five of the landlocked nations that broke from Russsia are headed by dictators -- but change seems in the wind. (If this suceeds in Kyrgyzxtant, seems likely the other four of the five land-locked nations -- including Turkmenistan -- may well be affected. It doesn't seem likely any new leader to emerge will be a shining beacon of democracy and human rights, but one can hope some beneifts may accrue to the long-suffering peoples of this area.)
• And to fresh events in Bashiland: -- Yushchenkp and Bashi failed to reach agreement on the 15-year gas contract Ukraine hoped for. But before he left,Yushchenko -- a man I increasingly adore -- spoke out at a press conference which he attended with Bashi -- saying, "Democracy, liberty, or freedom are not just empty words for me and my partners in the Ukrainian government coalition. We will defend the values in which we believe and for which we have struggled." He went on to add to the Turkmen audience, "I want to be honest with my children and my nation. Maybe what counts most is not that some problems exist. What matters most is that there should be a will to overcome them...." It looks like Kyrgyzstan is moving -- be interesting to see if the repressed Turkmen do so. Did Bashi react to this unprecedented talk fo change? Yes -- he reacted defensively -- by uttering more of his usual lies, "We do not have people arrested fro political motives. There are several people, wanted criminals, who stay abroad under the guise of refugees and spread filthy rumours." Heh. So Yushchenko got through to at least that member of his hearers.
• BBC's reporting the president of Kyrgyzstan has been toppled. Interesting times for Central Asia!
• What will happen next, who can say, Now that Kyrgazstan's government is gone away. I'm hoping this won't result in more repression for the wretched Turkmen nation.
• I heard this news on the radio And momentarily thought to myself Oh! Did he say Turkmenistan? But it was not so.
• Bashi has such a stranglehold on his country's media, I wonder how much, if any, news leaks through to the Turkmen people of what goes in the outside world.
• Uprisings so far in these former Russian nations: Georgia Ukraine Kyrgyzstan Belarus -- where the dictator is cracking down on protetors. Doubtless Bashi is keeping close watch on events.
• If the people topple Bashi What leader will we wax rhapsodically about? Who has the clout? Bush is out.
• What do worried dictators do? Do they sit around to sweat and stew Do they flee the coop to end up in Tahiti? Do they concentrate on dictator safety? Do they gather together to form some new strategy? Whoever's runnig off, I'll bet it won't be Bashi.
• I understand it's the dictator's thrill To run away to the land of Brazil and be free at last of the fear of attack Unless, of course, there's an ax in your back.
• I forgot to post this a long time ago: Even dictators have friends as grisly as their deeds may be, though the bodies may pile on high, every despot has a family There’s always someone they can trust for at least a second or two until the money runs out, or the national interest changes Then the comrades turn into traitors, and allies become the next big threat Even dictators have friends but the closest friend is power Love is sacrificed to higher ends squeezed in minds so narrow There are those who lay their lives down - for monsters still benefit from loyalty But is it respect, fear or envy that breeds the lust for power... must they breathe the air of evil or drown or is it something merely more banal?
• ))) for petebest!!! ))) for dj!!! And I call for cockpunch on the house!
• I can't remember whether I edited that last one, I'll have a look around. I have so many versions floating around of stuff I re-wrote when I posted it on a new website, or realised something was complete crap. I don't think I have enough bananas for you bees! but here are some for you and pete best to share, just the same ))))))))! Perhaps we should produce an anthology of Bashi poetry? If i thought poetry could make money, we could give proceeds to any organization that worked to make the lives of our Turkmen equivalents more enjoyable and less Bashi.
• A fine thought dj, but somehow I don't think Bashi would be pleased. ? Oh, one sec, there's a knock at my doo- Turkmenвеня is great. All hail Turkmenвеня. His works ring throughout the land земля для людей. Sincerely, Internet loser-geek
• I figure working for bananas beats working for peanuts. But very few make money through poetry these days. alas, dj. Bashi's thorough repression of dissent, the imprisonment of any percieved malcontent makes protests rare if not unknown, last year some flyers were scattered in Ashgabat town -- but dissenters have been jailed or live in exile so any change seems unlikely for a while.
• Waves I have swum too far out of my depth and the sun has gone; the hung weight of my legs a plumb-line, my fingers raw, my arms lead; the currents pull like weed, and I am very tired and cold, and moving out to sea. The beach is still bright. The children I never had run to the edge and back to their beautiful mother who smiles at them, looks up from her magazine, and waves. -- Robin Robertson
• In mid-April, yet another delegation, this time from Russia to the Turkmen antion, for the stalemate over gas sales continues and so far no sign of accord's in the news.
• The self-styled gent, our Turkmenbashi, stays embrioiled in disagreements -- squablles over the Caspian Sea (or is it a lake-to-be?) and over gas pipelines and anyone who fails to agree with the autocratic dictator Bashi. So life (hopefull) goes on along the Caspian shore where the average lifespan for a man is only sicty-four.
• BASHI isn't dead. Bashi ISN"T dead. Bashi isn't DEAD. Not he! DON'T ask about his enemies. Don't ASK about his enemies. Don't ask ABOUT his enemies. Don't ask about HIS enemies. Son't ask about his ENEMIES. Or not this week, if you please.
• Turkmenbashi is NOY going to the Pope's funeral.
• = NOT
• President Bashi has not backed down in disputung gas prices with Moscow. which means Russia has a shortfall in fulfilling contracts now. No gas flows in the Russian pipeline -- Bashi's deal with Ukraine means he's fine. Russia's not in a good bargaining position whereas Bashi's a pal now of the Ukraine nation.
• Makes me wonder if Mr. Putin Will start his hollerin' & hootin' Roll in with the Tanks Take the gas, Thanks Bashi's still a Baby Bell He'll have to hope that things go well.
• News today from the cabinewt of ministers: "reforms" -- all offices will become elective, and Bashi he'll groom a sucessor for 2009 elections "which will be more democratic" if not legitimately selective. Don't for an instant think Bashi advocates the notion an element of choice should be allowed to voters. Of course he'll be grooming a sucessor -- one dictator would replace another in this political farce. Be interesting to see Bashi trust anyone that far -- and so far there's not a sign sign of any rival star. If you don't agree with Bashi, it's into exile or a jail where the odds are very good your life will fail.
• When all that's taught in schools is Rukhnama, Bashi's life and rules, youngsters can't say they've had an education as much as a senseless indoctrination. Students have fewer years in which to learn anything to give their country a new turn. When school is done, into the military; Bashiland stays isolated and solitary. News from outside is strictly controlled and Bashi keeps the borders well-patrolled.
• O'er Turkmenistan the 'Bashi rule-ed Too bad that he's such a poo head.
• "I'll let the people have a voice and express their democratic choice there's really not a need to worry or to consider retirement in a hurry. For I have taught my people very well, enchanted them with my charming spell and henceforth they will all vote for me their beloved leader Turkmenbashi"
• And Three Monkeys did site confused tapping at their keyboards that this Turkmen who so amused them should give up the rewards that go with being Bashi The wealth of oil, the lack of toil and several golden statues would old Bashi really choose to leave them of his own accord or does he fear his time may be due to finally shift off this mortal coil? Meanwhile in the heart of every Turkman the tineist fire of hope began to glimmer at the prospect of Bashi's exit, and even though the statues shimmered they dreamt of a free Turkmenistan
• )))!!! Here's hoping, dj>b>.
• No matter how Bashi tries to keep outside news from Turkmens word will eventually get through -- and then what will his people do? I do expect mail from outside Turkmenistan is censored though I've never read anything to that effect. Bashi controls all media
• There's one avenue that Bashi don't get One that trumps his censorship bets For Bashi, tho savvy in political tests Forgot to close the port on the Internets However, it's hard for the average Turkman To boot up when Bashi tries to overwork them I think he tries to overtly hurt them Hence our Bashi thread's overtly curt then.
• The Tejen river (if you're Turkmen) or Harir (if you're Iranian) was dammed, Iran's president met with you-lnow-who of Turkmenistan -- to celebrate. Bashi plans to use the Turkmen share of water for cotton and whest crops and pastureland. If he follows through, his people may actually benefit.
• Bashi and Russia have agreed that gasseous exports shall proceed The price per unit remains unchanged as does Bashi, still deranged.
• This news about gas It too, shall pass - Bashi's word as a friend Will break like the wind - Horse before cart Bashi's an old oh allright I'm going - quit kicking!
• oh and beauty one islander!
• Excellent, islander! Note that now Bashi's getting twice the cash he formerly did, since before this, Russia paod half in cureency and half in kind/services. Moral of this tale: Old horse-traders never lose.
• Second moral: bees can't spell well. =currency
• Thus far, after the sickering, Russia gets the gas, and Bashi gets twice the original payment in cash. In future the price of Turkmenistan's gas remains to be agreed on -- and it seems some renegotiating's yet to be done.
• =dickering
• Back in 2003 (a period which can seem an eternity), Russia got Bashi to sign a contract which agreed Bashi would sell, for the next 25 years, all Turkmenistan's gas to the Russian bears. Russia, owning pipeline, had Turkmenistan over a barrel -- the price Russia paid was minimal, under fair market value, and Bashi at the time was not disposed to quarrel, but recent events show that's no longer true. For now that whole contract's been called into question and Bashi's renegged, opting for re-negotiation on every point, starting with sales for 2006 -- Bashi is cunning, and full of horse-trader's tricks. Russia's oversold what it can actually supply without Turkmen gas to back up its foreign sales-- so Bashi has a lever now, which I think he'll apply. He's signed a deal with Ukraine, though ownership of Russian pipeline is not writ in stone, and may in future fail. No western company cares -- so far -- to invest where the export situation seems riskiest. Russia hopes to keep control over all the central Asian states whose dictators force a thin veneer of order overlaying ancient hates.
• Kiev and Moscow are at odds now -- Ukraine and Bashi together wish to deal to get out from under Russia's heel.
• Bashi's said he will step down from power in two thousand nine. If he's toppled before then for Turkmen it should work out fine though there's no one obvious waiting on the sidelines someone may well step forward once things become more awkward. In the event of an overthrow when the old ways have to go,, Bashi will probably clear out well before the situation becomes a total rout. Surely Bashi's squirreling loot away in some Swiss bank accounts today.
• That Bashi should be under somebody's heel Is ironic I feel Because his dictatorships awash in corruption All awaiting His assumption And gas money goes to the top of the gub'ment Where it's Misspent Alack, Alas, Alay. A·lai or A·lay A mountain range of southwest Kyrgyzstan. A western branch of the Tien Shan, it extends about 322 km (200 mi) west from the Chinese border and rises to 5,880.4 m (19,280 ft).
• This is the twentieth year of Bashi for his decaying country. Turkmenbashi came to power in 1985, and the old poop is still alive; he worries about news from the world Outside of overthrows and exiles and dictators tossed aside -- in token of which he's shut down courier service because revolutionary ideas make Bashi nervous. And now a former demand for twenty thousand grand for a foreigner to marry a Turkman has been withdrawn. And no one's sure what this portends or what strange turn is going on.
• $20,000 to marry a Turkman? Wow. That's kinda bizza . . . oh. Bashi. Right.
• Closer to $50,000 in US $$.
• That article has a map that shows "Turkmenbashy" as a town. Or is Bashi really really fat? O my tender desert flower My heart grows fonder by the hour If it were only within my power To have $50,000 dollars now But wait! What's this? News so good! We're free to marry like we should! No fee to pay (as if I could!) Crazy 'Bashi's just not understood
• In Turkembashilans everything is named Turkmenbashi. The airport. The avenue. The school. The village. The town. And the town dump, I daresay. [Well, I can dream.]
• even the toilets? I went to the Turkmenbashi in order to evacuate my bowels gone stagnate Upon dethroning I stood to ponder how the stench and sight that sat sitting in the bowl was an apt reflection upon Bashis predilections No matter if gold was painted upon the seats or a plaque was made detailing Bashi's feats the end result was turds and the smell of corruption No amount of Bashis words could cloak this revelation
• It's like the scene in Being John Malkovich where Malkovich goes into his own head and everyone is a Malkovich and every word is "Malkovich". Disturbing.
• Heh. Very apt, dj. Think we have to conclude Bashi likes the sound of his own name, tracicle. He ought to, as he's the one who named himself Turkmenbashi, just as he titled himself President-for-life of Turkmenistan.
• In this thread, every Turkmenbashi should be addressed as such, beeswackybashi. *puts on funny hat, sips vodka*
• beesunbashi fits more comfortably, though.
• petebestbashi and the flossy posse, here to promote proper flossing habits for young subjects. I ride a pygmy pony y'know. ;)
• Turkmenbashi has sewn up media contact for his people who get almost no news of events in the outside world; he's pared down the country's teachers and medical personnel, and cut back the years kids stay in school, so no one's educated very well. It seems that future disaster is what Bashi courts for his countrymen, to judge by such sad reports.
• Monkeyfilter's first post about Bashi was on February 27, 2004 -- now news doesn't leak out so much anymore for Bashi's sewn up his backwaed country even more tightly than before. It's a strange and dangerous trip for mediafolk to visit this dictatorship -- journalists from other lands have been beaten, drugged, jailed, exiled, or simply not let in. Bashi's been in power for fourteen years and a whole new generation's grown with no idea what it 's like when Bashi isn't there to direct affairs all by himself, alone. Scant news gets out, scant news gets in, and travel to Bashiland has grown quite thin.
• Here is a document from Amnesty concerning abuses and human rights violations in Turkmenistan.
• Bashi's big land is no picnic He's scored the dictator's hat trick Dictator for life? That one's in the bag Oppressing the masses? That too makes him glad Shady deals with the Russians? You know he's got that It must be admitted Bashi plays mighty hard But his stats are a shame On his MVP card.
• )))!!!
• President Niyazov stated in a speech broadcast in December 2002 that in "order to weaken the Turkmen, the blood of the Turkmen was diluted in the past. When the righteous blood of our ancestors was diluted by other blood our national spirit was low… Every person has to have a clean origin. Because of that it is necessary to check the origin up to the third generation." Over the last few years scores of senior officials belonging to ethnic minorities have been removed from their positions. Reportedly, people applying to institutions of higher education are checked to ensure that for the last three generations of their family there has been no non-ethnic Turkmen relative. It is practically impossible for anyone with a non-Turkmen relative in their family to be admitted to university. Once again one of the worst memes humanity has ever thought up surfaces from the slimey depths. And here I was worried that once North Korea finally falls the concentration camp officials would be out of work.
• more ))))s for bees and pete. Yes, it is sad Nal, the black comedy gets worse and worse throughout the world, and sadly, I think it may get darker before the light comes.
• One reason I like monkeys so much -- they give us hope of better things to come.
• Turkmenbashi is a nasty man and I shall castigate him when I can.
• Yes Bashi is a crazy man Defying logic as only he can Yet he can't survive the onslaught Of a Monkey Poetry Slam
• Yes, lose each hospital and close each school -- who needs infrastructure under Bashi's rule?
• Bashi keeps funneling all the wealth to build the greatest statues, he don't care about the people's health or if they have no shoes. So long as he is Turkmenbashi, poet most extraordinnaire he will be a very happy chappy and take the largest share The buildings will keep crumbling, kids won't need to go to school, but you won't hear any grumbling because of Bashi's iron rule The Turkmen don't need education anyway they have no need for knowledge They read the Rukhnama day after day they have no need for college Black Gold still runs and golden statues still adorn the Bashi palace being a Turkmen is not something I'd choose, not that I mean them any malice For I couldn't lightly type these very words nor express my honest thoughts nor make any reference to stinking turds or to human rights reports 'Cos Bashi will brook no criticism - a dictator must be respected and no amount of poetic witticism would be left unpunished Yet there must be Turkmen doing this who will not bow to pressure, writing, meeting, trying to resist and ruin Bashi's great adventure Through our simple rhymes and verses we salute those keeping up the fight who risk taking a trip in the back of hearses - the least we can do is write
• *applauds wildly* )))!!! dj, believe that's a perfect march for the Castigation Corps! Alas, the pay is peanuts, though an occasional apple or banana comes now and again.
• I like apples and bananas!
• Bashi, we know, likes money and he also likes prestige, and folk who fail to deliver both -- why, Bashi has no use for these.
• Not much of a man for derring-do, and never a hint of a billet-doux, or at least Bashi ain't dallied hitherto, it seems he loves best Bashi-ballyhoo.
• A slight misalignment in the trajectory of today's Bashi-Excoriation has resulted in its landing over there instead of here. /not to bee trusted with sharp implements or firecrackers
• Bashi attended the tribute in Moscow for the Russians killed in World War II, and also attended meetings about gas where little of significance seems to have passed.
• Not to be crass But alas No gas passed Bashi's pipeline Makes him whine Putin's wasting time. It's a fight to right The contracted gaslight
• Bashi and the Chinese head of state reportedly agreed to visit one another's countries, But as yet there's no mention of an exact date for any such forthcoming festivities.
• From Turkmenbashi Mountain to Turkmenbashi School no one's as great as Bashi no one is half as cool and no one besides Bashi has such an ambitious schedule See him skating in the ice palace despite the desert's blazing heat or beside his horses' swimming pool putting golden horseshoes on their feet For there's simply nothing that a Bashi cannot do eight or nine or twenty times bigger and better than me or you
• Bashi went to Moscow to Moscow he did go to see the great big show that Putin did put on But so far has come no word of Bashi's return home How many meetings in Moscow can one Bashi attend concerning gas deals with Russia? There seems to be no end.
• Seems clear trouble's brewin' on the road to old Tashkent and revolution's in the air -- hundreds -- or dozens -- were killed in Uzbekhistan, a country right next to Turkmenistan. What will come of this who knows? Russia and the US both seem quite willing to back Uzbekh's brutal regime, so there may be more killing. Now Bashi can't be resting calmly with turmoil this close to his land, and no doubt he's wondering if a Turkmen rising's close at hand.
• O love, I would neet you, wherever you said -- but we are not allowed to assemble Our only choice is to obey or end up jailed or dead O dear soul, I would adore you but we are not allowed to worship anyone but Bashi Why do the only roads in this land lead to prison or death?
• How repressive can Turkmenbashi be? I fear that question may be answered shortly as thousands of Uzbeks try to flee west across the border with Turkmenistan -- where each would be an uninvioted guest.
• *sigh* = uninvited
• I was listening to the radio the other day, with the topic being the numerous dictators of former Soviet Republics. Depressing listening to say the least. Even more depressing when you have your prejudices regarding people who call themselves democrats who seem to have a very promiscuous attachment to democracy if natural resources are there to be plundered.
• Ach, dinna despair yet, dj. Recent gains offset the losses following Soviet disintegration. Georgia. And not long ago, Ukraine amazed the world. And now, the -istans take centre stage. Can remember being shocked and sickened back in 1956/7 when the Hungatian Revolution fizzled, and not one voice from the West spoke out in their defense. Recent uprisings have not fizzled in that way. On the contrary. But it won't all be bloodless, I'm thinking. Hope I'm wrong, though.
• Uzbek authoristies are crying Terrorist! They're denying it's an uprising and saying it's all Islamist extremeist which is hardly surprising. Meanwhile, is Bashi thinking of constructing a new jail? or studying what public services and human rights he can curtail?
• south of Ashgabat, take it from bees, our boy Saparmurat oversaw the planting of twenty-five thousand trees to keep 'em all growing will be no mean feat for plants quickly dehydrate in such heat
• the goat called out a first warning and then the sheep took it up the melon fields called the water from ditches and canals the cotton rows called children from their classes the prisons called offenders into cages of misery but no where in the world did a nation call Bashi what he is a hypocrite, a thief, a killer
• *
• Somewhat different perspective here on Bashi's finesse at the recent Russia WWII commemoration. (Also offers interesting vignettes of US president Bush interacting with Putin. An intriguing but lengthy read.)
• No one around a man in power ever wants to deny or contradict what the leader's saying -- so his poor thinking isn't easily fixed. If this goes on long enough the leader looses touch with reality and thinks whatever he does is normal, that his own thinking has universality. I doubt that anyone tells Bashi 'no' or says 'you'd be mad to think so' -- dictators can fall into the trap of isolation the more quickly when no one dares disagree in all their nation.
• After the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the central Asian region came under more intensive scrutiny by the west than is currently the case. Why? Here's an article focusing on why the media ignore some areas of the world -- such as subSaharan Africa and central Asia. Also, some information about the increasing isolation of Turkmenistan and the tendency in the west for folk to assume all's well if a country's not in the headlines much. And it culminates in specualtion about the role of blogs and the possibility of a 'watch-blog' to serve as a kind of clearinghouse for what little reporting is coming out of Turkmenistan these days.
• Corruption's a way of life for Turkmen who routinely expect to pay bribes -- and to be bribed -- a century ago their ancestors robbed travelers and belonged to backward tribes. Bashi hasn't succeeded in doing awawy with this common practice Turkmen deal with every day.
• Many of Turkmenistan's libraries are closed. 'People have all the books they need in their own homes', Bashi supposed.
• There's North Korea with Dear Leader and Turkmenbashi heads Turkemenistan -- both leaders controll what news goes in or out, both restrict the tight of travelers and citizens to move about; both systems remain basically Stalinist, in neither country has trouble for the leader surfaced.
• Once ye tire of using Bashi's name, who, do ye suppose, can be honoured when public education's on the wane, teachers and medical personnel dismissed, hospitals and libraries closing? Well, Bashi honours half a dozen carpet-makers -- showing the future of Turkmenistan's heading back to the dark ages where it began. There's little future for many young folk today, as these hand-made rugs are smuggled out while Turkmen officials are bribed to look the other way.
• It happened on May twenty-six that Bashi got up to his old tricks -- Kiev reports that in a phone-call with the president of Ukraine Bashi had the gall to begin to complain 'the price we're expected to pay you is too high' -- so it looks more dickering's to be done by and by.
• = it looks like
• Eh what?
• Pictures of the largest mosque in Central Asia.
• Suppose I should add, for benefit of any newcomewrs, that Bashi had this built, as described above, in his home village of Kipchak. On one side of the friont door is text from the Quran, which is customary for a mosque in those parts, and on the other side is text from the Rukhnama, written by Bashi. Which is not curtomary, but hey! he';s the Bashi!
• Melons are ripening in the fields which yield far better than the cotton yields Bread and ripe melons my girl places on the cloth which serves as table and to drink pots of mint tea so long as we are able
• A B C, running east to west: A is Turkmenistan aka Bashiland. B is Uzbekistan, which has just forcefully suppressed a popular rising, resulting in the alleged slaughter of hundreds by government troops C is Kyrgyzstan, which in April threw out the president and just hours ago the populace, apparently impatient with protestors occupying the Supreme Court Building, took matters into their own hands and tossed out the protestors, who were opposed to these changes. Bashi, Bashi, the hand-writing's on your wall -- it's clear one day you too shall fall!
• If they're lucky they could get someone as 'democratic' as Putin.
• Wonder if Turkmen have much concept of what democracy is. I suspect not, especially the ones who are young adults now, since all they've known of government is Bashi.
• TB and AIDs are reported to be rife in Bashiland a situation that can only get worse with hospitals closed, health workers dismissed and most folk too poor to open a purse in seeking relief from the collapsed system -- Bashi's downhill changes mean folk are in desperate condition. Until other nations pressure Bashi, for Turkmen conditions remain sad and trashy.
• White clouds are passing overhead Children make their letters in the sand Soon the melon harvest will be done Love, can I make you understand? We have no future in this place Though on green stalks the grain still swells There is no work for me in town So we are standing by an empty well
• here I sit in the desert the Karakum desert where empty sands strech away on either hand except for a statute planted inexplicably -- of course it's of Bashi! who else could it be?
• = statue not stature
• Bashi smiles and smiles and has his picture taken he signs papers and looks at more papers -- some days he's on public display at other times he hides away. He must eat well, (why, look at the size of him!) this Bashi's big and buxom. His people look anxious and many look thin -- do Tirkmen understand how Bashi f***s 'em?
• Natural gas and oil keep the world in turmoil. Bashi's got 'em, but can't deliver without a pipeline, so he tries to outmaneuvre -- fie on the contracts he has signed! -- he 'll scheme until they're undermined!
• It's not easy working in Turkmenistan where Bashi finds foreigners in default of contracts and agreements -- so work may soon come to a halt. Thisa week it's the French he scolds saying their omissions are tenfold.
• Turkmenistan's role in the War Against Terror, or, How Bashi is Buddies with the US.
• Turkmenbashi wears three hats: 1. he;s president-fo-life of Turkmenistan, 2. he's chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, 3. he's head of the Democratic Party of the republic of Turkmenistan. In closing most of his country's libraries he said most village Turkmen do not read anyway.
• You forgot the most important hat, bees. The asshat!
• Well said, dj!!! With relish I'll content myself by pointing out on my natal day this asshat's a most selfish person who actually deserves our cursing.
• ... Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me, Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the current and index. I speak the password primeval, I give the sign of democracy, By God! I will acceot nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms. Through me many long dumb voices, Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarves, Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-staff, And of the rights of them the others are down upon, Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung. Through me forbidden voices, Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil, Voices indecent by me clarified and tranfigur'd. -- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself [Just thought something positive here would balance the thread.]
• Turkmenistan doesn't have much irrigated land and half of what they have is planted in cotton. It used to be the world's tenth largest producer; a recent 45% decline means yields are rotten. But oil and natural gas exports shot up though gains fell straight into Bashi's clutch and Bashi's crazy projects like the ice palace, which won't benefit the Turkmen people much.
• The Oil Trap Once upon a time, before the nineties, only Russia and Iran edged the Caspian Sea -- but the Soviet Union fell apart, adding three new independencies: Bashiland, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. Somehow all five must get along. Iran wants to see the treaties it had with Russia before it fell apart govern the riches of the Caspian, but this is not so smart since it would leave those three new counties out and give old grudges a new kind of clout. Russia and Kazakhstan are getting on for now, and shipping oil and gas via Moscow through one of the two key pipelins in the area, though it runs more or less through Russian Chechnya. The other pipeline's in Azerbaijan -- it's relatively new and lets Azerbaijan sell to Turkey and Europe and bypass Russia, too. So the one country with a significant shipping problem is Turkmenistan. This means Bashi's must so whatever Bashi can to find an alternative route -- or else --unthinkable! -- poor Bashiu must do without/ For the present he's stuck so long as Turkmen exports go through Kazakhstan/Russian pipeline, Bashi's out of luck. He's even agreed to talk with China thinking to ship eastward would be finer than dealing with the Russian leaders who take a huge bite of the profits Bashi regards as his by right.
• O happy, happy news for the Rukhnama-deprived monkey -- for here it is. This site is not as easily navigated as the old one, alas, but it is better than none.
• Moscow, Kiev, and Ashgabat are in a three-way spat, for Bashi wants to be paid in cash for dispensing natiral gas and not in services or commodities -- Kiev says this is fair, not so the Russian bear.
• I saw a TV program that featured Turkmenistan the other day. I will write a little about it later. Very, very surreal...and sad.
• Yes, it sounds like a land without much future. But who knows?
• You should have seen the giant Rukhnama! It seriously was like an Iain Banks or (or more recently) a Charlie Stross novel. Unfortunately, I don't think Contact will be coming to rescue the Turkmens any time soon.
• ...the giant Rukhnama flaps through the skies wondering if Bashi's really old Sinbad in disguise.
• I saw the same show as dj. I wonder if there's a torrent of it around somewhere? ABC Australia, Foreign Correspondent, 21/06/05.
• I'm going to search around Wolof, because it is worth watching.
• Seems that Bashi has decided Russian workers in Turkemnistan no longer need to have exit vises to take it on the l;am. Ethnic Russians living in Turklemenistan have not had it easy in recent years, due in part to Bashi's moodiness and long-standing Turkmen fears. But with Bashi, that sad clown, policy runs often up and down.
• Condoleeza Rice must be losing her mind for she's somehow neglected to place Turkmenistan on the list of nations where tyrants rule, an international disgrace. So according to her it's not in a category with North Korea or Cuba or Iran or Burma or Belarus -- which me think Mx Rice is a goose.
• =which makes me think
• the library closes no reading here the clinic closes no sick folk here so what opens? only Basho's mouth emitting more hot air
• when I was young the old folk say things were not run this way we didn't have a Bashi then we were led by merely mortal men
• The health budget's now grown so lavish there are ten million dollars(US) to lavish on vaccinations for the Turkmens, injecting shots into their persons. But with five million Turkmen in the land, this figure doesn't sound so grand.
• Bashi's called a poet-president -- a term that makes me skeptical -- since it seems clear that those who praise his books have facilties less apt to judge than buttonhooks. He's no poet, and although he may be head of state, his elective status is open to debate. Though sadly, not inside Turkmenistan today, where to critixize Bashi is to be locked away.
• Bashi's land is about the size of California, the golden state. Whether Turkmen come any ornerier than Bashi is open to debate. After Bashi's gone, as he must be, soon or late, no telling who may steer that listing ship of state.
• I find your 'I'm going to keep talking even if no-one is listening' attitude most inspiring. bees can take it!
• Aye, bees can, if he must, but would rather not.
• So, this friend of mine - well, acquaintance, really, we're not that close, although we always get one well when we meet - anyway, this acquaintance was supposed to be heading off on a month-long archaeological dig a few weeks back. To Turkmenistan. She'd promised to bring me back a present (a melon, perhaps, or maybe the noble Rukhnama). I was, needless to say, more than a little excited about this. But then, two days before she was supposed to leave, a certain somebody - I won't say who, but it's somebody we know rather well - a certain somebody had the entire Tourism Ministry arrested. All the visas they'd issued were cancelled. Bugger.
• Wouldn't care to visit there. Not even for a melon. Let alone have to live there.
• Me neither, not even to see the giant Rukhnama. I'd be scared of not getting out.
• Bees, here is the story I was talking about: Turkmenbashi, President for Life
• Thanks, dj, for a fine article. At some risk of sounding like the late Johnny Carson I hope the bird of happiness defecates all over Bashi's head. Soon.
• Bashi says there's been a record yield of grain taken from Turkmenistan's fields, but many doubt this is the case, and inqiure if Bashi once again will prove to be a liar. Since Bashi took charge of the land's cotton and grain, his country's production has gone down the drain.
• With no deference to Bashi's station; I must say i was most pleased To be rid of him on my vacation And the news of Bashi Sleaze Someday he'll die, he'll one day see And then I'll be most happy For the Turkmen people might then feel free Instead of feeling crappy. Burma-Shave!
• Bashi's a most tedious old bastard, I agree. I'd like the Turkmen to be rid of him. Hard to imagine any successor could be worse than Bashi. Or even as bad as Bashi, come to that.
• Though the disease has a serious history. Why Turkmen don't have AIDs is no mystery -- To mention it's forbidden, by Bashi's decree. [As in dj's link above]
• It's forbidden to mention The AIDS epidemic And Bashi's suspension Of truth is systemic His poor twisted neurons Preclude a pandemic
• Won't allow observers in. Threw out trained medicl personnel. Replaced 'em with untrained army conscripts. Closed hospitals, except in Ashgabat. Ripe for a pandemic, indeed.
• Turkmenbashi to Ankara Riding on a Melon Stuck a feather up his arse And called it better smellin'
• Turkmenbashi's still a horror, though he add ten feathers more.
• Feather'd Bashi Dancing Gaily Nero claps his hands Destruction Decreed but daily 'Pon those hapless sands
• Whenever I need to know the time I look to the clock, and then if I'm in Turkemenitan I get a bonus -- here Bashi's picture must be on the face of every watch and timepiece in this sorry place. It's the Law! And Bashi makes the laws! Ahem ....laws that serve the Bashi's cause! None of will forget whenever we go to set our watch or our alarm that Bashi is the Boss who keeps us safe from harm Ahem...provided we never criticize the Bashi and his strong-arm guys. No, no one can ever forget -- since Bashi's picture's alway set on every wall in every neighbourhood that Bashi is the ultimate source of everything that's ... un- good!
• I expect Turkmen hate it when they're intimidated. I would if I were in their place gazing at Bashi's unbeautiful face. He has three sets of secret police to ensure the people live in peace. Those who're disposed to causing trouble are marched to jail upon the doulbe. Bashi's barely five feet tall, but he's big trouble despite it all.
• nothing's in sight but league on league of scoured sand nothing else to cheer my sight looking down at noon between my feet my shadow's dark and deep, it seems as a well of ink if I didn't have family here I would stay let the dry wind parch me and after a while blow my dust away
• The dusty prose Arrives and soon I'm told this date Celebrates The Moon Landing far far away It seems the place For Bashi's rants His crew supposed Composed of Sycophants Chanting far far away But still on Earth This thread we tease With awed wonder #Five-hundred Posting belongs to bees!
• Bashi the Tyrant will be thrown over some day by death if not before which may not please his sycophants but seems bound to bring the Turkmen ease Five hundred dark guesses about Bashi's fate -- folk won't be contented until Bashoi's late.
• *applause, toasting*
• He likes to close the libraries last his people read of other countries. Every day I poke around the internets to see what grounds there are or might be for defending a Bashi who's so unoffending. /sarcasm
• Praise be to Bashi And his stupid face He's the greatest man We want erased So kind, so good Like a common hood Upon his pate We'd defecate
• Bashi welcomes China's Vice Premier We Yi, each says his country's moving closer to the other; they've signed documents to give some guarantee Bashi's moving closer to China, and China to Bashi. Of course each nation's intent on bilateral cooperation. 'All the progress in my country's due to China', Bashi says -- along with other guff, while China thinks of Turkmen gas and oil -- these days no country thinks it has enough.
• Wu Yi, who's he? Number two in China and while in Bashiland nothing more grand.
• China sends their number two But we think they're much mistaken In Bashiland they should fling poo Oh China, please awaken! In other news more diplomats Concede that ties are grand They seek to trade across the map Of Bashi and Iran
• A town named Gumbad. That map has many delights. And I have never before encountred the name of the Vice-president of Turkmenistan -- it didn't even occur there was a Vice-president, so brainwashed have I become from Bashi's omnipotent glory. Thanks, pete.
• Hm...a Vice-Bashi?
• Bashi in the desert Bashi by the sea Bashi cannot sell his gas to France or Germany if Bashi was a stone I would pitch him in the sea and let him sink and lie alone no more to trouble anybody
• Bashi's got the kind of devious mind -- and gall -- to say he's improving health care by throwing away the hospitals, the doctors, nurses, medical technicians and all since hospitals in Ashgabat are all that's needed anyway. Bashiland's about the size of California, with a mere five million residents to keep healthy and alive. It really doesn't matter (to Bashi) if all of them drop dead because this country's only about Bashi! and what goes on in Bashi's head!
• Perhaps a link I've not considered In many a day or fortnight Lies between The top office-sitters Who won't be challenged outright A Turkmenbashi A Bushy-bashi A wrongheaded tunnel-vision Unchallenged "faith" A desperate race In one man's ill-thought out mission
• Heh! Two at one blow if not seven!
• Bashi has a palace not far from Ashgabat -- here Bashi lives in comfort and never gives a drat for the welfare of his folk -- and what is sad, this is no joke.
• (wipes tear)
• That Bashi, he's wily His sleeve is full of aces Once he quit smoking It was banned in public places He's a sick leetle monkey But one good thing he passed Was to give free to Turkmen Power, water & gas
• Sapaemurat Niyazov only stands some five feer rall and if he weren't the Bashi, he'd be of no account at all.
• A Napoleon complex? A man with a chip? A heart made of perspex? A mean little shit? Bashi's a loony sort He's five feet of crap Even Bonaparte Was taller than that.
• Turkmenistan's a hotbed of TB and HIV which is due to Bashi's anti-health policy. In the course of a single day, Bashi sent every physician and health-care worker away. He's so curtailed the course of higher education there'll be no replacements in this ailing nation. Suicides are said to be rising among young Turkmen -- it's sad, but not surprising.
• Where do we go from here? There are no jobs that lead us anywhere. There are no roads that don't have border guards, and everybody in this land is used to hearing, saying only lying words.
• Thank you, bees!
• Blessed be the Bashi's brains For they alone can save them And if they quit amidst some pains He' be safely in his grave then.
• Bashi knows that Bashi is the center of the earth -- no one dares to tell him otherwise, or criticize his worth. He's got everyone so terrified they lie to him, or run and hide; since Bashi seldom has to face the truth his view of things grows more and more uncouth.
• Russia and the EU want Bashi's gas, The US wants regional stability (and maybe an airfield or two), And so no improvement's likely to pass in what Turlmen may have or say or do. Offending Bashi's no part of the plan of world interests in Turkmenistan.
• If war comes to pass between Iran and the US, Turkmenistan (smaller than the other two) lies across the Iranian border, and I'd guess Bashi will not care to join the fight but will rent the US an airfield or two provided, of course, that the price is right.
• Twix't Turkmenbashi and Bushy the bashi They'll need one to settle the score With one holy roller Just one Ayatollah We can begin Orwell's book '84. dang, didn't mean it to be limericky
• Turkmenbashi favours peace and tranquility which means no one argues or disagrrees with he; to ensure Bashi's peace, he sends his secret police, so citizens who're left live in docility.
• Halk Watan Turkmenbashi means One Country One People One Leader On banners across the country with bashi's face to scare the reader To mess with your head That Bashi's hell bent So the litereacy rate is 99 percent
• In real life Bashi's a little guy but his statue in Ashagabat's fifty feet high. His statue wears a long billowing cape and it's covered in gold, or perhaps gold plate, so there he stands, a homegrown rxcuse for Superman, in the capital of glorious Turkmenistan. The whole deal rotates so the statue always faces the sun, Turkmen call it the rotisserie; his critics say Bashi's far from well-done.
• Bashi hasn't hit the headlines recently and there's no telling when he'll be. Meanwhile his people remain circumspect -- under Bashi it's hard to have great self-respect.
• It appears that someone is hoping to cash in on Bashi's unpopularity. Northbridge is the same outfit that proposed the kidnapping and/or assasination of Cote d'Ivoire's Charles Taylor a couple of years ago. Taylor has been granted asylum in Nigeria but is currently facing extradition.
• Fact: Bashi has a lot of enemies. However, a solution of this sort, imposed from the outside, seems unlikely to do anything but foment more problems for the Turkmen people. Also, I believe there are international players with a strong interest in seeing the status quo maintained, and preventing further destabilization in this region. But I may be wrong. Interesting article, islander.
• Good point about vested interests, bees. He may be a ruthless, maniacal dictator but he's our ruthless, maniacal dictator.
• summer here is hot tonight we'll swim in a pool of stars if only in a dream
• Do we misunderestimate our dear Bashi by thinking he's Bush-y just because both are heads of state? To give credit where credit is due Bashi hasn't yet begun to start a war with another country. And Bush hasn't slammed the door shut on education, while Bashi's not one to take a long vacation. Bashi likes to have his fingers in all the pies there be -- if any pies are actually left in his miserable country.
• I one of your infinite worlds Bushybashi has a book You are required to read But remember Keep the colors inside the lines
• Bashi can't ship oil or gas directly from his isolated country country, unless he manages to agree the profits will belong to some group or individual who's not Bashi. The Caspian's a landlocked inland sea, of little use in gaining any real prosperity. Bashi's desperate to find some other way of sending gas and oil tp places like Cathay, this is why he's gotten chummy recently with China despite pipeline limitations, of which Bashi needs no reminder.
• Few people wish they could read The lost annals Of a cudgelled people. -- W. H. Ausen, City Without Walls
• This report centers on recent rumours that Turkmenbashi's health is failing, saying he's so frail he needs assistance walking, and if it's true that Turkmenbashi's ailing the consequences of his eventual death will lead to instability not just in Bashiland but will affect much wider interests once Bashi draws a final breath. This came out in June, and there's been a brief entry to this effect in the Wikipedia article on Bashi, but it seems more the result of wishful thinking than of verifiable fact.
• Bashi's ill and yet he gloats Perhaps he hasn't realized The swill he shoves down other's throats Should not be plaigarized see comic for 8/22/05
• HUrray for Mr Rall's Bashi comics! Dunno if he's really ill or not, petebest, not clear from the artickle, and I haven't been able to dredge up any confimation, though it may be my Googling skills are not so hot....(Also, I'm a bit suspicious the CIA or other interested parties may have planted an unsubstantiated tale in hopes of rousing Bashi's opponents...but maybe I'm too suspicious.
• When ministers have too much power in Bashi's view they're stripped of their positions within an hour and some may be tried for stepping outside the limits Bashi sets for crimes like corruption (tasking bribes) are time-honoured customs no Turkman forgets. In May, the deputy prime minister was locked away for 25 years, and in July the head of presidential adminsitration was sentenced to twenty in this unhappy nation.
• Nice Auden quote, beezers.
• Dreadful spelling of his name, though!
• Thursday Bashi travelled to the main oil district where he fired a state minister in keeping with his slick and longtime policy of letting no one hold office long (or get much done).
• Turkmenbashi, up in the morning let every minister take warning! Let the inadequate and the corrupt flee before Bashi happens to erupt!
• Bashi's president-for-life -- for every melon there's a knife -- one day he'll leave office and leave the country in a mess.
• In preparation for the event The muskmelon festival's evident Pray Do Say, What Day is the special Muskmelon Festival? Cantaloupe!
• holy. crap. I know you won't believe this but I totally missed the FPP on this yesterday. Turkmenbascity?
• Bashi lives in a palace and he may call it home, but it's unlikely he lives there alone he has a family the son is grown presumably his wife and daughter are stay-at-homes and there must be hangers-on and undoubtedly a doctor now that Bashi's getting on Bashi's recently been conscious of his own health issues if no one else's. The only hospotals left in the land are in Ashgabat not far from the spot Bashi's palace stands at.
• Who will treat the bruised Who will take in the tired As always, it's the shaman's place Whose healing is wired to the land the air the care of others with What can be used
• Bashi's dangling after bids to build a new resort hotel by the Caspian Sea; still, it's hard to imagine tourists making reservations even if they're granted visas to visit Bashi's nation. As for Turkemen going there, most are dirt poor and can only spent the bit they have in trying to endure.
• So far word, no follow-up, alas, of completing the Ice Palace. Did it simply melt away? No one seems to want to say.
• =So far, no word
• Bashi's signing papers Basho's giving orders Bashi's denying visas and sealing all the borders. No one comes in, no one goes out that's what being Bashi is all about.
• ON average, Turkman women can live to sixty-five -- an age at which the average male won't be alive. The average life-span for a man is only fifty-eight. A Turkmen's prospects overall aren't great. Health care -- or, rather, the health care lack -- is an issue over which Bashi deserves much flak.
• no one ever stops the Bashi no one ever tells him no he's a kinda sorta ally depending which way the winds may blow but on this you can depend Bashi will never spend a cent on any one else or on their prosperity for unless there's profit there for Bashi he just builds another palace. or changes the head of some ministry
• over the flat and rolling sand comprising eighty per cent of Turkmenistan a solitary camel may solemnly stride but only to get to the other damn side
• heh. beauty one bees
• What do the Bashi's folk do? to flee from all the portraits in plain view? from Bashi's face on labels, and on the currency, in the papers, on radio and always on teevee? where do they go to hide from Bashi posters hung outside? Oh, wherever do they manage to find a vacent spot? Where can the Bashi's folk hide from all this rot?
• Bashi's all in favor of literacy reading's for you and reading's for me but, wait, don't think you can take a quick look 'cause Bashi's banned that particular book
• Turkmenvashi's banned all music that's canned! None in public, none at weddings and none either on teevee Bashi now makes it official by Bashi's decree. And as for lip-synching? Bashi thinks it stinking.
• Gah! Running almost twelve hours behind the front page, the laggard bees posted the above, not seeing this had beat him to it. And what a maroon I bee!
• And yet you beat me to it bees! How did I only see this today? Bashi's mission: to preserve the arts Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs and farts . . um. . Burma Shave! okay okay -scratch that . . .
• Bashi and Napoleon -- both of 'em short men -- Napoleon was a soldier, Bashi only a politican. Napoleon rewrote the map of Europe and the code Napoleon was civil while Bashi only churns out decrees and books of drivel. Napoleon was a leader and in France a popu;lar figure while Bashi is a dictator whose ego grows bigger and bigger.
• interestingly bees, I just read something about Bonaparte's short height being a myth.
• That it was a myth is going to be a very difficult position to defend, since Napoleon was known to his French contemporaries as the Little Corporal. During this period Englishmen often reached heights considerably in excess of those on the continent, which both the English and French visitors attributed to the frequent inclusion of beefstreaks/roast beef in the English diet of the period.
• In addition to this miscalculation, his nickname le petit caporal adds to the confusion, as non-francophones mistakenly take petit as meaning "small"; in fact, it is an affectionate term reflecting on his camaraderie with ordinary soldiers. Although not being French, I can only take that at face value. And yes (on a related note) I remember the French teacher talking about the shortness among the population after WWII because of a lack of meat in the diet.
• Think when you're only five foot two you're short. And petit/petite does mean small. Whether now or then. During my lifetime there's been a notable increase in height in many Eastern countries as a result of more protein in the diet. Poor nutrition is bad for the development of the brain as well as the stature.
• ah but according to the wiki article, that was five foot two in French feet, which translates to five six in our current (US) measurement, making him taller than the average Frenchman of the day. I did read the same thing somewhere else, but I forgot where, so apologies for the wiki-only attribution.
• In that case, I'll take it a smidgeon more seriously, petebest -- I enjoy the Wiki but it's not always reliable, alas. Meanwhile, I find it very difficult to credit this, in part because no one else has come forth with such a statement nor refuted statements that Napoleon was a short fellow, which ye would assume at least one or two of Napoleon's numerous supporters would have been glad to do. French history is not my field, but this period was well documented, I believe, and it would be helpful to see this allegation supported by statements of Napoleon's contemporaries. And secondly, if I recall correctly, the use of the metric system began in the time of the French Revolution -- so the French would therefore have been unlikely to use any other sort of measurement during Napoleon's time. And what the heck is meant by a French foot, anyway? There seem to have been a number of varied measutrement systems in use prior to the introduction of the metric system. All in all, I'm very dubious about this part of the tale, too.
• Understandable too - I'll see if I can find something on those pesky Internets. Perhaps this is shoddy research being mistaken for revisionism? Vive le vrai (or something to that effect)!
• pete, I poled around the Internets a bit and there's a lot of talk re the ussue but I couldn't find anything substantial, so I wish ye good hunting.
• as did I, Sir Bees - nothing worth noting that you probably haven't already found . .
• pete, found this wherein his contemporaries seem to describe him fairly consistently as as: ...ahort...slight...below middling height...below middle size...Napoleon was of short stature, about five feet two inches by French measure...of short stature, just over five feet tall... For whatever this is worth, and whatever French measure may have been. Turkmenbashi goes over all appointments and doesn't delegate authority -- unless to strip it from a supervisor or minister whom Bashi says has made a dreadful mess.. Turkmenbashi likes to do this on TV to publicize the loss of a henchmen's authotity.
• And now, it's time for... Turkmenbashi! Innnn! Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!!!
• Good grief. Pallas Athena, this is one of the most ridiculous puffs on the Bashi yet! Excellent find!
• Something in me keeps wanting to reserve judgement on him. I can't just assume he is an egomaniacal nutball, it seems too easy to come to that conclusion. Am I the only one?
• hee hee-- thanks bees! I still think the giant shoe's a bit weirder though...
• My brother's a nut spiced with garlic and cumin Not first generation Just because we're all human And yet I get nauseous If I'm exposed to his face For ubiquitous Bashi's now Polluting my space!
• Aye, a well-seasoned gent -- which of course Bashi ain't!!
• Some get too much rain and some don't have enough. In the latter case, growing crops is tough. Bashi's major crop is cotton, but every year the yield is lower, which makes Turkmenbashi sore enough I'd like to swat him.
• The Turkmenistan desert Where Bashi is master Would be up a creek In a natr'l disaster For Bashi's dismantled Hospitals and such He just doesn't care He's such a big putz. Always my problem bees, I run out of steam after a few . . any pointers?
• Short and sweet can be really neat honestly pete
• I always enjoy your work, pete. We wouldn't miss Bashi if he were drowned or laid to rest in some burial ground. Bashi's chosen no successor planning, no doubt to live forever.
• Up in Heaven Or down in Hell Bashi will exist Very well He's smiling and pointing He's laughing at you His teeth are gold now As is the rest of his statue
• )))!!!
• In the name of protecting Turkmen culture Bashi banned recorded music in public ceremony; because he could not tell male from female (!) apart, he forbade the wearing of make-up on TV; banned opera, ballet, circuses, gold teeth, long hair and beards, all by Bashi decree. And the above are some of the reasons people maintain he's not entirely sane, but seems to be crazy.
• How long will you make your people suffer? Until ye reincarnate as a tsrtse fly? I don't usually ill-wish people, Bashi, but I'll not mourn you once you die. Corruption stinks as strongly in one nation as another. It's enough to make ye cry how people suffer a leaders's misgovernance. And no man can really explainn why.
• My brothers and I take our sheep and goats above our village to feed on the slopes From we overlook our houses and those for whom we care -- we see our children playing in the village square When we see smoke rising from the oven in the square we can almost small the bread baking down there In the evening we come home and pen the goats and sheep there's time to eat and talk together before we fall asleep
• The water down in the Big Easy Has changed my mind I'd ever Think the Bashi decrees that are so sleazy Would have Turkmen living better
• Goats, sheep Eke at feet Such sadness Turkmen baked in sun The ages blessed, no one Sand, landless
• too precious little water, or too damn much -- every nation, every person has sadnesses with suffering the world seems very rich big sorrow, small sorrow, some hit home hard while others miss but when we know people are hurting, and dying and no one seems to help, we nonetheless keep trying what's locked behind our watchers' lips, our throats must finally seek, like water in the seeing eye, some sure way out if only drop by drop every poet writes against the dark and the pain lest these too-human tides rise up to overwhelm us, trap us in ourselves again
• Turkmenbashi has stayed busy keeping Russia in a tizzy -- for Bashi no longer will stay a full member of the Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS instead he's chosen to become a mere associate and that's how he started the month of September for that's the sort of fellow Turkemenbshi is -- he loves to give others surprises though he dislikes surprises when they're his. Bashi also toured the Province of Lebap, (to find this consult a Turkmenistan map) -- schoolchildren were bussed in in droves to cheer and phone lines cut to homes of suspected dissidents and the internets down lest anyone interfere. o it's wondeful to be a Bashi for people respect you whetrever you go and they say nice things and give you presents and they never ever ever tell you No.
• If I was a Bashi I would decree That peace food and water Will all be free And if you want your Internets It's ten cents an hour That's about right I guess
• India and China are hungry for energy and they're puting out feelers to Turkemenbashi and all the nations round the caspian Sea. Pipelines are in great demand and now more are being planned.
• When you look at the map Of Bashi's outback You'll find both Iran And eventually Iraq
• Turkmenbashi decrees: "Let there be Penguins"!
• Good find, un-!!! Turkmenbashi has poor sense Bashio's ego's grown immense -- even with a swimming pool putting penguins in this desert is just plain cruel!
• not just penguins, my friends, "penguins from the north"! the mind, it boggles.
• Perhaps you're aware What Bashi's mind has laid bare- The man's clear off his rocker He's nuts - that's a shocker I hope his plan isn't true To build a desert zoo, And put penguins on the prairie? His dementia's really scary
• Bashi's ego's scary; but more so is the way his people let him go ahead with such expensive, worthless things as they once tolerated the whims of ancient kings.
• I imagine the Turkmen's plight has wings Of fancy Good coffee, a light And smoke of fine tobacco the night undisturbed Or so I imagine
• Put Bashi on exhibit in a zoo! Blast Bashi into space and let him fall! One thing is absolutely true -- as a leader he's no use at all.
• Turkmenbashi Airpost -- as you can see lies next to the city of Turkmenbashi, for here there is one simple rule of naming things -- call 'em Turkmenbashi School or Mount Turkmenbashi or Turkmenbashi Street or the Turkmenbashi Meteorite or the Turkmenbashi Book -- saying Turkmenbashi Anything may keep folks off the hook.
• Desert day Keepin tha Cool away Services are closed that's why we meeeeeet Can you tell me why we meet Why we meet on Turkmenbashi streeeeeet? apologies to the great Joe Raposo
• Turkmenistan has a Stalinist regime along with North Korea, but neither the US not Russia fusses over Bashi, so the world at large has almost no idea. Yes, Bashi has things all his way and his opponents dare not say anything to his detriment or oppose his oppressive government.
• There's only one party, for who could want more? And having one leader saves such an uproar, Though the turnout last election was remarkably poor, So the polling officials went round door-to-door: "Please, sir, place your ballot in this ballot-box, for I've carried the damn thing about forty blocks."
• If we switched Turkmenbashi With our own Bushybashi Would we show so much favor To our near Muslim neighbors Or would we attack That wacky Iraq With plans since erased And intentions misplaced Or just build a gold statue Of Bush smirking at you Mandate his Rukhnama, A crayon book drama
• )))!!!
• One reason folk refrain from voting, posssibly -- they now give presents to new voters and the elderly including a copy of You-Lnow-Who's favorite book which isn't worth a first, let alone a second, look.
• The problem For Turkmenistan's peasants Is elections Are not very pleasant When voting's a choice But it isn't So voters Are just a bit hesitant A vote against Bashi Is futile His victory system Is puerile It's the biggest damn scam In Turkmenistan Since Bashi mandated a smile (no gold teeth!)
• we curl inside our rage and growl and hiss waiting for Bashi to get his under the moon rage prowls for years as our countrymen are drowned in tears
• Nobody lives on ninety per cent of the land it's barren desert full of rocks and sand; five million folk are jammed into the rest obeying Turkemenbashi's every request. Bashi stays busy, taking apart the health system education -- approving or vetoing item by item.
• Imagine For a moment That you were the Bashi - Omniscient Omnipresent Your own posse Gold teeth Gone Save for statues Lip synched Music The stuff of legend Alone and Perfect Congratulations! A final Respite from Those situations
• Turn left, turn right Bashi's smily-face is always in our sight; the omnipresent Ruknama, full of other people's stolen words ensures the Bashi's voice is always heard. Wriggle as we may we can't easily get away from Bashi-face and Bashi-talk, and -- woe for us! alas! -- we're far too scared to squawk.
• Human rights violations are standard for this nation -- torture, arresting the families of dissidents, and forced relocation are common tools of Bashi's rule.
• We thought Bashi was full of gas He often tries to offer Plain-tively he sells the 'line But what about the water? water could become a major catalyst for conflict
• What shall we do? Why, let's go to the zoo where 300 species are sweltering, too! Look! Up in the sky, a Japanese satellite races by -- with a copy of Bashi's book inside a feat that Bashi regards with pride.
• Truth, pete. When water or foods are in short supply, animals and/or people will eventually die. Ninety per cent of Turkmenistan's bone dry.
• The desert sky shone On a statue of gold Deep in the heart of the sands As time overcomes A despot's red crimes The desert takes over the land Bring Neptune! Aquarius! Charge the sky splinter! Fall water, o'ercome time's demands! Leave Bashi, confined A paranoid's jail ~ To live out the Fates he has planned
• pete, that's one of your very best!!! ))) !!!
• many thanks as always, sir bees :)
• Too bad for us, though we are wortthy Turkmen if we can't recite passages from The Rukhnama -- it's replacing other knowledge in our schools. the drivers' license office, and the slammer. Prepare to reel off Bashi's words upon request, for no one says it like our Bashi, who of course knows best.
• But our schools aren't now in session with the cotton hervest underway teachers and students work in the fields, they're picking cotton every day. Children, set your texts aside! Though Rukhnama is our Bashi's pride For now that moral book must yield to gathering cotton in the field.
• Political opposition to Bashi can't exist in his own country -- opposing Bashi in a way that's worthwhile his politcal opponents must be in exile. This week four groups of them formed a united front, and called for Bashi's ouster, to be blunt. The opposition's not been orgnized before -- here's hoping they achive their end without a civil war.
• Gah! Someone has stolen my e! /spelling bee damned
• Oh what a wild time in Bashi's Gas biz He's fired the guy who knows where the money is Bashi says he's got three wives - On top of his other, more financial crimes He's accused of hiding these bribes for gas But we know ol' Bashi's just covering his ass
• Lovely is the rose -- finer far than Bashi's poetry and prose! He tells the poor Turkmen -- over and over -- to do as he says or get run over. He fires anyone with any ambition because Bashi's scared of all competition.
• petebest, read something earlier today that would appear to have some slight relevancy re our upthread ponderings [comment 198065 ff.] re Napoleon's height -- from the October 2005 National Geographic, "Admiral Lord Nelson's Fatal Victory" -- Horatio Nelson's height was five feet six inches. He was described by a contemproary as a "small man", certainl,ky so in comparison to his friend and captain, Hardy, who stood six foot four. However, what really caught my eye was this, in reference to one of the French sea-captains at the Battle of Trafalger: {"Jean-Jacques-Etienne Lucas...even smaller than Nelson... called "a petit bonhomme or little man" and according to French naval historian he stood four foot eight. Which certainly establishes there were Frenchmen of the period who were not very tall serving in a military capacity. Unfortunately no references in this article to Napoleon's own height.
• Bashi's ousts his ministers and officials after a short term in office, which demoralizes the country's administrators, who take bribes but live in terror of being called traitors. Their job security is nill, so government keeps going downhill and corruption's universal.
• Once upon a time, flashboy posted this about a pet dictator of his -- thanks to the great amnesia and to slow-loading thread Bashi's history has wound on and on instead of winding to a dignified [ha!] close since Bashi's not yet taken a final repose. Bashi's stranglehold on the media means little trickles out that Bashi hasn't ordered his minions to put out. So, in these threads we mean to reveal why and how the Bashi is a perfect heel.
• The cotton harvest is upon us Bashi demands an increase Pregant women, newborn children Grapple with disease The plants are toxic, for efficiency Bashi notes last years deficiencies The swelter, heat, and lack of trees With Bashi always hard to please Sick kids grow feverish, cough and wheeze And Bashi Always Bashi living the life of ease
• Our nerves are shot we know all peace forgot Bashi's men are always watching listening for some plot hatching. To the cotton fields we go to pick what's hoped may bring high yields
• When you hold an election and everyone stays home -- well, you might think there's something wrong; when you have to hand out presents just to get voters to come -- you might wish that something better would come along. But Bashi's trapped in a web of his own making and lacks the will for a new political undertaking. He's president-for-life, he has declared it! And now it seems his countrymen can't bear it.
• Today is a time for memories Memorial Day for all Even the best and even the bees Doff thier hats for the good of all For today in nineteen forty eight The earth was rent asunder Ten Richters cannot even calculate The devestation's awe and wonder Thirty thousand Turkmen lost their lives Including Bashi's mommy The husbands and brothers and cousins and wives In the desert nation's tsunami
• *applauds petebest* Sad. Too many earthquakes in that arera, as India continues to slide under the Himalayas.
• I will step down in 2009 Bashi once again declares. Bashi out of officve? Never! I think he'll just reign on forever. I'll believe this when I see it and not a moment before Bashi's finally out of office without political uproar. Most probably he'll just get them to demand he stay in office longer for the sake of Motherland.
• Turkmenbashi lives in Istanbul You can see him on his bicycle 'Round he rides without a care As long as you have cut your hair Trimmed your nails and shaved your beard Your face with makeup unbesmeared Now he wants a new device A desert palace made of ice! When he's dead from some affront The turks will cheer that stupid cunt.
• The AOC has seen it fit On Bashi to confer With "Order of Honor", travesty's writ Business as usual, as it were He'll build for sports! New coliseum! The same old "great works" rut If Turkmenistan justice were a museum That's where Bashi's balls would be put
• Turkmenbashi is a fussy Bashi Two provincal guv'nors were fired He chided them Before their friends For a rotten cotton harvest But like Stalin's moustache, His diatribe is tired "More production!" He grumbles Scrunched his fat Bashi face By chemical hook And by child labor crook He tightens his frightening edicts But like Ozymandius' killer Time's blind justice rumbles
• A fine one, Chy! The Olympic Committee's praise disgraces them further ij these not-so-pretty days. Worse and worse the yields of cotton -- every year a little less, depsite the children labouring in the fields -- and how to fix it anybody's guess.
• Bashi frees over half the convicts Each year at Ramadan Wife beaters and addicts Meander out into the Ashgabat night "Give them shelter and jobs!" Bashi orders the mayors His plan feeds the mobs With the jail-wizened Turkmen's plight And what of the recidivist? A anti-peace activist? A sharp-eyed quick fingered theif? They'll bide their new time Like any ex-con For forgiveness season Like Ramadan
• You simply must read it My Dear People's a hit Bashi's an author wisdom and wit.
• Bashi says he's feelin' fine But nothing is eternal He'll host elections in 2009 For a president that he'll rule Why the change? What's up with the 'shi? He knows it's strange To rule eternally
• *checks to see if bees is back yet* *looks around, checks behind door* *sighs*
• Bashi loves the violin More accurately, its music He loves it as much as he loves him -Enough to make us all sick But One Hundred Million of his "personal funds" Were given to better the school They tour strings to Mockba The talented ones Named for Bashi the fool
• Fie on Bashi, fie! Let him flee the country he's made so wretched! Small loss if he should die! Oh, let his trodden people rise and take his head! And let them piss upon his grave once he is dead! Someday let there be a Turkman who can write things that aren't hopelessly trite or plagiarized before the world's unindignant eyes! For such will be a wonderful surprise!
• bees is back to bash the bashi
• Bashi Song No one gets hurt in the Garaghul Desert; beside the canal I might call you my pal. What Bashi tells you is always true. By the Caspian sea men must listen to me! They must do as I say and not sneak away but simply obey and obey and obey.
• Yayyyy!!! *joyous resoundings, etc!*
• Bashi habitually uses exclamations when he addresses his long-suffering nation: "My beloved Country! My dear People!" and then he'll wanna discourse at length on the ill-written Rukhnama. Forcing anyone to read this book seems cruel -- it now replaces curriculum in every Turkmen school. You can't get a drivers license without being albe to quote it it's more important to spout this drivel than to drive without it. Quotes from the wretched thing appear on the big mosque beside quotes from the Quran, and if anybody asks they should expect a speedy trip to prison for Bashi won't tolerate the slightest criticism.
• A toast! To Turkmen's dissent For post-Bashi Ashgabat is rent The mosque! The statue's tumbled To be melted When the Turkmen's rumble
• Gross national produce of Turkmenistan: natural gas edicts melons cotton rug-smugglers unnatural gas {See edicts. See Rukhnama.] Rukhnama, copies of
• You can eat a banana You can eat a melon But brother, You can't eat a Rukhnama
• You can tell Bashi's happy at the Independence Day fair Because he's not sick He won't need doctors' care But the smallest are dying The young are unwell 'Cause batshit loon Bashi Has put them in hell
• In Turkmenistan Bashi, the old tyrant, keeps every man his sycophant. How else can he dare feel happy? thinking every man just like himself -- active, selfish, grabby?
• hell is well can't you tell, pull out some duns, I've got souls to sell, falls that fell, are but work, for rut....
• Bashi celebrated his greatness and glory-- what the people thought of it is an untold story, or one that will unfold slowly and inevitably by the ever turbuklent shores of the Caspian Sea.
• Doctors and medical staff were fired and no one to replace them has been hired -- many of those left have fled Turkmenistan where medical personnel are almost banned. The doctors are sent out to pick cotton in the field while patients lie untended and this scandal's unrevealed. The child mortality rate is sky high -- once in hospital a child is sure to die. Medical practicve has gone underground and modern treatment is nowhere to be found.
• Doctors now throughout the land have enough to make them balmier -- they're required to read a medieval philospher as well as sit exams on the Rukhnama. This guff does nothing to aid patient treatment and only leads to intellectual defeat. Projects glorifying Bashi take priority over public welfate or even common sense -- Bashi spends money on gold statues and domes, and there's nothing to be said in his defense.
• Ignorance of individuals is responsible for many deaths in Turkmen hospitals; trained personnel are far too few -- so-called doctors practice without a clue. Infectious diseases are on the rise a;though paperwork indicates otherwise, but public health inspectors write down lies about who's sick of what, ignore who dies.
• Last year 69 people died of bubonic plague, and many more from TB because the drugs weren't free. On paper there are no cases of syphilis or AIDs, and no one officially knows what's going on in this country.
• In 2010 a campus named Rukhnama Will open to the curious- about Rukhnama And learned tho the teachers be Rukhnama Is all that they shall see This holy book? This sacred screed? Rukhnama Breaks itself indeed
• Bashi's doc says he's ok He's healed himself In a classic way He's THE BASHI He's unfallible, king Down one night, up today So save your prescriptions Physicians, be nuts! Belief over ills will hold sway Build your statues of gold Bust your likeness, noblesse Forever keep Reaper away But remember When you're gone Then you'll pay
• I am also willin' to call Bashi a villain. He lives in Turkmenistan and is a BAD, BAD man. But this can't go on forever. Only medical endeavour and flights of imported physicians can keep the old bastard full o' vinegar and pissin'.
• Walking backward under Bashi's sway (and the guy keeps decreeing new kinds of worsts) Turkmen recede from the twentieth century, never making it into the twenty-first.
• Turkmenbashi has, however, made it into 2006 C.E. Dickering seems ongoing between Turkmenistan and Ukraine -- Ukraine could be crowing over gas prices again -- for Ukraine isn't Russia, Bashi's nemesis, Turkmenbashi'd like to give the bear a miss.
• A Working visit Bahi has planned To meet Comrade Putin To work with the man No fun! No women! Only a lone bulb for Bashi The green visor sloped To the books For the night see The gas money's humming It's under his thumbing The gas giant's rumbling His greed harp is strumming And there For the working visit Goes Bashi
• Bashi's farts are natural gas. Someday, the world will cringe in awe that he could heat continents with his effluents.
• The areas around the Caspian Sea are sometimes uncivilized places to be -- weatward, bird flu's been found in Turkey, while in Turkmenistan, lying easterly, neither doctors nor hospitals, thanks to Bashi are there now to tend anyone unhealthy. It's hard to believe a bird-borne affliction that came from the east somehow skipped Baashi's nation.
• 2005, The Year That Wasn't Bashi's cold fist Omnipresent Human Rights Like the Ice Palace wet The desert nation Sweats to forget Rukhnama Beset
• Mass bird deaths, Bashi covers up.
• Good find, but terrible news, islander! The idea they can somehow control matters reflects profound ignorance about what a serious outbreak of disease will mean. Because Bashi's cutbacks and elmination of medical personnel and social services will ensure many deaths if bird flu gets a toehold in the country. Turkmenistan doesn't even have reliable records of who died from what disease or cause. Basic public health information they would need to combat an epidemic just isn't there. Really sad. And quite literally sickening.
• I suspect he'll give up fowl for dinner for the nonce, just in case, but I have to wonder how many Turkmen rely on chicken for protein. A few hens and a rooster must have been a good investment in the past. Very sad.
• Bashi hasn't wanted any foreign reporters, and he's kicked out many; others he's had beaten and jailed for neglecting to write according to his orders. Sp almost everything that's said has failed to give an objective look at Bashi, Turkmenistan's biggest crook.
• It seems it's official There'll be few disputin' Ol' Bashi the Gas Man Has signed up with Putin.
• Radiofree Europe says dead and dying poultry is being reported from Turkmenistan. The government still has not given any information about bird flu to the citizenry. Turkmenistan is requiring hunters to have any birds they shoot be checked, but how well or widely this is being carried out is not known.
• At last! the names of all the months in Turkmenistan-under-Bashi: January = Turkmenbashi month February = Flag Month March = Nowruz April = Gorbansoltan month, after Bashi's mother May = Maktum Kuli month, in honour of a Turkmen poet June = Oguz Khan month, in honour of the legendary founder of the Turkmen nation July = Gorkut, after an epic hero August = Arp-Arslan = in honour of an ancient Turkmen commander September = Rukhnama month, after Bashi's book October = Independence month November = Sanjar month, after the last ruler of the Seljuk Empire December = Neutrality month [Bitaraplyk] /gleaned from Wikipedia
• Sweet. Y'know I'm startin'ta think that Bashi feller might just be a bit tetched. and not in a good way like Quidnunc.
• On the young and the ignorant Fate plays some dirty tricks; and on March the 2nd, Turkmenbashi turned sixty-six. No word of what kind of celebratory rites the Turkmen performed, [now brace yourselves] though I'm convinced they're sorry he was ever borned.
• ouch! Can we get a ruling on that from the judges? ;) Perhaps as a part of his natal party The Bashi's fired more from his cabinet because he Rules unnopposed It's assumed we all knows That jailed officials comes and goes
• People, read my book three times a day and you're sure to go to heaven," Bashi does say.
• I could just be wrong Or in fine hysterics But won't Bashi's book Cause trouble with the clerics?
• He has trodden them into the dirt, apparently -- he's imprisoned several, has insisted he be the only one who appoints new mullah-types, and insisted quotes from his book be slathered on the walls of the big new mosque along with quotes from the Koran. No one sane in Turkmenistan objects to this. Not out loud.
• I suppose there were those pharoahs And dynastic mongrel kings Whos flights of loopy fancy Were accepted as loopy things And just before those kings went cold They winked and touched their noses To bury loopy with the body And return to wine and roses *sigh*
• Wine and roses sounds acceptable, actually, provided the Turkmen get to share the pleasures which Bashi is now hogging for himself.
• Turkmen author Rakhim Esenov travels to New York to accept PEN award.
• And now we read Bashi's at it again From his interior court He's casting out sin From barbarous acts He orders with moxie He's bribery's foe As he fires his proxy A Censorious Caesar, He's wacker than crack He fakes his own myth As he dyes his hair black
• what Bashi gets he squirrels away saving what he steals for a rainy day though his people lack schools and decent health care the Bashi don't care no, the Bashi don't care
• My grocer has garlic labeled "Product of Turkmenistan". Anyone else seen this?
• Mine says China.
• Garlic is too good for Bashi; however, it may be one of the few plants with medicinal attributes which his countrymen can lay hands on.
• Pitch black outside: it's four a.m. in Ashgabat -- where all's not well. What Bashi's up to in the dead of night who can really tell? The media are terrified lest Bashi lock them deep inside a prison cell.
• The World Bank and the IMF don't really care if Bashi strips his country bare. He's stowed away billions for a rainy day and German banks are helping him in every way. Sing hey! for the Bashi, he's meaner than a snake! Turkmen now are dying 'cause Bashi's on the take.
• A plume of dust where once a church, All other Gods will be besmirched Save Bashi, in his folded mind Gazing in wonder At his turgid behind.
• wow bees, I missed your post b/c I was composing my own. With almost three weeks since the last - How funny!
• Heh! We're evidently on the same wavelength today, petes -- hoohoo!
• Lo! The Rukhnama's back online at last! Read it Section III and you'll speedily see why there's no worse poet than the Bashi.
• Living as a nation is a great pleasure. Wow. That's a big ego, folks.
• In June Bashi's police arrested an Ashgabat-based free-lance correspondent - then her three adult children. As part, Turkmenistan alleges, of a plot to destabilize the country. Two other extra-nationals have also been arrested, making a total of six people, thus far. Amnesty and other groups are calling for their release. fears are being expressed that they are being tortured. Europe's increased dependence on imported gas and oil makes it unlikely there will be many outraged protests coming from the EU.
• In June Bashi's police arrested an Ashgabat-based free-lance correspondent - then her three adult children. As part, Turkmenistan alleges, of a plot to destabilize the country. Two other extra-nationals have also been arrested, making a total of six people, thus far. Amnesty and other groups are calling for their release. fears are being expressed that they are being tortured. Europe's increased dependence on imported gas and oil makes it unlikely there will be many outraged protests coming from the EU.
• behind the headlines and the books of 'poetry' lie the facts of Bashi's greed and cruelty ignoring his people's misery and ill health Bashi openly corners all his country's wealth
• Bashi's mind may be a steel trap Or a greedy sieve - Or a cold child's revenge But lastly his movie is bland Plain, bleached and Washed-out Greed Corrupt carrion of greatness lost
• They have to go they cannot stay Bashi's policies are driving them away.
• Wikipedia puts Bashi in his place today: he's five feet one and wears a toupee! Perhaps this deals another blow to Bashi's ego; but since he controls all his country's media it seems unlikely fellow Turkmen will ever know their spendthrift Bashi's ego can't grow greedier.
• Bashi's own Goebbels is put in the clink For 17 years he'll have time to think He propagandized the big Bashi show For what he was jailed, we may never know.
• Turkmen have the damndest notions of poets on the face o' the globe, in my opinion.
• How so, Sir Bees? (Perhaps the Ruhnama ruined them all?)
• See the last paragraph of your article, petes. And if they're smart, they say Turkmenbashi's a poet, too.
• The Ogulsapar Nuradova, the Ashgabat-based correspondent arrested in June has died while in prison. There are marks of strangulation and major head trauma on her body. This is even more disturbing since two other non-Turkmen media people remain in prison. One US senator has noticed and spoken out. But no government wants to set Bashi's back up, thanks to Turkmenistan's oil and gas, which is still attracting foreign investors.
• Sam Brownback from Kansas spoke up about this? No shit. Wonders never cease I suppose. The trumped-up charge for "illegally posessing ammunition" is all the more ridiculous. And it's no wonder the US media outlets don't have a thing, at least from this Google news search. US "journalists" are too busy stuffing their assholes with chocolate and money to report on a colleague actually challenging a corrupt government. okay that was a harsh condemnation, but the Bush junta is oozing unchallenged on their watch and they deserve a kick up the arse.
• Alas, I don't think 'twas overly harsh, petebest, since US journalism apparently died a while back.
• Died, and has started to stink.
• Bashi's ministers now work with increased security - for they're all being overseen by someone from the MNB*, and if their work ain't up to snuff the MNB guys will get tough. The cotton harvest isn't good, it's not bringing in the loot that Turkmenbashi hoped it would - one minister's already got the boot! *=Ministry of National Security, apparently the nearest equivalent to the KGB in Turkmenistan
• Turkmenbashi to release over 10,000 prisoners in annual amnesty including 8 who were supposedly part of a 2002 assassination plot. See, he's not such a bad guy after all! Just ask the (estimated) 15 squillion Turkmens still in prison! (link features amusingly mad photo)
• "their guilt is excessive" I shall be using that later. Hi Pallas! Nice to see you again the otehr day!
• Bashi does this every year on his birthday - always petty crimnals, never political prisoners.
• I was kind of shocked that the Beeb would put out that article without some kind of figure on Turkmenistan's total overall prison population, but there we go. Best I can find is a figure of 22,000, but that dates from six years ago, pre-assassination attempt. Hmmmm. hi back atcha, muteboy!
• It's been releases of ten thousand for the last few years, if that's nay help. Bashi's the kind of hypocritical thinker who has one set of rules for Bashi and another set for everyone else: it's what most folk call injustice and why I call him an utter stinker.
• well dang nay help = any help though it's probably nae help
• Do you think he orders extra people arrested just so he can crank up his amnesty totals?
• just cause he has an upset tummy. Bashi the monsther Bashi the skunk Forever bound to derision By unlicensed poets And literate punks And scores of brothers in prison
• )))!!! Pallas Athena, I'm speculating: either Bashi has so many imprisoned that the subtraction of a mere ten thousand is a trifling matter, or else ten thousand is enough to make Bashi think he'll seem generous. Or quite possibly both. Dunno if there's any special significance in the Turkmen culture to the number ten thousand itself, but that might be worth looking into. Ten thousand shall go free so Bashi's generosity is on display for all to see. But if there were no public view no telling at all what Bashi would do.
• Leaving Turkmenistan is like a reprieve -- once Kiwis visit Turkmenistan they're glad to leave.
• ...did they at least get to try the melons?
• Heh. Think they were confined by the authorities lest they run loose and give Turkmen ideas about other places and peoples not being Bashi-crushed.
• Bashi's fake leadership won't Let them eat cake, There's no bread for some of the hungry His tired response is to Fire the governors To cover his usual bumbling
• Bashi's fake leadership won't Let them eat cake, There's no bread for some of the hungry His tired response is to Fire the governors To cover his usual bumbling
• I knew that was going to happen. Internal Server Error.
• if Bashi took the money he puts into grandiose schemes there'd be money galore for schools and medicines and other things that make life sweet