You learn something new everyday (Kucinich isnt all Croatian)

[JohnKleeb]

I always thought my pick for the presidential nomination, the great and noble Dennis J Kucinich was all Croatian, it turns out hes only half but the other half is something I am, hes half Irish and half Croatian. Thats cool, we need another "Mick" in the white house and the first Eastern European American president wouldnt be so shabby plus hes the best on the issues, he has a terrific work ethic, and he is a sucess story. Didnt know that about you Dennis, and I still support you duh.

[CBHagman]

1. I'm all for tasty ethnic combinations.

Having recently become obsessed with genealogy, all I can say is that ethnic intermarriage rocks!

[izzie]

12. Well I am into doing my family tree and it is as dull as hell on that line

n/t

[JohnKleeb]

14. thats a shame

my relatives
one married an African American
another married a Brit a literal one bloody good
One married an Italian American
and etc

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. speaking of things I bet you didn't know

Did you know JFK was Italian?

seriously, he was.

[JohnKleeb]

3. Rat I will tell you if I meet an Italian with the last name Fitzgerald or

Kennedy but I am not lying about this, and yeah to responder number 1 ethnic marriage does rock, me the grandson of a slovak and slovene and of a german and an irish. Kick ass.

[Darranar]

4. Yah, intermarriage does rock...

I'm part Ashkenazic Jewish, Spanish, German, Native American, and African American. Multiethnic to an extreme.

[iluvchicago86]

5. *crying*

I feel so plain...100 percent serbian here...;(

[JohnKleeb]

7. hey at least you got an unique country

and you are not a WASP no offense to WASPS but damnit :) I am glad that aint me, its so plain.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. Hey, I didn't ASK to be born a WASP, you know!

Somebody has to be Plain Vanilla as a reference point. But I try not to be boring. ;-)

(Just kidding, John. No offense taken.)

[JohnKleeb]

13. heh its ok

but err you are a WASC now, you Catholic you, all you need is some ethnic blood, and you will be in the ethnic party :)

[Darranar]

15. What is a WASP?

n/t

[JohnKleeb]

16. 3 words anything but you

Dar a WASP is a
White Anglo Saxon Protestant
like the guy's name would be something like lol
Joe Brown
John Smith
heh you know those boring hehe non ethnic people.

[Darranar]

8. Don't worry...

us liberals aren't multiethnocentric :).

[Breezy du Nord]

19. sweet I'm czech

in the same area, right?

[JohnKleeb]

20. no but you are near me

and Czechoslovakia area is a great place.
Czech Republic borders Slovakia which I am part as is My grandmom, the heroic Sgt Mike Strank, one of the iwo jima flagraisers and a relative, the daring Alexander Dubcek who tried to put a human face on communism. See my map that I showed dembones breezy. But all three of us that is me, you, and Sonja(iluvchicago) are all Slavs as is another person around our age here at DU Leftistrebel :hi: Derek if you see this, I will probably be gone by then. I am going out of town tonite so you know.

[JohnKleeb]

6. awesome

Thats real cool, you got European blood, African, and Indian blood which is like Asian. Anyways I would envision you got a dark complexion. Btw if you ever saw Godfather you know Duvall's character Tommy, thats my dad kinda, an Irish and a German. My last name is German btw but here are my lol variations
O'Kleeb
McKleeb
Kleebvich
Kleebinich
Kleebzinski

[REP]

41. I Think I'm a WJC

That is, White Jew Celt. My father was a Lithuanian Jew, and my mother would be a blue-blood except there's no Anglo-Saxon in her line: she has Celts (Welsh and Scots) and Dutch. Her father's family name is an ancient Pagan name, but most of her ancestors were Congregationalists (Puritans).

[DemBones DemBones]

9. I thought Dennis was Slovenian -- are Slovenians a subset of

Croatians? Back when Yugoslavia fell apart, I had a Yugoslavian friend who explained some of the ethnic issues to me but the main thing I remember is that some Croats she had been friends with for many years would no longer associate with her because she's a Serb. Very, very sad, as are all conflicts, ethnic or otherwise.

[JohnKleeb]

10. nope

I am part Slovene as is Tom Harkin. During WWII many Croats collerbated with the Nazis, I am not sure about the Slovenes but my family members fought back. You know Tito he was 1/2 Croat and 1/2 Slovene. One of my best friends at DU, IluvChicago86 is all Serb as you see. I am gonna get a map ok. You see pretty much the South Slavic people all look alike and speak simliar languages but religion kinda seperates them. The Slovenes and Croats are mostly Catholic. Also another one of my good DU friends is part Croat.
Heres the map

Serbia is the biggest of the former republics population wise and probably is the best known country, Belgrade is there, relgion wise it is mostly Eastern Orthodox
Croatia has probably the best coast of them all and it is mostly Catholic
Slovenia :) my great grandparents were from there, it is mountainous, mostly Catholic, and wasnt involved in the recent conflicts.
The others I dont know much about. Also the language is different.

[TheBigGuy]

23. Vojvodina, AKA The Banat, used to have a big German minority.

Back when the Austrians where fighting the Turks (17th & 18th century) this area became depopulated and the Austrians invited Germans from Swabia (the area that now makes Merceded Benz) to settle there.

These "Danube Swabians" (or "Donauschwaben" in German) where kicked out after WWII, and a large number of them settled in the USA. They have social clubs and in Chicago they even had their own folk music show...

[JohnKleeb]

24. interesting

Well I've read that we the Slovenes are probably culturally the most Western of the all the South Slavs that is Western Civilzation. I think my grandpa's parents were from Lubjiana I am not sure. In the emerald isle I come from Galway.

[TheBigGuy]

27. Solvenia was very culturally western...architecture...music...karst.

Lubjiana, AKA Laibach, is a neat town..very Baroque.

Solvenia produced a really neat archtect, Josef Plecnik, who did some really interesting things, including a reconstruction of parts of the Prague Castle.
http://www.ijs.si/slo/ljubljana/plecnik.html


Then there is the modern art-rock group NSK, Neu Slovenische Kunts

http://www.ljudmila.org/nsk/


And it has a really interesting limestone region..the Karst...with caves, sinkholes, disappearing rivers, and real good cured ham.

[JohnKleeb]

29. thank you very interesting

Glad to see I am not the only Eastern European fanatic heh here, I knew I wasnt, anyways being Catholic and since Catholics are abundant in both Western and Eastern Europe its hard for me to identify with the East or West and being 50/50 on both makes it even tougher, but I identify with the east more so, but in the west theres one country that stands out for me to identify with and thats the emerald isle. Thanks again it sounds like a great place.

[TheBigGuy]

32. The thing to remember about Easten Europe...

...is that it traditionally has been more of a ethnolinguistic mosaic. For every region that had a "dominant" group there where nearly always ethnolinguistic minorities in the same region.

So nationalism could lead to some nasty buisness, like antisemtism and stuff like what happened in the former Yugoslavia.

[JohnKleeb]

33. yes you are right

like would this be an example ok the Russians and the ummm Ukrainians.

[Syrinx]

17. half-irish, huh?

That explains the Craotian leprechaun thing. :)

[JohnKleeb]

18. that dissolves it really

so syrinx because I know you are being good natured, I guess you can call him a leprechaun. Yep it does explain it, but he doesnt look like a mick really, a Mickcinich hehe.

[TheBigGuy]

21. Dennis was not the first serious slavic contender.

Edmund Muskie, back in 1972, was a serious contender, and he was of Polish ancestry.

[JohnKleeb]

22. did not know that either

:)
Thanks for the info did not know that. Arent you Polish big guy? Poles are great people and support the party good. BTW the first Irishman on a major party ticket was Al Smith whose Catholicism got him little votes in the South. Thanks for the tidbit, again :) you learn something new everyday.

[TheBigGuy]

25. yes, & grew up in Polish neighborhood in Chicago...part German too

yeah...im pretty ethnic. I'm closer to the German side as Ive been there a number of times visiting relatives.

But I also ID with my Polish ethnicity...my grandparents where bilingual, too.

[JohnKleeb]

26. I am an ethnic person too

part German too, Kleeb is German. My grandparents as children were brought up speaking their languages, they forgot however but recently my grandpa got me a Slovene-English dictionary. Chicago is what heh Boston, Ma is to the Micks heh for Poles I think, big Polishn population and from what our Serbian friend above tells us same goes for Serbs as well, you still out there in Iilnois if so you know your governor is a Serb, Mr. Blagoveich.

[TheBigGuy]

28. Serbo-Croatian radio in Chicago

On sundays, in the 1960s, after the Gerrman programming, the "Serbo Croatian Show" came on...with folk music from Yugoslavia.

The south slavs are really big in Ohio...as you can tell w. George Voinovich and Dennis Kucinich.

[JohnKleeb]

30. yes I know that about Ohio

Voinovich? is that Croatian or Serbian or neither. Pennsylvania has a nice number too of the South Slavs,

[TheBigGuy]

31. George Voinovich is of Serb ancestry.

..hes' still a right-wing puke. But he is maybe a bit more sensitive to urban issues than the rest of the GOP.

[JohnKleeb]

34. I thought so but lol he cant be that bad

Franco-Republicans remember that? I would trade him for George Allen honestly.

[DemBones DemBones]

35. See, John, that's one great advantage of being a WASP in the US:

all of us still speak our ancestral language!

Of course, some of us speak it better than others, not to mention any names of people in Washington, but. . .

And a trip to the UK shows you why Shaw said America and England were "two great countries separated by a common language." :7


Chicago is a great city, lots of ethnic groups. Lived there as a kid, remember great bakeries, going to an Armenian supper club with friends. And I still have family there; two of my grandmother's brothers settled there after they came over from England. I used to go ice skating with one of their grandsons (Are he and I third cousins or what? I always have to look that stuff up.)

[ForrestGump]

36. I think this thread is Croatianist!

:P

[DemBones DemBones]

39. LOL, it started out Croationist, but it EVOLVED. . .

:evilgrin:

[Breezy du Nord]

37. Any Bohunks in DUland?

Czech, that is?

I'm half, and my Dad grew up on the Iron Range. (and is surprisingly liberal)

[dpbrown]

38. Cool tidbits of knowledge!

I hadn't given a thought to DK's ethnic heritage except to think what a cool name he had.

[sasquatch]

40. Does this mean Guiness will be a tax write off

AHH... Guiness :beer: