Week 6, Run 3

Well, that was humbling. Just as I was beginning to swell with confidence about my progress and prospects, I go and turn in a clunker of a time.

I’m still trying to figure out what happened. The weather was nice by the time I went outside to run: dry, a bit overcast, and a comfortable 59 degrees. It was a welcome change from the wet weather I endured yesterday, and the cold temperatures that have been chilling the last several runs.

Of course, while I knew I was in line for more hospitable temperatures, I wasn’t expecting the brisk head wind that blew straight into my for most of the first three-quarters of a mile. Still, despite the wind, and a few seconds lost to waiting on traffic at an intersection, I made my first split at 5:45, which was only about fifteen to twenty seconds behind where I wanted to be. And I even managed to make up a little bit of that on the next segment, clocking the second three-quarters of a mile in about 6:20, even with the wind at my side and the big hill to slow my pace. I was hoping the third segment would see me make up a little more time, since, presumably, the wind should now be at my back, but for whatever reason I didn’t seem to feel it (probably the tree cover denied me any edge), though I continued to make good time, reaching the 2.5-mile mark in a little more than twenty minutes.

I was hoping when I started to try to get close to thirty minutes for my overall time, since I ran this route in 30:49 on Tuesday. I thought I could at least shave a good chunk of time off that mark, even if I didn’t quite break thirty minutes. So, at the very least I was hoping to reach my final split in under twenty-seven minutes, which would leave me a shade more than half a mile to go, with a pretty flat stretch left to run. I didn’t quite hit that mark, but I was around 27:28 or so for that final split, which made thirty minutes a virtual impossibility, but still meant I was making good time.

And then, inexplicably, I seem to have run the final half-mile or so in almost six minutes. I didn’t feel like I was going particularly slow, though I must’ve been plodding along. My legs felt a little heavy, but they had felt heavy from the beginning of my run, and it hadn’t seemed to have made an appreciable difference in my pace. I was back into the head wind, but I’m not sure it was quite so strong, and regardless, the wind hadn’t slowed me that much at the start of my run. Still, I was shocked when I reached the end of my run and saw my time — 33:12 — was way beyond thirty minutes. At first I thought it said 32:12, which seemed slow enough, because 33:12 seemed impossibly lethargic.

Again, I’m puzzled as to what happened. I might not have felt very strong by the end, which wouldn’t be surprising, given that I also ran yesterday and I often experience a dip in performance on Fridays. But I still find that explanation less than convincing, since none of that seemed to affect me over the first 3.5 miles. The best explanation I can imagine is that my mental focus must have wandered in that last stretch, which meant I started to think about something other than trying to finish strong. It’s nice to enjoy a sort of mental respite while exercising, but, at least for me, it seems to come at the expense of performance. Probably this is an indication that I’m someone who shouldn’t listen to music on an iPod while running. Or maybe I’d just need to listen to music with a fast tempo.

In any event, I’m surprised and disappointed, but it’s a minor setback. I’d be much more concerned if I thought my slow time today was a sign of a physical problem, or if I had been laboring all the way and had been going slowly throughout my run. It’s just a good reminder of the importance of the mental component, and how concentration really seems to matter for me.

Today’s stats:

• Distance run: 3.98 miles
• Time: 33:12
• Average speed: 7.2 mi/h
• Average pace: 8:18/mi
• Calories burned: 580

Week 6, Run 2

‘Twas wet this morning when I went for my run. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but it was a bit steadier than a sprinkle. On the plus side, the temperature when I left was about 48 degrees, according to the thermometer on our balcony, so it wasn’t bone-jarringly cold. And the raindrops made me feel like I was hardly breaking a sweat, even if I was getting quite wet.

This was the first time I had done a run entirely in the rain, and it was also a good bit longer than the last time it rained on me. If nothing else, it was a good experience to prepare me for the possibility of having to do a long run in the rain. The wet conditions didn’t really bother me too much (except for when I stepped in a puddle around the four-mile mark while trying to run around a school bus turning in front of me). Occasionally I’d catch a raindrop in the eye, but it didn’t sting, and the discomfort was fleeting. Probably the worst part about running in these conditions is that my shirt got much wetter than it does when I’m only contending with sweat; the moisture-wicking technical fabric is no match for constant rain. I suppose if I did a longer run in similar conditions I could wear a windbreaker or light poncho to keep my shirt dry (or at least drier), but I always imagine I’d feel uncomfortable running in anything more than a shirt and shorts. (Note: I may change my opinion on the matter if and when the day comes that I have to run in freezing or sub-freezing conditions.)

In any event, the weather was nothing more than a minor nuisance, something I’d change if I could, but nothing that seriously affected my run. I set out hoping to break thirty-nine minutes, and my split times were strong all the way, making it quite easy for me to achieve my goal. I was pretty strong on the hills, though perhaps not quite so fast as normal on the descents, especially the steeper declines where I tend to pick up a lot of speed. And I probably didn’t finish so strongly as I often do, kicking it into a higher gear over the last few blocks or so, but I kind of felt as I was running that I had been going stronger than normal throughout my run, which might have been why I didn’t feel like I was going significantly faster over the stretches when I did try to speed up over the last mile and a half or so.

Today’s stats:

• Distance run: 5.00 miles
• Time: 38:37
• Average speed: 7.8 mi/h
• Average pace: 7:42/mi
• Calories burned: 728

Week 6, Run 1

After running a pretty brisk ten miles on Sunday, my legs felt pretty good the rest of the day and into yesterday. I had some aches, especially in my calves, but nothing was howling at me, and I wasn’t finding it painful to do mundane things like walk up and down stairs (in contrast to when I pushed myself to do long runs over the summer without having properly prepared myself physically).

Nonetheless, I was still feeling some residual soreness in my calves when I got up this morning. But my thighs and hamstrings felt fine, and the dull aches in my calves were more a mild nuisance than a crippling weakness. I decided not to coddle my legs, and instead to keep pushing myself so my legs will continue to get stronger, especially since my mileage is going to continue increasing the next couple of weeks.

While my calves might have issued muted cries of protest, my head and the rest of my body ignored it. I had a very fast split of 5:25 for the first three quarters of a mile, and I managed to do the next three quarters in a little under seven minutes. The big hill on the second segment slowed me a bit, but I could really feel like my legs are getting stronger, since it was starting to seem less intense and laborious, even if my time might not have been significantly better than what I’ve run previously (I don’t really remember).

I was really enjoying my run from that point, since I knew I had already tackled the worst of it. Moreover, I was still feeling pretty good, and enjoying the sense that my legs are getting stronger. It was nice as I was running on a long, gradual incline, to feel like I could find another gear to increase my pace. I posted good splits for roughly 2.6 miles and 3.5 miles, and still had something to give at the end, since I felt like I was sustaining a slightly quicker pace for the home stretch of about half a mile.

My time ended up being really good, too. At the outset, I was hoping to crack the eight-minute mark, which meant finishing under thirty-two minutes. But thanks to good split times along the way, I broke thirty-one minutes. My previous best time for the four-mile run was 32:07, and I eviscerated that personal record quite nicely (though in fairness I haven’t run this distance in almost three weeks, so my time was bound to be much faster).

Today’s stats:

• Distance run: 3.98 miles
• Time: 30:49
• Average speed: 7.7 mi/h
• Average pace: 7:42/mi
• Calories burned: 581

Anze the Giant

Let the paeans to Anze Kopitar’s greatness be composed now.

Week 5, Run 4

Brrr! We’ve had a bit of a warm spell the past week, by which I mean the temperatures have been in the 50s in the morning when I’ve gone for my run. We’ve also had some wetter weather, but I’d trade some light rain for the (relatively) warmer temperature.

I’d been a little apprehensive about my long run this week, since I had been seeing rain in the forecast, and while I don’t mind the rain on my shorter runs, I didn’t really wanted to spend ten miles getting drenched.

So, I was relieved when I got up this morning and saw no rain … until I saw the outside temperature was a robust 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Sure enough, when I walked out the front door, it was chilly. But at least I was going to stay dry, and I knew it wouldn’t take long before the exercise got my blood pumping and made me feel warmer.

My legs had suffered from a lack of freshness earlier this week, and I still felt the odd ache here or there when I set out this morning, but it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t feel like I quite had the spring in my stride I’d have if I felt completely rested and fresh, but I did feel better than I had since probably last Sunday. It helped, no doubt, that I’ve gotten quite a lot of sleep the past two or three days, so my body had more opportunity to rest and recover.

And I could tell that my legs were stronger when I hit my first split at 5:35, which was a sign I was starting at a good, brisk pace. I felt myself laboring slightly up the big hill that followed, but I still hit the second split at about 12:30. The third split (about 2.5 miles) was around 20:30, and I managed to clock in under twenty-eight minutes for about 3.5 miles. The route I mapped for today was basically two big loops of a roughly square course about a mile to a side, followed by a shorter interior loop to tack on the extra couple of miles to hit my target distance of ten miles. I managed to get through the first loop, plus an extra half-mile or so, in around thirty-five minutes, which I knew was a sign that I was a shade under an eight-mile pace. And I hit about 5.5 miles in just under forty-three minutes, again keeping myself right on pace for my target time of roughly 1:21:00.

Of course, after I hit the 5.5-mile mark with a good time, I was a little fatigued from having ascended a big hill for the second time, and I sort of let my mind wander for the next half-mile or so. The problem, I think, is that when I was thinking about whatever was going through my head (I don’t remember what it was), I wasn’t focused on the task at hand, and I unconsciously let my pace slacken. I was just over fifty-one minutes around six and a quarter miles, which meant I was a few minutes slower than my 10K time of last week. So I tried to suck it up, stay focused, and forge ahead over the last four miles. I seemed to be making decent time, but since this was a new route, and since I don’t run distances longer than five miles very often, I wasn’t entirely sure where the mile markers were at this point. In any case, I could only estimate my pace over this last portion of my run.

When I got to around eight and a quarter miles or so, I was at about sixty-six minutes, which was going to make it tough to break 1 hour, 20 minutes. But I at least felt like I had something in the tank today, unlike, perhaps, the middle of this week, and I kept pushing myself to finish strong. When I checked my watch one final time, with just under a mile to go, I was at a little more than 1 hour, 14 minutes. At that point I just kept willing myself to run a little faster, trying to put one foot in front of the other just a little more quickly. When I got to the final straightaway, I made myself go even harder, going fast until I hit the front step and stopped my watch.

Evidently after I hit the stop button on the stopwatch, I changed the mode back to the regular clock, so I couldn’t see my time right away (and was initially concerned that I hadn’t stopped it). I cycled through the modes till I got the stopwatch, noticed that it had, in fact, stopped, and then saw the time of 1:20:18. I knew that was just fast enough to be under an eight-minute mile pace, since my course was a little longer than ten miles.

Man, that felt good. Just a shade under three miles further, and that would’ve been a half-marathon distance. I’m really starting to think not only that I should aim for cracking an eight-minute pace in the half-marathon, but that I can actually pull it off. I’m now midway through my training program, five weeks away from the race, and I’ve made considerable progress in terms of my endurance and speed. Plus, since my mileage tapers off in the final couple of weeks before race day, I should feel a lot fresher and more rested physically, which I think will make a big difference. I’m increasingly optimistic about my chances of putting up what would be a very fast time for me.

I just think about the first time I ran longer than 6.6 miles, which was about two months ago, when I started a run thinking I’d do five or six, maybe seven, then felt pretty good and decided to push myself to do a half-marathon distance, and wound up running about 13.5 miles in something like 2 hours, 27 minutes. Then I look at my time today and think about how that’d be like running an extra three miles and change in more than an hour. Yes, I’ve come a long way in a relatively short time.

Today’s stats:

• Distance run: 10.13 miles
• Time: 1:20:18
• Average speed: 7.6 mi/h
• Average pace: 7:54/mi
• Calories burned: 1524

Applying myself

The past two days I finally hunkered down and assembled applications for a whole slew of tenure-track positions with upcoming deadlines, and today I finished sending in the remaining eight.

Counting the earlier deadlines for two jobs, I’ve now applied for a total of ten positions, all of which are tenure-track jobs.

Looking through my files, I see I applied for a total of thirteen tenure-track jobs last year, plus three one-year/post-doc positions. In terms of aggregate numbers, it would seem that the job market isn’t lagging too far behind last year’s. But those raw numbers obscure the reality that there are, in fact, fewer jobs this year.

Case in point: last year I was pretty selective about where I applied, especially in the fall. I passed on schools in places that seemed too remote (North Dakota) or too bitterly cold (Buffalo) to live, and mostly aimed for jobs in places that seemed like they’d be nice to live, or at institutions where I thought I’d want to be.

Plus, I didn’t apply for everything under the sun that said “European history” with the field and/or specialization open, reasoning that there were some places liable to attract hundreds of applications, thus making them real shots in the dark. Moreover, there were at least three tenure-track jobs, plus a one-year position, in my field. What minimal traction I did get with job applications last year was almost entirely with jobs in my field, where I had my only AHA interview, plus a phone interview for a one-year position. (I did get a request for more work from one of the open-specialization European history jobs last year, but so did about eighty other applicants, and I got tossed out clearing that preliminary bar.)

Contrast that to this year, where I’ve seen exactly one job that might be described fairly as being in my field, and where virtually everything else for which I’d even be theoretically qualified is casting a very wide net. I’m applying for everything and anything. So far I think I’ve only passed on a couple of jobs at religious universities (meaning they want people who reflect those religious values in the classroom), plus North Dakota (again). I’m not being picky, even though it’s the case with at least some of these jobs that I think the $10-plus it cost me to assemble and mail the application would’ve been better spent on scratch-off lottery tickets (which I generally regard as a form of taxation that targets people who can’t do math). One of this year’s jobs is actually a reopened position for which I applied last year; the search was canceled due to budget cuts a year ago, and this year’s search remains “pending budgetary approval.”

Undoubtedly there will be more jobs announced in the coming months, and it’ll probably be a couple of months yet before a bunch of the post-docs, adjunct and interim positions get announced. But it’s still frustrating to know there are only so few options, and probably so many people striving for the scant crumbs that do exist.

It’s probably more frustrating to know that, as the chair of one search committee that had me in the running for a job said to one of my advisers, I’d likely have little trouble getting a job in a “normal” year, yet it’ll probably be a year, or more, before the academic job market in European history gets back to “normal,” if it ever even recovers in full.

At least things aren’t so bleak on all fronts. I did finally get feedback on my dissertation from my primary adviser, and he was generally pleased and had few comments that would require substantive changes (mostly it’s just checking on something here, explaining something there, clarifying my phrasing elsewhere), and no problems with my argument or the key points. It’s a major hurdle to have cleared, and I feel like I’m in good shape in terms of making final revisions. It’ll take a few weeks to make the edits needed to address his comments, but it’s mostly just because there are a lot of little things to address, a lot of facts or numbers to look up, rather than needing lots of time to revamp the organization or rewrite large sections. I’m still awaiting comments from the other two members of my committee, and they may have other questions for me to address, but ultimately it’s the chair of my committee whose opinion matters most, so I feel pleased about that.

Week 5, Run 3

Blah.

I felt well rested this morning, since I took a nap when I got home yesterday and slept in a bit this morning, which meant there was only some light sprinkling when I finally went for my run.

But my legs still felt a little fatigued from yesterday, and I just didn’t seem to have my usual pep. I was a little slow on my first split, and evidently lost in thought when I reached the intersection where I check my progress a second time, since I was probably a block or so past that corner before I thought to look at my watch. It was hard to tell with certainty what my split had been, but I was guessing I was still running at a slower pace.

My third and final split was probably a minute or so slower than I’d like it to be, and I just didn’t seem able to find something extra to push myself toward a faster finish. I was hoping to at least come in under twenty-five minutes, but obviously I missed the boat on that. Oh well. At least tomorrow’s a non-running day, so between giving my legs a bit of a break to recover, and (hopefully) getting lots of sleep the next couple of nights, I’m hoping to feel fresher for my long run on Sunday, when I do a ten-miler.

Today’s stats:

• Distance run: 3.06 miles
• Time: 25:37
• Average speed: 7.2 mi/h
• Average pace: 8:24/mi
• Calories burned: 454

Week 5, Run 2

My legs felt a good bit fresher this morning as I set out around sunrise for my five-mile run. The rest of my body felt a little sluggish getting out of bed, I think due to perpetually inadequate sleep. I wasn’t looking forward to running with the same relish that I often feel, but sometimes it’s good just to force myself downstairs and out the door regardless of how I feel.

It was still not quite light when I left, but at least it wasn’t terribly cold. When I checked the temperature online before leaving it told me it was about 52°, which is pretty comfortable weather for running, since it’s cool enough not to get overheated as my core temperature rises, while at the same time warm enough that the bones in my hands don’t feel like they’re going to shatter.

I could also tell that I’m close to being fully recovered from whatever congestion or minor cold that’s dogged me the past couple of weeks, since my nose didn’t start running, and the worst I experienced was the desire to blow my nose in the last mile or so.

Despite my initial feeling of sluggishness, I posted a decent split for the first three-quarters of a mile, logging about 5:45. I at least felt a big slow chugging up the big hill that followed, and I was just under thirteen minutes at the 1.5-mile mark, but I was still making good time. I ran the next mile in around eight minutes, then made up a decent chunk of time over the next segment. When I hit the four-mile mark I was around 32:15, which I knew meant I probably wasn’t going to finish with a time of thirty-eight minutes and change, a target I thought I might pursue based on my time through five miles in the 10K I ran on Sunday. Yet I knew I still had a shot at finishing before I hit forty minutes, which would mean a sub-eight-minute pace.

Evidently I did the last mile in around 7:25 or so, because I finished at 39:39. I’m not sure why, but I always seem to post a really fast time for that last mile on my five-mile route. Much of the route is fairly flat, and while there is one little downhill section, I don’t think it’s enough to negate the steeper uphill portion at the beginning of that mile. Every time I run this route and see myself posting fast splits for the final mile, I recheck the map online to see if it’s really a mile, and every time the map reconfirms the distance. Again, I have no idea why I seem to go particularly fast on this stretch (I don’t normally check my time at the first mile mark on my runs, so maybe I’m also running just as fast if not faster when I start), but I’m not going to complain. Especially because the fast times mean I’m consistently leaving enough in the tank to finish strong.

Today’s stats:

• Distance run: 5.00 miles
• Time: 39:39
• Average speed: 7.6 mi/h
• Average pace: 7:54/mi
• Calories burned: 766

Week 5, Run 1

Coming off a couple of blistering performances last weekend, I knew I might not have the strength to repeat them today. I didn’t feel bad physically this morning as I set out into the early morning fog, but my legs definitely did not feel so fresh as I would have liked.

Those problems aside, I still managed to put in a pretty good time. I was actually at 5:30 for the first three-quarter-mile split, which is quite fast, though I was a little slower than I wanted to be on the next leg, which probably cost me a chance to match or better my time from last week.

But, considering my legs were still recovering from my scorching fast 10K on Sunday, I’m not disappointed with my performance today. I was only a little slower than the time I posted on Friday in my last three-mile run. I think I’m going to try to make a point over the next five-plus weeks of going hard on the shorter runs to build up speed, since I’ve shown on recent longish runs that I can sustain it over the longer distances.

Today’s stats:

• Distance run: 3.06 miles
• Time: 24:17
• Average speed: 7.6 mi/h
• Average pace: 7:54/mi
• Calories burned: 468

NPR: Orientalist ignorance masquerades behind veil of liberal cosmopolitanism

Many, many months ago I happened to become a “fan” of NPR on Facebook, probably by accident. (I think I was trying to click an adjacent link and instead unintentionally hit the “become a fan” link.)

I’ve never, ever in my life listened to NPR, mainly because I largely stopped listening to the radio way back in high school, once my parents put a CD player in my car, obviating the need to listen to the endless commercials, inane banter and crappy quasi-metal that increasingly dominated most of the “modern” music stations at the time. (By that point, if I had the radio on in the car, it was tuned to classic rock, since I knew there’d be less chitchat, and more importantly, by virtue of the station format I knew I wouldn’t have to suffer through lots of crappy music whose sole “virtue” was its “newness.”)

Anyway, since I virtually never listened to the radio at home (where I had an ample CD collection at my disposal), no longer having a car in college meant I basically stopped listening to the radio entirely.

It was also in college that I was exposed to the phenomenon of liberal-minded, highly educated folks name-dropping NPR in everyday conversation. After a while, I started to think I might be missing something, and I kind of regretted not listening to it, but it was a passive lament; I wasn’t about to start listening to the radio on a regular basis, even if I thought there might be something worth hearing.

Anyway, since becoming an unwitting “fan” of NPR, I’ve been getting various NPR stories and articles popping up in my news feed, which isn’t bad. Sometimes there are interesting stories, things I wouldn’t get elsewhere or might otherwise miss, and it’s nice in general to have another source of news, even if not a comprehensive one.

Regular NPR listeners always struck me as people of relatively like mind in terms of politics and worldview. They’re probably much more establishment than me, and more wedded to the Democratic Party, even if to its “progressive wing.” In short, they’re people with whom I should see eye to eye and find easy conversation and general agreement on a range of issues, and that’s probably always been the case.

Still, in recent days my generally favorable view of NPR and its listeners has soured a bit. For instance, last Tuesday there was a story about the outrage of conservatives in Egypt over an “artificial virginity device” designed to simulate the wedding-night bleeding of a virgin bride. I had read about this controversy elsewhere, but I was unprepared from the culturally condescending attitudes of some of the comments of NPR Facebook fans on the story:

“Hard-line Islamic and Arab values are an assault on women”

“I laugh at their insane stupidity”

“This is no surprise for a culture that still lives in the middle ages, considers a woman as less than a man, and an object to be bartered, traded, or dumped if she doesn’t measure up to whatever arbitrary standards a man decides to invoke.”

“As I was flying home last week on Egypt Air, I was reading the English version of the Cairo Newspaper, and on the front page was this story about this virginity device…at first, I thought that my sleeping pill was causing me to read this looney story, but then as I read on, I realized that Muslim women can be put to death in Eygpt for lying about their virginity…. I shook my head and said yet again “so glad to be lucky enough to have born in the USA”. I didn’t tell anyone about this story when I got home, for they would have thought that I made it up….NPR comes through for me!”

And so on. I understand the instinct to feel outraged at a society in which women appear to be second-class citizens. But it’s another thing to use so broad a brush in conflating Egypt with the Arab and Islamic world more broadly in condemning this behavior. I can’t claim any great breadth or depth of knowledge about either, but I know that there is considerable difference among Arab (and especially Islamic) societies, and more than that, I know that I don’t know enough to make blanket indictments of the Arab and/or Islamic world. I mean, if I were to learn of a case of a young woman of European descent living somewhere in the United States being discouraged from attending college or pursuing work outside the home so that she might find a husband and become a homemaker — certainly not a stretch of the imagination — I wouldn’t take that as an invitation to condemn the entire European and Christian value system that I blame for this sorry state of affairs.

Discovering that Orientalizing attitude disturbed me, though after thinking about it I decided it wasn’t entirely surprising. I kept thinking of the Phil Ochs song about sixties liberals, “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” and thinking these were probably just the equivalent people for the aughts.

Then, this afternoon, another NPR story caught my attention, one with the suggestive headline, “Slavic Soul Party: The Bayou Meets Bratislava.”

Naturally, seeing “Bratislava” in the headline, I was intrigued and clicked on the story, thinking it would have some Slovak angle.

Naturally, that assumption proved completely wrong.

Evidently Slavic Soul Party is “a New York brass band that takes inspiration from Balkan and gypsy music, but also funk and New Orleans traditions.” There are mentions of “Greek and Macedonian groups,” “Serbian brass” and an “experimental Balkan music movement,” as well as “traditional Slavic music.” But the closest anything comes to Bratislava is perhaps conflating “Slovak” with “Slavic.”

Perhaps this is just a case of the person who writes the headlines not being the person who writes the articles, and thus the headline writer is to blame. A perfectly plausible suggestion. It doesn’t make it any more excusable to think Bratislava is somehow located in the “Balkans” — maybe the headline writer was confusing Bratislava and Belgrade? Or Bucharest? — and it doesn’t absolve the responsible party from having this Orientalist perspective to think the Balkans begin roughly where the former Iron Curtain stood. Moreover, it makes NPR look bad as a news organization if it can’t even get basic European geography correct. (When I was in journalism school this kind of factual error would’ve be grounds for an automatic F, assuming the professor in question knew it was a mistake.)

Of course, even if the headline writer is to blame for this butchering of Eastern and Central European geography, the author of the story isn’t immune from similar mistakes born of cultural ignorance:

Of the nine players in Slavic Soul Party, only one has a real background in traditional Slavic music. That’s Peter Stan, a third-generation Romanian accordionist. When Stan takes a solo with this band, his roots show, but so does his delight in breaking with orthodoxy.

Romanians, of course, identify themselves not as Slavs but as descended from the Roman colonists of the empire, two millennia or so ago. They speak a Romance language (even if it has absorbed various Slavic words), and they would be quick to take offense if someone was to suggest they were Slavic. To say a “Romanian accordionist” shows his “roots” in playing “traditional Slavic music” is nonsensical. Or, at least it would be to anyone who knew better.

Obviously, it’s not entirely fair to pick on NPR and its listeners for demonstrating staggering ignorance of a region they probably envision as “Eastern Europe” or the “Balkans,” since the wider population likely knows even less. But it does make me realize how dilettantish all the involved parties can be.