Media Prima

Another Caspak* moment.... running on from yesterday's Blog. In that, we explored the odd notion of members of the US Congress and Senate sending letters to a non-existent nation, unrecognised by any nation in the world… even the Tin Pot ones.

US Congressmen Frank Pallone and Mark Kirk sent a congratulatory letter to the "President" of Nagorno-Karabakh stating; “We are writing to congratulate the people of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, Artsakh and you on your 18th Anniversary of Independence."

Pallone was awarded the Mkhitar Gosh Medal by the President of the Republic of Armenia, so his colours are firmly nailed to the mast, the same tweezle who voted in the House to not count the electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 United States Presidential Election. But would the constituents of the bouffant haired lawmaker be assured of his suitability to represent them if he starts writing letters to Aztlan (which hopes to create an independent country called South Western United States), the Republic of Cascadia (comprising of Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Canada) or Oklahoma (Indian Nations Republic of Oklahoma represented by the five largest Native American tribes in that state?


At a time of deep socio-economic crisis, the people of New Jersey' can be assured that Pallone is spending his working hours dedicated to serving them… when he is not polishing his medal. Numpty!


• Caspak is a huge island country located in the South seas somewhere between South America and Australia from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot and its sequels.

Republican US Congressmen Mark Kirk may not be named after Captain Kirk, but even his staunchest supporter must admit he has the look of Kirk's Half-Human, Half-Vulcan counterpart. And he's that cold.

While appearing on the June 16, 2008 edition of the Chicago radio show Don Wade and Roma, Kirk said, "If we see Obama, there's a shoot on sight order." Despite this some 153,082 voters in the Illinois's 10th congressional district opted for Kirk in the election.

And why shouldn't they. Except that if Kirk started writing letters to the leadership of Zamunda (the African monarchy from the film Coming to America) or Telmar (located west of Narnia in C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia), they may think he should quit Washington for Bartonville Insane Asylum in Illinois.

Yet as a pen pal to Bako S. Sahakyan, leader of an unrecognised nation, the legally fictional Nagorno Karabagh Republic, Congressmen Kirk is doing just that, conversing with an illegal, unrecognized nation.

It is wrong for Congressmen Kirk’s Republican opponents in recent primaries to publicly air the rumours about his homosexuality, particularly in the wake of his recent divorce. That is wrong. Congressmen Kirk's personal lifestyle is no-one's business.

What is, is his belief in a fictional country, and the donations he receives from a lobby connected with that fictional country.

The United States Senate has 100 members. The House of Representatives 435 voting members. They are elected, presumably, to serve their constituents unless an official position gives them wider scope, on a House Committee for example. How fit for office, then, a low ranking member who writes letters to fictional entities?

There are several references to members of the US Congress and Senate sending letters to, and communicating with the 'government' of Nagorno-Karabakh. Representative Joe Knollenberg (R- MI) was one. The vast majority of electors in Michigan probably cared little that their member of the U.S. House of Representatives was acting as a lobbyist for an illegal and unrecognised country. But it shows him for who he was.

In his present enforced-retirement, I wonder if he is letter writing to the Presidents of Calormen (the country of Narnia's main rival from The Chronicles of Narnia), Double Crossia (a country mentioned in the Three Stooges short You Nazty Spy) and Far Far Away (the name of the kingdom in Shrek 2 and Shrek 3).

What a twerp.