This study, based on forty taped interviews, considers the social and economic conditions that led to the sudden reemergence of evil eye beliefs and practices in Albania. It explores how the recent development of a highly stratified class system and the introduction of individual property ownership helped to increase the dependence of Albanians on the dordolec (scarecrow) for protection of their newfound wealth. A discussion of the kukull, the store-bought, stuffed animal version of the dordolec, offers insight into the post-post-Communist Albanian trend to appropriate Western commodities into the local tradition.

Most existing web-based language learning exercises may be termed 'static' in that their content is fixed; the sentences exist in the form in which the developer wrote them, and the scope of the exercise and the variety of interactions can only be expanded by manually adding to the existing stock. One solution to this problem is an application which generates its content in response to user specifications. We believe that a dynamic application is suitable for situations where long-term, large scale development of CALL materials is foreseen, as the flexibility and usability of the product far exceed what is available with conventional web-based exercises. In this paper, we will outline the reasons language instructors might consider a dynamic or semi-dynamic system as a sound technological investment of time and money, discuss the advantages of designing a dynamic system, and illustrate some of the pitfalls to avoid in beginning that process.

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