No Time, No Post Several parallel work projects, several deadlines missed. Besides, we are moving our offices this week. I'm sitting in the middle of unspeakable mess of books, old magazines, old printouts and paper boxes. Arson is what I have on mind now. Funny story: several weeks ago, I've ordered that famous book Getting Things Done by David Allen; guess why. It came from Amazon, it has been seized by the customs, I've paid extra VAT, I've signed that the book is solely for my personal use and not for resale, I took the book home... and that's it. No time to open it, not yet.

To get the things done with Getting Things Done, I'd better to sell the book to someone who can really gain by the reading; not my case, apparently. But I've promised to the Czech authorities not to do that, so I've to add another another unfulfilled task to the list: read Getting Things Done!  ¶ permalink: 12:49 |  17 comments | links to this post

  82.6 percent Coming from the country where Communists usually took some 99.5 % in general elections, I don't consider Lukashenko's victory convincing. At least some of his people didn't do their duties properly! I wonder what is going to happen now. May Jonathan Steele be right? This is the Great Question of the West's East: what is worse, home-grown authoritarian leader or the invisible dictatorship of the Big Money? What's worse, country sold out or country silenced? What's more important, bread with butter or free press?

Don't answer too quickly for there is no simple answer. For years, we were told bread is more than freedom (not these words, of course). Since 1990, we are told freedom is more than bread (not these words, again). The result: old people believe, no surprise, in bread. Young people believe in freedom. My generation doesn't believe at all. We learned that the opposite to a lie is not truth but the other lie.

"Nothing is perfect," sighed The Fox. Нет в мире совершенства.  ¶ permalink: 11:00 |  7 comments | links to this post

  A Dialogue With Masseur -I might be have been abducted by aliens, he said in a casual manner.
-You what? I asked. I felt warm oil on my back, lying on the massage table.
-Aliens. I might be have been kidnapped, you know. They earmarked me with a chip. In my tooth.
He worked for a while on my left shoulder. I experienced mild pain.
-Perhaps, he added carefully.
-The trouble is, I didn’t resist to say, -that you can never tell such a chip from an ordinary filling.
-Oh I know, he said sadly.
I felt ashamed for my obviously inappropriate joke. What to do? What does he want, anyway – to be ensured that he was abducted, or just the other way round?
-I’m sure you’ll manage it, I said after long pause, uncertainly. It sounded even more stupidly than I had expected.
He smiled.
-Of course I will. You’re very kind, sir. Did you enjoy your massage?  ¶ permalink: 01:01 |  5 comments | links to this post

  Czechs and Slobo Estavisti from Beograd says Slobo's death doesn't mean a thing for Serbia. Perhaps so. Does it mean anything for the rest of the world then? I'm watching discussions about Milošević on Czech servers. Opinions are divided about half to half: "war criminal; bastard; well at last he's dead" versus "NATO bastards; murder; they didn't have sufficient evidence to condemn him so they killed him". The biggest Czech newspaper published on its web by mistake that Milošević was sentenced in The Hague; they didn't realize that the trial still goes on! (After several hours, the correction came.) Generally speaking, people here are not indifferent; they care.

Why? Czech relationship with Yugoslavia was always a special one. Czechs admired the beautiful country they could visit from time to time; the only shadow of the West they were allowed to see in 1970's and 1980's. (Czechs could travel freely into East Germany, Hungary, Romania an Bulgaria only. For Poland or the USSR, you had to have invitation, real or fake. For Yugoslavia, you needed less accessible but still more or less available permit. For the West, you had to prove you're reliable supporter of the regime.) A lot of Czechs and Slovaks flew to the West via Yugoslavia; a lot of Yugoslavian citizens (yes, we didn't care then who's who: Serb, Croatian, Slovenian... all the same) helped them selflessly.

I've never been to the West until 1990. But I've been several times to Yugoslavia: in Dalmatia and Istria, popular touristic resorts on the Adriatic Sea. I can remember how blue the sea was; the shops full of Western consumer goods that we've never seen before; nice clothes and nice haircuts of local people. I remember signs "hladna pića" (cold drinks) in Serbocroatian that we found extremely funny because their meaning in Czech is really very dirty. (We couldn't know that the word "Serbocroatian" will become dirty soon.) I remember how we didn't have money enough for an ice-cream, because Yugoslavian money was hard currency for us and we were allowed to change very limited amount back home. I remember, too, my first encounter with a beggar; there were none in Czechoslovakia then.

"Yugoslavia" is likeable word for Czech ears. Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, BiH, Slovenia, Macedonia... they are not. Most Czechs never took an effort to grasp what happened in their beloved Yugoslavia, and why; and how; and who's responsible. Czechs now have no one there to sympathize with. Serbs are too rude and too close to Russia; Croatians are too smooth and too close to Germany (and, besides, you know, some of them were fascists!); Slovenians are too rich (the biggest sin at all!); Macedonians are too difficult to find on the map; Bosnians are... well, Muslims, is there anything worse?; Bosnian Serbs are... they are nothing at all because most people here are not aware of their very existence. (Karadžić? Who's that guy?) - And where are all that Yugoslavs gone? (To the juga dot com, I'm answering usually.)

Did I succeed in explaining why do Czechs care about Slobodan Milošević? He was the last remain of their Yugoslavia; of their dream about a country that never existed.
Technorati tags: czech, milosevic, yugoslavia.  ¶ permalink: 04:12 |  8 comments | links to this post

  Snow Crash Of course I have seen even more snow in Prague before but surely not this year. Yesterday was sunny spring day. Now I'm looking through the window and there is some 40 cm of snow on my car. Our street, going downhill, looks suitable for skiing. I've just received SMS that the airport is closed. All the city seems to be unusually quiet; silenced. Out of service. Just tell me there is no climate change.  ¶ permalink: 09:52 |  7 comments | links to this post

  He's Finished, for Now Slobodan Milošević is dead. The awkward problem what to do with him is solved - for now. However, Slobo will come back soon as a martyr's legend: Miloš Obilić of 21st century, betrayed Obilić who lost his Battle of Kosovo at The Hague. Gotov je? I don't think so.
Technorati tags: milosevic, yugoslavia, serbia.  ¶ permalink: 16:32 |  2 comments | links to this post

  How We Didn't Celebrate the International Women's Day Easily: we have forgotten. I spent a good deal of the last night in front of the screen, overslept in the morning, therefore stayed home (it was too late to fight the way through the city and back - and my boss is really tolerant as long as I don't miss too many deadlines), trying to work on ten things at once. O. came afternoon home in bad mood which is rather unusual; she's tired, too. Overworked prols of Information Age, that is what we are. Kids, homework, dinner, dishes... evening business as usual. Only now, after the midnight, I suddenly realized that we missed the feast completely!

The International Women's Day is generally perceived in the Czech Republic as the relic of the ancien régime which is more or less true. Wikipedia says:

[the feast] was used as a tool of the party propaganda, which hoped to convince women that the party cared about them and considered their needs in formulating social policy. During the last decades of the regime, this event morphed into a parody of itself. On every March 8th almost every woman got a flower and a small gift (typically soap or a towel) from her employer. Many men took this day as a convenient opportunity to spend the day drinking in the local pub.

...and not only in the pub; more typical was collective drinking in the office. Women, the honoured and celebrated ones, prepared some snacks, men brought beer and vodka... and thereafter women again, the honoured and celebrated ones, cleaned up the mess, calmed down the guys trying to make a pass, helped them to find their bus or tram station... Sounds terrible, doesn't it? Just like from your Orwell.

And now the little dirty secret (and the reason why I write this post). Most people loved it; both men and women. For my generation, it was a flash of the fun in the grey desert of boredom. Nowadays, we usually feel shame for that. To admit the fun factor, to say openly how it used to be - it's just like a reminiscence of teenage masturbation. Most of my contemporaries, oh I can hear them!, would say: "what... me? never!" (Regarding the International Women's Day, of course. They don't feel shame for masturbation. They accept it as a fact of the life. To do the same with our common past is not that easy.)

Not the Communist regime but the way how we treated the Women's Day made it undecent and useless. If I brought flowers home yesterday - well, I could; there is no such thing as too many flowers. But if I brought flowers with congratulations on International Women's Day, oh my! - it would mean that either I am completely crazy after all, or I make tasteless jokes. That's what remains of a once high-minded idea: a tasteless joke.

Most of us here in the West's East would like to forget about the past, just as I have forgotten about the Woman's Day. But the past won't forget about us.

Everyone sleeps. I go sleep too. To be fresh for another day of the capitalist presence.

(There is a lot of interesting coverage of the International Women's Day in former U.S.S.R. on Global Voices here.)  ¶ permalink: 02:34 |  6 comments | links to this post

  I Am Rich! In fact, I belong to the richest ten percent in the world. You, probably, too. All of us... bar five billions. (Link via BListy.)

See also UN statistics.

Technorati tags: poverty, 3rdworld, statistics.  ¶ permalink: 03:22 |  0 comments | links to this post

  West's East & East's West I took some effort to compile first draft of a list of good blogs from former Soviet bloc. I deliberately use this term to avoid all the confusion with definition of Eastern Europe, Central Europe etc. Soviet Empire is the place and time - place in time - we are coming from, all of us here, from Karl-Marx-Stadt Chemnitz to Nachodka, from Ленинград Saint Petersburg to Скопје - and all between.

You can find and enjoy the result of my search in the right column. I'd really appreciate tips how to enlarge and improve the list! Most blogs (exceptions marked) are in English, many of them are written by native speakers of English, i.e. expats. And all of them are worth to read.  ¶ permalink: 04:06 |  10 comments | links to this post