Bibi Meialonga

Say "bu" to the Swiss!

2009-12-01T00:38:00.008+01:00

After 9/11 people seem to be spending a whole lot more of their energy and time on Muslims than ever before. And since a lot of that attention is not devoted to the rich culture, but rather to terrorists and more terrorists, many people have come to view the Muslims as a violent and aggressive people, who will not settle for anything less than the Islamisation of the world. A recent sign of that was the vote in Switzerland, which will prevent the Muslim community from building any further minarets. I think this is wrong.

Our society, the so called Western liberal democracies, takes great pride in being culturally diverse and very tolerant. We take pride in having reached the conclusion, that there are few, if any, absolute truths, we have developed a high sensibility to nuances and we accept that different perspectives on life hold the same legitimacy. Yet, we seem not to be very keen on condemning every single vote that has been cast in favor of the ban. How can that be?

The Swiss extremists seem to have been able to convince their people that this is not a sign of intolerance towards a group of people, but merely a measure of protection or self-defense. They argued, simplistically, that minarets are a sign of sharia law and a sign of the wish to implement sharia law. Where is our feeling for nuance? Why don't we first say, that Sharia law is being interpreted very differently in different countries and that therefore a general condemnation of it is unacceptable? Why don't we say that a lot of people who say that they follow Sharia law have no problems with abiding to our laws and that Sharia might therefore not be inherently contradictory to our legal system? Even if we say that Sharia is contradictory to our legal system, isn't Canon law just as well? So why don't we prohibit the building of Catholic churches then?

But there is more to that. Why don't we cry out loud that not every Muslim is an extremist? Why don't we cry out that most Muslims are not suicide bombers? Why don't we cry out that Islam in Europe is nothing more but a belief, since we do not have states governed by the evil Sharia rules. The only thing the Swiss are doing is punishing Muslims for their "wrong" believes. And once upon a time in Europe, last year, decade... we were allowed to have those.
Swiss politicians said the decision is not a rejection of the Muslim community, but of Sharia law, which is represented by the minarets, which are next to the mosques, which are attended by that same Muslim community. If minarets are a sign of extremism, every Muslim following the call to prayer from that minaret is an extremist. This is not only a rejection of the Muslim community. It is a knock-out punch right into their face.
One final observation: since most Muslims pray in mosques that have minarets, around 1.5 billion people in this world were hit by this punch. Way to go Switzerland!

I do not fancy countries being run by Sharia or any other religious law. (I even have troubles understanding how such a rigid system could survive for such a long time. ) I don't like women being forced to wear veils and being stoned to death for adultery. But there are Muslims out there who share my belief and some of those same Muslims pray in mosques that have minarets. Yes, some also go and blow themselves up. But how is it possible that so many people fail to see such an obvious difference?

The Swiss are currently being everything Westerners should not be. They listen to populist rhetoric. They are afraid, probably because of their ignorance, not their knowledge. They are hypocritical. Intolerant. Discriminatory. They should be only one thing though: ashamed.

Poizpitne strategije za preživetje

2009-09-05T21:59:00.007+02:00

Opravila sem društveni izpit. Od dovoljenja za ubijanje nedolžnih otrok na kolesih me tako loči še nekaj ur in milostna komisija. Zaenkrat mi pravijo, da sem preveč miren voznik. Da je to dobro, če si avtošola, ampak da mi bodo ljudje veliko hupali, če bom to počela v drugem avtu, ki ne bo imel velikega L na strehi. Premišljujem, da bi si kupila veliko tablo na kateri piše "Sorry, začetnik" in jo postavila za zadnjo šipo, kadar sedem za volan. Mogoče lahko tako dobim avtošola efekt, vsaj tako dolgo, da se mi bo 50 v naselju zdela hitrost, ki ne bo mene in vse ostale nesrečneže nedvomno spravila v pogubo. Poleg tega tega že dolgo ni bilo situacije, kjer bi ti dali ljudje malce bonusa, ker si nov in ti vseeno pokazali kje je stranišče, čeprav si stal tik pred njim. Biti prvošolček, nov sošolec, fazan, bruc (čeprav si ne domišljam, da je kdorkoli do kogarkoli na našem faksu preveč milosten), je v osnovi super. Je pa res da so zdolgočasene učiteljice v prvem razredu morda malce bolj potrpežljive kot povprečen voznik, ki v življenju zgazi vsaj dva pešca in v Amsterdamu nedvomno še tri kolesarje. Bom naivno, kot prvošolček, verjela, da se vsem vedno ne mudi in vseeno poskusila s tablo. Naslednji teden grem v shopping. Takoj zatem zavijem v zavarovalnico in najdem dobro zavarovanje za mlade voznike. Eno od obojega bom zagotovo rabila.

Please donate!

2009-08-17T00:06:00.001+02:00

You can read more about the cause here.

Globoke vesti

2009-06-23T19:03:00.005+02:00

Kitajski kmet je pod svojo kuhinjo izkopal 15 metrov globoko jamo v kateri lovi ribe. Izvedel je, da je na območju, kjer stoji njegova hiša, prej tekla reka, ki je bila znana po številnih ribah. Ker je reka usihnila se mu je zazdelo, da mora biti sedaj pod zemljo. 6 mesecev in 30 delavcev kasneje je se je spustil do reke in družinsko premoženje dvignil za več kot nekaj tisoč evrov. Luštno.

Nadaljevanje serije - življensko nepomembno drugič

2009-06-12T09:20:00.005+02:00

V osnovni šoli sem dobila komplet barvic, svinčnik, čez čas nalivno pero, ravnilo, radirko in šilček. Poleg tega še nekaj stvari za likovno umetnost kot so vodene barvice, tempere, risalni papir, voščenke in sploh cel nabor stvari, ki so se mi do konca petega razreda zdele skrajno nekul. Potem sem tri leta sanjala o tem, kako bom v gimnaziji uporabljala samo en nalivnik, ker bom velika, odrasla, resna.

V tretjem letniku sem se po dveh letih in pol nalivnega peresa vrnila na stare tire. Profesorica mi je vrnila test iz geografije in me prijazno opomnila, da če ji ga še enkrat tako pobarvam, mi bo dala nezadostno.

Štiri leta kasneje se je situacija drastično poslabšala. Moja puščica so sanje vsakega prvošolčka. Vsaj 20 različnih barvic, več različnih rumenih in oranžnih, od svetlo rumene do temno rdeče je vsaj 8 odtenkov, 10 flomastrov, 5 svinčnik različnih trdot, moderen šilček, prekomerno veliko radirko in roza ravnilo. Poleg tega 6 markerjev in listke treh različnih barv na označevanje. Edigs. Vsaj 15 črnih, modrih in rdečih kulijev, 2 nalivnika in en brisalec. Moja knjiga za rimsko pravo je bila gotovo umetniški višek mojega življenja. In tako sem po 21 letih mojega prebivanja na tem svetu prišla do prvega kandidata za seznam najboljših izumov novega stoletja.

Barvice se lahko kupuje posamično. Za nekoga ki rabi vsak teden novo svetlo rumeno in na vsakih deset dni novo svetlo zeleno je to izjemno finančno olajšanje, na splošno pa zmerno do pretežno življensko nepomembno. Drugič.

Christopher Brennan - If questioning would make us wise

2009-04-13T00:22:00.002+02:00

One of the most beautiful love poems...

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the “If” and “Why”
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

Irrepresible!

2009-04-09T14:57:00.002+02:00

Amnesty International has launched a campaign against internet censorship - everyone with a website or a blog can help by publishing information that some people don't want to see! I have put it in the right top corner - read it. Spread the word!

Issues a.k.a. phobias

2009-04-07T13:20:00.006+02:00

I recently stumbled upon a web page called the phobia guide. After about 5 minutes I discovered that I have issues... Phobia issues. Here are (I am afraid only :-) some of them:
atychiphobia, taphephobia, soteriophobia, gamophobia, a mild form of didaskaleinophobia, automysophobia, dentophobia, automysophobia, maieusiophobia, rhytiphobia, coulrophobia, teratophobia, a mild form of decidophobia, contreltophobia, contreltophobia, gerascophobia, maieusiophobia and a mild form of hypengyophobia.
I didn't find a word for people scratching paper off bottles though. On my top ten phobias list that would be #1.

About the value of things

2009-03-28T22:05:00.002+01:00

Buying a ticket to Germany, 110€.
Getting to the airport, 10€.
Buying a book to read on the plane, 9€.
Buying a bottle of water, 1 €.
One last coffee before take-off, 1,5€.
Finding your passport - priceless!

Skrivnostnost - film o zaupnih podatkih

2009-03-26T00:56:00.003+01:00

Minil je še en dan. Še en dan, kjer je cel svet kričal, da je bolj zanimiv, kot členi Zakona o delovnih razmerjih. Zato sem se ga, sicer šele proti večeru, odločila poslušat in odšla v kino. Če me spomin ne vara, sem tokrat prvič odšla v kino ogledati si dokumentarni film. Naslov: strogo zaupno. V originalu: secrecy. Mislim, da angleški naslov veliko bolje opiše, kaj dejansko je vsebina filma. Ne ukvarja se le površinsko s tem ali naj razkrijemo informacije ali ne, koliko informacij vlada lahko skriva, ampak se je poglobil tudi v samo vsebino skrivnosti. Zakaj jih imamo? Kdaj se je razvila ta "tajna" kultura, kjer informacije že skoraj branimo pred samimi sabo. Film na začetku predstavi šokantno razlago nekoga, ki je jezen na novinarje, ker so odkrili in natisnili, da Američani sledijo pogovorom in tako vedo, kdo je 1983 napadel ambasado v Libanonu in tudi, kdo jih je financiral. V trenutku ko je informacija prišla v medije, se je ta komunikacija prekinila. Ostali so brez informacij. Nekaj mesecev (morda tudi let) kasneje isti možje napadejo drug cilj. Vprašanje, ki je ostalo v zraku je bilo - ali je novinarsko poželjenje resnice nevarno?

Ženska, ki je dolga leta delala v CIA je povedala, da, kot to ona dojema, je skrivnost za novinarje igra. Če jo razrkijejo, bodo imeli zgodbo. Če ne najdejo skrivnosti, zgodbe ne bo. CIA skrivnost razume drugače, pravi. Skrivnost je nujna in potrebna za varnost. In z varnostjo, se ne igraš.

Veliko drugih pogledov je, ki zagovarjajo skrivnostnost in opravičujejo to, da vlada skriva informacije. Ker želijo imeti moč, nadzor, ker je enostavno. Zanimiv je drugačen pogled, ki ne problematizira le tega, da vlada skriva informacije, ampak to, da ni vedno v vladnem interesu, da jih skrije. Stvari se tako dolgo označuje za zaupne, da na koncu za njih ve pet mož v velikih pisarnah. Velika verjetnost je, da niti med sabo ne vedo, da tudi ostali štirje vedo. V nobenem primeru pa informacija ne priplava do uradnikov, vojakov, policistov, raziskovalcev, ki bi jo lahko uporabili. S tem namen zaupnosti zgubi pomen, kajti informacijo smo zavarovali ne pred sovražnikom, ampak pred namimi sami, kajti ker je tako pomembna, je ne povemo niti tistim, ki sicer morda niso predsednik Združenih držav, bi pa s to informacijo lahko naredili kaj koristnega. Stvari skrivamo zaradi skrivanja samega. Najboljši primer, pravijo, je enajsti september. Nekaj informacij je imela ena agencija, nekaj druga. Če bi jih združili, bi napad lahko preprečili. Morda pa bi bilo najbolje to, da bi objavili v medijih, da so nekaj dni prej aretirali njihovega pilota. Analisti pravijo, da bi bil napad verjetno prestavljen.

V ZDA so menda več kot 900krat citirali zadevo pred Vrhovnim sodiščem, ko je le to odločilo, da lahko vlada, s tem ko reče, da bo proces razkril informacije, ključne za državne varnost onemogoči sodni proces. To je bilo leta 1953. Primer: letalska nesreča osmih mož ameriškega Air Force-a na tajni misiji. Testirali so novo tehnologijo na letalu. Zaradi inženirskih, tehničnih itn. malomarnosti je letalo padlo na tla. Vdove so hotele vedeti zakaj, vlada je rekla, da naj odloči Vrhovno sodišče, ali morajo razkriti poročilo. Vrhovno sodišče je reklo ne, ni treba. Več kot 50 let je bila to edina odločba Vrhovnega sodišča glede tega vprašanja in več kot 50 let so se na njo sklicevali. Bolj kot to pa sta v tej zadevi zanimivi 2 stvari.

Prvič: petdeseta leta v Ameriki niso bila ravno odraz sreče in sproščenosti. Grozilo je, da bo hladna vojna s Sovjeti dejansko eskalirala. Strah je vladal. Resen strah. In v ozračju tega strahu, je vrhovno sodišče odločilo, da lahko vlada skrije informacije. Je sodba morda kljub vsemu le produkt tistega časa in ne neko racionalno, nepristransko, strokovno mnenje?

Drugič: v poročilu o tej nesreči ne piše nič strahotnotno skrivnostnega. Testirali so opremo. Zaradi tehničnih problemov so strmoglavili. Bi si teroristi s tem res lahko pomagali? Ali Rusi? Verjetno ne. Hči enega izmed umrlih je trdila, da so zadevo izrabili, da so dobili precedens. Ne bom se spuščala v vprašanja morale, zakaj je to verjetno ali ne, konec koncev je to le še ena izmed mnogih hipotez. Vendar če je resnična, če so navidezno nedolžen primer izrabili za to, da so dobili precedens, je to enostavno genialno. Kapo dol. Tudi če me zebe v ušesa.

Film pravi, da se je celotna kultura "strogo zaupno" začela razvijati v času projekta Manhattan - ko so Američani gradili atomsko bombo. Vsaka formula, vsak stroj, vsaka sestavina, kratko in malo vse, je bilo tajno. Zvezki inženirjev imajo na vsaki strani napis "Secret." Je to razumljivo? Bi bilo nevarno, če bi Američane kdo prehitel pri bombi? Verjetno. Se nam zdi upravičeno, iz laičnega in človeškega vidika? Tudi prav verjetno.

Je vsak primer, ki ga je od takrat ameriška administracija skrila na ravni pomembnosti gradnje atomske bombe? Malo verjetno. Pa le, ko smo enkrat začeli, se je težko brzdati.

Ko so leta po koncu vojne vodjo operacije Manhattan spraševali zakaj je bila potrebna taka tajnost, je navedel zabaven spisek razlogov. Nemci. Japonci. Rusi (čeprav takrat zaveniki). Vsi ostali narodi.

V končni fazi gre očitno le za to. Moč. In znanje. Več ko ga imamo, večja je naša moč. Ko razkrijemo informacijo, se za vsebino te informacije zmanjša naša moč. Taka je logika. Vprašanje če smo s skrivanjem res močnejši, pa ostaja dilema. Na srečo.

woman, n. A living thing that can have children and do the laundry

2009-03-09T21:55:00.009+01:00

International Women's Day. What a wonderful occassion to celebrate female emancipation, the fight against discrimination, the fight for equal opportunities, equal wages. Dozens, hundreds of years of fighting through peaceful process, rebellion, through government channels and on the streets. There is so much that one could talk about on this day... or not.

The Slovenian national TV station dedicated during the evening news about 10 minutes to the day. A part of it were answers of women, answers to the question why it is good to be a woman, or better to be a woman. And what do we get - out of 6 women, one has a job. One, the longest answer shown, was talking about how wonderful it is that you can have babies and then stay at home, look after your children, shop, clean the house, do the laundry. One said that children are the only important things in a woman's life.

Are you kidding me? Kids? The laundry? That's the point of being a woman? After so many years? The German language has a good word for something like that: hirnamputiert.

The person making this was either a genious or someone with an IQ way below zero. Depends on what the report-making ignoramus wanted to make us believe.

Don't get me wrong. If some women want that, kids, the laundry, let them have it. If they believe that's it for them, let them have it. But don't give me 6 answers telling me that being a woman is all about this 18 and 19th century values. Show me a woman that says: "I went for a career and I am happy with it." Show me a woman saying "I got divorced from that bastard called my husband who saw me as his personal cleaning lady." Show me a woman that says: "I don't have kids and guess what, I don't want them." And then, when you're willing to show me that kind of women as well, I might be willing to tolerate the whole laundry issue.

I can't believe I am paying my taxes for this!

Torbice, nakit, čevlji, plašč... in sedaj dietna Coca Cola

2009-02-08T17:19:00.003+01:00

Med učenjem sem pokukala na splet in odkrila fascinanten članek, ki kaže, kako se različne (vsakodnevne) pijače povezujejo z modo in se skušajo predstaviti kot luksuzni izdelek, da bi tako privabile drugačen profil kupcev ali pa se (predvsem v zadnjih mesecih) prebile čez ekonomsko krizo. Poskusov take vrste so se lotili pri Evianu, pa tudi pri Coke Diet, ki je v preteklih letih k sodelovanju povabila število modnih ustvarjalcev, da bi oblikovali prav posebno Coke Diet flaško. Med njimi so celo imena kot Roberto Cavallo ali Kenzo Takada. Stvar se mi je zdela tako zanimiva, da sem skušala najti vse te flaške preteklih let. Nekatere stilske preobrazbe so mi sicer ostale neznane, a tu jih je vsaj nekaj...

O (ne)alkoholu

2009-02-07T21:03:00.002+01:00

Moj odnos z alkoholom je približno sledeč: okus vina in piva mi ni všeč. Sredi tedna in sredi dneva si ne bi naročila gin tonica ali juice vodke. Ko gremo zvečer ven, smo s prijatelji na taroku ipd. bom verjetno naročila naravni pomarančni sok, ali pa si zmešala mojo večno ljubezen, Cedevito. Res edino, kar mi je iskreno všeč, je tu in tam kak cocktail, ki mora vsebovati kaj podobnega limoni, limeti, pomarančni, ananasu, kokosu, grenivki. Nekaj osvežilnega pač. Zraven vodka, tequilla, morda gin.

Precej dolgo sem tu in tam skušala s tem odnosom vplivati na druge. Ne piti. Alkohol je slab. Uničuje možganske celice, pospešuje staranje kože. Če nekdo "ne more držati pijače" izpade kreten. Še hujše, če si punca, ker študije kažejo, da se možganske celice pri ženskih "totalkah" slabše regenerirajo kot pri moških. Če ga v Evropi ne bi pili že stoletja, bi bil alkohol prepovedan kot trda droga. Če piješ Red Bull z vodko boš jutri skoraj mrtev. Razlogov za moje poglede je še in več. Kar se mene tiče, lahko tudi uvedemo prohibicijo, ampak se, kot ostali ki so iz drugih razlogov proti, več kot zavedam standardnih argumentov proti in tudi jaz sem proti vzponu ljubljanske mafije :)

V NYT sem danes prebrala mnenje človeka, ki skoraj poklicno raziskuje pijače. Pravi, da rad potuje skozi zgodovino tako, da si po starih receptih zmeša napitke, ki jih ne strežejo več. Pravi, da uživa ob kozarcu dobrega konjaka. Ampak vse v meri. In predvsem s stilom.

Nato velik del svojega članka posveti temu, kako preprečiti, da lastni otroci dobijo napačen odnos do alkohola. Preveč alkohola v družini vodi v kontinuiranje takega obnašanja in naslednje generacije velikokrat nadaljujejo prekomerno konsumpcijo. Nič alkohola v družini ustvari efekt prepovedanega sadeža - u, glej, nedovoljeno, prepovedano, mojih staršev ta konec tedna ni in jutri bom imel najhujšega mačka mojega življenja kako sem jaz kul - kolikor toliko verjeten scenarij za nekega 15letnika.

Avtor se nato spominja svojega otroštva in zdravega odnosa, ki ga je njegova družina gojila do alkohola: kozarec vina ob večerji, hladno pivo, ko je zunaj neznosno vroče, zaloga žganih pijač, ki pa se le redko uporabijo.

Iz članka sem potegnila naslednje zaključke:
- moja družina je imel po teh kriterijih zdrav odnos.
- moja umiritev glede stalnega kritiziranja je bila v redu zavestna odločitev (od besede "dobra odločitev" se bom zaenkrat še distancirala.)
- prekomerno napivanje najstnikov in njihovi ekscesi ne bi smeli biti tolerirani. Konjak ob dobrem pogovoru je eno. Dretje po Čopovi ob treh ponoči nekaj popolnoma drugega. Tu verjamem, da je moja netoleranca upravičena. Pitje ni nekaj, kar "mladi pač počnejo." Pitje je nekaj, kar mladim dovolimo, pa jim ne bi smeli.

Stanje stvari zdaj trenutno: alkohol se mi ne zdi v redu. Razumem pa, da je to del kulture, življenskega sloga in da je prenehanje uporabe nerealno pričakovati. Razumem tudi, da za nekatere pomeni sprostitev, čeprav menim, da je velik del te "sprostitve" placebo efekt. Mene osebno je najbolj strah tega, da bi prestopila mejo, ko se lahko sama nadzorujem, ko lahko naravnost in hitro hodim, ko lahko formiram logične in povezane stavke. Pri drugih je tega strahu verjetno manj - lepo to. Najhuje pa se mi ob vsem tem alkoholu zdi to, da je tako normalno, da je petek namenjen temu, da "greš na plažo" in se "napiješ". Da ob 9ih začneš pit, do 12ih bruhaš in potem si ob enih lahko že popolnoma trezen doma. In da je to pogovor, ki ga mirno izvedeš zjutraj ob pol osmih na enki in te nihče čudno ne gleda.

Ali je to posledica tega, da je doma preveč ali premalo alhokola, ne morem oceniti. Dejstvo pa je, da bo morala naša družba na tem področju opraviti še kar nekaj dela, začenši s tem, da nehamo tolerirati, česar se tolerirati ne sme.

Film

2009-01-28T01:30:00.003+01:00

Pretekla dva meseca sta bila predvsem v znamenju učenja. Tako bo tudi naslednja dva meseca. Ampak v vmesnem premoru sem odkrila, da so filmi veliko bolj sproščujoči kot sem mislila. Moja priljubljena umetnost je bila vedno glasba, to tudi ostaja, ampak ta element slike niti ni tako mimo. Filmi torej. Ta mesec sem jih videla sedem in sem skoraj nad vsakim precej navdušena. Z izjemo Botra, ki je na imdb-ju dolgo veljal za najboljši film vseh časov. Zaključek se mi sicer res zdi legendaren, ampak za cel film to definitivno ne velja. Prav tako se mi je zdelo to, da je Don cel čas pretirano hripav bolj moteče kot mafijsko. Nasprotno me je navdušil A Few Good Man. Z vlogo je "zazvezdela" Demi Moore in tudi Tom Cruise-u, ki je bil bolj na začetku svoje sedaj slavne kariere, gotovo ni škodil. Dva vojaka v okviru ukaza "code red", neke vrste disciplinskemu ukrepu za discipliranje šibkejših, neposlušnih vojakov, sovojaku v grlo zatlačita cunjo. Umre. Vlada ZDA ju obtoži umora, zarote k umoru in neprimernega obnašanja za marinca. Njun odvetnik se izpogaja za šest mesecev, a vojaka hočeta na sodišče, iskati pravico, kajti ničesar, tako pravita, nista naredila narobe. Izvajala sta ukaz. In ukaz je pač ukaz. Pika. Izjemna zgodba o hierarhiji v vojski, časti, ukazih in poslušnosti, iskanju pravice in ponosu, ki se odvija v sodni dvorani. Definitivno vredno ogleda.
Ta teden bo, če najdem pot iz robčkov, čas za kak novejši ogled na velikem platnu. V času okoli Oscarjev in Globe-a, celo naši kinematografi ponudijo kaj spodobnega, kar ne vključuje petih blondink in ene ure pijanih prizorov. Morda spet kak zadetek v polno kot Vicky Cristina Barcelona ali Avstralija. Glede drugega se čutim z mojim navdušenjem sicer precej osamljena, ampak tisti stampedi, vojaški napadi, neokrnjena narava, samoten Aboriginski starec sredi puščave... vse to na velikem platnu izpade tako izjemno veličastno. To, da ne razložijo vse o Avstraliji v drugi svetovni vojni ali problemih Aboriginov me ne moti - to ni bil namen filma, zato je tisto, kar je povedal, po mojem mnenju, pač dovolj za kontinuiteto zgodbe. Vsaj izjemne fascinantnosti stampedov mi ne oporekajo :)

O timingu sonca

2009-01-26T13:59:00.003+01:00

Po malce več kot dveh tednih imamo v Ljubljani zopet. Ironično. Pretekla dva tedna sem tuhtala, kako depresivno je brez sonca. Moje počutje se je definiralo nekje 5 minut po tem ko sem vstala iz postelje in pogledala skozi okno. Odločila sem se, da bom prevegetirala dni do naslednjih sončnih žarkov. In nato sem se danes zjutraj zbudila. Ne v sončno jutro, ampak prehlajena, z bolečo glavo in donečimi ušesi. Požiralnik ne dela, notranji temperaturni regulator ne dela, brbončice ne delajo, skratka, moj imunski sistem je končno popustil pod pritiskom vremena (sama sebe pač ne moram kriviti za moje zdravstveno stanje.) In kaki dve uri kasneje, glej ga zlomka, se je nekaj svetlečega začelo prebijati čez oblake. Na dan ko je super če se mi manj kot minuto v glavi vse vrti ko vstanem iz stola in še vedno nisem prepričana, če res čutim obe nogi, je zunaj sonce. Ko bi lahko šla tečti po Tivoliju, pa ne morem. Ko bi šla na Rožnik, pa ne morem. Ko bom na sonce lahko gledala le skozi balkon in si mislila, naj se gre solit.

Malce o vzgoji

2008-05-10T23:12:00.002+02:00

Jaz nisem hudo družinski človek. Tudi otroci so bili do zdej veliko bolj ne kot ja tema. Kljub temu imam precej izoblikovane poglede kar se tiče, kako je treba vzgajati otroke. Moj vidik: otrok bo le enkrat otrok. Otrok bo otroštvo nosil s sabo čez celo življenje in to otroštvo bo otroka zaznamovalo. In starši zaznamujejo otroštvo, zato se mi zdi nekaj generalnih "pravil o obnašanju" precej pomembnih. Tu so tri.

1. Nikoli ne uporabi argumenta "ker sem jaz tako rekel." To ni poučno, ne vzgojno. Če se kaznuje, mora otrok vedeti zakaj. Kot prvo, ker bo tako prej sprejel kazen. Verjetno. Ampak tudi če ne obstaja še drug razlog, bolj načelen, ampak le. Sklicevanje na avtoriteto je brez veze. "Ker je učiteljica tako rekla", "ker sem jaz bolj pameten od tebe." Vsi se zgražajo ko gledajo Matildo in ravnateljica reče: "Jaz sem večja, starejša in bolj pametna od tebe in proti temu ne moreš nič storiti." Ista stvar, le da se pri Matildi zgražamo, v vsakdanjem življenju pa starši počnejo vsaj to. Star pregovor pravi, da mora biti kazen vzgojna. In vzgajaš lahko le, če otrok razume.

2. Naj se reče ne, če je to res potrebno ali res vzgojno. Otroka verjetno ne bomo naučili, da zunaj obstaja velik grozen svet, če mu ne bomo kupili malega avtočka. Otrok bo le malce manj vesel. En nasmeh manj. Vsi vedno iščemo naš perfekten svet, želimo si, da bi bila ta zemlja prijaznejša, z manj revščine, manj nasilja, manj drog. Otroci lahko imajo ta svet! Tistih nekaj let dokler ne gredo v šolo, preberejo prvi časopis, razumejo prvo Unicefovo reklamo. Oni lahko živijo v svetu, ki si ga mi tako želimo. Zakaj torej odrekamo, da bi nekaj dokazali? Naj živijo v svojem mehurčku. Ne večno, ampak naj se popolnega mehurčka kasneje vsaj spomnijo.

3. Nikoli se dreti na otroka ko sprašuje "zakaj." Razloži. Potrpežljivo. Enostavno. Razumljivo. Če si razdražen ni kriv otrok in zadnja primerna oseba za stresat vsakodnevno slabo voljo. Na "zakaj pa...?" se odgovori "zato, ker..." In na naslednji zakaj prav tako. Otroci naj se čim več učijo? Naj bodo čim bolj pametni? Kdo drug jim lahko privzgoji veselje do znanja če ne starši v prvih letih? Reakcija na interes otroka mora biti vedno pozitivna. Ne le glede znanja, tudi glede drugih reči. Ja, morda mu hokej ni bil všeč, in pri nogometu je bil en teden. Ampak plavanje je pa morda njegova stvar. Zakaj mu ne pustimo? Ker si bo itak premislil? Ker ne ve kaj hoče? Seveda, ker odrasli pa točno vejo in se ne nikoli ne zmotijo. Nihče še ni šel na tečaj joge in ugotovil, da mu je brez veze. In potem trikrat večno odločenost in prepričanost pričakujemo od otrok? Neumnost.

To bo to. Čez eno uro je hokej in čas bo za kavo.

Avtobus, kolo in jaz

2008-04-10T14:42:00.003+02:00

Fantastično fenomenalno jutro. Še boljše kot to. Vse dokler nisem stopila na ulico, prišla do mojega kolesa in opazila zvito verigo, kri na verigi, odtrgano nogico, zlomnjen zvonček in precviknjeno bremzo. No ja, slednje sem opazila malce kasneje, ko sem se skoraj zaletela v star, zelen avtobus, ki je peljal po Slovenski.
Moja reakcija po prvih opazkah, je šla v smeri: "Kr neki, sranje, a niso tuki načeloma kamere?" Moja reakcija po skorajšnji koliziji z LPP stvarco je bila "Kter bedak!!! Idiot..." (In nekaj drugih za objavo neprimernih kletvic, večinoma v jezikih južnih bratcev, ki so na srečo ostale v moji glavi.)

Kar mi ni jasno pri vsem tem je, kdo gre neznani osebi delati škodo. Ne bom opravičevala, da je dobro uničiti kolo tvojega bivšega najboljšega prijatelja, a ima človek vsaj razlog. Če ga vprašaš zakaj, ti bo suvereno odgovoril, da je Miha (poljubno ime) pač kreten, da je bilo kolo itak zanič in da je Miha res svetovni kreten. Skoraj solidna argumentacija torej. Kaj bi odgovoril nekdo, ki je poškodoval random črno kolo iz Hervisa z neznanim lastnikom?
Tudi če sem, ne more vedeti, ali sem kreten. Ali pa če je kolo zanič (no ja, zdaj je malce bolj kot je bilo prej.) Kako primitivno, da bi nekoga iz dolgčasa poslal v avtobus. Če ima človek sovražnike in za njih ve, saj ve pri čem je. Ampak sam proti neznanim ljudekom - tukajle lahko stvar postane malce nevarna.

Mimogrede, nad mojo glavo ravno binglja velika siva trikotna luč, ki zgleda, kot da bi povzročila kup bolečin, če bi padla name, moj mobitel bojda oddaja prekomerno sevanje in stalno sedenje v knjižnici mi bo gotovo prineslo 22,5 bolezni ter prehitro smrt. Morda pa moj polet proti avtobusu sploh ni bila tako nadpovprečno nevarna situacija.

Stikala za luč - Življensko nepomembno prvič

2008-03-20T23:11:00.004+01:00

Že nekaj časa me ni bilo, tudi v prihodnje me bo bolj malo.
Bom pa tu pa tam še objavila kako bedarijo, ki se jo spomnem, morda pa random obiskovalec ve kak dober komentar ali odgovor. Vsi zlorabljajo internet za osebne trapste reči, ga bom pa še jaz malo.

Danes sem se spraševala, ko sem v nekem tujem prostoru iskala stikalo za luč:
Zakaj je večina stikal za prostor izven prostora, katerega naj bi luč, ki je povezana z določenim stikalom osvetljevala? (Vem, da je malce nespretno razloženo, ampak saj veste, kaj mislim.)
Stvar je malce nelogična. Zakaj nima tisti, ki je v prostoru kontrolo nad osvetljavo tega prostora? Kaj je dodana vrednost tega, da mi vsak teden večkrat ugasnejo luč v kopalnici in se jaz skoraj ubijem, da nekako prilezem ven?
In seveda, kateri bedak si je to zmislil?

Recimo temu zbirka življensko nepomembnih vprašanj - prvič.

The Sound of Music

2007-12-01T23:31:00.000+01:00

Ich hatte letztens dieses Gespräch mit einer Freundin von mir und das Thema war, wieso wir uns Musik anhören. Beide waren wir uns einig, dass Musik, die man sich anhört normalerweiße das widerspiegelt, was man gerade fühlt, wir waren uns aber nicht einig welcher Teil der Musik das Gefühl vermittelt. Sie sagte es wären die Texte, ich dagegen war der Meinung, dass es die Melodie ist. Erstens glaube ich es darum, weil ich Musik nie durch die Worte erlebt habe. Ich werde mir den Text wahrscheinlich nicht merken, wenn ich ihn nur einmal gehört habe. Die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass ich mich nicht an die Melodie erinnern könnte ist da viel geringer. Zweitens glaube ich, dass wenn man Musik durch die Worte erlebt, es etwas sehr rationales ist, aber auch sehr eingeschränktes, denn wenn wir nur den Wörtern lauschen können wir die zwar verstehen, aber dann kann man aus der Musik auch nicht mehr heraushören als die Worte vermitteln und vor allem kann man nichts heraushören, was man nicht in Worte fassen könnte. Wenn man aber der Melodie lauscht, kann die so viel mehr vermitteln. Sie kann Gefühle vermitteln, die wir noch nicht kennen und sie kann Gefühle widerspiegeln, die man selber erlebt, es aber keine Worte für sie gibt. Der dritte Grund ist eigentlich ein sehr rationaler, aber ich erwähne ihn trotzdem. Der Durchschnittsbürger spricht zwei, drei, vielleicht vier Sprachen. Wenn man nur Musik hört, die in diesen Sprachen gesungen wird, ist man in seiner Auswahl doch ziehmlich eingeengt. Dann kann man keine Musik hören, die keinen Text hat, man kann keine Musik hören, deren Text in einer fremden Sprache gesungen wird und wenn man mal darüber nachdenkt wie viele wunderschöne Lieder es gibt, die man zwar nicht versteht, die einen aber doch berühren können, dann bedeutet diese Einengung einen enormen Verlust. Außerdem, nur noch ein letzter Gedanke, wie wahrscheinlich ist es, dass es ein Lied gibt, dass genau das erzählt, was man gerade fühlt? Nicht nur ungefähr, aber ganz genau. Ich denke, dass es nicht sehr wahrscheinlich ist. Andererseits, haben wir nicht alle schon mal eine Melodie so interpretiert, dass wir am Ende geglaubt haben, dass sie nur für uns geschrieben worden ist?

Ich dachte, dass sollte ich vielleicht noch hinzufügen. Ich glaube, dass es zwar mit demselben Gedanken geschrieben wurde, nur dass Bochco ein kleines bisschen weniger verwirrt ist.
"Vivid images are like a beautiful melody that speaks to you on an emotional level. It bypasses your logic centers and even your intellect and goes to a different part of the brain." (Steven Bochco)

Suche, denke, will, habe verliebt, glaube... und andere Verbformen

2007-10-16T23:16:00.000+02:00

Heute, während einer Vorlesung hab ich darüber nachgedacht wie normal es geworden ist, dass wir schon fast täglich oder sogar öfter anderen mitteilen wo wir sind, was wir machen, was uns so beschäftigt. Und anscheinend wollen wir aus irgendeinem Grund, dass Leute das wissen. Ich habe den Grund zwar noch nicht gefunden, aber ich finde es immer amüsant zu lesen, was Leute unter ihren Facebookstatus schreiben. Und aus irgendeinem Grund bin auch ich einer dieser Leute die in dritter Person über sich schreiben. Als ich heute meinen Status ändern wollte fielen mir so viele Dinge ein. Nichts wichtiges, natürlich nicht, aber irgendwie wollte ich mehrere davon dorthin kritzeln. Und weil das nicht geht, mache ich es hier (aber ich spare mir die lästige dritte Person und das "bin") Ich...

denke die Bibliothek braucht eine neue Bibliothekarin.
will im Dezember unbedingt in die Türkey.
habe mich ins Strafrecht verliebt.
denke in Ljubljana gibt es zu viele Baustellen.
suche Argumente für's lebenslängliche Urteil.
wundere mich ob ich mein Fahrrad morgen noch wiederfinde.
finde es toll, dass ich nicht mehr als 4 Stunden Schlaf brauche.
wundere mich wieso mir meine Suchmaschine Tarkan als traditionellen Musiker unterschieben will.
verwandle mich langsam in einen Teeliebhaber und probiere jetzt gleich eine neue Mischung aus...

Stress mal ganz anders

2007-10-14T03:37:00.001+02:00

Ich hatte im Sommer eine Sache um die ich mich sorgen musste: irgendwann eine Woche zu finden um für die letzte Prüfung im September zu lernen. Ich habe es nicht hingekriegt und die Woche wurde zu ein paar Stunden verteilt auf drei Tage. Und das tollste dabei war, dass ich überhaupt nichts anderes zu tun hatte. Nachdem ich in der letzten Woche so ungefähr eine halbe Stunde Freizeit hatte, habe ich es endlich kapiert: so lange ich überstrapaziert bin, funktioniere ich mit 110%, könnte ich Dinge langsam erledigen, lande ich fast bei der Null. Ist wohl nicht aufregend genug, dass man mal genug Zeit haben könnte.
Wie auch immer, auch dieses Jahr werde ich mir was das angeht keine Sorgen zu machen brauchen. Solange ich nur die drei oder vier Freizeitaktivitäten habe und immer ein kleines bisschen spät dran bin mit allem was ich tuhe, klappt das schon mit den 110 Prozent. Und für den Fall, dass es nicht klappt, hat die Menschheit Kaffee erfunden.

Guten Morgen, Welt

2007-09-28T08:36:00.000+02:00

Ich habe seit drei Tagen nicht richtig geschlafen. Gestern Nacht bin ich für nicht mehr als eine Stunde eingenickt, heute Nacht habe ich bis spät ein Buch gelesen und bin dann wahrscheinlich auf dem Teppich irgendwann eingeschlafen. Zwei Stunden später war ich wieder hellwach. Ich glaube es kaum, ich war tatsächlich um sechs Uhr in der Früh schon dabei mir einen Kaffee zu kochen.
Ich frage mich wieso ich nicht schlafen kann? Ich bin zwar müde, aber sobald ich mich hinlege, fühle ich mich hellwach. Und ich trinke nur eine Tasse Kaffee pro Tag. Ich habe nicht einmal Konzentrationsstörungen.
Wieso ich das unbedingt loswerden musste? Gute Frage. Und ich habe keine Ahnung warum. Vielleicht nur, weil ich diese Momente festhalten will. Wieso? Weil ich endlich mal weniger Schlaf brauche. Ich glaube das wird sich ganz schnell wieder legen, aber solange ich meine Zeit nicht mit Schlafen verschwenden muss, ist es mir recht. Ich habe heute Nacht, bevor ich wieder in mein Zimmer gegangen bin, dem Regen zugeschaut, wie er ganz leise und doch so bestimmend vom Himmel runtergefallen ist. Regen ist etwas wunderbares. Und die Ruhe morgens, wenn kein Verkehr und keine Leute deine kleinen Glücksmomente stören. Kann man seine Zeit denn sinnvollerer totschlagen als der Natur einen kleinen Moment Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken?
Ich dachte nie, dass ich ein Mensch bin, der viel nachdenkt, aber im diesen Jahr hat sich vieles geändert. Ich rede weniger, ich bin nicht mehr so gesellig, ich verbringe mehr Zeit ohne andere Leute. Ich denke mehr nach. Ich ziehe mich öfter zurück. Ich bin ruhiger geworden. Vor allem versuche ich noch immer mich von anderen Menschen zu lösen. Von Allen. Nicht in jedem Sinne, aber in dem Sinne, dass mein Wohlbefinden nicht mehr von anderen abhängen soll. Kurzzeitig schon, wenn Freunde traurig sind, geht das nicht einfach an einem vorbei, aber langfristig muss man sich von den Einflüssen anderer befreien können.
Ich labere Unsinn und ich bin vollkommen vom Thema abgekommen, aber der Regen draußen und ein ruhiger Freitag Morgen haben wohl diese Wirkung auf mich... Oder ich brauche doch mehr Kaffee als ich dachte :)

Bis dass die sieben Jahre uns scheiden

2007-09-27T08:15:00.001+02:00

Hochzeiten sind für viele der schönste Tag im Leben, ich dagegen bin kein großer Fan von Ehen, ich denke sie haben im einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert wenig zu suchen. Wenn sich ein Paar liebt kann es doch auch so zusammenbleiben. Nur der Gefühle wegen. Wenn es nicht mehr klappt, klappt es eben nicht mehr, ein Blatt Papier sollte nicht den unsichtbaren Käfig spielen. Klar, es gibt wahrscheinlich viele andere Gründe wieso Paare heiraten, aber dass kann man auch so erreichen, ohne sich so fest zu binden.
Eine schwädische Partei hatte vor ein paar Jahren der Vorschlag Ehen zu verbieten. Ich fand den Vorschlag amüsant, aber ich bin mir bewusst, dass manche aus verschieden Gründen noch immer das weiße Kleid und den Ring haben wollen. Und manche sind so romantisch, die glauben auch noch an das "bis dass der Tod uns scheidet". Für all die anderen hat Gabrielle Pauli einen alternativen Vorschlag: Ehen mit Verfallsdatum. Nach sieben Jahren soll es Schluss sein, wenn nicht beide wieder ja sagen. Der Parteivorsitzende meinte sie könne sich eine andere Partei suchen, andere applaudierten. Ich klatschte mit. Wieso?
1. Es ist der erste Schritt mit dem wir zugeben, dass sich unsere Gesellschaft verändert hat und dass vor allem Ehen nicht mehr das sind, was sie einmal waren. Mal ganz ehrlich, wie viele, die nicht gerade frisch verknallt sind, glauben denn noch an das auf immer und ewig?
2. Wenn Paare herausfinden sie können sich nicht mehr leiden, müssen sie nicht durch einen mühsamen Prozess, sie warten einfach ab. Jede zweite oder dritte Ehe endet sowieso schon mit Scheidung. Kosten sparen hört sich zwar vollkommen blöd an, aber es sind oft die Kosten der Scheidung die Paare zusammen halten. Irgendwie absurd, oder?
3. Es würde zeigen, wie viel Ehen wirklich wert sind. Wie hört sich das an: "eine Hälfte der Ehen wurde nicht mehr erneuert?" Es hört sich so an, als ob sich niemand mehr um die Werte der Ehen schert. Hören wir auf uns was vorzumachen.

Manche Paare heiraten aus vollkommen rationalen Gründen: man kommt in der Gesellschaft besser an, es wird erwartet, es ist wichtig für den beruflichen Erfolg. Da ist etwas dran, das muss ich zugeben, aber die meisten dieser Paare scheren sich auf der anderen Seite auch nicht um die traditionällen Werte, Liebe, Treue, Vertrautheit, Geborgenheit, Zusammenhalt. Ich werde die Statistik in wie vielen Ehen ein oder beide Partner betrogen werde für mich behalten. Diese Gruppe der Ehepaare stört das zumindest nicht.

Worauf ich hinaus will ist, dass unsere Gesellscahft an einem Punkt angelangt ist, wo bis dass der Tod uns scheidet nur noch eine Farse geworden ist. Für die meisten zumindest. Es ist auch erlaubt zu sagen, dass es vielleicht mehrere "Mr. Richtig" gibt... Wenn man 25 ist, ist es A, bei 52 ist es eben B. Für manche bleibt es A, aber ich glaube nur für die Wenigen bleibt er es aus den richtigen Gründen.

Vielleicht ist der Zeitpunkt gekommen, wo sich die Ehe diesen Entwicklungen irgendwie anpassen muss...

Zurück zu mir

2007-09-15T14:34:00.001+02:00

Dieser Sommer war voller Ereignisse, manche waren weniger gut, aber an die meisten werde ich mich gerne erinnern... Einige will ich sogar nie wieder vergessen. Jetzt sind es noch gut zwei Wochen bis die Uni wieder anfängt, ich plane ein paar Tage in Rom zu verbringen, aber davor brauche ich eine Pause. Ich brauche eine Pause von den Leuten, von der Umgebung, von den Telefonanrufen und den Emails, die ich täglich zugeschickt bekomme. Ich will nicht sagen, dass sie mich nerven oder mir auf den Geist gehen, ich will auch nicht sagen, dass ich irgendjemanden satt habe, denn das stimmt nicht. Aber ich brauche eine Pause. Eine Woche für mich ganz allein. Eine Woche, wo ich um sechs in der Früh aufstehe und um neun oder zehn zu Bett gehe, wo ich mir abends allein in aller Ruhe die Sterne anschauen kann, wo ich mich nicht um irgendwelche Pläne kümmern muss. Ich kann auch alle Probleme für eine Woche ignorieren und sich nicht damit beschäftigen. Ein Freund von mir meint, dass jedes Problem sowieso verschwindet, wenn man es nur lange genug ignoriert. Vielleicht versuche ich die Theorie mal in der Praxis umzusetsen. Mal sehen wie es klappt.
Keine Probleme, ich, eine Zeitung, ein gutes Buch, ein paar gute CDs und meine Laufschuhe. Mehr brauche ich nicht um meinen inneren Frieden zu finden, wenn alles drüber und drunter geht. Vielleicht nehme ich sogar ein Buch über Joga mit. Ich habe noch nie eine einzige Übung ausprobiert, aber was auch immer mir zur Entspannung verhilft und legal ist - her damit. Außerdem muss ich gründlich nachdenken, was in diesem Jahr meine Prioritäten sein werden, womit ich mich überhaupt beschäftigen will, wie viel Energie ich in das eine oder andere Projekt stecken will, denn der Sommer hat mir das ein oder andere Mal auch die dunkle Seite mancher Münzen gezeigt. Ich muss mir überlegen ob es mir meine Nerven wert sind.
Und deswegen finde ich jetzt irgendwo einen Rucksack, ein paar Sachen zum Reinstopfen und dann verschwinde ich für eine Woche ans Meer. Endlich wieder sorgenlos... Auch wenn nur mit einem Zeitlimit.
Arrivederci mein richtiges Leben! Ciao ich!

Geister der Vergangenheit

2007-08-30T08:06:00.000+02:00

Ich bin um fünf in der Früh aufgewacht, obwohl ich erst um Mitternacht schlafen gegangen bin und obwohl kein lästiger Wecker geklingelt hat. Keine Ahnung was mich aus dem Schlaf riss. Ich drehte mich noch ein paar Mal von einer Seite auf die andere und schlief dann wieder ein, bis zu dem Zeitpunkt wo ich vorhatte aufzustehen, waren es noch mehr als zwei Stunden.
Ich habe oft gehört, dass Leute gesagt haben, dass man in der Zeit zwischen dem ersten und dem zweiten Aufwachen immer die lebendigsten Träume hat und ich dachte immer, dass das Blödsinn sei... bis heute. Ich träume nähmlich selten, wirklich selten, und sogar dann sind es die doofsten Dinge, die in meinem Kopf herumspuken... wenn ich mich noch an sie erinnern kann. Was für eine Hirnzellenverschwendung! Aber diesesmal nicht. Dieser Traum war... irreal, unwirklich und so unendlich schön. Und zu schnell vorbei.
Der Traum handelte von ein paar Personen, zwei von denen hatten die Hauptrolle und eine der Hauptrollen wurde mir zugesprochen. Die zweite Hauptrolle besetzte ein Geist aus der Vergangenheit, der zwar immer wieder in der Zukunft auftaucht, aber auch immer wieder verschwindet. Ich werde nicht erzählen wovon der Traum handelte, da Dinge normalerweiße ihre Vollkommenheit verlieren, wenn man versucht sie in Worte zu fassen, was ich aber sagen kann ist, dass ich mir um halb acht, als der Wecker dann doch geklingelt hat gewünscht hätte, er hätte noch ein paar Stunden gewartet. Als ich aufwachte, musste ich mir erst bewusst machen, dass es ein Traum war und dass die Wirklichkeit ein ganz anderes Bild spiegelt. Vielleicht sollte er aus diesem Grund nicht aufhören... alles was vorkam, konnte nur in der Traumwelt passieren, denn die Wirklichkeit lässt alle beteiligten ganz andere Rollen spielen und vor allem, hat sie keine Szenen vorgesehen, wo beide Hauptfiguren auf einmal auftreten.
Auf dem Boden der Tatsachen zu bleiben klingt wahrscheinlich sehr vernünftig, aber wenn man dann aufwacht, sich fragt wieso man das geträumt hat, was man geträumt hat und man sich fragt, ob man einige Dinge doch noch mal überdenken sollte, ob man sich selbst vielleicht was vorgemacht hat... dann werden Tatsachen so nebensächlich. Der Geist aber nicht, denn der spukt noch immer herum... und zwar realer denn je.

Wondering and wandering in Istanbul

2007-08-15T21:52:00.000+02:00

After 4 weeks I am back home. One would say finally, I on the other hand wouldn't mind staying around Europe for a bit longer. Although 4 weeks aren't that much, they're enough to meet tons of new people, discover a completely different culture and get several diseases and sore throats in between.

At 7 in the morning I returned from Istanbul, probably one of the most amazing cities I've been to. It is probably quite similar to a lot of other cities in the Middle East, but for someone from Europe, it just appeared to be pretty unique. There probably aren't that many cities where tourist attractions and misery are just a three minute walk away from each other or where a different continent is just 20 minutes away.

Here are some random observations:

Turks are extremly friendly people, however most of them are even friendlier if you're not a woman walking the streets of Istanbul alone. I wouldn't recommend you to do it, but it's an interesting experience to remember.

If someone wants to sell you something for 50 liras, you'll probably end up buying the thing for about 10 liras, you just have to have the time. The majority of the people seemed quite easy-going, I don't really think they like tourists who only take a minute for their purchase. Bargaining seems to be the most popular sport in Istanbul and although I would usually say I hate to do it, it was quite fun trying it out.

They drink a lot of apple tea, which is extremly delicious. Someone said that it's only sugar with flavour, but I refuse to believe that I made unhealthy choices everytime when choosing tea over water or a Coke.

Taxi drivers are crazy. I am not quite sure how many laws Turkey has regarding speed regulations and road safety, but these quys do manage to violate all of them... Just give them a minute. One evening when we were returning to the hostel we reached a road that was closed due to construction works and the taxi driver just ripped the ribbon and we completed a part of our way back home on roads which weren't yet finished (oh, and of course the taxi driver was driving very carefully and not too fast... as they usually do :).

Everyone in Istanbul plays Backgammon, apparently even Western tourists aren't immune to the addiction after they play the first game. Thank God I never tried! :)

The Asian part of Istanbul isn't all that Asian, but at least you can say you've been to Asia in between. It's especially amusing when you put it something like this: "oh you know, we were walking around, didn't really know what to do and decided to go to Asia..." Sadly most of the geography teachers tought their students that Istanbul actually lies on both continents... it takes away some of the wonderment.

To test the genuineness of your passport at the passport control, the police would ask you something as simple as what your name is or where you're coming from. It made we wonder whether people who falsify their documents take a look at them before trying to use them.

Turkey has a very strict and tight visa system... You have to apply for your visa about 10 seconds in advance and then, according to how much money they think you could provide, they give you a visa with either two or three weeks of validity.

I'll try to think of some more random things I noticed, my brain is just not functioning really well at the moment. How was I supposed to know my body needed sleep?!?

Cvetke slovenske efektivnosti

2007-07-09T17:04:00.000+02:00

Tale sestavek je posledica enega zelo neprijetnega dopoldneva, ki se je krepko zavlekel v popoldne in to zaradi povsem običajne stvari: izdelava potnega lista. Kljub temu, da povprečen obiskovalec rabi le 4 minute in kljub temu, da naj bi (poudarek na "naj") tam nekje za zaprtimi vrati delalo 6 ljudi, mi je uspelo na upravni enoti preživeti cele 3 ure in pol. Vmes sem skoraj doktorirala iz zadnje izdaje Mladine, razširila moj literalni horizont in imela še prijeten enourni pogovor z znanko iz faksa. Vmes sem si privoščila še kozarec hladne vode, da bi se ohladila, potem ko sem se kakih pet minut resno spraševala če lahko prehladna klima škoduje. In potem sem v štirih minutah opravila.

P.S. Če se kdo odpravlja na upravo kje v Ljubljani predlagam koruptivni poseg in podkup kake uslužbenke, da vas spusti naprej. Če bi morali postopek večkrat ponoviti brez podkupovanja, bi tako ali tako slej ko prej osrečili kakega rich-to-be psihiatra.

Na splošno o svetu.

2007-07-07T23:59:00.000+02:00

Turčija je vedno bližje, moji izpiti pa hvala bogu za mano. Ker pa se, kot rečeno, Turčija in s tem Evropsko bližata, se mi je zdelo pametno, da še vseeno kak dan preživim za računalnikom in poskusim narediti splošen research. Za tistih sedem minut govora mora biti človek pripravljen. Sicer je res, da se debate ponavadi nadaljujejo po tisti eni uri in ratujejo z tekom časo vedno bolj zabavne, vendar v resnici preletimo pol sveta ravno zaradi tistih sedmih minut, oz. 14, če se šteje cela ekipa, ali pa morda tudi 14 in pol če se vštejejo vprašanja, kot smo jih sedaj poimenovali.

Za začetek sem si postavila vprašanje: kako točno bi se človek lotil splošnega researcha? Zadnja izdaja Economista in potem vedno širše in globje? Morda. No, pa dajmo. Nestabilnost gospodarske rasti v vzhodni Evropi. Recimo, kar v redu. Torej, gospodarstvo. Vzhodna Evropa. Potem rabimo starih EU15, Nemčijo in Francijo posebej, kako gre kaj ZDA, kdaj nas bosta Indija in Kitajska preplavili in uničili in zakaj eni od teh držav tudi gospodarsko ne gre tako zelo dobro, kot številke kažejo. Kaj še ostane: korupcija v novih članicah EU, zakaj smo jih spustili notri, kdo kaj krši, problematični dvojčki, vzpon desnosredinskih strank po starem kontinentu in kdo bo zmagal ameriške volitve, kaj pomeni Brown namesto Blaira, kaj bomo naredili z Irakom, Iranom, Severno Korejo, Afganistanom, Rusijo, Sudanom, Somalijo, Izraelom, Palestino, Libanonom, človekove pravice - v kateri državi se ne kršijo?, droge, zdravila, vojne, MDG, alternatvina energija, okolje, kdaj nas bo vseh konec, ker proizvajamo preveč CO2-ja, pozabljeni konflikt v Čečeniji, bi se pogajali s teroristi, katerimi in zakaj, kaj je terorizem, koliko nas ogroža in koliko podzemnih bo v prihodnosti letelo v zrak, vse mednarodne organizacije, za in proti in kaj sploh počnejo, vera, Islam, zakaj Turčija ne gre v EU, Krščanstvo, bi bilo čas, da bi se komu za kaj opravičili... Ja, še kakšno uro bi se dalo pisati samo ključne besede.
Zato je bil logičen zaključek po tej ugotovitvi, da grem na sprehod in pustim svet zaprt v tej škatlici, ki ji pravimo ekran. Se bom kdaj drugič ukvarjala z njim.

Es gibt sie!

2007-06-23T16:29:00.000+02:00

Es gibt sie wirklich! Die Welt außerhalb der Uni und des Debatierens. So ungefähr sieht sie aus: Jugendliche betrinken sich mitten in der Stadt auf einem Fest, dass noch vor ein paar Jahren nur ein rießiges Teeniekonzert war... und sogar die Musik ist schlechter, wenn das überhaupt noch geht. Gut, dass wir wissen, dass die Zukunnft in guten Händen ist. Dann gibt es da die neue Eisdiele. Von der kann man schönere Sachen erzählen. Erstens, die Stühle sind bequemer als sie es waren, zweitens, das Zitroneneis ist echt lecker und der Eismann ist ein echt süßer Junge. Es gibt immer mehrere Touristen, manche von denen verirren sich auch um Mitternacht an einem Sonntag in der Mitte von Nirgendwo und suchen optimistisch einen Bus. Andere sieht man auch an ganz normalen Tagen mitten in der Stadt, aber sie sehen genauso verirrt aus. Wie schwer kann es schon sein in Ljubljana das Rathaus zu finden. So groß ist die Stadt nicht! Obwohl mein Kennenlernen mit der Stadt jetzt schon gut eine Woche dauert, habe ich nichts wirklich Neues bemerkt, außer der Eisdiele und dem Eismann. Und den komischen Steinen die über der Stadt hängen und den komischen nackten Ausstellpuppen... Ich wundere mich immer noch was das soll. Und dann natürlich die letzte wichtige Frage: was machen mehrere Dutzend gelbe Entlein aufgezeichnet auf dem Stadtboden? Mal ehrlich, wenn die Prüfungen vorbei sind und ich den Weg aus der Bibliothek finde, laufe ich eine Woche mit aufgeschlossenen Augen durch die Stadt. Nur um sie mal wieder zu sehen... hier zu wohnen reicht ja wohl nicht :)

Mein "Mininervi"

2007-06-02T21:48:00.000+02:00

Es sind jetzt noch genau 34 Stunden bis zu meiner Klausur... Römisches Recht. Eigentlich eines meiner Lieblingsfächer, aber einen Tag vor der Prüfung kann wohl niemand behaupten, dass er irgendwas gern' hat. Wenn mir jemand mitteilen würde, dass auch die Römer den elektrischen Stuhl benutzten um die Todesstrage zu vollziehen, und dass die Tatsache, dass Elektrizität paar Jahrhunderte später entdeckt wurde gar nicht wahr ist, und dass das alles irgendwie eine Riesenverschwörung ist, würde ich vielleicht mit den Schultern zucken - vielleicht aber auch nicht.
(Wieso das Gerede über die Todestrafe? Ich habe irgendwann vor ein paar Tagen entdeckt, dass die Römer ziehmlich erfinderisch waren was Todesstrafen anging und vor meiner Lernpause, bin ich gerade auf das rosa Post-it gestoßen, das mich auf einen Absatz hinweißen sollte...)
Jura war ganz sicher die richtige Wahl und die Tatsache, dass ich das 34 Stunden vor einer der schwierigsten Klausuren sagen kann, beruhigt mich irgendwie. Auf der anderen Seite ist es doch viel, dass man in seinen Kopf reinbekommen muss. Ich habe es erwartet, klar, alle erzählen dir, dass das Leben jetzt für ein paar Jahre vorbei ist, aber bevor man nicht selbst Woche für Woche von morgens bis abends in der Bibliothek hockt, versteht man es nicht wirklich. Wie auch?

Obwohl sich das alles stark nach Selbstmitleid anhört, ist es das nicht. Ich musste es nur mal loswerden... oder es mir bewusster machen? Ich liebe das Studium, die Uni, ich habe viele ganz tolle Menschen kennengelernt und auch die Stühle in der Bibliothek sind recht bequem... Ohne die Mininervis, wie ein Freund meine kleinen Nervenzusammenbrüche bezeichnete, wäre es ja fast schon zu perfekt. :)

Einmal Paradies und nicht zurück, bitte!

2007-05-17T18:01:00.000+02:00

Es muss ungefähr eine halbe Ewigkeit her sein, seitdem ich mich das letzte Mal bei Blogger einloggte. Ich denke es gibt tausend gute Gründe wieso ich in dieser halben Ewigkeit keinen Beitrag mehr geschrieben habe, der einzig wahre ist wohl der, dass ich keine Lust hatte.
Nach Prag war ich eine Woche lang in Amsterdam, trauerte die Woche danach, dass ich nicht mehr in Amsterdam bin und informierte mich noch einige Tage später ob meine Uni ein Austauschprogramm mit einer niederländischen Universität hat. Es war nicht Amsterdam allein, was mich so begeisterte. Es war die ganze Atmosphäre, die Holländer... und wahrscheinlich hat die Dauerparty am"Koninginnedag" auch etwas zu meiner Begeisterung beigetragen. Zwar wurde die Königin nicht wirklich oft erwähnt und wahrscheinlich ist dieser Feiertag mehr ein Anlass den ganzen Tag nichts zu tun als sich über die Monarchie in dem Lande zu erfreuen, aber so wird es für Touristen nur noch wunderbarer, denn ehrlich gesagt weiß ich über die Königin herzlich wenig.
Ich weiß, dass es sie gibt, ich weiß wie sie heißt und ich weiß, dass sie auf den niederländische Euromünzen abgebildet ist. Dafür weiß ich ein paar Dinge mehr über Queensday. Die meisten Leute haben irgendwas Orangenes an. Ich habe mir (um Queensday so queensdayisch wie nur möglich zu genießen) ein orangenes T-shirt I AMsterdam zugelegt und in Utrecht haben ich und Špela ganz lustige und rießige aufblasbare Plastikkrönchen gekriegt und mit denen sind wir dann auch den ganzen Tag durch Amsterdam gelaufen sind. Und keiner fand es komisch! Meine Krone wurde mir dann irgendwann von einem anderen Mädchen gestohlen :) Die letzte Sache, die ich erwähnen muss war ein ganz lustiges christliches Konzert in das ich mit Špela reingeplatzt bin. Eine Frau kam zu uns rüber, erzählte uns, dass Jesus lebt und uns liebt und wir haben sogar mit allen anderen Leuten um uns herum mitgesungen. Wäre Religion mehr wie ein Queensdaykonzert und weniger wie eine langweilige Predigt über den Weltuntergang, müsste die Kirche sich keine Sorgen um die fallende Zahl ihrer Gläubiger machen.
Wie auch immer... irgendwann war die Party vorbei, irgendwann mussten wir zurück nach Utrecht um unseren Zug nach München zu erwischen, ganz plötzlich war Amsterdam nur noch die schrägste und tollste Erinnerung.
Nach der Heimkehr und dem Selbstmitleid, der ganz klar folgen musste (welches Mädchen wäre nicht traurig das Land mit dem größten Anteil süßer Jungs zu verlassen) war ich dann gezwungen mich wieder hinter meine Bücher zu setzen und meinen Lernmarathonlauf fortzusetzen. Nicht halb so spaßig wie tanzen auf der Straße in einer dichten orangenen Menge. Und dieses nicht halb so spaßige Lernen war mehr oder weniger was ich die letzten Tage und Wochen gemacht habe. Das ist wahrlich nichts worüber jemand vergnügte Beiträge verfassen würde... Jetzt sind es noch sechs Wochen bis die Prüfungen vorbei sind und wenn alles gut geht bin ich Anfang Juli schon wieder in Rotterdam! :) Das hört sich dann doch schon viel besser an!

The Czech language, Prague and the Czechs

2007-04-23T23:04:00.000+02:00

Recently when I meet people I haven't seen for a long time and they ask me what I was doing recently, I usually tell them that I just came back from somewhere abroad or that I'm rushing home to pack my stuff for another debate tournament. Just returned from Bremen, going to Tallinn, I was in Prague over the weekend, I'll be in Amsterdam next week... And thinking about it - I love it. There are only few things one can never get enough of: one of them is ice cream, then you have lemonade, Ljubljana and Vienna in spring time, days of skiing in a year, debating and then of course - travelling! Whenever possible. Wherever to. Not necessarily with everyone though.
About 19 hours ago Spela Major "delivered" me back home, I enjoyed 8 hours of badly necessary sleep, had some coffee, did some bitching, tried to get as many statistics definitions into my head as possible and hopefully prevented another GM food debate. Now I have 60 hours until a train (I am hopefully on) leaves for Amsterdam.
I am not sure why I love to travel that much - probably because when I was young my father let me join him on some of his business trips and at the age of eight I literally got thrown into a different environment... Getting to know new people, new places, new cultures, habits, strange street names, but on the other hand having the possibility to enjoy the same coffee I drink at home is simply beyond words.
Coming back to my last trip - Prague. We went there for a debate tournament, the first one where I would be judging. It was a rather small tournament, but still great fun.
Here're some random things about the last three days...

10 minutes Czech time can be anything from 20 minutes to an hour, depends on how lucky you get (especially when trying to get to the dormitory in early morning hours. Luckily... I only know this from hearsay thanks to a neat red driving device.)
There're no parallel streets in Prague - apparently a reason why it is so easy to get lost.
The Russian mafia is just about anywhere! I looked for a flag of CZ, one of those you can sew on your backpack, and met some angry looking scary mafia-like people. The Slovak guy a.k.a. the Czech guy then took a minute to explain that it was probably the Russian mafia.
Prague's party places are very environment friendly and believe in saving energy on dance floors - which of course doesn't mean that it was impossible to observed some action going on there :)
Stories about throwing people out of the window can be found in history books, but it's also a very common 'procedure' that can be observed nowadays.
Spela Major is a wonderful driver - it's not that I only found out about it in the last days, but I believe it should be mentioned nevertheless. Speed limits in Prague are not something that would limit her (people eventually learn the lesson that it's no delict unless they catch you), our car was rarely parked more than 5 metres away from where we had to appear (except for that one time, when a certain German guy thought he knew where we're going :) :) and thanks to her we always got to sleep about 40 minutes longer than everyone else.
Among Czech debaters the majority is slovak.
If I ever hear people talking about GM food, I'll run away screaming. Tomatos, no matter how red and unhealthy they may look like are not worthy that many nerv cells!
Good weather in Prague in April does not mean 25°C.
The Czech language culture is hillarious... "Kdo to auto ukradne, tomu lulam upadne" (sticker on the back of a truck) or "Kuraci umiraji predcasne" (cigarette box) - I do believe no further comment's needed here.
Czechs do not believe in road signs, open cafes after midnight, capitalism and breakfasts. Luckily eating breakfast is usually not a debater's priority. After getting back to the dorm at 5 a.m. and getting to bed one hour later, what would you choose when the alarm clock rings at 8 a.m. - breakfast or ten minutes of extra sleep?
People working for the Ambassy of Yugoslavia still have certain privileges when parking in Prague... at least according to some road signs.
On the other hand Czechs do believe in towers, long bridges, horses, coachmen in traditional clothing and modern sun glasses, ugly buildings that are supposed to be the centre of Czech literature, starring at walls, The Experienced Tourguide and rubbing saints.

A million deaths. A million tragedies.

2007-04-12T21:03:00.000+02:00

A few days ago I was talking with someone about Iraq and then Iran and Israel and then he asked me why I care about what's going on over there. Why news is more than news, why his numbers are people for me. And after getting over the first shock I started wondering if more people think like that. Can it truly be that some people don't care, just because it is happening few thousand kilometres away from them?
I don't feel like that. I often here, that I am young and idealistic and that I will probably change. But this is not a matter of age, it's a matter of humaneness.

Down there people are dying. And every person that dies is someone's mother or father or brother or sister or best friend. How cruel must one be to say 10 dead people are only a number. It's not 10. It should not be 10. It should be 10 people. Stalin once said 1 death is a tragedy, 1.000.000 deaths are a statistic. No! A million deaths are a million tragedies. After all, they are people, like everyone of us. With wishes, desires, talents, hopes and crushes. People, who feel love and anger, happiness and fear. They are not different, they just live in a different place.

I do not have the power to change mindsets of those who truly have these strange views, but I hope that there are only a few who say that the world is alright as long as their world is alright. In the 21st century things can change in a matter of days and no-one wants to be only a number tomorrow.
So to come back to the question that provoked this quote: why do I care? I care, because it matters.

It's spring again!

2007-04-09T23:01:00.000+02:00

Everyone of us has their favourite season, I would say that I love them all except for autumn, which I don't love all that much :) :) Now (or about a month ago), spring has started... and it brought all we connect with it.
Here's what I associate with spring / the things that tell me that winter is over.
1. Hay fever. Once you start neezing every five or ten minutes and obtain a quantity discount for Visine you know it must be spring again :)
2. Marathon style learning. After my final exams last year, I now understand how the next 4 or more springs are going to look like: me and a book or two, a seat in the library and Rauch's green tea.
3. Spring fever. It is the wonderful feeling when you love to go out into the mountains or into the park, do more sports outside, learn outside, travel more (although travelling is great just anytime) and eat ice-cream and drink cold lemonades in the city. (Always loaded with Visine of course.)
4. Shopping season. Although I wouldn't call myself a shopping freak, but I believe that spring shopping is a general girls' thing... seeing the new fashion, buying some shirts in Zara etc. It just makes you look forward to summer even more.
5. It is the season before summer. I guess no further explanation is needed here.
6. More tourists. I love it when I hear people speaking all kinds of different languages when they're having their lemonade right next to me. It gives me this feeling that Ljubljana isn't the smallest and least interesting place on earth (which of course it isn't).

And thanks to lemonade, Visine, trips and tourists, even the marathon style learning doesn't seem so frightening.

The things I usually don't do.

2007-03-29T21:19:00.000+02:00

First of all, I will not share an in-depth report about Tallinn IV. It was great fun, we ran into some old friends (some we like a lot, more, the most... and others we like less) and had some great debates. And Tallinn is a nice city, especially the old town. No essays about how superb it was this time.
The other thing I usually don't do is rush to a course at the faculty that starts 45 minutes after I have landed in Ljubljana. I did it this Monday - and I wasn't even late, actually, the professor came into the class two minutes after I did... And I am sure his way to class didn't include violating so many speed limits and other regulations.
The next thing I usually don't do is change my way back home when I didn't intend to do it. It was different this Monday. Firstly, I decided to walk through the park - there's not much to say against this I guess, the air in the city isn't all that wonderful anyway. Then I decided not to walk the usually way through the park but rather went for some "fresher" air, which means I walked most of my way through a forest (although people who don't live in a city would never call it a forest, but nevertheless). Then I came out of the forest and walked by a museum right next to a sports hall (honestly, I did not remember it to be there, although later on I remembered that I have actually visited it a few times.) I am not a museum-freak, so the next unobvious choice for me was to decide to take a look at the exhibition. When I came in there was an old man telling me that I was a bit late and that I only had 30 minutes left. Finally noticing that it was an exhibition about the concentration camp Matthausen, which is actually pretty interesting, I told the old man I would return the next day, so I would have a bit more time to walk around and take a look at the exhibits. I am not sure why, but he told me that I should have a look around right now, no need to buy a ticket or something. I if really liked it, I could of course have another look at it the next day he said. So I climbed the stairs and walked around, looked at the horrifying pictures and read the scarying accompanying texts. And as if that wasn't enough I experienced my own little shocking moment, which had nothing to do with the terrifying scene around me. It wasn't horrifying or terrifying or (insert any adjective you like), but it was simply shocking, non-expected. I got confused and didn't know how to deal with it. I was still thinking about it hours later before I went to bed. Another characteristic few people would associate with me, especially those who don't know me. For all the others I know that I probably can't hide all that well that too often I am confused and absolutely not orientated in life.
Then there are other little things - I am back to my "I-try-not-to-drink-coffee" challenge (mentioning that I just had a caffee latte yesterday and another coffee at around 11:30 p.m. probably tells you that I'm not doing all that well), I am trying to persuade myself that the chairs in the library are actually quite comfortable and I only sleep about 5-6 hours a day, something that is turning into a really nasty habit, especially if you try to attend lectures and then continue learning for a few hours in the library with the not so comfortable chairs (and of course not drink coffee in between).
As you can see, I am continuing to have a life of an average student. I have not enough time to do all the things I would like to, I don't sleep enough, I am back to my getting-myself-crazy behaviour, trying to see the bright side of economic theory and trying to extend my running distance by 677 metres every day. Frankly, life's back to normal!

It's a beautiful day

2007-03-15T21:33:00.000+01:00

This year was not really a skiing year - by far not enough snow, way too sunny and way too warm. That is why I really, really cherished those few days I eventually got into the mountains. And today was one of those days: it started at about 8 a.m. in a lift that brought us high above the foggy and cloudy valley beneath Krvavec. So, what was it that made my day all so beautiful? Nothing in particular. No big surprises (except one in the afternoon, but I was back home then and I didn't feel like thinking about it after spending some wonderful hours on Krvavec.) The first reason I remained so happy even after descending to the valley was of course that I could ski again. The second one that we had a wonderful sunny day up there. Thirdly that I eventually thought of the possibility of sharpening the edges of my skis. The skiing wasn't a total disaster before I did that, but it was more enjoyable afterwards. Since I am one of those people who prefer firm and maybe a bit icy slopes, I can't ski with skis that would be best suitable for slopes with this annoying little hills that usually appear after 12 p.m. Back to my reasons... all those remaining ones are actually little things.

A little snowboarder, aged about 5 or six, who lost his balance and instead of falling on his backside, he fell on his head, then tumbled and eventually landed in a position that looked more natural than the one with his head downhill. From my perspective the whole scene looked outstandingly amusing. And the little boy continued with his boarding so no-one was hurt.
The other thing was that after you ski for some time you eventually make a little stop and then you can hear the voice of other people skiing. I am not sure if it's the voice that made me happy, but fact is that you can tell whether a person is skiing over an icy part or over a hilly part of the slope and when you realize that you think something like "hey, that's cool :)".

I guess all these reasons are nothing special, but the simple fact that I was able to ski again, made all the little reasons really big. It was a beautiful today... ... and tonight is ladies night!

How do you know you come from a little and unimportant country?

2007-03-11T17:02:00.000+01:00

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan threatened Germany and Austria to bomb them in case they don't pull their soldiers out of their country. Although our little country as well has soldiers in Afghanistan, nobody threatened to bomb us (Thank God!) , which is neat in itself, but the fact is that Slovenia has more soldiers in Afghanistan than Austria has.
So the question is: why? Either they're facing the old "find-them-on-the-map" problem or threatening Austria rather than a humble Slovenia just sounds better and more frightening to the world community. Thinking about it... how can you scare people who don't know where Slovenia is.
("So you're from Slovakia? - No, Slovenia. - That's not Slovakia? - No. - Oh, then I don't know it. Is it an Asian country?")
However, when even Taliban fighters don't care about you (knock on wood), you know all the jokes, about how small our country is, have been worth it :)

"Don't take it too serious, life's too short!"

2007-03-09T15:40:00.000+01:00

O.K., now take a deep breath and then breathe very slowly. Try not to lose your head. Breathe in, breathe out. Try to stay calm. It isn't that bad. Do you think you're getting enough oxygen? Good! You are not just about to die. No terrorist is planning to bomb your house. There is nobody spying on you. Just stay calm. Do you think you can handle it? No huge conspiracy against you is going on! You can always ask for help, just stay calm. So, you think you may handle today? If yes - very good! If not - even better!!! :-) Because today is the day, when you're "officially" allowed to panic.

Welcome to the annual Panic Day!

So if you feel like getting a little nervous breakdown, panic about what dress to put on in the evening or just bite your nails off while watching CNN, today is the day to do it.

P.S. Don't overdo it. To illustrate why, here's the story of a dead woman whose story's "laugh quotient" probably depends on how black your humour is, but should (for the sake of you still being alive tomorrow) nevertheless warn you: "A woman rises quietly from the table during a formal dinner, disappearing into the bathroom, where she silently dies. The autopsy discovers an easily-dislodged piece of food in her windpipe. She has died of embarrassment."

Sun is shining, the weather is sweet...

2007-03-06T18:46:00.000+01:00

It was another one of those days when I headed off for my daily running ritual way too late, which led to the sad fact, that I did most of my running after sunset. I never really realized that, but I am much more productive on sunny days, I have more energy to do things, I get up earlier, I walk faster, and I even feel happier without having any particular reason.
Realizing that, I started to wonder how it can be that some people don't like the sun. Not only in the morning after having a really bad hangover or just after getting up or when having a severe headache, but always... Sun=bad, darkness=good. I don't get these equations. If you take a look at history and culture, there was/is no major religion or belief that says the sun could be something bad. I believe that the Hindu people even believe that the sun is the image of god or the way their god shows that he truly exists. Except for Muslims, who are pretty indifferent towards the meaning of this star (because Mohammed or one of his closer relatives died during a sunset or something like that), every major religion or belief has presented it as something positive. It leads me to the conclusion that it is in the human nature to like the sun, to maybe even worship it, to see it as something good, positive, maybe even divine. I believe that if every one of us would have been let alone in a jungle right after birth, s/he would look forward to the sunny part of the day, not the rainy one. S/he would look forward to the break of the day, rather than the fall of the night.
Presuming the above said is true, I am asking myself why it is so cool among some people to say that you hate the sun, that you can't look at it, that you want it to go away... Sure, we all wished for some rainy and foggy days eventually, but there is rarely someone who would wish that it was night all the time. I am all for subcultures and diversity, I even have a (some kind of) metal CD at home with a song woshipping the night (when I am in a really really bad mood, this CD has a strangely motivational effect on me), but telling people all the time that the sun is bad and actually make them all believe that this is so, is kind of acting against human nature...
So now after my 'great discovery' and a really confused post, which, I am afraid, missed its point, I will try to find Bob Marley's Kaya album somewhere in my room and enjoy the lyrics of... "Sun is shining, the weather is sweet, make you wanna move, your dancing feet..."

Blue skies, smilin' at me...

2007-03-01T20:42:00.000+01:00

After spending hours and hours in the library, trying to get some economic theory into my head, and finally getting a nice little headache, there is nothing more relaxing but an hour somewhere out, somewhere where nothing looks like a library and where there are no books and calculators and equations, which make so little sence.
One of my favourite relaxation therapies, which works better than any Aspirin or any "artificial" vitamine tablet (although I admit, I use them way too much) is jogging. Firstly, because the only thing you have to do is to run. And that truly isn't a difficult thing to do. You have time to think about all the things that happen in your life, without feeling this annoying pressure, which tells you to learn on. You have time to sing all your favourite songs in your head and there is nobody there to tell you that some of the songs are maybe silly... basically, you have time to be yourself, you have time to think about you, not about school, all the stress, but just about what you really care about. And you have time to realize that life has started to control you instead the other way around and even if you can't change that 100%, you have the control over what you do for this hour or two, you can do what you like most.
And here's the thing I love most - when I finish all the kilometres or circles and do the streching exercises (which is a thing I don't do now and then - and I am always sorry afterwards) I lie down on the floor and the only thing I do is watch the skies above me. The only thing you can see is something blue and on sunny days you can see exactly where the sun is and sometimes there are clouds and you can see them moving and then the clouds go away or some grey come along and you can predict it is going to rain at night and when it is late already then you see the sky getting a bit darker and you sight the moon and maybe you can even see the first stars.
Today I only came back from the library at nearly 7 p.m. and when I finished my kilometres it was really dark, basically, it was night already. But it didn't make a difference when I took my minutes to relax. The sky was dark blue and so beautiful and the clouds looked so different than they look during the day. My headache went away, of course, and I had this feeling of complete freedom, that's what it feels like to be free, that's what it feels like when there are absolutely no limits...
Or as Louis Armstrong would say it: "Blue skies, smilin' at me, nothing but blue skies, do I see..."

The Hot-Soup-Eating Exercise

2007-02-16T15:49:00.000+01:00

I am a person who gets sick really rarely. I can't even remember when I suffered from something 'serious' the last time. However, once every few years or every year, one eventually gets sick. And this is my week! The doctor said I suffer from --- (it was a long word and I can't remember it). Well, whatever the name, it's annoying. Firstly it makes you breathe harder and basically everything hurts and you can't sleep and your headache feels more like a constant effort of your brain to jump out of your head, your body temperature is slowly climbing towards 39, your voice sounds raspy all the time and your best friend tells you that you look half dead, which doesn't sound all that bad if it is said in a nice way. :)
The best thing about me being sick right now is that I have an exam in economy tomorrow and that although it is the exam that demands probably 120% of your abilities, I find it hard right now to count to 20 without stopping for a second in between and thinking if 12 really comes after 11. I am really looking forward to tomorrow, because if I actually manage to make my way all the way to the faculty, the exam is probably going to be a hell of a laugh.
Nevertheless, I remain optimistic. Firstly, because there is Aspirin and Septolete. Secondly because there is this other thing I am supposed to take at 6p.m. again and then one more thing I am supposed to take at 8p.m. and because all this things are supposed to make me feel better. Just like the liters of tea I am drinking. It's ironic. We're not far from cures for most types of cancer, people can live normally with HIV and other devastating diseases, and I have a simple --- and have to stay in bed and drink tons of tea. Vive la médecine!

Über moderne Poesie und einen Liebesfriedhof

2007-02-08T00:28:00.000+01:00

Leute, die mich kennen wissen, dass ich mit Literatur und Poesie nicht viel am Hut habe. Ich bin einer von diesen Menschen die wirklich nur ab und zu ein Buch lesen und nie eine Gedichtesammlung in die Hand nehmen, wenn es nicht mindestens Heinrich Heine ist. Bei all der Überschwemmung von Gedichten und Büchern, mit denen uns die Autoren lieber verschont hätten, gibt es eben keine Garantie, dass das Buch oder das Gedicht gut sein wird. Und da Literatur nicht ganz oben auf meiner Liste von "Sachen, die ich am Liebsten tuhe" steht, bleibe ich dann meistens bei klassischen Autoren. Die Meisten von denen sind zwar tot, aber wenigstens wird ihre Arbeit als unsterblich bezeichnet.
Heute habe ich was das angeht eine Ausnahme gemacht. Da morgen Kulturfeiertag ist, lud mich ein Freund zu einem Poesieabend ein, wo drei Autoren aus drei Ländern ihre Gedichte vorstellen sollten. Wie es wahrscheinlich offensichtlich ist, habe ich sowas zum ersten Mal gemacht, aber zu meiner Überraschung muss ich zugeben, dass ich die Werke von dem "Trio" wirklich genossen habe. Ich will nicht sagen, dass sie mir alle gefallen haben. Ich will auch nicht sagen, dass ich sie besonders gut fand. Aber Tatsache ist, dass man bei einigen von den Gedichten wirklich herzhaft lachen konnte und dass ich immerhin einen Ausdruck gehört habe, der mich nachdenken ließ.
Der erste Poet kam aus Finnland, er trug seine Werke erst in Finnisch vor und dann hörten wir noch die slowenische Übersetzung. Gegen seine Werke kann man nicht viel sagen. Die Gedichte waren schön, obwohl einige überhaupt keinen Sinn machten. Der Freund der mich einlud und der sich mit Poesie viel besser auskennt als ich meinte dann, dass Poesie nicht verstanden werden soll, dass ich sie zu logisch interpretieren will. Andererseits, wieso soll man denn überhaupt Dinge schreiben, die keinen Sinn machen? Wie kann man näher kommen, wenn man in die falsche Richtung geht? Ich weiß über dieses Beispiel ließe sich diskutieren, aber die Idee bliebt dann doch die Gleiche - soll man Dinge schreiben, die keiner versteht? Muss man die Dinge die man schreibt selbst verstehen? Und soll Poesie wirklich nicht verstanden werden? Man fragt sich doch - für wen werden die Gedichte geschrieben? Sollen Gedichte nicht berühren, sollen sie nicht Leute zum Nachdenken bewegen? Denn wenn sie keiner versteht, dann machen sie doch eigentlich keinen Sinn, oder ist Poesie wirklich nur dazu da schön zu sein. Meiner Meinung nach wäre das einfach zu wenig. Zurück zu dem Finnen - ich habe drei Worte auf Finnisch verstanden (obwohl zugegeben, Wittgenstein ist kein Finnisches Wort) und die Sprache klingt eigentlich gar nicht so lustig wie alle sagen. Sie klingt anders und vielleicht auch ein bisschen lustig und man kann sich nicht wirklich ausmalen, wo in dem ganzen Gerede die Wörter beginnen oder aufhören, aber sie ist kein Dauerlacher.
Nach dem Finnen lauschten wir einer slowakischen feministischen Poetin, die vielleicht nicht so zwanghaft versuchen sollte alle ihre Werke ins Slowenische zu übersetzen. Vor allem, weil sie nicht wirklich gut Slowenisch kann. Und wenn sie wirklich denkt, dass Poesie in Slowenisch das ist, was sie machen will, sollte sie wenigstens die Wortspiele sein lassen. Denn wenn man nicht genug Worte kennt und dann versucht ein inteligentes Wortspiel aus dem vorhandenen Wortschatz zu machen, wird das Ergebnis sicher kein Erfolg. Trotzdem gab es in einem ihrer Gedichte einen Ausdruck, der mich nachdenklich machte. Sie sagte "der Friedhof der Liebe". Und dann überlegte ich, wenn zwei Menschen sich lieben und wenn sie sich dann nicht mehr lieben, wo geht die ganze Liebe hin? Das sind doch wirklich starke, vielleicht die stärksten Gefühle überhaupt, die lösen sich doch nicht einfach in Luft auf, oder? Ich glaube auch nicht, dass die Liebe zu einer anderen Person "rübergeht", denn man kann doch nie mit zwei verschiedenen Menschen alles gleich erleben. Ich glaube, dass die Liebe, in irgendeiner Form, ganz einfach bleibt. Sie kann kleiner werden oder anders werden oder sie wird unterdrückt und kommt nie mehr wieder zum Vorschein oder sie wird zu Hass, aber ich glaube kaum, dass man irgendeiner Liebe wirklich ein Grab aufstellen könnte. "Hier ruht die Liebe von Romeo und Julia, denn sie lieben sich nicht mehr." Das klingt doch irgendwie absurd, oder? Viele denken anders, man verliebt sich und dann "entliebt" man sich wieder, aber ich glaube, dass hier die Sichtweise einzig und allein davon abhängt, was man als Liebe bezeichnet und was man als Liebe empfindet. Ich sehe es als etwas Bedeutsames, etwas, dass größer ist als man selbst, etwas, das man nicht kontrolieren kann, etwas, dass man nur ganz ganz wenige Male im Leben erleben darf... vielleicht ist es auch schon genug, wenn man die Liebe nur ein einziges Mal im Leben findet. Und so etwas, etwas, das uns voll und ganz verzaubert, vergisst man nie mehr wieder. Und deswegen glaube ich auch, dass es keinen Liebesfriedhof gibt und dass sich die Poetin, die ich schon so nicht besonders mochte, ganz schlimm geirrt hat.
Der dritte Mann heute war ein Slowene, der, wie es schien, alles ein bisschen auf die leichte Schulter genommen hat, aber seine Gedichte hatten wenigstens Inhalt... die meisten zumindest. Vor allem die über Russen und Weißrussen. Ich wusste gar nicht, dass wir in unserem Land auch über die Witze reisen.
Wie auch immer, es war ein gelungener Abend. Ich erlangte zudem noch die Erkenntnis, dass es Leuten nichts ausmacht in der Kälte in einer langen Reihe zu stehen nur um in eine nicht so tolle Disco zu kommen, dass man Poeten erlaubt ein bisschen... 'liberaler' zu sein was Sexualität angeht und sich keiner darüber beschwert und dass ich ein Naturtalent in Finnisch bin. Zu Schade, dass ich nie vorhatte die Sprache zu lernen und jetzt all meine Begabung umsonst ist.

Leise rieselt der Schnee

2007-02-06T21:04:00.000+01:00

Als ich heute morgen aus dem Haus gestürmt bin, bemerkte ich, dass obwohl irgendwas vom Himmel viel, kein Schnee auf den Straßen lag. Ich bin mir nicht sicher ob ich ihn ernsthaft erwartet habe, aber ich hatte zum ersten Mal seit langem heute Nacht wirklich reale Träume und in diesen Träumen war die Landschaft ganz weiß und alle Leute trugen Handschuhe und Winterstiefel und lange Mäntel, und da ich nach dem Aufwachen nur kurz ins Badezimmer verschwand und dann schnell aus dem Haus eilte, war ich irgendwie überrascht als es draußen überhaupt nicht weiß aussah, als draußen nur wenige Regentropfen auf den kalten, grauen Stadtboden fielen. Und obwohl ich den Schnee nicht wirklich erwartet hatte, war ich ein bisschen enttäuscht. Ich habe mir diesen Winter ziehmlich lange eingeredet, dass ich keinen Schnee haben will, dass es viel praktischer ist, wenn die Stadt schön schneelos bleibt und dass ich den Schnee sowieso jederzeit in den Bergen genießen kann. Und dann... dann hat es in diesem Winter in der Stadt zum ersten Mal geschneit. Ich wachte eines Morgens auf und die Straßen und die Hügel waren weiß, alles wurde ruhig und still, die Leute redeten leiser und die Kinder lachten herzhafter als sie im Kindergarten gegenüber Schneeschlachten veranstalteten. Es war so als würde der Schnee alles irgendwie besser machen, besinnlicher, ruhiger, freundlicher, vollkommener. In den paar Tagen wo wir das Glück hatten einige weiße Flocken genießen zu dürfen, war die Stadt wie verzaubert und sie war romantisch und obwohl die einzige Person mit der ich den Schnee noch lieber genossen hätte, als mit den Tausenden von lächelnden Gesichtern auf den Straßen, ganz weit weg war, waren es doch die schönsten Tage im Neuen Jahr.
Und wenn ich eines dazu gelernt habe, dann ist es das, dass es keinen Unterschied macht ob ich mir einzureden versuche, dass ich den Schnee nicht haben will oder wenn ich ihn voller Vorfreude erwarte. Am Ende wird es doch immer noch viel besser als man es sich hätte erträumen können. Und deswegen wünsche ich mir ganz doll und ganz stark und vom ganzen Herzen, dass der Schnee noch in diesem Winter, viele Male die Stadt auf's Neue verzaubert.

IUB Open a.k.a the Redbull/Coffee Contest

2007-02-06T17:38:00.000+01:00

It always feels a bit strange coming home after being somewhere abroad. The first few days appear to be like some kind of a blurry dream; you look at your stuff around your place and although you have seen it only few days or weeks ago, you have the feeling that if you wouldn't have seen it that very moment, you would have certainly forgotten about all the pictures and photos around the room, the souvenirs you (or others) collected around the world, all the ancient postcards which still hang somewhere around... The room just seems like something you have seen in a dream before and now it became reality.
After returning home from Bremen, Germany yesterday early in the morning I had the exact same feeling. I walked in through the door and then looked at the notes I have on the walls and on my computer screen and although they're all things I still have to do or things I had to do last week, it feels like I have written all these things like "return books to the library" years ago. I wouldn't go and say that I don't feel at home, I do, but in some strange different way than usually.

Now, after sharing my confused thoughts, which can only be understood if one ever experienced this same feeling him/herself, let's "turn back the hands of time" to the days before yesterday, when a bunch of 12 Slovenian debaters spent some time at a former military camp in order to debate about animals, China, NATO and football. Here are some of the things I believe are worth sharing:

In a debate of 8 people, 3 of them being guys, 4 girls won the first and second place when debating a soccer motion. The wisdom that follows from it is that one should never underestimate the knowledge gained from one semi-finals World Cup game with cute players and an even cuter coach.
Having windmills in the jungle of Malaysia wouldn't solve any energy problems, nor would solar cells do any good in Siberia.
An Irish guy turned vegetarian during a debate round about animals. Probably because of 'providing the insight' into animal meat, the guys who shared their knowledge became only third in the end.
Sleeping on a ship sounds nice, but in fact it is hellish cold and uncomfortable. This was also part of the reason why we generally did not sleep a lot.
The city of Bremen has debts of 12 billion €, which makes up for cca. 20€/Bremner.
Bremen is cute! The center of the city is closed for traffic, there are this old cobbled streets and they have little unique looking restaurants and cafes on every corner, all the modern architecure is nearly geniously integrated into the old appearence of the city and they are serving decent caffe latte, which is generally a must-have for every city.
Although being quite an old city, Bremen as well has its shopping street. I can't remember how it is called, but it looks just like the Kärtnerstraße in Vienna and a bit like the Hauptstraße in Heidelberg - full with H&Ms, Deichmanns, Vodafone shops, Orsays and Fielmanns.
There are not many things as amusing as singing My Way at 6:30 in the morning with a bunch of people who are either drunk or can't sing at all or who have no idea what words Frank Sinatra actually uses and then produce something like "endidüimawei".
If anyone of you used "Headway" in their high schools when learning English, you might have learned (when dealing with stereotypes) that Germans always "bang on time". However, regarding German trains and the organisation of this tournament, there is only one thing to say about this stereotype: Bullshit!
And last but certainly not least: Slovenian guys are great! I am not sure if the fact that they made a hell of a show when dancing to YMCA at 5 a.m. is a positive support for that, but nevertheless, Slovenian guys are fabulous.

Sunday afternoon IUB Open (the event we attended) ended. We took our train back to München and then Ljubljana, discovered that social scientists are not all that bad at natural sciences and than German conductors really could not be called enthusiastic people. Can you imagine saying: "Unser Zug hat leider 12 Minuter Verspätung," and "Deutschland hat die Handballweltmeisterchaft gewonnen. Deutschland ist Weltmeister!" in the exact same way?

We arrived back home at six a.m., I went to sleep at 7 a.m. and woke up about 12 hours later, got my first results of an exam since starting university, saw CSI NY on RTL and notet that although I was short of sleep, this CSI is plainly stupid. (One of the players said during an investigation: "Shabbat Shalom... hm, he must be Jewish" and the other player responded something like "Oh, I didn't know you speak can speak Hebrew." I know Americans aren't big on foreign languages, but even my non-existing hamster speaks more Hebrew than that!)

Summing up this strange line of thoughts... I liked Bremen a lot. The ship we stayed at could use some radiators. The caffe latte which was served next to the ship could have been a bit cheaper. Bremner taxis are mostly yellow. People were nice. I wouldn't want to study at a former military base. I believe everyone should know the lyrics of My Way. Girls can get enthusiastic about soccer and there are at least two H&Ms in Bremen.

Why I Believe There Is Nothing Wrong with Moral Relativism

2007-01-23T20:30:00.000+01:00

Considering the latest rape accusations that were made against Israelis President, I started wondering whether it is worse if a politician commits a serious crime than if an ordinary citizen does. Of course, the crime itself is nothing more and nothing less than an action against the law, but does the fact that it was commited by someone who is publicly more exposed, make it more or less acceptable? I believe that from a legal standpoint it makes no difference: if you do something bad and you lose in front of the court, you're probably going to be sent to prison (talking about severe crimes here) and in theory it does not really matter if you're the President or a car washer. But from the moral standpoint I believe it is worse if a public person (and I am not speaking about famous actors or popstars) acts against the law.

I thought about it for some time and to a certain degree I agree with those who say that morals are the same for each and every one of us. On the other hand: politicians are being elected by people who trust them, by people who believe that this is the best person that could represent their opinions, that his/her voice is their voice. I believe that most people vote for someone who they believe is trustworthy, who they believe has high standing morals and during all these never-ending election campaigns all candidates promise good and wanted things.
But when they are standing there, talking to people, laughing with their wifes/husbands and kids, politicians promise more than to improve the roads and the water infrastructure. They promise to be a good person for the country and for the people. A defender of good, a fighter against the evil. This might be a bit idealistic, but that is what I believe politics should be about and I believe that people's choices are based on these principles. At least mine are.

Now, if you agree with me on the things I have said until now, you will maybe also agree that a President that does something bad, that a PM that does something bad, is not only a criminal, but a liar and a betrayer of trust. Not only has s/he acted against the law, but s/he has also broken millions of promises made, promises that were received by each and every individual who put their hope into one person.

Of course you can't punish someone more because s/he is a representative of the people and not an unknown house-keeper, but considering only the moral aspect, a crime commited by a politician, who was elected by the people with the 'mission' to act for the people, is worse and "wronger" that the same crime commited by someone else.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

2007-01-23T01:10:00.000+01:00

Lately when I was looking for a picture on the internet I came across an image I have seen quite some time ago, but couldn't remember where. Some of you might know it (or not), but since I consider it to be one of the cutest pictures I have ever seen, I wanted to share it with you.

Getting Rid Off the Ghosts From the Past.

2007-01-23T00:33:00.000+01:00

I have been thinking a bit about my character lately, especially about the part that always wants to have things under control, the part that always hangs on to the past, to events, to people that once were. And as much as it is annoying, it is completely counter-productive. But then one moment arrives and I can't really tell what triggers this moment, but you think of the past and you stop caring. Whatever it was is not important anymore. It is a bit like a dead fish on the beach: it lies around for some time and then one morning the fish isn't there anymore. The only thing you know (on the morning you see the fish is gone) is that this new feeling, which has nothing to do with bothering anymore, but is much more a sence of freedom and relief, is more pleasant and very refreshing. I can't really tell what made me acknowledge this on January 23rd, since it is nothing more but an ordinary Tuesday, however, whatever it was, this is certainly one of the best Tuesdays I have had so far.

I usually don't make New Year's Resolutions and even if I do I am usually aware that I won't hold on to them. This year I am going to make an exception and adopt my first serious Resolution and since it is only January I believe I could still label it a New Year's. On the other hand, why not starting 'my year' on a date when no-one else does and just choose the date that fits me best every year? And why not starting it anew every few weeks? Or whenever one experiences something I call »A Buda Moment«, when you discover all the diversity of Mexican food or see how ridiculous it sounds it you try to speak Chinese or when you find out that Tuesday is the best day to go swimming (and it is only a coincidence that it is again a Tuesday, but they change the water in the swimming pool here only once a week and it is every Monday afternoon). Who says I will always want to change things on January 1st?
Well, no matter what kind of resolution I am adopting, here it is:

From now on, I will care less.
(Or to put in in a Green Day way: No, I don't have the time to listen to me whine... :-)

White, Protestant and Male?

2007-01-21T22:16:00.000+01:00

An African-American Mr. President?
A female Ms. President? (or)
A Hispanic Mr. President?

I believe most of you know what this post is going to be about: the potential presidental candidates for 2008 from the Democratic Party.

In the previous years the US has been widely portraied as a very conservative country and I believe that only a decade or 15 years ago one would have never thought that a woman, an Afro-American or an Hispanic could enter or even possibly win an election.
Now, in 2007, Hillary Clinton appears to be the clear Democratic front-runner, Barack Obama has been labeled "America's hottest political phenomenon" and Bill Richardson, the current Governer of New Mexico, is a charismatic figure, who has been four times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. (To read more about them: click here)

I am not an American and I will not be voting in their elections of course, but seriously, I think this selection of possible candidates is great. Because it shows that this major party is counting on experience, on abilities, on morals, on knowledge, on attitudes, on charisma, rather than on a 'white, Protestant, male' candidate. Only few years ago the NY Times wrote a critical article and used this adjectives to describe the average presidental candidate. The Democrats have clearly moved away from this adjectives: Barack Obama is not white, Bill Richardson is Roman Catholic and Hillary Clinton obviously isn't a man.

Call me naive or an inveterate optimist, but that is what I call progress. It is things like this that make me believe that despite all the wrongs in the world, we're moving to become a better society, where stereotypes of race, sex or religion will be ignored or forgotten and when your acts, your knowledge and your character will become the only things that truly matter.

Serbia - Heading For the Future. Or not.

2007-01-20T22:28:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow on January 21st Serbia heads for the polls in the first parliamentary election since the break-up of Serbia and Montenegro in June last year.
Although commentators see this as the most critical election since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, low voter turnout is expected. 3,799 candidates are fighting for 250 seats in the single-chamber assembly and observers believe that three or even four parties will be needed to form a governing coalition. The general 'spirit' in Serbia before tomorrow's election is not all that positive. People do not know who to vote for and many will be voting against someone rather than for someone. Many say that they are not expecting much change, neither a major shift in the Kosovo issue. But a lot of people who have been interviewed before tomorrow's election know one thing: they want a new leader, they want new people sitting in the parliament, they want to get rid of the old generation.

Here are the options being offered to them:

Option 1: The Democratic party led by Boris Tadic, who is Serbia's current President. It is the largest center-left political party and a social democratic party, which advocates a liberal economy, political pragmatism, co-operation with the international community, openness to dialogue and the need for regional co-operation. (Source: BBC)
Option 2: Democratic party of Serbia and New Serbia led by Vojislav Kostunica, who is Serbia's current Primer MInister. It is a centre-right coalition advocating co-operation with the international community, but not at any cost. (BBC)
Option 3: Serbian Radical Party. The party's leader is Vojislav Seselj, but since he is on trial in The Hague on charges of inciting ethnic and religious hatred, Tomislav Nikolic (who was running against Boris Tadic in the previous presidential elections) is leading the party through the elections. The party's programme is based on the preservation of Serbia and its territorial integrity (I am quite sure the Kosovars don't like them very much). Economically it focuses of the fight against corruption and organised crime.
Option 4: Serbian Renewal Movement is being led by Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic. The party's programme calls for reintroduction of the monarchy, a free market economy, the return of nationalised property to former owners and for Kosovo to remain in Serbia.
Option 5: Socialist Party of Serbia is led by Ivica Dacic, who inherited the mantle of Slobodan Milosevic. The party advocates social justice, free education and social security for all. Apparently it also campaigns for Kosovo to remain in Serbia. Dacic stated that Kosovo should be protected with arms, should the need arise.
Option 6: Union of LDP, GSS, SDU and LSV. It is led by Cedomir Jovanovic and wants to win young voters in their fight for the protection of all minorities.
Option 7: G17 Plus is a party led by Mladjan Dinkic, whose programme is based on issue as a stable currency, lower interest rates and ambitious plans for investing in the country's infrastructure.

The election is mainly seen as a bitter showdown between pro-Western reformers and hard-line nationalists. But it all seems overshadowed by a forthcoming U.N. plan for the future of the Kosovo province.
The other thing at stake at this elections are Serbia's relations with the European Union and NATO. The outcome tomorrow and the new Cabinet may determine whether Serbia will finally try to heed Western demands to capture Gen. Ratko Mladic, one of the most wanted war crimes suspects. A major issue beside economic reforms and the economic future of the country, is, of course, Kosovo and the status of the province, which is to be determined shortly after the elections. Right-wing hardliners are playing with patriotic and nationalistic feelings to win voters for their parties, many people don't want to let go, but acknowledge, that the current status is not a current solution. The results of tomorrow's elections will certainly be a good indicator of what Serbia's current preferences are and whether Kosovo is preference number one. Many hope it is not.

While the majority of Serbs is crediting PM Kostunica with ensuring stability (inflation is down to 7%, down from nearly 20% in early 2004), economic growth and with attracting foreign investments (they reached $5,2 billion in 2006), they have fixed their hopes for the future on President Boris Tadic. A teacher in Belgrade said that she expected more from Kostunica, that lower takes and better jobs are good, but she said the country would need a sense of direction, some certainty where it is heading. Democrats apparently offer more of this sence, since they are topping the polls. Kostunica's statement, that they [Tadic's Democrats] would only have big words, while they [Kostunica's Democrats] had deeds on their side isn't increasing their popularity, although observers believe they'll do well.

Tomorrow could be a historic day for Serbia. Or not. About 6,6 million people will get the chance to decide about their future. Let us hope that they see at least some of the candidates as a portrait of better days to come.

Freedom of Expression, May You Rest in Peace!

2007-01-19T22:43:00.000+01:00

In October 2005 a journalist in Turkey has been found guilty of insulting 'Turkishness« and given a suspended six-month jail sentence. Hrant Dink, the above mentioned journalist of Turkish-Armenian descent wrote a newspaper column, which he argued was aimed at improving relations between Turkey and Armenia. The prosecution interpreted one part as an insult and sued him. Mr. Hrant Dink appealed against the verdict and lost.

The article adressed the killings of Armenians during Ottoman rule in 1917 (the Armenian genocide). A paragraph in the article called on Armenians to symbolically reject »the adulterated part of their Turkish blood«. The judge ruled that this implied that Turkish blood was dirty and ordered a suspended sentence. The nationalist prosecuters were disappointed, they expected at least two or three years criminal charge.

Mr. Hrant Dink's lawyer Fethiye Cetin said that the verdict showed that although Turkey has adopted a new criminal code under international and internal pressure, little has changed and that some human rights issues are far from being even discussed. It is still illegal to insult the Turkish identity, the military and the judiciary. The line between criticism and insult is often blurred.

Today, Hrant Dink has been killed. He predicted that 2007 would be a hard year for him, but he said that he would survive it. He did not. It is not clear who killed him, but political leaders in Turkey have been quick to condemn the murder.

Fact is that Mr. Dink refused to be silent about what had happened to his ancestors in the fading year of the Ottoman Empire. He called it genocide and said that Turkey does not have to admit it for it to remain true in his mind. Unlike many Armenians he did not believe that Turkey should pay huge financial compensations, but that it needed to come to terms with its history and accept the enormous wrongs.

He did not keep quiet as many wanted him to and paid with his life.

I am writing about this because all this articles made me wonder:

Is there is any EU country that has such 'patriotic' laws as Turkey does?
Does the EU have a common policy on laws of that kind and does it prohibit or allow them (I know they are not very happy about what is going on in Turkey regarding freedom of speech, but is there an EU law regulating exactly this kind of things?) and
Is this a really, really severe human rights violation or do the human rights leave so much room for interpretation that something like this can be seriously regarded as an insult that can be legitimately prosecuted?

Country Focus: Liberia

2007-01-19T15:19:00.000+01:00

There are around 200 countries in the world and I only know the history and fate of very few of them. Choosing one of those 200 every week and making some research on what happened, who played and what is going on now, seems like a good way to change that.

Today's focus: Liberia

In 1822 freed slaves from the United States began to settle in what is today Liberia and by 1847 these Americo-Liberians were able to establish a republic - Africa's oldest. Sadly this is not why Liberia became so well known in the past decades. It rather own's its "popularity" to too many lost lives and the destruction of the country.

William Tubman, who was Liberia's president between 1944 and 1971 did a lot to promote foreign investement and to minimize economic and social gaps between the descendents of original settlers and the inhabitants of the interior. Ironically, it was the huge influx of foreign money that caused or widened this social inequalities and increased hostility between the settlers and original inhabitants. Tubman, who saw the hostilities growing bigger and bigger, finally [1963] enfranchised the original inhabitants, which constituted 97% of the countries population.
Tumbam travelled around the world, allowed international investment and modernized parts of the country by building schools, roads and hospitals.
Despite all these positive developments the gap between people in Liberia increased. Tubman's rule gradually became more authoritarian, he started repressing political opposition and changed the constitution to allow himself to remain in office for seven terms. When he died in 1971, Liberia was nothing but a very frustrated country.

William Tolbert was elected president in 1971. Although Liberia initially had very strong ties with the USA and also joined them at fighting communism, Tolbert established diplomatic relations with communist countries like China. He repressed political opposition even stronger than Tubman and was accused of severe human rights violations.
As his forerunner he attemted to narrow the gaps in the population, but much od the damage of the past seemed irreparable. The majority of the population (mainly natives) was poor, lacked access to drinkable water and electricity. In 1979 he seeked a way to encourage local production and proposed an increase in the price of imported rice, which was a basic part of the Liberian diet. The proposal was received negatively and translated itself into violent demonstrations. During the same time he started establishing close economic ties with Cuba and Lybia. In 1850 Samuel Doe, a master sergeant in the Liberian army, carried out a coup d'etat. Tolbert was killed, thirteen members of the Cabined were publicly executed only 10 days later. Government workers fled the countries, some were imprisoned. With the formation of the People's Redemption Council, 133 years of Americo-Liberian political domination ended. Many people welcomed the new leader, but because of internat rifts in the new government, Does paranoia of a possible counter-coup and because of his favoring of people of his own ethnic background [Krahns], support for his government soon decreased.
He established ties with the US agains, developed hostile policies against Communist nations and received $490 million (1980-85) aid in return.
A new constituion was approved in 1984, new elections were carried out in 1985. Doe was elected with 51%, but foreign observers declared the elections fraudulent, most elected opposition candidates refused to take their seats in the House of Representatives. Many coups were carried out, none of them was successful.
On December 24th, 1989 a group called the National Patriotic Front of Liberia led by Charles Taylor invaded the country. The country entered their first civil war, civilians were massacred on both sides. Thousands fled. The invasion was successful regarding ending Doe's regime in September 1990, however by that time rebels began to fracture into warring factions based on political and tribal differences. Entire villages were emptied, soldiers and child soldiers committed atrocities, they raped and murdered people. The Liberian civil war became known as one of the world's most bloody episodes of ethnic cleansing. In 1995 a ceasefire was reached, in 1997 Taylor won the presidential election. People hoped he would end the bloodshed. The killing slowed down, but it didn't end. In 1999 - a new civil war begal. Two new groups appeared in 1999 and 2003, by summer 2003 Taylor controlled only a part of the country. The US sent in a small number of troops and Nigeria provided peacekeepers. In August 2003 they all reached a peace agreement, Taylor resigned and was flown in to exile in Nigeria.

In January 2006 the period of the transitional governemnt (that took over after Taylor) came to an end and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became the first democratically elected female head of state in the history of Africa.

Liberia today

The countries economy is mostly destroyed. Foreign inverstors have pulled out during the civil wars, only few have returned. International sanctions on diamond exports are as well not helping the country's poor economic situation. Since transparency of fund allocation has been very bad during the years of the transitional government, many donors are not yet willing to send more money into the country.
The infrastructure of the country is mostly badly damaged or completely destroyed. The roads are bad, as is the water and electricity infastructure. On the other hand prices are increasing on a daily basis, the Liberian dollar is depreciating, which makes the economic situation even worse. There are not enough schools and the country is lacking doctors, although the supply of drugs is finally increasing and some buildings are going to be renovated, so they can be used as classrooms. The unemployment rate is at 85%, armed robbery and crime has increases, the judicial system is on a very low level. Corruption is being dealt with, but is still high.

Besides rebuilding infrastructure, providing more schools, hospitals, doctors and trying to get foreign investments into the country, Sirleaf has to deal with the great problem of rape, which has become very common during the last 14 years. Doctors Without Borders who are working in the country have launched several campaigns to help rape victims, each day five to ten people show up to seek help. Mostly, they are not women, they are girls between the age of five and twelve. Few men have been convicted so far.

The civil war killed around 150,000 thousand people, about a million fled their homes and are still displaced around the region. UN is maintaining its presence in the country with 15,000 peacekeepers and Charles Taylor is facing trial in the Hague for alleged war crimes.

Arundhati Roy once said: "Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." Hopefully Liberia's people can hear it too.

Welcome Everyone, This is Hell.

2007-01-18T23:13:00.000+01:00

Last year Germany faced tons of problems because they weren't able to handle all the unexpected snow, this year the fierce North Sea storm "Kyrill" is not bringing a lot of snow, but death instead. With hurricane-force winds of up to 191 kph it today roared through Germany after already wrecking havoc in the Netherlands, France and Britain. Until today at least 12 people have been killed in storm-related incidents and no estimates of the total damage have been made yet.

Before the storm reached parts of Germany in the afternoon, businesses were closed, pupils were sent home. Later today, more than 150 flights across the country have been cancelled, at the Frankfurt International, the country's busiest airport, takeoffs and landings are at half of their normal capacity. Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway ceased service on all long-distance trains (thank God we're only going to Bremen in two weeks.)
Many highways have been closed and ferry services stopped.

Within a few hours, the storm killed 3 people in Germany.
The first one was a 18-month-old firl in northern Munich.
The second a driver, who tried to steer away from a failing tree near Heidelberg.
The third was a a 73-year-old man, who was struck by a barn door in Augsburg.
In Britain, seven people were killed, two died in the Netherlands and a driving instructor from France lost his life because of storm Kyrill.

In Berlin, the country's capital, city streets were left under water. The local government declared a state of emergency and Condoleezza Rice had to postpone her trip to Berlin to visit Angela Merkel.

The storm is expected to continue its path to the southeast with forecasts that it will strike Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria (and hopefully not the country which is pretty close to the last two).

---
I really wouldn't say that it is this alleged greater activity of the sun that provoces all this. I can't even say it's global warming, because I really don't know much about it, but to quote Urška: "We're doomed to extinction."
Apparently I can't go and say what it is, but I know one thing: I don't like it. I don't like the wind blowing 120 kph in my country. I don't like people dying only few hundred kilometres away. Of course I don't like them dying anywhere in the world, but this time... it's so near! It's "realer." Kyrill in Austria is a fact and Austria is very real, since you only need one hour from our capital to reach it.
So what I am trying to say is that someone will have to do something in order not to have too many Kyrills around Europe and the world. I checked that no unnecessary lights are turned on around the house and when I switch off the computer, I'll pull out the plug as I did every day since I heard that it really makes a huge difference between just turning off my computer and pulling the plug...
But images show that apparently there is more that needs to be done.

Returning Home - But Where to Go?

2007-01-18T22:23:00.000+01:00

Rochom P'ngieng is a young woman from Cambodia who disappeared aged eight. After reportedly living wild in the jungle for 19 years, she has been found by villagers on January 13.

Her father, who said he recognized her by a scar on her right arm (or by a scar on the back or by her lineaments [depends on which source you're reading], said that the young woman does not speak any intelligible language and so many questions about the circumstances of the girl's disappearence in 1988 while herding buffalo in a remote area of the Rattanakiri province and what happened to her remain unanswered.

Rochom was found last Saturday after a villager noticed that food disappeared from a lunch box he left near his farm, the deputy provincial police chief reports. He said that some time after the 'mysterious food disappearence' some villagers spotted a naked human being, who looked like a jungle person. She was shaking and picking up grains of rice from the ground to eat.

Her father reported that when he saw her she was still naked and "walking in a bending-forward position like a monkey... She was bare bones and skinny. /.../ Her eyes were red like tigers' eyes."
The deputy provincial police chief put it in a different (and not very nice) way. He described her as: "half-human and half-animal."

Although she spent 19 years alone she apparently wants to go back to the jungle her father reports. "If she is not sleeping, she just sits and glances left and right", she usually sleeps during the day and is awake at night and after showing signs that she wants to return to the jungle, by taking off her clothes, Sal Lou, her father, said, that her family is watching her closely.

---

I remember that we learned about similar stories in school, we were told of two examples and the books said that these were "wild children". The other day I got an offer to buy a book about the 'Human' (with a big H), the most developed of all species. After thinking back of all these stories of people disappearing into jungle and coming back decades later and being so much different than we are, I started asking myself: how human are we (who didn't spend half of their lives in jungle) or better what defines us being human? What is the factor that makes us human? And what does it mean at all to be human? Is it really this organised way of life in cities and villages, school and education and social interaction? Is this way of life so much better than the one these people experience? And do we have the right to pull them out and not let them go back if they want to? Because if there is something I truly believe in, is that every human being, no matter how educated or how smart or how well socialized can form an opinion and if he/she has an opinion - shouldn't this opinion be respected? Can it or should it be ignored and opressed just because we believe we are right and that our way of life is better and superior? I don't think so.

Well, whatever happens to Rochom in the following days, weeks and months, I wish her all the best!

Africa

2007-01-16T03:47:00.000+01:00

The other day I saw the film "I dreamed of Africa", which itself isn't really important and even the film wasn't all that fascinating, although it included a meaningful message (of course only if you believe that a dead husband and a dead son are the 'tax' you have to pay for being allowed to experience Kenya).
The film reminded me that Africa is one of my favourite words - not because of the continent or the people or anything basically, it just sounds good. Africa. Africa! It sounds wild. It sounds unknown. It sounds adventurous. (And I am fully aware that this is most probably because I believe Africa is wild (in a good way) and adventurous. And because 'africa' is one of my favourite words, I started thinking where it came from? What's the root of the word? So I did some research and here's what Wikipedia says:
"There are several theories where the name came from. The first one is the most likely one", but I like the other two more.

"Afri was the name of several peoples who dwelt in North Africa near the provincial capital, Carthage. The Roman suffix "-ca" denotes "country or land"."
"the Latin word aprica, meaning -sunny-"
"the Greek word aphrike, meaning "without cold." This was proposed by historian Leo Africanus (1488-1554), who suggested the Greek word phrike (φρίκη, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with the negating prefix "a-", thus indicating a land free of cold and horror"

For those of you who like the sound of Europe or Asia more, here's the etymology:

Europe:

one theory suggests the name Europe is derived from the Greek words meaning broad (eurys) and face (ops) – broad having been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion
another theory suggests "this Greek popular etymology is really based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning -sunset-"

Asia:

"The word Asia entered English, via Latin, from Ancient Greek Ασία (Asia). It was first attested in Herodotus, where it refers to Anatolia, or the Persian Empire in contrast to Greece and Egypt."
"Before Herodotus, Homer knew a Trojan ally named Asios. The Greek term may be derrived from Assuwa (a 14th century BC confederation of states in Western Anatolia). Assu (Hittite) means good and is probably an element in the name."
"the ultimate etymology of the term may be from the Akkadian word (w)aṣû(m), which means "to go out" or "to ascend", referring to the direction of the sun at sunrise in the Middle East, and also likely connected with the Phoenician word asa meaning east"

America

"The name was derived from the Latinized version of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci's name, Americus Vespucius, in its feminine form, America."

Australia

The name Australia is derived from the Latin Australis, meaning "of the South".

and finally a non-Wikipedia fact for the etymology of Arctica: adj - arctica (Latin) meaning northern

(You must admit that Africa's theories still offer the best 'continent-etymology' stories.)

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!

2007-01-14T17:04:00.000+01:00

After some fifteen years the time has come to say goodbye to our old currency. On January 1st we officially entered the European Monetary Union, had two weeks to get used to the Euro and today is the very last day when you can still pay with our old Tolars.
I am not very sentimental about it, I won't sit home few minutes after midnight and say... oh well dear Tolar, now you're gone. But I still liked our old currency, actually I liked it a lot. Mostly, because it seemed like the most practical currency on earth.
Most of the time 100 SIT (Slovenian Tolars) were more or less exactly 1 DM (Deutsche Mark), which I always considered a very practical thing, although I was a little kid. And at a certain time 2 DM were about 1 American Dollar, so 200 SIT were exactly one Dollar, which is also pretty easy to calculate. And then there was the Italian Lira, that was more or less exactly ten times less worth than 1 Tolar, so you would get 1000 Liras for 100 Tolar. Wasn't it a practical currency? When I was a little kid I always strongly believed that someone had to arrange it like this in order to make it easier for us to calculate between the currencies. The last thing I remember is that when we moved to Vienna in 1996, 13 Tolars were worth 1 Austrian Schilling. (This wasn't all that practical, I must admit.) By 2000 the exchange rate was already 17:1, however when Austria entered the EMU they used the exchange rate 1 EUR for about 13 Schillings and I remembered that this was also the first exchange rate I remembered as a child... although with different currencies and about 4 years sooner.
Now most of the old currencies are gone, the Deutsche Mark is gone, the Schilling is gone and the Italian Lira is gone and in 7 hours, the Slovenian Tolar will be gone as well... So, farewell!

There is just one last thing I have to mention, we had like everyone coins of course, and the smallest one was worth only 10 Stotinov. You would need 2397 of this coins to be able to pay a coffee that costs 1 EUR, but still, in 2001, 10 Stotinov was worth 825 old Turkish Liras. Not bad for a little coin like that, right?

On Religious Freedom...

2007-01-14T00:05:00.000+01:00

I have been thinking about some random things and I came across a question, that might seem a bit strange, but if anyone has an answer (especially anyone who knows more about human rights than I do), please share.
I live in a country where poligamy is outlawed and this is the case in most Western countries who have cultures based on Christianity. Now my question is: is forbidding poligamy a violation of religious freedoms as ensured in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of HR -
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." -

Oscar Schindler - A Righteous Among the Nations

2007-01-06T23:31:00.000+01:00

I can't remember how often I have already seen the film Schindler's list, but it doesn't seem to matter if I watch it for the first, second or seventh time, it always fascinates me anew when I see how the actor who played Isaak Stern says: "Diese Liste ist etwas Gutes. Diese Liste ist das Leben. Rundherum um die Liste herrscht das Verderben." And so it did today. This particular statement and the whole film, the story, the main character.

After the film was over today I thought, although tons have been written about Oscar Schindler already, that a person like him should be mentioned more often. Not only because of what he did, but to remind people that if you really want to do something good, you should do it and that you can do it and that it is only us who can and will change the things we want to change.
Schindler was a businessman, who sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland back in 1939, when he gained ownership of a factory in Krakow (later named: Fabryka Oskar Schindlera - Emalija). He was nothing but a saint then: he was drinking a lot, he had a lot of women, but he was very friendly with governemnt officials, he played hard and through his connections he won quite some amazing contracts.
He obtained around 1300 Jewish slave labourers to work there with the help of his accountant Itzhak Stern, who was also a Jew. When the two men, Stern and Schindler, first met, Stern declined to shake Schindler's hand and explained that it was because it is forbidden for a Jew to shake a German's hand. Schindler's response was plain, but meaningful. He said: "Scheiße".
Initially Schindler has been probably motivated by money. He was, for instance, hiding wealthy Jewish investors, however, later on, he began shielding his workers without much regard to cost. He often claimed that unskilled workers were essential to his factory, where he produced enamelware. If anyone harmed his workers, he would issue a complaint and demand compensation money from the government. During wartime, he was arrested three times.

So, how did his heroic story actually start? In 1942 Schindler witnessed a raid on the Krakow Ghetto, where soldiers 'prepared' the inhabitants for shipment to the concentration camp at Plaszow. Schindler was horror-stricken by the murder of many of the Jews who had been working in his factory and after the raid he started using all of his skills as a persuasive individual to protect 'his Jews', which became soon known as Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews). What he did was, he established his factory as a sub-camp of the Plazow labor camp and kept his Jews safe from brutality. He arranged with A. Göth, who was the commandant of Plaszow, for 900 Jews to be transferred to this 'neighboring factory compound', where they would be pretty safe from the depredations of the German guards. His wife Emilie joined him in Krakow and aided him in caring for the Jews. Their marriage broke up after the war, but she is also to be remembered as a outstanding individual. In October of 1944, the Red Army started approaching Krakow and the Jews at labor camps were at high risk of being murdered, so Schindler moved his workforce to Brnenec in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today's Austria) where he established a factory to make tank shells, however, he bribed the authorities, never made any shells at all and spent his entire fortune buying medicine and food to keep his workforce alive. He saved the life of 1098 Jews, who didn't have to experience death in one of the camps after Schindler successfully gained this former Jewish factory, where he pretended to produce tank shells.
There are many stories about all the things Oscar Schindler did, like getting Gestapo officers drunk, so they forgot that they had to do. Before October 1944, when his factory was situated in Plaszow, he had a very nice house near his factory at his disposal, however, he did not spend a single night there, because he knew how afraid his workers were. During all the time he 'lived' in his tiny factory office. He smuggled children out of the Ghetto and brought them to Polish nuns who either hid them or claimed they were Christian orphans. Jews who died in Plaszow were given a Jewish burial in a hidden graveyard sponsored by Schindler.
He was arrested twice on suspicion of black market acitivities, but managed both times to avoid prison, most likely because he bribed government officials.
On May 8 1945 Brnenec, where he supposedly produced tank shells, was liberated and Schindler fled together with his wife Emilie and some Jews. Since he was a member of the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), he was one of those being prosecuted for making advantage of slavery, although he spent around 4 million Deutsche Mark (which was an enormous sum of money) to keep his workers alive. They then wrote him a letter, which he should give to the Russians or other allies if he was caught and arrested. In the letter they explained what he had done for them and how they own their lives to him. The letter was signed by all the workers of the factory (more than 1000). Here is one paragraph from the letter, however, if you want to read all of it, click here, the English translation can be found here.

"Sämtliche jüdischen Arbeiter, die Häftlinge im Konzentrationslager Groß-Rosen bzw. Auschwitz waren, sprechen Dir. Schindler hiermit aus tiefem Herzen unseren heißen Dank aus, wobei wir feststellen, daß wir es ausschließlich seinen Bemühungen zu verdanken haben, - wenn wir den Augenblick der Beendigung des Krieges erleben durften."

On the day before he had to flee he held an emotional farewell at his factory. He told his workers that they were free, he was a fugitive. "My children, you are saved. Germany has lost the war. Prove yourself worthy of the millions of victims among you and refrain from any individual acts of revenge and terror." Poldek Pfefferberg, who helped organizing goods on the black market, which Schindler needed to bribe officials, later said that on the last night he told to Schindler: "You protect us, you save us, you feed us - we survived the Holocaust, the tragedy, the hardship, the sickness, the beatings, the killings! We must tell your story."
The Schindlerjuden had not much to show him their gratefulness, but they still gave him a golden ring, which had a verse from the Talmud engraved: Wer auch nur ein einziges Leben rettet, rettet die ganze Welt.

After the end of war in Europe, Schindler emigrated to Argentina, he went bankrupt, left Emilie and returned to Germany in 1957. He never again managed to establish a successful business. He died in Hildesheim, Germany on October 9, 1974 at the age of 66. He was buried at the Christian Cemetery at Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Israel.
Before that. in 1963, Schindler was honoured at Israel's Yad Vashem (which the Knesset established in 1953 through the Memorial Law to commemorate victims of the Holocaust) as one of the 'HaSidei Umot HaOlam' (Righteous Among the Nations), an honor extremly rarely awarded. In 1962 he was also given the honour to plant a tree at the HaSidei Umot HaOlam avenue, which is still growing.

My Understanding of a Man's Brain

2007-01-06T00:01:00.000+01:00

Who Wants to Be a Journalist?

2007-01-02T22:13:00.000+01:00

"We can't quite decide if the world is growing worse, or if the reporters are just working harder." The quote is 42 years old, but the question is more burning than ever after the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has announced the number of reports murdered in 2006. The record number of 155 dead journalist in only one year is going to be analyzed deeper in the report that is going to be published in Mid-January: Journalism Put to the Sword.

Main focus of the report will again be Iraq, where the Federation has been campaigning over impunity in the killing of journalists. For the last three years it has also organised a day of protest (on April 8) - the day when three journalists died under US fire in Baghdad back in 2003. October last year a UK judge stated that ITN journalist Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by American soldiers outside Basra. There have been more similar cases and logically calls for prosecution of US servicemen involved in this kind of cases. However, the majority of killings has been at the hand of terrorists and sectarian gangs, who made, as the IFJ puts it, the streets of Baghdad and other major cities "no-go areas" for many news teams.

I believe we can all remember the assasination of Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow on October 7, 2006. Sources claim that since Vladimir Putim has come to power 40 killings of journalists have taken place, none of them have been satisfactorily resolved, which leads to the conclusion that the crisis of impunity is not confined to conflict zones only.

The other most dangerous place for journalists in the world, second only to Iraq, is the Philippines, where 13 journalists died in 2006. Other men and women who were covering crime and corruption in Mexico, have certainly as well not died of natural causes. In Africa reporters were killed in Somalia, while filming a demonstration in Mogadishu or in Sudan, where editor Mohammed Taha was kidnapped and killed.
A small step forward at least was a UN Security Council Resolution (1738) in December 2006, which is condemning attack against journalist in conflict areas. The Council emphasized that journalists, media professionals and associated personnel engaged in dangerous professional mission in areas of armed conflict shall be considered civilians, respected and protected as such and it reccaled its demand that all parties to armed conflict comply with their obligations under international law to protect civilians in armed conflict and recalled as well their obligation to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for serious violations. It then listed a list of "The SC urges, invites, recalls, affirms, requests, condemns" articles, which of course are nothing but words, but at least they show that the problem not being ignored.

The Committee to Protect Journalists gives us more detailed numbers. It says that Iraq claimed 32 lives and that worldwide 55 journalists were killed in direct connection to their work. 27 deaths are still being investigated. Still the number of dead journalists in Iraq is over 90, although not all of them have been murdered because of being journalists. Some cases, however, remain unclear. The CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said about Iraq: When this conflict began more than three and half years ago, most journalists died in combat-related incidents. Now, insurgents routinely target journalists for perceived affiliations—political, sectarian, or Western. This is an extraordinarily alarming trend because along with the terrible loss of life, it is limiting news reporting in Iraq—and, in turn, our own understanding of a vital story.

He is showing similar concerns regarding other cases such as the one of Anna Politkovskaya, who was one of eight female journalists killed in 2006. In Turkemnistan, Ogulsapar Muradova of Radio Liberty was killed in prison under unexplained circumstances. Muradova as well as Politkovskaya were both critics of the presidents of their countries.

Worldwide, of all the killed journalists, murder accounted for about 85 percent. The CPJ also reports that less than 15 percent of journalist murders result in convictions. Next to Iraq, Mexico and the Philippines, they say that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia appear to be among the most dangerous countries for the press.

The media may be the fourth pillar of democracy, but it apparently has no place in countries that don't even want to have the first, second or third one. So the next time you get to hear the words: "This was___, CNN, Baghdad" consider, that s/he is risking to be dead by tomorrow... just so we get to hear the news.

Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?

2007-01-02T15:45:00.000+01:00

After reading an article today regarding Shiite-Sunni relations in Iraq and all the regional influences that the conflict has brought about, I thought it was time for me to do some deeper research on what the split between Muslims is about. I am not really proud to say that the only thing I know is that it has to do something with Mohammed's successor, who some believed not to be a legitimate one.

Here is what my research says: the majority of world's Muslim population follows the Sunni branch of Islam. Approximately 10-15% of all Muslims are Shia Muslims. (map)(another map, blue showing a Shia majority in the country and green a Sunni majority). Sunnis and Shiites share most basic religious tenets, however all their differences have, as we have all witnessed, led to major confrontations between them.
The disagreements between Sunnis and Shiites are rooted in disagreements over the succession to the Prophet Muhammad (570-632) and over the nature of political leadership in the Muslim community. The historic debate is about whether the leadership of the Muslim community should be awarded to a qualified and pious individual who would lead by following the customs of the Prophet or to preserve the leadership exclusively through Muhammad's bloodline. It was right after Muhammad's death when the debate started to bring some disharmony among the Muslims. Community leaders then elected a close companion of Muhammad named Abu Bakr to become the first Caliph (Caliph is Arabic and means successor). Most Muslims excepted the decision, however some believed that Ali ibn Abi Talib should have been the successor, since he was the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law (husband of Muhammad's daughter Fatima). Ali ibn Abi Talib has been very prominent during Muhammad's lifetime, but as his father-in-law died, Ali lacked seniority and was bypassed as the immediate successor.
This was a situation unacceptable to some of his followers, who believed Abu Bakr and the succeeding caliphs Umar and Uthman to be illegitimate. They believed that Muhammad wanted Ali to be his successor and so naming someone who was not in blood relation to him was a violation of divine wishes and order. The third Caliph Uthman was then murdered in 656 and Ali became Caliph. Ali was then assasinated in 661, his sons Hassan and Hussein both died in battles against forces of the Sunni caliph.
Those who respected the legitimacy of Ali's caliphate, but opposed political succession based od bloodline to the Prophet came to be known as Sunni Muslims, meaning followers of customs. Those who supported Ali and believed political succession had to be based on blood relation to the Prophet became later know as Shi'a Muslims (Shi'a being an abbreviations for "shi'at Ali" which is Arabic for helpers of Ali).

Now let's have a short look on Shiite Islam and Sunni Islam, so as to see what makes them different even 13 centuries after Muhammad's death.

For Shiites the first true leader of the Muslim community is Ali, who is considered an imam. The term imam is used among Shiites both as to indicate leadership abilities and blood relations to the Prophet. Shiites believe that each time one of their imams chose a successor, he passed down a special spiritual knowledge to the next leader, although imams were not only religious or spiritual, but also political leaders. However, as history progressed, Shiites lost more and more of their political battles with Sunni Muslims, so their imams mainly focused on developing core Shiite religious practisec and beliefs. Shiites believe that the religious leaders who descended from Ali (mujtahids) have the only right to interpret religious and mystical knowledge. The most respected and learned among them are ayatollahs ('signs of God').

Shiite religious practice centers around the remembrance of Hussein, Ali's son, who was martyred by Sunni forces back in 680. His death is commemorated each year on the tenth day of the month Muharram in a gloomy and sometimes violent ritualistic remembrance knows as Ashura.
The most common form of Shiism today is Twelver Shiism, mainly found in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. This Shiites accept a line of twelve infallible imams descended from Ali, who have been divenely appointed from birth. They are seen as the designated interpreters of law and theology. The last of these imams disappeared in the ninth century and a 'hidden imam' is expected to return in order to lead the community. After the twelfth imam disappeared many of the twelvers decided to withdraw from politics and quietly wait for the hidden one to come.
The second largest group of Shiites are the Seveners or Ismailis who only recognize the first seven of the twelve before mentioned imams. The seventh of them was named Ismail, hence - Ismailis. They were far more interested in pursuing power and established powerful states in the past, which played quite a significant role in the development of Islamic history. Today we find Seveners in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.
Other Shiite Sects are: the Zaydis, the Alawites, the Alevis, the Druze.

The majority of Muslims however are Sunnis. They accept the first four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali) to be the rightly guided. They don't believe (as the Shiites) that the other imams were divinely inspired leaders. Sunnis have a less elaborate and less powerful religious hierarchy than Shiites and their teachers have historically been under state control. Sunnis are also quite flexible (in comparison to the Shiites) in allowing lay persons to serve as preachers and prayer leaders.
The Sunnis follow four major schools of law:

Hanafi is the oldest school of law, however, at the same time it is considered the most liberal one. A nice example of that is that the interpreters who follow this school 'translate' a word khamr from the Quran as wine and they believe it is allowed to drink wine and also other drinks, as long as one doesn't reach the point of drunkenness. Then they can be subjected to the Sharia punishment for wine-drinking. However over time, some started to believe it is not a very good choice to consume alcohol in the first place. (Found mainly in: Turkey, Central Asia, Balkans, Iray, Syria, Lebanon)
Maliki (North Africa, Mauritania, Kuwait)
Shafi'i (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia)
Hanbali (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, United Arab Emirates)

The differences between the four schools, madhabs, are not very big and they are not very competitive. There are minor differences, like for ex. in the way people pray. Most Sunnis believe that each Muslim should choose a single school to follow, but can accept rullings from other schools exceptional circumstances.

Although there are some differences that appear to be enough to start wars, Sunnis and Shiites share common traditions, beliefs and doctrines.
They all believe in Muhammad, who was the messenger of Allah (Arabic for God).
They must all abide the Quran.
The all strive for piety, goodness and social justice.
They are all expected to live in accordance to the five pillars of faith:

shahada (recital of the creed: There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet)
salat (five obligatory prayers a day)
zakat (alms to the poor)
sawm (fasting during the month of Ramadan)
hajj (a pilgrimage to Mecca once a lifetime if he/she has the physical and financial ability to do so)

Since we are all witnessing major conflicts in the Middle East lately, I believe the one last thing this post needs is a list of the major players and their religious affiliations:

Saddam Hussein (ex-Iraqi President): Sunni Muslim
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iranian President): Shia Muslim
Moqtada al-Sadr (commander of Mahdi Army and de facto ruler of the Sadr City section of Baghdad): Shia Muslim
Hassan Nasrallah (Hezbollah leader): Shia Muslim
Bashar al-Assad (Syrian President): Sunni Muslim
King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud (Saudi Arabia): Sunni Muslim
Nouri al-Maliki (current Prime Minister of Iraq): Shia Muslim
Osama Bin Laden (leader of Al-Qaeda): Sunni Muslim
Khaled Mashal (a leader of Hamas): Sunni Muslim
Ismail Haniyeh (Prime Minister of PA and senior political leader of Hamas): Sunni Muslim

Moments in Time

2006-12-30T23:56:00.000+01:00

As new year is approaching, there are only hours left until we step into 2007. Every year anew, we're celebrating this new year on the calendar, some filled with hopes, some not, some with expectations, other not. However, we all make a step together into the future.
Now, how would it be if we could choose the year we want to visit? Why does it always have to be the year after this year? Why not make it 1568 for a change? Or 1012? I know we have that little technical obstacle with the non-existing time machine etc., but it you had the chance, what years in world's past would you visit? What events are you sorry not to have witnessed? What people would you like to meet?
For myself, I like it a lot living in the 21st century, but if I had the chance to make a few short trips, here's my list of where back in time I would like to go:

I would have loved to witness the Exodus, however I am not sure I would have liked to take part in wandering for 40 years through the dessert
Year 15, place: today's Israel/Palestine. Why? Probably mainly to meet Jesus.
I would have loved to spend a month in Ancient Rome in the last decades of their Republic
Some year between 615 and 632. Why? Seeing Mohamad and the beginnings of Islam
1307 or 1308 - after he executed the Knights Templars, King Philip wanted to get their money. However it disappeared overnight. I would have loved to witness who took it away and where it ended up.
Any year around let's say 1200 in North America - spending some time with First Nations People before the Europeans discovered America and screwed it all up
1969 - Woodstock (although considering the great masses of people etc. etc. I would probably prefer to fly around a bit as a invisible ghost and just... well, see it)
A year around 1975, place: Jamaica - it is still one of my greatest regrets never to have witnessed a Bob Marley concert
1992 in South Africa when a referendum was held to end apartheid. Imagine the spirit in the country at that time.
I am not completely sure when it was, but I would have loved to witness when Romeo and Juliet was firstly played.

Surely there are more moments in history, more important (even for me) than those I have just listed. However, right now, I can't think of them.

So... what have you missed?

"I see my vision burn"

2006-12-29T20:56:00.000+01:00

Good feelings are by far easier to describe than those, that are not all that positive and instead of even trying, here are the lyrics of a song I believe sums me up right now better than I could probably do it. Not that I would mean every word of it, no, not really and a lot of the lyrics should also only be understood methaphorically. However, I still believe they get the message across a lot better than I possibly could.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD - SEIZE THE DAY

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over

I see my vision burn, I feel my memories fade with time
But I'm too young to worry
These streets we traveled on will undergo our same lost past

I found you here, now please just stay for a while
I can move on with you around
I hand you my mortal life, but will it be forever?
I'd do anything for a smile, holding you 'til our time is done
We both know the day will come, but I don't want to leave you

I see my vision burn, I feel my memories fade with time
But I'm too young to worry
(a melody, a memory, or just one picture)

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over

Newborn life replacing all of us, changing this fable we live in
No longer needed here so where do we go?
Will you take a journey tonight, follow me past the walls of death?
But girl, what if there is no eternal life?

I see my vision burn, I feel my memories fade with time
But I'm too young to worry
(a melody, a memory, or just one picture)

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over
Trials in life, questions of us existing here
Don't wanna die alone without you here
Please tell me what we have is real

(guitar solo)

So what if I never hold you, yeah, or kiss your lips again? Whooooah
So I never want to leave you and the memories of us to see
I beg don't leave me

Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over
Trials in life, questions of us existing here
Don't wanna die alone without you here
Please tell me what we have is real

(Silence, you lost me-- no chance for one more day)
(Silence, you lost me-- no chance for one more day)
I stand here alone
Falling away from you, no chance to get back home

How far would you go?

2006-12-29T15:26:00.000+01:00

Most of people who read this blog are Slovenians and they know how small Slovenia is compared to some other countries, let's say Canada or Brazil or Kazakhstan. And since we have all eventually met people from abroad we know how badly known Slovenia is outside our own borders, not to speak when you leave the continent. In a way it makes quite a lot of sense, after all, how much do you know about Lesotho or Cape Verde or Djibouti (apart from the fact that it's probably the funniest name a country could have)?
We are not among the top ten of richest countries or most murderous, most populous, most taxed, most corrupt or most generous. We do not export bananas, Slovenia is not where Salsa originally comes from and the fact that we apparently have most tractors per capita in the world doesn't really seem to make us any more popular.

Considering all this I was quite surprised when I read that a Thailandese (someone correct me if the adjective is badly wrong) travel magazine had a 15 pages article about Slovenia, Ljubljana, the Postojna caves, the Skocjan caves and Bled. In case you're not too familiar with Slovenian history they even have a short summary of our history from the 9th century on, together with the basic facts of Slovenia today.

So the next time you see one or two groups of little Thailandese making photos of Preseren, you'll know where they got the idea to travel 8600 kilometres in order to visit Slovenia.

(And before I get to hear accusations of being non-patriotic... I believe Slovenia is by far one of the best countries to visit if you don't already live here of course, so I am a great supporter of an article of the same kind in (for example) a Vietnamese travel magazine.)

Let's get sick :)

2006-12-27T01:08:00.000+01:00

Wow, my third post today.
It's 1:08 a.m. and I just came back home from a really amazing concert. Urška, a friend of mine, sent a mail today if I wanted to come to a concert of a completely unknown band, which was playing in Orto, where quite a lot of completely unknown bands have concerts eventually. First I considered going. Then I remembered that I got up at 5:30 a.m. and that I should probably go to sleep at around 10 p.m. Then I thought that I maybe need some relaxation. So I called Urška and told her I am coming. Honestly, I guess it was my best decision this week.
The bravest one was apart from my Mexican cooking experiments the decision to make some muffins tomorrow. I was never much into cooking, but it seems kind of relaxing: you have a book telling you what to do and you don't have to remember it. How very refreshing.
Back to the concert, which is, as mentioned, right on top of my good decisions.
The group was/is called Aritmija. The short description I was able to find on the internet goes like this: "Začetki skupine Aritmija segajo v jesen l. 2002, ko sta se kitarista Tilen Stepišnik in Šemsudin Dino Džopa, ki sta skupaj igrala v rock bandu, navdušila nad etno tradicijo Balkana, zlasti nad njeno, za bolj zahodnega poslušalca, vajenega rocka, jazza ali klasike, nenavadno in zapeljivo ritmiko. Tako sta začela s preigravanjem prirejenih, atraktivnih tradicionalnih skladb s tega področja. Po nekaj nastopih v duetu so se jima postopoma pridružili še tolkalist Žiga Šercer, violinist Vasja Centrih ter basist Janez Moder. Tako je nastal zelo prepoznaven, energičen zvok skupine, predvsem zahvaljujoč prepletanju električne kitare, violine, ter tradicionalnih inštrumentov."
Now, I am not sure I can describe how today's concert was, but well, let's give it a try:

The music was amazing. There were no lyrics, just music and believe me, really good music. They have 3 guys playing different types of guitars (I know there are major differences... I just don't know which those are, so just imagine 3 different looking guitars), one guy was playing drums and the last one a fiddle.
They are mostly playing their own arrangements of music from the Balkans, which, although you may not be a fan of traditional Balkan music, all sound fabulous. (I would say it's a bit like those Chinese restaurants in Europe. If you have ever tried real Chinese food, you know it tastes completely different than the European version, but you still love this 'arrangement'. So let's say their music is a bit like European Chinese food, although still, less modified :). And not to forget, their own songs are great as well. They have one which is called Depression and it is one of the most vivid, gay and happy songs I have heard lately.
I had the best 1,5 hours of this week (and this really does mean something considering we had Christmas few days ago) and I can't remember when I was so relaxed for the last time. I just had that feeling of complete freedom, ease. I am trying to find a comparison to something, but there is nothing really good in my head right now. Let's try this: imagine a really hot summer day at the seaside and you have waited for quite some time and now you finally can go and jump into the sea. Remember that feeling when you feel the cold water all over your body, when it's only you and the sea, the short moments before you breathe fresh air and hear noises from the beach again? It was just like these short moments under water, only that it lasted for 90 minutes.

There was a quote a guy behind me said which I believe sums it all up quite well: "Dejansko je aritmija najboljša bolezen, ki jo lahko stakneš." (Arrhythmia [name of the band] is by far the best disease to catch".)

The value of a Nigerian life

2006-12-26T19:11:00.000+01:00

An explosion triggered by locals, who were stealing oil from the near-by pipeline in Lagos, Nigeria costed more than 500 lives as the Red Cross reported. The exact number, however, still cannot be determined, since rescuers didn't manage to get to the very point of explosion yet. Taking oil from pipelines and selling it on is for some the only way to get some money and survive.
Accidents of the same kind took about 1000 lives back in 1998, 50 in March 2000, 300 in July 2000, 105 in June 2003, 60 in September and 20 in December 2004 and 150 in May 2006. That are at least 2200 dead in 8 years. And how much did you hear about it? How many news stations reported about it?
Think about this: when a little plane crushed into a building in Manhattan this year it was breaking news on CNN and BBC for several hours, and I believe it only killed the Yankees 'someposition-guy' and his flight instructor. I am not underestimating the values of their lives, but during the last hour there wasn't one short report on CNN about the 500 dead Nigerians. How come? And how valuable is the life of a Nigerian to CNN?

"Fröhliche Weihnacht überall, tönet durch die Lüfte froher Schall"

2006-12-26T18:22:00.000+01:00

My Christmas this year was unlike any other until now. Nothing really shocking happened and I didn't do anything that strange, however, Christmas was in a way fundamentally different and this is how it looked like:

I didn't help decorating the Christmas tree (which always turns out to be quite a stressful thing to do)
I was learning on the 24th and 25th... a completely new experience for me (which makes sense, since my last Christmasses and all the other holidays happened during my high school time)
I still went to the midnight mass, however I arrived there at 11:40 p.m. and not 11:00 p.m. which had the consequence that I only got a seat in a part of the church where the only thing I could see during the mass itself was the back of the person before me. Otherwise the mass itself was quite the same. Same old faces, same songs, same uninteresting/political/hypocritical (maybe the German word heuchlerisch is a better description of what I mean and I am not completely sure hypocritical is the correct translation) sermon, same old Christmas crib (although to be fair, in this church they have a really nice one)
I didn't do as much shopping as the years before. Except for one pretty stressful afternoon I had it all done pretty quickly.
I did not clean up my room, which was my personal Christmas tradition until this year (however, one has to mention that I have been generally keeping my room a lot tidier latety)
I prepared Christmas dinner for the first time in my life and shocked my parents with Spanish/Mexican food. I felt a bit like a "tradition-breaking sinner" but they still liked my experiments a lot in the end. Somehow feeling guilty because of not prepairing goose seems a bit ridiculous, since Mary and Josef didn't eat it on Jesus' birth either.

Generally speaking this year was a lot different and not just the day before Christmas and Christmas itself. It was the first year when I felt none of that Christmas spirit. There were only two Christmas carols I listened to and it had nothing to do with Christmas, but more with something completely different. The reason for my lack of a Christmas feeling? I guess there are plenty, however I am only aware of few of them. First of all I had an exam two days before Christmas so there was no time for feeling "christmasisch" before that. Secondly it is probably because I haven't been in very good mood all over December and thirdly it was (most probably) the complete lack of snow. I could go on and talk about how I dislike Christmas getting commercialized, my occasional thoughts of us being all alone here on earth anyway etc., but I would probably only start to philosophize and God knows I am not good at it :)

A UN Christmas/Hanukkah Miracle

2006-12-23T18:09:00.000+01:00

I am not sure when the debate over santions against Iran started (probably around the day when we heard that "Israel has to be wiped off the world map" and that "our nuclear program is only being developed for civil purposes"), however, I was quite surprised when there was a BBC Breaking news alert in my inbox telling me, that the UN Security Council has unanimously voted to finally impose sanctions, which ban the supply of nuclear-related technology and material, which freeze certain assets and limit travel for specific indviduals.
When I think back of all the disagreements between Russia and China and the other three permanent members, I have started believing that sanctions would never be imposed. After all China has strong financial ties with Iran and oil interests and good old Russia is building a nuclear power station in the country.
I don't want to appear like a naive optimist and I can't foresee what this sanctions can or will change regarding the nuclear program, however, having the SC finally taking up a well-defined unanimous position seems at least like a little step forward.
Whatever the sanctions will bring about in the end, they can certainly be regarded as a Christmas miracle or as the last little Hanukkah wonder this year :-)

Where are you going to spend Christmas this year?

2006-12-22T01:11:00.000+01:00

Yesterday all of the five illegally built buildings in Dečja vas pri Ambrusu have been demolished, by the Slovenian Inspectorate for environment. Apparently it was clear to the inspetorate to demolish the buildings since December 5th, when the Strojans left Ambrus and went to Postojna, however the circumstance that a part of the family moved back, has not been taken into account. The government has not yet found a decent location for the family to live, nor is the solution to the current problems any nearer. The family warned the government that they will not cooperate with them any longer if they demolish their buildings and they certainly are going to sue half of current government officials, as if the problem wasn't severe enough. I am not taking a stand pro or against the government or the Roma community here in Slovenia, however I believe that this time it has all gone too far.
When I read todays news and saw the videos the thing that shocked me the most was a question of one of the reporters: "How are you going to survive the night and the winter?" (The only thing that the family has left is an unheated garage.) The answer was: "Today the kids will sleep inside and we will stay outside and sit next to the fire. Tomorrow we're going to pitch a tent and stay in it over the winter."
"Your youngest daughter is only two years old and she is running around bare-footed. Aren't you afraid she could get sick?"
"No, she is used to it."

I believed, deeply, until today that something like this could never happen in Slovenia, I was certain we would never demolish houses in which little children lived because of politics.
It shouldn't matter what is going on right now, how many problems we have regarding the Roma community... This wasn't right!!! This action clearly went against the principle of a social state and probably against a thousand others. If you don't agree with me or whatever your counter-opinion might be based on: imagine your little 2year old daughter or sister sleeping in a tent while there are degrees close to zero outside. You can't claim there is an excuse for that, right?

George... please don't.

2006-12-16T17:46:00.000+01:00

Take a look at these pictures:

And now concult the following:

Finally read this:
"According to Gordon Brown's wife, Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney should play him in a film of his life."

Now can you imagine person number one playing person number two?
Me neither...

I believe it is thoughts like this that should be prosecuted, seriously, if thit isn't a criminal offence, what is it?

Would you like some Britishness, honey? No, but thank you, darling.

2006-12-16T01:27:00.000+01:00

I recently stumbled upon an article talking about Gordon Brown wanting to have a day to celebrate something called Britishness and since I had little better to do this evening (fine, I had better things to do, but was a bit too lazy) I thought about what it is that Gordon Brown wants to celebrate and what being British means in today's world anyway. Actually, I didn't really think about it, I googled it and found some really deep thoughts about "being British".

"So no, McGordon McBrown, we don't think much of your idea. We are not proud of being British - in fact, we're rather ashamed. There are plenty of nationalities we'd rather be. If we were French we could be proud of winning the World Cup and having wonderful trains. If we were Swiss we could be proud of being a right-little, tight-little, stuffy bunch of plutocrats and having wonderful trains. If we were Japanese we could be proud of the economic miracle that made us a financial and industrial mega-power, and having wonderful trains. If we were American we could be proud because we didn't know any better."
"Superbrit. Even heroes need a teabreak."
"I know that I am not fully British, considering I’m 100% Chinese."
"Traditionally we British are notoriously reticent about praising each other. We find the act of paying a compliment excruciatingly embarrassing, afraid that the beneficiary will assume it is flattery, manipulation or, heaven forbid, a sexual advance. We castigate Americans, who use compliments as apes use grooming, social lubrication with coded hierarchical overtones. How can they be so insincere?"
"When foreigners think of us - they usually think of very posh people, in a large house with a butler, drinking tea and saying 'darling' and maybe a poodle. I think being stereotyped as posh is a lot better stereotyping a redheaded wife-beater drinking bear, barfing whilst watching baseball or something living in a dirty, uncleaned trailer."
"He showed them how it would be if they [the British] really were British. And it is clear they didn't like it. Probably they all ran home and made muffins before lunchtime."
"Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters."

And finally some French (a.k.a. Mr Chirac's) views on the British : "One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad."

What's your birthday song?

2006-12-12T23:41:00.000+01:00

A friend recently sent me a link to a webpage that tells you which song was No.1 in the US or UK on the day you were born...
My two songs are: 'China in your hand' from T'Pau and 'Faith' from George Michael.
Now, I know both songs, but they never reached my Top10, so out of curiosity (and a bit of boredom after a day of Roman law) I checked the lyrics I didn't really remember, just to see what the No. 1 advise or belief of that day was.

Here is what 'China in your hand' says:

"Don't push too far
Your dreams are China in your hand
Don't wish too hard
Because they may come true
And you can't help them
You don't know what you might
Have set upon yourself...
China in your hand"

Is it only my impression or is it another one of those songs that tell you: don't you go and wish too much, you'll only be disappointed anyway? And this was the Nr. 1 song on my birthday? Thank God the singer has a really nice voice and cool hair... otherwise I might have even been disappointed.

Song number 2 for that matter doesn't include any real life philosophy, but the beginning of the videospot is kind of cool :) Except for those shoes... I mean, they weren't serious, right?

I guess not everything can be perfect on one's birthday, so I really appreciate that they apparently had nice weather back then :)

Love actually

2006-12-11T23:41:00.000+01:00

I have been accused of making debate sound like a useless activity or waste of time and since I am afraid of more people interpreting the previous post as Simon did (I am still shocked about it :), I would like to emphasize that:

1. I love debating and that...
2. I love debating and that...
3. Debating is not a waste of time and that...
4. I love spending time with other debaters and that...
5. I really do love debating!

Debaters Anonymous

2006-12-10T19:08:00.000+01:00

Although I am quite a Ljubljana-centric, debate has forced me (over the past few years) to discover quite a big part of Slovenia. Yesterday it was one of those days again when debaters, judges and cookies travelled all the way to Lendava in order to debate. In order to find Lendava you only have to drive till the middle of nowhere, then turn right and drive 200 metres straight ahead and there you are.

Well, after Lendava, the tons of debates in the past, the recent academy, all my planned debate activities for next year and my debate partner getting a serious job, I again started thinking: how long am I actually going to do that? How long am I going to debate?

This is my fifth year of debating now and I believe quitting it at the end of my third year at the university would be just fine. Then again, I am planning the worlds in 2011 or 2012 (depends on when I finish my exams), which is at least 5 more years. Then I thought, "there's so much more than just debating and I guess I will stop sooner or later anyway", however, right now this sounds kind of unrealistic. My next plan was to take a break for a year sometime in the future just to see what other things I could eventually do with my time. They say I only need 3 months without it to prove I am not addicted...

All in all, I believe I'm doomed. I believe quite some of us are. Seeing people of 30+ being actively involved in debating is amusing to see, but pretty scary when you think about it and then keep telling yourself: no, this is not what I will be doing in 10 years! No. No chance! N-e-v-e-r!

Well, Lendava or the Worlds in 2012, it is all going way too far, so I might just try to take a really drastic break sometime soon. September next year seems the best opportunity to form my personal DA club.

Cela existe. Pas ici, mais maintenant.

2006-12-06T16:12:00.000+01:00

I recently stumbled upon an Amnesty International campaign. Personally I believe that this campaign is showing in the best possible way what we're ignoring every day and what we would not ignore if it happened right next to us...

Questions left unaswered

2006-12-02T04:54:00.001+01:00

When we were all little kids we all had tons of questions in our heads and we wanted them all answered. And some of us (for example me) believed, that there are people who know it all, that there are people who can answer all my questions.
The first all-knowing people in my life were of course mum and dad. For some strange reason I used to believe that my dad could speak all the languages in the world and that my mum was a genius regarding maths, physics and biology. Well, my parents know quite a lot, but I was (of course) wrong with my believes.

I don't know when I realized that my dad and mum weren't all-knowing and when I started to ask other people or read books (no, googling things wasn't all that common then... I don't even know if Google existed at that time), but today one of those 'eternal questions' came to my mind and I had that moment when I realized that I will never know all the things I want to know. No, I am not talking about my continuing complaints about not having time to learn some more foreign languages and I know people can absorb only very little knowledge in a lifetime... I am just talking about these little questions that we ask ourselves now and then and hope we'll get an answer to them eventually.

I am trying to think of some of those questions, but the listed ones are far from my complete list...

Why do bad people exist and how do they manage to live the way they do?

Why do people fight and why do some enjoy seeing other people suffering and why are there people who make other people that bad? Of course, religion, ethnicity, money, interests, ... We all heard those answers, but imagine pulling out a gun and shooting at someone, at a child, a crying woman, a man who is pleading for his life... Can it be that religion stands above life? That ethnicity stands above life? That money stands above life?

Why are there people that don't care and how can it be that they can live in their small worlds without caring about others?

What is it that makes people giving up more (or less) for love?

How can it be that we sometimes don't know if we love somebody?

Why do we experience a feeling of loss every time people (we care about at least a little bit) go away? Even if we know they'll come back into our lives eventually.

Why can we listen to some songs 20 or 30 times without thinking that they are slowly getting boring? (Especially if these songs are just some random songs, not some that would mirror our current life's situation.)

What on earth could justify techno (and all the other stuff) being good music?

Why don't we tell people we like that we like them and to those who know it already - why don't we do it more often?

Why do young people stay in destructing relationships?

Were all the bad people in history indeed all that bad? And do we like successful people more just because they are successful? Could it be that we like Mozart more than Salieri for the simple reason, because his music was better and portray Salieri as the bad guy of the century even if he was only the bad guy of the decade? (I couldn't think of a much better example right now... as for me, I like Mozart more, even as a person :)

Why is hair colour sometimes an important factor when choosing a partner?

What do the most important people do before they go to bed? What does the Pope do or Condoleezza Rice or Robbie Williams?

What makes the seaside so attractive to the majority of people?

Why do we have different perceptions of the most terrible way to die?

Why do we want to remember things from our past?

How many people really believe in what they claim to believe in?

How can it be that some people a priori hate rainy days?

Fight against reality

2006-11-29T00:56:00.000+01:00

Today was one of those days when one starts wondering why it still makes sence. What? Well, basically everything. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine, but it was one of those days for me I wished I wouldn't read news all that often, when I wished I were a bit more ignorant, knew a bit less...

And I was thinking about writing about all of that, but then I came to the conclusion that my 'paranoic fears of world destruction' aren't something to be shared and not something that should be remembered, not even I want to think of it when I wake up in the morning.

So here's my alternative to being pesimistic... finding a good quote that tells me the exact opposite. Here's the one for today -

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.
(Lyndon B. Johnson)

Around the world in one week

2006-11-25T15:01:00.000+01:00

Ormož is a little so-called town in the middle of nowhere and the spot where this year's debate academy took place. I don't believe that generally there is much to say about IDAS or Ormož, however I believe this year has seen some (three) great improvements in comparison to last year and here they are:

we had a 100% increase in trainers who actually debated British Parliamentary at some point in their lives (this means we had two instead of one)
there were no big crying, wining goodbye scenes when people left (on the other side I wasn't in the hotel when the big exodus took place, since I was drinking a coffee and did sightseeing in Zagreb)
I did eventually get around 5 hours of sleep per night (which let me survive on only two white coffees a day)

Debating was much like last year, although people this year preferred to start their speeches with: this debate will be about principles (because this is what BP debate is about) and then continued to talk about the modell (which is not what BP is about). Still generally there have apparently been a few enlightenments as to not talk about the plan for 3 minutes and bring in more logic.
My personal enlightenment was (Thanks, Jens!) that in principle it doesn't make a difference if a group of 10 debaters decides that one will have to bring a chocolate cake (as a punishment) if he forgets the name of the Iranian president or if the state decides to punish you because you stole a box of lollypops in your local store, because in principle the ten debaters are just like a little state. Whether we now have these 10 debaters, 50 computer freaks, 200 stamp collectors, 5,000 coffee addicts, 20,000 lollypop haters or a government of a 200,000,000 people state, in principle, it doesn't matter who makes the rules. It took me quite some time until my brain was willing to accept this piece of logic, which has now already invited other pieces of logic in my head to dinner, which leads me to the conclusion, that they all live in harmony up there.

Another thing I learned at the academy was, that Singapur is a really cool or just fundamentally different state. First thing that has to be mentioned is that they have a very economic and environment friendly way of executing people. They do it by hanging. Now, it is cost-efficient because, of course, you don't have to use electricity and it is very environmental friendly because the rope they hang people with can be reused. A lot of Australians eventually get hanged in Singapur because they can't stop smuggling drugs into the country. If you posses 20g of heroin, you get hanged. Ouch! (And a bit too extreme if you ask me)
One thing I love about Singapur is that it is basically only a city, with a park, apparently few golf courses and that's it. Otherwise you have just really high buildings where people live in. I asked a debater from Singapur whether they learn the name of the streets in their Singapur geography lessons, since there apparenlty isn't much more to learn about this country.
The last thing I have to mention about Singapur is that their government is or at least has to be very efficient. All cabinet members are from one party and in the parliament, which actually has little power anyway, there are only two opposition members out of 82 seats.

Breaking stereotypes is the next good reason to be at the academy. The participants from each country eventually break most of the prejudices against them. The Americans this year (and the year before) were all very communicative, very clever (they new quite a lot about the functioning of the EU which isn't all that easy since the EP & Co aren't really layman-friendly) and open-minded and we nearly adopted one girl who ate 'gulasch' and had Slovenian beer for lunch on the first day of her visit to Slovenia. Where have all the hamburger-eating ignorants gone?
There is one stereotype I got confirmed: Malaysans are very, very friendly people. I was completely determined by these CNN advertisement 'Malaysia truly Asia' and now I see it was completely alright to be like that. One of the boys 'produced' a really wise wisdom during a debate about affirmative action for women in the European Parliament - "There are much more women than men in the world. And since we're all the same, all humans, it is much easier to find a smart woman than a smart man." Makes sence, doesn't it?

Maybe just shortly about other this week's debate wisdoms:

"We are promoting Christian values through legalizing prostitution."
"Have a nuke and create peace."
"You know small European countries like Poland."
"Let us all go to Mars... What about next Tuesday?"
"Long live the Singapurian chewing gum policy."
"The Teletubbies live in poligamy."

The other Špela and me were beside debating together driving around quite a lot. Well, she was driving and I was sitting next to her while picking up trainers from airports or transporting them to their desired trainstation. One thing you really should now is that Croatian trains you (or trainers for that matter) are not on leave punctually and because of that simple fact Špela and me got to spend a day in Zagreb instead of simply see that there is a Croatin city called Varaždin and then taking part in the big academy-exodus. Zagreb is a really nice city, looking much like a mixture of some European cities. It was also the town where our little group of 'world travellers' had their first morning coffee, although we woke up in another country.

On our way back from Zagreb to Ormož and finally to Ljubljana we listened to some of the CDs recorded for evening parties and figured out that although most of the people left back home to another country, we don't have this bad feeling of never seeing them again. The next bigger debate event is waiting for us in January already and although we probably won't take the car to Bremen and jam to Jewish choir music on the way (Sintija led a round table on women's rights etc. and since the participants were members of different women's choirs she got some CDs we got to listen to on our way to Ormož) because it doesn't have the same hillarious effect once you listen to it more than once, we might have at least one first morning coffee in a country we did not wake up in.

My Bosnian Experience

2006-11-12T12:19:00.000+01:00

Although I am quite fascinated by the Balkan culture and although I am trying very hard to improve my Serbian/Croatian I haven't visited all the countries of the former Yugoslavia till yesterday. I have been to Croatia when I was about 9 months old and more or less every year from then, I have visited Macedonia last year and have only driven through Serbia on my way there (which still means that I have actually been there) and yesterday I had a spontanious trip to Bosnia and Hercegovina. Now my Balkan-list is (at least theoretically) complete.

Firstly I should mention that I haven't been to the Bosnian part of BiH, but to Republika Srpska, which is why I believe that this post could have been as well named my Serbian experience. Republika Srpska shows nearly no signs of belonging to BiH. During the whole day I have maybe seen one or two Bosnian flags, while Serbian flags were all around (and I came to the conclusion that this part of Bosnia is probably cheering for Serbia during World Cups or European Championships and not for the good old Bosnian team... not very patriotic, isn't it?)

The second thing I noticed is that Republika Srpska is a really neat place and I was positively surprised when I saw all the small villagesand vast fields we drove by on our way to Banja Luka, the capital of this part of the country. To be honest, I expected maybe more poverty or a lower standard, but the houses all looked pretty neat, some of them were modern, some looked a bit archaic, but non of them was falling apart or anything similar. The streets were all clean and taken care of and there were only little things that made you aware of the possibility that you may not be in Slovenia... old cars or these typical old shops in the middle of nowhere.

The next thing I have to mention is that these Bosnians/Serbs are all really friendly people. I have nothing more to say about this friendlyness, but I thought I should mention it to ilustrate how well and welcome I felt over the whole day.

Banja Luka (Банја Лука) , our point of yesterday's destination is the capital of Republika Srpska. Wikipedia says that the city was well known in the former YU for being full of tree-lined avenues, gardens, and parks. It has a population of about 200,000 people and a lot of red-yellow orthodox churches and at least one mosque. Half of the people living in the city are Serbs (that explains the red-yellow orthodox churches), about 20% are Muslim (which means there is probably more than only one mosque?) and about 16% are Yugoslavs.

As I already mentioned, I didn't expected Banja Luka or Republika Srpska looking all that nice, but after a day there I have nothing bad to mention about the city itself. They have a shopping avenue like any other European city, an open market approximately the same size as ours (the only difference being they don't sell as much fruits as vegetables as any other stuff), chepaer cigarettes as here (there were people selling them on the street and they repeated telling the prices) and one thing that really shocked me as I thought about it afterwards - there was no single beggar. We later asked some locals why that is so and although I doubt their full objectivness they said that there used to be some beggars, but that many started selling something or built up a small business and that if some remained in Banja Luka, there are only very very few of them.

Since the day is quite long and Banja Luka isn't really Paris or Vienna regarding sights to see, we did a small shopping tour around the town and if you ever visit Banja Luka, I really advise you to do the same. It leaves unforgettable expressions! The way people sell things, the way they approach you etc. is all part of a really unique experience (and if that doesn't convince you... the prices are extraordinary low :)

Althugh we have only been there for a day, I saw three brides in front of churches and then one more on our way back to the border. That makes 4 weddings in one day!!! I had to remember our visit to Macedonia last year, where 4 after-wedding dinners took place in the hotel where we lived. It was then I started to think that are 'southern broders' are marrying more often than we do. Banja Luka, however, left me with no doubt at all, that this must be some kind of national sport.

We finished our tour in the outskirts of Banja Luka with a dinner in a typically Serbian restaurant, which is located in the middle of an artificial lake. The food was delicious and I discovered a meat dish called "Karađorđe". Even if you don't mind about the good old Black George, you would agree with me that the dish itself is exquisite (unless you're a vegetarian of course, then I advise you not to move to Republika Srpska unless you have no problems living on 'sauerkraut' and 'lepinje' till the end of your days :)

Before I end this post, I have to share one more Wikipedia-wisdom with you: Banja Luka has one International Airport, but there is only a flight to and from Zurich on Wednesday and Saturday, and to Istanbul on Monday at 07:45 and back on Wednesday and Thursday. Now isn't that cute? :)

Letting go

2006-11-05T00:36:00.000+01:00

I know I said my next post is going to be about penguins, but I don't feel like writing about them right now (beside that, I don't know much about them anyway). Today I had a conversation with someone who used to be quite important to me and it was the first semi-normal conversation after a long time and although the easiest thing would be to ignore this person till the end of (my) time, I can't do that.

And then I thought about it a bit more and realized: I can never do it! I am simply not able to let go. It doesn't mean that I am a fanatic and as soon as you introduce yourself to me I will expect a Christmas card from you every single year.

I can't let go when the person used to be or is very important to me.
I can't let go if relations between me and that person are not defined.
I need to know that I will see this person now and then, because they live in the same town or hear their voice on the phone.
I need to know what they are doing, no little details - I just wanna be sure I have an idea about what is going on in their life.

To keep it short and simple: I can't let go as long as I care.

In films when one's feelings are hurt, others give this wonderful advise to ignore and forget the person and when one argues with someone important, then they say 'let it be' or 'time will heal it all'.
I believe this is perfect nonsence and if you don't agree with me just ask yourself this simple question:

Can you never think of a once very imporant person again (or wish to talk to them) even if your relation remained completely unclear after you have gone apart?

It's real life, baby!

2006-11-01T00:46:00.000+01:00

I am not a person who would talk about feelings too much and I don't show that that often either... there are very few people that have actually seen me crying in all my life although I am quite a sentimental person. This blog isn't about sharing all my feelings with you.
In the last two months one really big and one not so big thing happened and in a way both of them changed me a bit... or at least my perspective of life. And my new perspective looks just like the road on the picture above...
It ain't perfect. It goes up and down and there are lectures you have to learn all the time (can you see the orange road signs?) Sometimes you can't see what is coming in your direction and you experience a pleasant surprise or the shock of your life. Then of course, the road is a bit damaged and when you drive over that damaged parts your car shakes a bit and then you're options can be limited sometimes (see the yellow lines?) because of your feelings, your character, your abilities... But the best thing the road ilustrates is that you haven't reached your 'final point of destination', you never do and you have to keep on going over more damaged parts with all the limitations, through sunny and rainy weather... otherwise other cars might crush into you and destroy you, so you better stay watchful, cautious and strong. Like an nice-looking Jeep...

The new/old layout

2006-10-30T17:23:00.000+01:00

Recently I have decided to change my layout to (as Jure would call it) granny's wall sheets. I liked the new background, however, it was so difficult to perform any changes in the sidebar; the font of new links didn't want to comply with the font of default links and then it all looked so amateur-like and it finally led me to the conclusion, that I want my old layout back. I can now create my own links again and it looks as though I actually had the slightest idea of what I am doing and it creates this wrong believe that I may have a tiny knowledge of computers etc.

Well, I don't have it. I am one of those people 'idiot-proof' version are made for. When I install a program the only thing I can do is click the button 'Next' till it says: "Installation is now finished. Would you like to restart your computer?" Then I click the button Yes.

If anything goes wrong I get this 2secondsnervousbreakdown, then I think whether I know what is wrong and then I usually ask someone else to do it for me. I wouldn't call myself a complete dummy since I can do quite a lot with my cherished Windows, however I am bad at handling problems. If restarting doesn't solve it, what else can I do? As you would probably agree with me, fonts that don't want to comply with the default fonts deserve to be called a problem and since I spent more than five minutes trying to figure out what to do and nothing worked, I kinldy asked the old layout to forgive me and come back.

Since then my nerves are doing a lot better...

Shiny Happy People 2 - WHO

2006-10-23T18:15:00.001+02:00

The UN Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Please remember the three articles while you read on.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations, acting as a coordinating authority on international public health. WHO's image is more or less positive and nothing really really bad is associated with it. That was, more or less, my humble opinion till today 6:45 a.m.

It was 6:40 a.m. when I woke up and turned on the radio and between good morning songs the moderator said a fact or two about today's futured year, 1992. She said: "It was only in 1992 when the WHO finally ceased to classify homosexuality as a mental disorder!!!" I couldn't believe what I heard (then she repeated it once again about 20 minutes later and once again before I left home; maybe I wasn't fully aware of what I was hearing at 6.45, but 30 minutes later I have already had my cup of coffee and so no doubt was left.)

Personally, I believe it is a shame that the WHO put homosexuality on the list of mental diseases in the first place, but after that, it should have certainly been the first organisation to remove it from there!

The Magic of Childhood

2006-10-19T15:27:00.001+02:00

About three weeks ago I started visiting the faculty, had some other (not all that pleasant) occurences in my life and all of it together led me to the simple conclusion that being grown up is no fun at all. At least now I can't really enjoy it.
Little kids like to pretend being grown up, but it takes more than wearing different clothes or make up. You have to control yourself more, you can't really expect from everyone to put with all your moods (which is pretty logical actually) and sometimes people don't forgive you (that easily) anymore, if you do something really bad. Your parents allow you to stay out longer, they don't have to meet all the people you hang out with anymore and when you don't want you don't even have to appear at lectures at the faculty or else, but all this freedom demands a lot of responsibility, a clear head and sometimes, that is depressing and pretty bothering.
Do I want to go a few years back? No, not at all; most of the time I enjoy it all a lot, but now and then I would simply need a break and be seven or eight years old again... just for a day or two.

Smile... It confuses people

2006-09-19T15:05:00.000+02:00

The other day I was reading about new album releases on a web-page and there was something written about an album called: Smile... It Confuses People (artist: Sandi Thom). And the first question that came into my mind was: what is wrong with today's world and today's people? I mean, let's be honest, if you walk down a street and there is a person, without company, obviously smiling, you would be indeed a bit confused. Some would be at least and I would be sometimes.
Later that day (or maybe it was the next) I saw the music video of a song on the mentioned album: 'I wish I was a punk rocker' and it was one of the few songs which can perfectly tell what I feel sometimes.
Since I didn't live in the 60s I have no problems with idealizing this years: hippies, a lot of really good rock music, more concerts, more not wide-known bands, a life with less concerns about politics, evironment, 3rd world etc. I don't say that this was necessarily good, but for the average person it meant less sorrows or stress.
Going to school now, having friends now, being shaped as a person in the last 18 years I can hardly say how I would be if I wasn't born 1987, but let's say 1950 in the US (although I don't like to admit it, I would say the US was a much better place to live in than Europe at that time), but my guess would be: I wouldn't have been so much interested in politics, but rather focus more on music, I would have maybe even been a hippie and studied something like Ancient cultures instead of law...
And instead of continuing with this daydreaming, here're the lyrics of the 'I wish a was a punk rocker' song:

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In '77 and '69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When the head of state didn't play guitar
Not everybody drove a car
When music really mattered and when radio was king
When accountants didn't have control
And the media couldn't buy your soul
And computers were still scary and we didn't know everything

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In '77 and '69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When pop stars still remained a myth
And ignorance could still be bliss
And when god saved the queen she turned a whiter shade of pale
My mom and dad were in their teens
And anarchy was still a dream
And the only way to stay in touch was a letter in the mail

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In '77 and '69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When record shops were still on top
And vinyl was all that they stocked
And the super info highway was still drifting out in space
Kids were wearing hand me downs
And playing games meant kick arounds
And footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In '77 and '69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

Shiny happy people

2006-09-17T20:42:00.001+02:00

If you asked me a week ago if the Non-Aligned Movement still existed I would have probably said 'no, I don't think so'. Well, anyone who watched at least 30 minutes of CNN in the past few days knows how wrong I was. Talking to a friend when eating some pancakes I found out that even some people with a lot more knowledge of international politics weren't that sure of NAM's existence, so I decided to make a bit of research on it and share it with you. So much is for sure: NAM is not the same as Tito.
The movement is an international organisation of over 100 states that are formally not aligned with any major power bloc. The purpose is written down in the Havana Declaration and goes as follows: to ensure the national independence, sovereignity, territorial integrity and security of NA countries in the struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism including Zionism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination...
They represent about 60% of UN's members and have 55% of world's population.
(Thanks to Wikipedia for help)
Now, I don't really think listing 117 countries would be too interesting, so I will just list my 'Top 10' and ask you to think of what you have read in the news about them in the last years and compare it with their goals.

Afghanistan
Rwanda
Lybia
Haiti
Sudan
Cuba
Pakistan
Iraq
Iran
Sri Lanka

Interesting group of people this NAM, isn't it?

Watching CNN, Reading the Times, Listening to BBC Radio...

2006-09-14T02:07:00.001+02:00

North Korea.
Cuba.
Burma.
Turkeminstan.
Eritrea.
China.
Vietnam.
Nepal.
Saudi Arabia.
Iran.

I am sure each and every one of us has thousands of things they think of when getting this list of countries, this time it is the list of countries with the least degree of press freedom. When watching CNN today there was news broadcasted about new restrictions for foreign media in China, which go in the opposite direction of government's promises to ease press restrictions. You can read articles about it here, here or here, but why I have mentioned it at all is because every time I hear news about (new) press restrictions I feel so much happier to live in a country where cenzorship is theoretically not really existing, where I can freely surf webpages for news, different views on world issues, where I can buy different international daily news or magazines. Opening the Delo in the morning and switching on CNN or BBC in the evening doesn't seem really important, but if you think someone could take that away from you, I believe you would agree that having uncenzored access to news is one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to you.

Stories of our generation

2006-09-10T16:21:00.000+02:00

Every generation has the privilege to witness historic moments people continue to talk about long after they have disappeared from front pages in the newspapers. In the 60s people could witness America winning the 'space-war' and see a man walking on the moon for the first time, some were in the shops to the buy the very first release of the probably most famous boyband ever, the Beatles, Kennedy was shot, 'Summer of Love' and 'Woodstock' took place, Martin Luther King Jr. was fighting for the rights of the black community, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and many other 'drug-culture' influenced bands appeared. In the 70s you could see feminism gaining power in the US, bands like U2, PinkFloyd, Eagles, The Who or Queen started their legendary careers and disco music gained on popularity with Donna Summer, The Bee Gees or the oh so famous Village People with the Y.M.C.A., you could even visit a Bob Marley concert, people had to face the oil crisis etc ... Every generation has its stories to tell. Today, after seeing the live broadcast of Michael Schumacher's farewell I tried to think of 'our' historic moments, what are the things we had the honour to witness, what will be the stories our grandchildren will ask us to tell them? I don't like my first thought, but I believe chasing Hussein and Bin Laden, 9/11 and Iran's uranium enrichment will be things people will talk about long after these particular problems will be resolved (hopefully they will be resolved at all). However, I can't know, in 30 or 40 years we will see what will be regarded as common knowledge and what people will try to get answers to. Beside us being the 'terror' generation, here are some of my guesses for 'our generation's stories':

Beckham, Ronaldo and Klinsmann (just for you Major :)
Michael Schumacher
Tony Blair retreating
North Korean crisis
Robbie Williams' concerts
EU expansion and introduction of the Euro
Genocide in Sudan and Ruandan genocide
Condoleezza Rice as the first African American women to serve as Secretary of State
Teen pop comeback (Backstreet boys, Take That or N Sync...)
Rap and Hip Hop gaining popularity
Simpsons
Jamie Oliver
Friends, Beverly Hills and Ally McBeal (I am sure all of them have to potential to be the new Golden Girls, being shown on RTL after midnight :)
Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken and Sheep in the Big City

Working on the list I tried to think of more than Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Beslan, Bush, CIA prisons, Ahmadinejad, Israel, Turkey entering the EU or the Patriot Act, but to be honest, it wasn't that easy. Is our generation mainly a witness of political disasters that put a shade on every other thing happening around us? What are our stories outside the political frame? What are you going to tell your grandchildren about?

Showing respect

2006-09-05T00:05:00.000+02:00

Over the last weeks I haven't been home much, mostly due to different forms of debate forums. Well, now I am back, this time from pure relaxation on the Croatian coast. Although I believe my holidays were pretty alright till now I am not planning to write about them since they weren't that interesting in the end, but I believe that a different thing deserves my attention. 6 of the previous 9 weeks I have been abroad, nearly 20 days in Romania and than nearly 20 in Croatia, 1 week in a dirty city with wonderful people called Rotterdam and then there were some one or two day trips to Serbia, Vienna Prague (and some suburbs) & Bratislava and being back home in Slovenia I really have to say that we live in a beautiful country, it is not only beautiful, but extremly beautiful and pretty high developed and...
Let me ilustrate what I mean.
Our capital city is not only non-smelling (that probably isn't a real word) and pretty safe, but we have places to go to, we have cafés where you can go and get some ice cream or a hot chocolate in the winter, our streets are clean, sure, they are not sterile, but after seeing some others (like Bratislava or Bukarest) I would be able to swear they are. People don't get high in the middle of the street like they do in Bukarest (which doesn't mean we don't have problems with drugs, but I am only trying to ilustrate how my city is like in comparison to many others), we don't have policemen walking all around giving you a feeling of danger 24/7 and we don't really have many people arrested in the middle of the street, our public transport may not be the most environmentally friendly, but it is pretty safe and I am not really afraid to walk home from the center at midnight. All these are things that were pretty obvious in Romania, you have a feeling of danger around you, you have people arrested and you look around on the subway if you're safe and honestly speaking I don't know if I would go round their cities alone at noon. Maybe it is just the 'foreign city carefulness' but if a thing like that exists I only experienced it for the second time.
(I am not saying anything against the Romanians, the ones I got to know are nice and friendly people, easy to work with and clever and I just want to stress this in case anyone saw anything different in my writing.)
The next thing is that in many cities things are just falling apart, buildings and parts of streets and as soon as you leave the center you are amazed how people can live. Nothing that would happen here; sure, we have our socialist past and quite some building around the city are a living(?) maybe rather standing proof of this, but these building are not falling apart, things function well and generally speaking, Ljubljana (the wonderful city I am speaking about all the time) is a wonderful place to live.
The next thing to mention would be the country in general. I grew up in a country where you don't have one developed city and everything else is terrible, underdeveloped or something like this. Slovenia has a pretty nice country side, we have several cities worth visiting and generally I would say that the country provides you with a feeling of safety. And then... our mountains are pretty clean, our country- side looks nice and taken care of, our trains are not the fastest, but safe... We don't have signs all over the country saying 'sponsored by the EU'. We did a pretty good job before actually entering.
No, Slovenia is far from being perfect and sure, go ahead and accuse me of being over-patriotic, but this article was just to show my respect for my city and for my country, to show respect for what we have accomplished, for having a nice country with green mountains, build high-ways and pretty safe cities... just to show respect and to acknowledge that people not living that far away don't have the same luck as I have...

Pictures:
1. Maribor
2. -
3. Triglavski narodni park
4. Triglavski narodni park 2
5. Slovenian railways
6. Bohinjsko jezero - Bohinj Lake
7. Ljubljana - Old town
8. Izola - Simonov zaliv

WM for the girls

2006-06-19T00:01:00.000+02:00

Pro7, a german Tv station, has started with their WM (Weltmeisterschaft) for the girls campaign, showing movies while all the other stations broadcast soccer. Pro7 doesn't talk about soccer, it doesn't show games, maybe you get to hear the results in the news (wouldn't know, but I would expect it).
Now I believe soccer isn't something just for the men. Well yes sure, they know the rules, they know who played in the last World Cup, they remember the results. They even know all the strange names of the football players.
But what they don't see is that quite some of the soccer players are attractive young men with a wonderful body and although many may not be the smartest, they look cute. And for all these reasons some women love football. They hope the cuter team will win, they look at the guys running after a round ball and enjoy it. Goal? Great, of course, but even greater if the 'of Hesselink' guy scored it. So, even if Brasil is the favorite for this World Cup, do not let us forget how cute the teams of Netherlands or Japan are (and yes I know Japan isn't doing so well) and if that counts just a little bit, I believe Netherlands is going to be in the final round :) Together with Germany (thanks to RTL I adopted some German patriotism lately) or maybe Spain, Portugal?
Time (and goals) will tell...

P.S. Before someone shows their finger telling me to be a soccer fanatic, I have to add that all the four years between the World Cup I don't understand why 22 grown up men are so fascinated by a round ball.

Knowing nearly nothing about mostly anything

2006-06-15T12:24:00.000+02:00

I know I should be happy that I can go to school, learn and study at the university one day (in 3 months if the universe didn't turn against me) and I am happy and grateful, however, after 5 days of learning literature for my oral matura in Slovenian, I believe our system sucks. Here my argumentation: What they do in Slovenian high schools is going through literature from Homer till the modern age, we mention about 60 0r 70 authors and quite some Slovenian authors, there are tons of dates we have to remember etc. And there is not really a work we have to know into detail, however, we have to know about 50 works from different authors (odds and ends about things which are considered important) with more or less no connections. Sure, having a general overview is great, on the other hand it helps me little when I have to know dates and strange names and characteristics of a book I have never read. My suggestion would be that everybody could choose 3 different eras (I guess this is the wrong word, but right now I do not feel like checking the dictionary) and know a bit more about them and a bit more in detail. Why? Firstly because when they give you the option to choose, you can choose eras you like and find interesting and therefore you find it easier to sit down and learn, secondly: if you know more about a thing you will certainly forget something, but not everything, you will certainly keep something. The system right now, when you have to know just a bit about everything, doesn't really seem to care if we'll remember anything or still know it in 5 years. It is just about: how many information can you hold in your head during the 30 minutes while being orally tested. You may disagree, but I believe this is more than just stupid. We get a general overview over the four years, knowing it all, just less in detail, at oral exams does not bring general knowledge, but only a lot of 'turning-away' from the wonderful world of literature. "Talk about a book you have never read, tell me a bit about the author, two little details will be just fine, tell me a bit about the era, wow! 3 characteristics, more than enough. Have a great life and don't mind if you forget everything you have learned in the last 4 years." I guess that is just what is on a teacher's mind. I am not a literature freak, but I like to read books and I like to talk about books I have actually read. I believe after four years I (and everybody else) should be given this option. Not in our system. I have never read the official curriculum for high schools here in Slovenia, but I believe a poetic name for it could be: how to make a 'living encyclopedia' out of a 15 year old child? They stuff the heads with unuseful information and then, when the years go by, the encyclopedia loses pages, someone spills coffee over it and in five years there isn't a single page left. Our school system sucks!

The absolute good

2006-06-06T23:29:00.000+02:00

Todays date is one of those when some peope want to make some other people believe that we are doomed. I wanna take the opportunity given by todays day and talk about a religious topic on a hopefully not so religious basis.
I am a religious person in a pretty strange and very moderate way. And to be honest if you asked me how God looks like, I would tell you it is an old man sitting on a cloud and looking down upon us. However, I don't believe there is something like the devil, I can't imagine that there could be something like the devil. Why? Because I don't believe that one (the devil) can stand being so evil without bearing any consequences. I don't believe anyone can live happily with knowing that he does only bad things and hurts other people. The human being, the human mind is not designed to do bad things or to plan them. I could even claim that the human nature is the absolute 'good' and the total absence of evil. The society and the values it is putting forward influence our human nature, they make it think differently. And so do different groups, organisations etc. And influencing the absolute good leads us to something not so absolutely good, but sometimes to something really bad, something evil, something, that is not natural.
Let me give you some examples, because I don't think anyone can possibly understand these weird writings.
A killer kills a man and maybe nobody will notice a change in his behaviour. If this is so you could say that he doesn't care. That he can simply go and kill people. But let us take a short look at the character of this person. It is dark, it is sinister. The person is most probably angry and deadharted. But why? I believe it is the reaction of the human mind, which is, in its essence, good. Could something so perfect possibly stand the thought of having done something so evil? Most probably not and therefore it 'freezes', it stops thinking about it. Because otherwise the awareness of the evil act could ruin it. I would say that this is the reason people get cold, the reason why some forget to smile and to laugh and to feel happiness.
Another example can be something as 'absurd' as a young boy stealing chewing gum. If it was his first time he would get nervous, he would be afraid, because the good mind can't allow it. If it wasn't his first time it could be, that he wouldn't care anymore, but would it be just as much a happy kid as the one not stealing chewing gum? I am not talking about being happy in the way of feeling great and almighty, but the simple happiness, when you think about your life and it puts a smile on your face. I think this boy couldn't feel this happiness anymore, because the mind is blocking him from feeling anything. Because the good nature would probably kill (one way or another) anyone doing bad things.
I hope I made clear what I think. That anyone doing bad things is doomed to feel worse, even if he isn't aware of that, that anyone who violates the absolute good has to bear the consequences. Some start drinking, some start taking drugs, some get terribly sick. The body somehow finds a way to deal with it or to pay back, whatever you like more. And because of all that evil can never really survive. Not in 'great amounts' without the body and psyche reacting.
And if you're really bad, they kill you sooner or later.
I am not a person who has a passion for moral dillemas and for talking about the great mysteries of life. If you ask me what the meaning of life is I will either say 42 or reproduction, I won't go into stories about love and missions we have to fulfill. It is not really my area of interest. But somehow I started to think about this topic and here are the results of it :)

By the way: Hitler died at the age of only 56. He suffered from skin lesions, gastro-intestinal pain. During the war he developed an irregular heartbeat and aggressive tremors (some believe it could have been symptoms of tertiary syphilis) . He became addicted to drugs (methamphetamine) and by 1945 he was using cocaine as well. Then there are also some things which couldn't have been confirmed, but it has been speculated that he had the Parkinson's disease, that he was hypohondric, that he suffered from borderline personality disorder or (other theory) schizophrenia etc. etc.etc... He was evil, but the human mind is not. And that's why it killed him.

Mutilation in the name of tradition

2006-06-02T23:40:00.000+02:00

After coming home today after having a coffee together with a friend of mine I checked today's news and I happened to read something about female genital mutilation or female genital cutting. Although it is a shoking thing to read about I believe that the coverage of these practises is way to small in the news and so I will try to contribute a little and write a post about these practises here. Female genital mutilation refers to amputation of any part of the female genitalia for cultural rather than medical reason. Female genital cutting is a violation of women's right and in recent years it is mostly common in muslim countries in Africa.
It is primarily a social practise and not a religious one, although some believe religion would justify it. The main reasons put forward for the mentioned practise is a belief that it moderates sexual desires in women and it is also believed to be more hygienic.
The second reason is a belief in certain cultures that at birth every child has signs typical for both genders. When the child reaches puberty some of these signs are removed. It is believed that the clitoris is the 'male' element and therefore it is cut away. Although the practise in common in muslim countries the Quran does not mention female genital mutilation. It is mentioned in some disputed Muslim writings, however, even there it is only permitted and not not required. Some Arab Muslims even call the practise un-Islamis.
Female genital mutilation can result in reproductive tract infections, infertility or even death. The first sexual intercourse is then extremly painful and many claim that sexual pleasure is eliminated by the cutting.

I have lately heard about a organisation in Japan which supports women in Africa, that are victims of genital cutting. A Japanese activist once asked: how can I stand by and watch healthy African women be mutilated in the name of tradition? She mentioned that women in Japan are, just as in Africa, second class citizens and so even if they don't know such practises in their country, they feel with those who are exposed to this mutilation. Now the organistion is growing, even male members are involved and the latest suggestion was giving asylum to women fleeing from genital mutilation.

I believe there are many who know about this, but there are also many who don't. Raising awareness is certainly an efficient way of fighting it. If people are aware of the problem, if governments are aware of the problem, then measures can be taken against those who mutilate women, women fleeing from countries where it is still legal could look for asylum in foreign countries and raising awareness can also mean sending more volunteers to these countries who will teach why it is not good, why it is bad, why it should stop. People, volunteers, could teach women that there are alternatives, that they can go away, that they can sue the resposible ones, that they can emigrate.

There are severer problems in the world, but when I think that something like genital mutilation could happen to me, the only thing I can feel is fear. The chance of that happening is nearly zero, but I know that it happens to others and what I feel then is only sadness. Girls like me being victims of something so cruel, so inhumane...

Men are killing men

2006-05-15T00:03:00.000+02:00

Sometimes when I read the news and compare things politicians and other actors on the global stage say, I just feel like all this was all a big joke. People pretending to be moral, but on the other hand threatening others, people who want to protect, but kill instead, but then also statements of politicians which are believed to be the embodiment of evil and then start to teach what is moral and just and what not.
You have certainly heard of the letter the President of Iran has sent to George W. Bush lately. I have found the unofficial translation and it was again when I started believing that world politics is nothing but a big joke.
Here are some reasons why.

Letter of the President of Iran says:
"Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ, the great Messenger of God, feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make "War on Terror" his slogan and finally work towards the establishment of a unified international communitiy - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked, the lives, reputations and possesions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of criminals in a village, city or convoy for ecample, the entire village, city or convoy set ablaze. Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry desroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women - as occupation troops- but in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands atained with the blood of others,..."
Now this may sound like a pretty nice letter, however I am wondering why one cares about the lives of a few, when he is, at the same time, preaching, that a whole country has to be erased from the world map. Together with all its citizens. Call it contradictory or funny, in the end it just turns out to be unbelievably absurd. I know that this is about Iraq, about Muslims, not about Jews, who are anyway unworthy of having a country anywhere (after his opinion) but still... If one preaches war, then he shouldn't be the one to teach us about peace. If one is talking about destruction and genocide, he shouldn't teach others about harms and loved ones.

He goes on with Jesus as his primary support for not understanding the ways the US act.
"European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provision of any judicial system. For that matter I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teaching of Jesus Christ, human right and liberal values."

It is certainly true that this was a big scandal and no, I don't believe there is an excuse for this secret prisons. But what has Jesus to do with that? It seems that not only he abuses the Quran, he also abuses the name of Jesus... Absurd.

Now let's come to the existence of Israel, of course somebody who would like to erase the country, has a lot to say about its existence.
"Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenom that is exclusive to our times. Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel. I tell them to study the history of WWI and WWII. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the was, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Sic million people that were surely related to at least two million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenom be rationalized or explained?
Mr. President, I am sure you know how - and at what cost- Israel was established: many thousands were killed in the process..."

It is interesting how high the price of a life seems to be in the eyes of this President. Still he preaches the dectruction of Israel and Jews. It seems he doesn't really care much about every life, surely not about the lives of Jews living there. Double standards, contradiction or can I repeat myself and call it absurd?

And here comes my favourite:
"Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is tranlated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime?"
A very good question, isn't it? If we travel back in time, only a few months, not more, the very same man will give us the answer.

The more I read and hear, the less I understand. I don't understand the rhetorics, sometimes I don't know who is fighting for what.
Men are fighting men, men are threatening men, men want to kill men.
What for?

Popetown

2006-05-05T22:33:00.000+02:00

I don't watch much MTV, but this time I decided to turn on the TV instead of listening to the radio while making my life shorter with learning Maths. And there it was - Popetown. A BBC cartoon which is set in a fictional Vatican and hasn't been published on BBC yet, because it was deemed to be too offensive. MTV.de now decided to publish the first part of the cartoon and after seeing the reactions of the public they will decide whether they will continue publishing or not.

From the first page of the official homepage of Popetown, you can get the following information:
"Introducing the most hilarious, the most outrageous, the most controversial and the most affictive comedy series ever made. This now infamous series, considered too offensive for TV, and never before seen in the UK /... / This is Popetown, where money, power and corruption are the name of the game, and everyone is playing."

Popetown is a ten-part cartoon that looks at the daily life in Vatican. It centres around Father Nicolas and his daily struggle against life's ups and downs. But after it should have come to BBC THREE in 2004, a message was released in September of the very same year. Stuart Murphy, Controller of BBC THREE, took the difficult decision not to transmit the animation series. The main reasons were that it was too offensive and that it would insult many a viewer of BBC.

I personally believe that the decision was wrong and I was delighted to hear that the cartoon was broadcasted in New Zealand, Canada and I think that even in Australia. And now - in Germany.
We live in a world where freedom of expression is highly respected and I simply believe that if a show exists which is maybe a bit controversial, but amusing and funny, there should be no obstacles broadcasting it. I can hear some of you saying: your right ends where you violate the right of somebody else (in this case of religious people), but let's be honest: every time the Pope comes to a country only wonderful news are published about the event, the host country is so happy, official TV channels seldom publish anything against the Vatican. It is like they were this untouchable somethings sitting there in the smallest country in the world and being perfect. And maybe this is how I am offended... and nobody cares.
The church has been 'perfect' for too long and if they and their supporters can't survive a little criticism on their account, they should rethink how strong and powerful they really are.

Probably the main reason for not publishing it was that we live in a mainly Christian society and the Church plays a great role, but there are tons of other things that play important roles other's persons lifes. A really bad racist can't believe why channels publish Whoopy Goldberg, maybe I hate Bollywood movies and they still publish them, there are certainly some who are offended by messages of the Iranian president, maybe some young people can't see Mario Galunič, some can't believe Tom Cruise still plays in films although he is 'heretic' and part of the Creationism (sect, church, cult?) and you know what? Channels still publish all of that, because they can never satisfy everybody.
Religious feelings? Fine. But nobody forces you to watch it. And while we are bombed with 'Vatican is perfect' news, I believe we do deserve some laughing on their account as well. With all due respect, I still think that this BBC-self-censorship should be abolished and Respect! to New Zealand, Canada and Germany for not following BBC's example.

Being old

2006-05-02T20:54:00.000+02:00

Being 18 years old and not even having a drivers licence is criteria enough for me to not consider myself old. However I was jogging today and where I am jogging there is also a playground for kids, a meadow and a wanna be soccer court. And there are kids playing with balls. And then there was this boy who was about 7 years old, he was playing soccer (or at least trying to do so) and when he kicked the ball it accidentally hit my leg. And I didn't really mind. Till the little boy said "oprostite gospa", which means as much as "sorry ma'am". Now something like this happened for the third time, little kids calling me ma'am and therefore I decided to set up a list of what I think are the signs of women getting old and I honestly don't comply with any of these.

They didn't want to extend the validity of your driver's licence.
When you're taking a nap people are afraid that you're dead.
You believe getting up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday is normal.
Your kids coming to lunch every Sunday is the event of the week for you.
You watch the Weather channel.
It takes longer to rest than it did to get tired.
It takes twice as long to look half as good.
When you read the Bible or watch The Flinstones, it brings back memories
Your social secutiry number is not higher than 10.
People tell your kids "Yo momma's so old" jokes and the only thing they can do is nod.
You believe Mario Galunič is attractive.

I think I can feel the young spirit again...

Päpstin

2006-05-01T01:15:00.000+02:00

Before I start writing about the actual topic of this post I want to make sure that you know that I am not a religious fanatic although quite some of my posts happened to be about religion. This is something I stumbled upon by accident and I found it unbelievably interesting and to make a confession: I am very much interested in religion, in the rituals and I love conspiracy theories. And here is one of them. I hope you like it. Pope John VIII was the head of the catholic Church from 872 to 882. He is remembered as a pope that has done a lot of things, changed a lot of things and was generally considered being worthy of being a Pope. So far, so good, so boring. Now three researchers: Mars Benecke (criminal biologist trained by the FBI), Peter Stanford (historian and reporter) and Aiman Abdallah (German reporter) are trying to proove one of the biggest conspiracy theories in history. John VIII, they say, was a woman from Germany!
The questions they try to answer are: who was this woman that is supposed to have been on the head of the catholic Church? If she really was on this position: how could it possibly happen and why is there no feminine pope mentioned in the history of the catholic Church? Is she only fictional or was her origin 'modified' years later?
Bones and historic manuscripts are the one being asked to answer. One of the first pieces of evidence is an old manuscript, an official pope chronical, which shows clear manipulation of names. An old chair in a for public not opened part of the Vatican museum assails the researchers with even more questions. The chair is supposed to be a proof that after the 9th century so called gender-tests were made to be sure that the pope-to-be was actually a man. The pope-to-be had to sit on the chair and one of the younger cardinals would have to check if it is really a man and tell it to the others. You can also read something about this in old manuscripts, Vatican, however, remains silent on the question. Not really silent, but they just say it is all made up, only a humbug. On the other hand, evidence says that popes-to-be had to sit on that special chair before being elected pope till the 17th century.
That is everything researchers have till now, but more is about to come and I am very much looking forward to it :)
And in the end, if it prooves to be the truth, the German Duden could have another feminine form of something for their word of the year. After Bundeskanzlerin in 2005, it could now be Päpstin.

Funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government

2006-04-29T22:00:00.000+02:00

Today an article in the HaAretz daily newspaper appeared. After the EU freezed its funds for the PA it seems that Mahmoud Abbas persuaded the French President to bypass the freeze on funds to the Palestinian government, led by Hamas, a terrorist organisation, a political party, an activist group or however you would like to call it. Whatever your reasons for agreeing with Chirac may be, I am still on the side of those who argue they don't deserve a single penny. To quote the spokesman of the French Foreign Minister: "There is an international consensus that an unreformed Hamas government is neither a legitimate partner for political dialogue, nor will it be a worthy recipient of international aid."
To support my opinion, let us take a look at some articles of the Hamas Charter, the Charter of the currently rulling party.

Article Six:
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned. In the absence of Islam, strife will be rife, oppression spreads, evil prevails and schisms and wars will break out.

Article Seven:
The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Moslem Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Moslem Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Moslem Brotherhood in 1968 and after.
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Article Eight:
Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.

Article Eleven:
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, orPalestine is an Islamic Waqf any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.

Article Thirteen:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

Article Twenty-Eight:
Arab countries surrounding Israel are asked to open their borders before the fighters from among the Arab and Islamic nations so that they could consolidate their efforts with those of their Moslem brethren in Palestine.

I don't know how you feel, but I don't think we're here to sponsor genocide and to sponsor the people who want genocide.
For all this reasons I strongly support the position of the European Commision and believe Palestine shouldn't get any money. You are asking 'What about the people? Are we going to make them suffer for their governments views?' Firstly I would like to stress that these very same people have elected this government in a democratic election, so I do believe that they (to a certain extent) share the views of their government, but no, I don't really want to see them suffer and if they need money for hospitals to operate, let us give them the money for hospitals and doctors, but I don't want to live with a feeling that the money I pay as taxes (not now, but most probably sometime in the future) goes to support the Hamas-led government.
If they continue to stress that negotiations, peaceful solutions are a waste of time and that only aim is to erase the Zionist country, then let them get their money somewhere else.

Changes

2006-04-17T14:06:00.000+02:00

Till now it was pretty nice being a student in our country and everyone who has already finished his time at the university would be able to tell you that this was the most beautiful time of his/her life. However, changes approach. A new government (well, not so new, but still) and new reforms in sight.
Let's take a look at what these reforms are all about and how they worsen the situation of students in our country.
The reform is talking about numerous changes, among them the introduction of fees, smaller subventions for food, no new scholarships, extra taxes on student's work, no extra (badly needed) sleeping places for students in university cities.
Students tried to talk to the government, but representatives said the government was not cooperative and so the talks came to a standstill. Now a demonstration is announced in the capital city on Wednesday. After the announcement of the demonstration, Minister Prof. Dr. Jure Zupan was said to be seeking a dialog with students. Out of 13 demands on the government, he said they could eventually fulfill eight of them.
Till now following things happened: representatives of four ministries agreed to 20.000 new scholarships. More scholarships mean less student work and therefore fewer years of study. The representatives also said they do agree not to cancel student's work, but they would rather see more students working at universities and in laboratories (not to mention that there aren't really enough working places for all). Students demanded more funds for higher education and Dr. Zupan was said to agree.

The 5 remaining points are:

the gov. doesn't agree to put everyone through college without fees
the gov. can't or doesn't want to accomodate students with more subventions for food
the gov. can't or doesn't want to provide new sleeping places for students
students want free transport and the gov. says this is very unlikely to happen
students want reduced taxes and also here the gov. says it is very unlikely to happen

The announced demonstration isn't really about reduced taxes or free transport, but firstly about college fees and new sleeping places. The situation in Ljubljana is particulary bad. Not enough subsidised sleeping places, unbelievably high monthly rents. Some students have to work in order to be able to study (though they don't have to pay anything now). If the reforms get implemented this will mean that more students will have to pay the monthly rent (if he/she doesn't get a subsidised sleeping place) and the college fee, at the same time one won't be allowed to work extra hours and of course, he/she cannot count to get a scholarship.
The direct consequence of this is that less and less people will be able to study and so higher education will again become more of a privilege, than a right.
So, if you plan to be in Ljubljana on Wednesday in any case, let your voice be heard :)
No revolution after the French example is planned and till now nobody talks about several weeks of protest, but the more likely it will become that the reforms get implemented, the more likely there will be more protests and more voices raised and hopefully heard.
Because changes aren't always welcome!

Easter Nonsense

2006-04-16T14:32:00.000+02:00

I have been shopping yesterday or better said my mom has been shopping, I was simply there. While wandering through the shelves in the shop I found the 'Easter-part' and it is unbelievable what kind of stupid things one can buy. Here's my favourites-list.

a huge Popeye egg
a dancing duck couple
green rabbits (looking really sick)
rabbit-chocolate-puzzle
a sheep looking like a nun
a spongebob surprise egg
a speaking duck
more green rabbits
a do-it-yourself-chaplet (I hope this is the right word) like the one Jesus had on his head while being crucified
a smart looking rabbit with glasses (he seemed pretty unhappy though)
sick-looking brown eggs (can an egg get the measles?)
eggs in something that looked like blue stockings
little pinguins (now I really don't know what they have to do with Easter)

What stupid things can you buy in your shop?