31. 01.

WANTED: Immigrants to Cesko!

Libuse Bautzova writes in the Winter 2008 edition of The New Presence magazine about the state of pension reform in our country. Her amazing article entitled, "Here Come the Pensioners," was a great primer on just what we might expect to see in this nation if we don't reform our self-destructive ways, and soon. (I'll see if I can get permission to reproduce parts of it here for you. If I'm successful, stay tuned for an update).

Here's the gist of what she's saying. I'll break these out into bullets:

** Czech society is getting old -- and fast! By 2050, over half of Czech society will be over 60 years of age. Young people are increasingly unwilling to salt away money for their futures. Saving mentality still has yet to permeate this society's thinking -- and regrettably, our elderly citizens clearly aren't the individuals to turn to for guidance on this score, for obvious reasons.

** Czech females are reproducing at a rate of 1.5 children per couple. Czech demographers aren't predicting a rosy future. At this rate of reproduction, by the middle of this century there will be 2 million less citizens living in the Czech Republic, bringing our numbers down to around 8 million souls. Owning this much open territory and not making available to the rest of the world seems almost selfish. (Maybe it's the Canadian in me, spoiled with being the second biggest landmass on the planet).

** Employers aren't hiring older employees. This, despite the fact that such elderly types aren't anywhere near the officially mandated age of retirement (60 years of age for males). The conventional marketplace wisdom is that older people (read: those who came into their own during Czechoslovak Communism) aren't adaptable, are unwilling to master new skillsets, and don't comprehend cutting-edge technology, so what's the point in investing in them to take up space. For someone such as myself who positively adores old people, this is harsh news to swallow indeed.

** Pension reform is molasses-like slow. Just ask Labour and Social Affairs Minister Petr Necas. His various proposals to innovate the Czech pension system -- anything from gradually increasing the legal retirement age, to significant cuts in pension payouts, to a blend of public and private pension contributions -- are all political footballs. Considering the outcry from the recent spate of cuts, these proposals aren't likely to gain any sort of traction anytime soon.

** Czech young people aren't saving. That's something, according to Bautzova, which is still in young Czechs' "for later" file. As for the ones who stay (and that's decreasing steadily as the hassle-free, politically neutral Czech passport is accepted at more places internationally without a visa, thank goodness!). Since young people aren't saving, little goes into the public kitty for a rainy day. Between such low contributions and the political graft that is endemic to our political system, not to mention the complications in bringing the ODS' tax reform up to speed, this paints yet another rather grim picture.

Which is why we need immigration!

I can just remember watching the grainy black and white 1950s images of Australian PM Robert Menzies on Ted Turner's amazing COLD WAR series of VHS cassettes (hope I'm not dating myself here), begging immigrants to come down to his continent -- then at the opposite complete end of the universe -- to populate it and work the land.

Were it not for those masses of Lebanese, Greeks, Italians, Arabs, Poles, Croatians, and other sundry Europeans and Middle Eastern types, Australia might never have become the Oceanic entrepreneurial powerhouse which it is today. And that goes doubly for my native Canada.

It's a proven fact -- despite the obfuscations of Czech political elites -- we're eventually going to lose the population race if we don't do something about it fast.

When our Asian FDI saviours (egs. Asus, Acer, Foxconn, Hyundai) yank their capital out of Cesko in about five to ten years' time, we'll have little to sustain our economy for the long haul. This will further strain our public purse; that is, unless we start investing in things like solar panels, a technology this nation, strangely, has a competitive advantage in. Barring changes to the status quo, and because of all the points I'd listed above, we're going to need bodies in this country. Many of them, in fact!

Newcomers. Fresh blood, fresh faces.

Newcomers from lands where opportunity is not in plentiful supply. Stretching the example further, that means people from the developing world, who do not always have white skin, nor who read books and newspapers from left to right.

Germany is a good example of this.

Look at the magnificent leap -- the "Wunderwirtschaft" -- it took with its economy during the post-War period. What with its expectant thousands of Spaniards, Italians, former Yugos, and assorted other Souther Europeans who made the trip northward to toil in its factories and auto assembly plants. These are also the same people who repaired the massive network of autobahns as well, smashed as the latter were at the end of the last global conflict.

I can just hear the groaning now...we don't want immigrants here! Look at what the Hamburg cell did on Jedenacteho Zari! Immigrants from Muslim lands?! Ven! There might be some who claim that the Germans deserved the influx of questionable foreigners to their lands, given what sort of havoc they were responsible for wreaking during the War.

Yet like it or not, my friends, this is the only thing that's going to save us now.

Otherwise, we'll lose the population game, and then there will be no "Czech culture" to save. And that's a fact, Jack.

Tune in soon for further examples of why immigration is good for Cesko...watch this space!

30. 01.

A post-Svejnar Czech Republic

UPDATE: This is how a potential mid-21st-century Czech might look, following the election of Mr. Jan Svejnar as President of the Republic, or as the next Foreign Minister when Mr. Schwarzenberg resigns, or even if Johnny Boy is elected to the Chamber of Deputies as part of a new Czech political party.

I dedicate today's post to my esteemed Aktualne.cz colleague, The Sultan of The Story, Pavel "Pablo" Vondra and my dear Bohemian friend, eminent cinephile, and guide extraordinaire, Eva C. Both are jointly responsible for this morning's e-inspiration.


I, like you, was recently watching Miss Nella Simaova go about her icy business down in Zagreb on the yo-yo box the other day. Her powerful jumps and her grace in the rink were captivating sights to behold, giving me a momentary burst of pride and chill down my spine. You know that feeling I'm talking about?

Yet a competing thought clashed with that spot of brilliance. It had to do with the doubt I was also feeling about my possible misplaced pride. Whether I was, in fact, being self-delusional. Whether I was projecting my hopeful, expectant feelings for a New 21st-century Cesko onto the image on the television screen. I asked myself whether what I was actually viewing was the exception, instead of the norm.

To be sure, Miss Simaova is charismatic. In most nations in our half of the globe, if not our own, she'd be the envy of the male persuasion, hardly an argument there. But her appearance is more than just a superficial issue. It speaks to something deeper about what's going on in the CR; societal strains which will hopefully adapt Cesko to better endure in a globalized context.

Allow me to kindly to do some "pipelaying" to bolster my point:

For one, we are the Central European leaders.

We have a duty to demonstrate to our eastern neighbours that they have nothing to fear from the Western-inspired innovations soon to come their way. If they work here -- and they certainly are working here, no argument there -- then there's a high probability they'll succeed over there.

As part of that obligation, we must constantly strive to deliver the promised gains of an open-minded, free world to the millions of former captives of the Hammer & Sickle set. Sometimes it's painful, oftentimes it's against the established mentality which has been flailed into us for decades, but Czechs must swallow the castor oil of change which will only strengthen our collective, catapulting us onward to surging growth.

For two, ideally positioned as we are at the crossroads of so many different paths -- East vs. West, North vs. South, Old vs. New, Developed vs. Developing -- we should herald the arrival of newcomers to our society whom we may never never have met before.

Africans definitely come to mind, and in the coming years, citizens of nations with names like Angola and Cameroon will become increasingly commonplace here.

Looking at Simaova, with her flawless spoken cestina (she is Czech -- the only thing "African" about her is the colour of her skin), one cannot be overwhelmed with an inexplicable pride which perhaps is out of place for our typically dour selves.

Kindly forgive the long introduction to what is essentially a very simple issue:

I'm often rebuked in casual conversation by colleagues that my pie-in-the-sky "Canadian" model of society -- mapped, as it were, onto the Czech Republic -- is a model that won't ever work for these people.

One of the frequent rails I'm on the receiving end of (noted here by some commenters in the past) is the fact that Canadian society, as it's presently comprised, is nonsense.

Nonense, from the context of having no grounding, no base, directionless like flotsam in the Vltava.

Founded as a multicultural society, especially since the late 1960s, Canada is a glorious experiment which has for the most part succeeded. It's one of the few countries on the planet where people from a multitude of different faiths and cultures come rallied under the banner of an Us which supercedes the feared They.

The inherent gains from multi-ethnic societies are legend, but I'll list just a few examples of them now:

** produces an open, tolerant society.
** strengthens the gene pool and reduces anatomical, biological anomalies which occasionally crop up from generational inbreeding.
** results in more novel, diverse ideas because of such divergent combinations (eg. it's what happens when someone from China goes to the same primary school as someone from Jamaica, for example).
** on record, produces a more entrepreneurial society, which benefits the nation as a whole.

Czech society is robust, courageous, and meaningful. In light of the nation's oppressive past, the Czech (and Slovak) people have withstood the weight of oceans, yet have emerged scathed, but resilient.

If our history has proved anything, it's that we cannot -- and will not -- carry on living as an island in the middle of this continent, unaffected by the societal tidal flows which have been washing over the rest of the world.

As a citizen of the EU, I welcome the advent of a "Canadian-style" Czech society. Only the truly blind cannot already see that the city of Prague is becoming this way, and may it remain so. So it always proceeds; modernity and innovation find their home in the capital cities, then proliferating outwards towards the suburbs and the regions.

The gains to Czech society from a multi-ethnic, and moreover, multi-racial, society are the following:

** Czech youth will once and for all observe that radical change is indeed possible. If a newcomer like Miss Simaova can break into the hallowed echelons of Czech(oslovak) sport, then indeed change has come home to roost.
** I say the following clinically, not racially: injecting a new chromosomal strain into the Czech gene pool will strengthen the DNA core of that same pool. And I take no credit for this theory. Eminent US legal expert, Alan M. Dershowitz, has claimed so himself in several of his professional writings that a multi-ethnic strain has been good for nations like the US and Israel, for example, what with its European, North African, Middle Eastern, Arabic, Druze, Ethiopian, and Central Asian admixtures which have made Israel's population's gene pool more resistant to disease. Considering the record-high number of sick days that Czechs are notorious for, this can only be a good thing (not counting the people who enjoy visiting their physicians on social calls!).
** Czech society can continue to cement its Central European leadership position by carrying the "innovation torch" aloft. We are unafraid to try new things and introduce world-beating change into our nation.

So what do you think?

28. 01.

NAME THAT TUNE -- spinning the "CR/SK Rivalry" broken record

Have you seen the cover story at this week's Czech Business Weekly? Not yet? Well then please check it out.

This edition has reporter Brian McCabe writing about the differences between the Czech and Slovak Republics' capitals, spruced up by the CBW's usual fluffy accessorizing economic fanfare. Yet like the Irish say, it sure does make for good crack.

The oomph-like thrust of McCabe's piece seems to centre on the classic rivalry between Blava and Praha, whether it's more of a locally-spun fiction or the Middle European thin-broth chimera that it actually is.

Ask any Western European, folks -- let alone an American or a Brazilian -- and the general consensus is that there really aren't many concrete differences between the former federalist foes.

Jaggers!

Czech, Slovak, Czechoslovak...you're all from the same place, aren't you? If you're "Czech," doesn't that also mean you're Slovak? Where is Bratislava? Is that in Narnia?

These are some of the questions I find people nudging me with me when I'm "representin'" abroad. High IQ-types, like some of the commenters occasionally posting here.

Ho-hum, er...yeah. It's sad, but true, kids.

Just as North Americans often consider themselves to be the absolute centre of the Milky Way galaxy, so do we locals.

Come to think of it, with all the commotion about such subtle Czech-Slovak differences roiling about in venerable P-Town -- especially at some workplaces where Slovaks and Czechs mingle in such close proximity -- you'd think this were an issue of the utmost national importance. On a par with the proposed "early-missile warning installation" down and across in Little Brdy.

Personally, I find it perplexing that features like the CBW's continue to get such traction in the mainline press here (a Czech translation of the story -- if you prefer -- can be found here). I think it belies something more insidious about the local media scene (it's boring), and for those who practice in it, the signs clearly point in one direction...get us somewhere, anywhere, but please not here!

Devoting more than three magazine pages to the relative differences between Bratislava and Prague -- content more suited to a Wikipedia entry, if you ask me -- is a quaint example of an editorial board throwing its hands to the High Heavens in a desperate search for an angle (not angel, that wasn't a syntax error). It's also an affront to our forests, wind-blown as they've been of late.

A story worthier of more serious analysis -- a topic which was merely alluded to in the article by its quoted financial maestros -- would be about the pace of fiscal and monetary reform in this nation. How the expected recession on the other side of the kiddie pond is going to hammer us -- ouch, and hard.

The Fourth Estate has a role in continuing to expose this unrepentant spin-doctoring on the part of the ruling financial gurus (be they blue, green, or red), and the media's perpetual kowtowing complacency in this regard will only come home to roost when the manure starts hitting the fan's spinning blades.

How about a story per week in the pages of a magazine with the brass testes the size of CBW's? Backed up by Mr. Komarek's hard-earned (and rapidly-shrinking!) crown billions, it shouldn't be a big risk.

Isn't it better to earn the admiration of your readership by refusing to take a weak-kneed stance on the impending financial doom which shall eventually land on our Bohemian shores? Unlike, the, um....major Czech dailies?

This reluctance is demeaning, insulting, and patronizing. To refuse to regularly communicate the true state of economic affairs to the Czech citizenry is in breach of the good faith trust we have in the free press. Especially for those whose incomes and net worths will take a shellacking as a result.

Heaven forfend what journos would do if they didn't have access to the 'net!

The dearth of due financial analysis in the mainline press acts like a self-censoring chill that persists despite the absence of the shackles which would otherwise keep it thusly bound.

--ADM

24. 01.

Clobberin' time with Ezra Levant

A veritable free-speech cyclone has been violently swirling over on the other side of the Pond for more than a week now. And all of it revolves around the man known as Ezra.

Ezra Levant, the ex-publisher of the Western Standard magazine, who was brought up on charges with the Canadian province of Alberta's Human Right Commission for his past publishing of the infamous Danish Mohammed cartoons in that same source.

Before you go any further, bang this, and have a e-gander for yourselves as the Albertan free-speech warrior launches headfirst into the Mohammedan fray with Glen Becker.

No matter what you think about the propriety of publicizing the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, you've just got to love the way Levant presents his case. And you're going to be doubly delighted from how he reads riot act to the hapless female HRC commissioner; how he tells her he has a right to "...publish whatever the hell [he] want[s], whenever the hell [he] please[s]."

This is a man who truly knows his rights, and anyone who refuses to stand on the Czech equivalent of "Ja se omlouvam pani doktorko" anebo "Vazeny pane inzenyre, ale nezlobte se..." false modesty horsehit gets top grades in any journalist's book, especially mine.

Note how the inquiry was sagely recorded from start to finish (running the length of 3 -- count 'em! -- YouTube streaming clips), and pay close attention to Levant's foresight. No he-said-she-said rubbish to be found here. No Goebbels-style editing job, neither.

And people say that Canada can be such a boring place...

Why I think this is of interest to you, and of even greater interest to Cesko, more generally, is that we could learn a thing or three from Levant's idiosyncratic brand of activism.

We could take due lessons from his forceful debate-cum-argumentative approach, or the manner in which he'd prepared the HRC inquiry like an iron trap.

Get a load of the way he continues to assertively promote his case in the media -- especially south of the Canada-US border -- the "mother of all media meccas."

Culture is culture, sure. But I pose the question to you: would it be entirely out of character if a person of the Czech persuasion (be they Bohemian, Moravian, Silesian, so-called "Czech-Slovak" from the border region who wasn't forcibly repatriated to the Slovakian Motherland post-Velvet Divorce, or a former Trans-Carpathian/Rusyn) if the radar issue -- and the Czech citizenry's right to voice their complete displeasure with it -- were argued with such forceful aplomb?

But, wait, I have even more specific examples!

Take the case of a close colleague of mine who spent her exile years in Canada with her Czech ex-spouse, during the worst part of normalizace. In the late '90s, when they'd returned to the Czech Republic post-Wall Fall, they went their separate ways. With the one critical detail left to be decided -- who would own the ex-husband's contruction business which they jointly built up from zilch.

More details...toss in a bumpkin female lover twenty years younger than her ex, a pair of new kids with his new "secret family," and a clandestine transfer of assets under said lover's name -- oh, and did I mention he cut off the power and water to the ex-wife's Prague apartment to force her to move out -- plus a kitbag of other ignominies, this woman is now in the throes of a 3-year long divorce struggle.

Here's the point: when it comes to divorce in this country, the laws of the former regime reign supreme.

A woman is virtually deemed to be the chattel of her (philandering) male spouse, and her recourse to the Czech courts to enforce her rightful share to the plentiful family assets are a joke, at best. That's mainly because the lion's share of today's sitting judges were appointed by the old KSC cabal.

Where is this woman's human rights tribunal?

What if she were to launch a massive campaign highlighting the injustice of her position, running a self-styled Czech YouTube and blogoshere campaign a la Ezra Levant to garner support for her situation?

Would she retain any hope of enforcing her rights?

Would she gain the sympathy or succor of the local populace, not to mention the all-critical female voting constituency in this country?

Or what if she were as overt as Mr. Levant? What if she was interviewed by prominent cable talk show hosts in Western Europe and/or the US, highlighting the unjust farce she's been compelled to undergo daily as a citizen of this EU Member State? Would she succeed in having the antiquated laws repealed? Would anything change?

What's definitely 100% clear is that things aren't going to be the same over in Canada once Ezra Levant's tribunal runs its course.

The "invisible line" which Muslim complainants of the extremist variety are permitted to cross in my birth country in enforcing the practice of their religion, with the human rights commissioners, in this case from Alberta, adopting a "see-no-evil" approach in enforcing the double-standard for the Islamic faith, will once-and-for-all be exposed. The hijack will be no more.

And, maybe -- just maybe -- Levant's sharp oratory will convince Czechs of the tapped-in set, those like you who are regularly and happily online, that a path to grassroots change in the Czech Republic is indeed possible.

Provided you kick and scream loud enough, that is.

23. 01.

Project: Better Place

Yep, the bell has begun to toll...ding, dong, the witch is dead...

January 21, 2008 marked the death-knell for the gas-run vehicle, friends. As of two days ago, Monday, the oil-powered auto has taken one step into the dusty pages of the history tomes with the advent of the oil-free, hybrid-free, canola oil-free electric car; or EV, for short.

Project Better Place -- a pioneering US-Israeli technology startup -- backed by the mega-clout of the world's 4th-largest car manufacturer, Renault-Nissan, plus $200M US in needed venture capital -- boldly announced the commencement of a mass marketing campaign for the EV in the State of Israel which is set to make that country virtually independent of Arab oil by the year 2020.

The move was an unprecedented one for the car industry.

It marked the first time a national government went to bat for a technology startup with its bold declaration that it would be supporting the mass marketing and production of the electric vehicle for its entire citizenry.

Shai Agassi, Project Better Place's globetrotting CEO, rolled out the plan on Monday in the Israeli capital, Jerusalem, with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, its Nobel Prize-winning President Shimon Peres, Renault-Nissan CEO Charles Ghosan, and members of the world's press corps in attendance.

During the press conference, PEP's Agassi cut right to the chase:

** by 2010, over 100,000 EVs will populate Israel's clogged roads.

** by that same year, PEP will be rolled out over 5 countries worldwide.

** with the price of a barrel of oil now approaching its likely midpoint of $100/bbl (likely to end up at $150/bbl, according to market experts), countries that don't stockpile sufficient petroleum reserves will be forced -- very much like heroin addicts with festering injection sores on their forearms -- to go "black gold" cold turkey. Ergo, the EV.

** the price of maintaining and running a car in Israel today costs more than thrice its original purchase price (the cost of an Israeli gallon [= approx. 4 litres] of gas today exceeds 6 USD. That's more than 1.50 USD/litre, and rising).

** the Renault-Nissan-PEP initiative in Israel will operate very much like mobile phone pre-paid credits. Pre-pay for what use, and hedge against petroleum-rate fluctuations by locking in your monthly operational costs in advance.

Have a spin around the blogosphere and PEP's site for yourself, since there's heaps of material on offer.

~~~~

The Czech Republic could seriously use some EVs on its roads. At least in the big cities, and especially for fancy tourist spots like Prague.

Exhaust fumes, over time, erode the surfaces of our Slovenian-designed, Austro-Hungarian-financed, and Czechoslovak-constructed masterpieces in Prague's Inner District. They make breathing exceedingly difficult. They're revolting. And in the ultimate coup de grace -- they are cacophonously disruptive.

EVs could solve many of these conundrums, especially if Renault-Nissan delivers on its vaunted promise to make its EVs' chassis sexy enough to have mass appeal.

And here in Central Europe, we're small enough, brave enough, and technologically-gifted enough to justify a large rollout of EVs in our adolecent democracy.

My recommendation? Let's start small. Let's a introduce these EVs into a manageable, industrialized, constructive (read: non-lazy) market like Brno/Bruenn, and with some success, we can gradually transition them to sleepy Praha/Prag. From there, to Slovakia, and onward -- mush, mush! -- further east.

Not a bad idea, if you ask me...

21. 01.

A Czech approach to reducing our environmental footprint

It's been quite the environmental day for me today.

I had the distinct pleasure of covering a great resource care of The Guardian's online edition, its list of "50 people who could save [our] planet." Of course, I was shocked to discover that there were no Czechs or Slovaks to be found on that resume. Not only no Czechs or Slovaks, but also no Hungarians, Romanians, Estonians, nor Poles neither. Which, if you really want to get technical, that means no post-Communist, former-Bloc-istes on the list.

Which is a right pity, if you ask me...

Here we are, friends, the powerhouse of the middle, the firm bulge, the most successful trading economy of the post-Communist universe (despite the recent inflationary trends and the potential fallout from same), that nation where marketers love to come to trial their products and services -- because Czech people dig new things -- yet, bohuzel, one thing we can't boast of is our innovation in the environmental department.

Skoda...

Well, this shouldn't be the case. And allow me to bang out a number of reasons why:

1) We're only 10 million people, concentrated primarily in a handful of large cities: As such, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to simply mandate the reduction of Czech society's environmental footprint in the various big towns (egs. Prague, Pilsen, Brno, Ostrava, Liberec, Pardubice). An inspirational leader who doesn't have clandestine dealings with all manner of big power interests -- who likely won their contracts as part of the late-90s transitional shenanigans -- should likely have no trouble delivering the needed diktat from on-high.

2) We already have the required infrastructure to immediately reduce our fossil fuel consumption patterns: If we take the example of Prague's Inner District (Numbers 1, 2, and parts of 5, 7, and 9), it was never built to accommodate the astronomical number of flash cars which rocket across its cobbled lanes. I suspect it wouldn't be all that difficult -- especially given the recent spate of ODS financial reforms (or CSSD-inspired reforms, depending on which side of the partisan divide you're on, dear MPs) -- to enforce a zero-guff, no-car, no-lorry, no-gas-powered vehicle, no-niente...save for the drunks driving the municipal clean-up pods, in the immediate inner-city area.

Just imagine how many innocent lives will be saved without passive-aggressive cab drivers zooming through our tourist-filled streets, making a mockery of our hard-won progressive reputation in many Western European capitals.

Then we have the needlessly controversial Temelin nuclear reactor, and our second plant, Dukovany. For a family of four over a twenty-five year period, the end-waste product from the consumption of a similar amount of nuclear versus electrical power wouldn't as much as fill a small shot glass.

While this would take a massive bite out of the CEZ, E.ON, and PRE oligopoly, dependence on coal- and gas-fired electrical generating stations would make the miraculous act of breathing in certain Czech and Slovak cities scads easier.

But where is the courage to enforce this? We lost all our inspirational leadership at the same time we lost our industrial prowess when the Allies failed to keep their end of the bargain at the end of WWII...but that's a whole 'nother bag of roasted chestnuts...

3) We are a flexible nation of consumer trial: Marketers from across the Western economies have an industry-wide expression, which I'll share with you now: "What works in the Czech Republic, works further east." Have you ever trekked further east and noticed how many similar companies operate in the neighbouring countries (egs. Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine) merely because they were successful in Cesko?

It boggles even the low-IQ'd mind why we can't be equally as innovative when it comes to trying out new environmental projects.

Just consider how easy such initiative would be to manage in Prague, for example. Compare our inexcusable paltry efforts to the massive revamp the City of London's Ken Livingstone is spearheading for 2010 and beyond. He's eliminating nearly all vestiges of vehicular traffic in that capital city, utilizing more green spaces, and will be reclaiming the Thames artery as a regular means of transport by ferrying people all across London. Then come improvements to the rail network around the Greater London Area, then the airports and the the Underground...

If we're looking for new Foreign Direct Investment streams to the Czech Republic -- once all the light- and heavy-manufacturing concerns (read: Asian auto sector) decides to get the hell out of Cesko/Slovensko for greener pastures further east -- then why not look here? Every major Czech city and hamlet autorein in fifteen years? Not entirely inconceivable, if you ask me...

4) Environmental projects as a deft presidential snub: Fanciful scenario, this one is, since we all know Mr. Svejnar will win the behind-the-scenes-take-our-word-for-it-it's-100%-fair presidential election in a couple of weeks' time. But in the unlikely event Mr. Svejnar does not, illogically, win the head of state's nod, he might always use the environmental issue against Mr. Klaus as a political crowbar. That is, once he theoretically establishes his new political faction in Parliament.

What might begin as a wicked political dig might just work itself out into something which benefits the entire nation.

And lastly...

5) Continuing to differentiate ourselves from our neighbours: Fact: the Czech Republic is distinctly unlike Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine.

Fact: we are a highly-developed, highly-competent, highly-industrialized, neutral, violence-free (for the most part) nation which was pitifully hoovered into the post-War Communist vortex against our national will. Where the cards might have fallen had the Allies forged ahead at the tail end of the War to Prague, no one can guess.

All this to say that we can continue to reinforce our splendid isolation with increasing attempts at brilliance in the environmental portfolio.

Our "leaders," with lay-it-on-thick assistance from the grassroots/NGOs, could continue to hammer out cutting-edge environment legislation which positions us at the regional environmental vanguard. Not to mention making us the healthy envy of the CEE region.

In colloquial language, kids, this is definitely putting our money where our mouth is. Enough of this "talk tough" rubbish without actually doing something to back it up.

~~~~

Like I said, a distinctly Czech approach to reducing the environmental footprint? Definitely within our power.

18. 01.

Introducing the "Shadow" Czech EU Council Presidency

"Europe Without Borders."

Well, that's our lofty slogan. Our official 2009 EU Council Presidency version of same.

Yet it remains to be seen whether this will actually come to pass, or worse, whether these high and mighty cliches will fizzle into nothing short of feeylgood nonsense.

You know, I've been doing a great deal of thinking lately about our upcoming Presidency, which for our international readers who don't yet know, is set to take place from Janurary to June 2009. Cesko's European stewardship is to form part of the France-CR-Sweden Triplet, as it's officially become known around EU inner-circles.

You see, readers, despite what ultimately happens with the Lisbon Treaty -- and whether its passing will gravely de-fang the Czech version of the rotating EU institution -- there still remains plenty of room for innovation. Deputy PM Vondra has cited this fact on many occasions -- calling on fellow Bohemians, Moravians, and Silesians (and various Czech-Poles on the border regions) to be creative during our time heading the 27-member bloc.

As for me, I've been thinking of several key areas on how contribute to the realization of this grand vision. I've come up with several ideas, but here's one for you.

Introducing...the "Shadow" EU Council Presidency.

My concept is a purely citizen initiative. It will have its own URL and will furnish a variety of e-resources to the entire world during the half year during which Cesko -- de jure -- becomes the Continent.

The Shadow Presidency's portal will contain innovative citizen-initiated audio, video, and technical offerings which tells the story about what's going on in this country -- as pertains to the European Union.

It will be without all the usual bluster.

It will have none of the usual fluff-job you're going to get over at the Czech government's official version of same.

And it will run in parallel to our government's site. It will, of course, be entirely free.

When I say the Czech Republic becomes Europe for six months, I mean precisely that.

When a journalist or curiosity-seeker in a far-flung locale like Dili, East Timor, Kabul, or Nauru, seeks information about the European Union's present initiatives, all EU websites will automatically forward to ours.

Those PR golems earning cushy salaries manning the site's emails will politely refer punters to all needed resources and links. They will be charged with putting a very glossy shine on the CR's minutest activity at the EU's helm. That sites daily e-outs will likely contain a great deal of spin. In short, the site will be boring.

But the Shadow Presidency website avoids all this.

From there, you'll have access to a wide variety of resources which speak to you in lingo you can identify with. None of that official yakkity-yak, the stuff entirely devoid of emotion which you're likely going to hail down at Euroskop.cz.

Go head...partake of a grab-bag of technologies you already use:

** Get your daily dose of views from local opinion leaders -- people who haven't been invited to participate on the sycophantic EU Council Presidency team as persona non grata.

** Help to monitor the activities of the Czech government, ensuring that our elected leaders aren't damaging one of the select chances we'll have for a long while to shine, just when the spotlight is focussed on us, and only us.

** Get your views directly into the inboxes of EU Parliamentarians and Commissioners, who will finally realize how unique we actually are.

The Shadow Presidency website will run in parallel to the government's version. It will achieve high pass-through because you and your friends will like what it puts out there, and you'll tell your friends all about its existence. Moreover, it can be read in several languages, with fluid translations into English, French, and German. There will be none of that B-Class stuff over at CTK (no umbrage to CTK, but your budgetary shortfalls are slaying your English-language offerings!).

Where do you find this URL, you ask? Who's running this project? Well, that's for you, my friends, to decide. I offer this to you.

Someone out there should grab this one. Someone out there should seize the bull by the horns and show the planet just what this nation is made of.

Someone should really start to care.

Because if you're expecting Europe to do it for you, then we're really in more trouble than we thought.

15. 01.

Don't do it Mr. Svejnar! Please...

The KSCM crowbar is the one tool in the politico's closet which he never wants to use. It's like Frodo's ring...slip it on and things start happening. While it may just get you out of a bevy of hairy situations, it doesn't come without its disastrous consequences.

Alright, alright, so what's the "KSCM crowbar," you ask?

Well, say you're trying to jimmy open a door, right? It's shut tight -- rusted even -- and no matter how much lubrication you use -- no matter how much you attempt to cajole that damned thing open -- you just can't crack it.

So what do you do?

Well, in the political world, the panicky MP or presidential candidate reaches into his or her satchel of tools and pulls out their trusty KSCM crowbar. It's the equivalent to Ali Baba shouting "open sesame," and in the Czech Republic, the television commercial on Nova would go as follows:

~~~~

It slices!

It dices!

It cuts cleaner than a Ginsu knife!

It's the best thing since sliced bread! (And we ain't talking about the loaf you used to get waiting in the old bread line).

Stoprocentne ne dame a panove.

It's the KSCM Crowbar...

~~~~

Why is the Czech Republic one of a handful -- if not the only -- of post-Communist countries where the reconstituted "Communist Party" receives such statistically-significant voter support? Support so strong that it can boast the lofty reputation of being the third-largest supported party in Parliament?!

Before you jump all over this post to slay me -- killing me a thousand times over, more than the proverbial cat's nine lives -- allow me to admit my knowledge of Czech history for our non-Czech readers chiming in for their daily dose v cizine.

Yes, I'm patently aware that the present existence of Commie and pinko dinosaurs in the Lower House comes courtesy of the famous "Czechoslovak Rapprochement," openly declared in the media by former President Havel and his Civic Forum friends. Not as much as a shred of contribution was solicited from the populace.

During that Age of Aquarius which overwhelmed the former Czechoslovakia during those fateful November days, few knew what was to befall our newly free nation. So Havel & Co.'s understanding was to not go after these jerks (and jerkettes!) for hear of the hidden sympathies they might still preserve with a significant set of the (rural) Czechoslovak people, riling them up to destroy the koombaya spirit overwhelming our nation at that time.

But that was then, and this is now...and this isn't a history lesson.

It's a heartfelt missive to Mr. Svejnar:

PLEASE DON'T DO IT, JOHNNY BOY! DON'T, DON'T, DON'T!

The wires this morning had talk about Jan Svejnar's majestic attempt at Commie grab ass-ery. He'd gone on the record of making light of latter-day Commie machinations in the upcoming presidential elections, going so far as to suggest they might potentially form parts of future ruling coalitions were they to "significantly reform their ways...surrender[ing] all ties to their past totalitarianism."

Mr. Svejnar is the last person in Czechlands to need schooling in the delicate arts of political management. He, too, knows only too well that "Communism" -- unlike the brown fizzy drink with the red and white colour scheme -- doesn't come in "lite" flavour.

Which is why I can't help but observe -- as have you -- that Our Man has begun to shake, rattle, and roll.

He's reached into his tidy little wooden box and fished out the KSCM crowbar, having difficulty holding it in his hands because he's got a bad case of panic attack.

Poor Mr. Svejnar has regrettably saved the worst for last.

He realized early on (or his Czech handlers did all the way from the States) that at some stage he'd have to do the foxtrot with baboons like Filip and Dolejs. Yet he didn't want to contemplate this at the outset of his campaign, knowing how it might harm his prospects for High Ceremonial Office.

But the boom has fallen, kids...

The door has remained stubbornly shut for Our Man and the KSCM crowbar might be just the thing to pry it open, once and for all.

And if it works for Svejnar, it could work for you too.

Who deserves the blame for this one? A seventy-one year old poet-playwright?

Or the people of this fine land who have not yet learned how to seize the democratic day?

Questions, questions...

14. 01.

Kenyan distractions for the Czech self-absorbed

A naturalized Czech colleague of mine from Canada, who runs just about the finest coffee chain you'll ever find in this here Golden City (email me offline for all the juicy details and the address), recently forwarded me a copy of a heartfelt "open letter" written by one of Kenya's foremost female social activists, the incomparable Shailja Patel.

Let's set the scene for you, folks, so that we're on the same page here: it's morning -- none of that familiar spring birdsong outside my office window -- and where I'm located right now it's cold and snowy, the early morning factory workers scurrying off to work, sucking in the harsh cold air as they scurry between the snow mounds on their way to the factory.

East Africa is the furthest thing from my (and their) mind(s), that is, until I opened up my Inbox this morning to receive my colleague's email...

Something tells me that East Africa is the furthest thing from Czech minds as well, folks, which is the reason why Kenya is the subject of our entry today.

I can't tell you enough what a welcome break Patel's letter was for me!

What with the swirling, roiling accusations levelled by the various constituent ruling (and gadfly non-ruling) parties in Czech Parliament. What with the imbecilic he-said/she-said claptrap and tomfoolery which Prague and other decent Czech citizens fill their heads with, to the detriment of being truly engaged with what's really going on in the rest of the world.

Patel's single letter, one which drove the message straight home that we in the Czech lands have been so pitifully self-absorbed these past few months by matters which can be characterized as nothing short of complete utter nonsense.

I'm sure you've been following the latest items off the wires here in the Czech lands. A quick recap would suffice:

** the jockeying and horse-trading over the relative merits/demerits of the two candidates vying to become our next Head of State (an entirely figurehead post, and with very little legislative authority, at least as per our Constitution).
** the fate of a 33-year old Brno-ite woman who has been masquerading as an adolescent girl -- then as a Norwegian adolescent boy -- but whom is now safely in Czech custody, yet whose various psychological evaluations continue to grip the captive attentions of our statelet's hoi-polloi.
** the reinstatement of a vilely bigoted so-called "Christian" MP to the Czech cabinet, despite the strident protestations of one of that same government's junior ruling coalition members (i.e. the SZ). Just last week, said former deputy PM weighed in once again -- on national television, no less -- with yet another one of his infamous broadsides against his apparently favourite antogonists, the CR's hapless Roma (Jean Valjean, eat your Les Miserables heart out!...Prefect Javer's got nothing on our swashbuckling Moravian, George Cunek).

Are we for bloody real?!

Do we deign to be proud by the shame of subjecting our pathetic internal affairs to the harsh, invasive light of public opinion abroad? For those dinosaurs in other parts of Cesko who don't think this is happening, it is now patently available with the technologies presently at our disposal.

How can we claim to be proud about this at all?!

My dear friends, it's time to give ourselves a break. Time to downshift from our lofty positions and high-faluin' pronouncements, to soberly retreat -- key word here is soberly -- realize that we're not the centre of the universe, and that our internal affairs are exclusively that -- our internal affairs.

Back to Ms. Patel...

Here's a woman with a unitary mission: to get the Kenya Police Force and the country's General Service Unit to cease and desist with all of their "population pacifying" activities, their blasting of the thousands of protesting masses with water canons, and their reckless strafing and shooting into Nairobi's idle crowds seeking to reinstate their duly elected leader, Raila Odinga, as president.

Now here's a woman who dwells within a veritable hell (today's Kenya)...not a hell of her own making (Exhibit A: the Czech Republic).

It's time to stop taking ourselves so seriously, folks. It's high time we seize the fact that our central European position offers us a unique and precious outlook on the rest of the Continent and the world, and to share with that same world the blessed spirit of equanimity and neutrality which is our legacy and expertise. What gives us the right to do otherwise?

Anything else is crybaby behaviour. No matter how you slice it, that's the god-honest truth.

From the outside looking in, we can often be a bunch of self-absorbed, selfish Middle Europeans with a lot of idle time on our hands for troublemaking.

William Golding would be proud. What was it again...Lord of the Flies?

11. 01.

End of the educational gravy train?

I was giving the whole "pay for play" university thing a good once-over this morning, and I came up with the following short list of why paying for one's undergrad education (what the Brits call, ahem..."tertiary") in the Czech Republic is a fine thing indeed.

So without further ado...

1) More cash at a university's disposal to hire better, more inspirational instructors: Something I've often heard from various university-going types is their absolute disdain for the pinko-type instructors whom Czech institutions of higher learning seem to generally have as faculty. How they have difficulty identifying with the worldviews of the teachers who lecture them, what with their "socialist" pasts and falsely tenured positions, unfairly earned as they are. Theoretically, if you have more money in the kitty, you have more funds to employ more elaborate hiring strategies. You can even import lecturers from way abroad. Kind of like what the good people at the University of Northern Virginia in Prague are presently doing. Have a listen at how paid-for studies is improving the educational landscape right here in the capital.

2) Greater student appreciation for the education received, minus the usual backsliding: When a degree takes approximately five years to finish, there's bound to be gaps in the schedule when a student's concentration wanes. The need to suddenly pay for your own education results in the following two immediate spinoff benefits: a) since it's your money on the line, wasting it by slacking off is no longer an option. It'll cost you more dough if you decide to slouch, and b) students could conceivably demand those courses which appeal to their particular interests, since they're ultimately paying for it. Allow me to elaborate...courses today come in "vanilla"-type flavours. Students could instigate a tidal wave of change by demanding the delivery of "non-vanilla"-types like "Economic Stagnation on the African Continent," "Chinese New Investment Strategies in the Developing World," or "Basic WWW Skills for the Budding E-Entrepreneur." Moreover, they could demand university-level language instruction which wouldn't cost them a buchta at, say, Berlitz or at any of the hundreds of other language schools ripping students off around Prague. Top three tongues, in my opinion, should be English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese. In that order.

3) Putting an end -- once and for all -- to the Entitlement Era: Shock doctrine? Or necessary evil? The persistent expectation that the Czech State owes its various citizens an education beyond the secondary level is an anachronism, in my view. I fully expect to hear this from the Older Generation, but out of the mouths of babes?! Uzasny! The Web is chock-a-block with self-teaching resources, where anyone with the will or the hunger can venture out on their own to find precisely what they need. If the State's done a successful job of equipping you with the needed cerebral wherewithal during grade school, you won't continue needing it to point you in the right direction by the time you hit university -- you'll be able to take matters into your own hands. This "nanny state" nonsense at the university level in the 21st-century is wholly unacceptable. The youth of this country needs to start bootstrapping and bucking up. Doing so will ensure the country's continued economic growth into the future, and avoid the mass production of Borg-like clones, middle-classing it all the way until adulthood. What I'm talking about is a good, clean, survival of the fittest entrepreneurial spirit inculcated during the impressionable university years. This might be the solution.

4) Freeing up State resources to keep vital skills instruction 100% free: What the government might want to consider still providing for free is intensive crash courses in various European business languages: English, French, German, and Spanish. Devote all paid-in student tuitions towards hiring younger teachers, improving facilities, and offering free Wi-Fi throughout campus. As for the balance? Have the State kickstart a Scandinavian-style foreign language assault to get younger Czechs speaking foreign languages, more often. At present, foreign language know-how in the CR is high, yet the desire to speak is low. This has much to do with the type of confidence instilled in the Czech home. When your parents and grandparents are constantly browbeating you to "keep your expectations reasonable," to "reign in those dreams, sunshine," and to not think nor speak in too grandiose of terms, it's got to have a psychological effect in your interactions with others. While this is maudlin or cute in private company, it's a surefire way to dampen economic growth in an increasingly globalized EU, not to mention world.

5) For-pay university education forces young Czechs, over time, to be more entrepreneurial: Presently, the thin air of entrepreneurial success is inhaled only by those with that all-critical access. Regrettably, the success path from A to B to C is an obscure one for the young Czech: if s/he doesn't initially hitch his cart to the right racehorse, the chance of resurrecting a career is next to impossible. However, the need to finally pay for one's own education will cause the Czech student to think in more innovative ways. It will force young Czechs to take the proverbial steer by the horns, or make do with much less; all key skills in the hack-and-slash globalized world of the 21st-century. It will force them to take more independent responsibility, instead of always seeking to be lead, oftentimes without their even knowing it. It will inculcate more needed "soft" skills, and yank us out of the endless quicksand of strictly technical education, which we're great at, but which the Chinese and Indians will eventually trounce us at.

~~~~

To be sure, there have been exciting efforts in this direction at institutions of higher learning like VSE in Prague. I've heard about the new "English-language" stream there, but when the lead instructors are in the majority former Commie-sympathizers or regime hangers-on, it's the equivalent of -- like my Dad used to say -- "throwing good money after bad."

I say bring on the for-pay system! Heck, you don't have to pay it back until you land a good job later. And if you think you're that good, then what do you have to worry about?

In closing, we don't have a 60% income tax regime like Sweden or Finland to continue affording free university education for our up-and-comers. It's time to look at this soberly, and without mudslinging.

The Prime Minister is definitely onto something here...

10. 01.

Some presidential campaign tips

Alright. It's already quite clear that I'm safely ensconced in the Svejnar camp. If you didn't already know that, then punch this and this and enjoy a cup of coffee, on me. Were a popular election for president to be held today, my ballot would most certainly be with the good professor...a man who would assume the distinguished mantle of the ceremonial office with aplomb and due class.

Pan Svejnar would take the conch shell of the presidency to rise high above the pettiness of what passes for parliamentary politics on the Lesser Side. He would face the world with a newfound dignity that would make us, the Czechs, the envy of our various European neighbours, handling those media scrums and interviews like a seasoned pro.

But don't take my word for it.

Those of you who haven't heard the man speak, see if you can cajole a few English sentences out of the man and be convinced for yourselves. Accent-free bilingualism is really, really cool.

Still, it's funny, you know.

For some bizarre reason, there remains a critical mass of Czech citizens who still aren't cottoning onto this fact. They don't understand that the various things we -- via our elected and unelected leaders (eg. Klaus) -- say here in our Central European playground will, within seconds, reach across the divide of oceans and continents, channelling through the mp3 players of young people in locales as obscure as Wellington, New Zealand. Press a button here, and like a pebble tossed into a still pool, there are repercussions elsewhere.

We dwell in a living, breathing wired-up ecosystem. Il Duce (Mr. Klaus) doesn't want you to believe this, because, well, he knows what's best for you.

Okay, Dad...

At present -- for those of our anglophone readers at this site -- Jan Svejnar is out and about on the road, Kerouac-ing it up with his campaign team (as Madame Svejnarova is back Stateside) as part of the run up to February 8th's presidential contretemps.

He's pressing the flesh with former Ostravan factory workers, kissing Czech babies in Zlin, and knocking back several shots of Becherovka (chased with Pilsner, 'natch) in those brightly-lit, barf-coloured tableclothed former Commie hospody in regional towns all around our fair Middle Republic. All this in a bid to get his name out there as part of what is being termed Svejnar's "American-style" stump campaign. And so far, it's doing the trick.

Recently, as part of my spirited email exchanges with Svejnar's campaign team, I expressed reservations about the lack of an electronic newsletter or a blog at the Contenda's campaign website. With about a month remaining before the tip-off, there's still heaps of time left to influence Czech public opinion -- ideally favourably -- for Mr. Svejnar. A nice chunk of time left to get the Czech people onside, enough time left to do wonders with the sycophantic hordes of the public broadcaster's reporters and scribes. The potential, as you'll clearly agree, is enormous.

With the speed with which both good and, more likely, bad, words get out there in the marketplace, it's a right mystery which Mr. Svejnar's planning team didn't consider this when laying out his website's tech specs. Mind-boggling, actually. So I promptly fired off a missive to Svejnar's campaign team to reinforce my previous statement that some effort on this front needed critical attention.

When you think about it, it wouldn't take all that much additional effort to effect it, you know. In our age of cookie-cutter web design, just a few clicks here and there and -- poof -- you're up and running. Good as gold.

To be sure, there will be those native Czechs who will claim my suggestion is pointless. I can just hear the litany of usual suspects ringing in my waxless ear, enough to make me want to run to the WC and hurl:

~~~~

"Czechs don't think like that. It's not possible. You don't understand the culture."

"We don't need your American ideas here!" (Mr. Svejnar's, I presume, would be included in that rubric).

"Mr. Klaus is going to win anyways, so what's the point?"

~~~~

Buck up!

Not furnishing the electorate with all of the technological tools presently on offer is bad campaign strategy, in my opinion. In a frenetic-paced world where anything can happen at a moment's notice -- where the fates of candidates, nations, and the world can switch on a dime -- why not account for all the possibilities?

Viral marketing is king in the 21st-century. Newsletters and blogs are part of it. What you say here matters way over there, and you, my friends, are very powerful indeed. What they say there influences what happens here. It's that ecosystem thing I was talking about.

Why our presidential candidates won't do something like the brilliant people over at Keta-Keta simply boggles my mind.

It's dually insulting. Once, to you, as electors, and then to the Czech mentality, which is deliciously sophisticated.

So hop online and let them know how you feel.

If a non-Czech Czech can do it, so should you.

08. 01.

The United Colours of Czechia

No, this is definitely not your father's Czechia...

Welcome to the new and improved Cesko, ctenari. As we here at the heart of Europe become more fully integrated into the "New European" way of doing things, Czech society is also beginning to fundamentally change for the better. Daily, we're making giant strides that are briskly making up for the more than four decades of our misguided socialist backward criminal past.

Look around you on the streets, people, and marvel at the newcomers who have been washing up on our cobbled Bohemian shores.

How their new colours and styles of dress are forcing us to change our crusty ideas about global culture, a privilege no longer confined to the narrow Czech minority who have had good fortune to travel extensively abroad.

Bam!

The newcomers are finally coming home to roost in the Czech lands, and they're here to stay.

Newcomers who deliver new customs, new ways of dress, and new languages for us to contemplate. All of this faster than a game of five-card stud. Changes that are monumental and overwhelming in the extreme, for a nation like ours on the economic fast track, not quite virginal but not quite "experienced in the sack" either.

I, like you, welcome these changes.

I, like you, hardly think these developments will do anything to diminish our national stature. Rather than harm our vaunted national institutions (egs. the Czech language, Czech culture, our political development) all these new societal strains will only bolster them. They will ricochet back to us in ways we will hardly anticipate, tremendously good ways.

How do I mean?

Let's try this example on for size (one which has been tried time and again in my native Canada.)

A young refugee from Afghanistan arrives at Ruzyne Airport in Prague. Both of his parents have been killed over the course of the more than three decades of constant battle in his native land. He has been selected by a roving Scandinavian EU emissary in his birth province of Kandahar to emigrate to one of the 27 Member States. He has -- in essence -- won the lottery.

As part of its obligations to Brussels and its European confreres, the Czech Republic has been selected as that country. Part of the burgeoning democracy's "refugee and asylum" obligations to the Union. All hail.

The young South Asian arrives in Prague, boldly embarking upon his new life. He quickly enrolls in an intensive Czech language immersion class -- and as he speaks Pashtu and Urdu fluently -- he is put to work in an absorption office as part of a joint Czech-Slovak effort to more fluidly integrate its various Pakistani and Afghani new immigrants. The two, former allies eating their hearts out over their impetuous split back in the "drunk with nationalism" '90s (Havel vs. Meciar would have made for a wicked slugfest back in the day -- Havel minus the paunch, Meciar, without Slota's ugly goons in his corner).

But back to our young Afghani...

Soon, he begins to earn well and his linguistic confidence rises. He speaks the vernacular as well as any native, and over the telephone a native Bohemian would be surprised to learn his name and surname are not typically of the region.

He soon weds a local girl -- an ethnic Czech -- and while she doesn't covert to Islam, she does integrate aspects of her husband's culture into her worldview and behaviour. One nurtures the other. Like mushrooms in fertilizer.

Do you see it? I do.

This sort of activity is only set to increase in the coming months, and as our country becomes more famous the world-over -- both for its unique approaches to humanitarian causes (hooray Mr. Schwarzenberg!) and for its non-violent lifestyle -- it will become a magnet for people fleeing from persecution and insanity in their native states.

I've seen several successful examples of this in Eastern Slovakia, and I can't help but imagining how phenomenally edifying this would work for Cesko.

Considering how the various "new Canadians" have provided such a shot in the arm to my native country -- people like my parents in their day, and now people hailing from India, China, Hong Kong, Ethiopia, Argentina, etc. -- I'm almost breathless thinking how this will even further place us smack on the European map.

Woe to Czech knuckle-dragging types (read: antisocial bigoted apes) who loathe such observations on my part. To them, my scribblings are tantamount to national hari-kiri.

Oh well, to you I throw a banana. No, take two why don't you?

Like I said, this definitely ain't your father's Czech Republic...

07. 01.

DPP + CZK = AOK

Who likes shelling out more for something that used to cost so much less?

Well I surely don't.

Though I'll gladly join the vocal minority who doesn't seem to mind paying a wee bit more as part of the latest round of DPP (Prague Transit Authority) price hikes.

If you've been shooting around 100 Spire City since the advent of oh-eight, you've likely noticed the bright blue, green, and yellow stickers the good people at the DPP/Prague's Transit Authority have been slapping up of late on all ticket dispensing machines around the transit network. Someone puh-leeze snap a cam photo of this and email it onward so I can show people just what I'm talking about.

But all of this price-jacking has given me ample reason to smile.

Why, you ask?

Well, for one, developments such as these make you realize that our city is finally joining the ranks of the very highly developed. I can recall the dark days of my early trips to Prague, when my attempts to navigate the serpentine tunnels of Prague's Metro wasn't anything close to child's play. Until you got the hang of the line colours, signage, announcements in Czech, and the constant flow of bodies -- especially at transfer stations (tzv. Muzeum, Mustek) -- I did have the occasional tendency to get completely discombobulated.

But no longer. Not even for newcomers.

Metro station representatives are now very helpful when asking questions or for directions in either English or German. Even the goons who do ticket inspections at obscene hours of the night on Prague's tram lines -- seeking to collect their 500 crown penalties from the totally soused masses -- are politer as well. And if you haven't surfed on over to the DPP's website of late, you'll soon notice they're doing all they possibly can to make navigating the network abundantly easier, even before you set foot in the city.

You also probably think they're paying me for all of this extra publicity, don't you? Well, there's a moral to this story, kids.

There's likely a handful of readers who are totally put out of joint by the latest round of increases.

There are even some who might posit that the latest increases are purely opportunistic ones; not due to the budgetary cuts and corresponding tax increases heralded in under last year's ODS reforms (with much of the work likely done under the stewardship of CSSD bureaucrats).

By "opportunistic" I mean that Prague's Municipality is likely taking advantage of our city's growing European and international stature. More bodies to transport from A to B to C, as a result of higher visitorship to the city, means a more potential (read: greedy) revenue grab. As we usher in 2008, people will likely complain how the DPP poobahs are rubbing their greasy little paws behind HQ's closed doors, counting their millions of extra crownies.

These are those same people who would cite the relevant annual ridership statistics, claiming that the network isn't necessarily serving a greater number of riders, so why can't the cost of a simple non-transfer ticket remain at 14 crowns? What's with the 4 Kc increase? Are you trying to pull the wool over my eyes? What gives, kamos?

Well, I'm resigned to the fact I'll be getting a flurry of e-flames from my usual detractors. They'll complain about how it's the foreigners in our midst (like you, Captain Canada!) responsible for all of these price jacks, vole.

"If it weren't for all of you cheating Ukrainians, yanks, and Africans 'riding black' on the tram," they'd say, "there wouldn't be a need to raise the goddamn prices! Honest Czechs would never think of being so dishonest,'" they'd holler.

Well, while the isolationist neanderthals might indeed prefer to keep our lovely Golden Town cizinec-rein, the benefits to our city becoming increasingly more open have been -- conversely -- just fabulous.

We're more linguistically-talented as a result, able to serve the various needs of the many visitors to our city in their language of choice. Just the other day I met a restaurateur who speaks six tongues (!!!). Sitting in his establishment knocking back an espresso, I had the opportunity to hear him use at least three of them, not including cestina.

And we're more worldly-wise as a result...

African people aren't some sort of voodoo cannibals who dwell in some far-off continent spearing each other to death for sport. Don't laugh! Just last night I was chatting with one of my friends from the Central African Republic. He was telling me of a recent trip he took to Liberec to visit his Czech buddy. As he alighted from the bus, a man in the station approached (accosted?) him and asked what he was doing there. My friend -- who speaks fluent Czech and has been living here for seven years -- humoured him. The man replies -- and I kid you not -- "You mean you have white friends here?" My friend replies, "Ano, urcite." Then the caveman has the balls to ask him, "You have such white teeth, how is that possible with skin so black?"

And so on, and so forth.

Sure, I realize this was Northern Bohemia, not Prague. Though it's quite obvious stories like these demand an even stronger dose of that 'ole "foreigner magic." The same one which seems to have done wonders for the Czech capital.

If that means we all have to pony up an extra few crowns on the tram or Metro for the privilege, then so be it. I'm in like Flynn.

How about you?

04. 01.

President Svejnar: an outsider's perspective

While it's clear none of the following will be heeded by the Czech Powers That Be, it certainly does make for quite the instructive little exercise.

Allow me to list several very appropriate points why I think (His Excellency) Jan Svejnar would make for the obvious "people's choice" in February 8th's upcoming Mexican standoff:

1) Katherine Terrell Svejnar(ova) does not speak fluent Czech: while Madame Svejnarova has been parodied and lambasted in the Czech giggle-press for her poor grasp of the vernacular, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, folks. To be sure, this minor oversight will shortly be rectified with intensive lessons presently underway (and I have this on good information!). But this apparent inability of hers to fully comprehend the biting rumours and innuendo presently circulating in the blogosphere -- courtesy of legions of Czech journalistic hacks -- affords her a unique perspective the likes of which Livie Klausova could simply never have. In a manner of speaking, Madame Svejnarova might succeed in stepping back from particular contentious issues to supply His Excellency with alternative viewpoints which perhaps Mr. Svejnar might never arrive at himself, due to his complete understanding of the language and culture.

2) The Americans enjoy working with one of their own: Don't discount the fact, readers, that there are tremendous gains to be had from the United States being able to deal with one of their own kind. While Mr. Svejnar's eventual position should be largely ceremonial -- despite Mr. Klaus' desire to meld his Czech Presidency into a quasi-Ceasar -- Svejnar's fluency in the vernacular -- not to mention his understanding of the complex American mindset -- might permit his eventual presidential role to be a handy bridge between various contesting sides. Boiling points might thusly be entirely avoided.

3) Svejnar doesn't have Commie skeletons in his closet: Have you ever watched how evasive Klaus gets whenever some journalist (with cojones the size of Texas) queries him about his past activities during the People's Republic? His Picasso-esque ornate responses are the dancing equivalent to the cha-cha-cha. But no matter how thinly you slice it, baby, a duck, is a duck, is a duck. Svejnar hardly shares that past, and while he may have things of an entirely different nature to answer for during his days at Havel's hearth and knee -- His Excellency's would-be Presidency would be instrumental in forging a totally new chapter in the annals of the Czech Head of State. Neither fish (Havel = political prisoner par excellence) nor fowl (Klaus = a loyal operative in the State's key economic think tank), Svejnar would truly be -- in the immortal words of John Shaft ("Can you dig it?") -- "a brutha' from anutha' mutha'."

4) Newfound respect for the Czech state in all EU capitals: Agree with them or not, Klaus' controversial pronouncements often confound our various EU and UN interlocutors. It's no secret that Cesko's reputation has been taking a due hammering in the silent, smoke-filled rooms at various EU capitals since Klaus' volumnious statements have no place in his particular ceremonial role. So folks, I'm going to stress it again: the Czech Presidency is a "gimme" position! It's about fluff and pomp and fancy dinners. It's about expensive magnums of champagne and warm greetings between bilateral heads of state with promises to visit each other at their respective summer houses; it's not about getting our little statelet tarred and feathered behind the closed doors at global halls of meeting. Thinking about it from Klaus' perspective, I believe I understand why, in tarnation, he does this. It's because ten million souls have to stand their ground against the continuous Western onslaught. It's because 10 million souls in 2008 have to accept the yoke of our 400-year occupationist past; to hell what this garners us in the modern era! Klaus, apparently, has a direct phone hookup to our ancestors and -- doggone it -- he ain't gonna let it all go to hell in a handbasket. Not on his watch! But while Klaus has been off on his megalomaniacal "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" thing, standing in as the Czech version of William "Braveheart" Wallace, he's been making us look like blathering buffoons. Who's responsible for this? Our MPs? Our Senators? Us?

5) Ma, it's time for a change!: Klaus wants to remain in power because it grants him either of two upsides: (a) he gets to keep his fingers on the levers of power, affording him an opportunity to work his black magic as Grey Eminence behind the scenes, manipulating his governing ODS confreres via his favourite blunt instrument, the Everest-summiting pitbull, Pavel Bem, and (b), it keeps all those nasty secrets of our "Hammer & Sickle" past at bay, thereby deferring the long-overdue Czech requirement to duly apologize and fully compensate those families persecuted during the 1950s in show trials and various other Czechoslovak sham affairs. Electing Mr. Svejnar would finally demonstrate to the citizens of this fine nation that the winds of change indeed do blow strong in the Czech Republic. It would put demons to rest. It will invigorate our aimless youth, giving them a role model to (finally) shoot for -- someone whom they could emulate and whose backstory they could entirely respect.

~~~~

All in all, if it's a wise grandfatherly figure we're looking for, then why not Mr. Svejnar?!

The latter's bilingualism and his knowledge of the American cultural, academic, and political scenes would once-and-for-all demonstrate -- especially to young, impressionable Czechs in search of a Kennedy-like role model -- that, in the apt words of the amazing band Timbukthree -- "...the future's so bright, you gotta wear shades..."

02. 01.

Czechoslovakia, um...forever?

Oh, it used to be such a wonderful place, that sliver of triangular territory on which the jewel of the Danube presently rests.

Bratislava -- or Partyslava, to those who know her best -- that old annointing ground and seat of the sacred Hungarian kings of yore.

Blava, that quintessential mitteleuropaisch metropole, where you could order a cuppa and a slice 'o cake in at least four different tongues (German, Hungarian, Slovak, or Czech), and be understood fluently by all and sundry. Even the garbage man could speak 'em all.

Yep, to those who lived during the era when it was still politically correct to refer to oneself as a dyed-in-the-wool Czechoslovak, the inter-war period was a heady time indeedy-do.

Bratislava was a key way-station on the road to Czechoslovak shangri-la, and those who were alive during that era -- people like my so-hip-it-hurts father -- remember it best. This is what he emailed me recently when I'd asked him about those long-ago delectable days:

"Down the street from us lived the Schlesingers. They were a nice family who sold assorted tschotchkes for a living, and, mind you, kid, they made a good go at it. On top of our flat lived Mr. and Mrs. Toth. They used to argue a lot between them in Hungarian, and the smell of Mrs. Toth's goulash-baking and paprikash-basting used to creep up through the thin floor boards of our old cold-water apartment. Mother used to shout down to them in a combination of Germano-Slovakian to cut out their culinary shenanigans, and somehow...just somehow...the Toths understood her. On the subject of raising your voice, Father used to shout until the cows came home at our landlord -- Mr. Krause -- but Old Man Krause just kept using his frequent trips to Vienna as an excuse never to do anything about it. I even remember asking a Czech(oslovak) policeman for directions to the cinema. He thought I was cute, and called me a 'jeden maly chuligan' in Czech, and it made me smile. Somehow, it all seemed to work. That was life on the edge. That was life in Middle Europe. I miss it so."


Don't you just love my dad?

But then the War came -- the Munich Arbitrage had the Wermacht stationing troops on the other side of the Danube (where Petrzalka presently lies, in all its panelaky glory) -- and that halcyon time was wiped out, forever. Nazi soldiers used to take potshots at the young Slovaks walking along the banks of the Danube as they hustled double-time to parochial school.

A topsy-turvy time indeed.

Hele, none of this registers on the radar screen of today's latter-day inheritors of the Stefanik-ian and Masaryk-ian dual legacies.

Our brash ICQ-ing skateboarding Czech and Slovak adolescents, according to a recent study cranked out by the harmless neo-socialists at Mlada Fronta Dnes, have no means of apparently communicating with each other.

Like blindfolded shadowboxers, the next generation from areas outside their respective capitals hardly seem to know that one another exists. Linguistically and otherwise, they're swatting at the air in front of them as they helplessly attempt to gain their bearings.

To Czechs, Slovakia is as good as in the former Yugo, as far as these Pardubice-ites are concerned.

Friends, yesterday marked fifteen years since our regretful parting.

It's a day that has gone down in infamy east of the dotted line on the Central European map. While there are those na Slovensko who are jingoistically pleased that Slovakia is no longer a part of the Czechoslovak Manifest Destiny, I and my various Slovakian confreres marked yesterday by daubing our faces with ash and donning sackcloth (on top of our thermal underwear, naturally).

** We still listen to Czech music.
** We watch all of our classic 1970s films shot by Orson Welles in Croatia with Czech dubbing.
** We buy all of our electronics goods from Big Momma Tesco, even though none of the manuals are in Slovak. We read and can even mimic your lingo, but you don't seem to understand ours.
** We have no problems being referred to as Czechoslovaks as we meander about the planet in search of greener pastures in the West.
** We invite you to ski our Tatras, even accepting your money while you hardly recognize ours.

So I make one humble request today of you, dear readers: when you go out there on those Prague, Brno, or Ostrava streets, reach out for the nearest Slovak and give them a massive bear hug.

Like a turkey shoot, there are masses of us out there -- thousands, even -- so your work's not going to be too difficult.

Ask them some questions to show them you care. Tell them they mean as much to you as you do to them.

Because, for some of us, this will always remain Czechoslovakia forever. Despite the most strident protestations of those temporarily deceived by illusions of grandeur.

Not mentioning any names, of course...

Dovi a majte sa,
ADM