The things I learned through my university years

I recently graduated Master’s (brag brag brag) and now I am off the real world, wondering how to use my knowledge effectively in it… I think it’s time to revise all I learned.

So here it is:
Economics: If you wanna make your country thrive, of course you can act protectionist. But you ave to be careful about not protecting ineffective sectors of your economy.
And… we shouldn’t talk much about the economics crisis. It’s like Voldemort. It shouldn’t be mentioned.

Future of Europe: Czechs eat horrible and drink a lot. And foreigners love that about our country.

Russian language: Russians are weird. And that “b” like letter is a bitch.

Stratetic studies: Russia bad. America good. we only purchase weapons to protect peace. Nuclear weapons are good, unless Russia, Iran or North Korea get them (shhhh, about Israel. *points to other shiny things*).
In warfare invetion is crucial. And if everything fails, try to extract important information from enemy’s concubines (thanks Sun Tzu).

Geopolitics: Heartland, Rimland, shatterbelt, blah blah blah, Chinese are going to get us.

History of 20th century: Stalin had yellow eyes. And during Lenin’s early days in Kremlin, there was a lot of crows and Lenin was highly disturbed by them. So they started to shooting them, only it disturbed Lenin even more. And all the movies about Samurais are untrue.

The USA and New Europe: Bush wasn’t that bad, ya’ll. And New Europe is not that new actually.

Theories of war and peace: I actually learned a lot about conflict resolution in this class. Only it’s never been implemented in real world. At least not succesfully. I may try to implement these in some hellzone, if I ever feel suicidal.
Also: theory of democratic peace works. Actually, it doesn’t! Actually, it DOES! No, it don’t!
And that one PhD student is hot, has nice legs and knows about modern wars. Wonder if she has boyfriend. Or girlfriend.

Transnational studies: I got to discuss one of my fave artists here, M.I.A. and be totally academic about it.
(and I guess yakking in English on Czech University among Europeans about problems of Latin American migration is transnationalism too).

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: current mayor of Nagasaki does not reply to e-mails of peace activists.
And there’s lot of sketch countries in the world.

Middle Eastern studies: Of course I learned about terrorists and dictators, Islamists and Zionists (and anti-Zionists too!). But the most memorable thing I learned and something we all I think will remember is… that back in the day, Leila Khaled was a slamming hottie. Who
hijacked plane (and probably looked good doing it).

Human evolution and politics: Muslims commit suicide bombing because in polygamous society non-alpha males have hard chances of getting laid.

I guess my life is fuller now. But I still have no idea how to use this for good of the state and society.

Somewhat schizotypal account on Kosovo, Republic of

I could call this entry simply “crazy”, but that may give readers expectations of me getting drunk of Kosovar raki and sleeping with entire KFOR continent (and losing my peace symbol earings). So odd in believes and behaviour it is. It may sound like trip on depleted uranium laced acid. Or as account of somebody who seriously overdosed on political science mixed with empathy. It could be that some places are seriously haunted or their energies are so strong they make people slightly crazy.

Once I had dream. I do have very vivid and somewhat trippy dreams. In this one, I was running for president of some small and poor country. And as part of campaign, I was on a roadtrip with my friends and we were riding down a highway in mountains. Beautiful mountains.

Months later, I was sitting on bus, line Tiranë-Pristina… on a highway, in a mountains. God (and United Nations) know why there’s highway between one poor town and capital of no-state. But the views are wonderful.

Pristina is bizzare. It is a town full of war memorials.

And there’s flags. Kosova’s, Albanian, American, EU (thank you for having faith in us, when we lost it ourselves) and NATO. Yes, NATO.

People asked me if I am an American and were somehow sad that I am not. Maybe they wanted to see real American. You know, unarmed one, or simply one that is in the country because they wanted to, not because they were sent in.

I slept in guesthouse owned by talkative professor… and there was a ghost in my room. Really. But this non-country is full of ghosts.

Pristina is new and somehow abruptly build, and it looks like condo of woman who left her abusive partner and splurged on modern furniture, without thinking how it all will go together.

So there is architecture like this, and nothing around. It looks bit unfinished. And I couldn’t get my mind of the history and what we did and didn’t do. And if we did right. Is there even any “right” when it comes to war?

And it looks spacious, somehow scarily spacious. Like ground zero. And feels surreal.

Professor from the guest house sent me to Newborn, apparently hip part of the town. There are American restaurants and you can get good burgers there. I testify. And there’s little cafes, where you can have coffee under one Euro and just people watch (and be watched. Good they love foreigners there). I imagined every waiter and taxi driver had something to do with KLA in the past. There was a waiter in Doner Place in Prizren, who had scar in his face and I secretly hope it was not from “I teased sister’s cat when I was five”. Because animal abuse is worse than being member of secessionist paramilitary unit with terrorist inklings.

Kosovo/a might be secular and pro-European… but they do have mosques

Prizren is picturesque town. But they have Coca Cola.

and KFOR. Professor told me Kosova is a safe country, since there’s KFOR. I didn’t want to argue that need for international peacekeeping forces tells something about your countries safety. Even though the peacekeepers are hot. I bruised my leg while checking out the peacekeepers, who looked bored out of their minds. I walked into a roadblock. Peacekeepers were amused.

and there’s memorials to terrorist/freedom fighters. It’s fuzzy there. Even for us post-modernist who maintain that there is no truth and everything is relative. But tell yourself how one man’s freedom fighter is another’s man’s terrorist, when they haunt you in your guesthouse room and when some, according to info on memorials were less than 18. Yes, fighting for your freedom is hot, war crimes are not… but here, it’s many shades of gray. Darker than we care to admit.

But one doesn’t want to trot a non-country thinking that everybody there is evil, more or less and that we are evil too, for getting involved in this war (and evil for not getting involved in other wars… can I say *Rwanda*?)

And then, there’s those bizzare KFOR bildboards:

yes, weapons are bad*, your KFOR.
(*except our weapons)

we gave you peace… now give us Raki.

And then there’s Bill Clinton Boullevard, with a statue. Sometimes, when you bomb a country, you do get a statue.

Freedom, peace and all the good things seems to be thorny in this no-state.

I wonder if somebody should tell them that throwing the word “nazi” around is frowned upon in the West?

On the way back to Tirana, I’ve seen a wondrous thunderstrom. Then it passed and it was sunny again, skies were clear. Omen? How about those cows that were crossing the borders and they let them pass, without looking at their passports? The bus driver blasted some nationalist music with lot of loud instruments. And I knew that I can leave Kosovo and be cynical about it… but it will haunt me forever.

UN comments on Gangnam style

And approves…..

I wonder if it means that we can now talk about Palestine and Kosovo/a and North Korean nukes. Since UN talks about mundane shallow shit for us.

At least we know what does Ban Ki-moon on Youtube (and I am scared, so very scared that sooner or later UN will give statement about 2girls1cup). But seriously, isn’t it enough TV considers celebrity gossip news? Does UN have to sink to that level?

I am should not be suprised. Nobel Peace Prize decorated EU spends time debating about cellphone chargers and if water helps thirst and dehydratation. Czechoslovak parlaiment had back then debate about if lion in coat of arms should have… a penis (until then I thought his fur was just messy. But I don’t see any reason to castrate our coats of arms).

It seems that you cannot escape talk of shallow and unimportant. But it is slowly becoming all there is.

And  as much as I love music… I don’t think Gangnam style is gonna save us. I’d rather hear what Ban Ki-Moon has to say to Syria. And what he’s gonna do about it.

Prayer with the city lights on

You never tweet
so not sure you’re still there
but if you hear me over there
please hear my little prayer

Bless my bank account
and perish my enemies
make me skinny and forever young
and give me some inner peace

Please end the “crisis”
we suffered enough
Please give me some high paying job
and make sure I find true love

Next time we start a fight
make sure that we score
please grant us science and technology
so we won’t need you anymore

Long time since we heard from you
not sure if you still care
if you still have time for us
to hear our little prayer

Bad times and poisonous booze

http://praguemonitor.com/2012/11/16/another-man-dies-methanol-poisoning

I never was a conspiracy theorist, but lately I am leaning onto the conspiracy side… Some may say I am definitely losing it. It’s not that. It’s not that there was something wrong with my mind by blaming my government of evil things. It’s just that my government is such a bunch of creatures that it’s hard not to blame them for bad things happening.

And so you have country which likes to drink. You have people coming to the said country because the booze is cheap (and sights are nice too). And then people start dying because of tainted bootlegged booze. Officials blame bootleggers who steal their tax money. Shortly lived partial prohibition follows. Investigation is unleashed. We discovered the source, they say. And yet, people are still dying.

And look, bootleggers are not goody-two-shoes Mother Theresa types, but I doubt they are that stupid to sell something that for sure will kill the consumer.

Hence terrorism speculations. And hence “government did it” speculations. I am not saying that government spiked our liquor with methanol in attempt to rid of lower classes (who do such things as organize through facebook to outvote them in legal elections). I am not saying that maybe they think manual labor can be outsourced and there’s many Easties who work harder and don’t demand such silly things as vacation pay and insurance coverage and decent conditions. But I am not gonna argue hard against it either.

After all, our politicians are BFFs with mafia. After all they are corrupt and don’t see anything wrong with it. After all many of them have been arrested or investigated for snatching public finances and EU funds for themselves (and then acted like political processes). Maybe there’s more that shouldn’t be seen. And since we are too small country to start wagthedog war (and actual war might show that all the expensive weaponry we bought is not that useful at all), maybe tainted booze is serious enough distraction.

It’s not that I believe my government or any government  is capable of horrible horrible things. At the same time, I don’t believe they are not capable and willing to do horrible horrible things.

as we wait for the world or era to end….

and maybe we are more scared that nothing will happen and we will have to live on with self-created global problems…

another re-post from some time ago. Maybe we are over already. Maybe we are over since the day Rome has fallen…

Maybe the end of the world already happened But we didn’t notice it
We were too busy shopping
Great sales, 50% off
We were too busy having fun…
Maybe the end of the world already happened
But we don’t know it yet
Nobody told us
So we are blissfully unaware
CNN didn’t want to
Bring more bad news
Cause that’s not what people want to hear…
Politicians didn’t tell us
They had elections coming up
And it might cost them precious votes
And besides
There were more pressing issue
Maybe the end of the world already happened
But we didn’t realize
What was going on
So the magazines and newspapers keep going on about wars and floods and scandals and Paris Hilton’s escapades
We read it and we wonder
How far will we go
Well, we went over the edge already
The Fundamentalists keep quoting Bible and Nostradamos about the end of the times
That it will happen soon, if we don’t do anything
Well, they don’t know
It happened already
Just don’t tell anybody and please, don’t sent e-mails
It might cause panic
Still I think you should know
That maybe
Maybe the end of the world already happened…
We just didn’t notice it

written back in 2009…

He was born in Gaza strip
And it was not his choice
You from over there, where it’s safe
You’ll never hear his voice

He was born to times too rapid
To a place too violent and wild
Who knows why or how
He became Hamas’ poster child

I’ve seen his face on Al-Jazeera
On the late night news
I’ve been thinking for a while now
Whose side should I chose?

I’ve heard those stories many times
So who’s wrong and right
Does it even matter if you don’t know
If you’ll make it through the night?

In times like this
We play victims, say our doings are defensive
But we’re inhumane
And f***ing crazy

I am nameless, you don’t know me
But I am child of human race
Forever stateless citizen of the planet
I’m unwanted in my own place

This is greetings from Gaza
I don’t care which side you chose
This is greetings from the hell
You can see me on late night news

* sides? I take no sides. I side with the people. Always.

Anthem of a broke up nation

Greetings from a desolate place
greetings from those who stayed alive
trying to make sense of everything
now we got the future to survive

now save your compassion
there’s no reason for adoration
moment of silence and let’s hear
anthem of a broke up nation

war is over
we’ll do with what we can
maybe we’ll sell our souls
for some kind of marshall plan

there’s no heroes, there’s no victory
we are just broken, both you and me
It’s over now, let’s count on miracles
and let those that don’t know a damn
jot it down in chronicles

we got not so perpetual peace
so we’ll live on, if we can
we got hot chicks who can
sell their bodies
for some kind of marshall plan

nobody speaks to us
there’s static on my favorite radio station
so I’ll sing into the night
anthem of a broke up nation

So it’s over
and the world will never understand
and years later we may not either
we weren’t that different

Let me bask in the shimmer and glimmer of the Peace (Prize)

“It is indeed a great honour for all the 500 million citizens of Europe, for all the Member States and all the European institutions to receive this Nobel Prize for Peace.”

That’s what Barroso said.

I guess I also contributed to our (perpetual) peace by not taking AK on my neighbour who is of different religion and political ideology than me.

Yes, I am joking. I don’t deny interdependence leads to peace, I blogged about it before. EU has its place in history and it has done good.

But to award the EU a Nobel Prize now… I have feeling Oslo is trolling on us. Rejecting membership TWICE (back then post-communist us didn’t get it. We do now. We so do, here in Bloc). Maybe it’s supposed to be encouragement, to not to throw stones and not take out anger on the leaders, instead of getting our collective asses together and work on brighter future. Only we are not American depressive high schoolers who believe positive affirmation works. This is not summer camp for low self-esteem kids. We are an old continent with long history. And we didn’t get through our low points with feel-good awards.

Add election results of Czech Republic and I think Havel is laughing at us from the other realm. Maybe Franz Kafka watches too. But I cannot imagine him laughing. Jewish existentialists don’t laugh. They just don’t.

And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to…

……… European Union.

*no applause and lots of “WTF. are you kidding me?” goes around*

and somewhere in the other realm Arafat grins, since he’s no longer the worst-nobel-peace-prizer-evah-wtf!

I cannot comment right now. Too shocked. Seriously, out of the good people out there E-friggin-U?

This is what I am going to do.

hitch-hike to Odessa! Things make more sense there. And the vodka is safe.