Dragon Boats Met In Brno

An unusual event took place on the Brno Dam today. Dragon Boats. Although the races themselves don’t take very long, they attracted dozens of thousands of people. And since almost all of them watched from grass beaches, and since some of the teams were college students, there were crowds of bikini wearing college students drinking, playing beach volleyball, etc. Some families, too. And several news photographers with extremely long lens because the angle from which we could take pictures pretty much sucked. And so I am not all that happy with the result…

UPDATED: Nude Beach In Yellowstone National Park?

Here is an idea: there should be a beach in Yellowstone National Park. People would be allowed to walk around naked or lie on their blankets and towels, but they would not be allowed to swim in any of the lakes.

Sounds crazy? This is exactly what is happening in Brno. Here. This former quarry and its surroundings are a natural reserve with some endemic species of flowers and grasses.

Nudists like to come there even though the area has never been declared as a recreation area, of course. People are not forbidden to ENTER, so if they decide to lose their clothes and catch a tan it does not bother anyone.

The season started yesterday because it was 28°C.

Which brings me back to the original idea: what can be more symbolic for the, let’s say, nudist philosophy than a nude beach in a national park?

UPDATE:: Obviously I know less about U.S. geography than I thought. As Jim comments on this post and explains, it is too cold to be naked there in any season. So that was a bad example. So let’s say Mount Rushmore? Bryce Canyon? I know, not really green and grassy around there…

3 Things: Czechs And Americans

TODAY: AMERICANS

#1: We should say I Love You more often: If there is anything I think Americans do way often is say things like “I love you, mom” at any occasion in which a mom behaves like a mom and a child behaves like a child. Let’s say a daughter wants to postpone her curfew, she fights with their parents, she is sent to her room, the mother comes up later and recalls her life story how she fought “with grandma”, the two of them talk it through and at the end of the whole thing they hug and the daughter says “I love you, mom”. The mom responds “I love you too, sweetheart”.

Czechs are missing this phrase in their vocabulary. We just don’t say it. We are not used to do that. I think this society could use some emotion ventilation of this kind. However, it should not go as far as Oprah Winfrey-esque scenes in which people like to over-analyze everything.

#2: We should stop kidding ourselves about fast food: Americans invented KFC, Wendy’s, Hardee’s etc. and they know its fast food. They go there because they are hungry. They go there because they are not used to eat with a knife and a fork at the same time twice a day. And they go there because a restaurant that would be considered a daily thing for Europeans is styled as Waldorf-Astoria quite often. Which is not their fault.

Czech families turn a visit to a fast food chain place into a social event. If you want to get an idea of TGIF for kids in the Czech Republic, visit any McDonald’s on Friday afternoon. The kids have been good the whole week, they had some A’s in math, so they deserve their happy meal. We know it is junk food, but kids like it and they should be rewarded by being allowed to have some, the parents say.

#3: High school spirit and everything around it: Most Czech high schools do not have facilities and money to build a sport team, let alone five to six [baseball, basketball, football, soccer, track and field...]. So the schools don’t have their own animal mascot, the school spirit, extracurricular activities, etc. Students are divided into “classes” and they usually stay with the same people for four years.

It is gonna take a while to change this, but there are schools with a potential that might start the, let’s say, enlightment process…

Prague To Ban Alcohol In Some Public Places

Subway entrance and exit halls/hallways, selected squares, parks, or streets that border cemeteries. These are just examples of places in Prague where alcohol drinking should be banned, the iDNES.cz news server writes. The Prague Municipality is not the first one to implement this ban, several smaller cities throughout the country have done it already.

Councillors must elaborate a detailed list of places, as a total ban would not be constitutional [or legal on other levels]. In principle, such regulations consider exceptions, like festivals, markets, open-air concerts etc.

And smart-asses can forget the bottle-in-a-brown-bag solution. Also illegal…

Excellent idea. This should make the drunks who like to bother people, well, stop.

The regulation should become effective as of July 1.

UPDATE: And one more regulation should sanction people who throw away chewing gums and cigarette butts. Inspired by Singapore, maybe??

Does This Country Need a Kick In The Head? Socialists Are Getting Stronger Due To Health Reform

This country has a big problem. According to a recent voter preference poll social democrats would win Parliamentary elections, if they were held this week. The senior governing coalition party, Civic Democrats, are losing mostly due to healthcare reform, part of which are mandatory fees that Czechs must now pay.

The problem is that social democrats have no healthcare policy.Their only policy is to make sure that low-income under-educated and often simple-minded voters would like them. And while they are loved by their socialist voters, this socialist party politicians can do their totally right-wing and un-socialist businesses.

This country needs reforms and reforms do hurt. But an average Czech voter who tends to be rather ”left oriented” is rather stupid. All he or she cares about is here and now and the social democrats will happily offer him or her cheap solutions. And the result?

SOURCE: iDNES.cz news server

CSSD / yellow color / social democrats
KSCM / red color / communists … both parties are the current parliamentary opposition
…but put together they now have 54 percent

ODS/ blue color / Civic Democrats … PM Mirek Topolanek’s party
SZ / green color / The Green Party
KDU-CSL / black color / Christian Democrats …these parties form the current coalition/government 

I know that the idea of social state might work under certain circumstances, but a combination of this country, some of its people and the Czech mentality is lethal. Social democrats give some people the idea that they can be lazy and that they don’t have to try to work, and that they don’t have to be the creators of their own destiny…hell no, the social democratic government will take care of you.

Czech social democrats think that people who make too much money should show some solidarity with those who don’t. And they like to stress it quite often… Well, fuck them because anybody who doesn’t like their job can quit and find a new one.

Today the Constitutional Court ruled that the healthcare fees that patients now must pay are NOT unconstitutional, like the social democrats tried to prove…

Teenage Smokers? More Girls Than Boys

The Czech Institute for Public Health issued the annual statistics related to smoking, alcohol and drug use. It includes stats on teens that shocked me: when it comes to sixteen year old smokers, there are more girls than boys. Plus, girls are catching up in terms of alcohol as well…

Half a decade ago, the numbers of boys who would start smoking at the age of fifteen to sixteen had been increasing due to, let’s say, emancipation of society when the necessity to be seen became extremely important for young people. Suddenly the economy was doing pretty well and kids who had everything they wanted started to see they were not alone anymore. More and more kids were like them and so a cigarette was the next step. And I think somehow this trend survived until the year 2008.

Cool clothes won’t impress anymore. Everybody wears cool clothes. Many kids, especially in Prague, have better and more expensive cell phones than any middle-class businessman.

Even sociologists who participated in the recent research confirmed that the main reason why kids start to smoke is that they want to fit in. I beg to differ: I would say that at first they want to impress and stand out, only to fit in the group of those who already smoke afterwards… Because one who does not smoke can’t hang out with the gang…

What I don’t get is why GIRLS feel like they need to fit in by smoking. There are so many things they can impress by: preferably by a combination of looks and personality and hobbies… OR: if they are shallow enough to think that a cigarette will do the job, they might as well start giving blowjobs [pardon me, couldn't help it]. It is just as crazy, it is just as life threatening, and it will get all the attention of sixteen year-old males.

Another interesting thing is that still more and more people who find themselves higher on the social ladder [college grads, or students, for that matter] enjoy nargiles [shishas, water pipes]. They like to bring them as souvenirs from Turkey and other places. According to the institute’s findings, young Czechs have inaccurate information about these pipes: One session can last two hours and a smoker inhales over 200 liters of smoke. It does not burn that much so he or she can inhale deeper. Plus the mixtures do not provide information on the adverse effects of smoking on the packaging. And the fruity taste makes it look harmless. The opposite is true, the institute writes.

How typical. Instead of giving up cigarettes, Czechs find a new thing to smoke… I hope all the smokers die before they hit the retirement age, so that the state does not have to pay them their pension…

How I Fought Over A Supermodel

I went to school with supermodel Veronika Varekova. If you haven’t seen her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition photos and if you are from a country where it is allowed to view almost-nude photos, go ahead. To be exact, I went to elementary school with her and the last time I saw her was when we were twelve or eleven. Back then she had short hair but even back then she was taller than the other female classmates, and definitely taller than me

And it was late May 21 years ago when I fought over her with a classmate who was about 15 pounds heavier than me. We both found out we “liked” her [yeah, just how an 11 year-old can "like" a girl] but instead of pulling her hair in class we decided to wrestle during a lunch break. I ended up on my back in no time and my opponent was pinning my elbows against the floor with his knees… I am pleased to say that none of us had any chance later…

I recall an experience I had with Veronika: we met on a bus [ed: buses again? two posts below are about buses, but it is a coincidence...] that passed a local beggar who had been pushing his old rusty bike with various items that could be sold as scrap metal. That was before 1989 during the communist era. Later we found ourselves standing on the bus on the stairs, leaning against the door, which you are not supposed to do, talking about strange people living in our neighborhood…

Which means you don’t have to be Craig Kilborn, Donald Trump or NHL hockey star to meet a Czech supermodel… They are beautiful and they are basically everywhere. If you throw a fistful of pennies from a Fifth Avenue balcony, chances are five to ten Czech models will show up saying “Ses zblaznil nebo co? Ted mi tece krev z hlavy” [Are you nuts? I am bleeding now...]

Surprisingly, the school does not have a list of noted alumni on its website. A supermodel could have made a nice entry.

The photo is (c) Sports Illustrated.

How Czechs Live (2): Trams And Buses Everywhere

A friend of mine who lives in a brand new neighborhood on the very edge of Brno [her street is a dead-end street and there are just fields and meadows from that spot eastwards] spends one hour travelling to work and back every day. She boards the tram at its terminus and the ride itself takes 30 minutes.

Other people who live in villages near Brno travel by their own cars and in some cases its takes them significantly shorter time. But if there is anything that Czechs living in mid-sized and big cities do NOT complain about, it is their public transportation system.

Usual intervals at the average Brno tram stop are 2 to 5 minutes [on weekdays] and under 10 minutes on weekends. The buses and trams are clean, the damage is usually “only” limited to writer tags and scratched windows. I don’t remember seeing schedules at bus stops of Utah Transit Authority in Provo, UT. Czechs in cities often have special bus and tram lines in the morning and in the afternoon that operate in the vicinity of bigger factories. Stops are announced by an automated voice system. If you buy a card that is valid for the whole year, you can travel anytime anywhere around town and you save thousands. In case of, let’s say, a tram accident when trams stop buses immediately fill in…

The above photo is of an old bus that the Brno Transit Authority uses on special occasions. A really cool experience… 

Instead of boarding the bus via the front door [as we know it from many, if not most, U.S. cities] Czechs use all doors to get in and out. Which is one of the reasons why the job of a ticket inspector exists here. These people have had many conflicts with foreigners who are not familiar with the rules of ticket use…

Avoid Being Ripped Off By Prague Cab Drivers

It is a widely known fact that cab drivers in Prague rip people off. They overcharge on airport-to-center rides and they are even worse when it comes to short rides in downtown Prague. One of them even did this to Mayor of Prague Pavel Bem who posed as an unsuspecting tourist.

I am surprised tourists even use the services of Prague cab drivers. I know, it is more comfortable if you have large luggage, but is it really that big a deal? If you come to some European capital, you should try public transportation: I do it everytime I am in Berlin, Barcelona, Bratislava, Vienna, or elsewhere. I am not an environmentalist, but it feels good knowing that you do something for clean air in a city you just visit, or that you ride with normal folks of that particular town… Plus, airport shuttle buses usually do not have any stops so there is really no difference between a cab and a bus.

Sure, the Prague Aiport shuttle bus DOES have some stops along the route, but the aiport is so close to the city that you shouldn’t be bothered…

So next time you come to Prague as a tourist, seek DPHMP (Prague Transit Authority) booth in Terminal 1 and buy a ticket of your choice and a comfy bus will get you to the city. If you are literate, you can read a map and find your way just anywhere… Better than being pissed off because of a SOB-cabbie…

• this link on the Ruzyne Airport website is even better

Downtown Brno Web Camera