Reverse discrimination: when a store in Brno discriminates against men

Wanted: a skilled and experienced female clerk (shop assistant). That’s what this ad says. Found it today in the very heart of Brno:

(c) Petr Bokuvka

The store discriminates against male applicants. Publishing ads that discriminate due to age, sex or marital status, to name a few issues, is very frequent in this country.

The gender issue is usually based on the “language problems” and stereotypes, i.e. how we associate certain professions either with men or women. And the problem is that most Czech nouns carry information on the gender of the person referred to. For example:

prodavac = male shop assistant
prodavacka = female shop assistant

ucitel = male teacher
ucitelka = female teacher

etc.

In other words, most of these ads are published or printed and hanged out by people who live in stereotypes. A guy would not want to work in a store that sells clothes, they might think.

Another two most frequent forms of discrimination in “wanted” ads are: We offer work in a young team – which translates as  “if you are over 35, do not bother applying”, or We request flexibility beyond usual working hours – which translates as “women with children should not attempt to reply”.

I understand discrimination is a bad thing, but on the other hand “it is my company so I can hire whoever I want” is an element of democracy and free market economy that should not be forgotten either. Firms that seek new employees are therefore recommended to use slashes in their ads, like this: prodavac/prodavacka, i.e. in order to refer to both sexes in their ads. On the other hand, the fact that HR specialists ask undesirable questions (Do you want to have children? Are you pregnant now? Do you have grandparents to take care of your children in case you are sick?) is an altogether different thing that is hard to prove and battle with.

Christian Democrats oppose plans to build a new mosque in Brno

(c) Getty Images

The Brno Muslim community thinks their mosque is too small (it can accommodate 150 people) and they would like to build a new one. The number of Muslims in Brno has been increasing for some time and it is usual in a democratic society to allow religious groups to build their houses of worship. We have churches of all religions in Brno. We even have a tiny Mormon church (or is it a temple? I am not quite sure…).

But the local Christian Democrats, a Parliamentary party, oppose the idea to build a new mosque. Their arguments include the claim that “Islam can not coexist with secular state”, or the “way that Muslims treat infidels”, the Brnensky denik daily wrote.

They may say that but I don’t think that it is going to stop Muslims from believing what they believe in. You may be a religious person who never enters a church… Besides, some things that Christian Democrats believe in are just as questionable. Former Governor of the South Moravian Region Stanislav Juranek told the daily that “the region has its traditions, values and culture [...] if I am a guest somewhere, you can not expect that my host will adapt”.

Juranek fails to realize one important thing: the Muslim community is already here and many of the people were born in the Czech Republic and have no Arab ancestors. Does it mean they are not entitled to their religion, just because it originates in a foreign culture? What about Buddhists? They have their temples all over the world…

The idea is  that the new mosque would include a minaret. “However, if the municipality says no, we will accept it,” said a representative of the Muslim community in Brno.

Free water in Czech restaurants: the number of initiatives is increasing

For years people have paid for water in restaurants and nobody has ever thought of asking for a glass of water — for free. Of course. Restaurants sell bottled water and they make really good money on it. Let’s say that they can purchase a .3L bottle for around CZK 10 (from a wholesaler or manufacturer). They serve the same bottle for CZK 30.

Some Facebook people and water distribution companies want to urge restaurant owners to do what their colleagues in France (and elsewhere) normally do. They claim that it used to be normal during the “First Republic” (during 1920’s). Some Czech water distribution companies are owned by the French company Veolia. Hence the inspiration origin…

Of course, Czechs are smartasses so the free-water rule would have to be regulated. You can’t have a group of five people come to a restaurant where only one guy orders a beer and the remaining four ask for a jug of water. I understand that the French get water for free if they order a meal…

Google Street Car spotted in Brno. Had the mess been cleaned beforehand?

(c) iDNES.cz

The Google Street Car that is known for taking detailed pictures of the streets of world metropolises for the Street View application has recently been spotted in downtown Brno, the iDNES.cz news server wrote. Once completed, the authors will have to work with the material, which includes blurring the faces of pedestrians.

I don’t get it.

Any TV news crew can get a footage of “people in the streets” and broadcast it numerous times as “file footage for illustrative purposes”. And it may catch a cheating young man walking hand in hand down the street with his “safety-net girlfriend”. TV news reports do not have these images blurred, so why should Google specialists do the same with still images?

I honestly hope that Google warned the municipality authorities beforehand. The main pedestrian zone and the main square where iDNES.cz reporters met the vehicle are known for overflowing garbage cans and piles of garbage around them. So I want to believe that it had been cleaned before the Google Street Car passed by with its numerous rooftop cameras.

Avoid cabs in downtown Prague that charge CZK 99 for one kilometer

A group of “prominent” (see the sarcasm?) Prague cab drivers engaged in a huge fight with the police because of a long-term dispute over spots where these cabs used to pick up tourists. TV Prima has the raw video:

The Municipality of the City of Prague has recently evicted the taxicab company from its spots on the Old Town Square. Here:

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One of the reasons what the the company repeatedly violated a city regulation that stipulated maximum prices for one kilometer. The cabs departing from the Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti) might charge CZK 99 – so make sure you avoid them and hail a regular one! According to the iDNES.cz news server these cabbies have previously been fined for excessive price escalations and many of them failed to pay.

On the other hand, the cabbies claim the city had no right to replace the cab spots with handicapped spots due to a temporary injunction and due to some yet-unresolved contracts thanks to which the company claims to still have the right to use the spots.

Be it as it may, you just DON’T fight with a cop. What the cab drivers did there only adds to their negative image. Prague cabs’ reputation all over the world is really bad. They even ripped off the Mayor in disguise!

Czech Railways to lay off office workers, their colleagues will stop the trains

The Czech Railways is by far the worst company in the Czech Republic in terms of reputation and popularity.

This state owned, always-deep-in-debt company is a giant enjoying its monopoly status on a market that does not know the word “competition”. There are tiny exceptions, but otherwise there is none.

The management of the company is in the process of personnel audit and it plans to lay off about one third of its directorate office workers. In other words, they are about to find out that they only need 1,000 people for what 3,000 people have been doing so far (the numbers are just examples!).

The company receives our money, i.e. money from the state budget, i.e. from people who never use their services and from people who have to use them because they have no other option. And now they are going to take use hostage by stopping trains and going on strike.

I have always felt that going on strike to prevent layoffs is dumb and absurd from the economic point of view. You can strike for better conditions. You can tell your employer something along the lines of “I deserve being paid more for what I do”… but you can’t strike (stop working) if somebody else’s job is at stake.

Well, you can stay home and sit on your ass all day, but stopping trains is insane.

The number of employees must correspond to the number the particular company can actually afford. This is simple math.

I understand that most of the “blue army” employees are only trying to save their butts because they have been working there for let’s say 20 years and they can’t do anything else… However, this is not really the case of white collar employees…

And they have to understand that I have the right to hate them and to hate the unions as such (the worst invention of the modern society) if they say in the media: “If our negotiations with the Transportation Ministry fail, we will have to show our strength”.

Isn’t it obvious? They don’t want to negotiate. Their POV is “no layoffs of unusable office workers, keep them here just so they are not fired”.

As a taxpayer, I am so f—– pissed now…

The Canadian logic: spend thousands on your vacation and we might grant you visa

The Canadian government has recently reintroduced its visa regime for Czechs, after hundreds of Czech Roma who claimed to have been discriminated sought asylum in the North American country. Hundreds of Czechs have since started to panic.

There was no transitional period. Oh, wait, there was. Two lousy days.

There are students who have paid for their internship programs or exchange programs. They have to travel to Vienna, Austria and visit the Canadian embassy.

There are tourists who have paid for their North American vacation. The problem is that it includes a visit to the United States and they fear they might not be granted entry to Canada upon return from their half-day trips to the U.S.

The applications are not being processed in a fair manner. The Czech Television ran a story of two applicants: one woman provided her bank account statements, proofs of her ties to the Czech Republic and a return ticket. Her application was dismissed. An unnamed man did not even have a letter of invitation (which the woman did) and an airline ticket. And he even made some data up. He WAS granted the visa.

The weirdest logic: the Canadian government will not grant visas to tourists unless they have provided proofs of their “holiday purposes”. In other words, they want you to spend CZK 70,000 — before they even consider accepting your application – which they do not have to. The government behaves like a robber who holds their victim at gunpoint: Give me your wallet and nobody gets hurt. But you don’t know for sure…

It has been an established fact that this is a result of a generous asylum policy, where the success rate was considerably higher, as compared to other countries. Many Czech Roma went to Canada because “it would take care of them”. Sure, the influx will stop ALTOGETHER… but the new system will cause harm to people who mean well (students, businesspersons, tourists).

Research: sixty percent of Czechs support the death penalty

According to a recent poll that was conducted by the Public Opinion Research Centre sixty percent of Czechs would support death penalty, i.e. its existence within the Czech penal code, the Prazsky denik daily wrote.

That’s six out of ten.

In other words, the number of people who oppose it has been increasing. During the early 1990’s 87 percent were for and 13 against…”Injustice” and “wrongfully accused” are the most frequent arguments. The difference between the Czech Republic and the United States is that we do not have juries here… people who are sentenced for life (a HUGE exception here) are “found guilty” by a court (usually three judges).

The last person was executed in what is now Czech Republic (i.e. the western part of the former Czechoslovakia) in February 2, 1989.

Wedding

"Flower Girl" by Petr Bokuvka

Canada to reintroduce visas for Czechs due to the influx of asylum seekers

Continuous update post

Although the Canadian government has been reluctant to officially confirm it, several official and a few media sources recently claimed that Canada is about to reintroduce the visa regime for Czechs that has been lifted in 2007. It is a reaction to a very high number of Czech Roma who seek asylum in Canada – and the number has exceeded a certain threshold.

Canadian official authorities recently established that the asylum seekers are motivated by their economic and financial “situations” and that citizens of the Czech Republic are not persecuted…

TO BE UPDATED…

UPDATE JULY 9: Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina offered his Canadian counterpart that the Czech Airlines would cease its Prague-Toronto flights. In the meantime, some media found out that there were more asylum seekers from the democratic Czech Republic than from Iraq and Afghanistan combined…

Anyway, so far nobody has officially said when the visa regime is to be reinstated