Archives for March, 2006

A screenshot of Essen’s official homepage.

The city of Essen is located in Germany’s industrial Ruhr region, which is like Europe’s black lung. I lived there for a while, during an internship I did with a German newspaper. I had a great time, even despite the relentlessly gray surroundings.

And so it was acutely painful for me to see that the official page of the city of Essen boasts a bizarre map of Europe, in which all the former republics of Yugoslavia seem to be underwater — leaving Albania as an inexplicable island.

I’ve seen plenty of geographic novelties, but Slovenia-as-Atlantis is a new one. It’s almost commendable in its creativity.

(Thanks Rox!) 

Hallelujah!

Gastronomically speaking, things are really going my way lately: First, I hear that Maribor will soon be getting its own authentic Indian restaurant; I was also happy to hear, from Cornelius, that there’s a Subway in Ljubljana; and now Nina has provided photographic evidence (see above) of pure grape juice.

Everything is falling into place.

Big thanks to Nina for closing the book on this old mystery…

Click to play.

One of Slovenia’s most popular shows is Tistega Lepega Popoldneva (This Beautiful Afternoon). It’s a laid-back general-interest show led by the beautifully metrosexual and manga-haired host Lado BizoviÄ?ar, who recently staged a mock fight with the popular actor Branko Djuric. (Non-Slovenes may recognize him from the film No Man’s Land.)

I should stress that it’s fake, although it seems to generally rattle co-host Anja Tomažin. In a longer version of the video, she emotionally walks off the stage after discovering it was all staged. One can only applaud Lado’s very kaufmanesque prank.

I won’t bother translating everything, but the final words from Anja are: "We’ll be right back" followed by a rather unconvincing smile.

(Thanks Boštjan!) 

The sphere knows your worst fears. (source)

I’m often mystified by which foreign innovations make it to Slovenia and which don’t. For example, you won’t find hibachi, TiVo, Indian restaurants, Taco Bell, or rainbow parties here, but you will find people rolling down hills in giant hamster balls.

Zorbing was invented in New Zealand, but has since rolled its way to Celje. It’s a bit pricey: 4,500 SIT (almost 20 euros) for one roll. Still, if you want to get spun around — I can’t think of a better way. Well, maybe twirling around in a circle… Or having someone pick you up and shake you. Still, you wouldn’t be rolling in either of those cases.

You can watch a video of the ball in action here.

(Thanks Marko!) 

Conspiracies abound on VeÄ?er’s editorial pages.

Anyone who has spent time in Europe knows that a healthy strain of anti-Americanism flourishes here, especially in the media. Unlike in the U.S., where the left traditionally supports Europe’s social-democratic ways and the right makes incessant fun of the French, here both sides of the political spectrum (right and left) hate Uncle Sam equally.

In Germany, serious conservative papers like the FAZ will just as gleefully take shots at the U.S. as everyone else. In that respect, Slovenia isn’t much different. A case in point: A recent editorial by Vojislav Bercko, foreign affairs correspondent for the Maribor-based newspaper VeÄ?er. The piece was called "Ko okupatorji uživajo." (When occupiers delight)

The subject of the editorial is the bombing of the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq. Bercko’s take on it: The Americans are lovin’ it, because now Iraqis will fight each other and have manj Ä?asa in energije za napade na koalicijske vojake ("less time and energy to attack coalition forces") In other words, American forces will apparently benefit from being stuck in the middle of an out-of-control civil war, and even enjoy(?!) the ensuing bloodshed.

Keep in mind that right after the bombing, public support for the Iraq war dropped to an all-time low. As Juan Cole noted, "Bush now finds himself in the worst of all possible worlds… With Americans increasingly fed up with the Iraq debacle, he needs to start drawing down troops soon, but he can’t do it while the country teeters on the brink of civil war."

In other words, all hell breaking loose would be a flat-out disaster. U.S. forces would have to choose in a lose-lose situation: either a shameful withdrawl, or the extremely uncomfortable prospect of keeping two warring sides apart, possibly in perpetuo. My guess: the military wants chaos to break out there about as much as they’d like to see multiple earthquakes erupt there. I also don’t think that all the frantic diplomacy is just a clever ruse.

But of course, once you accept the proposition that America is a force of evil, everything is possible. Later on Bercko brings it up a notch: NemogoÄ?e je biti povsem pošten, ko ugibaš, kdo je v torek razstrelil kupolo šiitske mošeje v iraški Samari. Lahko so bili na delu sunitski skrajneži, lahko pa tudi ameriški ali drugi specialci, ki bi želeli v imenu svoje vlade povzroÄ?iti kaos. (It’s impossible to be sure when speculating about who blew up the dome of the mosque in Samarra on Tuesday. It could have been Sunnis, or then again Americans or other specialists wanting to cause chaos in the name of their government.) (Emphasis is mine)

I laughed out loud when I read this part. But to be fair, he’s not the only one who suspected a devious American hand here: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also immediately implicated the Great Satan of being involved. I don’t know what their evidence is, but Bercko has rock-solid proof: the sumljiv in zgovoren… molk mednarodne skupnosti. (The suspicious and revealing silence of the international community) He singles out Condoleezza Rice especially, before wrapping up with: Saj ji tega tudi treba ni bilo; ameriški administraciji oÄ?itno ustreza, da se IraÄ?ani pobijajo med seboj. (It [saying something] wasn’t necessary; it obviously suits the American administration for Iraqis to fight each other.)

First of all, American officials did say something; Bush even promised to help rebuild the thing — on the same day as the bombing. The next day he called it an "evil act" while Rice commented that speculation about civil war was harmful. The U.N. Security Council and secretary general also condemned the attacks. Is that what qualifies as "suspicious" silence?

In conclusion, I guess one can only speculate about why Bercko wrote such an editorial. Perhaps he just wrote it under time pressure, or perhaps he’s being paid by the Iranian government to publish anti-American articles. The fact that he never says that he’s in the pay of Iran is pretty revealing, though. Either way, the Iranian administration clearly benefits from VeÄ?er’s editorials.

An unfinished post accidentally went live. Sorry about that. I took it back down and will repost it soon.

Ahh, the joys of getting older. Can anyone recommend a nice retirement home?

I turned 30 today. If I were in Europe just a few centuries ago, my life would now be drawing to a close. If I lived in Mozambique right now, it’d be the same story. Luckily for me, there’s a decent chance that I will continue to live a little bit longer. I’m thankful for this, just as I am thankful for many other things that are too numerous to list here.

I suppose the people of the future will probably look back on us with the same sort of pity we’ve reserved for our short-lived ancestors. They’ll wonder how we ever managed to live a decent life in just 80 years, or enjoy ourselves without the benefit of fully immersable virtual-reality machines. Perhaps they’ll even find a way to mesh brains and machines, so that all our memories can be stored and saved indefinitely, or transferred to better bodies if need be. They’ll wonder how we could have standed being mortal, and how awful that must have been.

If any people from the future are reading these words, please know that it was pretty awful sometimes. And that I hate you something fierce.

I’ll try not to think about it, though. I’ll try to spend the next few days on a holiday/spree/bender/celebration of the lizard. If this site isn’t updated for a few days, you’ll know things are going well.

UPDATE: Things went well. Really well. I’ve returned from a nice trip to the coast, where I re-learned how wonderful this country is. I’m now recovering and will return to this site soon. 

Left: Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, Right: The Lord.

Slavoj Zizek takes on the Lord in a recent editorial for The New York Times: Defenders of the Faith. (Passwords available at Bugmenot)

(Via GlobaLawAndPolitics) 

The top salaries of Slovenian civil servants, Dec. 2005. (source)

Visit this page to see a list of what 1,939 Slovenian civil servants earned in the last month of 2005. You’ll see that most of their salaries are generously above average. A factory worker in Slovenia, for example, might earn around 125,000 SIT (500 euros) a month, before taxes. The average monthly salary in Slovenia in December 2005 was about double that: roughly 300,000 SIT/1,250 euros (gross).

You might also notice some odd discrepancies, though, like the fact that the heads of health centers in remote villages are outearning cabinet ministers. I’m guessing it has something to do with the byzantine regulations governing public salaries. At any rate, here’s a look at the ten civil servants in Slovenia with the most bling:

(Thanks Miran!) 

What should we say about Tina Maze’s hotness? (source)

Slovenian athletes may have left the recent winter olympic games in Turin empty handed, but they were not without victory. Italy’s biggest newspaper, La Repubblica, hosted an online competition to find La più bella delle Olimpiadi ("the biggest beauty of the Olympics") and — thanks to the coordinated efforts of some patriotic Slovenes — the Slovenian skiier Tina Maze destroyed the competition. If you check the results, you’ll notice that she did better than the other nine contestants combined. A blow-out if there ever was one.

Although I’ll probably take a beating for this, I have to admit that I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I mean, here are some of the world’s best athletes — all of them masters of their discipline — and a respectable newspaper wants to know which one of them is the hottest. They might as well ask which skiier has the tightest buns or looks best nekkid. (NSFW)

On the other hand, I’m not made of stone; I freely accept that Tina is teh hawt, and presume she has no problem being adored as such. Still, I felt a bit weird about it. 

But then Andrej saved the day by sending me an interesting link from the gay publication Outsports. In their story Hot Jocks of Torino, they gush over Slovenian athlete Andrej Jerman, with the great line: "Jerman did not do well in his Olympic events, like any of us care." Later they also write: "among the group I was watching with, a Slovenian athlete [Jerman] was the hands-down pick as the hottest athlete."

For some reason, this demonstration of equal-opportunity lust made me feel better about things. And the fact that two Slovenes triumphed in two separate publications also makes the catastrophic Olympic results seem a bit more palatalbe.

But just a bit.