Lady Liberty

Happy Thanksgiving!

My thoughts and memories are a thousand miles away from Prague with you all in the States. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and we had a great celebration last year. I cooked for 3 days. I made two pies - apple and cranberry, two kinds of soup, homemade rolls, regular corn bread as well as special cranberry corn bread, and of course a roasted turkey and a roasted whole ham and many other small side dishes. I really enjoyed the time and was very happy, even though it was a lot work.
The pictures below are not from the last year celebration, although they catch the spirit of the holiday pretty well. They were taken at our first Thanksgiving in our new lovely home in Bayonne in 2006.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!!

One of my essays

It has been more than a year since I wrote this essay. The topic was a letter to a foreign friend who did not know my country and its traditions and food and etc. I would also like to point out that it was supposed to be a descriptive essay. Enjoy.

At the end of each year, when daylight time is short, night time awfully long and it is very cold, because the sun is almost always hidden behind clouds, we celebrate Christmas. There can be as many reasons to celebrate this holiday as there are families in the world. Nonetheless, for my family Christmas has always been time to stop the everyday rush, relax, remember members of the family who are gone, to see relatives that we were not able to see through the year and also an abundance of food specially made for this occasion. There used to be time in my country and my family when we could not afford to have enough meat on our table everyday. Tropical fruits and nuts were something like a miracle for us, because they were on the market only around the time of the holiday. That is the reason why we had plenty of food during Christmas as far as I remember.
The Christmas time in my family begins with making cookies that are a substantial part of this festive time for us. They are made at least three weeks ahead of Christmas day. Czech Christmas cookies are small pieces of baked dough in varieties of color, flavor, shape, and taste. The basic dough contains flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and sometimes milk. In order to achieve the variety of color and taste, we use different ingredients. Cocoa powder is an excellent example of coloring dough, because it gives very dark brown hue to the cookies, and cinnamon, on the other hand, gives the cookies a light beige color with very specific spicy flavor and a bit pungent taste. Many kinds of shapes, for instance a star, a tree, a mushroom, a pig, a bell, and a heart are cut out from the dough and after being baked the cookies are decorated in styles depending on a person's ideas. My two favorite cookies are those called little bombs and coconut balls. Both of them are actually not baked. The first ones are very dark in color, because they contain lots of cocoa powder. Their shape resembles a small molehill or beehives depending on which cookie forms are used. Each little bomb is a hollow that is filled with sweet cream made of butter, egg yolks and sugar with an additional hint of alcohol called rum. A vanilla waffle is put at the bottom of the cookie so that cream is sealed inside and cannot come out. When you eat them, they almost instantly start to melt in your mouth. What you taste first is the bittersweet flavor of the dough and then astonishing sweetness of butter and sugar in the cream. As for coconut balls, they are also dark in color, because of quite big amount of cocoa powder in the mixture. They are not as sweet as the little bomb cookies, because of the smooth blend of unsweetened coconut powder incorporated to the dough and also covering the balls and sweetness of butter and sugar.
On Christmas Eve, all the cookies are arranged on decorative trays in every room in the house. Fruits are also arranged in bowls with a sense of balancing the overwhelming aroma of sugar, vanilla and nuts. There is a pineapple in the middle of each bowl surrounded by bananas, red and green apples, oranges and tangerines. Each bowl is garnished with variety of nuts, including, but not limited to walnuts, hazelnuts and peanuts as well as with pine tree twigs to appeal an eye. Christmas Eve dinner is also important to emphasize the whole festive spirit. There are always three courses on the menu and they are soup, entree or main dish and dessert – usually the Czech version of challah. The soup is made of beef stock with vegetables, for example an orange carrot, onion, garlic, celery root and parsnip which all add an unforgettable earthy flavor to the soup and with small ball-like liver dumplings. The dumplings are made from a mixture of ground beef liver, an egg, garlic, an herb called marjoram, and breadcrumbs. The mixture is soft but firm in texture and then it is shaped into small balls and cooked in the soup for just a few minutes right before the soup is ready. After soup comes the main dish. Traditionally, it is fried breaded carp fillet, fish, or fried breaded pork chops that are always accompanied by the potato salad. The salad is prepared according to a family recipe. It has to be made in the morning of Christmas Eve so that all ingredients blend well. These ingredients include boiled, peeled potatoes, salami – processed meat, onion and pickles, a green oblong vegetable that is curred by salt, vinegar and spices. All ingredients are cut into small cubes and blended together with mayonnaise, mustard and with salt and black pepper added to taste. Another traditional meal is challah. The holiday is the only time in a year it is made. It can be described as a sweet braided bread that consists of flour, eggs, oil, yeast, a little sugar, milk and many kinds of spices, such as nutmeg, cloves, anise, almonds, and raisins or dried grapes. The base of challah is made from four braided strings, as if hair is braided into a very nice tail, on top of which is put down another layer this time made of three braided strings, and the pattern is followed up to the top with just one single string. Then, the whole challah is sprinkled with chopped almonds and baked. It makes a great breakfast meal, too.
The range of flavors of our holiday food goes from a very sweet one typical for cookies through a mild one like carp to very strong and earthy flavor that is typical for soup. Each year we make an effort to make the best food for the occasion. It is seen that festive food is a very important part of our Czech Christmas traditions.

The best scented candles ever

I've always been fond of scented candles. There was almost no choice to get a nice scented candle during the communist era, and even if we could get some, their smell and intensity of fragrance was very poor. That changed a bit with the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe with all the Western goods pouring into our countries, especially from then West Germany and Austria, but I was still somehow dissatisfied though. The smell of candles was certainly better and the fragrance of them was very intense, but it was never the way I would have expected. A pine scented candle did not smell like a pine tree or pine needles, its smell was hard to define instead. I thought I would never find the right scented candle, but I did. It happened in the States. It took me time and some blunders in my choices, but I was on the good path to find the only one. Well, it was not the only one candle, but it was the only one company that has been making these candles for years. The company's name is The Yankee Candle Company. Now, I found the perfect scented candles in America and the name of the company that makes them was Yankee. That is significant, isn't it? Frankly speaking, I have fallen in love with those candles. Everything about them makes me somehow happy, and it surely has a soothing and relaxing effect on me and it makes my days enriched, in a way. It is hard to explain it, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense, because we live our lives through our senses and smell is a very important one, because we usually associate our acts, memories or events with smell. Such examples can be a smell of hot coffee that is for many of us the smell of a morning, and a smell of freshly baked bread is the smell of my country, and for me it is just like the smell of rum is the smell of Christmas, since we put rum into Christmas cookies and we drink tea with rum just to get warm in winter, and a smell of a roasted turkey and a ham is associated with Thanksgiving for me now. There can be hundreds and thousands of examples. Some of them can be pleasant and some not, of course. I have almost developed Pavlov's reflex, because just by looking at the company's web site I can smell the fragrances of the candles as well, and it makes me feel relaxed and comforted. The company runs pretty good business. Not only does it have it many brand stores and the web site, but also I used to get its catalog with scented pages in Bayonne, and that's something local companies can only dream of. Yes, you have to spend a few bucks more than on other brand candles, but it is totally worth it. As you can see, the smell of a scented candle is very important for me.
I know, there are more scented candles made by different companies and with different brand names. Some Glade candles are also incomparable, such as Glistening Snow, Angel Whispers and Apple Cinnamon, but the variety of the Glade products is limited. I also remember the candle we got from Sallie and Mush in Jersey City with its delicious coffee and butter cookie-like smell, but I don't remember the brand name. Unfortunately, I cannot buy these products here. Glade's product are sold here under brand name Brise, however there are no Glistening Snow or Angel Whispers for me here. What I can get is only an Apple Cinnamon candle in very limited edition. And The Yankee Candles here. Forget about it. I miss many American products and these candles are among them.
P.S. I just took a look at the Glade website and I found it has been redesigned. The new look of the page is great. Go there!

Socialism makes its return to the Czech Republic

At least in regions. The Czech Republic is divided into 13 regions, and Prague has its own status as the capital city. Each region has its own council with its regional governor. Elections to these councils took place on Friday and Saturday with a very scary outcome for me. For those who don't know the political scene in the Czech Republic, allow me first to give you a picture about it. There are basically five major political parties that have seats in the Czech Parliament. Listed from right side to left side, these are the Civic Democratic Party, Christian Democratic Party, Green Party, Czech Social Democratic Party and Communist Party. The first three parties created a coalition after the 2006 general election. Back to the current election. Even though it was a regional election as I mentioned before, Social Democrats described the election as a referendum about the government and its reforms. The outcome is that that the Czech Social Democrats won a landslide. They won in all 13 regions. It is a disaster. I'm ashamed of my countrymen. I cannot believe that people really listened to their populist words, and that they fell for them. The party leader, Jiri Paroubek, has declared in the past that he would go govern with Communists and even "with Martians" in order to defeat the center-right government. What happened now is that he doesn't even need Martians to fulfill his proclamation. Social Democrats could have an easy majority with the Communists in all 13 regions to create coalitions. That is something that makes me uneasy. Can't people see the danger resulting from this? Are they that lazy and shortsighted that in order to have a huge and expensive social net and to have the state as a mother who is taking care of her children, they vote for leftists who will rule even with the Devil? Health care reform is under way here, and one part of it is that people have to pay 30 Czech crowns, approx. $1.62, when they visit a doctor. This became a big issue for the Social Democrats against the government. For a more complex picture, 30 crowns is one half litter of beer in a pub, or 1/4 of a pack of cigarettes. So no big deal and still Czechs don't want to participate in the system that is very expensive and they don't want to give up socialist safeguards they were used to. They want to have capitalism, but with all advantages of socialism. That is impossible. There should be balance in that. Yes, a social net is a need for those who really need it, but not for people making a lot of money to abuse it. I don't want CZK 50,000 birth grants to be paid from our taxes. I don't want my government to sponsor young families by giving them huge benefits, just because they happened to have a child. I'm talking about regular folks and not about low-income families. I could go on and on. There is going to be a vote of confidence about the government in Parliament this Wednesday, and I'm worried what could happen.
On the other hand, don't get me wrong, I'm still a big supporter of the Democratic Party in the U.S.A. and Mr. Obama still has my support, although I would rather see Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate for Democrats, but that doesn't mean I would ever cast my vote for a Republican. I'm still sure that Mr. McCain doesn't know what he talks about when he calls Mr. Obama a socialist. McCain should come to Europe - and that's something I don't remember he has done in a long time - and check his views with the real European and Czech socialists. He then will find out how wrong his statement was.
Of course, Jesse and I totally disagree about Czech politics, but we have a common opinion about American politics. At least.

Resemblance

When I watched the last presidential debate on CNN.com, I couldn't help it, but Mr. McCain reminded me of something. I couldn't tell exactly what it was at first, but then it came to me. A squash. The butternut squash. When you take a look at the picture bellow, you can see it. At least, I can!
Later on that day, just before I went to sleep, I'd remembered a Christmas cartoon movie I love, and it was How the Grinch stole Christmas. I decided to take a shot and find it on the net. Youtube is great for this as you all have to know. While watching the cartoon there, something popped up in my head. There was a greater resemblance between Mr. McCain and the Grinch. Bingo! I got it! It made me laugh, of course, because I have been thinking about Mr. McCain's resemblance of something for a very long time.


I know Mr. McCain doesn't have that nice Santa Clause outfit, but just look at it.
P.S. Just to be fair and balanced (I guess, another reminder) to Mr. McCain, he used to be one handsome young man.

Prague wine harvesting festival

It was a beautiful day last Sunday. It would have been a waste to stay home, so we decided to participate in the Prague wine harvesting festival. Our participation consisted of only our young fermenting wine tasting . It is called "burcak" in Czech and the tasting and drinking of it has been part of Czech fall since I can remember. Basically, burcak is very young grape juice that is just starting fermenting. It is high in sugar and low in alcohol, but throughout fermentation the ratio between them is changing in favor of alcohol and wine is being born. I'm no expert at wine, but I know a little about flavor, color and taste. The most productive part of the Czech Republic for wine growing is the southeast part of Moravia. Although we do have some vineyards in the other part of the Czech Republic called Bohemia and there are a few vineyards even in Prague, the location of Moravia with its plentiful sunshine, fertile soil and the right amount of rain gives grapes an excellent color, flavor and taste that give the wine the best quality that can be compared to quality of French and Italian wine . The only disadvantage of Moravian and Bohemian wines is that they are not as known as the French and Italian wines. It is very hard and I would say almost impossible to get a bottle of wine from the Czech Republic in the States, but if you have a chance to get it taste at least, and please, don't hesitate! The wine was among a few things I missed in the U.S.

I start today's pictures with a photo of St. Vitus Cathedral taken from the main street in our neighborhood near our apartment. St. Vitus Cathedral is the view point of the whole Prague Castle premises.

The next one was taken from a street leading to Prague Castle.

The last one of St. Vitus Cathedral was taken from the Prague Castle premises near the Royal Garden where the festival took place.

The welcome board in front of the Royal Garden gate states: "The third annual Prague Castle wine harvesting during the weekend of 4 - 5 October 2008 from 11am to 5pm at the Royal Garden.

There is no need for a comment about the next picture, but for those who may not know. Two nice young men are actually and finally tasting burcak.

More united colors of Fall

I took a walk yesterday to clean up the mess in my head. Since I still don't have a job and it is unexpectedly hard to get one for me, the situation got me yesterday. Jesse is doing a heck of a good job with his translations so there are no worries about being short of money and I do have some savings for bad times, but after all the years without my own income, it is tough not to have one here. It is also truth that I have low self confidence and I have no idea what I would like to be doing here. I made a plan for my life in the States, even though I had never done planning before, because I hadn't wanted to jinx anything in my life whatsoever. I'm not saying that every part of my plan would have worked out, but it would have certainly deserved to get a try. Frankly, I have never told Jesse about this plan and this is going to be first time for him either to read about it. Because he and his family did so much for me, I wanted to give them something back. By finishing my college and getting my associate degree I wanted to get a good job in the cooking industry or even to open my own small business. Sound daring? Yes, it does, but I was told by all my chefs that I was excellently skilled and that I had very high chance to get really good job since I was that good. I got all A's in my first semester and I wanted to be this way throughout all of them. I even wanted to get the Dean's reward for the best students to show all that I was good and that people had to count me in. You all who know me can be sure I would have worked very hard to achieve this. With this in my mind and with my diploma in my pocket I would have worked hard so that Jesse could have taken a break in his job and gotten a rest since I knew he was under stress all the time and didn't much like the job. He would have deserved it for sure. I actually looked forward to that and to making all members of our American family happy and proud of me and of us. They would have deserved that, too. Sadly, these plans and dreams are gone now. Because of that and not having a job yet, I felt down yesterday and that's why I took the walk during which I also took more pictures of our neighborhood and of the colors of fall.

Picture from a park located above our apartment building.

Close up.

The next one is the view from top of the hill over our building roof. Well, it cannot be seen, because it is hidden in trees. I was surprised my self that I could see some mountain there. Wow!


This is the view from the other side of the hill where our current apartment is located and yes, it is still Prague.

It's fall already

I know it's October already and the weather is the way it is supposed to be, at least in Czechia, but I don't like it. When I was in the U.S. I didn't miss cold mornings, rainy and windy days in September. Sure, they will come in any places where the weather changes, and there are countries with really bad weather , such as Ireland and Great Britain, however these cold days come to the Czech Republic pretty early for my taste. You guys in the New York metropolitan area and even Grandmom in Ohio are having such nice days. Well, it may be foggy, but at least it is not cold. Since I have my weather Internet tool on my screen, I can check the temperatures every day. Therefore I know that the temperatures there are above 60 F during nights and around 70 F during days, but on the other hand, the temperatures here have been around 40 F at night and 50 F during days since the second week of September. What a cold!!! We have already had to turn our heater on. Yes, we had two days of Indian summer last weekend, but that was it. It is very windy, gloomy with a few showers, and the temperature is supposed to drop below the freezing point on Sunday. Brr!!! This weather is in contrast to last year's fall weather in Bayonne and New York. I remember wearing my shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops until the middle of October. Well, I cannot change the weather. Nonetheless I can have my warm memories of better days.
Leaves have already turned yellow in our backyard as you can see on pictures below. That is a view from our bedroom window.

Chrudim

I'm bringing you today a few pictures of my hometown Chrudim. They may be a little blurry and I apologize for that, but I still think it is worth showing them.

Where is my home?

When I wrote my last post, I didn't imagine, not even in my wildest dreams, that I would not be able to return back. I planned my visit for 3 weeks only or so. Yet, my stay has taken an unfortunate turn. Because a jerk at the U.S. Embassy decided not to renew my student visa only after a five minute conversation and for him doing so I was practically banned to go back, I had to stay in the Czech Republic. Unprepared. I left almost everything in the States. I came here with two suitcases full of Christmas gifts and only with a few personal belongings. Jesse was there at home in Bayonne. Yes, I call it our home. You know, I usually have a hard time to get accustomed to a new place to live, but this time I just got used to the apartment in Bayonne and to the town itself so fast. I also felt I found the calling of my life in studying a culinary arts major at Hudson County Community College. It is true that I had to be pushed to do so by Jesse, other members of our American family, and I should not forget to mention also my friend and former teacher at Bell School Jonathan. He really believed in me like the others, but the thing is he was a bit of a stranger since he was only my teacher at first and not a member of my family. I miss him so much, and it is a pity that we kind of lost touch, although I sent him an email a few days ago. Let's see, maybe everything is not lost forever. How the situation was absurd can be seen in that that I even had dough for my pies ready in a fridge. We were supposed to celebrate Christmas when I would get back.
Even though it 's already been 9 months, I still live in cultural shock the same way I lived in it when I moved to the U.S.A. Living in the States for 4 years left deep marks on my habits, my thinking and on my soul. There is no doubt about it and if anyone says otherwise then he or she is plainly wrong. Now I understand Jesse when he talked about being uprooted from his culture and at the same time not belonging to the Czech one. I feel the same way now. The sad thing is that this experience should have helped us to better understand each other and brought us closer, but it is not so. We are still far apart away on this issue, however our points of view have changed. Jesse is closer to Czech culture than I am now. He always says I complain a lot about life in Czechia and don't appreciate my country. Well, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I like my country in the way a citizen can like his country. Nonetheless it looks to me along with the European Union very Socialist and I definitely don't like that. What I really appreciate is liberalism here which is not in the U.S. under the rule of neo-conservatives in the White House. That is my general impression. Let's take a look at something practical. You can call me a materialist, but when I compare technology, services and meeting basic needs of people, the U.S. comes up as a winner. I know that for many folks here 'the bigger, the better' saying sounds funny, but I have to say it is true. Everything seems to be small. For example, we used to have a very nice wide and large stove range. The ones here look like they are taken from doll houses. The roads here are narrower, and I don't mention highways that are clogged by traffic, because they are not fitted for traffic nowadays since they were built, the oldest ones, in the 70's. There is no such thing as Netflix, people here don't know a rice cooker and you cannot use your credit card whenever you want or where it makes sense. My point is that when you take these small ordinary things for granted, it is hard not to compare them and also to get used to something else and accept that just because it is smaller, it doesn't mean it is worse. However it is only human nature to make a comparison. I am also aware of the fact that it was not always like that. I remember well our beginnings in the States. They were quite tough, but we overcame them. I always ask myself if my feelings toward the U.S. would have been the same if I had left while we were living in Jersey City, because I don't have as nice memories from it as I do from Bayonne. What if it had been a different season and not around Christmas which I love very much. Would it have been different? I don't have the answer. It may have been.
I know that I will get used to living here. Sooner or later. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean I will stop missing New York, college, Bayonne, the Hudson River, the Atlantic ocean, Hoboken with its beautiful waterfront promenades and our trips to Ohio, just to mention a few. It doesn't mean I will stop considering the U.S.A. as my second home and it certainly doesn't mean I will stop trying to come back. Like it or not.

Remember the time

Coming soon...

My new post is coming soon from Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. This time I would like to dedicate the blog to our family in the United States of America and because of that I intend to write in English. Before I do that, please accept my apology for my bad English, because I haven't been using it on a daily basis since my harsh return to Czechia. I used to be quite confident in proper English, but I'm not anymore.

Vánoce přicházejí

a s nimi letos nejen Ježíšek, ale i moje maličkost. Pro ty co to ještě nevědí, tak příletím na svátky do Čech. Po skoro třech letech se zase objevím doma. Strávím zde tři týdny s tím, že musím na americkou ambasádu požádat znovu o studentské vízum. Jesse bohužel přiletět nemůže, protože mu v práci nedají dovolenou. Hrozně ho to mrzí. Nebyl totiž v Čechách od té doby co jsme se přestěhovali sem, teda čtyři roky. A tak mu peču trošku cukroví, aby o ten vánoční pocit nepřišel a už taky máme vánoční výzdobu a ustrojený stromeček. Vánoce s předstihem. Doufám, že aspoň s některými z vás se uvidím.

Happy Thanksgiving

Užijte si skládání putzlete a mějte krásné Díkůvzdání ať už ho slavíte či ne.

Tak jsem konečně dostal všechny svoje uniformy a tak vám tu mohu nabídnou obrázek jak vypadá student, v tomto případě já, v Hudson County Community College obor kulinářské umění. Podotýkám, že jsem je nedostal, ale zakoupil, jenže jsem na ně čekal víc než dva měsíce. Mám teď taky na pár dní odpočinek od školy, protože den Díkůvzdání je ve čtvrtek a tak nemáme školu. Od vaření si ale moc neodpočinu, protože jako správný student kulinářství budu vařit večeři na Díkůvzdání. Oproti loňsku, kdy jsme byli s Jessem sami, letos máme hostů požehnaně. Celkem by nás mělo být sedm určitě a možná až devět. A to už je něco krků nasytit. Nic přehnaně komplikované dělat ale nebudu, protože k tomu nemám jednak prostory na vaření a pak ani na skladování. Takže bude jako obvykle krocan, kterého i letos Jesse dostal v práci, pak šunka, hovězí polévka s játrovými knedlíčky, pro maminku krémová houbová polévka a asi nějaká zapečená zelenina, bramborová kaše, zelenina, domácí rohlíky, jablečný a brusinkový koláč a možná ještě něco navíc. Docela dost práce, ale mám už dnes volno a tak začínám s předstihem. Tak hurá do toho.

Cause and effect essay

What can we still consider as freedom of speech and what is already encouragement to hatred? The line between these is very, very thin and it differs country by country. What is o.k. in America it is not in most European countries. A Neo-Nazi group in the Czech Republic has announced protest against "participation of the Czech Army in the Iraq war". Nothing is wrong about that and the group has definitely the right to express its opinion. That is democracy. What is wrong about that is that the demonstration is going to take place on the anniversary of Kristalnacht and the group plans to go through the Jewish neighborhood in Prague. The right reason for their march can be hidden, but the timing and place make the protest very suspicious. The demonstration has nothing to do with the Iraq war, but antisemitism. Therefore, the city of Prague and its authorities banned the demonstration, however the court revoked the decision. Then the authorities banned it again and now the march is banned. Nevertheless, the Neo- Nazi group plans to march anyway. Because of that, the Jewish community organizes people to stand up the group and defend the neighborhood even with their bodies. Leftist groups, that are anti-fascist, also plan to challenge the Neo-Nazis. Tomorrow is going to be very nasty at the Old Town in Prague.

As a coincidence, I wrote the following essay a few weeks ago as my response to the following: "Write a cause - and - effect essay explaining how derogatory terms applied to particular groups of people make it possible for others to ignore, dislike, or even mistreat them." We all should aware what can happen when hatred is fuelled by those terms!

Words are very powerful and hurtful tools. When they are artfully used, they are even more powerful than acts are themselves. People have been aware of this fact probably since the development of the first language, and derogatory words have been around since. It does not matter if they are based on religion, nationality, color of skin and/or sexual orientation because these terms have only one goal, and it is to hurt and humiliate. Moreover, the effect of them also creates hatred, mistreatment, loss of dignity and personality and, unfortunately, even death. Just the word “Jew”, the word that describes a member of a religion or ethnicity, can be used and was abused as a derogatory term. Sadly, it also can be said about other groups, such as the gay and lesbian minority or the Roma ethnicity that are targets of such bias, too.

A horrendous example of the effect of how powerful words can be was Nazi Germany propaganda in the 1930s and afterwards. The people behind the propaganda masterly used the Jewish community in Germany for creation of extreme nationalism by blaming them for the loss of World War I, economic misfortune and, eventually, of everything that went wrong in the country and when they needed to find a scapegoat. They intensified hysteria against Jews by picturing them as dirty, greedy and stinky inferior people who wanted to destroy the German nation. Many antisemitic laws were implemented to Germany jurisdiction in the early 1930s, among them the one that was used to justify expulsion of thousands of Jews of Polish origin from Germany to Poland where they were gathered in camps under inhuman conditions. As a result of this mistreatment, a young Jewish man, whose family was expelled to Poland, shot a secretary of the German Embassy in Paris who later died. Consequently, the Nazi regime used this unfortunate act as an excuse to start terror against Jews in Germany. The night of the terror is called Kristalnacht. Many Jewish synagogues and chapels were burnt down and many Jewish stores and companies were plundered. Repression against Jews got worse and worse. They had to wear an armband with the Star of David, they were forced to leave their homes and possessions and moved to ghettos. The conditions at the ghettos were the cause of death of many people or loss of their dignity. In 1942, the Nazi regime came up with “the final solution concept” and concentration camps were used to annihilate nearly all of the Jewish population on the German occupied territories. As a result of this concept, about six million Jews died in the gas chambers of the concentration camps. This genocide started out in the wake of hatred fueled by derogatory words toward one ethnic group.

As a matter of fact, antisemitism was not a matter only in Nazi Germany, but also it played its sad role in Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s. As a part of the fight for power and fear of Stalin, then leadership of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia fabricated a monstrous process with its own party members. Because it was looking for a scapegoat, Jewish descent functioned again as the main part in this process. Fourteen members of the Communist party leadership, among them the General Secretary of the party, the highest rank in the leadership, were charged with Zionist conspiracy, espionage, treason and sabotage for the purpose of destroying the so-called democratic regime in former Czechoslovakia. Eleven out of fourteen of them were of Jewish descent, not a coincidence, and the regime used that in the charges. These eleven were Rudolf Slansky, the General Secretary of the Communist party, Bedrich Geminder, former head of International Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist party, Ludvik Frejka, former chief of the Economic Department of the Presidential Chancery, Bedrich Reicin, former undersecretary of the National Security Department, Artur London, former undersecretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Vavro Hajdu, former undersecretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Eugen Lobl, former undersecretary of the Department of Commerce, Rudolf Margolius, former undersecretary of the Department of Commerce, Otto Fischl, former undersecretary of the Treasury Department, Otto Sling, former chief secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist party in Brno and Andre Simone, former editor of Rude Pravo. It did not matter whether or not they were guilty, their descent was important. Subsequently, antisemitism grew in shocking numbers and people manipulated by propaganda demanded the capital punishment for all of them. In the end of this charade, only three people were sentenced to life in prison, the rest got the capital punishment. The process was the worst account of the propagandistic usage of a derogatory word in the history of my country.

Another group against which slurs and derogatory terms are used is the gay and lesbian minority. How many times do we hear these words and how often? They are used not only against the minority group itself, but also they are very often used in regular conversation to ridicule the other person without any connection to real sexuality of that person. Fear of unknown, unwillingness to understand and accept difference, and ignorance are mainly the cause. There is one particularly vulnerable group inside the minority and that is a group of teenagers and young people. The consequences of these slurs for them can go from just hiding their real feelings, being confused of their own sexuality or pretending to be somebody else to as far as suicide. For example, a teenage boy who lives somewhere in Wyoming and does not have many chances to come across the other people who are the same is exposed to everyday remarks and derogatory terms of homosexuality from his peers, parents, and neighbors. Now, he's confused because of what he feels and what he hears. In a while, he starts to question himself and it makes him feel less valuable than other people. In a good scenario, he tries to find any help available to him or he runs away from the family to a big city to comfort himself by the city's anonymity and bigger chances to find someone who has the same problem. Nonetheless, life in a big city is not easy especially for a teenager. He has to take care of himself, but that can bring him to more problems, such as crime, drugs, prostitution. In a worse scenario, he unsuccessfully tries to fight back his feelings and put up with the contrast between them and what he hears about them and he can end up dead one day. In both scenarios, his life is affected by the prejudice caused by powerful words.

Derogatory terms are, unfortunately, an integral part of everyday language. They are used to show our dislike with a person or ideas he or she represents. They are also used to show speaker's superior feelings. When they are used excessively against any group of people based on its ethnicity, work and citizenship status and/or religion, they can have disastrous consequences. Our own history and lives are full of examples of such consequences. Unless we stop using them, there is always going to be hatred, humiliation or loss of lives.

Yahoo

Včera se v amerických mediích objevila jedna docela šokojucí zpráva, kterou jsem zatím v českém internetovém tisku nenašel. Ta zpráva je tedy šokem alespoň pro mě a jedná se o Yahoo portál. Jde o to, že čínský student vyjadřoval svoji podporu studentské vzpouře z náměstí Tien An Men z roku 1989 při příležitosti jejího výročí na portálu Yahoo, který má i svoji verzi v čínštině. Jenže toto téma je, jak už to v komunistických zemích bývá, v Číně přísně zakázáno. A tak čínské úřady dumaly, jak se dostat onomu studentíkovi na kobylku a na řešení přišly. Zeptaly se Yahoo a ten jim velice ochotně vyhověl a vlastně studenta udal. Dal úřadům jeho jméno a emailovou adresu a ty pak studenta zatkly. Dnes sedí ve vězení. Studentova matka žaluje Yahoo a protože by se mohlo jednat i o americký federální zločin, Yahoo je dnes vyšetřován senátní komisí amerického kongresu. Kam až americké firmy zajdou, jak daleko, ve snaze mít co největší zisky a nerozlobit si nikoho, v tomto případě režim, který se o nějaká práva občanů nemůže starat míň. Když to Yahoo udělal v případě Číňana, pak to udělá v případě kohokoliv. Američana, Čecha, Ukrajince, Kanaďana atd. Amerika se proměnila ve společnost nadnárodních obřích korporací bez jakýchkoliv skrupulí. Je to ostuda demokracie. Exituje ještě vůbec?

Election Day

Jestli si někdo v Česku stěžuje, že se volí příliš často, tak asi neví o americkém systému. Tady se volí totiž každý rok. Ať už je to volba starosty města, šerifa, místního zastupitelstva, státního zastupitelstva či guvernéra až po federální kongresové a prezidentské volby volí se každý rok. Proto je tento den označen v kalendáři. Děcka ve veřejných základních školách mají volno. Někdy se volí do něčeho co mi ani nejde do hlavy. Letos je to volba do státního zastupitelstva a tady se rozhoduje zda New Jersey zastupitelství zůstane v rukou Demokratů či Republikáni převezmou otěže. Nicméně, tento den za rok se bude rozhodovat o nástupci Mr. B. Ať už to bude Demokrat nebo Republikánec, nikdo ze současných kandidátů na obou stranách není takový idiot jako současný obyvatel Bílého domu. Jako ukázku jeho brilientnosti uvádím pár jeho citací během jeho prezidentsví, která jsem vybral z nástěnného kalendáře pro rok 2007, který jsme dostali k vánocům od Alexe, Jesseho bratrance. Kalendář je vlastně oficiální odpočítávání dnů Mr. B., která mu zůstávají pro jeho působení v úřadu. Citáty jsem nepřekládal, protože by ztratily půvab a pravda je, že ani někdy nepotřebují být přeloženy.
"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president."

4.ledna 2002 při příležitosti představení jeho guvernátorského portrétu, Bush příhlížejícím poděkoval následovně:
"Thank you for taking time out of your day to come and witness my hanging."

4.února 2005 Bush mluvil s matkou tří dětí z Omahy, Nebraska:
"You work three jobs?...Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that."

24.února 2001 ve rozhlasovém projevu:
"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast....that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire."

25.února 2000 na CBS:
"The Bob Jones policy on interracial dating...I spoke out against interracial dating. I support the policy of interracial dating."

"We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."

24.dubna 2001 rozhovor v denníku the Washington Post, hovořil o Kyotském protokolu:
"First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country."

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of lot easier, just so long I'm the dictator."

24.září 2001 během tiskové konference s premiérem Kanady Bush triumfálně oznámil:
"Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better."

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right."

18.října 2004 během projevu v Marlton, New Jersey Bush řekl:
"September the fourth, 2001, I stood in the ruins of the Twin Towers. It's a day I will never forget."

21.listopadu 2002 komentuje svoje setkání s Kancléřem Shroederem takto:
"I had a cordial meeting at the meeting last night. We greeted each other cordially."

10 prosince 2001 během tradičního židovského svátku rozsvícení menory říká:
"I coudn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah."

18.prosince 2002 při projevu ve Washington, D.C.:
"I think the American people - I hope the American - I don't think, let me - hope the American people trust me."

Subjective description

I want to post another essay here. It is actually two piece essay. It was a in class assignment and we were supposed to describe our feelings about having a very hot drink on a very cold day and a cold drink on a very hot day.

The cold is so intense that I cannot take a deep breath otherwise my lungs would hurt as if there were tiny midgets inside them and each of them is stabbing my lings with a sharp knife. Steam coming out off my nostrils freezes right away and creates a thin layer of frozen mist on my upper lip. It even clogs up the nostrils when I wait too long to take a breath. Uncovered parts of my face, a tip of my nose, a chin, and cheeks are pinched by invisible hands with very sharp nails. Even though I have four layers of clothes on, I feel that my intestines are getting frozen. When I first see a cup with steam coming from it, my soul little melts. Not much, though. My shaking hands cannot wait to hold the cup and get a warm touch. Oh, it feels so good. I carefully take a sip and it is like a miracle. I can feel my lips again, and I can feel my cheeks. When the drink comes down through my throat, those little midgets in the lungs are running away like wild horses and very calm, warm, and relaxing feeling spreads out in my belly. Now, I feel tired.

It looks like the sun never goes down. Its scorching beams are scratching me as if they are using scrubs to get under my skin. I cannot stand this heat. My head is swirling around and I see a lot of red and yellow circles in front of my eyes. To my surprise, not only is my body sweating, but also my eyes. Who would think about that? The whole body weighs thousands tons and I cannot move my legs as if there were an iron ball with chain attached to each ankle. I feel like a prisoner. Only a really cold drink can set me free. When I hold it, I enjoy its cooling feeling in my palm, but only for a very short moment. I feel like a small kid in front of a Christmas tree wanting to open its gifts as fast as possible. I take a good sip. The cold water is rushing down like a waterfall and cooling down everything it is touching. However, it is not only inside, but my whole body is submerged into falling water. What a feeling! I hear a snap pf the chains being unlocked and I'm free man again.