muringustav

Essay

2011-01-23T13:44:00.002+01:00

Chernobyl – Paulo Coelho is wrong

Taking on a world-renowned author, who just sold the movie rights to his bestseller “The Alchemist” to Harvey Weinstein, wasn’t my intention, but I must admit that his notes about Chernobyl in his novel “The Witch of Portobello” were so outrageous that I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help wondering what on earth possessed him to bring up the disaster at all and why, if he had to mention it, he went so far in distorting its impact. The topic of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster actually has no greater (in fact almost none) importance for the story in this book. The only explanation I can think of to account for why Mr. Coelho introduced a few sentences about Chernobyl was because he felt that by mentioning Chernobyl he would somehow lend his novel some gravitis or prove some subtle point which somehow eluded me.

Let’s begin by quoting this respected author about the casualties (p. 207, Harpers Collins, 2007): “The initial thirty deaths became, according to the expert John Gofmans, 475.000 cases of fatal cancers and an equal number of nonfatal cancers. A total of two thousand towns and villages were simply wiped out off the map. According to the Health Ministry in Belarus, the incidence of cancer of thyroid will increase considerably between 2005 and 2010, as a consequence of continuing high levels of radioactivity. Another specialist explains that in addition to the nine million people directly exposed to radiation, more than sixty-five million in many countries around the world were indirectly affected by consuming contaminated foodstuffs.”

Is this true?

Most of the information that Coelho has cited in this passage is completely erroneous. Actually, only thirty people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. Even the spelling of the expert’s name is wrong. The correct name is Gofman, not Gofmans and his estimate of “475.000 cases” wasn’t related to Chernobyl at all! He used this number (with Arthur Tamplin) in another context altogether. They were referring to a warning by Dr. Ernest Sternglass, made in the 1960s, that nuclear testing would ultimately lead to the miscarriage of up to 400,000 babies in the U.S. within a decade if it had continued. Gofman and Tamplin criticized this estimate as one thousand higher percent than possible although Gofman subsequently admitted that Sternglass might be right. The whole discussion, however, (and the numbers thrown about to make the arguments) doesn’t seem to be very serious. But even giving Mr. Coelho the benefit of the doubt, these statistics have nothing to do with Chernobyl.

Perhaps more relevant to the author’s argument is a warning by the Health Ministry in Belarus about FUTURE victims of Chernobyl projected to occur between 2005 and 2010. It is not clear whether the ministry’s figures are the source of Mr. Coelho citation, but what is clear is that they have nothing to do with reality. Incidence of cancer of thyroid after 2005 has never increased significantly in the area of Chernobyl. (The same holds true in the case of the almost unknown breakdown of reactor A1 in Jaslovské Bohunice, the first such incident in the world that claimed human life). For that matter, thyroid cancer didn’t show a significant rise even after an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. On the contrary, incidence of any type of cancer in the area around Hiroshima in the aftermath of the bombing was surprisingly low. Scientists who have examined the phenomenon have come to a conclusion distinctly at odds with Coelho’s: “The studies have repeatedly proven, that in case the dose is not lethal (3,0-4,0 Gy of acute whole body irradiation without medical help leads to 50% mortality within 60 days), the victims survive for a relatively long time even with the latent presence of chromosome aberrations in the peripheral lymphocytes or the bone narrow.” (Awa, 1990) And as is well-known, the lifespan of the Japanese rose dramatically after World War II, a growth rate that would be impossible with a higher incidence of lethal cancer cases.

Mr. Coelho also cites “another (anonymous) specialist” who estimated that “nine million people (were) directly exposed to radiation.” Even a layman will realize the absurdity of such an inflated number especially in light of the author’s next assertion – that “…more than sixty-five million in many countries around the world were indirectly affected by consuming contaminated foodstuffs.” There is no explanation for how this number was arrived at. Why not fifty-six million or just fifty million? And while we’re at it, how did all these “contaminated foodstuffs” reach so many people? Food products are regularly irradiated with obviously no harm to humans (this method has been approved by U.S. regulatory agencies). It seems inconceivable that contaminated produce could have been distributed to sixty-five million people without being noticed by the authorities of any country. We should note that during the Communist era there was a state hygienic service and in the event of an outbreak of disease or contamination officials would at least warn their relatives and friends even if the public was left in the dark.

It might surprise Mr. Coelho to learn that the affected area around Chernobyl is doing well enough in terms of its flora and fauna to have sustained several rare Przewalski horses and a bull called Uran with three cows Alfa, Beta and Gamma, which were released in the region as an experiment. If he were interested, the bestselling author of “The Alchemist” could find hundreds of titles in the scientific database on the effects of the Chernobyl disaster on the environment. But it isn’t necessary to dig down very far to refute one of Coelho’s bolder claims – that as a result of the explosion of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in 1986 “a total of two thousand towns and villages were simply wiped out off the map.” This is complete nonsense. Even the closest city to the site -- Pripjat – not only wasn’t wiped out, it remains intact till this day. Beside the fact that in the almost naturally deserted area around Chernobyl (steppe and marshes) “two thousand towns and villages” were never built.

Conclusion

All this isn’t to say that the Chernobyl disaster didn’t cause significant harm. The loss of thirty lives can’t be overlooked by any means followed by 1800 affected children. The region exposed to radioactive contamination also experienced a statistically significant lower rate of live births (caused by higher mortality of mainly male babies) mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. (A similar effect was reported among livestock). But within a year the birthrate – human and animal – had returned to normal along the lines suggested by the Gofman/Tamplin’s citation of Sternglass that was taken out of context by Mr. Coelho.

After twisting the facts to suit his own ends Mr. Coelho reaches an unexceptional conclusion: “It’s a serious matter, which deserves to be treated with respect…” But that’s the only sentence in his entire commentary that any educated reader can agree with. Unfortunately, because his readership is so large, even with the best of intentions, Mr. Coelho has only contributed to misunderstanding about the consequences of Chernobyl and distorted efforts to come to grips with its historical implications.

References:
Awa, A. A., 1990: Chromosome aberrations in A-bomb survivors, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Chromosomal Aberrations. (G. Obe and A. T. Natarajan – Eds), Springer Verlag, p. 140-150.
Mičieta, K., Murín, G., 2007: Wild plant species in bio-indication of radioactive-
contaminated sites around Jaslovské Bohunice nuclear power plant in the Slovak
Republic. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Vol. 93, No. 1, p.26-37.
Oudalova, A., Geraskin, S., Vasiliev, D., Dikarev, V., 2005: Cytogenetic variability in Pinus
sylvestris L. populations experiencing anthropogenic influence. Radioprotection, Suppl. 1,
vol. 40: S223-S228.

Travel story from Mexico

2010-11-29T22:15:00.001+01:00

The World is Small

It’s always nice if in country you are going to visit for the first time you’ll be spending time with somebody who can introduce you to the local habits. I was lucky enough to have my scientist colleague from Slovakia in Mexico City; and unlucky in the same time, as all my attempts to contact him seemed in vain. He didn’t answer a single one of my fax messages. Later, it became clear why. Someone had stolen the fax machine from his office. My telegram, which took my laboratory’s quarterly postal budget, was never received. The letter that I sent after more modern forms of communication had failed was almost certainly going to arrive too late. But against all odds, the letter arrived a day before my departure from Slovakia. Thanks to this, my colleague and I had a last-minute chance to arrange our meeting at the airport.

My colleague kept his promise of providing a temporary respite on my trip to the unknown. He invited me to sample many Mexican local beers including one with familiar name for us - Bohemia. It was accompanied with Mexican soup called Pozole. One began to feel at home. My colleague also warned me in detail what should or should not be done when traveling alone, and in the evening he escorted me to the bus headed for Guadalajara and dispatched me into the night. Those who have traveled on overnight Mexican bus lines know that it is a luxury that we don’t have in central Europe. Therefore, I should felt comfortable, but I didn’t. In the highway tollbooths, I saw armed soldiers and wild-looking civilians in ponchos with guns in their hands. It was as though we were passing through the frontlines of local wars. So, I didn’t sleep at all en route to Guadalajara.

It was about five in the morning when I arrived, dishevelled and weary at Guadalajara bus station. My first twelve hours in Mexico had been spent mostly in the interior of a dark bus living down the after-effects of Bohemia beer and Pozole soup. Now, I waited nervously at the uncharming stand of pre-paid taxi service. My colleague had warned me vigorously that at this stage of a journey a foreigner has two problems: not to be robbed before you get into the taxi and, more importantly, not to be robbed while you are in the taxi. Thankfully, the first didn’t happen and the second I awaited apprehensively in the back seat of the old taxi. My Danish colleagues were robbed in the center of Mexico City on their way back to their hotel from night raid to the cantinas. A small green taxi with a state license took them to a dark street where the driver’s accomplices waiting. I was dwelling on this issue and my potential response and so I didn’t realize that in a moment I would be dealing with a completely different problem. I had told the taxi driver the name of the hotel, Plaza del Sol, and I that good man really took me there, but to a square and park called Plaza del Sol. At 5:30 a.m. he stopped and, with a sweeping international gesture, showed me that we had arrived. I knew that I was in trouble. I had no other point of orientation in the sprawling city of Guadalajara, with its millions of people -- only the name of the Hotel Plaza del Sol, which was unfortunately the same as that of the deserted square. The taxi driver greeted my explanation in English that I was going to a writers’ conference with good-natured incomprehension. I had nothing else up my sleeve. I had no desire to get out of the taxi with my luggage either but what could I do except feebly repeat the name Plaza del Sol, to which he nodded agreeably and offered to help me out of the taxi. In chess we call it a stalemate.

In the grey, early morning light I looked around in this unknown country, in this unknown city, about 10,000 kilometers from home, for some sign of encouragement, something to light my way. And I found it. The taxi had stopped near row of small buildings that formed part of the square. All the buildings were shops or restaurants, and all were closed and dark. Only one, right where we were parked, had a shining neon sign with one word on it -- ‘Slovensko’. At first I thought it was hallucination caused by my lack of sleep. This sign was not from this part of the world. It was really written in Slovak. It wasn’t in English, ‘Slovakia’, or Spanish, ‘Eslovaqia’ , but our domestic ´Slovensko´. It could only have been written by some Slovak who had lost his way here long before me. Someone who has survived here and built a homage to our native land. Looking at this message I realized that from now on I just couldn’t go wrong.

The hotel with the unfortunate name ‘Plaza del Sol’ was of course just around the corner .

Story from Georgia, Kaukazus

2010-09-12T22:09:00.001+02:00

Suede Shoes

Our literary conference in Georgia was one of the most exciting adventures of my life. The organizers, our young Georgian colleagues, want to show us best of their hospitality. On the third day of the conference they organized a spontaneously scheduled excursion to some long-lost part of the country via bad roads through the mountains, headed for an unknown destination. In one little town the organizers left us and went to make some further arrangements.

While waiting in some uncertainty as to what would happen next there was only one relaxing activity: taking photographs. We got out our automatic tourist cameras in the belief that we were spending our time usefully. We were particularly attracted by a nearby wooden hut with the inscription -- SHOE REPAIR. It wasn’t as interesting as the little girl and the little dog on its doorstep. They were both filled with childish curiosity when they saw us. We had taken a few photographs when, from out of nowhere, we heard Russian, spoken with a Georgian accent.

„Where is this Slovak?”

Why this unknown local should pick me out as a Slovak is a mystery I'll never be able to explain until the day I die. But in hope of a reasonable explanation I told him it was me.

He was one of the men also seen in other countries whose lives are passed huddled in little groups on streets in towns or villages. They talk, drink tea and, very attentively, pay attention to what’s going on. Based on this knowledge, my discussion with the unknown, unshaven man in rags started in the worst possible way. He came up to me, looked directly into my eyes, and asked in a loud, provocative voice, „Why did you photograph the cripple?”

I knew I was in trouble. In the hut with the SHOE REPAIR sign there might be a cripple – it’s normal in this craft. I didn’t see him; didn’t know he was there. But it was pointless to apologize. The man was absolutely certain that he was well within his rights to teach a foreigner a lesson and he knew, as I did, that he could rely on the solidarity of his street companions. Cripples and children are untouchable in every country. Woe betides any foreigner who makes such a mistake -- as I had, however unwittingly.

As it happens in these moments, those who could have helped me stood around silently in anticipation of how this impromptu drama would conclude. The unknown man’s acquaintances started to form a circle around me and cocked their ears for what was to follow. Every word was important. And I realized that I should speak about anything besides cripples. If I did, I would give him the chance for a dissertation on the arrogance and insensitivity of foreigners.

In a desperate effort to think of something, I began carefully. „You know, my dear friend.” Thinking hard I looked at my suede shoes and found sudden inspiration. „I photographed this shoe repair shop because back home we don’t have such shops anymore.”

„Are you serious?” He looked at me in surprise, but also with suspicion. He knew that I was pushing him off the mark by moving to another subject.

„Absolutely serious. Imagine: we produce such terrible shoes that they’re not worth repairing. They’re only made of imitation materials, and we just throw them away when they’re worn out.”

„Really?!” the man exclaimed with delight. It always pleases these opinion-makers of the streets to find out something from foreigners, that gives them a feeling of superiority. At this moment they become hospitable and patronizing, convinced that you are worse off than they are. „You’re in a poor condition.”

„Yes, you’re right,” I eagerly agreed.

„Where is the world going?” he continued. But for a moment he didn’t want to let go of the possibility of a quarrel and started to censure me. „When you take photographs, why don’t you photograph something that is really nice?”

He made a sweeping gesture around the square, which didn’t have anything especially nice about it. Thanks to this gesture, however, I saw that the circle of the curious was leaving out of boredom. I had won, but had to continue to stoke his pride with strategic compliments.

„I’m saving film for your beautiful mountains,” I assured him.

„Oh yes, our beautiful mountains,” the man echoed. He looked around for a moment, as if to assure himself that they were as beautiful today as every day, and then, with very practical tone, added: „I live nearby; come for vodka.”

When I came home I revealed this story, from great strife to a happy ending, to my wife. She wasn’t interested in my rendition of the story, nor in the powers of my shoes.

„Those terrible old shoes you’ll wear into eternity. You could buy some new ones!”

„New shoes?” I just took them off and said angrily, “These are the last examples of honest, handmade, indestructible shoes.”

I pushed them under my wife’s nose to prove my point. All-knowing, she shook her head, and before leaving me with my naiveté, she remarked, „Then look closely at your indestructible shoes!”

I looked at my beloved shoes and I almost had a heart attack. They were split completely open at the soles. When I stood in front of the Georgian shoe repair shop and had this war of words with the unknown man these shoes had to have been in similar shape. But I didn’t surrender.

At the shoe repair shop in our neighborhood they immediately dismissed the idea of fixing my shoes.

„We haven’t done these kinds of repairs for ages. We only repair what we can glue or sew together. Try downtown.”

I tried a few repair shops downtown. In the last they were very patient with me. The woman behind counter took the shoes into the back of the shop and returned with a veteran shoe-repairer. He took them, expertly pulled apart what was left of them, and offered his condolences:

„New soles are needed, but we can’t do it. Twenty years ago we had to burn of our good, old shoe-repairing equipment. In the communist times we over-produced shoes so much that repair became uneconomical.”

I remembered this utopian idea, but now we have capitalism again. Or not?

„Nice shoes,” he said, and gave them back to me pityingly. „Today they don’t produce shoes of this quality. And in this country no one can repair them. Maybe only ...”

„I know,” I said suddenly. „I know where they can repair them.”

I went home and placed my beloved suede shoes on the shelf. One day I'll just have to go back to Georgia.

American story

2010-08-06T13:31:00.001+02:00

Magic (electric) power

Life is full of magic events. In fact, life itself is magic. But the most magical events are to be encountered on the road. Whenever you leave home, you open the chance to experience inexplicable extraordinary events.

Visiting the United States first time, for the International Writing Program in Iowa, I was pretty excited. Consequences followed soon, weird things began to happen. On the first day, we got trapped in the elevator. “An extraordinary accident,” said our house-host Mary. “Can’t happen again.” Next day Mary got stuck in the elevator.

Well, I wasn’t surprised at all when, the same day, we got into the campus bus and it wouldn’t budge. When we got home, there was a fire alarm, a false one. The next evening I was playing tennis with Alan, an Australian colleague. Suddenly the lights went out and we were plunged into darkness. Soon after, the air conditioning in my room stopped working. When I went out for help, locking the doors behind me, I could not get back in because the lock had somehow broken. In short, every technical device around me broke down under the force of my enthusiastic, psychic energy.

Within a week or two I settled in and things around me came back to order. Later I went for a two-week trip to the East Coast, and when I returned, the whole chain of strange events repeated itself. Finally, daily routine prevailed, and only one, but constant, mysterious event disturbed it.

In front of our dormitory stretched a line of street lamps. Whenever I walked home at night, one particular lamp always switched off the moment I approached it and switched on when I passed. The lamp was easy to recognize because a speed limit sign was fixed to the post. Many times I forgot that the lamp was going to say good night to me and was surprised when it did.

Once an American colleague gave me a ride home, and before we came to my street I told her about the lamp. Even before I had finished, I was wondering if the lamp would blink this time.

“You know,” I said, “we are in the car and will pass the lamp at a different speed. Maybe it will not recognize me at that distance and…” But as we approached the lamp, it switched off and we almost crashed into it.

My colleague stopped the car and looked at me with new eyes. “You are the devil, Gustav, do you know that?”

I decided that it was time to stop playing with mysteries, at least publicly. So I decided to ignore my friendly lamp, and when I came back to my home country after three months in Iowa, I almost forgot it.

Seven years later I got the chance to come back to Iowa, this time as a lecturer for the same program. Again, I was very excited. But the whole program had moved to the new University hotel closer to the center of the city. As soon as I checked in, someone from the program’s staff came to drive me to the welcoming party being hosted by the new director. On the way we were chatting about my previous stay, and I mentioned the mysterious events that had occurred. We had a lot of fun with these old stories, and in a good mood pulled up in front of the director’s house. The image we saw was unforgettable. The director was standing on a chair trying to change the bulb in the porch light. That light had just failed.

My new guide gazed at me with a curious look in her eyes, but I jumped out of the car before she had time to say anything. I think I know what she was going to say.

Story in English

2010-04-21T10:15:00.002+02:00

Country affected by humans

Noise, dirt and smell in India reached staggering proportions. It is quite possible that this country is the superpower of noise, dirt and smell. This combination goes beyond the imagination of those who come here for the first time and I believe that many intestinal difficulties of inexperienced travelers comes from the consternation that quite astounding and hampering their ability to defend themselves against this aggressive environment.Already the first walk through the streets is unexpected onslaught of good manners. Just when you notice how men relieve themselves before all others at the open urinals. When standing on a railway station up to your ankles in the garbage, you can not be struck by the contradiction between the statement on a plate in each pole announcing "Indian Railways - pride of the entire nation" and the fact that every now and then someone jumps into trackage to leave his smelling opinion on that pride.

I've never seen anyone that would take care of garbage collection from the streets, but I've seen more times absurd attempt to wash the floor in the hotel. Mostly they end up sort of strange that the man spread the dirt by the strange wet broom, which itself is just another source of dirt.Another breath-taking look is when you stood in Varanasi on the banks of the sacred river Gangha and see as people wash their teeth in its muddy waters. Nearby are floating bloated carcasses of a dead sacred cows. According the tradition bodies of dead children, Brahmin and those who died of leprosy also threw in the same water. And nobody cares also threw in the same water.

In the New Delhi for the first time in my life I've really seen a smog. This experience graduated up to Varanasi when we went by taxi from Varanasi to the place where Buddha first preached (and where we finally saw a cleaner countryside). We were five. I sat in the back seat in the middle of the Indian colleagues and for the first time in my life (and I hope the last), I experienced the onslaught of uncontrollable panic. From the open windows of a taxi pushed us such a wisp of smog, dust and smell that I had an immediate urge to jump and escape. I have mastered not to just by rational conclusion that if I will jump out of the cab I will end in the midst of all this and perish forever become overwhelmed by the mass of dirt. Rather, I prefer to steam in a taxi behind closed window.Despite all this optimism does not pass me. On the way from Varanasi to Delhi we should go by train from the morning throughout the day. I believed that it will pay for everything by the previous suffering.

"The country can not be ugly. No country is ugly, or dirty an smelly.” I reassured myself and a colleague. Then the train moved, and I was speechless for three hundred kilometers long.Indeed, no country is ugly, or dirty and smelly when someone is watching it from behind a window, going by fast train. But in no other country they have a habit of shocking the local morning toilet. In India, villagers enjoy to see each train, which passes. They do not want to miss either their morning toilet to relieve the pressing current needs. The shocking solution is that they go to a nearest knoll and watch the passing train without being interrupted from their morning dispensation. And to see a three hundred kilometers of shiting natives will knock out each admirer of exotic countries. I do not know how an Indian village looks like from a train in the morning. And neither do not recommend anyone to know ...

Story in English from India

2010-04-15T20:08:00.002+02:00

Finding the Right Way

Traveling you may find different local attractions. But the real historic labyrinth you may found only in Indian city Lucknow. One would expect it is underground, but in fact it’s on the first floor of the mausoleum in large palace. Moreover, this labyrinth is seemingly very simply and transparent, laid out in straight lines. You can predict what’s coming. Its passages lead around the circumference of the palace’s main hall and offer scenic views into the hall and to the outside. The only confusing element are the changing levels in the passages; from time to time you had to walk up a few stairs and then back down. The local guide didn’t forget to start this part of our journey with a painful joke about another guide getting lost. It underestimated our intelligence more than I could tolerate, so at the next crossover I left the group. Alone, I felt triumphant elevation for a moment. I could hear the screaming voice of the guide dissipating into the hidden corners of the labyrinth. Finally I could walk freely, look into the little scenic views, try out some passages, think about my world -- and get lost.
When I realized that I was lost, I wasn’t completely upset. I assumed that the labyrinth was so small that I could simply walk until I reached an exit. But the more I walked the more I understood that the only way out was the way we had come in. And that had completely disappeared from my mental map. I could only find the stairs connecting the floors of the labyrinth. I went up them and found an empty terrace on the top of palace. As the sun went down, I was intrigued by the ordinary view down in the dirty yard behind the palace. In the place that wasn’t designed to impress tourists was a shantytown and mounds of garbage. In front of these dwellings stood a woman in black and around her, amid the rubbish, children played. The woman stood quietly, watching the children with the fatal look of resolve that you can also find anywhere else that poverty is so near, so real, and that any vision of a dignified life is obscured. The children shrieked loudly, carefree, like children the world over, but their game had some strange pattern. Although they seemed at first glance irresponsible, mischievous, buoyant, they were careful not to step across an imaginary circle as they jumped and ran about. Full of energy, hope and unknown self-confidence they intertwined through a network of passages without any exit like me in my labyrinth. I felt surprisingly near to them, physically intimate, as if I was one of them.
I was helped by the fact that I was above them in a terrace, barefooted, just like them. You cannot enter the labyrinth with shoes on. I left my shoes and socks in front of the palace and now, up to my ankles in dust, I felt uncertain and unpleasantly naked. I was certain that there couldn’t be another expedition of tourists at this point in the evening. And our guide could hardly remember me and recognize that I am not within group. Further more we were such a big group of the scientists of different nationalities that we didn’t know each other. I realized, unwillingly, that within the next twelve hours no one was going to miss me. For a moment I froze, feeling that for some absurd reason I would never be able to leave the Lucknow labyrinth -- except to descend to join the woman and the children below and stay forever in the labyrinth of their poverty without any hope of escape.
For a long time I look down on human beings among the rubbish. They didn’t choose to enter their labyrinth as I had chosen to enter mine, for a casual adventure. And I could still get out of mine. Then, with a new resolve to find my way out, I went quickly down the stairs. Soon I heard familiar, carefree voices and the stentorian tones of our guide and saw the group at the end of a long passage. As they descended the main stairs in front of the palace, I joyously added myself to their ranks.

Story in English

2010-03-31T09:27:00.002+02:00

First big love

She had name as a flower. She was beautiful as a flower. She was so beautiful that when we went walking to the city, people were turning to gaze at her, but nobody saw me. We met at the Youth festival, she were there as a student of visual art, me as an young author. She did not speak much, but was very much concerned about the future of our love. We were absolutely sure that we will get married and she was studying books about marriage to be ready to be the best wife for me. And, of course, she found lot of tests to check if I will be the best husband for her. Our families were convinced that we are the couple for the rest of our lives. She even invented solution in case that some of us (me?) will get married accidentally with someone else.

“Never mind,” she said, “this can not be an obstacle. We will be lovers forever.”
We were in age of sweet sixteen and everything we said about the love was meant deadly seriously. After two years of our teenage love we both went to the University. Me to study a science, she went to the Academy of art. There she, always shinning and mostly silent person, discovered a bohemian world promising so much to the young body and soul and she forgot about me. There was not a last “good bye” words between us, because there was still that idea of being lovers forever.

Two other years passed and I did not hear about her. I was alone, studying, writing, playing theatre, organizing cultural events, simply working hard to let her know publicly that I am in the city. And one evening she called.

With her soft voice she recalled to the phone all my public signs to her during that long period. She said that she got married meanwhile and has a little child, but this is not an obstacle. She wants us to meet.

I had my rented apartment and we met. We talked and I realized that during that time we were not together I already discovered new horizons, traveling and finding scientific and literary connections with the world, while she got trapped in the her premature marriage and the motherhood. Than, as planned years before, our bodies met again. But not our souls. In our sweet sixteen’s we were not aware that this could happened, that this could be the obstacle for to be lover forever. I never heard about her from that night on. This was the true end of our first big love that that should never end …

Indian story

2010-03-24T08:23:00.001+01:00

Finding the Right Way

Italy

2010-03-18T12:17:00.004+01:00

Miracle in the Holy City

The Holy City Roma is beautiful and impressive with all its historical sites, churches and cathedrals. But on Sunday around lunch it is as sleepy as a small village in a lost valley. And exactly that time our tourist bus stopped in front of Vatican gates.

“One hour for look-around or shopping,” says our Slovak guide without noticing that there was no place for shopping and nothing too much to look around at. Most members of our tourist group resigned themselves to the fact and tried to find a toilet or had their last home-made sandwich. But my wife and I had an important duty – to buy something, in the worst case anything, for our relatives back home. We were at the end of our tour and it would be really difficult to explain those who were waiting for our return that we did not take time to find some “typical Italian” article when we were in Roma. Well, now we had some time, but almost no hope.

“It is lost,” said my wife, “maybe there will be something on the highway on the way home.”
“Forget it,” I answered, “our drivers will try to reach home so quickly that it will be difficult to stop them even on at borders. “ I knew that there was only one solution to this problem – a miracle. And where else if not in Holy City?!
“Let us go,” I said.
“Where?” asked my wife.
“Let us go, we will see,” I said, and went. My wife followed me as generations of other wives before her followed their foolish husbands – with resignation and reluctance. But she moved, at least.

I chose a direction instinctively, from Saint Peter’s square to the left by a long, deserted street. It was hopeless. Not only was not one shop open; worse than that, there was no shop at all. But I insisted that there would be one, and my wife stopped complaining. We did not talk; in fact there was nothing to talk about. The only sounds we heard in the hot sunny mid-day were our steps and voices of people having lunch and sounds of spoons, knifes and forks used for that celebration of Sunday feast. There can be hardly a less sensible mission than the one we were trying to accomplish that time at that place. But it did not last long – after a few hundred meters we came to the outskirts of the city! It was hard to believe that this giant city ended after a short walk from the city center, but everything looked as though there was nowhere to go. The street changed for a road leading to some woods. There couldn’t be a less promising place for shopping.

My wife start smiling the way that generations of wives before her showed their foolish husbands that this particular idea was another that failed. I wanted to say something to her, but there was no chance to play this game any longer. Yes, my crazy idea had failed. It was time to turn back.

As we turned back – we saw it. Not only a shop and not only an open shop, but a whole shopping center--open! It was on the opposite side of street and somehow hidden from the direction we came. It was not huge but big enough to find all we needed to buy. Our shopping did not last long. We were the only customers in the whole shop, and there was only one cashier. As we were approaching her with shopping-cart full of “important typical Italian gifts” I saw a shelf with razors. You certainly know that paradox – you can buy classic razors cheaply (or even receive some as business gifts), but replacement blades to it are really costly. And here they had blades for a relatively low price, and I desperately needed some new ones. This was a bonus, on top of our shopping! But there was a problem. We had no more money left. For a while I stood with my wife in front of the shelf and tried to calculate and recalculate what we could leave out from the gifts to our relatives to give me chance for this bargain. But we had already made the list as short as possible. Well, miracles have limits. So, I had to forget it. We moved to the cashier and paid for our shopping.

While I was paying, my wife pushed shopping-cart to the exit. Finishing with the cashier, I followed my wife. And I suddenly saw something falling from the shopping-cart. I reached for it and was stunned for a moment. It was the package of blades we were hesitating to buy and found that we could not. I looked at my wife, but she was occupied by packing our goods. I looked at the cashier, but she did not even look in our direction. I reached for the gift fallen from heaven and went to show it to my wife. This was unbelievable. There is no explanation how the package of blades hopped into our shopping-cart. We were too far from the shelf, and we were merely glancing at it. Nothing more. But the blades were here in my hand and my wife put it into plastic bag without hesitation.

“That’s bonus from God, you foolish shopping guide,” said she, and hurried me back to the bus.

Well, this was really a miracle. Only one thing I had to add – I am not an expert on razor blades, and it seems that God isn’t either. Coming home I soon realized that the blades from Roma miracle shopping center were no of the type useful for my razor and me. Well, miracles definitely have limits.

Indonesian story

2010-03-10T09:22:00.002+01:00

Meeting in Medan

Medan is the ugliest city in the world I had visited. It may be caused by fact that on our way from Singapore to Vienna, Europe, we had in Medan a 16 hour gap between our connecting flights. Waiting at any airport for so long is definitely not very pleasant. But to do so in Sumatra at Medan airport is, based on my experience, even worse. The female part of our small tour group dealt stoically with this situation. They seem to be able to sit, patiently, on their bags the whole time and wait. This makes me certain that women are stronger and more persevering than men are. After 30 minutes, my journalist colleague and I started trying to find any way to leave the airport. Notwithstanding our multi-exit visas, the customs clerks gave us a difficult time before they would let us leave. They had to do something to earn their baksheesh. An exotic European brand of cigarettes opened the doors to the wonders of Medan as often as we would wish during the long wait for our plane. And thanks to it I have soon realized that Medan has one of the most friendly people I have ever met.

We promptly made a trip to the local Sultan’s palace and a longer trip to a crocodile farm. Due to the absence of other attractions, we also decided to see a modern mosque. Unfortunately, like the other beauties in Medan it was in decay. We had exhausted the sightseeing venues. However, still we had only used up half of the waiting time. We returned to the airport and checked on our patient female colleagues. They had already entered a state of hibernation and looked like sphinxes. For variety, there was a technical pause from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. when all stores and offices in the airport shut down and the employees left -- turning off the air conditioning. The only living people in the airport were the female members of our group, sitting resolutely on their luggage as if even an accidental earthquake would not dislodge them. This was too much for my colleague and me and, desperately, we tried to find another adventure.

The only thing we could think of was to walk around the suburb of the town next to the airport. The main street was lined with rundown shops. They had clay floors, and when we bought lemonade we had to drink it warm, since there was no refrigeration. After our first steps on this street, unbelievable things started to happen.

Passing cars were horning at us. Shopkeepers and customers ran out of the shops to look at us. School children on their way home surrounded us warmly and enthusiastically. A young local teacher of English came to us, enchanted, introduced himself, shook our hands and said, earnestly, how glad he was to meet us. Not that local people hadn’t seen Europeans, but they hadn’t seen two Europeans walking among them. I understood that it was like a mission of „folk diplomacy“ during the thaw in relations between East and West in the ‘80s. Now I felt that this was an extraordinary occasion for the ordinary citizens of Sumatra and Slovakia to engage in some „folk diplomacy“. As we walked along this infinitely long street, the feeling grew better and better. We stopped in front of shabby kiosks to shake hands with people. There was small probability that we could tell them anything important in any international language. But we didn’t need words. It was an enthusiastic mission of understanding an ideal moment to prove that people of good will don’t need any language. The good things everyone can feel. It is rare moment when one has the feeling that he is the messenger of universal understanding and reconciliation.

The feeling ended when, at the end of the long street, we saw a tall, dust-covered man on a bicycle loaded fully with baggage. Beneath the mask of dust, the man seemed to be a European. We stopped, surprised. The man on the bicycle came directly toward us. It was a man of our age explaining that he was on a trek from India to somewhere in Borneo. He and his bike showed signs of this long journey. He started in his German mother language but quickly understood that with us he would have to use the lingua franca of international travelers -- English.

„I say you hello,“ he said. „Advise me the nearest hotel.“

With pity we shook our heads. We had no idea where the nearest hotel could be. Local people were perfect members of non-verbal friendship mission, but this information they couldn’t help with. The German shrugged it off, waved, and in parting said:

„It´s O.k.. By the way, aren´t you from Slovakia?“

We nodded. „How did you know?“

„Simple. Because of your terrible pronunciation. Good-bye.“ Then he pedaled into the distance.

This is how life goes. For some experiences you must go thousands of kilometers to learn, that there is nowhere in the world where you can’t meet a European, or find the footprint of a European. And, if you forget for a moment about our national differences, it’s still the terrible pronunciation of English that divides us . . .

Romania

2010-03-03T09:00:00.001+01:00

LOVERS UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER

Anyone who tries to convince you that knowing the local languages is essential for traveling abroad doesn't know what he's talking about. This story is about understanding--thanks to love.

In the early eighties the nearest and cheapest tourist resort for tourists from Czechoslovakia was the sea cost in Romania. Our hiking group of high school friends went there and by chance met we two Slovak boys and two local girls on the beach near Constanta, Romania. The boys spoke only Slovak. Well that´s not entirely accurate. One of our new friends, called Jano, also spoke three French words: good morning, love, and bed. Every day, when these yokels met the girls at the beach, Jano proudly said, “Good morning”. The girls spoke perfect French and were eager to communicate but Jano and his friend paid little attention as they played cards. Thus girls chirped away together all morning in their own language alone and everybody seemed satisfied.

At lunchtime, Jano put away the cards, embraced one of the girls, and said the second word from his French vocabulary “love”. Both girls laughed, embraced out two heroes, and continued to prattle away in Romanian about their everyday concerns. Meanwhile Jano and his friend were rubbing suntan lotion over most of the girls’ bodies. They alternated this activity with periodical trips to the bistro for a beer.

In the early evening, as the four packed up their beach mats, Jano reached for his girl's hand and said, in decisive French, “Bed”. His new girlfriend readily agreed.

But there was a problem. The hate-mongering Giant of the Carpathians, Nicolae Ceaucescu, had decided that Romanian women could have no any relationship with a foreigners. So when Jano went off with his new girlfriend to the center where she had arranged a free room for the evening, he found himself back at the camp in an hour--escorted by the police. Jano, used to Slovak ways of expressing his passion had not been able to restrain himself at a bus from engaging in a steamy embrace. This had aroused the suspicion of the police. In Romania at that time, no one behaved so uninhibitedly. Kissing in public was a sure sign that he was a foreigner.

Jano was very unhappy. We consoled him as much as we could. Jano meanwhile consumed our whole stock of Romanian wine, Mulfatlar, and didn't appear to be bothered by the bitter taste of the heavy red wine. When he finished, he asked for our help as compatriots. Next day, we were to lend him a tent to seal an act of international friendship between the Romanian and Slovak nations. He presented his case, spoken with such dignity, that we agreed.

The next day, Jano used his three French words in the same order. The only difference was that he drank Mulfatlar, remembering how it had comforted him the previous evening. This was not a good idea under the hot sun. In any case, it´s advisable to water down this kind of wine. Jano drank it straight and sailed serenely toward a satsifactory evening in the tent with the girl....

As they left the beach together, he greeted us. Us! Educated, suave men, sitting alone, burning with frustration without charming partners of our own. In fact, his gestures were also a sign that we should stay on the beach as long as possible.

We stayed. Only the cold wind called to us from the darkening sea and beach. We left to warm ourselves with a bottle of Mulfatlar at a nearby terrazzo. Imagine, how surprised we were to find Jano there drinking beer! “Boys, this wretched stuff must be full of saltpeter!” He gestured angrily to our wine glasses. “It's their leader revenge so there can't be any foreign babies”. We really pitied him.

Next day Jano's girlfriend came to see him at the terrazzo buffet, where he must have spent the entire night. She took his hand and dragged him to the beach. Before he could manage his triumvirate of French words, she said two Slovak words she learned the previous evening, “Jano, nepi! – Jano, don't drink!”.

Then she embraced him and pulled him into the sand dunes. Thus began a true understanding between nations -- without words.

Malaysia

2010-02-24T09:18:00.000+01:00

The Extinction of the Walker

Americans use their supermarkets as a second home. Malaysians aspire to be like Americans. Their currency used to be called the Malaysian dollar and even in written form it resembles the dollar sign. Our group of foreigners were given opportunity to see what was the rightful second home of Malaysians. Four of us -- a Finnish professor, a young German scientist and two Slovaks -- explored a Malysian Megamart, which even included artificial canals with big boat tours. First we went to the food market. It had everything imaginable from all over the world, but it was difficult to find anything that could have been considered Malaysian. The next area, luxury cosmetics, offered the same brand names (and shelf arrangements) that one would find in London, Paris or New York, or even Sofia, Prague, or Warsaw.

Exhausted after looking at the endless variety of goods for sale we decided to leave. That wasn’t easy. We all agreed that we had to take a taxi in order to get to the university campus. We also concluded that everywhere in the world taxis park in front of the main entrance. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the main entrance.

We climbed up and down four floors of Megamart, finding every possible and impossible type of store, but no main entrance. Several times we returned to our starting point and began all over again. Finally, we found three possible exits from this massive beehive of a building -- one to a construction site, another to a gigantic children’s playground, and a third to a five-level underground parking lot. There were no taxis in front of any of them. We were four university-educated, well-seasoned travelers with shopping experience in virtually all the corners of the world but now we were at the end of our tether. After much tiresome wandering -- fruitlessly asking surprised local shoppers who were hurrying to their cars – and increasingly heated arguments between ourselves about where to go next, we proceed, in the darkness, to the construction site and walked to a nearby highway. There, by chance, we flagged down a cab and -- not in the best mood but happy to have the adventure over -- went home. We retired to our separate rooms, each of us pondering on our clash with this blossoming civilization of the third millenium.

A few weeks later, when I told this story to my friends back home, the idea suddenly occurred to me that, of course, the Megamart did have a main entrance -- we had simply failed to recognize it. We had even passed it a few times. It was the underground parking lot. Well, in past people may have gone to shops on foot. But today, huge, impersonal shopping malls sprout like aircraft hangars in the middle of concrete deserts. Like highways, they are far removed from where people actually live. Going to the supermarket without a car is tantamount to walking across a six-lane freeway.

In fact, that evening in Malaysia, everything was okay. Only we eccentric walkers, foreigners from Europe, didn’t realize that the main entrance of this store of the future would forever be a multilevel, concrete cavern for cars -- the mausoleum of the last, unknown walker.

American story

2010-02-17T09:00:00.001+01:00

Forbidden Places

Everywhere around the world there are places which a proper knowledge of local conditions dictates you to avoid. This is especially true in the U.S. Therfore I wasn’t surprised when our Norfolk host Ron Wray passed on such a varning about a particular bar “Good guys” to the Slovenian writer Andrej Blatnik and myself: “Fellows, do you see that building? So, make sure you don’t go there. You´re likely get into big trouble.” Well, we had no intention to visit any of the bars in Norfolk, and as newcomers it wasn’t likely that we could find this particular bar even if we wanted to.

We had driven from the suburb where our host lived, a quiet residential neighborhood, heading for the University campus. He had arranged for us to spend the evening reading our work to literary community there. The reading went smoothly followed by informal party held in our honor with many charming conversations and numerous drinks. The party was at the University bungalow in campus where Andrej was staying. I was a guest at Ron´s house. Time flew and all the guests, Ron included, left. It was the wee small hours of the morning but I wanted one more drink for the road. People say that “100 times nothing can kill an elephant.” That drink was the 101st nothing I had that night. Soon I realized that I was in trouble. I had to say goodbye as quickly as I could and try to get back to my bed at Ron´s.

I got in the car and set out for Ron´s. It wasn’t very far, only a few streets away, and I’m quite confident about my orientation skills exploring new cities. So, I was absolutely sure that everything was going to be fine. I turned, from memory, up the first street and the second. On the third turn I realized I was lost. I turned back and retraced my path, street by street. Without doubt, I was now lost -- but not entirely. Along the dark, labyrinthine streets I was able to find one point of orientation -- a blaze of lights from single-story building marked “Good Guys”. The self-same bar that Ron had warned us about so carefully.

No matter which way I turned, the maze of streets led me back to this place, as if attracted by a magnet. Every time I tried a new route, I found myself returning to the same neon sign “Good Guys”. And there were no signs of life anywhere else as far as the eye could see--not a single human being, not even another car, to give me directions. It was as if the whole quarter had expired in the night, no lights on in any of the houses. It was the hour of the ghosts and my confusion was magical. Only solid point in whole space seems to be hidden in “Good Guys” bar. Finally I stopped in front of it, improving feeling that you can’t avoid your destiny. Either I would sleep in the car in this ominous district or I had to go into the bar. In second option I had at least chance to end my life with full consciousness. I turned off the engine, locked the car and stepped out to enter this ugly building from which bellowing noises were coming. I felt nervous twitches and tics on my face, and the worst thing was not being able to do anything about them. The only positive fact I observed now was that my tipsy mood vanished and left me terribly sober.

When I tentatively entered “Good guys” a shock awaited me. The bellowing noise was only from a jukebox and the gambling machines. Otherwise, the place was half-empty. The gamblers didn’t pay me any attention. The waiting girls appeared too bored to move towards me. The bartender, a big black guy with a congenial expression on his face, twitched his eyebrows where he heard what I was looking for. But after I had told him whole story he nodded his head, came out from behind the bar, led me out of the building, and showed me the right way. I jumped in the car and after a few streets I was safe in my bed.

And the moral of the story? Follow always advice of well-meaning hosts. In case that it is impossible, only “good guys” will help you…

Spanish story

2010-02-10T09:00:00.000+01:00

Flight from Madrid

My Spanish friends decided to take me to their cottage in Salamanca, where I was to spend two beautiful days before my flight on Sunday evening back home. We had fun. We talked and walked. I was shown that nightlife started here when we in Slovakia are going to sleep. Consequently, we slept in for a long time in the morning. On the day of our departure, we woke about 11 a.m. We had breakfast on the sunny terrace, and then we went for a walk. My friend Mercedes asked me about the departure-time of my flight.

”At 7 p.m.. I should be at the airport before 6 p.m..”

The look on my hosts´ faces told me that we have a problem. Husband of Mercedes Pepe asked me if I was sure. ”Do you know that the time changed from winter to summer? It’s now an hour later than we have on our watches.”

I knew, of course, that the time was going to change. For some reason I thought that the night of the change would be after I was already on the plane.

It was 1 p.m. and my hosts hurriedly prepared a schedule. Unfortunately, Sunday lunch was part of the agenda, and a good Sunday lunch one simply can’t bypass in Spain. The women cooked and we packed. By the time we had eaten, washed the dishes, cleaned up and locked the doors it was 4 o’clock. Pepe, who was driving, said that everything was going to be okay. We would make it.

Everything would have been still all right if we hadn’t found ourselves soon at the rear of a convoy of weekend motorists on the roads leading to Madrid. But we did. We were stuck in a column that was only moving inch by inch. We couldn´t turn round or drive across country, only shuffle along behind the others. And, to add insult to injury, I had to pee soooooo badly. But where? For many kilometers around there was only a treeless plain. And I was scared that the column would at last start to move and I couldn’t stray so far from the car. The scene was prepared for an ideal tragi-farce.

Probably you don’t believe in the impish gods of travel, but when on the move I am frequently confronted with phenomena, which are, to say the least, at least remarkable. In this case the convoy of cars finally started moving and we collectively sighted with relief but as we were about to in the main road to Madrid we came upon the reason for all these transportation calamities we´d been experienced. I thought that I might have a heart attack. This main route to Madrid was, for some inexplicable reason, interrupted by a dirt road and two members of the Guardia Civil had stopped all cars, now queuing up several kilometers long, to allow a tractor and some donkeys to make their way across the road from one field to another.

Finally, we made our way on the Circle Highway around Madrid. Houses and whole districts of the town were blinking about us quickly, as if Pepe was surpassing all speed records. But the airport was nowhere to be seen. When I asked where we were, Mercedes smiled and answered that we were on the outskirts of Bratislava, a nice attempt of a joke - except that it wasn’t funny. And my need for a toilet had escalated to an unbelievable degree. But try to stopping in the middle of the highway when your flight leaves in fifteen minutes! So the casual travelers at the Madrid international airport on this Sunday evening witnessed a spectacular scene. A car screeched to a halt and a man dashed frantically into terminal building. Two girls jumped out from the same car, grabbed some luggage and ran after the man.

Well, I can now confirm that Spanish women maintain their calm in moments of dire crisis. Mercedes and her sister Clara tried to check-in as I was doing my toilet business. But, of course, I had forgotten to give them my passport.

Famous Spanish improvisation saved the day. The girls rushed to the men’s toilet and explained the situation. I slipped my documents under the doors of the toilet and they dashed back to check-in counter. After I dispensed with all exigent matters, I ran across the airport hall yanking up my pants. Mercedes and Clara just had time to give me my passport and boarding pass and I wished them well and made my way across the inspection points at the airport. All the officials closed their eyes, and I found the right gate to the plane and clambered in just before the doors were closed. It only took a few cognacs to help me recover from this particular little prank of the gods of travel.

Indian story

2010-02-03T09:00:00.001+01:00

Angel called Milan

Sooner or later, every traveler realizes it. Angels do exist. At least angels who protect and accompany travelers. Usually they have no names, but sometimes they do. One is called Milan.

I have a colleague who almost always accompanies me on scientific trips. Once, on the way back to Bratislava from annual conference in Prague by regular coach, we did not sit together. Good opportunity to get a 300 kilometers nap. When I woke up, it was time for break for refreshment at a motel on the highway. Surprisingly, I found my colleague having coffee and deep discussion with a strange guy. He didn’t look like ordinary person, definitely not. At first sight, he was evidently “touch by life”. And not an easy life. His long hair was grey, his face heavily wrinkled. When he said that he had served as a colonel in the Rhodesian army, I was somehow not surprised. Of course, it was unusual as he was a Slovak, but every sentence he spoke convinced me more and more that we had before us a genuine globetrotter.

At that time, the early 1990s, this was quite an exotic meeting. Especially when our new companion, who introduced himself as Milan, began to tell stories about Africa, Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal. It was like meeting a Martian. And when he offered us expert advice in case we visited these countries sounded like a complete joke. Therefore, I wasn’t terribly interested when he proffered his business card, so he gave it to my colleague. My colleague is so disorganized that I was sure that he would lose it. And he did.

For some years we did not hear anything from this strange man. In the meantime one of our scientific articles had such a positive response that we got an invitation to a scientific conference in India. And by chance we actually had enough money for this exotic trip. Now it was time to regret that we lost contact with an expert on Indian travel like Milan. And few weeks later my colleague got an unusual call. After several years of traveling in Asia, Milan was back in Bratislava and wanted to meet us. We were obviously glad.

Milan had not changed much. Just his hair was grayer, and his face was more wrinkled. But his stories were as unbelievable as ever. And further more, he was willing to give us good advice about India at our regular meetings every Friday afternoon for some weeks till our departure.

Thanks to these sessions, we seemed to be ready for our trip. The last Friday before our flight I was late for our regular consultation. My colleague had already received the last necessary pieces of information with Milan and departed. There was not much to talk about about. Milan and I just sat and sipped tea. He never drank alcohol and I normally never drink tea in a bar. Thus it all was not too exciting, and I was preparing to say goodbye.
Then Milan said, “When is your flight to New Delhi?”
“Next Wednesday.”
“What time does it arrive?”
“We should be in Delhi around lunch time.”
Milan hesitated but when I got up and waved goodbye to him, he said quietly, “Well, Ok then, we will meet at the Hotel Imperial next Wednesday at one p.m. Got it?”

I nodded eagerly and left. It was too good to be true. But on Wednesday we went directly from the airport to the Hotel Imperial. And Milan was there. From that moment, and for the next two weeks, he was like our father figure, guiding us with generosity and patience we would never have obtained from anyone else.

And how do I know that Milan was an angel? Because we were not able to return his help or even to thank him. He simply vanished. I have not heard from him since. Only angels act this way.

By the way, you could also become a part-time angel. Keep your eyes open and use every opportunity to help people when they travel. That’s all, except don’t forget to vanish before they can return the favor or even thank you. That’s the condition.

Essay in English

2010-01-27T09:00:00.001+01:00

LAW NO.1 IS TO OBEY NATURAL LAWS…

Ecology and economy, former enemies as a partners?

Environmental pollution is a global issue touching every society on the Earth. Thus, let’s learn a lesson from the approach to this issue in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We might know that in the 80`s these countries adapted very strict rules to curb pollution. However, law enforcement failed in many cases because of the utopic, un-natural character of such a society. Restriction and financial punishment of those “pollution producers” was rare in practice because of the general excuse that these “publicly owned” factories would fall short of their production quotas. And production was believed to be a law itself pretending to make it good for everybody. In fact, the sustainable managed development of a healthy environment is unimaginable without respecting the natural mechanisms. Each society, which has ignored them and put its anthropomorphic “even so” on the first place, has paid its price – has shown to be unable to survive. Communism, demonstrating a certain good will, had deleted the fact of death and decay in the economic sphere. Non-effective companies had become “immortal” and consequently killed their patron, the communism. It had become unable of concurrence against other economical systems that respect this, at first look a negative, element of natural laws.

Self-saving mechanism

One of the self-saving mechanisms of Nature is auto-regulation and we may also see it in purely human activities. In the seemingly antagonistic relationship of ecology and economy a new important progressive element has shown up in countries that adopted a free-market economy. Ecological thinking had become an important factor in the global market – so-called “environmental friendly products” are nowadays a strong weapon of concurrency. In the near future, disregarding environmental criteria will be fatal for companies. This surely is a welcomed auto-regulating element, the occurrence of which is to be supported in the interest of the sustainable managed environmental development. The question of “corporate greening” became the question of the summit of international leaders at the United Nations in June 1997 when they evaluated progress since the 1992 Earth Summit. However, they had to admit that government and institutional aid has fallen, leaving more responsibility for green innovations to the free market. And such leading companies like Northeast Utilities or even Union Carbide (that is touting new biodegradable industrial detergents for washing grease-stained uniforms) want to be “greenest of the green“. Furthermore, even such a conservative institution like an army is now contributing to new trend by its “green ammunition”. This new approach of the U.S. military means replacement of lead-based bullets by less toxic tungsten. Research has cost $ 12 million so far and the Army will produce first regular series of 50 million rounds of it in this year. “We want to be good stewards of the environment,” said Army spokeswoman Karen Baker.
More examples are on the hand - one of the largest oil firms, British Petroleum, already made a significant step when they joined efforts with The Environmental Defense Fund some years ago. After decades of battle with environmentalists more and more corporate executives are adapting ideas they once ignored. Perhaps we will soon see a new natural law in practice – a symbiosis of business and a healthy environment. Once enemies become partners?

The future in everyone’s hands

Of course not all environmentalists are convinced in such a U-turn. Instead of seeing corporate green, they suspect companies of greenwashing by superficial changes that made merely just to attract consumers. But consumers already realized their power of not-buying (as in the case of the Exxon tanker disaster) and furthermore they recently found the power of their investment in companies who obey an environmentally friendly policy. These habits are still to be adopted by the consumers in post-communist countries. But they already learn a lesson. The lesson from communism is that progress is never made by restrictions. And also, that progress is hard to predict and even harder to plan…

Singapore story

2010-01-20T09:00:00.001+01:00

SPLENDID BUSSINES

Traveling from Slovakia to Singapore is surprisingly easy as there are no visa requirements. So it was inevitable that traveling from Bali back home, we would make a two days stop in this city-state with its image of squeaky-clean discipline. Our early evenings was reserved for supermarkets and shopping centres. One lady among us went amok and set about negotiating the purchase of a two-metre plastic Christmas tree. It took some time to persuade her that she had to consider the horrendous complications involved in getting on airplane with this tree. Some members of our tourist expedition came back with the news that somewhere nearby you could land yourself a cheap, brand name watch. I was determined to resist this opportunity. In Bali, under a similar spell, I had succeeded in buying some fashionable brands of cosmetics, most of which were good only for mosquito repellent. But the devil of temptation never rests! Late in the evening I decided to take a brief walk. Strolling round shopping malls I was rewarded with the knowledge that in Singapore, too -- with its legendary lashings and the like for minor infractions such as leaving a cigarette butt on the street -- some places look like a cigarette cemetery. I was on the way back to the hotel when, in a corner of the supermarket, two young boys offered me a cheap Rolex. I was sure it was a copy but, to tell the truth, who would ever know in Bratislava? An invitation to experience the infamous Singaporean black
market was generously being proffered, and I just could not refuse!

The young boys led me to the subterranean levels of a supermarket. Then, when we turned a third time in the labyrinth, I understood this wasn’t one of my brightest ideas. It was near closing time. The awnings were coming down and we walked through empty corridors, where bands of sharks could easily and quickly demolish me. Before I could begin to think about my possible defense strategy – though my chances looked pretty slim -- we came to one shop that was still open and the boys led me toward the back. I was elated to see an English tourist here also in pursuit of the cheap Rolex. He was happy to see me as well. We quickly whispered some mutually encouraging words, and then the young boy brought me a whole set of watches to choose from. Under the circumstances, I was in no mood for a prolonged inspection. I took the first decent-looking model, mildly haggled over the price, paid, put the watch on my wrist and fled in search of daylight. When I was out on the street, my self-confidence returned and feeling like an experienced globetrotter, I returned to my hotel. I joined our tourist group in the dining room, and I took the occasion to show off my new watch.

“You amateurs!” I yelled to them, boisterously -- emboldened by my recent descent into the underworld. “To buy a cheap watch cheaply is easy enough. But to buy cheaply an expensive
watch -- that is art. Look!”

They all looked, but not in big recognition. Only one notably unsympathetic woman (who hates to travel, hates the sea and had joined us only because she had won the trip from a travel company) looked at the watch intently and, with complete ingenuousness, asked me if this was the famous Rolex model which self-winds on the principle of motion and gravity. I agreed immediately that it was and then somewhat confused changed the topic. I sat down to dinner but the remarks of the unsympathetic lady had got me thinking. Could it be that I’d bought the watch with the most progressive system of saving batteries? So much happiness at one stroke? Inconspicuously I looked at my new watch under the table. Given my rapt attention, it did seem as though gravitational forces were at work already. The second hand was moving, infallibly, in an orbit guided by the movement of my wrist. On the whole, the watch was at its most restful and happiest when my hand was immobile, with a tired second hand trying (but failing) to rise -- from the 6 toward the upper ranges.

I still have this watch. But I don’t wear it with pride.

CURRICULUM VITAE

2010-01-13T09:00:00.003+01:00

CURRICULUM VITAE

Name and surname: Gustáv Murín
Date and place of birth: April, 9th , 1959 in Bratislava, Slovakia
Address: G. Murín, Hagaru 17, 831 51 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
E-mail: gustavmurin@yahoo.com
Blog: http://gustavmurin.blog.sme.sk
Web: http://gustavmurin.webgarden.cz, http://muringustav.blogspot.com, http://tulacky.blogspot.com,
http://muringustav-multilingua.blogspot.com, http://tulacky.net

BOOKS
In Slovak:
* PRÍPAD POCHOVANÉHO CINTORÍNA /THE CASE OF A BURIED CEMETERY, novella, samizdat, 1986.
* LETO PRAJE MILENCOM/SUMMER FAVORS LOVERS, collection of love-stories, Corinex, 1990 / Copies available abroad: Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, University of Iowa, Slovak Institute in Budapest, Internationella Biblioteket Stockholm, Czech Cultural Institute Stockholm, Cyprus PEN Library, Ottawa University, Oslo University, Slovak Institute in Paris…
* NÁVRATY ZO SVETLA/COMEBACKS FROM LIGHT, collection of sci-fi stories, Slovenský spisovateľ, 1990 / Copies available abroad: British Library, Cleveland Public Library, Columbia University, Harvard University, Library of Congress, School of Slavic and East European Studies in London, UCLA, University of Pittsburgh, The Research Library of South Bohemia...
* NÁHRADNÝ KONIEC SVETA/SUBSTITUTIONAL END OF THE WORLD, collection of three essays about future of human civilization, Lita, 1992 / Copies available abroad: Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Indiana University, Harvard University, University of Iowa, University of Washington…
* PUD KONTRA KULTÚRA/INSTINCT CONTRA CULTURE, extensive essay-study about human sexuality, Print-Servis, 1994 / Copies available abroad: Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, University of Iowa…
* ORGAZMODRÓMY/ORGASMODROMES, collection of essays and articles about human sexuality, Meritum, 1997 / Copies available abroad: New York Public Library…
* AKO SA MÁŠ/HOW ARE YOU, novel, Illusion, 1998 / Copies available abroad: Harvard University, Int. Writing Program Library - Univ. of Iowa, New York Public Library, Northwestern University, University of Oklahoma, University of Pittsburgh, University of Washington, Int. Museum Samarkand, Slovak Institute in Budapest, Slovak Institute in Warszaw, Internationella Biblioteket Stockholm, Czech Cultural Institute Stockholm, Cyprus PEN Library, Ottawa University, Oslo University, Slovak Institute in Paris…
* ZVIERATÁ, JA A INÉ (prózy)/ANIMALS, ME AND OTHER PROSE, collection of stories and essay about animals, Slovenský spisovateľ, 1998 / Copies available abroad: Harvard University, New York Public Library, Northwestern University, University of Toronto…
* TAK AKO BOHOVIA/JUST LIKE THE GODS, non-fi study presenting impact of natural sciences into our daily life, Slovart, 2001.
* ABECEDA SEXU A EROTIKY/ALPHABET OF SEX AND EROTICA, encyclopaedia, Ikar, 2005.
* VŠETKO JE INAK/EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT, collection of essays about literature, Vyd. Matice slovenskej, 2007 / Slovanska knjižnica (Ljubljana), Bayerischen Staatsbibliotek (München)...
* NÁVOD NA MANŽELSTVO/HANDBOOK OF MARRIAGE, popular „handbook“ about marriage, Ikar, 2007.
* MAFIA V BRATISLAVE/MAFIA IN BRATISLAVA, retrospection of the organized crime in 90-ties in the capitol city, Marenčin PT, 2008 / More than 21 000 copies sold.
* NÁVOD NA DLHOVEKOSŤ/HANDBOOK OF LONGEVITY, popular „handbook“ for longevity, Metro Media, 2009.
* MAFIA NA SLOVENSKU/MAFIA IN SLOVAKIA, retrospection of the organized crime in 90-ties in Slovak republic, Marenčin PT, 2009 / First print 20 000 copies.

In Czech:
* PŘÍPAD POHŘBENÉHO HŘBITOVA/THE CASE OF A BURIED CEMETERY, novella, Mladá Fronta Publ., Prague, 1989 / Copies available abroad: National Library of Czech Republic, The Research Library of South Bohemia…
* NÁHRADNÍ KONEC SVĚTA/SUBSTITUTIONAL END OF THE WORLD, collection of three essays, Ivo Železný Publ., Prague, 1999 / Copies available abroad: National Library of Czech Republic…
* SEX KONTRA KULTURA/SEX CONTRA CULTURE, actualized from book “Instinct contra culture”, Hynek Publ., Prague, 1999 / Copies available abroad: Harvard University, Library of Congress, web-Amazon …
* A STANETE SE BOHY/AND YOU WILL BECOME GODS, collection of three essays, Ivo Železný Publ., Prague, 2002.
* ABECEDA TĚLESNÉ LÁSKY/ALPHABET OF PHYSICAL LOVE (+ P. Weiss), encyclopaedia, Triton Publ., Prague, 2004.
* Česko-slovenský/Slovensko-český DUALÓG (+ P. Žantovský), collection of articles about relationships between Czechs and Slovaks, Slovenský literárny klub v ČR, Prague, 2009.

In French:
* SVET JE MALÝ/LE MONDE EST PETIT, collection of travel stories, Langues&Mondes – L´Asiathèque, Paris, France, 2005, in bilingual Slovak-French edition / Copies available abroad: INALCO (Paris), Maison des Langues Vivantes á Bruxelles, Slovak Institute in Paris, Libraire nationale Francaise, Univ. de Lille …

In Hindí (India):
* SAFARNAMA/FINDING THE RIGHT WAY, collection of travel stories, Krishna Publ., New Delhi, 2006.

In Croatian:

* KAKO JE MALEN OVAJ SVIJET, collection of travel stories, Edicije Božičević, Zagreb, 2009

Publications in electronic form:
* Proppe and others (collection of fiction at diskettes distribution, Net-Book-Club, Denmark, 1997, in
English).
* How are you (novel, www.gasbag.wz.cz/tema, Sept. - Dec. 2005).
* Such a normal America (series of travel stories, www.JeToTak.sk 2007 + www.euro-domino, 2008)
* Traveling through Spain (series of travel stories, www.cez-okno.eu, 2008)
* Radioactive! (novel, www.sme.sk, July - Aug. 2008, 15 parts, approx. 30 000 readers).
* Mafia in Slovakia (non-fi, www.sme.sk, Oct. - Dec. 2009, 30 parts, approx. XY readers).
* Different stories and essays in: artistswithoutfrontiers.com, diversity.org.mk, alterego.sk, martinus.sk,
privatephotoreview.com, LaLupe.com…

Other publications:
- Special audio-publication of NÁVRATY ZO SVETLA for blind people (180 min.), Slovenská knižnica pre nevidiacich, Levoča, 1991
- novel „Experiment with love“ in 24 parts in newspaper PRAVDA (Aug. 2007, approx. 120 000 readers).
- Gustáv Murín in Translation, PEEM, Bratislava, 2004 (selection of translated texts).
- Co-author of 13 different collections of stories and/or essays in Slovakia and 13 abroad (Austriax2, Czech Republic x5, Cyprus, France, Ukraine, Romania, Russia, USA).
- Author of 12 radio-dramas, TV documents, TV movie and art movie.
- Author of more than 1200 articles in 50 major Slovak, Czech and internat. newspapers and magazines.

Internet publications:

Regular articles in Slovak and Czech: E-politika.eu, Česká média, Neviditelný pes, Britské listy,
JeToTak.sk, Webnoviny/Hydepark, Euro-Domino…
Samples of literary texts in Slovak: martinus.sk, alterego.sk…

Australia: artistswithoutfrontiers.com
Czech Republic: privatephotoreview.com
France: globonautes.com
Macedonia: diversity.org.mk
Mexico: MexicoVacationTravels.com
Spain: LaLupe.com
USA: writersdojo.org

Translations of G. Murín writings to other languages:
Afghanistan/Darí: travel story The Best Chest in the West (Zanbel-e-Gham 1/2004)
Armenia: travel story The Best Chest in the West (read. 12.10. 2003)
travel story Suede Shoes (read. 12.10. 2003)
Austria: travel story Die tollsten Brüste des Westens (read. 19.10. 2003)
travel story Der schönste Busen des Westens (Podium literatur, 11/2006)
essay Central Europe – Lost, Found and lost again? (APA, 2007)
essay Central Europe – Lost, Found and lost again? (APA, Wieser Verlag, 2008)
Bangladesh: travel story What´s Certain in the World? (The Envoy 1.-15.8. 2003)
Belgium: travel story La plus belle poitrine de tout l’Ouest!
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Najljepše grudi Zapada (Diwan 13-14/2004)
Brazil: travel story O Melhor Peito Do Oeste
Bulgaria: essay Životjt kato samizdat (Plambk 1-2/2002)
story Temperatura (Plambk 5-6 /2004)
Croatia: essay Povratak u raj Adame i Eve (Croatian edition of Lettre Internationale, 1994)
literary-reportage Bratislava - grad za sebe! (Vijenac 14/1994)
short-short story Izbori muha (Homo Volans 12/1996)
short-short story Kratki obrazovni tečaj za muhe (Homo Volans 12/1996)
Czech Rep.: short-short story Well-Organized Hopelessness (alm. Profil, Ostrava, 1981)
story Protectors (Svoboda-Prague, 1986)
essay Young author – prototype for year 1987 (Kmen, 1987)
radio-drama Protectors (Czechoslovak Radio, Ostrava, 1988)
short-short story Dialogue, that nobody listen (Kmen, 1988)
short-short story Inevitable run off home (Kulturní rozvoj, 1988)
essay You will be like a Gods (Tvar, 2000)
essay Human rights for animals? (Vesmír, 3/2001)
essay Biology of T.V. spectator (alm. Media as obstacle in communic., Votobia, 2003)
essay Poetry of scientific information (alm. Dialogue Science & Art, 2002)
essay Art and science – who with whom? (alm. Dialogue Science & Art, 2003)
essay Human rights to animals? (Radio Vltava, Ostrava, 4.11. 2003)
essay Word for (all?) money (alm. Great literature of small nations, Votobia, 2003)
essay Art and science – who with whom? (Zrkadlenie/Zrcadlení, 1/2004)
essay The fate of literature in unification of Europe (Zrkadlenie/Zrcadlení, 1/2004)
essay Right to eat (Vesmír, 5/2005; Lidové noviny 14.5.2005)
essay How to do it (alm. Art as a tool of communication, Votobia, 2005)
story There is a fault somewhere (Zrkadlenie/Zrcadlení, 2/2005)
essay Word and power (Zrkadlenie/Zrcadlení, 3/2005)
travel story Night in Sheraton (HotelRevue č.6/2005)
study-essay Word and power - extraordinary struggle of Central-European authors
with ideology in global view (Acta Univ. Palackianae Olomucensis Facultas
Philosophica – Studia Moravica IV, Symposiana, Olomouc, 2006, p.229 - 238)
essay Visegrad countries in the centre of the Europe (Zrkadlenie/Zrcadlení, 3/2006)
travel story Čípák/Hostel in Denver (HotelRevue č.6/2006)
travel story Zberatelia hotelových suvenírov (HotelRevue č.6/2006)
travel story Nejkrásnější prsa Západu (Cestopisy č.3-4/2009)
travel story Zkušenost vědeckého bezdomovce (Cestopisy č.5-6/2009)
travel story Hodní hoši (Cestopisy č.11-12/2009)
Cyprus: travel story A Feeling (In Focus No.3/2004)
travel story Magic electric power (In Focus No.4/2005)
travel story Aeroporiko Eizithrio Gia Ton Paradeizo (Anthology Próza, Akdozeiz
Armida, 2006)
travel story Finding a right way (In Focus No.1/2008)
travel story Meeting in Medan (In Focus No.3/2008)
Denmark: travel story En Følelse
Estonia: travel story Lääne parim tissipaar
Finland: travel story The best chest in the West
France: radio feature As – tu toujours tou choix?
travel story Chaussures de daim
travel story La plus belle poitrine de tout l’Ouest!
travel feature Pourquoi cela vaut–il la peine de voyager
travel story Un ange nommé Milan
travel story Les Forces Magiques (de l’électricité)
travel story Ce qu’est l’Amérique
travel story Trouver Le bon chemin
travel story Endroits interdits
travel story Un étranger qui ne dérange pas
travel story Histoire triste d’un alpiniste
travel story Un miracle dans la Ville Sainte
travel story En tramway pour le paradis
travel story De L´humain, rien ne peut nous etre etranger
travel story Comment meurent les pietons
travel story Qui vole en Italie?
travel story Le Monde est petit
travel story Souvenirs
travel story Des parents dans un pays lointain
travel story Qu´y-a-t-il de sur dans ce monde?
travel story Un a chat formidable
travel story Vol de Madrid
travel story La compagnie des wagons-lits
travel story L’Experience d´un scientifique sans domicile fixe
travel story Un billet dávion pour le ciel
travel story Sentiment
story Les ailes sur le fauteuil roulant (Espaces, 2008)
Georgia: travel story The Best Chest in the West
Germany: essay Leben als Samizdat (Centre for Information on Literature, 2002)
travel story Überschreitung der Grenzen
travel story Die Feier
Greece: travel story A Feeling
story Fever
Greenland: travel story Inngili Jozefimik Atilik (Kalaaleq Nov. 2004)
Hungary: travel story A Nyugat legszebb mellei (read. 18.11. 2003)
travel story P.S.: Érzés
travel story Orosz ünneplés…
essay A feminizmus mint a harmadik rossz (Kisebbségi Politika, Matarka, 2003)
India/Hindi: story Paradise/Swarg (Saar Sansaar, Oct. 1997)
story Searching for Paradise (Kadambini, 1998)
story Sunday in my hometown (Kadambini, Special issue Feb. 2001)
story Avisamarniya Ravivaar/Unforgetable Sunday (Saar Sansaar, Oct.-Dec. 2004)
story Avisamarniya Ravivaar/Unforgetable Sunday (Swatantra Varta, 6/2005)
story Playboy Kitten (Saar Sansaar, Spec. Issue, 2006)
+ 23 travel stories in collection Safarnama (Krishna Publ., 2006)
Italy: travel story Il più bel seno del West
Japan: summary about published books, Giallo Quarterly 6/2002
Kyrgyzstan: travel story Sezim
Lithuania: travel story The Best Chest in the West (Literatúra ir Menas, 26.9.2003)
Macedonia: travel story Најдобрите гради на Запад (web-site Diversity, Sept. 2004)
travel story Чевли од антилопска кожа (web-site Diversity, Sept. 2004)
travel story Што е сигурно на светот? (web-site Diversity, Sept. 2004)
travel story Чувство (web-site Diversity, Sept. 2004)
Malawi/ Chichewa: travel story Nganga Yopambana Zonse Kuzambwe
Malta: travel story L-ISBAĦ SIDER FIL-PUNENT
Poland: travel story Dziesięcioro turystów, cztery kozy i słowacki w Nowym Meksyku (read.
10.6. 2003, 14.4. 2004)
travel story Najpiękniejsze piersi Zachodu (read. 10.6. 2003, 14.4. 2004)
Portugal: travel story Encontrar a saída
travel story Sensação
travel story Os sapatos de camurça
Roma-East Europe: travel story Majsukar cuca e zapadoske
Romania: travel story P.S.: Feeling (Almanac Between, 1995)
short-short story Crossing Borders (Euphorion 1/1997)
short-short story Culture-shock (Euphorion 1/1997)
travel story The Best Chest in the West (Euphorion 1/1997)
story Searching for Paradise (ArtPanorama 6/1998)
story Horúčka (Naše snahy Plus 3/2007)
Russia: short story Planet of a happy dead people (Almanac of Slovak authors, MIK, Moskva, 2009)
travel story Ošuščenie
Serbia: travel story Najbolje grudi Zapada (read 6.10.2006, 14.9.2007; mag. Priča 11/2007)
Sierra Leone/ Krio: travel story Di Best Chest Nar Di West
Slovakia (in English):
story Perfectly Wasted Sunday (Almanac Central Europe - Now!, 1995)
short essay Virus as a Principle (Slovak Literary Review 1/1997)
essay Adam and Eve of the Year 2000 (part, Slovak Literary Review 1/1997)
travel story The Best Chest in the West (What’s on 2/2003)
travel story Black Market Adventure (What’s on 3/2003)
travel story What’s Certain in the World? (What’s on 4/2003)
travel story The World is Small (What’s on 5/2003)
travel story Flight from Madrid (What’s on 12/2003)
travel story Suede Shoes (What’s on 1/2004)
essay Life as a samizdat (Album of Slovak writers 3/2003)
travel story The extinction of the Walker (What’s on 2/2004)
travel story International understanding without words (What’s on 3/2004)
travel story Angel called Milan (What’s on 4/2004)
travel story Kissing with soldiers (What’s on 5/2004)
travel story Magic electric power (What’s on 6/2004)
travel story Forbidden places (What’s on 7/2004)
travel story Finding a right way (What’s on 10/2004)
travel story Souvenirs (What’s on 11/2004)
travel story Miracle in the Holy City (What’s on 12/2004)
travel story Relatives far away (What’s on 1/2005)
travel story To Paradise by tram (What’s on 2/2005)
travelogue War in Bratislava (What’s on 1/2006)
travelogue Skiing Mishaps (What’s on 2/2006)
travelogue The hot experience from the cold winter (What’s on 3/2006 + 1/2007)
travelogue When winter is over (What’s on 4/2006)
travelogue Love in Slovakia (What’s on 5/2006)
travelogue Almost unknown and hidden treasures (What’s on 6/2006)
travelogue Higher temperature, higher altitude... (What’s on 7/2006)
travelogue Swimming in heat (What’s on 8/2006)
travelogue Swimming in hot waters (What’s on 9/2006)
travelogue Indian Summer belongs to Old Woman (What’s on 10/2006)
travelogue Time to ski (What’s on 11/2006)
travelogue Christmas Tree & Christmas Fare (What’s on 12/2006)
Slovenia: travel story Najboljši joški na Zahodu
Spain: travel story El Mundo es Pequeño (read. 25.11. 2003)
Sweden: essay Den egoistiska DNA:n (read. 11.12. 2003)
travel story Der där känslan
Ukraine: short story Planet of a happy dead people (Almanac of Czech and Slovak sci-fi
authors, Molod, Ukraine, 1987)
U. K.: editorial Central Europe Now! (P.E.N. International 1/1997)
story Wings for a wheelchair (Espaces, 2008)
United States: travel story Crossing Borders (100 words, 1995)
story On the Road with Wild Horses (Almanac Autumn Leaves, 1996)
short-short story Well-Organized Hopelessness ( River Oak Review 6/1996)
short story Program of the Glory ( Short Story International - Student Series 62/1996)
short story The Day in My Hometown (Short Story International 115/1996)
essay Centre of Centre (100 words, 1998)
short-short story A Brief Educational Course From Flies (The Southern California
Anthology, 2006)
Well-Organized Hopelessness (http://writersdojo.org/Murin+Hopelessness, 2009)
Vietnam: travel story Boä Ngöďc Ngoaďi Haďng Mieŕn Taây

Literary presentations abroad:
1994: Prague (Czech Republic)
1995: Zagreb (Croatia), Ilieni (Romania), 4xIowa City + Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk (USA)
1996: Zagreb (Croatia), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Prague (Czech Rep.), Likani (Georgia)
1997: Pilsen (Czech Rep.)
1998: Oklahoma University, Norman + ARTOMI/Ledig House (USA)
1999: 2xPrague (Czech Rep., 1xBook-Fair))
2000: New Delhi (India, Authors Guild of India) + Kathmandu (Nepal)
2001: Prague (Czech Rep.)
2002: 3xČeské Budějovice + Buchlovice + Prague Book-Fair + Litoměřice (all in Czech Rep.); Chateau de
Lavigny (Switzerland), Ohrid (Macedonia), 2xUniv. of Iowa + Northwestern University (USA)
2003: Buchlovice + Litoměřice + České Budějovice + Staré Hrady + 2xPrague (all in Czech Rep.), Warszawa (Poland), Helsinki (Finland), Yerevan (Armenia), Vienna (Austria), Budapest + Sarvash (both in Hungary), 2xMexico City (Mexico), Stockholm (Sweden)
2004: Buchlovice + 3xPrague + Litoměřice + České Budějovice (all in Czech Rep.), 2xOttawa + Toronto
(Canada), Tállya + Sarvaš (both in Hungary), Oslo + Tromsø (both in Norway), Paris (France)
2005: Olomouc Book-Fair + Litoměřice (Czech Republic)
2006: Paris Book-Fair (France), Bled (Slovenia), Litoměřice (Czech Rep.), Beograd (Serbia),
Vienna (Austria), Cognac (France), Ljubljana Book-Fair (Slovenia)
2007: Prague (Czech Republic), Sičevo – Niš – Bela Palanka (Serbia)
2008: Paris – 2xStrassbourg (France)
2009: 2xLille (France), 2xThessaloniki + 2xAthens…

+ more than 70 literary presentations in 27 cities of Slovakia

Editor of almanac Central Europe - Now!, 1995 (Copies available abroad: Cambridge University, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, University of Oklahoma…)

International fellowships:
International Writing Program at University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA (Aug. - Nov., 1995)
Creative Reporting Workshop - Facing the Challenge of the 21st Century, conducted by
Ryszard Kapuściński (Stefan Batory Foundation, Warszawa, Poland, Nov., 1997 - June, 1998)
International Writers´ Residence in Ledig House/Art-Omi, USA (Sept. - Nov., 1998)
Independent Project of ArtsLink, USA (Feb. – May, 2001)
International Writers´ Residence in Château de Lavigny, Switzerland (July - Aug., 2002)
International Writers´ Colony, Sičevo, Serbia (Sept., 2007)
International Writers´ Residence, Ekemel, Lefkes – Paros, Greece, (June, 2009)

Awards: Best Slovak story (1979), Best Czech and Slovak story (1981), Best Czech and Slovak novella (1986), Special prize in Slovak radio drama (1988), Honorary Fellow in Writing by Univ. of Iowa (1995), Best essay of the year (literary magazine Slovenské pohľady, 1996), Best non-fiction book of the year in Czech and Slovak Republics (E.E.Kisch Award, 2003), The best story for the children (Fifik´s Children Jury Award, 2005), 3rd place at journalist CEE Award (Central and East Europe - APA, 2006).

Establisher of satiric samizdat Voice of the Boiler-room (1989-92).
Field Study Evaluator for Antioch University (student Tom Reynolds, 1999).
Expert of European Commission for literature projects in programme Culture 2000 (2002).

Organizing activities: Establisher of Club of young playwrights (Bratislava, 1985), Establisher of Circle of young authors (Bratislava, 1986), organizer of Second conference of young writers of Central and Eastern Europe (Budmerice, 1994), organizer of round-table „Writers and politics“ (Oklahoma Univ., 2001), main organizer of Visegrad literary forum (Budmerice; 2002, 2003), main organizer of UNESCO/PEN conference „Young PEN for the equalization of the creative environment throughout Europe” (Budmerice, 2003) main organizer of Global PEN Library with round-tables “Writer and power” + “Library as last stronghold of literature?” (Bratislava/Budmerice, 2004).

Active participation at international literary conferences:
1993 - Ohrid (Macedonia); 1994 - Pecs (Hungary), Budapest (Hungary), Budmerice (Slovakia); 1995 - Prague (Czech Republic), Ilieni (Romania); 1996 - Elsinor (Denmark), Bled (Slovenia), Prague (Czech Republic), Minsk (Belarus), Budmerice (Slovakia), Budapest (Hungary), Likani (Georgia), Guadalajara (Mexico); 1997 - Edinburgh (Scotland); 1998 - Riga (Latvia), Chichester (England), Nicosia (Cyprus); 1999 - Warszawa (Poland); 2000 - Kathmandu (Nepal), Moscow (Russia, Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina); 2001 - London (U.K.); 2002 - Litoměřice (Czech Republic), České Budějovice (Czech Republic), Ohrid (Macedonia), Budmerice Castle (Slovakia), Bratislava/Budmerice (Visegrad Literary Forum); 2003 - Litoměřice (Czech Republic), Helsinki (Finland), Yerevan (Armenia), Garmisch Partenkirchen (Germany), Budmerice Castle (Slovakia), Mexico City (Mexico); 2004 - Prague (Czech Republic), Nicosia (Cyprus), Bratislava/Budmerice (Global PEN Library), Tállya (Hungary), Litoměřice (Czech Republic), Tromső (Norway), Paris-Bruxelles (France); 2005 - Olomouc, Litoměřice; 2006 - Bled (Slovenia), Litoměřice (Czech Republic), Beograd (Serbia), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Bratislava (PEN); 2008 - Krakow (Poland); 2009 - Linz (Austria)...

Membership:
* Slovak Center of the PEN International (Member since 1993, Secretary 1995-97, President 2000-2004)
* Slovak Center of Roma Club (Member since 1994)
* Slovak Syndicate of Journalists (Member since 1995)
* World Innovation Foundation (Fellow since 2002)
As a chair of Writers in Prison Committee of Slovak Centre of PEN International contributed to release from prison of writers from Vietnam (5x), Syria (2x), China (2x), Cuba (1x) and Turkey (1x)...

Travel experiences from:
Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iraq, India, Indonesia, Italy, Israel, Japan, Jordan Kingdom, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Nepal, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland), U.S.A. (Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New York State, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin)

Further details in:
* Who’s who in the world (Marquis, USA, since 1997)
* Dictionary of international biography (Cambridge, U.K., since 1998)
* International Who’s Who of Contemporary Achievement (American Biographical Institute, since 1998)
* The International Who’s Who (Routledge, U.K., 2007)
* Album der Slowakischen Schriftsteller (Centre for Information on Literature, 2002)
* Album of Slovak Writers (Centre for Information on Literature, 2003)
+ in three other international and eleven national publications

* web-sites: artistswithoutfrontiers.com, litcentrum.sk, diversity.org.mk, LaLupe.com, amazon.fr etc..

Monograph: B. Baranová – Breaking myths in writing of Gustáv Murín. Diploma work, Phil. Fac. of Comenius University, 2002

Essay in English VI

2010-01-06T09:00:00.000+01:00

PASSABLE SEX FOR THE THIRD MILLENIUM?

(PART VI)

Essay written in 2000

ALONE TOGETHER?

Everything that we have said up to now does not necessarily mean that the institution of the human couple will to vanish. Only the character of it will change. In these days the term ‘social parenthood’ is increasingly used instead of the original term; ‘biological parenthood’. This is based on the hypothesis that new reproduction techniques have a tendency to eliminate the natural sex-roles of men and women. We already know something about the loss of the biological role of the father due to artificial insemination, which may become massively used in the future for variety of reasons. One is expectable even now - do you think that a man of the third millennium, in case of the continual fatal threat of AIDS, will be willing to stop using a condom for attempts (that often last for weeks) to make his spouse pregnant by authentic sexual intercourse and risk a deadly infection? Will a woman of the next millennium be willing during these attempts to let her vagina exposed to possible tiny wounds open to the infection that may lead to a certain death? In a view of all this, wouldn't the artificial insemination be more acceptable also for those human couples who currently are not interested in it? Some authors even speak about a complete change of the role of women. Thanks to the future technology of an artificial uterus, women may not have to bear children at all. Perhaps this vision is a very distant one, but today, social parenthood is already a fact. What other name can one give to lesbian couples (like Oscar laureate actress Jodie Foster and her partner Sydney Bertrand) who legally raise a ‘test tube baby’ to bypass the nature for completing an incomplete family?

Today no one doubts that the future belongs to ‘the information society’. The sexual revolution is associated with this concept as an explosion of sexual symbols and ever more provoking sexual challenges. During our every day professional and family routines, we are unable to respond appropriately to these new challenges. The disproportion between theoretical, verbal, virtual and practical sexuality is steadily widening. Emancipation has bound women to an endless man-propelled mill of accelerating human civilization. We are confronted with the hard reality of time and psychological stress. Under these conditions, a human couple strives, in an ambitious competition with the video-ideals of porn-stars, to achieve marvelous gymnastic beats of sex. But the possibility of failure is in real life always present, so pitfalls and disappointments. And even a couple which despite this succeeds is still facing fatal threat. On the threshold of sex with a partner, the invisible, patient, and slowly working, four-letter death -- AIDS -- is waiting. Too many obstacles, if you imagine the cheap optimal satisfaction provided by surrogate partners and artificial stimulants. Temptation switches to the sphere of intimate technology...

WHAT SEX IN THE THIRD MILLENIUM?

Everything we have talked about until now is directed at one point. The human couple cohabitation will probably survive. However, sex with a partner appears on the blacklist of the threatened human activities. If every misfortune seems to have a good side, it is very probable that at least the politics after Clinton Era will certainly welcome this new version of their adventures.

The End

Translation Peter Duba, edited by Jerry Weir and Tom Reynolds

Essay in English V

2009-12-30T09:00:00.001+01:00

PASSABLE SEX FOR THE THIRD MILLENIUM?

(PART V)

Essay written in 2000

THE NEXT STEP -- INSTANT SEX?

Because the rising demand for these fashionable commodities, we may expect, sooner or later, a race for the artificial orgasm. The aim will be to reach a standard orgasm by technical means. This is only seemingly impossible. There is one not commonly known feature. It is assumed that the human brain contains an organ for the perception and appreciation of pleasure. The Czech psychiatrist Prof. Vondráček in his book, ‘Behavior and Its Failures’ discusses experiments uncovering the sources of erotic stimulation in brain: “When the electrode touches the septum, the animal begins to auto-stimulate until complete exhaustion, 2 000 times an hour, over 24 hours. Auto-stimulation is a greater reward than food... Experiments with auto-stimulation were also made on humans, in connection with brain surgery (predominantly in cases of the Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, but also tumors).”

This may not seem very appealing at first glance, but if we allow ourselves to embark upon a little science-fiction journey, we can come closer to the possibility of a remote-control climax. All we need is a vibrator, a chemical stimulant (perhaps a light drug), and a dose of course Virtual Reality to create the adequate, ideal partner... Does this remind you too much of ‘space sex’ as suggested by Jane Fonda in her memorable role as an intergalactic vixen in the 60´s film, ´Barbarella´? If you remember well, she had genuinely safe sex (together with a refreshing portion of humor) with a quite agreeable partner. Similar scenes were offered in movies ‘Brave New World’ and ‘Cocoon’. Is it too much fantasy? ‘Journey to the Moon’, written in 1865 by Jules Verne, was also originally just a harmless sci-fi. If we so easily gave up the traditional ritual procedure of making coffee, which indisputably produces better taste, for the speed and convenience of making instant coffee, what will prevent us from a gulpy consumption of the above mentioned ‘instant sex’? Do not forget -- a novelty for men, vibrating and pneumatic vaginas, are already at the market...

Current attempts to offer to female customers a “Pink Viagra”, this one with guarantee of standard orgasms seems to fulfill soon above-mentioned ideas. If we assumed that the vibrator is not only safe but hygienic and always on hand without any of those annoying features of real males (snoring after intercourse during the night, for example), we may expect this will very much fitting to feminist aim of self-sufficiency in sex. But men in high-ranking positions will also welcome similar kind of novelty for them for very practical reasons. A ‘virtual woman’ will have at least some of the same advantages. First, she will not demand to arrange another job for her in reward for her intimate oral performances; also, the artificial woman of the future will sure be not to write letters that might be later published in newspaper to discredit those ‘whom it may concern’...

PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE -- ADAM & EVE FOR THIRD MILLENIUM

This hypothetical sex-act of the future may have other practical advantages over classic human intercourse. It saves time and energy, and should not be a threat to health; in fact, it will almost certainly be delivered with a guarantee from the ‘manufacturer’... But above all, human beings the future are bound to be more practical and pragmatic. It is assumed that in developed countries after the year 2000 there will be more 65-year-old people than 15 year old. The significant switch of the demographic curve towards the elder, even pensioner, age groups seems very likely. Let as suppose that in this time the ‘career girl’ will be the prevailing model of a woman... Their personal ambitions nowadays do not totally eradicate their desire to give birth to a child. However, they often delay this to an age when, from the biological point of view, it is too late to have a child. Nevertheless, advanced modes of hormone therapy are already capable of condition the uterus of a 60-year-old woman like of a 16-year-old. Bearing a child at a hazardously old age has become so widespread that People magazine dedicated detailed analysis to this phenomenon, examining several child-births among mothers over their 40´s. This is undoubtedly an interesting topic, but we are more curious about one often-neglected ‘side-effect’. Healthy born children of old parents are often extremely intelligent, occasionally even geniuses (for example the Nobel Prize Laureate Konrad Lorenz). Families with only one child have become general trend anyway, even with normal pregnancies and not only in developed countries. In China birth-control laws have limited the growth of the population to hundreds of thousands of single children. No one doubts their highly developed inherent consciousness of being exceptional, egoistic. Notwithstanding the inevitable portion of simplification, in the future, population waves may expect a significant share, or even prevalence, of highly intelligent, but hypersensitive and emotionally unstable egoists. With all this in mind, it is worth to quoting from an essay by J. Kott, ‘A Short Report on Erotism’, published in the Czech and Slovak edition of Lettre Internationale: “...during masturbation, the partner is the product of one’s own sexual ego...” Drawn your own conclusions.

ASEXUAL OR A SEXUAL SOCIETY?

Babies prefer milk from the bottle to mother’s milk from the breast these days. It's much easier from the bottle. For the mother too, it is easier to buy a warmer with a thermostat, thus creating the illusion of the warmth of mother's milk. For significant amount of spectators, a football game on TV is much more attractive, comfortable, safer, cheaper, and they even see a lot more than if they stood in an x-th row on the stadium. If these principles apply to our civilization in general, why should they not also apply to sex? Are we threatened with substitute sexuality? The famous Polish science-fiction author Stanislav Lem advanced a remarkable idea in his discussions with prominent virologists regarding AIDS. Lem, voicing his fear concerning the fatally effective progress of the so-called ‘slow viruses’ (which include the HIV virus), in combination with overpopulation and a high level of worldwide promiscuity, writes: “Lenteviruses (slow viruses) mostly threaten those species with eradication who live socially and exercise sexual promiscuity”. He compares our civilization with an organization of socially living insects, and speculates that twin-sexed (i.e. male-female couple) living prehistoric insect species were decimated by ‘slow viruses’. The strategic advantage of these viruses lies in the fact that they spread rapidly in a sexually overactive, excessively multiplied population. The delayed effect will be catastrophically manifest at a time when the majority of the population has already been infected and thus becomes incapable of defending itself from the viruses inexorable onslaught. Lem gave as an example of ants, about which the Czech author Jan Werich once said: “An anthill is a miracle, but at the same time, it is a warning, because the ants work there up to a loss of sex. Ants are asexual for to be capable of work with all their might...” If you think about our striving for super-efficiency, if you think about sex-tourism, and the till-now practically uncontrollable spread of AIDS, plus the 100 % fatal slow viruses that are spreading and waiting -- do you still consider the concept of an asexual society so bizarre?

Translation Peter Duba, edited by Jerry Weir and Tom Reynolds

Essay in English IV

2009-12-23T11:39:00.001+01:00

PASSABLE SEX FOR THE THIRD MILLENIUM?

(PART IV)

Essay written in 2000

SUBSTITUTE SEX?

The Starr Report (which Rebecca Johnson, a contributing editor at Vogue, described in The New York Times Magazine as valuable for the present American public as the Kinsey reports in 1940’s and Masters and Johnson in the 1960’s) is in fact all about substitute sex. The only problem of the two protagonists there is that their sex was not substitutional enough.

Sex, meanwhile, has become a product on the market, and as such it is subject to the rules of mass consumption. It is remarkable that, in general, the sexual revolution endowed the sexual market with an explosion of sex-substitutional services. The erotic service industry is switching to the sphere of untouching sexual contacts. Massive offers of services directed exclusively at voyeurism and masturbation have emerged -- a phenomenon unseen up to that time. Currently, men are offered -- besides the obligatory striptease -- porn-video booths, peep shows and live shows, with three contemporary novelties for auto-erotic satisfaction: the so-called massage parlors offering hand-jobs, rubber dolls, and phone sex. Even President Clinton discovered the attractiveness of phone sex sooner than he should gain an elementary theory from a novel about phone sex entitled ‘Vox’, given to him as a gift from that very person he used to call and ask not only for it. Communication by phone (with an anonymous person as a therapeutic technique to overcome frustration and loneliness) was first recommended thirty years ago by the Russian psychiatrist Vladimir Levi in his book ‘The Art of Dealing with People’. He wrote: “Why not use the virtually divine opportunity to set off into the world without actually leaving home. You are invisible, and you are holding a shield in front of yourself. You may cut off the communication at any time....” According to a very precise testimony President cut off one of his phone sex excursions by fallen asleep in the middle of the sentence. But that doesn’t mean that Levi wasn’t right. Newly emerging ‘hot phone’ and ‘chat’ services on the Internet indicate that we do want to be invisible and hold a shield in front of us. Even in sex...

Women have not been forgotten by these new services. This includes male striptease and porn-magazines for women. And according the reportage of Katie Monagle in magazine Mademoiselle in 1995 “feminist-friendly sex stores” already created a network. In first one in New York, the “Eve’s Garden”, dildos were top-seller. And from these it just a small step to the most revolutionary worth the HI-TECH civilization -- the vibrator. Saying that the vibrator gives women freedom sounds like a cliché. However, the truth is probably that it fulfills women’s erotic dreams more instantly and efficiently than anything before. Older practices (developed for example in women's jails with an empty mustard bottle, or a broom handle) are like dinosaur eggs compared to the space technology of the vibrators -- the choice of sizes, the color fluorescent models, up to special effects, such as the simulated ejection of semen. Significant is the statement by Dr. D. C. Renshaw that “A vibrator stimulates much more than what can be achieved by hand, oral stimulation, or through intercourse. For some women, this may mean an orgasmic breakthrough”. The personal testimonies of some women, as well as statistics, confirm this observation. Betty Dodson, a prominent sexologist, has reported that “a couple of times, I was not far from falling in love with my vibrator”. This is not hard to understand if we take the example of one of her patients, who had the first really intense orgasm of her life with a vibrator. Dodson reckons that this woman will for perhaps months, or even years only reach an orgasm in this way, but “this is not as bad as the fact that she would never have had it”. Elsewhere, Dodson discusses a married woman who had her first orgasm at the age of 48. She touched her clitoris with her new vibrator, and after two hours exploded with a climax so powerful that she almost fell off the bed, and she weighed more than 120 kilos... “Neither she, nor her husband, were ever quite as lavish as the vibrator”, concluded Dodson. The Annual Statistics of Sexual Behavior, based on the response of 720 college and university-educated American women, reports that “a repeated orgasm was experienced in 47.8 per cent cases by stimulation. In the majority of occurrences (26.3 per cent) by masturbation, and 18.3 per cent by a partner's contact with the genitals”. Matilda Fernandez Saez as the Spanish Minister of Social Affairs recommended masturbation in a sexual education handbook for adolescents that provoked outrage of members of the Spanish Parliament. Humankind knows masturbation for thousand of years, but the vibrator has changed it from a laborious hiking tour into a pleasant drive in a shiny limousine. The objection that it is just an impersonal piece of plastic can be partly eradicated by attempts to form the sizes of vibrators similar to the instruments of well-known male porn-stars. The German author, Gert Heidenreich, in the first story of his collection of stories, ‘Der Geliebte des dritten Tages’ (DVA, Stuttgart, 1997) envisages husbands ordering wooden moulds made of their penises so as to be at least partly “present” in their marriage bed during long business trips.

ADAM AND EVE OF THE YEAR 2020

In 1990 the journal Cosmopolitan published an article “Marriage without Sex”, where it pointed out married couples that voluntarily decided on partial, and in some cases, complete sexual abstinence. Reasons for this were predominantly sexual over-satiation, however, objections among the higher educated couples to aggressive sex propaganda is also a common reason.
Will they be standard couples for next millennium? In fact here are three possible models. As Alvin Toffler written in his famous book “Future Shock”, among first is the “social family” where the parents will be fully engaged on upbringing of large number of children. Mostly in role not a biological parents. Another model of “carrier couple” expecting partnership of two singles who will be fully occupied with their work and individual preferences. And third way already appeared - the family, which start to look for the baby when time of professional career is over. Current advanced medical technology is capable by hormone therapy to prepare an uterus of an 80-year-old woman into a condition of an 18-year-old and thus fulfill a dreams of elderly parents. Is evident that nobody would prefer such way if there will be not valuable reasons. For example general change of life-style in the third millennium.

(To be continued)

Translation Peter Duba, edited by Jerry Weir and Tom Reynolds

Essay in English III

2009-12-16T09:00:00.001+01:00

PASSABLE SEX FOR THE THIRD MILLENIUM?

(PART III)

Essay written in 2000

SIDE-EFFECT OF FEMINISM

Betty Friedan admits that the advance of the male movement, led by Robert Bly, may partly be a reaction to feminism. However, she adds that at the same time, “man's need to break through the heavy burden of the virility myth, to overcome the strain of being macho”. Alfred Gringold reveals something about the source of this heavy strain: “Man's fear of a serious relationship grows with the rising demands of post-feminist women... We must respect the aspirations of the contemporary independent, competent, qualified, and respectable women - especially if we ever want to meet them in bed.” The real fear from sexual-harassment leads to other unsolvable situation. In extremis the sexual-harassment can be practically everything between man and woman if woman find it unpleasant for her. Even joke! Result was truthfully shown in one cartoon of magazine Details; the man who like to deal with nice woman thinking so hard what approach to her can be allowed that finally he find a best solution - escape.

THE POISON APPLE IN ARTIFICIAL PARADISE

Of course, there are places when you can address a woman without dilemma. But results of an investigation by the Social-Pedagogical Institute in Berlin show that an average of 16 % of the customers of prostitutes rejects the use of a condom, which is a lot, if you consider approximately the 300,000 German prostitutes and their roughly 1.6 million sexual contacts per week... In other hand professional prostitutes can learn that the condoms protected not only customers, but themselves too. The amateur prostitution is worse. Especially when (as in other professions) here the effective age is declining rapidly. In Vancouver, Canada, are 13-14 years old prostitutes on every disposal.

THE EFFECT OF BABYLON

According to the official WHO figures and a very moderate predictions a total of 15 to 20 million HIV positive adults, and out of this number in 5 to 6 million cases of AIDS are expected to develop after the year 2000. It is also true that deaths from AIDS in the United States fell 29 percent in 1996 and 47 percent last year due to new drugs treatments, but the rate of new infections remains steady at about 40,000 cases every year. The dramatic spread of this disease can be practically manifested on prostitution, which as ‘professional adultery’ is linked to promiscuity, and is best documented at the same time all over the world.

The situation is even worse with those who prefer anal sex, which poses the highest risk. Anal sex without a condom was practiced with prostitutes in ten per cent of occurrences; an additional 14 per cent use a condom only occasionally. The ACSF report based on 20,687 questionnaires filled out by French men and women, however indicates that the use of condoms has been increasing in France. On the other hand it also shows that one-third of heterosexual men, half of heterosexual women, and one-quarter of homosexual/ bisexual men never use condoms. Even in orderly Switzerland, only 52 per cent of young men have said they use a condom. In Great Britain, as in 1992 Dr. G. Gardner reported in the British Medical Journal, it was discovered that among married couples where one of the partners is HIV positive, in 17 per cent of the cases the other partner was infected despite the use of condoms.

The rise in worldwide ‘sex tourism’ has aggravated this disaster. The paradox of our time is that for Europeans, there is no great need to travel far for an exotic sex. Among 197 prostitutes in the Graz Municipal Venereal Disease Clinic was in 1992 unintentionally disclosed that only 96 had come from Austria – a central European country. Another 55 prostitutes had come from Santo Domingo, 22 from Thailand, nine from Yugoslavia, and the remaining 15 from other countries. The BBC has reported several times on the ‘sex industry’ in the Philippines and Thailand. The last story was in connection with the estimated 1.5 million HIV positive people in Thailand due to ‘sex tourism’. Some ‘sex tourism’ fans naively believe that sex with children (which is also offered there) will protect them against the HIV virus. However, this is no longer the case with exotic countries only. For example, in the early 90’s, the number of HIV-positive children among 13 to 19 year old in Washington increased by 500 per cent. Within a discussion in the prestigious scientific journal Nature about AIDS Education Policy of the New York City Board of Education, an opinion was presented that “emphasis on the use of condoms in the school-child population will cause more AIDS than it will prevent”. Author of the statement, Dr. E. Stim gives three reasons for his assumption: “First, a contraceptive experience has shown, condoms have at least 2 per cent failure rate (as barrier to semen), because of breakage or slippage. Second, as students of teenage sexuality have shown, the consistent use of condoms with consecutive coituses is extremely low in the teenage population. Third, emphasis on the use of condoms alone ignores the fact that AIDS is a disease spread by all body secretions and excretions, and not just by semen. Condoms do not protect against AIDS risks in open mouth-to-mouth kissing, body biting and much oral sex play”. Well, it seems that the journal Nature is not the President’s favorable reading. As we can learn from the currently hot-selling ‘The Starr Report’ even he is in favor of meeting young people for being informed about normal life, he doesn’t hear them properly. Ms. Lewinsky for example was very concern about ”e-mail describing the effect of chewing Altoid mints before performing oral sex”. But neither the President nor Ms. Lewinsky, it seems, were aware that oral sex with a condom is according the law obligatory even in low quality porn-movies, not to mention professionals performing oral sex. If on the one hand vice-president’s best advice against HIV-infection is no-sex, who else than President should obey at least minimal health-care rules? And if this is not true what we can expect from others?

Dr. E. Stim furthermore warns that even the more responsible adepts of sexual intercourse have no guarantee that they will avoid infection. As Dr. E. Stim later wrote in his book ‘Physician’s Notebook’: “So just because a potential sexual partner shows you his very recent negative HIV test, don't think you can't catch AIDS from him. You might end up the most surprised person in the cemetery!” The explanation is cruelly simple: The AIDS blood test becomes positive from one to three months after acquiring HIV. This means, that “against what you might think, you may run a higher risk by having sex with a high-risk AIDS blood test negative person than with an AIDS blood test positive person...”

Dan Savage, according to his own by-line ‘America’s Most Popular Sex Columnist’, says in The New York Magazine: ”The gay response to AIDS forced everybody to start talking about what they were physically doing in bed. It forced the newspapers to write honestly about sex.” Unfortunately, while almost all newspapers are now writing broadly about sex, that original topic -- AIDS -- is vanishing from the headlines, as if this chapter is over forever. But it is not.

(To be continued)

Translation Peter Duba, edited by Jerry Weir and Tom Reynolds

Essay in English II

2009-12-09T09:00:00.002+01:00

PASSABLE SEX FOR THE THIRD MILLENIUM?

(PART II)

Essay written in 2000

THE ILLUSION OF MARVELOUS SEX

This is not a task to be neglected. Indeed it concerns a vast portion of society, or that part which is characterized by a cohabiting couple, economic activity, and child-rearing. Take for example, a standard couple (Adam and Eve of the year 2 000) let them run through their week of work duties and family stress; the desired moment finally arrives for them to meet in bed. However, here the next hurdle called “successful life” awaits them. The information boom has done its job. Nowadays, couples making love are subject to a demand for a race of orgasms accompanied by complicated sexual gymnastics. The higher education of women understandingly increases their requirements for sexual satisfaction. On the other hand, “many women want nothing else in bed but close their eyes and be served,” as one man complained in a recent opinion poll. A husband in this type of relationship gets unintentionally assumes the role of “sexual maintenance worker”. Even if this were not the case, the man's responsibility for a woman’s satisfaction in intercourse has risen exceedingly.

Cynthia and Samuel Janusov based their ‘A Report on Sexual Behavior’, a 430 page book, on eight thousand forms filled out by American men and women. As much as 30 per cent of the respondents stated that they have no objections to watching porno-films with their partner. However, this congenial diversion unconsciously creates a need to imitate and compete. Who are the ones with whom we want a regular orgasmic competition? If Jurika, a 29-year-old Belgian porno-star, in an interview for POPO magazine declares that she really feels everything that is in the movie, we may believe her. Nevertheless, in the same interview, we find that between foreplay and the actual sexual act, she leaves for a break and drinks coffee. The 40-year-old German porn-star, a Polish immigrant Teresa Orlowski (bust volume well over 100 cm, due to mama-plastic surgery) is more sincere. She says: “it is a truly hard work... It is not only sex, a lot of distress is involved. Believe me, being an actress in porno films is more demanding than especially women think....” The truth is that when two (or more) play a role, even though not a theater role this time, they are subject to the rules of a dramatic performance. It is a tiny step from performing to pretending. A sexual act, which is rehearsed at first, then filmed, and later skillfully edited for the final version has very little in common with genuine sexual intercourse. Needless to say, we are all different, and in the course of a normal coitus, everyone faces the dangers of failure, pain, illness, unwanted pregnancy, even disappointment. When Karel Čapek, the famous classic Czech novelist wrote that pornography is immoral, he did not have in mind the fact that it is displays human nakedness, but that it hides the complexity and fragility of erotic behavior. The role of a sexual hunter might be challenging. On the other hand, a survey of 18,876 men and women in Great Britain discloses that 13.7% of men who had more than five female partners in the past five years had to seek medical assistance, compared to 0.7% of those men who are contented with just one partner. Even if the loving couple can successfully avoid all this, the subconscious and ever reappearing comparison still persists. The final result resembles a race between a male gazelle and a jeep, which added ironical spirit to a commentary in one of those films about African nature. Yes, it is true. Technology (video, in this case) will defeat every animal. Also a human.

SEX, A BOOK OR A HOT BATH?

Can it surprise you, after all, that as much as 45 per cent of men responded in anonymous survey by Esquire magazine prefer a good novel over a glance under the blouse of a well-shaped woman? Remember how many British women in the survey mentioned already prefer a hot bath or a drink to having sex. The cohabitation of couples passed through a truly dramatic development in the course 20-th century. The time that elapsed between "the bond what God joined let no man sunder” to mass divorce was too short. Nevertheless, it gives us an opportunity to ask why the human couple emerged in evolution. Why did, the human species convert from a herd copulation of the type ‘everyone with everyone’ to a strictly isolated human couple? This was evidently due more to biological reasons, rather than social. The human baby, because of the dramatic evolution of brain capacity (enabled by so-called neoteny) became ever more fragile, whose maturing is prolonged to a length of time unseen in other species. Even after this time, parent supervision over their offsprings is not completely interrupted. This human being inevitably needs concentrated care; even a parent couple selfishly attached to him. In the stone-age herd he would never get this sort of attention. However, parent-couple’s scheme could work safely at the times of William Shakespeare, when life expectancy of his nearest family and himself was 36.3 years. But how can a delicate construction of couple cohabitation persist if life expectancy, for example in New Mexico in 1989, was already twice as high as that of Shakespeare's family, approaching 79.7 years? In the same year, the anticipated life expectancy of Japanese women was 81.8 years! There can be no doubt that these facts bring a major revision in the meaning and duration of the human couple. In the light of these developments, the words of M. Scott Peck, author of the bestselling ‘The Unexplored Way,’ gain a completely new tone:

“One of the most widespread myths is that we should be entirely happy with one man or one woman, that one man or one woman should give us the sense of life, and that fidelity should not be a problem... This is nonsense.”

This is particularly true of couples in United States. ”Sexual boredom is most pandemic dysfunction in this country,” says for The New York Times Magazine Judith Seifer, a sex-therapist and advice columnist.

It seems that even without Dr. Peck's advice American men and women were at the past looking for ways to, at least for a moment, escape the ‘lifetime marriage’. Sexual investigations as early as 1975 confirmed that only 48 per cent put their permanent partner on the first place as a lover. According to the already mentioned Cynthia and Samuel Janusov report a temporary fear of the AIDS pandemic of the early 90’s gained back 87 per cent of those who preferred their permanent partners. This led authors of the report to state that the “incidental love affair is now out of fashion”. Nevertheless, AIDS is no longer in the headlines, and the passion for adultery seems to be back. Or better said -- adultery was probably never out of fashion, although certainly there have been periods in the recent past where it was out of a fashion to confess it even anonymously.

(To be continued)

Translation by Peter Duba, edited by Jerry Weir and Tom Reynolds

Essay in English I

2009-12-02T09:00:00.001+01:00

PASSABLE SEX FOR THE THIRD MILLENIUM?

(PART I)

Essay written in 2000

Andy Warhol said the best thing to do about sex is not to do it. Seemingly, Bill Clinton didn’t hear this wise advice, but he is definitely not the only one running occasionally into trouble because of the shifting barriers between our cultural limits and biological instincts. But what future presumptions or prognosis can we learn from the bubbling discussion about the position of sex in our culture and society?

If we accept that we are in literature already deeply in the post-modern period, and that in the social sciences we recognize even a post-feminist era, isn’t that over-typed Clinton-Lewinsky affair an example of the post-sexual revolution age?

In the fifties, humankind learned to have sex without children. In the seventies, people began to learn to have children without sex. The nineties indicate, that soon we will get used to sex without a partner.

THE EYES SAY ”YES, BUT...”

We live in a peculiar time. We are surrounded by erotic challenges, but not everybody has his extra study (or say, hallway to the bathroom, neither not very romantic places) behind one’s official workroom and secretary who is confidentially slipping one attractive visitor by another. On the contrary, the majority of the population has no time even to sigh for sexual adventures. It is no wonder then of British women-mothers that asked about their preferences to relieve stress, 60 per cent put a hot bath in the first place, while one out of four said a drink is the best cure, and sex ranked surprisingly third. Exhaustion of potential sexual partners caused by the every-day marathon of tasks is evident.

We are familiar with portrait of over-exhausted husband, who is always away from home. Also an emancipated woman is now coming to play this role. Will these two ever find the time and the power to enjoy a truly genuine sexual act? Let them run through their week of work duties and family stresses, the desired moment arrives for them to finally meet in bed. Here the next section of the hurdle track called “successful life” waits for them. The information boom has done its job and nowadays, couples making love are subject to a demand for a race of orgasms accompanied by complicated sexual gymnastics. The sex came to another stress in long list of another already appeared.

Already in 1991 The British Daily Mail published an article under the headline ‘Women at War’. The article was illustrated with two controversial photos of the same young woman. In one of the photos, she was in the role of a ‘career girl’, in the other; she was portrayed in the traditional female role or homemaker. Nowadays, the first girl apparently prevails. The fact that she has no time to bear and bring up children could have been expected. Statistic figures in the above-mentioned article show that four-out-of-five educated working women aged from 18 to 24 say they refuse to bear the responsibility for a family.

The sexual revolution of the 60‘s eradicated the first taboo of human culture, made nakedness a common-place, and turned the mystery of sex into a commercial that fills shops. Subsequently, feminists began an assault to free women of the burden of their traditional role, Betty Friedan says. But before the envisioned ideal could be reached, a problem appeared how to combine a professional career with the fact, that according to Friedan that “women are humans that give birth to children”. It has been shown, for example, that drug abuse among children rises with decreasing time they spend under their parents' watchful sight. This makes latch-key kids high-ranking candidates for narcotics use. A woman struggling for a career and at the same time, for a harmonious home, is subject to an inevitable series of problems. Along with her ever over-exhausted husband, she too became harnessed by that man-propelled mill of accelerating human civilization. Will these two ever find the time and the power to adorn with a truly genuine sexual act their cohabitation, which was established so long ago by the mythical prototype for human couples, Adam and Eve?

(To be continued)

Translation by Peter Duba, edited by Jerry Weir and Tom Reynolds

Story in English V

2009-11-25T09:00:00.000+01:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART V)

Third Associate Judge: “You really consider yourself like da Vinci?”
Laughter is heard from the courtroom. Reporter and Dr. Hokius looked at each other, disturbed by that sound from discussion which continued by Novatius who didn't seem to be disturbed at all.
Novatius: “I worked so hard and I knew the craziness of burnt knowledge, unrealized power that I found right under the noses of others. Colossal possibilities appear when you step across one horizon and perceive another. And, at the same time, you are conscious of the tens of thousands of steps needed for man to cross this new unknown distance. I respect everyone who was in a similar situation. They seem to you very close, though they are separated by hundreds of years and different experiences.”
First Associate Judge: “A moment ago you said that you don't respect any authorities.”
Novatius's lawyer: “He didn't say that!”
Judge: “We will not dispute this. Defendant, how did you become so alienated? I could say misanthropic.”
Novatius: “Da Vinci himself said that the greatest love is born from the greatest knowledge of what we love. And I, all my life but particularly recently, have devoted myself to knowing myself -- and through myself other people -- and I think that I expend more effort on this than you.”
Judge: “But unlike me, you, with your decision consciously hurt humankind.”
Novatius: “On the contrary. If my invention was fully developed and applied, it would, no doubt, seem a momentary advance. Our generation wouldn't be afraid of cruel, premature death. But at the same time, it could get rid of the responsibility for the future of mankind, whose sensitivities are the product of thousands of years of evolution. Unexpected changes in our genetic code, systematic attacks. These threats try our ability to survive and adapt. If we are genetically conserved, we start to be an ameliorated monoculture that will lose the possibilities to be found at the outer limits. And in this way, we can also lose the ability to react to extreme situations which can light up this special spark in humankind's quintessential nature. Man became the most developed species through his ability to adapt to extremes through opportunism and absence of his own specialization. New inherited traits come from faults and the appearance of mistakes. Progress without mistakes, faults, and suffering is impossible.”
Second Associate Judge: “Are you able, looking into the eyes of those who are dying today, to say that you regard them as inevitable cast-offs of progress?”
Novatius: “No, but are you able to look into the eyes of the generation that in exchange for prolonged life now could jettison all of civilization and its future? The generation which breaks the tie that emanates from the pain of many upcoming generations? If our species submitted to this therapy, it would degenerate.”
Third Associate Judge: “You are a defender of perverse characters, a prophet of errors, pain and suffering, and all of this you conceal in confused phrases about progress and humanity. What is progress? It's even difficult to define it. But about suffering and pain, no one doubts.”
Novatius: “There was a man like Leonardo da Vinci, but in philosophy. His name was Soren Kierkegaard, and he said that genius burns in suffering. And I believe that thanks to genius of this kind, mankind came to this stage of development, and we have no right to stop now because we are afraid of the pain, which has accompanied us throughout our history.”
Second Associate Judge: “I'm an amateur in this topic. But I think the danger of what you speak about can't be manifest immediately. And the progress, which you believe in, surely brings the starting point for the semblance of this unsolved problem, too. Are you sure you didn't make a mistake in your consideration? Can you assure me that you are not a victim of these sacrificial mistakes that you pervasively appeal to?”
Reporter: “The defendant is quiet, so I'll quickly ask our science expert -- do you, as a scientist, also think that humans could degenerate in these conditions?”
Scientific Expert: “Fortunately, I'm not on the bench and I have no duty to judge. I can say only that thanks to this court, Novatius, at least, explained his reason for concealing his invention and destroying it.”
Reporter: “Can the result of this process change? This is a question for our legal expert...”
Legal Expert: “Certainly not. Also because, whatever the defendant's arguments, it doesn't change the conditions of his freedom -- publishing his invention.”
Reporter: “During the whole court case, the prosecutor is strikingly silent. As our listeners have surely noticed.”
Legal Expert: “The prosecutor has no other role in this case. Only the threat of proposing the final punishment, which this trial will approach when it draws to its conclusion. Punishment could be an extreme means. The paradoxical victory of the prosecutor could be when Novatius obtains his pardon by publishing his secret.”
Reporter: “Many citizens, and even some governments, ask that the defendant be executed for what they call a crime against humanity. Because of the quick progress of the trial, we could not present a broad spectrum of views, samples of opinions from other people who, as one of the associate judges pointed out, the defendant considers the inevitable "cast-offs of progress'.”
Legal Expert: “I think that there are exaggerated emotions which don't have a lawful and material base. If this regional court succumbs to this pressure and on this special occasion decides 'in the name of humanity', we can think about manifest punishment which none of the higher courts presumably accept.”
Reporter: “This case will not be decided in this court?”
Legal Expert: “Obviously not. What we heard here we can regard as an overture because after an appeal will follow a long line of appeals leading from the National Court to the Supreme Continental Court and later international courts.”
Reporter: “The Judge has finished today's proceedings, and for myself and our guests I say goodbye to our listeners. Stay tuned for continuing coverage.”
Red-light lamp in studio went out. Speaker is for a while full of whistling and humming, bustle and music.
Director: “Peter, when you plan any future programs tell us about it so we are not so surprised.”
Reporter is laughing: “Don't worry. From Novatius there will be a never-ending soap opera. And what about Mrs. Kisbon?”
Director: “Just said good-bye to continental listeners, but now maybe she is saving her comments for this series of appeals.”
Reporter is relaxing for a moment in his chair. Headphones down, his eyes are closed. Not for a long time as Legal expert, Dr. Hokius, is in hurry: “Can we go?”
Reporter is in a moment on his legs, shining like robot after full-energy re-loading. Reporter is shaking a hands to his guests.
Reporter: “Thank you, but don't run away. Producer has prepared contract for you.”
Scientific Expert: “Were we that good?”
Reporter is only smiling silently. He is satisfied.

News Presenter: “...and to conclude today's news, in scientific news we want to add one item. A trial of scientist Novatius, about which we brought detailed information and have broadcast live already, finished today. The court, after much consideration, at the proposal of the prosecutor, handed down a guilty verdict and a death sentence. The defendant refused his right to appeal to any other court.”

The End

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Story in English IV

2009-11-18T23:34:00.002+01:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART IV)

Novatius: “I only want to say that science, like art, awaits from man, from a given individual, the best -- and maybe even self-destructive -- performance of what the brain can accomplish ...the scientist closes his eyes to what's right in front of him in order to see the most distant horizons. In these crystallized moments of concentration, he must inevitably find release from reality if he wants to conceive and bring into being something that stretches today's rules and even upsets fundamental premises. To accomplish these crazy aims it need a fool unaware that he maybe won't be able to come back to reality. If you ask this person in this strained excited mood, to properly say hello to everybody around him, to comply with such social niceties and to observe all these social mores of the wolf den -- full of seeming or real insults -- you simply want too much.”
Second Associate Judge: "Defendant, believe me, I came here as an independent representative of the law, and also as a man who was surprised about your decision. But you have convinced me that you are an asocial element."
“Hello there, representative of the law! If anything, I am a representative of top-trained professionals and acting like a professional fool is what I do. I am that whom you can call today a personality, an individualist, but also an individual. And that's why against all machinery of science my main tool is my -- I repeat my -- unique and inimitable brain. As yours is unique and inimitable, but I think you have only your independence.”
First Associate Judge: “This is impertinent.”
“Sorry, but the defendant didn't mean it ...”, Novatius's Lawyer is trying to calm the atmosphere at the court, but he is parallely ignored by defendant.
Novatius: “When an actor plays his role with such concentration no one molests him on the stage. When an athlete heads toward the finish line, he is not obliged to bow to everyone around. A scientist has no special time, finish line, or stage for his creativity. The scientist, without some breakthrough, is not recognizable in the masses. But the scientist with the most urgent ideas is this absent-minded fool who forgets everyone else. He is possessed and the idea materializes, like a burning carbon arc which has suddenly touching a sidereal 22,000-volt hook-up, and is able to hold it, to tempt to earth this crazy electric charge of new perspective. But, whenever this urgent, importunate idea comes, he must be prepared ...always susceptible to voices that you can't hear. And after all, what value has that my impertinence, which, relatively speaking, concerns only you, in comparison with importance of this discovery, with consequences that concern everyone.”
Third Associate Judge: “Look, we can admit all, but you can help all of us if you would be more modest.”
Novatius: “Why do I have to be more modest? When an athlete runs to the finish line, he raises his hands and everyone understands it. I raise my head. It's my chance for joy from victory.”
Judge: “Defendant, you talk a lot. Come back to the topic at hand.”
Reporter: “At least, this tribunal, thanks to the strong hand of the Judge, makes this look like a real court, not a debating society. Nevertheless, it looks as if the considerations of the defendant are logical.”
Legal Expert: “They didn't concern the substance of the trial and, as a result, are worthless. Really, it makes things more difficult for him.”
Scientific Expert: “What he says concerns, in essence, a fortunately small group of exceptional individuals. The idea about which he spoke is only a slight fragment of the time of scientist, a little detonator that starts an avalanche of long-term monotonous work to substantiate the idea.”
Reporter: “And someone has to do this, too?”
Scientific Expert: “Yeah. In science there are thousands of standard employees, who move -- maybe not very expressively, but constantly -- our knowledge forward. It's unfortunately a fact, as Einstein said: 'the universe is infinite but limited.' It's the same with the brain. Its infinite possibilities are limited by its information capacity. As in the case of some scientists like, for example, the physicist Landau, who had problems with opening a tube of toothpaste because he was too concerned about his scientific problems to learn about it when this new everyday item appeared. Is it strange, or just absent-minded?”
Judge: “Defendant, do you have any consideration for anything? Does some authority exist for you?”
Novatius: “Most of the authorities I've met fail under detailed examination. Maybe I accept some of them deadly seriously. Others can't help me with the problems I want to solve. Fortunately, very early on I discovered that I must rely only on myself. The force of authority, of slaps in the face for adults, I don't accept.”
First Associate Judge: “Is this an allusion to our court?”
Third Associate Judge is breaking in: “You don't feel alone without the support that everyone needs? There are usually teams of scientists.”
Novatius: “But there is someone who is first among equals. Individuality is a natural law. If you don't admit that, don't think about its consequences. Simply put, there will be no valuable result for society as a whole if you destroy individuality. Respect for this principle is good for everyone.”
First Associate Judge: “You are sick with ambition.”
Novatius: “It's an engine of progress.”
Judge: “Don't juggle with words. According to our information, you haven't earned support among your peers.”
Novatius: “A truly good character, without sudden expected diversions and experiments to realize them ...a good natural fellow can't be an inventive scientist, artist or inventive anything. His mind, a priori, expressly forbids some things, blocks undesirable ideas before they are formulated. Temptation is the devil's requisite. And if you want to make some new discovery you must attempt just those things that have never occurred to others, or at least they haven't had the courage to talk about them. You must be aware of everything in focus and be open to ideas from all directions. Consequently, it is naive to think that you can have your brain on a long leash in the laboratory and a short leash when you leave.”
Third Associate Judge: “You strongly defend amorality and abnormality.”
Novatius: “I admit that the type of person I described from many perspectives is not very desirable for peaceful life. But I'm sure that these people are bearers of morality and stubborn power in dangerous moments, when most good-natured people go home with their tails between their legs, or they stay dumb, without any idea of how to deal with an unexpected situation.”
Judge: “You keep changing the subject, and I really don't understand why you raise this topic here. I want to warn the associated judges about the defendant's inability to give a clear yes or no answer. He can't take an unambitious, responsible standpoint toward life. He uses paradoxes and sophistry, and this helps him in his megalomaniacal ambitions. The only argument in his defense is using Leonardo da Vinci as a precedent ...only in order to mention that he was painter, sculptor, discoverer and other things, but that story's at least 500 years old.”
Novatius's Lawyer: “Da Vinci's genius is still acknowledged. But it's less well known that he, like my client, rejected his invention when he realized that it could hurt humans. He destroyed it.”
Second Associate Judge: “What was it?”
Judge: “It was a submarine that was later improved upon and built. Da Vinci's example in this case does not seem relevant.”
Novatius's Lawyer: “Nevertheless, it further proves that a personality like da Vinci concluded that in the name of humanity, all ideas, even his own, should not be put into practice. His foreboding proved accurate, for in WWII, more than 60,000 people died in submarine battles.”
Judge: “On the other hand, think how many people today live from seas and oceans that we have penetrated, in part, thanks to submarines. Da Vinci never faced a trial for this decision. This case is only an empty manoeuvre of the defendant and testifies to the megalomania of the accused.”

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Story in English III

2009-11-11T09:00:00.001+01:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART III)

Reporter and experts are staring at each other for while. Suddenly Director's voice break the music from speaker: “Peter, what happened there?”
“I don't know exactly, but...”
“Please check it out.”
“Right now, sure...” But when music come from speakers again, he turns to legal expert, whispering: “Please be careful, you are a lawyer. How can anyone do their job here? I relied on you!”
Nevertheless, now is our Reporter sure that he has to rely only on himself. In a minute he is out of the studio, at the passage, immediately curious about accidental presence of young lady with microphone in her hand.
“Sorry, Mrs. Kisbon, what are you doing here?”
“You know, this international event warrants World News coverage. Nothing against your station, but our continental broadcasts have curious listeners. I see you’re quite annoyed about all of this.”
“Me? No. Only there's something I must have verified.”
“If you're looking for one of the judges, they're locked in their chamber. Novatius is in a state, and the lawyer is in with him and the prosecutor is running between Novatius and judges, thus he's the last one who has time for your presumptuous questions.”
“Great, the things they come up with...”
“You didn't know that the defendant refused to give evidence?”
“Wow!”
“It's his right.”
“Really? I didn't know that. Interesting.”
“But I see an opportunity to find out more. There is a deputy of supreme court...”
Kisbon turns quickly to man coming through the corridor:
“Sorry, Mr. Dalger.”
Reporter is following her, pressing himself closer to Dalger:
“Sorry, pardon me.”
Kisbon: “Mr. Dalger, what do you think, will they continue today?”
“I can answer only off record.”
Reporter: “No. Unfortunately. Oh, sorry, fortunately, I forgot my microphone back at the studio.”
Dalger: “Then hurry up, because it's going to start up again in 10 minutes.”
Kisbon: “So all this means that the break was not such a serious affair?”
“Mrs. Kisbon, in regional courts they use to make mistakes. In this case, one of the associate judges will apologize to Novatius and we will continue soon.”
Reporter: “Then I'll go back to the studio. Thanks very much.”
Kisbon: “Thanks too, but I'm also interested in...”
Entering the studio Reporter is again full of confidence, blinking at the experts to encourage them: “Everything seems to have been cleared up. We'll continue in a moment. Take the headphones, please.”
Music is still playing, but Reporter has already something for Director: “Director, can you hear me?”
Legal expert is interrupting him with guilty feelings: “What happened, in fact?”
Reporter is answering carelessly, focused to find contact with Director: “You know, the associate judge...”
Director's voice interrupt him suddenly: “We hear you, Peter, and we have an interesting bit of tape for you to listen to. Before the break, they were broadcasting this from the continental competition...”
Sooner than Reporter could respond the record begin.
Judge: “Defendant, we have confirmed from our computerized data that your whole life attests to you being this sort of a person who is unsettled, has a confrontational nature, is exhibitionistic and overly-assertive, shows cheek to authorities and rules. Do you have anything to add?”
Novatius: “I only want to point out that for each characteristic there are usually two contrasting traits. Someone can be avaricious, but also miserly. It's depends on how you see it. It's quite possible that if you turn around these accusations, you could see me from another perspective.”
Judge to his colleagues: “It's this kind of impertinence...”
Novatius continue without allowing any interruption: “But if you really want to find some good characteristic in me, you should consider my sense of humor. When so many one-sided and simplified opinions have been dumped on me, I can only smile. Laughter is also, in fact, the last bastion of self-preservation against demagoguery.”
First Associate Judge: “Are you making a mockery of this trial? Do you even realized where you
are? This trial can pass sentence without your involvement.”
Three men in studio are string at each other. From speakers they hear a courtroom noises, wave of excited voices, identical to that used before science expert and Reporter began their discussion. Suddenly a new voice break a quarrel they have heard.
Kisbon: “Dear friends, I'm sorry to interrupt this little war of words. We will be happy when you make up your mind. That's why I didn't comment on the overly emotional speech from the judge. But at this time, for your information I must add, that the verdict without the defendant is of course possible. But it testifies to the complete lack of understanding of this bizarre case. The process of this performance has only one goal: for the defendant to be brought before the court and advised, under the pressure of logical, positive arguments, to change his mind and publish his important discovery. To punish him would be society's confession of its inability to persuade a crucial person at a crucial time and place about humanity common aim. Physical accomplishment is possible from compulsion. But with spiritual accomplishments there exists some obstacle which is not possible to conquer with violence or other force. If this regional tribunal can't deal with this case, it may be headed to the Supreme Court.”
Record from tape is finish. Director's voice come from the speaker: “What do you think?”
Reporter: “Now I understand what Kisbon is doing here. And why that Supreme Court judge is swaggering around here. So, we have to get ready for another stunt from the Supreme Court, I think.”
“Peter, about any trips abroad... we'll speak later.”
“I only want to make sure we plan ahead for it.”
“What's happening in the court?”
“Don't worry. We're all prepared here. Take out this gloomy music. We're set.”
Red light is again illuminating studio. And Reporter is again in his job: “After a short intermezzo, we're back live. The first associate judge formally apologized to the defendant, and the defendant is about to answer...”

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Story in English II

2009-11-04T09:00:00.001+01:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART II)

Judge: “Defendant. Do you agree with copy of your testimony being recorded by the computer?”
“Sure.”
“Sure, or yes?”
“Sure, yes.”
Judge turns to his colleagues and says openly: “I warn the members of the tribunal that the same arrogant way Mr. Novatius behaved...”
Novatius's Lawyer: “I protest.”
Judge: “You can when I finish. The defendant behaved in the same arrogant way during the interrogation by the computer, which in some ways confused the programmed concept of the interrogation software.”
“I have to protest again!”
Judge: “You can, I've finished.”
Reporter: “Mr. Novatius's lawyer doesn't seem to have an easy job.”
Legal expert: “Yes, it's absolutely terrible. The defendant originally even refuses to have a lawyer. He pleads his case like an amateur -- spontaneously, without consulting with his lawyer, who can only scrimmage with the Judge. It can't bring him professional satisfaction with sure -- and no sympathy at all from the public.”
Bustling in the hall is heard in studio too.
Reporter: “The defendant seems to have embittered not only the public, but also those who are, unfortunately, near to him. It can tell much about his character. Now with me, listening to the proceedings, is the distinguished scientific expert, Dr. Gropius, who has known the defendant for a years. Am I right, Dr. Gropius?”
“Not so much. In fact, I met him few times. During studies and later mostly in seminars or conferences.”
“Could you tell us anything about him?”
“He wasn't a perfect student. Above average, but undisciplined. He had a smattering of interest in everything besides the problem at hand. He adopted science for himself like short runs. He shut himself in the laboratory for a set period, and when he succeeded discovering something during that period, he published it. And when he didn't, he quickly got over the disappointment by turning to one of his hobbies.”
“Which hobbies? Drugs, women, politics.”
“He didn't overdo anything. And he didn't stick with one hobby as well. He had real panache about everything he did and specially enjoyed attention of crowds. I don't think that this surroundings in the court will scare him.”
Interview breaks for a while noise in the hall, incomprehensible voices in the background from the trial.
Scientific expert continues: “In those quick actions in his laboratory he was able to concentrate thoroughly, but this is no way to work in science. I'm sure that he made this discovery quite by chance.”
Reporter: “We could say that what he easily got, he cynically easily lost.”
“You could say that.”
“Although our listeners know something about his discovery, can you clarify its importance?”
“After the AIDS epidemic was finally controlled and changes in lifestyle radically reduced the number of heart attacks, two deadly hindrances still faced humankind -- cancer and ageing. They don't seem to have anything in common. But there are reparation mechanisms for protecting the genetic code of each cell. If they work well and repair all genetic defects that occur during the cell's life, the organism -- and also the man -- grow old. If they can't preserve this programmed process, degeneration takes place and all cells grow young. Unfortunately, it's the malignancy growing young, which is beyond the control of the organism -- and this is cancer. We concluded that growing old and cancer is the same process, but in opposite directions.”
“The defendant conducted just such experiments. What was he successful in achieving?”
“First, a little background. Some 10 years ago, the exceptional ability of bacterium Deinoccocus radiodurans to repair genetic damage from radiation was discovered. Thanks to more effective repair mechanisms, coded in its genes, this bacterium was 50 times more resistant than human cells. About the HIV virus, we knew that it also has a special gene ´tat´. Thanks to it, after successfully attacking human cells, this gene is responsible for enhancing a 1,000-fold the ability of these cells to produce more HIV viruses. Army laboratories succeeded in combining these two different genes and...”
“Thanks to genetic engineering, soldiers facing the greatest risk had these two new genes implanted into the nuclei of their cells and no longer fear radiation sickness. If they aren't right next to an atomic explosion, they can move safely in radioactive territory. But the defendant wasn't involved in army research...”
“No, he wasn't. He speculated about the idea for prolonging life. He wanted to save life against mutations, from radiation, chemical materials, genetic risks.”
“Then, the fantastic perspective for almost unlimited prolongation of human life opens up!”
“Sure, but there’s a hitch. If Novatius worked on strengthening the reparation mechanism, he had to stick to the problem of how to ensure that this new ability reaches all the cells of the body. One possibility was to experiment with human embryos...”
“These experiments are forbidden.”
“Yes, but difficult to monitor. Scientific teams at this field work very closely and confidentially. Only those involved in similar experiments can understand what they're doing, and outsiders are not welcomed to visit competitive laboratories. Reliable controls don't exist. Getting human sperm and eggs isn't a problem. And in-vitro fertilization is routine.”
“Then the defendant did conduct forbidden experiments.”
“We don't know. But we know this knowledge from military experiments can't help him. The soldiers had cells altered, but as adults. Experiments in whole organisms at so early an age could have major consequences.”
“And he solved this problem?”
“Perhaps, yes.”
“But I understand that he refused to publish his results and destroyed everything including any supporting data. Is it certain that he actually discovered something?”
“He succeeded with monkeys, published just a general conclusions from his results and held a short press conference at which he revealed monkeys from his experiments. Then he radically changed his mind. He ordered the laboratory animals killed. Only his favorite lab monkey, Rikky, stayed alive. Her exceptional resilience he later demonstrated to some important academic colleagues. It was his typical vanity. As far as I know, everyone of these colleagues was allowed to bring some perfect gene-destroying agent and apply it into Rikky's food. But Rikky was able to resist all of these gene-attacks. As a small compensation, Novatius insisted that the colleagues had to buy huge quantities of bananas. He said that the bananas were the only real risk for Rikky because she had an especially sweet tooth.”
“Where is Rikky today?”
“She stayed alive against all that deadly experiments, but she couldn't bear to be separated from Novatius. When he was arrested, Rikky refused to eat.”
“Couldn't anyone do anything..?”
“No, when we speak about biotechnologies it is impossible to make additional incursions into a live system. We can't open it up, draw a schematic and recreate it. Basic cytological and biochemical tests didn't show anything. For detailed research we require long-term cultivation of Rikky's cells. This culture we can only make from the culture removed cells, which we call calus. But calus will grow only when the cells spontaneously changes to the new system and starts to divide. Rikky's cell-reparation system was perfect and precluded anything like this.”
“And what about Novatius's colleagues?”
“He had only helpers and lab assistants. He was an absolute individualist. Sure, the authorities questioned them. But they learned only partial information that somebody was injecting something somewhere and another poured some well-know agent into some unknown liquid. It was worthless.”
“So, everything is lost?”
“In contemporary, state-of-the-art scientific technology, we don't need to know details if we know the premise or principle. Very often we only need confirmation that this way is realistic. That it's possible. A few sentences or schemata, a catalyst, and the process is under way.”
“Does it mean that we could hear the solution here at the trial?”
“If they can convince Novatius to tell it, sure. But he's silent.”
“Thank you. Actually, we can see that he is really silent... he's not only silent, he's leaving! The guards have taken him away. Mr. Hokius, what's going on?”
“Sorry, I was so interested in my colleague's words that I didn't see what happened... but it's not finished, I'm sure. It's just a break.”
“We planned a longer broadcast and our listeners surely would welcome a little musical interlude...” Reporter replays with despair, “... a little musical interlude..!”
Red-light lamp marking broadcasting from studio went out.

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Story in English I

2009-10-28T09:00:00.002+01:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART I)

Radio stings break up the news bites. News presenter's voice: “The top story in today's news, attracting worldwide attention, is trial of Dr. Novatius. He is accused for crimes against humanity, specifically for destroying his discovery, the immortality gene. We'll be going live to the trial as soon as its begins... In other news...”

The corridor to courtroom is full of waiting people. Atmosphere is nervous. New guy appeared, it is Reporter crawling through a crowds directly to the guarded doors: “Sorry, sorry, excuse me... Hello, sergeant, I just need to get a little closer.”
“You can't get any closer,” say Sergeant patiently, “The whole passage is closed. There is no admission.”
“Hey, you know me, right? Just one question, I'll slip in. No one will notice me.”
“Mr. Collin, it's impossible today. Strict measures.”
“I understand, everybody wants to see him. And I heard something about a lynching, too. But I work here. Don't you listen to the radio? In 45 minutes I'm broadcasting live.”
“Don't get excited, it's not my fault.”
Reporter get immediately excited: “What do you mean, not my fault, it's nobody's fault. Then why are you here? You are here to decide who can see him and... Hey, there is man leaving cell over there. What's going on?”
Sergeant is answering without looking that direction: “It's his lawyer, and if you want to see the defendant, you can ask him.”
“Oh, good! I thought it was the competition.” Meanwhile lawyer approached crowd and is trying to get through out. “Just a minute, sir, you, as a lawyer...”
Lawyer is passing the Reporter with no answer, looking strictly forward. It is also possible that he simply didn’t hear him as more and more bustling, humming is coming from crowd in the passage. Reporter in the midst of the crowd: “Wait, sorry, hold on! They're pulling my microphone apart! One moment. Testing microphone - one, two, three. Okay. Could you tell us, sir, how the defendant, Mr. Novatius, feels before the trial?”
Surprisingly lawyer stop for a while, turn his head back to the Reporter and says shortly with cold face: “I can't.”
Reporter move quickly closer to lawyer, whole body and face expressing hope and eagerness: “But you spoke with him just a moment ago.”
“He doesn't speak with anyone.”
Reporter is for a while loosing his drive. “I'm so relieved...”, he says instinctively but these few seconds are enough to lose lawyer who is continuing his way through crowd. Reporter see just back from the leaving lawyer. As he is trying to attract lawyer's attention back, he is partly screaming and immediately changing a voice to that official tone announcing first question to his microphone: “Just a moment... don't run away, please. Could you tell me what you think about ...”
Clamour of crowds drowns out Reporter... Another policeman is trying to get order in front of the courthouse.
“Tickets, show me your tickets! Entry to courthouse with tickets only. Do you have your ticket?”
Addressed man stopped hesitating: “I am... I haven't, but I cooperated with him as a scientific colleague, you know... My name is Grobius, Dr. Grobius.”
It has no impact on the policeman: “It's interesting how you're all family and colleagues now. Even stabbing can make someone famous, and this...”
Reporter is here again. He appeared like he jump up from the floor. As obviously, full of energy and eagerness: “Sorry, are you defendant’s former colleague, mister...?”
Unknown man repeated patiently: “Grobius, Dr. Grobius.”
Reporter is shining: “Oh, this is great.” And with authoritative tone to the policeman: “He's coming with me. Let's go!”
Policeman without change in his face: “Whatever you think, Mr. Collin.” Turning back to the crowds he is again in his official tone: “Tickets, let's see your tickets!”
Studio in courthouse is small and when Reporter and Dr. Grobius enter it, somebody is already sitting and waiting there. Soon they could say anything, voice of Director come from the speaker: “Mr. Collin, Peter, do you hear me? Are you with us?”
Reporter is gasping for breath: “Yes, I just arrived.”
“We start in 10 minutes. Do you have something on tape?”
“Nothing. The crowd almost pulled apart my microphone, and my hand with it. But I have his former colleague here. He's a schoolmate, friend, or something like that.”
“Great. We introduce him like a scientific expert. What about the legal expert?”
“He is already here. I'm pleased to welcome the distinguished barrister, Mr. Hokius.”
In a moment it is crowded now also in studio, like in the corridor outside. Legal expert woke up to shake hands with Reporter and Scientific expert: “Good afternoon.”
Because studio is really small, the best for those three is to sit and not too move. Reporter is managing them to the chairs.
“Now, we're together. Let's play some quiet music and after five minutes we begin.”
When louder music come from speaker, Reporter turns to the experts: “Now we've met each other, and I hope everything is clear ...this Novatius is so uppity. He doesn't speak with anyone and his lawyer is even more uppity. He speaks, but about nothing. In brief, this whole process is so ridiculous, in fact it's the last chance to see that bubble burst. We show this miserable scene to the public, so they can find out that even in our little district, we know why flies die. Don't worry, take heart!”
In moment music sound decrease replaced by Announcer's voice: “And now, as promised, we're going live to the town courthouse.”
Reporter blinked at the experts, to encourage them, and in next moment is fully focused at broadcasting: “Good afternoon. I'm here in the middle of the court case that is the focus of worldwide attention. At this moment, the judges are arriving. Five dignified men, led by their Judge. They're sitting down. The lawyers are in their places and, now, here comes the defendant... As you certainly hear, audience in the courthouse welcome him with whistling, bustling and humming. They came today to see Novatius with their own eyes. And he's provoking them, and they're angry. On the first day of the court, the Judge respectfully asked: 'Mr. Novatius, what right did you have to destroy your discovery, which have to be understand as the property of our progressive society?' And Novatius answered... 'fortunately, for human civilization, the soul and brain of man never became the property of any society.' But while the defendant claimed to speak on behalf of humanity, the actions for which he stands trial seem to be clearly against humanity's interest. But, meanwhile back in the courtroom... Here in the hall, the atmosphere is nearly explosive. But, unlike the turmoil in the audience, the trial itself is like in the eye of hurricane. In front of the judges stands the defendant, and now it's a fairly routine process taking place. We can take this occasion to ask our legal expert, Mr. Hokius, what's going on?”
Legal expert: “This formal part that begins a trial is an example of the progress in our judicial system. It's a process of checking of testimony by computer. In the past, investigators tried to gain complete confessions at any price, or, at least detailed testimony of a presumption of guilt from the perpetrator. At first glance this seemed right but it was a case, unfortunately, of the means celebrating the end, and it wasn't fair. Consequently, the lawgivers established the right of the defendants to answer only when their lawyer was present. But an experienced lawyer always came with some objections with aim to get the investigator off the topic or confused him. It shaken presumption that the interrogator can investigate effectively only when he is sovereign and know his own intellectual power. Fortunately, this problem was solved a few years ago by electronic equipment, and now you can see the result. A greater part of the interrogation can be delivered holus bolus to the court in a lawful way. Only the computer can ask and register the answers of the defendant. This way has secured the freedom of expression of the individual on the one hand and the respect for the law's sovereignty on the other.”
“Thanks for your answer, Mr. Hokius. There will be more questions during the trial, but let's go back to the courtroom...”

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Writers in Politics IV

2009-10-21T09:00:00.000+02:00

Role of the literati in modern society

WRITERS IN POLITICS -- UTOPY FOREVER?

(PART IV)

Last stronghold -- Presidency?

In fact, politics is intellectually a very poor activity. Politics is based on stereotypes, averageness and moderate behavior. The language of ordinary politics is anodyne -- colorless, flavorless and odorless. Politics, in democratic states as well, requires discipline. Thinking within the limits of group interests, limiting individuality. Politics is a profession and the professionals must adhere to very strict rules. Therefore, we can clearly see that this is exactly what writers are not, what they don’t like to do. Writers are individualists; they hate to repeat the same sentence twice. Although for politicians it is necessary to repeat the same ideas a thousand times. Writers are exhibitionists, egoists -- they hate discipline. Another basic antagonity between writers and current political tendencies was shown in former Czechoslovakia. Writers by their nature, tended to the left on the political scene. But writers in former Czechoslovakia, although by their nature leftist, were after the “Velvet Revolution” logically forced to present themselves as conservative, rightist politicians. About what they didn’t actually know too much. They even didn’t know too much about democracy in practice how they could implement it successfully? They knew only slogans good for meetings. But in daily practice, they were lost. On the other hand, they were fascinated with the idea of how they are playing their role in history. And the highest pleasure from this for writers is -- to write memoirs. Could you imagine -- at that time the leader of the democratic movement in Slovakia was able through the day to fight with the remains of communist regime and by night to write his memoirs about what he did that particular day?! Illnesses of writing “instant memoirs” tend to infect others too.

Unfortunately, this was not a case only of writers in Czechoslovakia. In Macedonia this story was repeated in smaller, less medialized scale. However, very interesting is how many writers took highest places in their countries soon after revolutionary events -- and how poorly were holding them later. Radovan Karadžič, gain his reputation also as an established poet, but now is accused of war crimes. Zvjad Gamsachurdia was excellent example of writer in dissent who, after coming to the power, turns dramatically to be a dictator. Same it was in Armenia with Levon Ter Petrosjan. All these men were or still are for significant time Presidents and as such changed their behavior significantly too. These are the cases when Presidents were really ruling the country. And in most of the cases they led their countries to bigger troubles and bad times.

In some Central and Eastern European states the Presidency is generally a more symbolical role and does not have as much to do with practical politics. Consequently in such a position, a writer could do less damage in practical outcomes and show a better face. As well as Václav Havel, almost never-ending President of Czech Republic, the former President of Hungary, Arpád Göncz, and the former President of Bulgaria, Zhelju Zheljev, were writers as well. Likewise it was in Estonian President Lennart Meri. However, vision of the intellectuals and particularly writers ruling the nation in perfect agreement with the majority of ordinary people was tested within these years and found as an utopy forever.

In this view it is really extraordinary to know that exist also a third way. However limited are distant examples, it is clear that when Nelson Mandela became a President, it was certainly also the situation of the sharp change of regime from the totalitarian to the democratic. It happened also a peaceful way and need a great political skillfulness to save a gains of such a change for a better future. And Nelson Mandela succeed and further more he is not afraid to step down when he feel that his mission was fulfilled. Maybe the explanation is that he always dealt as a patient politician who was always able to distinguish between reality and theatrical gestures of absurd drama.

Nevertheless, this finding doesn’t automatically means that there is no role for writers in politics. It is true that writers are very unskilled in promoting democratic politics in practice, with all its rules and detailed implementation. But writers should not be necessarily politicians. They should, by their actual writings, to control politicians. Sharp comments of common practices and pragmatical tendencies in politics, that’s their best natural role. And for that, they have skillfulness enough.

(The End)

Writers in Politics III

2009-10-14T09:00:00.000+02:00

Role of the literati in modern society

WRITERS IN POLITICS -- UTOPY FOREVER?

(PART III)

Peace to whom, tolerance to what

Keyword of “Velvet Revolution” was a proclamation of peace and tolerance as a counterpart to violence and intolerance of Communist regime. However, many years of Communist oppression replaced by post-Communist depression taught us that nothing in social life and politics is so clear as it looks at first sight.

Within following years the writers who had come out from behind their desks and had in very beginning everything in their hands, had again lost everything in terms of the political power. From that moment appears a myth, a legend that there were too tolerant to the former Communists, who are now recovering themselves from the shock of the revolution in 1989. This myth is still preserving a shelter of opposition where these writers retreated finally and it is until now a general excuse for all their failures in recent years. We have to raise the question -- should this be true?

Communist regimes in Central and East Europe were as a repeated Christian history of heretics, reformists and their oppression in the shorten way. Consequently, revolutionary democratic movements in post-Communist countries in the region were as a repeated Communist history in the shorten way too. Like Communists hated Christian ideology, but adopted its hierarchy of the power, velvet revolutionaries hated a hierarchy of Communist regimes but spontaneously adopted their sort of ideological practices in politics. Velvet revolutionaries were really tolerant to defeated Communists, with some exceptions like the uncovering of the former agents of the Secret police. Nothing happened even to hard, orthodox Communist leaders and apparatchiks after 1989. Some explanation could be in hypothetic peculiar and secret contract between the dissidents around Havel and part of the Communist leaders, which (under peculiar supervision of that same Secret police?!) triggered Velvet Revolution. But tolerance of velvet revolutionaries had one strict limit. They were intolerant toward their own colleagues and friends if there appeared only an attempt of the criticism from inside the velvet revolutionary leadership.

Tragicomic was fact that, especially in Slovakia, those pure dissidents were really only few. Enough for playing cards, but not enough to playing a real political game. However a larger circle of “sympathizers” very soon surrounded them. All of them had some history; some of them were former Communists and not only passive ones. Among them were also those who wrote adoring poems about the Communist party in the past. And now, overnight, they were perfect democrats, although hardly knowing what democracy is and how it should be implemented in Slovakia. Only confusing for them was that, instead of usual instructions from Moscow, they got no any detailed instructions from Bonn, London or Washington. They did not even get a “Vocabulary of Democracy” according to which they could prepare to teach and scrutinize others. Karel Kryl, well-known poet and protest singer, called them the leaders of “democraturaship”. They understood plurality as a chorus of voices singing their praises. They adopted very soon a Communist slogan “those who are not with us, they are against us” (strangely enough, later we have heard the very same one from Mr. Bush with his attempt to excuse “War against terrorism”, his conservativeness and methods were not far from the communists approach). And it was meant seriously and unconditionally. They simple understood that everything critical that was said about them (and not from Communist now, but from other writers who dared to do so) was against democracy. And finally they adopted a method of how to distinguish between “good” and “bad” boys -- ostracism.

Simultaneously with the rising demands for equal cooperation between Czechs and Slovaks (not for dividing the federal state primarily) these velvet revolutionaries found again their certainty. If democracy is so complicated that there isn’t even a User’s Guide, the question of nationalism is quite clear -- nationalism as such is wrong and what is most wrong if not the nationalism of a nation which (according they opinion and instructions from some extremists in Prague) doesn’t exist. If they were before so intolerant to their own friends not to listen to critical remarks, now they started to be intolerant again. Intolerant to anything that was against this purely intellectual and artificial construction describing the political situation in terms as simple as that of a schoolboy might be so bold as to do. If they were like a small group of courageous young intellectuals, now they started to behavior like an even smaller gang of the owners of the only truth. Ostracism started to be a weapon of mass liquidation among writers. It was so easy to recognize that, in this indirect way, you were labeled a bad boy. If in previous times they did not like to hear criticism, now they did not like to hear any alternatives. Beloved with waves of sympathy at the beginning, finally they isolated themselves and cut off serious two-way contacts with the political environment. A one-way information track led to nowhere. This way they lost. And until now are loosing their time and effort to not to seriously evaluate their mistakes (the simply idea how could they lost if not by their own mistakes, is now forbidden for themselves too), but to describe the stupidity of such a nation who did not listen them (but paradoxically was not regard so stupid when elected them and gave them full power at the beginning of this story).

The conclusion is obvious, and sad at the same time. For the shameful stages of human history are not responsible only that stupid pragmatics dying for instant success and recovering themselves by political corruption of all sorts, but also that nice boys that show disinterest for politics, dying only for their idealistic ideals (by the way at the beginning all these revolutionaries for democracy openly expressed how they hate to have power, but were so sorry to say it “good-bye” later). Paradoxically, these nice boys taught those now in power not to be ashamed about being intolerant to criticism, to use ostracism against other opinions and even counter everything that is critical against them like an attack against the Nation, against Homeland. It is not familiar slogan to you already? Yes, replace words Nation or Homeland with Democracy and surprisingly you will find that this sort of weapon was already used. Of course, the newcomers are dealing with such weapons in a more drastic way and, of course, they are not shameful to bring shame to everything, if honorable intellectuals showed them examples. The circle of intolerance of those who one time would like to be as a teacher of tolerance was closed.

(to be continued)

Writers in Politics II

2009-10-07T09:00:00.000+02:00

Role of the literati in modern society

WRITERS IN POLITICS -- UTOPY FOREVER?

(PART II)

In 1991 a group of Slovak ultra-nationalists prepared a demonstration to celebrate the former Slovak State that existed during the Second World War. And Havel got the crazy idea to go and “visit” that demonstration. At the main square of Bratislava that day came only some hundreds of nationalists and if it weren’t for Václav Havel, this event would have been practically forgotten in silence. This kind of demonstration had not happened before and never happened again. But exactly that year and that day the steps of our President Václav Havel led him to the main square of Bratislava towards the group of fanatics, who, when they recognized the opportunity, attacked him. If these fanatics wanted to promote their crazy idea around the world within one day in a few minutes of action, no one like Václav Havel could have helped them more. The reason is obvious. Of course, the idea that Havel will walk alone through the square occupied by bunch of fanatics was foolish. He attracted large group of journalists, mainly from abroad, who accompanied him to that square. And, of course, they were eager to show how much Slovaks hate this federal President if they are able to attack him. But no one was interested in showing, what happened next. When this attack was reported on the radio, thousands of Slovaks went from their jobs and homes to protect the President, who had their sympathy. The result was shameful. Hundreds of fanatics were in the headlines and the thousands who finally showed their sympathies to Václav Havel were not. But the question goes deeper -- why should someone have to act on the crazy reports on the radio and run somewhere to protect President just because he is with wrong presumption in wrong time at the wrong place? Does he have not enough intellect as a writer to understand that his action was completely counter-productive? Could something crazy like this be done by any of the western, democratic politicians who openly adored Václav Havel at that time? Would the voters or supporters of these politicians forgive them such a fatal mistake?

If you think that this was something extraordinary and that all of us simply needed time to learn our official roles, here is another example. The next year on the same square, under the complete direction of Václav Havel, another fault of his official and also personal goodwill occurred -- it was the 73rd anniversary of establishing the modern state of Czech and Slovaks. Slovak intellectuals, friends of Václav Havel, who ruled at that time in Slovakia, prepared a great peaceful gathering to show the sympathy of citizens to Czecho-Slovak State. This time ordinary people were informed on time and they came to show that, that time and that moment, was not the place for extreme nationalism. The square was full, the organizers had everything in hand and what happened? Václav Havel came up to the tribune, adored by the crowds and his first idea was to ask that the tens of thousands should hold a minute of silence for the idea of the common state of Czechs and Slovaks. Well, usually we hold a minute of silence for something or somebody who is dead. From this point of view, it was quite a strange idea. But why to not follow the beloved President? And at that moment it happened. Among the crowds shouting the slogans of goodwill and friendship between Czech and Slovaks, it was hard to ignore the small group of national fanatics. They were near the tribune and Václav Havel had to know what could have happened. But he did what he did. By ordering a minute of silence he gave the floor to them. The most stupid slogans of haters and xenophobic prevailed. Thanks to this, tens of thousands became speechless spectators of the new shame. It was also new evidence that, in political circumstances, Václav Havel lost his sense for theatrical effect -- if he ever had any.

There were, of course, more Czech and Slovak intellectuals who did at the same time similar or even worse mistakes. The sum of these mistakes led to the situation which Czechs and Slovaks face now. Those who rule the contemporary Czech Republic and Slovak Republic are anything but intellectuals. Furthermore, it was a fatal failure of the intellectuals that caused the loss of sympathy toward them and gave power the current pragmatic, and in Slovakia for significant period of time, even autocratic governments. Thus, it was a general show of intellectual weakness in politics, regardless of nationality or cultural level. There are more examples how they, step by step, showed how poor the results of intellectuals were when they entered a politics.

(to be continued)

Writers in Politics I

2009-09-30T09:00:00.000+02:00

Role of the literati in modern society

WRITERS IN POLITICS -- UTOPY FOREVER?

(PART I)

In 1989 somebody said that for the Poles the fight to defeat communism lasted ten years. For Hungarian ten months. For Eastern Germans ten weeks. And for Czechs and Slovaks ten days. Certainly not only the unknown author of this bon mot, but most of the people thinking about the collapse of communism in these countries agree that in former Czechoslovakia the revolution was in the hands of intellectuals, mostly writers. They played a significant role already in so called “Prague Spring” and they were first who suffer after defeat of the utopic idea of “socialism with human face”. They were leaders of dissent and they naturally were prepared to lead a revolution against communist regime. And it actually happened. The so-called “Velvet Revolution” started in theaters with proclamations to the public. The public listened and went to the streets to free not only the prisoners of regime as Bertold Brecht dreamed, but also whole society. It is not surprising that the “Velvet Revolution” attracted so many observers from abroad to the tempting conclusion that it was an excellent example of the qualities that could only intellectuals add to the politics. The utopian vision of the intellectuals ruling the nation in perfect agreement with the majority of ordinary people seemed to be fulfilled in these days. First of all, the so-called “Velvet Revolution” was really velvet. The Communists retreated willingly. Moreover the Communist parliament was eager to elect a former enemy like Václav Havel as the new President and power was suddenly in the hands of writers, actors and intellectuals generally. It all seemed like building a new home for everybody on a new green meadow.

Václav Havel -- a coin of two sides

It was that time when Václav Havel started to be an international hero. A myth was born about the ideal role of writers as politicians. But was it true?

Maybe Václav Havel is good example of the facts that have to be considered if we would really like to solve this question. Former President of P.E.N. International and well-known playwright, Ronald Harwood, said in 1996 at the first conference of Writers in Prison Committee in Elsinor, Denmark, that it was Václav Havel whose image was build for years and spread world-wide by P.E.N. International. It was so successful campaign that while he was in the headlines of newspapers and on TV stations around the world, in December 1989of the same year he had to go on Czech and Slovak TV to show himself to the nations whom he wanted to be a President. Havel, the first democratic President after fall of the communist regime, was for 90% of the ordinary people in former Czechoslovakia, practically unknown. He was later elected by the Parliament, where 99% of the members were the hard communists who had been ruling the country and set him to the prison for several times. And we could hardly say that they elected him because they were fans of Václav Havel or fans of the idea of writers ruling state generally.

To evaluate the role of writers in modern politics, the first steps of Václav Havel in his fresh position of federal President are crucial. First of all, he ordered the famous amnesty -- not only for politics prisoners, but a general amnesty. In fact, in that times were only some tens of prisoners who we could call as prisoners of the regime. But Havel in the general amnesty released tens of thousands of prisoners, and of course, among them thousands of hardened criminals. This amnesty could be, within scale of the countries, compared only with that done by Lavrentij Berija, the long-time Chief of Soviet Secret Police KGB, after Stalin’s death. Havel, the author of absurd dramas started to implement absurdity in daily practice. He created a scene for real tragedies. It cost around 30 lives, among them children killed by sexual deviants. Wave of criminality caused by these prisoners raised fear that lasted about a year and was never successfully suppressed back. For the citizens of the former Czechoslovakia, it was the first signal what they could expect from the utopia of writers running the state.

There are, of course, more facts that we could use to describe the reality of the political abilities of the most prestigious writer of that time -- Václav Havel. Briefly, two examples from the topic that he claimed as a one of his priorities in Presidency. It was the problem of the relationship between Czechs and Slovaks in one federal state. He said openly, and often, that he would like to do his best, and we could strongly believe that he did try. As in no other area could we say that Václav Havel had such a theoretical goodwill to help to hold the federal state together. Paradoxically, it was also he who helped by some unhappy steps in practice to break up the former Czechoslovakia.

(to be continued)

Sample from the book

2009-09-23T09:00:00.000+02:00

JUST LIKE THE GODS

…Sci-fi biology for everyone…

(Sample from the book)

The biological revolution

The French philosopher, Claude Levi-Strauss, proclaimed that a course of rapid technological and industrial progress within a society use to create a snowball effect on the rest of its culture as well. In the 1960s, Stanislav Lem described this phenomenon in his book, Summa Technologiae, as a “technical explosion in full expansion”. The technical revolution of 20th Century has been closely followed by biological revolution that we are witnessing in 21st Century. With the advent of the new millennium, major scientific and biological discoveries have occurred, breakthroughs that can alter every stage of the human lifespan from birth to death.

The need for and role of a human couple for reproduction to occur is diminishing with the advent of assisted reproduction. Even the concept of what constitutes motherhood now has been challenged.

Sex-change operations provoke questions of gender.

Until recently, eugenics was largely associated with the twisted Nazi ideologies and expressly condemned. Today, eugenics holds a new connotation as the possibility of human cloning looms in our near future.

Cloning occurs everyday in the plant and gardening business. As long as cloning was relegated to flower hybrids, it seemed a harmless and innocuous practice, but when genetically altered fruits and vegetables appeared at our tables, people sat up and took notice. Scientific developments didn't stop with the cloning of foodstuffs and began to delve into
cloning within the animal kingdom. Would the cloning of human beings be not far behind?

Transgenic animals have been regarded as a new species of living being created by Man. The first patents on these live species have already been rewarded.

This entire biological revolution, however, started at the cellular level, utilizing microorganisms. These biotechnologies can become, on one hand, invaluable aides to humankind but, on the other hand, can pose a deadly threat in the form of biological weapons.

We have managed to subvert Nature into two forms: as a factory (mono-cultural crops, forests) or museum (national parks, reserves, zoos).

The efforts to extend human life have led towards the production of artificial organs. From this point, can the creation of an artificial human beings not be far off?

The results of these biological revolutions provoke many ethical questions, with one of the most sensitive questions being that of euthanasia. This dilemma would never have come about if it had not been for the bio-technological advances made in the past 25 years. Man
has already attempted (and achieved) control of the moment of birth; will we soon come to control the moment of death?

You will be like the Gods

In a book by the same title, Erich Fromm noted biblical expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. God punished them for eating the fruits of the tree of knowledge and said: “Humans become one of us now, eating fruits of tree of knowledge they now can distinguish good from evil. They should not reach out for and eat the fruits of the tree of life and live forever!”

Science has already reached the fruit of the tree of life on our plates. The question remaining now is: how will we use this fruit?

Throughout history, all of human's conquests took place within natural and biological limits. Over the past century, we have experienced a phenomenal wave of technological advances that until recently were still largely confined to a limited sphere. In today's world, with all of these scientific advances, the rules have changed. Even the concepts and definitions of life, death and humankind themselves have been challenged.

We start to tinkered with our biological fundamentals, so that the old pyramid of human's
construction of the “self” has been altered. Previously, the top of this pyramid was inhabited by Saint-Exupéry's definition “Man -- it means relations”. Until just recently, while slowly
changing our relations with each other and with Nature, our biological clay was left alone.

“Never before were we so powerful. We are capable of altering the life form itself. We do not know of any more essential human capability--not even the threat of nuclear weaponry. We are aiming for technical control over biological evolution.”

This is how, during the communist era of 1980s, a Slovak writer expressed his delight with the progress that biological science had made. In an aggressive polemics against Feuerbach, Karl Marx, the official leading philosopher at that time, declared: “Philosophers used to interpret the world. However, the point now is to change the world”.

Nowadays after the decline of communism, the new slogan has evolved to: “The point is not to change the world. The point is to understand it.”

However, it seems that both of these contradictory declarations will soon become reality in the face of our biological advances. Our world is changing so dramatically that we are not able to fully grasp the impact of it all. Science has become a new evolutionary phenomenon in itself.

The explosion of molecular biology and experimentation in genetics today reminds the former boom in physics that ultimately led to the development of the nuclear bomb. What had been previously only written about in science-fiction novels has already met its creation. For Jules Verne’s and H. G. Wells´ contemporaries, the technically unimaginable “Trip to the Moon“ becomes a reality in the third successive generation.

Truth has become stranger than fiction. But as human civilization continues to construct these new fantastical highways, he must be prepared to meet its first curves. Are we ready to deal with the ethical aftermaths of these discoveries?

Let us next look at how our civilization arrived at this point in our journey and where it will actually take us...

(The end of the sample from the book)

Da Vinci V

2009-09-09T09:00:00.002+02:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART V)

The End

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Da Vinci IV

2009-09-02T09:00:00.000+02:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART IV)

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Da Vinci III

2009-08-26T09:00:00.001+02:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART III)

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Da Vinci II

2009-08-19T09:00:00.001+02:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART II)

Bustling in the hall is heard in studio too.
Reporter: “The defendant seems to have embittered not only the public, but also those who are, unfortunately, near to him. It can tell much about his character. Now with me, listening to the proceedings, is the distinguished scientific expert, Dr. Gropius, who has known the defendant for a years. Am I right, Dr. Gropius?”
“Not so much. In fact, I met him few times. During studies and later mostly in seminars or conferences.”
“Could you tell us anything about him?”
“He wasn't a perfect student. Above average, but undisciplined. He had a smattering of interest in everything besides the problem at hand. He adopted science for himself like short runs. He shut himself in the laboratory for a set period, and when he succeeded discovering something during that period, he published it. And when he didn't, he quickly got over the disappointment by turning to one of his hobbies.”
“Which hobbies? Drugs, women, politics.”
“He didn't overdo anything. And he didn't stick with one hobby as well. He had real panache about everything he did and specially enjoyed attention of crowds. I don't think that this surroundings in the court will scare him.”
Interview breaks for a while noise in the hall, incomprehensible voices in the background from the trial.
Scientific expert continues: “In those quick actions in his laboratory he was able to concentrate thoroughly, but this is no way to work in science. I'm sure that he made this discovery quite by chance.”
Reporter: “We could say that what he easily got, he cynically easily lost.”
“You could say that.”
“Although our listeners know something about his discovery, can you clarify its importance?”
“After the AIDS epidemic was finally controlled and changes in lifestyle radically reduced the number of heart attacks, two deadly hindrances still faced humankind -- cancer and ageing. They don't seem to have anything in common. But there are reparation mechanisms for protecting the genetic code of each cell. If they work well and repair all genetic defects that occur during the cell's life, the organism -- and also the man -- grow old. If they can't preserve this programmed process, degeneration takes place and all cells grow young. Unfortunately, it's the malignancy growing young, which is beyond the control of the organism -- and this is cancer. We concluded that growing old and cancer is the same process, but in opposite directions.”
“The defendant conducted just such experiments. What was he successful in achieving?”
“First, a little background. Some 10 years ago, the exceptional ability of bacterium Deinoccocus radiodurans to repair genetic damage from radiation was discovered. Thanks to more effective repair mechanisms, coded in its genes, this bacterium was 50 times more resistant than human cells. About the HIV virus, we knew that it also has a special gene ´tat´. Thanks to it, after successfully attacking human cells, this gene is responsible for enhancing a 1,000-fold the ability of these cells to produce more HIV viruses. Army laboratories succeeded in combining these two different genes and...”
“Thanks to genetic engineering, soldiers facing the greatest risk had these two new genes implanted into the nuclei of their cells and no longer fear radiation sickness. If they aren't right next to an atomic explosion, they can move safely in radioactive territory. But the defendant wasn't involved in army research...”
“No, he wasn't. He speculated about the idea for prolonging life. He wanted to save life against mutations, from radiation, chemical materials, genetic risks.”
“Then, the fantastic perspective for almost unlimited prolongation of human life opens up!”
“Sure, but there’s a hitch. If Novatius worked on strengthening the reparation mechanism, he had to stick to the problem of how to ensure that this new ability reaches all the cells of the body. One possibility was to experiment with human embryos...”
“These experiments are forbidden.”
“Yes, but difficult to monitor. Scientific teams at this field work very closely and confidentially. Only those involved in similar experiments can understand what they're doing, and outsiders are not welcomed to visit competitive laboratories. Reliable controls don't exist. Getting human sperm and eggs isn't a problem. And in-vitro fertilization is routine.”
“Then the defendant did conduct forbidden experiments.”
“We don't know. But we know this knowledge from military experiments can't help him. The soldiers had cells altered, but as adults. Experiments in whole organisms at so early an age could have major consequences.”
“And he solved this problem?”
“Perhaps, yes.”
“But I understand that he refused to publish his results and destroyed everything including any supporting data. Is it certain that he actually discovered something?”
“He succeeded with monkeys, published just a general conclusions from his results and held a short press conference at which he revealed monkeys from his experiments. Then he radically changed his mind. He ordered the laboratory animals killed. Only his favorite lab monkey, Rikky, stayed alive. Her exceptional resilience he later demonstrated to some important academic colleagues. It was his typical vanity. As far as I know, everyone of these colleagues was allowed to bring some perfect gene-destroying agent and apply it into Rikky's food. But Rikky was able to resist all of these gene-attacks. As a small compensation, Novatius insisted that the colleagues had to buy huge quantities of bananas. He said that the bananas were the only real risk for Rikky because she had an especially sweet tooth.”
“Where is Rikky today?”
“She stayed alive against all that deadly experiments, but she couldn't bear to be separated from Novatius. When he was arrested, Rikky refused to eat.”
“Couldn't anyone do anything..?”
“No, when we speak about biotechnologies it is impossible to make additional incursions into a live system. We can't open it up, draw a schematic and recreate it. Basic cytological and biochemical tests didn't show anything. For detailed research we require long-term cultivation of Rikky's cells. This culture we can only make from the culture removed cells, which we call calus. But calus will grow only when the cells spontaneously changes to the new system and starts to divide. Rikky's cell-reparation system was perfect and precluded anything like this.”
“And what about Novatius's colleagues?”
“He had only helpers and lab assistants. He was an absolute individualist. Sure, the authorities questioned them. But they learned only partial information that somebody was injecting something somewhere and another poured some well-know agent into some unknown liquid. It was worthless.”
“So, everything is lost?”
“In contemporary, state-of-the-art scientific technology, we don't need to know details if we know the premise or principle. Very often we only need confirmation that this way is realistic. That it's possible. A few sentences or schemata, a catalyst, and the process is under way.”
“Does it mean that we could hear the solution here at the trial?”
“If they can convince Novatius to tell it, sure. But he's silent.”
“Thank you. Actually, we can see that he is really silent... he's not only silent, he's leaving! The guards have taken him away. Mr. Hokius, what's going on?”
“Sorry, I was so interested in my colleague's words that I didn't see what happened... but it's not finished, I'm sure. It's just a break.”
“We planned a longer broadcast and our listeners surely would welcome a little musical interlude...” Reporter replays with despair, “... a little musical interlude..!”
Red-light lamp marking broadcasting from studio went out.

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

Da Vinci I

2009-08-12T09:00:00.000+02:00

DA VINCI CASE

(PART I)

In moment music sound decrease replaced by Announcer's voice: “And now, as promised, we're going live to the town courthouse.”

Reporter blinked at the experts, to encourage them, and in next moment is fully focused at broadcasting: “Good afternoon. I'm here in the middle of the court case that is the focus of worldwide attention. At this moment, the judges are arriving. Five dignified men, led by their Judge. They're sitting down. The lawyers are in their places and, now, here comes the defendant... As you certainly hear, audience in the courthouse welcome him with whistling, bustling and humming. They came today to see Novatius with their own eyes. And he's provoking them, and they're angry. On the first day of the court, the Judge respectfully asked: 'Mr. Novatius, what right did you have to destroy your discovery, which have to be understand as the property of our progressive society?' And Novatius answered... 'fortunately, for human civilization, the soul and brain of man never became the property of any society.' But while the defendant claimed to speak on behalf of humanity, the actions for which he stands trial seem to be clearly against humanity's interest. But, meanwhile back in the courtroom... Here in the hall, the atmosphere is nearly explosive. But, unlike the turmoil in the audience, the trial itself is like in the eye of hurricane. In front of the judges stands the defendant, and now it's a fairly routine process taking place. We can take this occasion to ask our legal expert, Mr. Hokius, what's going on?”

Legal expert: “This formal part that begins a trial is an example of the progress in our judicial system. It's a process of checking of testimony by computer. In the past, investigators tried to gain complete confessions at any price, or, at least detailed testimony of a presumption of guilt from the perpetrator. At first glance this seemed right but it was a case, unfortunately, of the means celebrating the end, and it wasn't fair. Consequently, the lawgivers established the right of the defendants to answer only when their lawyer was present. But an experienced lawyer always came with some objections with aim to get the investigator off the topic or confused him. It shaken presumption that the interrogator can investigate effectively only when he is sovereign and know his own intellectual power. Fortunately, this problem was solved a few years ago by electronic equipment, and now you can see the result. A greater part of the interrogation can be delivered holus bolus to the court in a lawful way. Only the computer can ask and register the answers of the defendant. This way has secured the freedom of expression of the individual on the one hand and the respect for the law's sovereignty on the other.”
“Thanks for your answer, Mr. Hokius. There will be more questions during the trial, but let's go back to the courtroom...”

(To be continued)

Translated by Robert M. Davis

PROGRAM OF THE GLORY IV.

2009-07-15T09:00:00.003+02:00

Troubled and repulsive murmur in the classroom -- talking to the children about murder of child is really not vice -- in a pause, computer buzz, machine running empty. Then computer’s voice continued:
“That means that fame may sometimes be cruel, and being exceptional means being lonely. More than others, a talented person needs support and a perspective, he must attract attention to himself, and is therefore very often a victim of violent changes in society. Or in other cases, he is rejected at home, and must work parted from his native country for a great part of his lifetime. Victor Hugo lived nineteen years in exile. Ovid, the poet, died in exile although he was previously one of the Emperor's favorites. Dostoyevsky and Pushkin, Giordano Bruno and Calvin were also sent into exile. Einstein, Dietrich and Fermi all ended as immigrants. And the latest only escaped from his fascist homeland thanks to the Nobel Prize he received.”
Tiny, blond girl whispers to red-haired boy: “Hey ..... I don't like this.”
Red-haired boy: “Hmm....wait, quiet.”
“Thus many die in exile. Exceptional people seem to wear out more rapidly by their intensive life. Such was the fate of Byron, Saint-Exupéry, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Vladimir Vysocky, who all died prematurely. Hemingway, Maiakovsky, Jesenin, van Gogh, London, and Stefan Zweig together with his wife, all committed suicide. Diesel drowned, as did Corbussier, the architect. Tool, a writer, wrote his best book at the age of 26. For two years, the publisher kept returning him the manuscript for rewriting and then rejected it altogether. For four more years, Tool tumbled through life in despair, before he committed suicide, suffocating from exhaust gases inside his car. Eleven years later, his novel was declared book of the year and received all the prominent national awards, and was soon published in fourteen countries.... A true genius is always challenging the era he lives in, but naturally, each era tends to be convinced it is perfect. A genius often points out elementary errors and suggests fundamental changes. Few like the former, and even fewer are enthusiastic about the latter. A quick success of a reformer, or an artist, paradoxically proves that he really did not get very far; he only complimented the epoch, and cashed in.”

Appalled silence in the classroom, buzz of the computer.
“No one else has a question? .....Hey you, the red-hair boy in the back row, whom do you want to be?”
“A computer.”
“Why?”
“I want to know everything.”
“But I do not know everything.”
“I'm saying that I want to know more than you, I want to know everything.”
“Why?”
“Because!”
Provoking silence in the classroom, buzz of the computer.
Teacher entering a room: “Students, why is it so quiet here? Lucy, why are you crying? What's wrong with that computer?”
“So...you seem to have missed your profession -- you should have worked for the intelligence service, being so curious. It is a pity you have not asked me for advice.”
“That's audacious! I shall immediately report you to the school principal and your company!!!”
“So...you crook, crook, croo...”

----
A note in the students' notebooks: The school administration apologizes to honorable parents of our pupils who were confronted with a wrong setting of the POSV-2004 computer for career counseling. The computer was only set to half of its memory and database capabilities, and one third of its twelve output analyzers. We have taken care to correct the damage that had been imposed, in collaboration with the teacher and the computer company. A repeated career counseling session in the presence of parents will take place....

An additional note in the red-hair boy's notebook to his parents: Your son constantly disrupts the class!

(The End)

PROGRAM OF THE GLORY III.

2009-07-08T09:00:00.005+02:00

PROGRAM OF THE GLORY III.

Smart, ambitious boy: “What about politics?”

“So, assassination attempts, deception, and disrespect retreats. Once you start playing the game, there is no way out. One example -- you are fighting in exile for the freedom of your country. Your friends, struggling for the same cause, will die in the following order: one gets killed in Paris, one in Nicosia, three are liquidated by a commando in Beirut along with their seventeen bodyguards; during the following ten years, another nine of your colleagues get killed in Paris, Beirut, Cyprus, Rome, Warsaw, and Athens. I am only mentioning the more prominent ones. Shot, car-bombed, even strangled in bed. God only knows how many bombs your people placed under your adversaries' cars. Finally, in this exchange with death, your closest friend loses the battle forever. Three years later, in February, another three of your colleagues are killed, and eventually, in April, it is your turn at night, in your own guarded house in Tunis where you have returned despite warnings. Your nation will commemorate you after your death and give you the nickname Abu Djihad. And after fifteen years of endless killing and bloodshed, you are not an inch nearer to your goal.”

Red-haired boy eagerly: “But.... that does not mean that there were not others, other politicians who were able to make their dreams come true. Such as, .....for example de Gaulle survived a number of plots to kill him. At first, they tried to blow up his car, later his limousine got into machine gun fire ....it really did. And eventually, he died of natural causes at the age of eighty-three....”

Computer buzz in a silent pause, than: “Does anyone have another question?”

Serious girl with plaits and silent voice: “I would like to do something for the people....”

“So, Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross sacrificed all his possessions, and three years after achieving his goal became bankrupt. While the Red Cross he had created functioned with the honor of salon diplomacy, he himself protested against the horrors of the French-Prussian war, was arrested and charged with being an anarchist and nihilist. After that he lived in poverty for the next quarter century, waiting for death. For fifteen years, he had been thought dead. He, the man who fought for the rights of hundreds of thousands of people suffering from wars and other catastrophes! A Swiss journalist accidentally found him, and Dunant received the Nobel Peace Prize just before he died.... During World War II, Marlene Dietrich collected one million dollars for war bonds for the allied armed forces fighting in Europe. She performed in hospitals for wounded servicemen, as well as in the front lines on the battlefield. After the war, the US Department of the Treasury sent her a thank-you letter, but soon afterwards indicted her for tax evasion. Only her friends could rescue her from imprisonment.... Lesseps, who successfully administered the construction of the Suez Canal, was ruined by the Panama Canal, losing 1,335,538,454 francs. His wife was forty- three years younger than he was, and had twelve children. Do you want to raise a family when you grow up?”

Laughter and giggling in the classroom.
Girl’s silent voice: “Hmm....”

“That usually does not correspond with outstanding talent. Mozart, Shakespeare, and Byron all had problems with their families. Tchaykovsky was known for his exceptional incapability of living a normal family life. Livingstone, the famous traveler, abandoned his wife and three children. Dickens was fifty-five, when he deserted his wife and ten children because of an eighteen-year-old actress. Einstein divorced, Chopin, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Nobel, van Gogh, Amundsen, Liszt, Dunant, Paganini, Lautrec, G.B.Shaw as well as Greta Garbo all lived their lives without families.”

From third desk boy full of energy: “I don't care, I want to be famous!”
“Does that mean that you are an excellent student?”
Energic answer: “Sure!”

“In that case you are off track. Saint-Exupéry, the writer, failed a composition test at the Naval Academy. Verdi, the composer, was not accepted to the Milan Academy of Music. Verne had troubles to graduate from high school. Dickens had no higher education. Stephenson, the inventor, learned to sign his name at the age of nineteen. Galileo Galilei was an privileged protégé at school, same as Karl Linné at the University. Additionally, this acclaimed founder of the world-wide accepted system of terminology of plants and animals had never learned the old terminology and until the end of his life, he had problems with Latin, the language the whole system is based on. Einstein failed his first university entry tests in Zürich, and the writer Thomas Mann detested school. Writer and playwright G. B. Shaw did not go to school up to the age of eleven, and was a miserable student in high school. He said: ´I haven't learned anything at school, not even that what I could have learned, had an attempt been made to motivate me´.”

Energic response: “But how far they made it!”

“So, two examples for all who certainly cared little about their studies. John Lennon, shot by a man who tried to be like him, and for whom he had previously signed a cover of his album. The first child of Charles Lindbergh, the famous pilot loved by the entire world, was abducted and killed, and much later found in a nearby forest. This was the first highly publicized kidnapping in the modern era.”

(to be continued)

PROGRAM OF THE GLORY II.

2009-07-01T09:00:00.004+02:00

PROGRAM OF THE GLORY II.

Fat boy's neighbor with red hair: "Inventing is out, science is number one now!"

"So, scientists -- they discover new phenomena and challenge old knowledge. They were prosecuted for that in Medieval times -- Giordano Bruno was burned alive, Galileo Galilei was forced by the Inquisition to deny his theory. Avicenna was always on the run. Every new discovery provokes. Copernicus had been working on his fundamental theory for twenty years, but he dared publish it only at the moment of his death. Kepler made a living by casting horoscopes: his great astronomic discoveries would not have nourished him. Science needs governmental financing for demanding projects, and governments in exchange for that want to dominate science. It went so far that Pavlov, the famous physiologist, recommended an idiot, a government protégée, for membership in the Academy of Sciences with the words: 'Why are you so stubborn, you know that in Ancient Rome they had a horse as a senator, and the man here is definitely better educated....' There is an eternal conflict between knowledge and government. Lavoisier, who discovered the principle of matter and energy conservation, could not conserve his own head. He went to the guillotine during the French Revolution. And when at last things turned out right, when science attracted the interest of governments, disappointment followed. After the Hiroshima bomb, the physicist Otto Hahn spent the rest of his lifetime fighting against the devastating use of this discovery. Doubts agonized him until his death: ´If it really was an uranium bomb, then ...me too.... Oh God? Why did it have to end like this?!´ Oppenheimer, often referred to as ´the father of the A-bomb´ was later accused of treason by the FBI and barred from all access to nuclear research. His comment was: ´What we had been doing was the work of Satan. Now we are returning to our own tasks.´ But regardless of all their protests, they never rid us of the A-bomb."

Red-haired boy reply: "Not everyone ended badly, there have been others!"

"Well, I have no data about that ....I can not remember, maybe there have been others.... Does anyone wish to enter some other profession?"

Tall, smiling, inconspicuous: "I am going to be an athlete."

"So, exertion, doping, injuries. And when perhaps you are the first in the world to complete a quadruple jump in figure skating, you may possibly never jump again because of exhaustion. It is not simple to tune your form for the Olympic year, and when you happen to succeed in doing so, two governments begin to argue, and yours might not let you go. It lets you instead compete at a domestic stadium, just to show how fantastic we are, forget the Olympic medal. And when you are thirty, you are either disabled or forgotten, or both; what next?"

Red-haired boy suddenly, indignantly: "That's not true! Stanley Matthews played in the British Premier League until he was fifty. And at the age of 39 he played at the World Cup, and made two passes for two goals in the final match."

"Sorry, I did not know that .....There are no references to that in my database..... Another profession, please."

Prudent, slowly-speaking boy: "I want to be an astronaut."
"That means you want to the best, outstanding?"
Slow answer: "Well... Yeah."

"To tell the truth, the first astronaut Gagarin in the world was chosen just because he was not exceptional in any significant way. He did not score by best in a single one of the tests all the candidates had to pass. He had been chosen because he was reliable, always giving a standard performance. His reactions were predictable. A credo of astronauts is solid performance. If you want to be exceptional, go somewhere else."

Red-haired boy with triumph in his voice: "But most of those who were in space had to cope with exceptional situations. During the first launch, Stanford's rocket threatened to explode. When he was a member of the crew that was training for the Lunar landing, the module that separated from the carrier rocket had a failure on the landing radar, and a return could have been impossible. Turning a switch on and off when your life is at stake requires very good nerves. Russian astronaut Rjumin proved to be exceptionally persistent and showed great talent at repairing unexpected malfunctions during space flights. When John Young was on the Moon, at one moment he suddenly stepped in front of the camera and said: ´Now you will witness the first Winter Olympic Games on the Moon. The only competition is high jump!´. But he miscalculated his jump and landed on his back, the equipment he carried on his back outbalanced him. The first high jump on the Moon, and already a flop! Who could have foreseen it?"

"Well... I do not want to argue, but do not you think that you are biased in quoting those examples? Think, if they really represent the topic! I do not thinks so ....Next one please."

(to be continued)

PROGRAM OF THE GLORY I.

2009-06-24T08:45:00.004+02:00

PROGRAM OF THE GLORY I.

In a classroom full of giggling and whispering children the teacher hardly noticeable irritated murmuring: ".... where does this ....switch ....these new computers ....be patient pupils, be patient, silence! ....I'll find it soon .... hmm ....It should at least have a serious manual ....I'll try this ...."
"Stop that, you're making my chips ache!"
Teacher clearly sighs with relief: "Oh, well, got it .... well children, let me to introduce to you the new POSV 2004 computer. It is designed to provide advice on your future professions. So, dear computer, will you tell our pupils how to choose?"
"Of course! Now get out!"
Children's laughter.
"Well, I'm leaving, but don't boast too much. You might look silly because this is an elite class of highly talented pupils....."
"They did not get their talent from you! Did they?"
A door slams, a moment of silence.
"Well then -- You are that little geniuses?"
Chuckling and pushing, the classroom replies: ".... yes!.. yes!.. yes!.. yes!..."
"Now, let us begin. We shall skip plumber, decorator, baker, mechanic, sales clerk and driver. I hope you have the highest ambitions ....dreams...."
Tiny, blond girl in the first desk: "I want to become a famous composer!"
"Well, Chopin composed his first polonaise at the age of eleven. At the age of twelve, Mozart composed a 558-page opera; before he died at 35, he had spent fifteen years of his life traveling and giving concerts. Nevertheless he died a complete loser; no one even knows where his grave is. Paganini's bodily remains traveled for fifty-six years before they were properly buried. Beethoven started playing concerts at the age of eight. His father who forced him into music by using corporeal punishment and locking him up in a room to practice for hours. Puccini had to wait until he was forty-two for his first success, and right after that, the first version of the now famous opera Madame Butterfly flopped. Bizet in fact died from disillusionment when his now-celebrated opera Carmen was jeered. Just in case someone wants to envy them for their joy from music, let me remind you that Beethoven, and Paganini were both deaf in old age.... Does anyone else want advice?"
Small boy, great hair, comical voice: "I want to become a writer."
"So -- It took Heller nine years to write his first bestseller, Shaw achieved his first success after ten years of writing without a trace of response; his first four novels were rejected approximately sixty times. Balzac spent part of his life as a manufacturer of trash novels under various pseudonyms and even thought of suicide. Jules Verne became a slave of a twenty-year contract he had signed with his publisher to write two novels each year. He could not write fewer, nor could he write anything other than his fantastic sci-fi novels. Dickens died of exhaustion. London lived in constant peril was finally ruined. Dostoyevsky was sentenced to death. Dumas was permanently in debt, and spent twelve to fifteen hours a day writing...." Comical voice reply: "But they were famous; many people knew them!"
"Well-- Balzac spent his nights shut in a room writing for eight hours by candlelight. All night long. To avoid falling asleep, he drank about fifty thousand large cups of coffee during his lifetime. The fate of a writer is loneliness. Do you want to be alone? Can you stand it? While others slept or had fun, he wrote, budgeling his brain for thoughts, just to have something to offer next morning. Who reads those books now?"
Comical voice with resignation: "But they were praised at that time."
"Well, one example for all who were torn to pieces by critics -- a quote from Tennessee Williams' memoirs: Should we assess this play by reviews it received, it's remarkable that it survived on stage for two or three months -- and abroad, one theater included it in its program for six years -- but here the critics dismissed the piece with malice that distressed me so much that I ended up in a psychiatric clinic."
Big, fat, self-confident boy: "I shall be an inventor."
"Edison had this to said about sleep: 'Four hours of sleep is a must, five hours is comfort, and six hours is idleness.' It took him three years to invent the electric bulb, and a court case about his invention lasted fourteen years. It cost him two million dollars before he finally gave up. He said: 'I want people to forget that my name was ever associate with electricity.' Many inventors had to defend their inventions in court.... They spent more time defending themselves against parasites than doing their own work. Diesel spent thirty years developing his engine and when he finally proved its advantages to the whole world, he decided to make a pile of money from his invention. His miscalculations led to bankruptcy. He finished his life by jump into the sea from a ship that was taking him as an honorary guest to an opening of a new engine plant based on his invention, but owned by some strong corporation. Gutenberg's first printing press was smashed to pieces. He was constantly penniless and landed in prison because of debts he incurred printing the Bible. His invention became the property of the man who loaned him the money. Morse struggled thirteen years to invent the telegraph. When it was ready at last, he had to beg, as did many before and after him, for someone to use that invention. He almost starved before his request for government support was granted. Fleming had to wait ten years before penicillin was used, and it was the war that helped him...."
Fat boy in tears: "But some certainly did become rich."
"I would not rely on that too much."

(to be continued)

LIFE AS A SAMIZDAT II

2009-06-17T09:00:00.000+02:00

LIFE AS A SAMIZDAT

(PART II)

Essay by Gustáv Murín

The philosophy of the mower of grass Have you ever seen a guy hunched over and pushing a lawnmower in the garden? I've seen them in their hundreds. Some of them pushed mechanical mowers, others electrical and the richest had small gas mowers. So many technologies and so much effort just for one satisfactory look at someone's private lawn. There's so much other work in this world, so many unbuilt houses, so many machines in need of repair, so many wells to dig out -- and yet their luxury effort with grass makes sense. But not in immediate usefulness in terms of human measurement. This sense is evolutionary and we can call it "remaining in time".
Yes, all of these healthy and powerful guys could get up and go and do something really useful. Yet it is good that they go along on the piece of Earth where destiny has placed them. Without realizing it they are fulfilling the secret task of the "selfish DNA". It remains in different parts of the world and conceals its existence there in human form simply because nobody (not even the seemingly all-powerful "selfish DNA") knows where the right place is for the safest survival. The ones who mow the lawn just for their own pleasure are financially secure, they have a family and children, and they preserve other forms of "selfish DNA" like cats, dogs, guinea pigs or useful breeds. All these are not threatened by hunger and apparent danger. By mowing the grass, they trust in the future. And through this never-ending activity they are occupied so satisfactorily that there is no time for them to stop and start to think about such foolish things as why we are here and what is the meaning of our existence. Because if they were not occupied by this luxurious labor, they might come to the conclusion that our existence has no apparent sense. Let them cut the grass.

Ladder to heaven Have you considered why some of us climb up forbidding peaks where there is nothing, not even the often promised overlook? It would be safer and more comfortable by plane. So, why are they so obsessed to be the first to die on desolate icy plains that, as we nowadays know, offer nothing except an endlessly boring wasteland colored white? Why are they compelled to crawl into steel capsules and descend to the bottom of the ocean although they certainly do not expect us to be able to use such "conquered" territory?

What at first sight is crazy behavior has evolutionary sense. Where the other different form of "selfish" DNA can't go, it'll send these human persons. The reason is that it behaves like Doubting Thomas who never believed what he couldn't see. At the same time it behaves like a blind man who fumbles. It sends us into a wilderness certainly without life to see if there is yet a chance for life. It sends us into desert wastes and into icy plains. It has sent us into the depths of the ocean. All of these as try-out, a warm-up.

The aim of this great effort is clear enough. People are equipped with a brain, because only this can plan and construct the most important task for "genetic carriers" - to overcome the distance between continents and finally the gravitation of the Earth. In our expansion we unwillingly fulfill the role of disseminators of other forms of life too. Some we must take upon ourselves (like plants or domestic animals), some join us against our will (recall for example the rats on the vessels discovering a New World). Thinking to the end, selfish DNA "had to" get to the most suitable variant of the human carrier because the standard form of animal or plant is unable to pass beyond Earth's gravity. This is why it was necessary and useful to wait hundreds of thousands of years until man straightened up, started thinking and achieved social status where some do not need to look after personal survival, but can be interested in something whole senseless - slogging to where it is so cold or on the other hand so hot, where there is neither water nor food and where we cannot even breathe freely. Going to where we are sent by the invisible lady with the initials of three letters - DNA. However, she certainly does not insist that we had to ford and survive the cold waters of space. It is enough for her, if, with our help, new microorganisms, mutated plants or transgenic animals constructed by us is smuggled across. Or, in other words, on the road to heaven the invisible mover of everything needs a reliable ladder. Finally, the whole of human civilization seems to be a complex construction, a starting ramp intended "only" for the spread of "selfish DNA" to the furthest extent possible.

If we desire to find at least a little bit of a dignified place in this mission we could consider ourselves as heralds of a message that is worthy to be spread over the Cosmos. It doesn't have to be either complex information or even a complex sentence. Perhaps this message is just saying that life is possible...

(The End)

(English translation by James and Viera Sutherland-Smith; edited by Robert Murray Davis)

4

LIFE AS A SAMIZDAT I

2009-06-10T09:00:00.000+02:00

LIFE AS A SAMIZDAT

(PART I)

Essay by Gustáv Murín

It seems that we've heard a lot about life and its meaning from human sciences. But still there is something missing. So what if we try the science of life - biology?

The most recent knowledge indicates that the carrier of basic genetic information, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), is not so fragile as we've been let to believe. It has preserved traces of its code in even the most unpromising conditions for centuries. Moreover, traces have been found of its more or less independent existence. Thus it is possible with the appropriate techniques to search into the history of this information base of all life. The latest definition of life according to cybernetics is that life is information. This is connected with R. Dawkins' hypothesis of "a selfish gene". According to this theory everything living that we know on this earth is only a more or less complicated "carrier" of this selfish, autonomous information--selfish because it seeks only its own dissemination at the price of destruction of other versions of life. Copulation with murder is not rare in Nature. The male who overcomes another takes over his female and kills his descendants. The female stops breast-feeding, becomes accessible for mating again and in most cases gives birth to the offspring of a murderer who now possess his genes. If somebody think such logic is strange for humans let him go and see Shakespeare's tragedy Richard III.
Dissent strategy of "selfish DNA"Specific conditions in Nature lead to dissent strategy for preservation of life. Dissidents in politically hostile environment try to preserve specific information (as in the fact that in a democracy, freedom of expression and right to travel really can exist). They learned very quickly that this information in one copy may be easily lost. Even if it could be hidden in solid safe, treason or accident will cause that it will be found there. If this one piece of information can be hidden at secret place known only to the author and few others, it could be even worse because oppression of hostile environment may ruin this dissident group before it can reveal the location of that secret place. Thousands years of human experience demonstrate that the most solid fortresses, massive tombs, most sophisticated labyrinths did not protect treasures from robbery. Pyramids are symbols of the naiveté of believing in eternal protection. The only guarantee of preserving such unique treasure, and DNA is especially unique and fragile treasure, is multiplication. In case of dissidents this strategy was called -- samizdat. The more copies of samizdat books they succeeded in producing, the greater the chances were that some of them -- even under pressure of the oppressive power of secret police, political prison, tortures and executions - would survive and fulfill its role. Maybe even thanks to one case, when a single copy of a book was left for long years somewhere on a shelf out of the sight of the secret police. And this is exactly how "selfish DNA" behaves - hidden in most bizarre forms of life. Each had its meaning as even "selfish DNA" does not know which form will be the champion in surviving. What if a pink-dotted bugs with green legs will be the most suitable to go through all obstacles of changes in environment? Could someone even imagine that such an outsider in family of species like the cockroach may be that naturally gifted carrier of this unique message that "selfish DNA" contains? And yet the cockroach seems to be one of the few species that can survive all the horrible consequences of nuclear war!

An information treasureDNA is a miracle of dissemination of information in space and time. It attempts every possible and even impossible, bizarre form of shelter and has found many of them already. It is the most delicate treasure that has ever existed on this planet. With one's thumb an ant can be crushed and one unique copy destroyed forever. This is why there are billions of ants spread over all the continents and there are certainly some in your pantry as well. A long dry period, deep cold or on the contrary too much water and heat, and fragile genetic information will end with this six legged form. That's why some DNA makes copies in forms adapted to water, from shallow to deep waters. That's why there are DNA copies also in forms with legs to have a chance escape if necessary. But that's why there are DNA copies also in forms with roots so they can firmly occupy the largest possible territory on this planet and replicate themselves to the largest extent. That's why some copies have grown also to a gigantic size so that nothing can eat them. But because even the gigantic forms of the dinosaurs were not shown to be eternal, there are copies of the "selfish DNA" hidden even in invisible microbiotic forms and these again are in most incredible places - in the intestines of different species, the vaginas of different kinds of females, even in boiling thermal springs and the always frozen glacier. This is the way how DNA is preserved within space.

"Selfish DNA" not only hides itself but replicates itself in the most incredible forms -- from the noble expression of love between people, through the wedding dances of animals and bizarre mating practices of fish and amphibians, up to untrammeled promiscuity of microbes. This way it insures itself against the destructive power of the non-living as well as living parts of the immediate environment. Some may be surprised that different forms of DNA are not only concurrent, but also fight with each other and consume each other. It is because matter forming "selfish DNA" is complete. Thus every new promising form in which it may reach eternity has priority. This way DNA vigorously opposes the second law of thermodynamics, that with intricate mathematical evidence confirms what Bible says shortly -- you're dust and to dust you will return. "Selfish DNA" does not believe in the fatalism of religion. It does not give up. Never.

(to be continued)

IS FICTION DEAD? IV

2009-06-03T09:00:00.002+02:00

IS FICTION DEAD?

(PART IV)

The Poetry of Information

What we really read?

One of the most prominent contemporary Czech writers, Ludvík Vaculík, has said: "I read belles-lettres infrequently. I like to read vocabularies of foreign languages; it's my escape reading." Jaroslav Hašek, the author of the famous Czech satire, The Good Soldier Švejk, once said that to relax he read encyclopedias or children's books. If Ernest Hemmingway had writer's block, he reached for a pile of magazines. Other professional writers take their minds off their work by reading cookbooks.

Modern people, especially those in cities, like to utilize their time as effectively as possible. This is the main appeal of non-fiction, for while it can include stories, it suggests a concentration of practical information with which people believe they can answer their own material exigencies.

The editor of what is considered top-quality fiction at a well-known Prague publishing house has said: "I'm sick of going through somebody's intestines in fiction. I want to read something useful to me, not primarily conceived for somebody else's intellectual masturbation."

Increasingly, in the work of contemporary poets, we run across facts or ideas from the worlds of science and technology. One example is the Czech poet and immunologist, Miroslav Holub, who sprinkles his verse with specialized terms from modern medicine. Likewise, more and more poets' résumés show them working full-time in professions that most people would hardly describe as poetic. The Czech poet Miroslav Huptych, for example, is a nurse in psychiatric clinic. The American poet Wallace Stevens was a senior executive of the Hartford Insurance Agency in Hartford, Connecticut. The Portuguese poet, Casimiro de Brito, is the director of a profitable bank in Lisbon. His famous predecessor French poet Guillaume Apollinaire was only a clerk in bank. Nowadays many followers, like the Estonian poet Karl Martin Sinijärv, are copywriters at respectable advertising companies (in Sinijärv's case, Sacchi & Sacchi).

Likewise, more and more writers are primarily either full-time professional scientists, or have some sort of technical background. From other side those educated in natural sciences are coming with new ideas perfectly fitting into non-fiction frame. Best-selling examples include doctor of the medicine Lewis Thomas, the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, the astrophysicist Alan Lightman, the surgeon Richard Selzer and the cosmologist Carl Sagan. Isaac Asimov, with an incredible output of 400 sci-fi books, was a professor of biochemistry at Berkeley.

Nowadays also authors of serious fiction are established in areas that were once considered the milieu of "pop-literature" -- i.e. non-fiction. Remember Norman Mailer and his The Executioner's Song about the murderer Gary Gilmore, described as a "fully-realized synthesis of fiction and non-fiction" (The Times Literary Supplement, October 16, 1998). Mailer also wrote Of A Fire on the Moon about the 1969 Apollo space launch that put the first man on the moon--a highly technical book that seems to be a mid-step between serious fiction and the technical novels of bestselling writer Tom Clancy a decade later. In Frederick Forsythe's bestseller, The Day of the Jackal, information is compiled with such perfection that one wonders if one isn't reading a historical account. In the 1980s, the success of Arthur Hailey's novels may be likewise attributed to the public's appetite for information. These books are scarcely more than detailed brochures of various service industries and high-powered professions (Airport, Hotel, Wheels, Reporter, Money, Cure, Last Diagnosis, etc.) dressed up with makeshift plots to make them read like novels. Danish author Peter Hoeg used in his bestselling novel "Sense of Ms. Smilla for snow" citations from serious scientific papers about ice. Joseph Heller in one of his last books described his own experience with serious illness called Guillain-Barré with many information from basic medicine. Yet the international successes of these books suggest that we can no longer live in intellectual isolation anywhere. Holes in the ozone layer, for example, bring people from around the world together in their anxiety of how to deal with such a potentially catastrophic problem.

At the end of last century we may see attempt to combine fiction and non-fiction with hope that this combination will save best from both. Story and facts. The results is called Creative Non-fiction and had its own magazine led by Lee Gutkind who wrote in 1998: "We are writing true stories - and this is a base for creative non-fiction - but without interventions to privacy and honesty of others."

Ryszard Kapuściński's cannot be counted as fiction writer, however his best-selling book Emperor is more than non-fiction. Main hero of the book the Ethiopian monarch, Hailie Selassie, is long time dead and his role is almost forgotten. But his portrait is drawn by Kapuściński with the vividness of a well-crafted work of fiction, or like stories told hundreds of years ago by travelers of foreign lands. And this is a good, optimistic news. The story, as a messenger of information, will never die, whether we call it fiction, non-fiction or new offspring - creative non-fiction.

(The End)

IS FICTION DEAD? III

2009-05-27T09:00:00.000+02:00

IS FICTION DEAD?

(PART III)

The Poetry of Information

Gulpy consumption, but never headache?

Experiences from our daily agenda are a bricks for our dreams in night. A laboring man may not be interested in cultural artifacts; whiskey is maybe nearer to his normal, biological needs. Intellectual work, however, increases our appetite for information, and we cannot switch off our brains after working hours. Like at a power plant where the turbines cannot be turned off because returning to peak operating efficiency would take two days, we maintain our mental equipment in the stand-by position (including sleeping-time, i.e. dreams) for ready access.

Consuming information means consequently lower perception and improper perception of information. This improper reading could lead to consuming of incorrect information. Note the famous mistakes in describing history such as the legend about founders of the city of Rome, Romulus and Remus. They weren't suckled by real animal wolves "lupa". "Lupa" was at that time nickname for a prostitute. A bordello was called "lupanar". And the stepmother of these two founders of Rome made very good money in the bordello, they say, that she was able to buy to her stepsons enough land to establish the eternal city. Regardless of these fact completely false legend about wolf-mother is still good selling story.

The allure of stories, removed from our everyday life and real facts, is immemorial. Remember, what we can find in ruins in the never-finished Citadel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "Sure, you said about sons how one grows up and the other is sick, and you spoke about house, but not very urgently. And you start to live when some traveller from a distant caravan unfolds mysteries, speaking about white elephants, this and that prince, and about the marriage of a woman thousands of miles away whose name you hardly knew. Or about the movement of enemies. Or, about some comet, offence, love or courage in the face of death, or about some hate against you, or about big worries. You were suddenly full of space and connected with many things and your tent -- loved and hated, threatened and saved -- gained immediate meaning. And you were in captivity to a miraculous web, which also changed you to something more spacious than you were before..." This is the secret of literature.

Talk, which puts us in touch with a thousand other things, makes us an inextricable part of the overall human construction. Never completed, always threatened with collapse. And each part depends on human individuality, that's why it is so fragile. Talk of a story is usually more interesting than experiencing the story in real life. That's why some stories are so strong that they become immortal epics and legends. And pilot of long-distance post-lines Saint-Exupéry proved that these great stories pull us away from the banalities of everyday life and our surroundings.

Third conclusion:
The non-fiction offers higher concentration of information, unlike to other forms of literature.

(to be continued)

IS FICTION DEAD? II

2009-05-20T09:00:00.000+02:00

IS FICTION DEAD?

(PART II)

The Poetry of Information

Visual media - best feed for that beast?

Media can, and sometimes do exploit this reflex in commercials, video clips and movies. (Consider how many commercials contain movement? Action is eye-catching, even if the viewer is not consciously interested in watching). Many American movies -- such as horror films and action movies -- take advantage of this reflex. The fast action rivets the audience's attention.

What is the outcome of such movies? For two hours our brain are under fast-changing pressure from new impulses. Most of this time we are tense, sometimes under stress. Finally, we realize that all this is only a game, and we feel a sense of release or relief. The experience is, of course, training for us if such situations, God forbid, ever occur. Compared with films, however uncomplicated, the permanent stream of information from, let us say, 30 television channels is more alluring and an easier source for consuming information. Here, again and again, appears a provocative demarcation between peace and conflict -- your immediate environment and the action on the screen. Genetically coded reflexes for evaluating information connect us with primitive, historical man. It helped our forefathers stay alive, while for us it is hypertrophic appendage, which we generally can't use. Likewise, our musculature, which we use mainly for sitting in the comfortable environment of post-industrial civilization. How we must push ourselves to train our muscles in fitness centers, the same way we use mental "jogging" every night in front of our television set. And with complete pleasure. An important question is if television -- window to the world, forming our illusions of dramatic events and emotions while we immutably sit in the chair -- isn't an inevitable "biological" need of contemporary society? Our forefathers had somewhere to expend their energies; they had, no doubt, a larger physical space for motion. For us, it is mostly in the evening and in cities in a living room (surely quite little) that we have space for our existence. If we are not fascinated by the illusion of televisual events, not frozen by them, where can we (and moreover our kids!) expend our yearning for motion? Instead, we can only collide with one another within our four walls! Notice how many people, in very little space, are able to sit motionless for many hours, for example at the cinema. If we cancel the film and leave them in the same space, in a moment comes a crisis from distress. And our living room and television, is our home cinema. To intrigue against television -- the easy-sleazy intellectual Crusade against the slippers culture -- means these critics are unable to be aware of all the implications. Previous times the space for mental escape were books and fiction created another worlds as an asylum for dreamers.

Second conclusion: In their spare time people do not want to be informed; they want to consume information.
This need for information persist to our later age and is probably a reason of pre-mortality of some individuals, who as elderly lose their communication channels, e.g. minimal daily-dose of information.

(to be continued)

IS FICTION DEAD? I

2009-05-13T09:00:00.000+02:00

IS FICTION DEAD?

(PART I)

The Poetry of Information

In article about their creative writing program (Valley News, July 23, 1998) students in Iowa (America's oldest and most prestigious academic writers' workshop) remember well Jane Dystel, a literary agent based in New York City, who was brave enough to had "hard-edged, almost cynical" discussion with them stressing that "non-fiction sells better than fiction." For the majority of young writers, in Dystel's opinion, nonfiction offers a more direct (not to mention a more profitable) way of connecting with readers and publishers than fiction.

Does this pronouncement indicate that fiction is dead, or that, in a world absorbed with here-and-now issues, people no longer have time for works of the imagination? If so, who is to blame, and for what?

What is a non-fiction, and why has it become so popular? Non-fiction didn't just appear overnight. Even that most fundamental text of Western culture, the Bible, is still revered by many as a literal biography of God, and thus may be seen, in its original conception anyway, as the first work of "non-fiction." Perhaps the question we should ask is: Why do people need stories fulfilled by real facts? Is it possible that humans have always possessed a biological need for information, a need for which our "information age" serves as a kind of hothouse? If such an idea seems simplistic, it may nevertheless be worth investigating whether biology (when philosophy is silent in this matter) can account for the failure of fiction to hold our interest in today's world.

Myths, legends and fairy tales are the basis of our culture's intellectual heritage, and the origin of our imaginative literature. Long before moveable type was heard of, parents told their children stories to make them sleep better, but also to install in the software of their tender minds basic "data" about good and evil. By repeating the old stories from one generation to the next, down through the ages our foreparents installed the archetypal "icons" on the "desktop" of our minds. Our genetic heritage provides us with basic software, but specific "applications" such as moral and aesthetic values may be "accessed" only during childhood and especially so called "insealing period". This sense of values originally came to us through stories.

Even as adults, we need fairy tales to revamp our mental software. In response to our rapidly accelerating need for information, these ancient stories are nowadays put more and more to the task of making sense of our hi-tech, high-stress, hyperpoliticized modern milieu. As an outgrowth of proliferating scientific knowledge, science-fiction first appeared as a rapidly emerging and growing literary form in the second half of 20-th century, but as a popular genre it endured only briefly, for most science fiction was ultimately perceived as fanciful excursions into imaginary landscapes, most often taking place in far-flung galaxies, with no "practical" application to "real life."

On the other hand, such fanciful epics as Steven Spielberg's movie, E.T., offered a novelty to our thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Before, we had only two options: 1. We are alone in space; 2. We are not alone, and moreover whoever else is out there is probably strange, hideous, and malevolent. Spielberg's message was that we are not alone, but that E.T.´s are just as good as toys for our kids. This kind of information is a great healing for all of us under permanent threat about violence and disasters rolling on us daily from a whole spectra of media.
The sci-fi movement gradually abandoned its "scientific" novelty in favor of components that are popularly recognized as "fantasy". This is likewise a dead end, but may serve as a point of departure for contemporary non-fiction, which tend to change a form too - for a creative non-fiction. We have noted that non-fiction is as old as the Bible, so why is it so popular now? Why does it attract us as readers as well as biological beings? The answer is information. Unlike species ruled by instinct, the human animal must constantly adapt to his environment by seeking information. Information was an essential part of our survival in the past, and remains as much a biological necessity as ever.

Why is information so essential? Literature is a forever incomplete self-portrait of humanity, an idea refined by each new generation of writers. Yet, despite the relentless activity of our publishing industry, and the fully-stocked "fiction"-sections at our bookstores and libraries, the reader's biological imperative to master his environment through information is seldom addressed in the context of "literature," as if our quest to learn from what we read expressed only an occasional wish for romantic escape, a frivolous journey among antennaed space aliens or Hyperborean heroes. But are not both the creators and consumers of literature biologically programmed to use what they know? How, after all, has humanity been able to dominate Nature, if not by its biological drive to acquire information? What has been our greatest advantage in the battle against larger predators, if not our ability to seek and preserve information, and to use it judiciously?

The Battle of Midway is a more recent, if perhaps unlikely example of what I mean by our biological imperative for information. In June 1942, the United States had nearly lost to the Japanese in the Pacific. But America had one formidable weapon -- its intelligence service. Through its Office of Special Services (OSS), the Americans learned precisely where, when, and how many Japanese units were likely to fight for possession of Midway Island. The U.S. Navy's victory at Midway marked a decisive turning point in the war with Japan.

First conclusion: Search for information is one of our basic evolutionary reflexes to events that could affect our lives. Now, this information is at a further and further distance from us (look at the Midway from the point of view of the U.S. mainland), and yet we are increasingly interested in reading about it and to having reliable facts about them at our fingertips. Our need for information is conditioned by a basic evolutionary reflex to assert control over our surroundings. We reflexively check everything new that comes our way in order to decide how to react to potential disturbances. Each individual instinctively reacts to any disturbance in one of two ways: fight or flight. In the past, this reflex enabled human beings to survive, and remains an indispensable part of our mental equipment. Language puts us in touch with our world, and makes us an inextricable part of it. From that time we are not only human beings, we are forever "human information beings".

(to be continued)

LITERATURE OF SMALL NATIONS IN EU

2009-05-06T09:00:00.000+02:00

WHAT FORTUNE LITERATURE OF SMALL NATIONS

MAY EXPECT FROM EUROPEAN UNION?

Essay by Gustáv Murín

In these days I use to recall the times when in every corner we had slogan saying: "With Soviet Union forever!" Maybe it is why I am (in contrary to some others who had very probably never any problem with previous slogan) so reluctant to call these days so enthusiastically "With European Union forever!". However different are these unions I feel that criticism is only way how to adopt any big idea with certain dignity. Especially when I have my personal experience with European Commission and its support of literature. And literature is a topics we would to talk about here and now.

First problem of grant system supporting financially literature in European Union (such like Culture 2000 where I was engaged as an expert of selection committee) is its enormous bureaucracy. Well, if someone is chosen as bureaucrat out of ten thousand other candidates , and than well paid, he or she naturally want to show us their "skillfulness". Therefore application forms looks much more like puzzle than normal document. And supplements required are numerous. And again, naturally, this steeple chase over bureaucratic traps is able to survive only strong subject. And who they are? Writers, poets, literary critics or enthusiastic editors and publishers? Of course not! Only another bureaucrats can manage this hard trace and, again naturally, there are big and well funded publishing houses who are paying to whole bunch of their bureaucrats to succeed in applications for grant of EC. Bureaucrats of EC call the previous "red rats", but how we may call bureaucrats of EC who made all these troubles out of nothing?
It is fairly possible that some real fanatics of literature with all their must succeed to jump over this first obstacle. Well, than they will face second one. Bureaucrats of Brussels really do not like a small boys, lonely enthusiasts. Thus, you can apply for EC support only with BIG project. In terms of translation of books from one EU language to another you have to have at least TEN books project in the same time. With all agreements from authors and their agents, and with capacity to make it all from editing to printing and distribution. The lonely publisher who like very much particular author and would to publish only his book is ultimate looser. And in this moment you may recall well know paradox of capitalism that only strong ones become stronger, and week one will simple vanish. So, who may succeed - red rats (with "projects" like translation and publication of Agatha Christie in Greece), of course! Do you wonder why?

Well, do not let us to be entirely pessimistic. There are always some publishers who (with great sympathy of members of selective committee, who are also mostly enthusiasts) may obtain grant from EC. And well, just there will start their real troubles. All those previous struggles were just in theoretical level, now comes real ones. It is because EC grants are, by regulations, covering just a half of expenses and these you have to pay first by yourself. And than to wait for months for reimbursement. Same it is for literary conferences or any other activities alike. And believe me, you will hate the day you ever become so foolish to start all this circus with EC "support". It is because it may last not only months when you will see promised funds and this all only in case that everything is perfect in eyes of EC bureaucrats. And it is no often so. Not because you wouldn't like to be perfect, but because also EC bureaucrats are just humans. It means not really perfect. And thus by small mistake or formal obstacle you may never see your money again. That's life - and as we already know in this life only those strong will survive. Let's call them red rats, for example.

If we all talking about the fortune of literature of small nations in a unifying Europe it is better to be very realistic. In newly unified Europe only domestic sources for support of literature will really help. It is so simply - more independent we will be from bureaucrats in Brussels, more happy we will be in EU.

FEVER II.

2009-04-29T09:00:00.002+02:00

FEVER

(Part II.)

Something about how children die -- a memory stays clearly in the family message about some relative (or only acquaintance) who survived WWII alone with two little children -- a boy and girl. Both were sick, deadly sick. They needed to be given medicine orally. Girl was weak already, mother could give her the medicine. Boy was stronger, he resisted and died. If you know this, don't you give medicine to your child, no matter what?

Man and Woman didn't get medicine to Child. They resigned themselves. Lying on either side of hot, little body. On guard, they sleep on pins and needles. They wake up also on pins and needles, and sleep fitfully throughout the night, as does Child. They wait. Early in the morning, the fever goes down. They succeed in infusing aspirin tea to Child, at least ...

Science can be found in the most unbelievable places. But this institute we know already, and the pigeon too. In the morning pigeon waits for Man in front of the institute, his feathers ruffled, he is stooped and silent.

Something about how pigeons die -- one clever man renowned scientist and essayist, his name Dr. Lewis Thomas, wrote in a noteworthy essay "Death in Nature." He analyzed there the strange characteristic in animals to die unobtrusively and alone, and he documents how many animal species at the right time seek seclusion and leave their society. He also speaks about how little dead animals, mostly birds, we see with regard to how many must die daily of natural causes -- but he's wrong. In this case, surely, our pigeon perseveres in staying in front of the doors of the science institute. Man sometimes sees it there when he, nervously, looks up from his work. What chance has this pigeon when sickness attacks it, when the viral platoon, ready for anything, penetrates the defensive position of its mucous membranes, distributing its worst to the most sensitive tissues. They drill through the head the cell walls and smuggle in false information of their nuclei acids. Genetically coded tapes, which the affected cells believe, record the information into its own circuitry and then, work on multiplying viruses and consequently on total destruction. When things go so far, what could a pigeon do as an individual, a being, a whole entity. ..? Somewhere deep inside, a life-and-death struggle goes on for the highest values. Now, in this moment, the control center of the pigeon's "me" is no longer involved in the struggle and the pigeon is consigned to the role of spectator. It can only cross its fingers and (fictively) send word down to every cell even not knowing its place in the line of battle. The message needs to be strong. Do fight somehow ...for everybody!

What else can this little amazed pigeon do, moving through every possibility in its sclerotic head? What else can it do, only ruffle its feathers, cower and wait? And yet the command must burn in the brain -- in this mindless head -- and to this feeble body to go and meet Man ...in fact, no, just now the pigeon has disappeared. Man thinks that the pigeon has already flown out as he didn't see it from his office. But it is just for a moment. Man again catches a glimpse of the pigeon on his way to the laboratory in the basement. It already moves nearer to the ventilator, not far from the entrance to the institute.

Pigeon had moved to a warm place, this was paramount, it was intuitive thinking to help light the internal fires for the fight ...

Instructive, too, is: "Immunity system has to discern 'alien' (sickness germs) and 'rebellious' (one´s own cells) and inactivate them. If the system is not successful, the whole situation can end fatally.
The first line of defence (macrophages, monocytes and neutrophiles) and natural killers in other sequences do valuable specific immunic reactions, secured by B-cells and T-cells. B-lymphocyte, under the influence of antigens (the material triggering immunological reaction) and with the presence of growth factors, make immunoglobulins, divide and mature in a few days into plasmatic cells. They mostly fight against bacterial infections. T-lymphocytes kill strange or virus-infected and changed cells in the organism and have an immuno-regulation function."
An important difference between T and B lymphocytes is the way in which antigens are distinguished. B-cells know directly antigens. Meanwhile, T-cells know fragments of antigens in a bond with albumins with a main histocompatible complex (MHC). This phenomenon we call MHC restriction ...

Something about how children die -- children die almost like pigeons and, what is worse, some kids die because of medicines that pigeons never try. Man knew about it when he complained to lab technician about worries concerning the fever. They fight with it as they would of at the medieval times. The heavy artillery of the antibiotics the doctor still didn't offer.

"It's worrying," sympathetically agrees the lab technician. "They say that the flu at the end of WWI killed more people than the war itself -- minimum 20 million."

"It's too much, I am not sure ..."

"No, really, they wrote about it in a magazine you get here monthly ...this popular scientific one ...I'm sure you read it, too. It's terrible when you imagine that even today people die of flu and pandemics. Then, tell me how it's possible that no one has found some really effective and non-toxic, viro-static medicine by now ..."

"Do you think that ..."

The lab technician interrupts again, "Yes, I think they wrote that there, too ..."

He interrupted her this time, "But our little baby only has some fever. It usually respond to aspirin, and it is harmless ..."

"Harmless like harmless," she said, "You didn't hear about harmfulness of salicylans and, therefore, aspirin, too? Some children died, they say. Some of the side-effects are more intense bleeding, among other things ... I thought that you knew about it ..."

There are moments when Man catches himself red-handed in one monotone idea -- in one short sentence. Question -- what else do I have to know? I have to know that child can be sick. I have to save him from the fever, but if I can't I have to know who, where and how to call for help. I have to know how to proceed for advice. And I also have to know that this help can fail fatally?!!
When Man was Child's age, step by step, slowly, one after the other, he came to understand the rules of how the world works (fairy tales providing the first examples). He was stunned how everything is clear, in fact, logical in its cause and effect. He told himself, if all these conditions hold true it's impossible that he don't achieve his goals and some promised bonuses along the way. But he never again felt this colossal faith that things go the way they are supposed to. So, aspirin, too, already ...

Man then read, specifically: "Aspirin" (Pharmacopiae on ingredients and description of effects) side-effects ... in usual doses, probably 6 percent of people experience some moderate breakdowns GIT (nausea, dyspepsia and vomiting), occult bleeding. In long-term use, hypocromic anemia, which in 20 percent can be accompanied by GIT bleeding (melene, hematomese, in ulcerations can come tissue loss and perforation). Increased bleeding with symptoms of epistaxis, skin sufusis, breakdown of blood production (trombocytophenia, aplastic anemia, agranulocytosis led to even pancytophenia). The risk of renal failure, papilar necrotis, and liver failure. Tinnitus affects up to 1 percent, and deafness 3 percent. In allergics, induction of asthma attacks, occurrence of skin eruptions, sometimes some breakdowns similar to Stevens, Johnson and Lyell syndrome, the possibility of Reye syndrome in children (suddenly hyperpyprexis, metabolic acidity, neuropsychic breakdowns, hyperpnoesis, vomiting, spasms and liver breakdown) ...

Man was sure until today (God knows why?) that aspirin was the one cure in the world without side-effects -- a big breakthrough of this century. He never heard about the possibility of breakdown of blood production and Reye syndrome.

And Child? Mystery. Problem. How many times, willingly, it push into its mouth things which don't seem reasonable. And now this time when Child doesn't want aspirin, are Man and Woman being unreasonable?Man calls home nervously. But Woman answers peacefully, Child is okay. It's fortunate that they didn't panic and use antibiotics. It could have hit Child's little heart or liver. ..(Man made a subconscious note to himself in one of the key memory lobes of the brain, a lobe that also holds the ability to solve problems and make decisions as well as ability to plan -- read Pharmacopiae on antibiotics ...). But it's not a priority. Indeed, Child is playing already. It draws. Man hears Child's little voice in the background and he puts down the receiver. The world, notwithstanding salicylans, Reye syndrome and Man's ignorance about the side-effects of antibiotics, continues to turn ...

Something about how pigeons die -- when Man leaves the institute (as usual, the last, he still refuses to deviate from the battle plans of the day) he doesn't see the pigeon. It is not near the container, nor near the ventilator. Man, light on his feet, goes home and -- treads on the dead pigeon. He gets scared for a moment. He looks directly into the pigeon's popped-out eye, which still holds the immediacy of infantile surprise that death is only a cruel, unjust joke. Really, how does pigeon's brain know that the fight in the hull of the body was definitely lost? Does a messenger run up through the nerve-racked body to warn of the danger? If so, where could he run to in the corners of the cold, little confines of the pigeon's head? When does he know that end is near and until this moment, when he realizes but is not able to perceive it? Or is the power of the fever so merciful that you simply can't realize this? How does it happen that the clockspring seized up, ending the whole humdrum existence of the pigeon?

Man, hesitatingly steps over the little cold pigeon. Then he comes back from the shed and takes a shovel and a bag and carefully buries the pigeon -- flipping the pigeon into the container. It seemed so easy. Dragging the heavy lid off the container, the story of the pigeon which had been looking for help was over. "You know," Man says tacitly to the dead pigeon, "I can't help you. We have no institution for you. Otherwise, I would call there." And Man, resolute and almost satisfied, goes home.

The day finished in an impossible way. It finished badly. With the coming night, the fever returns. It again grips the Child, moving like wildfire ...

The End

Translation by Robert M. Davis

FEVER I.

2009-04-22T09:00:00.001+02:00

FEVER

(Part I.)

The day started in an impossible way. It started bad. The usual family routine was broken at breakfast -- it's engine, just starting to hum, broke down.

With a two-year child at breakfast, there are elements of feast and famine. Something always spilled, broken, scattered ...

This was the scene as the Man and Woman tuned in to the radio. Not listening to the news but to the BBC's English language programming, plus some urgent dispatches cross the table between Man and Woman. Family breakfast gives way to the baptism of fire that steels Man and Woman as they leap out of the trenches for life's quotidian struggle. It's all in aid of a better life, Communists say. And capitalists are no more inventive.

As they set the agenda for the day, they constantly look over their shoulders at the child on the unsteady highchair -- the temporary throne of the monarch that will be jettisoned when Child grows.

Usually, Child bungles and bashes its way through breakfast, hopping and hollering throughout. The contact with the things it come into its grasp are immediate and undimensional. All that notwithstanding, Child seems healthy enough.

Today there was no hopping and hollering. Child cowered in the chair. Nothing was eaten or broken, and quietly with his eyes asked to go back to his little bed. The parents are suddenly taken aback and suspicious, filled with anxiety. They hadn't counted on this. It had never happened before.

In the morning correspondence between Man and Woman, an unaddressed telegram had arrived the unanswered question of what has happened.

It would remain a mystery until dinner, at least. Woman is preparing to take Child to the doctor's; Man goes to work at the institute.

Science can be found in the most unbelievable places. This institute moved not long ago from a former confectionery to a former butcher's. The butcher's had the advantage over the confectionery -- it has a big cellar, where there are good conditions for cold and ultra-centrifuges.

The ultra-centrifuges didn't work well in the confectionery. In the butcher's -- in the deep, dark and dirty space of a six-storey tenement house in the Secessionist style -- they did. The former butcher´s is part of small, deep inner yard of the block of the living buildings. When it becomes a scientific institute, the beginning of the one century and the beginning of another century meet here. Both removed worlds, however, gel nicely, and there are no outside interventions. Especially no sun, which only has a chance to penetrate yard around noon. Only one sunny finger, like sinking water into the well -- brrrrr -- and in a moment crawls back up to the surface.

Man, just arrives, is greeted by the light flooding in yard from the laboratories, trying to cut the dusk of a cold November morning. The windows of the flats on the other side of the yard, now abandoned by their occupants, are frosty and dark. The morning has goosebumps.Man enters the yard, making a beeline to the institute. Immediately, he catches sight of the head of pigeon, feathers reared, as he opens the front door. The bird is scraping around near a container for the second day in a row, he notes to himself.

Nobody knows why the pigeon doesn't fly. He hides behind the container and doesn't fly away when someone approaches. It's as if he wants them to come and help him.

Is he sick? If yes, is Man the right savior? Could he help? And could he, should he, would he? Man unlocked the front door and as he closed it he looked to see if the pigeon was again in his place.

Yes, it was. Waiting, but Man thought may be things are not so bad. At least not so bad that he has to intervene even by thinking about it.

Something about the way pigeons die -- the dying pigeon people recognize when it is on the way out of the illogical cycle of a pigeon's life. It has stopped flying from place to place and doesn't do what pigeons do -- try to occupy all the roofs in the town, jump around every accessible female pigeon, shit in every romantic corner and on every head of distinguished human monuments.
The dying pigeon, one day he eschews all allurements, all the ideals, aims and goals of a pigeon. It drops down to the earth and finds itself on the paths trodden by Man, and waits.Puzzling is that it lacks the usual vacuous, bobbing of the head. Curiously, the head moves to one side with one eye as if it had popped out of its socket. It attempts to make contact, tries to not only see but almost like touch everything around.
The dying pigeon lacks everything required to be a pigeon, which would ordinarily give Man the comforting feeling that it is only a bird.

It's difficult to ask scientific questions, difficult to struggle in the front lines of an impractical scientific battle when the hinterland is threatened.Woman calls.

The child is in bed with a fever. A state of utmost emergency is proclaimed. They didn't get to the doctor's, it was too late to take action. The strategic conference is very short.When child can't go to doctor, doctor must come to the child.

After all this, Man's anxiety is relieved. The fight against the fever has become institutionalized. Their lives already have become a relay race from one institution to another. On the road there are several repair teams standing by. The strategic conference therefore finishes optimistically -- let them come and do their repairs ...

Something about the way kids die -- Some clever man (a doctor and Nobel Prize Laureate in medicine, his name Peter Medawar) wrote that such a complicated organism as a human very often dies not because of sickness but because of too strong defensive reactions. This defensive reaction is fever. The body is sounding the alarm bells and cannot stop. Bells are ringing again and again. Defenders of the body fervently runs up and down the wooden stairs of the body to the highest towers and bastions and back down again. Finally, the alarm bells should stop and then all the defenders find their positions on the walls of the body fortress, clenched and silently holding their positions against the enemy. But fever sometimes runs its course to the point where it degenerates and goes berserk. The bells ring maddeningly and unceasingly. The fever grows so hot so that the flames hit and engulf the temple of the body. Only moment ago there was chance for a successful defence. In another moment, there is no possibility for shutting the door in its face. First, the fire starts in the library. The brain cells are irretrievably damaged. Strategic defence plans fall by the wayside, from precise instructions are left only ash-heaps. The passages of the body turn into a labyrinth, where also the defenders are suddenly lost. The forces of the sickness conquer this disorganized castle of the body effortlessly. Good plans can very easily turn to catastrophe. Catastrophe was described by another clever man (a pilot and teller of the most beautiful fairy tales, his name, Saint Exupery) thusly: "I knew their misery when the vessel smashed before it had been filled. Because the death of grandfather who is returned to the soil, after he has spent himself -- it is something beautiful. His funeral is the burning of a tool that has been used up. But I saw the death of children among my people, who with quiet, half-shut eyes, tried to draw breath and caught the fires with the tips of their eyelashes. God seems like he's carrying the scythe, and along with the ripe corn also cuts down some flowers. And then, when he gathers the sheaves, full of corn, he also finds this needless luxury."

All this Man knows, and today has a foreboding that Death is also very near. But he doesn't want to believe it. There are so many brakes to be applied. Many white walls built around the patients (even that designation has to provide protection). So many ampules of cures are set as a traps for the fever. Against this, Death didn't step aside, still is not weary. Still lurks somewhere nearby...

Science can be found in the most unbelievable places. This, for example, in dark dirty yard in November in late afternoon that is the same as in early morning. Only the windows show evidence of a shift, they change their roles and now the the flats' windows lighten the yard.
Science's windows turn off, step by step, and immediately their windowpanes have goosebumps. Man leaves last. He still refuses to deviate from the Crusade of the day. Before he closes the front doors of the institution, he involuntarily checks if the pigeon is there. He is, and has only moved from the bin nearer to the door and Man. It waits and doesn't move. Man is startled for a moment. He's sorry for the pigeon and himself. Sorry for pigeon because he's missing something and sorry for himself because he can't do anything. Then, they depart in silence.

We are a civilization of dependents -- interdependents. We are dependent of many others and they are dependent on us. When this chain breaks, and it happens sometimes so often, we become more defenceless because we rally to this interdependence.

Man rallies to automatic expectations to come home to a field of battle dominated and controlled by the institution. But he came home to the middle of the war cry of Child listening from the stairs. Woman is speechless. Doctor still hasn't come. (How many long hours have elapsed?) There are very, very many such cases. Man rages because he is powerless. In their "case", lying quiet with half-shut eyes, Child tries to draw breath and catches the fires with the tips of the eyelashes.

Man goes to phone and confronts some stupid telephone receptionist woman for doctors. He yells at her and for a moment it relieves him, but not Child. Man and Woman look to each other. They are in the middle of civilization and they must win this fight alone. The fever gets worse.
Child suddenly says:
"I will sing." But doesn't sing.
"I will draw," Child says, but doesn't draw.
"I will be healthy?" he says, intoning a question.
"Yes," answered Man and Woman in synchronized faith. "But..." they add, and "but" is signal for a whole series of unbelievable acts that follow. Unbelievable from the point of view of Child -- a monarch came to world with conviction that the world began when it was born.The world can be secure and obedient, but is not. It isn't logical. Not even when Child sometimes, on shaky legs, falls down, it hurts and then they smack him on the bottom at the same time. Pain comes from both sides. Child's body is now at war with itself and they add more cause for concern.

The fever needs to be halted.Cold rubs don't help. Water-soaked towels are dry in a moment. Man and Woman unpack the fragile little body. It stays naked and shakes. They carry him to the torture chamber -- the bathroom. Child forebodes the worst and resists, but they firmly hold him under a shower of cold water. Child holds out its hands for a cuddle, craving for an end to this tough fight but they hold him firmly far from their bodies and add even colder water. Now, Child isn't a shaking naked monarch, but humbled and pushed away, it is naked little bird with shoulder blades distended and its chest, trembles against the stream of cold water and rivulets of tears flow over inarticulated cries -- making a birdcall. ..a a a a a a a a ah! Man and Woman avert their gaze, the little bird tosses about in their hands and says clearly a a a a ah!

When everything is finished, back again in bed, Child speaks in a human voice. "I will sing. I will draw," and falls asleep, at last.

Doctor comes, finally, bringing a short message: "We are with you. You will be with us" -- bringing connection. They don't awake Child. They advise in a whisper over him. But it has nothing to do with advice. It's about assurance. Yes, this fever is the worst. Under no circumstances, should the fever be allowed to get over 40. "Do you have aspirin at home?" the doctor asks. "In the worst situation ...but other medicine, not yet."Doctor says good-bye with encouraging words: "We are still with you."

Man and Woman stay alone. They don't speak. They are thinking about the same thing. How will they know when the worst situation has arrived? They know it very easily and very soon, when even the torture with the cold shower doesn't help.

Now comes new torture, and everyone suffers because this time Child can protect itself more effectively. A little spoon with a quarter of aspirin was thrust into its tightly shut mouth. Shaking its head back and forth, punching them with its hands, Man and Woman fight this stubbornness in a rage. Again and again, they make portions of the aspirin and feebly try to find and refind it to force-feed Child.

How could Child have been spying in the kitchen, and have such a fear of having a lozenge tablet in its tea? When they finally get something down Child's throat, it immediately throws up ...

(to be continued)

Translation by Robert M. Davis

Virus as a Principle

2009-04-15T09:00:00.000+02:00

Virus as a Principle

Science defines a virus as the smallest and simplest form of life. Without its own enzyme system a natural virus is reliant on a parasitic way of life. As such, the pathogenity of a great number of known viruses is just a logical consequence. They master the nucleus of the host cell with their genetic information and force it to produce up to a hundred thousand copies of the initial virus. The result usually being the disintegration of the host cell, release of the newly created viruses into the surroundings and the repetition of the whole cycle. From a human point of view the existence of primary viruses in nature is an oversight in the Creator´s grand plan. Without them the world would be much safer - and, most importantly, much clearer. It seems that they are here so that we have something to fight when we manage things that are visible, recognizable and thus defeatable. Viruses in nature could also be interpreted as an annoying, yet often deadly redundancy worsening our lives regardless of our intervention. And now let us consider that we, being rational creatures, have succeeded in creating our own world in this century. It is a world of computer programs. A world that is only dependent on our best resolutions. And as soon as we created this world, the virus appeared too! But this one is not supplied from somewhere just to annoy us. On the contrary, it is our product! We can put an exception into the world of our rules straight away, deadly viruses of our own production! And such that they can reversibly destroy the results of our computer work or, lately, the computers themselves. This time it is not nature that is against us, it is just ourselves! It is a uniquely clean experiment that did not work out. Or vice versa - it did work out, as evidence of anxiety that any world without viruses and parasites generally would be imperfect?!

Written by Gustáv Murín

Translated by Viktor Pomichal

CENTRAL EUROPE - LOST, FOUND AND LOST AGAIN? (PART II)

2009-04-08T09:00:00.001+02:00

CENTRAL EUROPE - LOST, FOUND AND LOST AGAIN? (PART II)

At least one solid point?

Aristotle once said: "Give me a solid point and I will move the Earth." Isn't this the solution to our problem? The newly discovered term "Central Europe", frequently used in media, called not only for the immediate definition of its borders but of its center as well. So, frankly speaking, where is the center of Central Europe, or better yet, where in fact is the center of the Europe?

To answer these questions we first have to deal with the vague term "heart of Europe".
During the years of existence of the former Czechoslovakia, Prague was constantly called the heart of Europe.

Surprisingly or not, a poster at the international airport in Budapest in 1996 welcoming tourists to Hungary described the whole country as the heart of Europe.

However, according the official bulletin of its national airliner, Adria Airways, Slovenia has aspirations to bear this proud title too.

Air France, on the other hand, offers flights connecting you to any place in the world from the heart of Europe, which, of course, is France.

The same thing is said in Luxembourg and The Netherlands.

BBC political commentary about some political turbulence in Italy, insisted to our attention because Italy is in the "heart of Europe".

But The Times in London published a story about Bosnia and Herzegovina with the headline, "European heart in American hands". And Americans took it seriously because President Bill Clinton referred to Bosnia as the heart of Europe too.

Government of Poland posted at their official web-site this statement: "Poland lies in the central part of the European continent, the geometric center of which is near Warszaw." Consequently Norman Davies titled his book "Heart of Europe -- Short History of Poland".

German city Potsdam is, according its Mayor, "geographically in the middle of the continent", but in Italian city Piedmont they believe to be "chosen to play an increasingly central role in the European Union - an that means geographically too".

In book Storm of globalization (Jamex, 2002), Professor Ivan A. Čarota seeks to oppose self-deception of "geopolitical disorientation" when Belarus is presented as center/heart of Europe.
Centrality has been claimed for places as far as Northern Ireland or the Székely region in Romania.

With a heart in so many places at the same time, it is not surprising that Europe is so close to a heart attack at any moment. But this is not the end of the troubles relating to the issue of the center of Central Europe. Of course, as befits such an important issue, we also have officially claimed "center of Europe". There are three. Plus one.

Centre of the Central Europe

Under supervision of the government, a stone, commemorating its central position of the continent, was erected near a village called Krahule in the central part of Slovakia.
However, in Ukraine, the eastern neighbor of Slovakia, in the city Rahov (south-west of the more well-known city Lviv) a pillar of stones was built showing the place where the "center of Europe" certainly is.

It seems that Ukrainian's neighbor, Lithuania, has never heard about it, because people there have their own stone pillar. This one was erected in 1991 nearby Bernotai (26 kilometres north of capital city Vilnius) and was precisely located by the French National Geographic Institute at 25''19' latitude and 54'' 54' longitude.

These three "centers of Europe" create a triangle with sides not shorter than 375 km -- 750 km -- 875 km.

However there is still one more. In small village of Tállya in the Hungarian part of Tokaj wine region you will be greeted by selection of its special wines. And at the end of your visit, you will automatically receive "certificate" claiming that you have visited "Geodesical Centre of Europe". There is no explanation as to how they came to have this proud title. But certainly they believe in it.

Does Central Europe exist at all?

In the hope of finding a positive answer, but resigning to find its precise borders and center, we come back to Kundera's definition of Central Europe and repeated by Emil Brix broadly as a "cultural landscape between Germany and Russia". Rudolf Chmel, a Slovakian scholar, diplomat and former Minister of Culture, tried to impose an element of time to this definition when he once said: "Central Europe is like a accordion. When Germans and Russians are doing well, they come closer and Central Europe starts to vanish. But when they are in trouble and withdraw to their inner borders, Central Europe suddenly emerges". Actually, Germany still has trouble with the reunification of the western and eastern parts of the country, and Russia seems to have troubles with everything. But, one day in the future when they have resolved their problems, should we expect Central Europe, regardless of the flexibility of this term, to vanish again? When will the future of Central Europe be finally liberated from its fatalistic past?

(The End)

Written by Gustáv Murín

Translation by Bea Baloghová and Diane Seo

CENTRAL EUROPE - LOST, FOUND AND LOST AGAIN?

2009-04-01T09:00:00.003+02:00

CENTRAL EUROPE - LOST, FOUND AND LOST AGAIN? (PART I)

It is hard to determine when the term "Central Europe" first appeared, and who had invented it. This idea challenged the balance of power after World War Two and struck a chord with Central European intellectuals who felt betrayed by the political separation of West and East in Europe. The term started to be widely recognized after revolutionary events in former communist European countries. In 1989, simply dividing Europe into the West and East no longer made sense. In the summer of 1998, the Austrian Cultural Institute in London organized the Festival of Central European Culture. Organizers invited artists from Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Italy. But this is precisely where we face serious difficulties with the term "Central Europe". The question is whether these are the only countries that fit this term or whether others should be added? And if so, which ones?

Germany -- yes or not?

In 1997, the respected U.S. travel publishing house, Lonely Planet, published a book entitled Central Europe on a Shoestring covering the following countries: Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It seemed to perfectly fit the "traditional German concept of 'Mitteleuropa', relied on economic and geopolitical dominance" as described by Emil Brix in a special issue of edition Occasions entitled Central Europe, published for above-mentioned cultural event in London. Between the two World Wars, there had even been a tendency to characterize Germany as a holder of "Kultur" (culture) which ran counter to the Western tendency towards "Zivilisation" (civilization). But according to Milan Kundera (The New York Review of Books, 7/1984), Central Europe is "boxed in by the Germans on one side and the Russians on the other" where "the nations of Central Europe have used up their strength in the struggle to survive and to preserve their languages. Since they have never been entirely integrated into the consciousness of Europe, they have remained the least known and the most fragile part of the West -- hidden even further, by the curtain of their strange and scarcely accessible languages..."
Kundera's description automatically excluded Germany from the scale of the countries covered by the term "Central Europe" (not to mention his confusing remark about it as a 'the most fragile part of the West' -- in fact, he understands Central Europe as "the eastern border of the West"). But according to the precise reading of the above statement, it also excluded all German speaking countries. This point of view reduce the number of the countries from the nine mentioned by Lonely Planet to five. Another American publishing house, Welden Owen, published a book of pictures edited by Jan Morris and titled Over Europe. In the chapter, "The Central Europeans", only Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary are listed. Of course, this 1992 publication did not reflect the split of Czechoslovakia, but if the author had been aware of it, he probably would have known that the Czechs don't like to include themselves among "Central Europeans". They desperately want to be recognized as an integral part of Western Europe to the extent that in 90ties, their government has sabotaged most of the activities of the so-called, "Visegrad Four", the group of the countries accidentally also covered also by the previously-mentioned publication, Over Europe. So, from the purest point of view, does Central Europe only apply to three countries -- Poland, Slovakia and Hungary?

Who else -- yes, who else -- not?

In his essay, "The Central European Dream" (in E.Busek and G.Wilfinger /Eds./ Aufruch nach Mitteleuropa: Rekonstruktion eines versunkenen Kontinents, Vienna, 1986), György Konrád estimates the population of Central Europe to be between 100 to 200 million people. It is a very rough estimate, but certainly more than Poland, Slovakia and Hungary put together. So where do all of these Central Europeans live? In a publication already mentioned, Emil Brix tried to specify that Central Europeans live in "parts of Europe extending from Poland to Bosnia and Herzegovina and from Austria to the Ukraine". Thus, we now have two more candidates for the Central European club who were missing at the presentation of "Central European Culture" in London -- Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ukraine. Brix is well aware of the eccentric position of the Ukraine when he wrote that "academics in the Western Ukraine are putting stress on Central Europe traditions, because this helps to overcome the lack of European contacts acting from Soviet past." And he suggested even more when he defended the position of Austria within Central Europe. "Because of the cultural traditions, Austria is a Central European country. The same holds true for the northern parts of Italy where the challenge and magic of borders is ever present," he wrote.

The Vilenica festival is a respectable annual literary award for Central European authors. Its Slovenian organizers included Italy as a matter of course. Furthermore, they included Germany in their scope, added all three Baltic states and currently pondering the question of whether Romania is a Central European country. Ultimately, the area we are dealing with ranges from just three up to not less than sixteen countries covered by one geopolitical and cultural term. Consequently it could include 55 million people or far more than 200 millions estimated by György Konrád. However, Milan Kundera was very well aware of the flexibility of the practical realization of "The Central European Dream" when he wrote: "Its borders are imaginary and must be drawn and redrawn with each new historical situation".

(to be continued)

PRAYERS TO MY GODDESS

2009-03-25T09:09:00.001+01:00

PRAYERS TO MY GODDESS

When I was a kid, my Grandma taught me a tiny little bedtime prayer to my guardian angel. It was appropriate then; I was a little kid, the angel wasn't too big either, and he watched over me as if he were my friend. But as I grew older and began exploring the world, I no longer had time for prayers to a little boy. I have studied the offer of several gods, including Jesus Christ, but tough they all touched me in a way, Jesus in particular, none of them could offer me that proportion of friendly protection as my guardian angel. So I went on my own way; but as time passed I encountered phenomena for which I had no explanation. When I lived in another city, in Prague, lights on lamp posts went off one after the other as I passed them on my way home every evening. On my way to Spain, a sequence of minor peculiar events occurred, and repeated itself on my way home. It was there when an idea struck me first that it need not be ourselves who are choosing our god. What if it's the Gods who chooses us? Andalucia, in Spain, with its mixture of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions is an ideal country for searching the one who has chosen you. What I found was utterly surprising -- my patron definitely isn't God, but certainly a Goddess. I have always had the best relationship to women and with them. It were always women who subtly led me to the right path. My Goddess though is not frivolous, she is spiritual. She therefore must be a virgin. Spaniards call Virgin Mary "Virgen". That is my Goddess. When I once again lived at a different place, in Iowa City, she has confirmed that with a series of minor obscurities, including the lamp post in front of the hostel with its light on going out whenever I walk past in the evening buried in thoughts.

I never prayed to my Goddess, but in Iowa City my colleague in writing, Jerzy Szperkowicz reminded me that the possibility exists. Well, then, here are my prayers for almost every occasion:

* Aging -- My Goddess, as we're getting older, we placate ourselves and others around us that with age, we'll become wiser. But you know what really happens. Please save me from becoming foolish as I get older.

* Arguments -- My Goddess, you know how passionately I like arguments. Please, let me have partners whom I would still honor even after the fiercest of arguments.

* Christmas -- My Goddess, ordinary Christmas are boring. It's amazing how little actually happens compared to all those huge expectations and promotion campaign. The problem is that Christmas aren't normal when we can't go through that ritual stereotype of a Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas presents, and a brightly lit Christmas tree.... My Goddess, let me always have normal and appropriately boring Christmas; and please, save me from eating too much as last time!

* Enemies -- My Goddess, let me have enemies! I need them to remain alert and strive to become better all the time. I need them to keep me from making careless mistakes and force me to search for convincing argumentation. But don't let them be too many. You know, I need also an occasional moment of rest.

* Friends -- You know well, My Goddess, that friendship does not mean boundless identification with someone else, uncritical admiration, or total consent with what the other does or thinks. Surely you know that friendship primarily involves the ability to forgive; and to argue while being capable to look each other straight in the eyes. You know how much I care about my friends and how much I miss them when we just don't have the time. And you also know me. Please allow my friendships to survive all that tests of time spend with me for at least the next one hundred years....

* Health -- My Goddess, it always bored me as a kid when grownups spoke about health. How important it is, indeed perhaps the most important of what we need. I have one more simple request -- please let me remain bored whenever people speak about health.

* Literature -- My Goddess, you know how much I still have to say and write; and to send in thick book covers to others. Give me time to do all I must.... Oh Yeah, I can see you nodding your head in disbelief and you wonder, just as my wife, how dare I trying to get you with such a cheap trick. You know, just as does my wife, that I shall never be completely finished; there will always be new ideas and things to be urgently expressed and sent elsewhere.... But you, as my wife, could make an exception. Trust a liar and give him time....

* Money -- My Goddess, someone wise once said that men are those making money all year so that their wives have enough to spend on holiday tours. I do not object. But please, let me earn enough so that my wife has something to look forward to before vacations.* My wife Janina - My Goddess, since you let me find the best in the world for me, don't let her discover that I'm not the best one in the world for her.

* My daughters -- My Goddess, you know how much I love them. You are watching when I look at my daughters, Lucy and Veronica, and you see how I fear for them. If I were alone, I would go into great battles and never be scared as I am now. My Goddess, you know that I am a fighter and that those two kids are my weak point. You know too that I'll go into confrontations again. Please, just try making sure that no one ever takes revenge on my children, as it's now becoming a custom in this world. Help me see them grow up in peace and get happily married, and let me rejoice over my grandchildren in good health. And one more plea -- when the father of my grandfather was dying, he called all his sons to his bed, looked at them and simply addressed each of them by their names. Then he died in peace. Please, let me, my Goddess, do the same in my time of death. Give me a chance for that last summary of my love.

* Science -- My Goddess, I have a simple plea. Let me forever remain curious to know.

* Sex -- My Goddess, It's good that you are and will forever remain a Virgin. So please suppress your curiosity, turn away and don't look at me in moments when my body rules over my soul. Remain innocent.

* Tennis -- My Goddess, you know that I am by no means a champion in this game; nevertheless, you may have noticed how much I like winning. So please help me from time to time to win.... but only as much I would not notice!

* Travels -- My Goddess, You know how desperately I like to travel. But you know too that I hate going to places where I'm reduced to a silent observer, an alien without a chance to share grievances, to laugh with the locals. You have already let me meet a blessed abundance of beautiful people in various corners of the earth. I'm sure that you still have in your sleeve a couple of wonderful countries for me to visit. My Goddess, let me meet some beautiful people there too!

CROSSING BORDERS

2009-03-18T09:00:00.003+01:00

CROSSING BORDERS

Crossing borders you might expect different experiences. Crossing the border into the Czech Republic, you might hear "Nazdar", a typical Czech greeting. Crossing this border and coming into Prague, I read this English message on the rear window of a car with US license plates: "Folks. This car was robbed three times, the first time with complete success. Nothing's left in it now, for sure. Nazdar!".

SEARCHING FOR PARADISE

2009-03-11T09:00:00.000+01:00

SEARCHING FOR PARADISE

My friends from Slovakia -- Peter, his wife Sylvia, with their lovely daughter Suzie (who is already mixing English and Slovak words when she speaks) -- live in Nashville, Tennessee. They escaped from communist paradise built for everyone but used just by few aparatchiks. I came to visit my friends to learn how they are doing in the country considered as another kind of paradise.

When I arrived, my friend Peter didn't give me a chance to relax. He decided to go play tennis, which was our favorite entertainment back home. Even in late November it was still warm weather in Nashville, and, of course, tennis is my great passion! We played tennis in a Nashville suburb, in a nice apartments complex with a small but well-equipped sport-and-fitness center. We were guests of Czech friend of Peter's--an example how the breakup of our countries federation has had little impact on how people behave. Alesh was a typical Czech, a smart guy but always complaining even though he's doing very well for himself. We played before Alesh arrived, with Alesh and after Alesh left. We played from about 4 P.M. until 7 P.M., we starting on fine, warm November afternoon and finished on a dark, chilly November evening. Just like over Wimbledon stadium, every five minutes a plane flies over, and Peter, in one moment, looked up like a prophet and said: "It is statistical necessity that at some time one of them has to fall exactly on this court." But the statistics favored us at that time, so we played, played and played. We simply couldn't stop because... you know these sports fanatics! The next day I wondered if I would be able to get out of bed, even. But after tennis, we'd gone to the sauna, so my body didn't actually protest.

The sauna was in the nice fitness-center that belonged to the apartments complex. It was a one-story building with an outdoor swimming pool and fountain in front. It reminded me that of the communist era in my country, when they also liked to include such things for effect. In our residential quarter, they'd built several fountains, with goldfishes even! It must have looked lovely for a first few weeks. I really don't know how long the fountains worked, because as a small boy I never saw them spraying water, which is for what fountains usually are built for. Nevertheless, I thought they were a nice bit of architectural luxury, and of course I loved goldfishes. Then, slowly but surely, the goldfishes disappeared from fountains. Then the water disappeared, and finally all that was left were the ruins, which were eventually cleared away to be replaced by flowerbeds. So this fitness center reminded me of idealism and dreams of communism, with one exception: this American communism works!

We sat in the sauna, sweating, and recalling our days together in Slovakia. In fact, we talked mostly about lovely girl that we'd both been involved with. Well, to be honest, I should say that I was the first guy to sleep with her, before we'd even had a date. She'd turned up at a college party, and because I was half-drunk, I didn't catch the hostile signals she usually broadcast around. When we first started to dance, she seemed to resist, but later she become more and more accommodating, her body become softer and even softer, and finally we made love in dark corner of one of the endless corridors of old University building. This was how I discovered "Chinese Paradise", as I called it later. She was really hidden paradise, with a teacher's cool look, officially, though privately she was like Sharon Stone. She had nice face, a sexy body and countless fantasies about sex. But I was a self-made man at the time, too preoccupied with my own career to appreciate paradise, so I set her a condition: we could only meet once a week, on Friday.

As I think about it now, I realize that I was terrible guy back then. But she was lovely. When I appeared on Friday evening, like a cowboy covered by the dust of all the roads he'd traveled during week, she was waiting in dressing-gown, naked underneath. What a lovely, firm body (and breasts!) she had under gown! But I was not interested--I was tired after a busy week. So she prepared a bath for me and washed me like a baby. Than she dried me and covered my body with lotion--it was like massage--and I was gradually restored. She would have already prepared a great dinner (usually Chinese style, therefore I called her Chinese Paradise) with wonderful wine called Tokaj ("vinum regnum, rex vinorum" wine of kings, king of wines). And then, then, then,... I finally started to be worth of something, and she offered me her body for a dessert. She used to say "you can do everything with my body", and I really tried. In the middle of the wild games she used to scream "no, no, no", but very softly, because this was also a part of the game. Well, to tell the truth, this really was paradise, but I was unable to realize it. And you could not imagine at which time during these evenings I felt really happy--well, it was mostly in that few minutes sitting in the restroom in her student apartment and reading comics. Frankly, I hate comics, but for a while it was something like a symbol of real rest... If it seem to by completely foolish, for more I had a strange idea that I shouldn't spend the entire night with her. So, each time, after we'd finally exhausted ourselves with all these fine things and were ready to fall asleep, I would get up, no matter how uncomfortable it was, and go into the dark night, headed for home. I did have an explanation for this strange habit. I thought that if I were to sleep beside her, it would be even harder to go home in the morning. I felt that her love would grow even more powerful then, and I would never escape from the trap. Look at me at that time--I was struggling to be the best scientist and the best writer and the best everything you can imagine. I had no time for paradise; I stuck to my working hell. She was curious, of course, about this habit. She had thought about it a lot, and one day she felt that she found solution. Staring to my eyes, she said: "Stay with me. Stay with me the whole night. You don't really have to do anything, not even talk. We can be silent, we don't need to do anything at all, but... stay with me." Right then, the alarm bells began ringing in my head, and I escaped--for last time and forever. It was too much for me... But, as a good friend I had introduced her beforehand to my friend Peter. I did not want her beauty and warm passion to be wasted on some stranger. I thought that maybe Peter would be the happy man who could appreciate this sort of paradise. After I'd withdrawn, they started dating, and it lasted about a year. Peter went even further--he saw her every day he possibly could and introduced her to family. I was living in another town by then, and from a distance it seemed that they would get married one day. Then Peter escaped. I wasn't actually all that surprised.

Somehow, I happened to meet her again at a campus party. Well, I didn't talk with her much; in fact, I had something important to do in my lab. I went to the lab and was alone there when she came in. We started to talk, but I was attracted by the slow raise and fall of her breasts and found myself remembering the times we'd been close. So, still talking, I moved closer to her, stripped away her blouse and found her breasts unchanged--as firm, large, and warm as ever.

"Do you still like my breasts?" she asked.

"Yes, of course", I answered, "and I remember what we used to do with them back then."
She smiled gently and said, "I'll let you play with my breasts if you like, but that's all."
So I did, and she helped me, a different way this time, find Chinese Paradise again. When we were down, she covered her breasts back up and said: "You and Peter, and all you guys, you're like zebras in a zoo. It's impossible to understand you. The game's over." And she left. Forever.
So, Peter and I were sitting in the sauna, talking about Chinese Paradise. As we were reminiscing, drinking a beer, and laughing, our bodies were sweating. It looked as if they were silently crying great salt tears for a love that was never completely fulfilled. On the way home, driving through evening traffic, Peter asked me what I though about the United States, where he wanted to keep living with his family. I had my answer already prepared. "This is a paradise, Peter," I said. "But this is a paradise where they're used to shooting."

He didn't say anything, and we never resumed our talk about different sorts of paradises. Well, talking about that American one, I'd learned my first English words spontaneously when I was a little boy playing cowboys and American Indians. "Hands up!" were the words, and I'm very happy that I never heard them in an actual situation during my stay in the United States. To be honest, I didn't even hear them on television or at the movies again. Those words just slow down the action. Nowadays, American action heroes shoot first.

WELL-ORGANIZED HOPELESSNESS

2009-03-04T09:00:00.002+01:00

WELL-ORGANIZED HOPELESSNESS

Students at field-work to help farmers had been harvesting potatoes and massacring fieldmouses since the morning. Each time the tractor-towed harvester opened up a new furrow, tiny gray victims dodged between the freshly turned lumps of soil, only to be smashed at cruelly regular intervals by a well-aimed hit of a potato. A short, sharp fillip into the back of the neck crack their fragile skulls.

Since the morning, they had kept warm with this contest, an arcade game about which the gray victims had known nothing expect that their part demanded the stubbornness of a runner on a hopelessly long track. It always took a while before they grasped what was going on and decided to run. It was a fair battle. Only running fieldmouses were attacked and killed. A little kick jump-started those that hesitated. They sometimes attacked the shoe in furious despair until a frozen potato brained them once again. Sometimes, in desperate confusion, they clung to the shoe and tried hiding beneath it. Others dashed with unexpected speed, successfully scrambling through the potato bombardment. They ran on and on and futilely, for eventually an accidentally precise potato pinned them down. Laying on their backs, legs trembling in the air, they protested in high-pitched squeaks. They appeals were denied by another potato shelling. This was always a sudden improvisation, a brief prologue to the delicate crack of the skull and that short, clumsy moment when the pink intestines and tiny organs fleetingly touched the cold dust and soil. This final and decisive encounter brought to a close by a heavy and rough shoe that smoothed all the little, natural contours with the uniform pattern of its sole.

Then again, sometimes this was unnecessary. The rodent stiffened quickly as the legs turned rubbery and unusable from the exhausting dash, collapsing like a sprinter at the end of a race. Just for a moment. In an instant they froze in the air as if they had stumbled into a photograph. The air was frostily clear, betraying each unintentional move, crystallizing each terrified sigh on the ground. It had been a perfect day for a bombing raid.

MY LEDIG HOUSE DIARY

2009-02-25T09:00:00.004+01:00

MY LEDIG HOUSE DIARY

Ledig House is a writers colony situated up-state New York in the valley of Hudson river. Here is my testimony of the marvelous time spend there with my colleagues.

Early morning - disturbed by concert of someone's snoring (is it Otto or is it me?).

7.30 -- Kathrin's alarm clock is ringing in the neighboring room. Kathrin is a German translator (if not mentioned particularly, all characters in this fairy-tale are Germans, Teutons or both) and she likes to work early -- did she read instructions for German translators posted on the wall in the kitchen? (Well, at least for the following 30 minutes I can lie in bed not feeling guilty that I don't like to work early).

8.00 -- Mathias (a poet) is up, I hear him (through the paper-walls) in the bathroom we are both sharing and assume he is doing the exact same things in the bathroom that ordinary people do, despite being a poet.

8.30 -- Exercise with music recorded from tapes I brought from home (not loudly -- Monica and Otto are still sleeping - you know, these translators at honeymoon...).

9.00 -- Find my way to the kitchen; somebody (home-keepers Peter or Kathleen?) already checked e-mail ("Nobody is writing to the colonel, nor to me").

9.30 -- Try to grab something from fridge before Monica comes to rob entire supply and will prepare a honeymoon breakfast for Otto (Oh Otto, how envious I am for those bagels you didn't finish yesterday morning!).

10.00 -- On e-mail, colleague and friend Andrej Blatnik is coming from Slovenia and needs some last minute secret information about the colony ("Take a racquet, man, tennis is what counts here").

10.30 -- E-mail connection is lost (Peter at the other part of this computer line needs to tell something to humankind as well).

10.30 - 1.00pm -- At the ill-installed PC ("this machine is unhappy" Peter said; what about me?) I am writing letters to editors through all of the States (meanwhile, I have killed 29 flies - this building is a former barn, with reconstruction cows left, flies didn´t).

1.00pm -- Lunch. Somebody stole the piece of famous lasagna made by our cook Donna for yesterday's dinner and spared for this day (you know, "hungry as a writer", we use to say back home). There is one creature more hungry than me -- a dog called Paris (fortunately, she is not a writer and we have a mutual, silent arrangement for most of the lunches; I eat and she looks at me as a bunch of Somali kids -- good training to remind me that writers always have to think about humankind, or at least about some kind of human).

2.00pm -- Reading newspapers and magazines, secretly cutting out the articles I expect to be helpful for my future essays (Peter is helplessly looking for yesterday's New York Times -- which I have completely cut already).

2.30pm -- Chatting with Josie in the kitchen. Today she responds to my Iowa pronounced question "Hawaria" (read "How are you?") with a word "fine" (means -- she slept not bad and there aren't many crackers left from our yesterday's dinner). On the way from Main House to my room one exotic look -- Uda, always hidden in her room, decided to appear at the public, walking down to the open-air sculptors park called "The Fields" like being hypnotized by the idea she recently translated.

2.45 -- 4.00pm -- Trying to convince "unhappy" PC that work is what make us all happy (meanwhile killed another 29 flies and heard some strange sounds from Dauji's room -- is this Indian poet here or again somewhere in the States on another of his mysterious missions?).

4.00 -- 5.30pm -- Tennis with Daniel (this son of a bitch doesn't know the art of losing, so he is almost always winning).

5.30 -- 6.00pm -- Shower (the doors to bathroom are unlockable, the window screen is missing -- Loren could fix it, but has no time -- he is shooting eggs. Well, I must to say that he is a passionate visual artist and actually obsessed by the idea to shoot eggs by the gun and in the same time to shoot the visual effect of it by highly speed camera. See results in dining room).

6.00 -- 7.00pm -- Back in Reynold's cottage to print out something important for humankind, but apparently not appealing enough for America's editors (what kind of humans are they?!). Another German writer Gert appears in hall to send his messages through a fax socket (Gert is a good companion for the start of evening - he and his Danish Vodka + Snickers!).

7.00 -- 8.00pm -- Ready for dinner writing e-mails in Library (got three, sent five with hope for geometrical growing effect).

8.00 -- 9.30pm -- Dinner (key words here are "pass it, please"; the Ledig House dinners are the most "passable" dinners in my life; sitting always in the middle of the table I barely succeed to eat). Good wine, good chat, newcomer = executive director David Knowless.

9.30 -- 10.30pm -- David's executive idea to storm Turnpike bar had been approved. Turnpike was stormed, but actually on this day they are closed (how much does one executive director have to know or does he "know-less" than we do?), apparently weak in his knees David is promising another Turnpike storm, bowling and more (looking forward to more).

10.30 -- 12.30pm -- Watching video ("The good, the bad and the ugly" or the "The Apostle" or...) with others in sitting room (Paris is gnawing and playing with big bone under table -- horrible sounds).

12.30pm -- Ready to sleep. In night disturbed by concert of someone's snoring (is it Otto or is it me?).