Ministry of economics

Just noticed that Serbia has the "Ministry of economics" ("ministarstvo ekonomije"). Nice idea. I expect the next government, whatever and whenever it is, may expand this scientific approach and create ministries of other humanities (called "social sciences" here - take that, Westerners, we had this social everything stuff decades before you). I can well imagine a ministry of sociology, of geography, of history, archaeology, tourismology (which you can study here, there's a college for that). Just wondering, in the case a ministry of pedagogy was also created, which ministry would be in charge of these tourismology studies: that of education, that of tourismology or that of pedagogy? But I digress.

Back to the economics, the nearly least humane among humanities. The old ministry of economy ("ministarstvo privrede") is gone. Well done. We don't need no stinking ministry of economy. The economy can fend for itself, probably by just folding in, or yielding to any dictate of the EU, prospective foreign owners or any faker/shaker/negotiator that comes along. No ministry needed for that.

Economics, OTOH, needs a scientific approach which will supply a plausible explanation for all the current and coming disasters of various orders of magnitude, with special attention to the domestic causes of each one. Without government housing this scientific approach, these crucially important issues may not be properly elaborated. As a result, the people may have erred on the side of common sense, and erred seriously. Which would be a disaster of a completely different kind, which is unacceptable.

Visit US again? Well... maybe, if and when

Somebody asked me " You once said that you could imagine spending your summers in Serbia, where it isn’t so humid, and your winters in Virginia, which you found to be a little milder.  Do you think you might grace us with your presence sometime?  Let me know if you do."

To which I answered

If the US change their policy against non-lager countries (i.e. any but the the EU and a few others), we may consider. As things are, for the money the embassy charges ($20 for a phone talk, $100 per capita for looking over your papers, where they keep both the money and the discretionary right to refuse a visa without explanation), plus the humiliation, it simply isn't worth it. We'll do our family reunions here or wherever they don't ask for rectinal scan, DNA urine sample, criminal history, fingerprints and don't insert a microwave scan,  and three pat-down checkpoints between here and there. We thoroughly dislike being treated like criminals instead of being welcome.

The 6-6 plan^* was in the case we were able to freely come and go. No freedom, no come, no go.

 My estimate is that the US economy lost about $30K on our family so far - which is the money we would have spent there instead of here, had we stayed. About a quarter of that is what we would have spent on these family reunions, had we traveled to the US instead of the american side of the family traveling to Serbia. But it's the choice they made, [a depletive in serbian left to reader's educated guess].

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^*The 6-6 plan was to spend six months in Serbia, six months in the US, when we retire. I figured six months was about the time everybody would get bored by my stories about how life is great on the other side. Now I know better: nobody wants to hear these stories (some rare exceptions, though). They have their own preconceptions of how it is, and no live witness can shake their assuredness.

Skype, again

Skype used to prompt me when there's a new version. Older versions of it wouldn't do that every time there was one; some of my sagovorniks (again, interlocutor is not it, interlocutor is a mediator; sagovornik is your partner in a conversation - would someone please add co-speaker or maybe a better word for it into english language?) would report that they were several major versions behind, specially when the video between us was bad, resolution fell below a post stamp size and the sound began to resemble a bunch of r2d2s in a bathroom. Loading a new version usually fixed that.

Except that sometimes you just couldn't get the latest. The entry in the help menu would be grayed out.

The most famous yugoslav musician of all times

... must be Feat Sejdić. Because his name is mentioned in so many songs all over the world. Just search your playlist for his name (first, not surname). Doesn't matter whether you keep folk, pop, turbo folk, rock, even classics - he's everywhere.

Which is fine. And it's a miracle that, unlike many Yugos who made it big abroad but remained relatively unknown at home, that he's such a frequent guest even on local techno stuff, including the "english only" bands.

Tap coke

Someone just reminded me of the first and only time I went to a McDonald's in the US (or anywhere) and ate a burger. Truth be told, I went to one a couple more times, but that's because there was no other source of coffee in my customer's building. And I definitely didn't eat there.

This unpleasant memory brought another item that I didn't take for a decade - soda (OK, now and here I do, but that's only cockta, which I know is made of fruit, rosehips, and regular sugar, once a month won't hurt). In McDonalds, many breakfast places at gas stations etc, there's a dispenser for soda. You get your fizz on tap. The american way is to first fill your 20oz cup with ice, then fill the gaps between the rocks with sugar water.

We all know they don't drive around with huge tanks of soda - they bring the syrup, which is then mixed with water in precisely measured ratio, within the dispenser machine itself. Ah, but you don't ever see a big tank for water near the machine. It must be hooked to the tap. So the tap water is good enough for coke, pepsi etc? But, wait - the same industry says the tap water isn't good enough to drink, they want you to buy bottled water, they have created a whole separate industry out of delivering bottled water. They have created a whole new social setup, the water cooler as the center of office gossip.

And yet that same bad water is good enough for mixing soda on the spot? Specially coke, which is soooo sensitive to any changes in its recipe... and yet they don't really care how good is the water? So this water must be good, then. I mean, it's just impossible that there's some extensive filtration system in every dispenser - that would make it too expensive, specially in maintenance. The staff wouldn't be capable of it, they are cherrypicked to be the most illiterate, just barely employable, so they'd work for what they're paid. Anyone among them who'd be able to replace all the filters would immediately go to work somewhere else for much more money.

Alternately, if these filters have zero cost and maintenance... why aren't they sold just about everywhere?


So... someone is lying here. Either the tap water is actually quite good, and bottled water sellers just use scare tactics to make you buy their water. Seems like selling boxed ice to the Inuit, convincing them that the freely available ice just doesn't have the proper crystal structure.


Or it's the soda industry who just don't care about the quality of their product. They are selling a brand, not a product. Their custome... consumers, who allegedly can feel the difference in taste between their brown water when sampled in different countries, seem to find no difference between the bottled and tap one.


I'm sure someone out there has the explanation.

So... which language do they speak in Belgium?

New discovery: Van Gogh spoke english!

Here goes... a typical translator blooper:

The point here is not that the translator took "still life" to mean "still alive" - happens to the dimmest of us.

The point is the language used in the parentheses. Van Gogh (properly transliterated into serbian as Vinsent van Gog, no problem there) seems to have given his picture an english name. Huh? Wasn't he a Dutchman?

What makes it ridiculous is the idea that a painting needs the title of the original as if it was a literary piece. Maybe it does, in few cases of famous ones.

What makes it dangerous is this idea that english is always the language of origin. Because, by default,  local media don't really write anything. They are outposts of foreign (mostly German) principals, or (far worse) franchises. They translate what they get, and for some local color, have a few reporters to write about local stuff. The idea that a serbian newspaper should perhaps have a correspondent from abroad is 1) too expensive, 2) obsolete, 3) unnecessary, 4) never crossed our mind, 5) possible maybe for Politika and maybe one or two more editions who probably only have stringers, not regular salaried writers abroad. So they print what they get (i.e. scour from the web) and that is in english, because, again, the idea that they may need translators from any other language is 1) too expensive, 2) obsolete, 3) unnecessary...

Hence the illusion that there are only two relevant languages in the world: your own, and english. Maybe japanese, arabic, chinese, russian and spanish, when making a list like this. For any practical use, the two. Ah, and engrbian, of course. But that's actually your own, already counted.