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May 08, 2010

I do love this country, I really do, but they’ve got the most godawful food in the entire world.  Right now my wife is snacking on smaženky.  Now, the first time I heard her describe this, I thought, ah, great, it’s French toast.  Bread coated with egg and fried.

Except it’s not.  They use a  put mustard on it, maybe an onion or a slice of ham.  In any event, it’s not sweet.  It was a pretty unpleasant surprise.

So, the next time she served it, I thought what the heck, it’s French toast.  I’ll go ahead and put syrup on it.  Absolutely disgusting.  It’s a thicker kind of bread, and maybe a heavier coating of egg.  In any event, despite the similar ingredients used in their preparation, smaženky is like the anti-french toast.

Drštkova is tripe soup, and it tastes as bad as it sounds.  Actually, back in my alcoholic days,  I used to quite like it.  It’s an effective hangover cure, because you will either spew your guts out and then be O.K. or you won’t, in which case you’re probably invincible.

I suspect that a large part of Czech cuisine depends on inebriation.  The first year I was here I practically lived on klobasa, the fat, greasy sausages served with a piece of bread and a dollop of mustard at stands that are open very late at night.  It’s just what you get when you’re staggering home from the pub at 3 in the morning.

Then I quit drinking alcohol.  When I came back to the Czech Republic, I was surprised at how utterly revolting to me klobasa now seemed.  I think it’s because your body wants something high fat to counter the alcohol.

Sure, there are some Czech dishes I like.  Fried cheese.  Tenderloin.  Goulash.  But for the most part, Czech food is pretty heavy and sometimes downright gross.  It’s O.K.  Here, as in all of the world’s civilized areas, Chinese and Italian restaurants are plentiful.

Over at thepartisandialogues.com, I am having a bit of a discussion about the merits of legalizing marijuana.

One problem with that site is that the screen jumps and everything I’ve written disappears, (actually, the problem is probably with my computer as I have trouble leaving comments at Huffpo and Wonkette sometimes, too) so I keep my comment s real short.

On Microsoft word, my cursor still jumps around a lot, but it’s not as bad, so I will leave the long version of my comments here.

There are many reasons why it should be legalized.  The reasons people have given against it are few and not very compelling.  There is the guy who doesn’t want his (adult) children experimenting with it and fears they might if it’s legal.  Well, he’s right.  They might.  There’s the girl (I’m guessing from the screen name) who is worried that if marijuana is legalized, heroin will be next.  And the one who is worried about the freeways being overrun by dope fiends.

Basically, they all watched Reefer Madness in Junior High School and bought it hook, line and sinker.

There are so many reasons for legalizing marijuana that I must categorize them.  First, there are the financial reasons.  The cost to the police in paid man-hours looking for and arresting potheads, the cost to the courts of having all those trials, the cost to the prison system of housing those individuals could all be saved.

It could be taxed.

There would be a wave of new products.  Hemp clothing, hemp seeds (a nice, crunchy addition to a salad), cooking oil and rope are just a few.  New products give people something interesting to buy, thus stimulating the economy and creating jobs.

Pizza sales would increase.

Then, of course, there are the medical reasons.  Not only can marijuana be a cure for specific conditions, but it also keeps the stress levels low in general, and that’s good for you, no doubt about it.

Then, there are the social reasons.  First, it’s just better to live in a society where people are allowed to do what they want.  Second, legalizing pot would reduce violent crime, by  allowing the police to focus on it, and increasing the willingness of your average citizen, who may or may not smoke pot but usually knows somebody who does, to  co-operate with them.

Party on, people!

Today’s blog is to introduce myself to the readers of thepartisandialogues.com.  I’m going to start linking my blog to that, because from a quick scan of the comments, they are seriously in need of a liberal point of view.

The blog section seems to be totally dominated by some guy who is convinced that the Mexicans are taking over the United States.  I don’t want to engage him in an argument about who gets what job, or why Mexicans have a higher birth rate (maybe they’re getting laid more often?) or the most effective method of sealing the border.

I like Mexicans.  I like the food, I like the language and, as people who I would like to have a conversation with in a bar, I’d choose a Mexican over a teabagger any day.  If they take over, it would be an improvement.

The loose thread section is infested with people who use terms like Obummer and Liberal Media and Rush is awesome.  Coming from Wonkette and Huffpo, I am not used to that.  So, they need my input and, since I didn’t see anything about it being officially a conservative site, and also since they let me say fuck and shit, I’m staying.

About me:  I am married to a woman who is far too good for me, have two kids, and teach English as a 2^nd language in Prague.

About my political views:  Yes, 9/11 was an inside job. Republicans are evil.  Marijuana is a gift from god, but that’s just a figure of speech, because I don’t believe in God.  Green is good, but it’s complicated.    Space exploration is good, privatization thereof maybe. Of course gay people should be allowed to get  married.  Government should stay out of religion, sports and popular culture.  The death penalty is wrong.  Guns kill people.  The internet should never be censored.  There’s more, I’ve got an opinion on just about any subject, and I’ll  get  to them all eventually.

I will try to keep my writing entertaining, so that it won’t be too horrible reading it even if you think my opinions are idiotic.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo, everybody!

I just went to watch Isabel perform in a presentation for Mother’s Day that her class did.  It was the most adorable thing I have ever seen in my life.

First of all, I knew my daughter was the smallest in her class, but I didn’t realize by how much.  Her birthday is in December, and by the calculations of the Czech school system and most Czech parents, she should not have started until this upcoming September.  However, my wife was anxious to start her new job and get back into the mainstream of real life, we begged the school and they eventually relented.  So, she’s the youngest in her preschool class and you can add to that that she is not genetically predestined for extreme height.  Neither my wife or myself are particularly tall.  Still, she is a head shorter than the next shortest and there are two girls in the class that are nearly twice as tall as she is.  Literally.

So, that was very cute and all of the kids were standing in a semi-circle facing the parents and they were all holding hands and they were all extremely cute kids, there was one girl who seemed to be a bit uncomfortable in her dress but for the most part they were also a well disciplined group, like an experienced troupe of veteran performers.

Various kids came out of the group, one by one, to do their solo performances.  Nobody flubbed their lines, none of the other kids were poking them in the back, and the recitals were short and sweet.  I was worried that Isabel would have to do that, if everybody did it, and I was nervous for her, but in the end only a little over half the kids had individual parts, so she was spared that – until next  year.

There were parents with cameras, there was a baby crying in the audience, it was all very cliché.

The biggest difference, for me, between this and a similar event at an American school, was just that I didn’t understand all the words to all the songs, but it didn’t matter.

Cute little kids are cute in any language.

Today, Sam left for nature school.  That’s pretty close to the literal translation, and we don’t have a better word for it in English, that I know of, because it doesn’t exist in our school system, or at least it didn’t in Iowa when I was growing up.  Here, it’s a long-standing tradition.

I guess it’s a bit like summer camp, except it’s during the school year and the whole class goes.  I hope they still do some schoolwork, but it seems like they have a lot of other activities planned.  Ping Pong.  Jump Rope.  Sam is very jazzed about the ping-pong.

When I first heard my students talking about it, I assumed that because it’s called škola v přirodě, kids learn about plants and trees and outdoorsy stuff, but I’m pretty sure now that plays only a small part, if at all.

I doubt if I’ll be tremendously enlightened when Sam gets back.  He likes school, has lots of friends there, but never tells me anything.  So, I don’t expect this to be any different.

It will be a holiday for us, too. Without taking Sam to school in the morning, picking him up in the afternoon and accompanying him to football practice, I should have an extra free hour or two per day on my schedule.  Of course, I should be using that time to write, but I don’t know that I will.  Also, we’ve talked about using this time to get the balcony cleaned up.  That’s a worthy project, but I think it may be an impossible task.  There’s an awful lot of junk out there.

Anyway, I’m sure by the time nature school is finished, we will be very anxious to have our little Sammie back.