Perfect Timing

Here in Pavilon E on the campus of a Central European (formerly "Communist") country,
I live in a dormitory.
It is not the worst dormitory.  My room is relatively large and has a separate kitchen corner.  I do not have a stove, but only a hot plate--which regularly ceases operation.
(But if I ask, they will repair it.)
It can be noisy here, and my windows face onto a nearby high rise with its thirty or so balconies.
On the other side of the flat, I see an ugly intersection where billboards are illuminated all night.  The paper thin curtains do a poor job of keeping out light.

However, I have the luxury of not needing to clean my own toilets.  A cleaning lady does that twice a week.  But I never know when she will come...And she is here now, just when I was about to take a shower.

I've got to teach soon, and I don't know if I will manage to shower.
Ahh, she's just left.

I don't like the thought that one person does all the dirty work.  And I don't like the way the cleaning ladies sit in their room on the ground floor smoking,.....The smoke filters up the stair well, and the place stinks.

Yet, they deserve better.  Their job is not respectful.  

Ah, gotta go take a shower...

So much for a slice of life from a post-Socialist paradise..........

Wage Slavery

Today I spent a good two hours planning for the courses I'll be teaching, as well as hunting for textbooks.  Then I spent more than two hours on public transit commuting to teach for about two hours.  I shall be paid for two hours of work.

That makes four unpaid hours of work today.

Wage slavery.

Czech Public Transport/Czech Punishment

One of my colleagues jokes, "Oh, you take that bus (the one going to the train station)?  Ha Ha Ha.  It's always full.  How can you do it?"

Well, if she knows it's always full, then so do the transport authorities.

Or, maybe not.  Maybe they are busy pasting paper advertisements to the windows of the buses,
and collecting payment.  (Hard to see out sometimes.  It's actually obnoxious and disrespectful.)

In 1996 I rode buses in Bratislava, in the Slovak Republic, and they were just as crowded and creaky
(swaying from side to side, hitting bumps hard) as are the buses today in the Czech Republic, in the city of Pardubice.  I see no progress.

If every family owns a Skoda and every school age child owns brand name sneakers and a smart phone, no, I don't count that as progress.

But no one complains, and it is (evidently) a laughing matter.

However, it's worse after a holiday or three day weekend--as if people were being punished for not working.

Oh yeah, the Glorious EU gives money to the Czech Republic and--lo and Behold!--they generously allow the government to buy buses.  But they are crappy buses--the sort that bounce up and down and seem ready to break apart on the bumpy roads.  And they are often full.

The buses are, moreover, full at entirely predictable times.  (As are, characteristically, the trains.)
Why not have more buses at those hours?

I repeat.  I saw this in 1996 in Bratislava. It is not a new problem.  (Yes, I know Slovakia is not the Czech Republic. For my purposes, it doesn't matter.  The point is that there has been little real progress.)

Some people call this "austerity"--denial of basic services to the majority of the population, in order to spend the money elsewhere.

Where is the money going?  Well, despite the fact that the army's budget in the Czech Republic is not increasing as much as they would like, there's a question of what they plan to really do with the equipment they've got.  Who are they really going to fight a war with?  Or is it all to be used against potential immigrants?

Don't Care Health Care

It is a bit more than a year after my father's death.
He was killed by a system and a facility which didn't care about him.
He was alone, without adequate attention, in a bed he could fall out.
As a frail elderly man, with a touch of senility, he needed constant attention, which he did not receive.  Worst of all, he was separated from all friends and family.  My mother had been married to him for 65 years, and now, at the age of 89 suffering from physical weakness, he was alone in a cold institutional setting where he had no one to really talk to.  (Oh, yes, occasionally a nurse was there---but only occasionally.)
My mother would have gladly stayed with him, but the facility did not allow her to.
Moreover, she was sternly lectured by some sort of accountant and a so-called "social worker" who told her that they would keep my father in their facility until his insurance account was empty.  Oh yes, they used different words, but it came to the same thing.
My father was only allowed to return home because we have a lawyer in the family, and he threatened the facility.
My father died at home, but he never lost that feeling that he had been abandoned and was alone.  An uncaring facility killed him.
This was predictable.  If those who were supposedly caring for him did not take the time to think about it, if their hearts have become so hardened that they accept this sort of mistreatment as "normal", then that is an indictment of the system of medical (don't) care.
In fact, I wish they could hear the following story:  When I was in Slovakia I read the following story.  A man was about to be executed by the Communists.  The executioner turns out to be a friend from childhood:  "What are you doing here?", asks the man about to die.  "Well, it's hard to find a job; I couldn't find anything else."

damned unpleasant

It's not pleasant to walk along a busy roadway, with cars screaming past.  An occasional motorcycle has ear-splitting sounds.  Some cars, too, seem to behave as if the driver thought he were in a race.  The sound, the speed, the stupidity of it all makes me want to retreat to a place far from what is so misleadingly called 'civilization'.

Then the bicyclists are impatient.  Ridiculous!  Some even have little bells.  What the hell does that mean?  Get out of my way!?  Why?  Why can't you slow down?  Twits!  Impudent jerks!

Sidewalks crowded in the most unpleasant way.  Waiting for a bus, bicycles come speeding. You must step aside or risk collision.  Worst of all, when the bus is about to arrive, and you see a speeding bicyclist coming towards you, you must calculate: can you safely maneuver to the bus door without a collision?  Because you cannot count upon the asshole  bicyclist to slow down or make room for you.

And then there are the rotund pairs, strutting amiably in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the world around them.....unaware that a bicycle is approaching.

Let the two fatties crowd the sidewalk at the same time two bicycles approach, from either distance, and then try to cross the sidewalk to reach your bus!  That's the sort of joy I enjoy in this place which dares to call itself a city.

THE INTERNET IS CRAP

From time to time, I glance at the blog of a retired philosopher, from whom, I dare to say, I've learned a few things.
But I often find myself bothered by his tendency (occasional, to be sure) to be mesmerized by the possibilities of the internet.
I think there's a simple explanation for why I find his attitude unfathomable.
I've not got as much free time as he does.  So, when something goes wrong with my computer or with the internet--or if I simply fail to read a web page carefully--it's more of a problem for me than it would be for him.  (Not that he doesn't have occasional problems.)
But, on the whole my overall judgment is that the internet is crap, and it is getting worse.
Dealing with my computer is also crap because the damn thing is of low quality, and I am in no position to buy a new, better one.
So, it's the old problem of time and money.
Recently I misread a webpage.  Well, is that even the right verb?  The page had lots of information, and I failed to notice the bit which applied to me.  In my experience, that sort of thing occurs frequently.
Internet pages overwhelm us with colors and their flashing signs, and I don't like it.  It is rather like the familiar phenomenon of learning to ignore omnipresent advertising.
But note the difference between an old-fashioned phone call as a means of acquiring information and the web:  You can ask a specific question to a person at the other end of a telephone.  That is not possible with the Internet, and that's the source of many problems.
When I go online to find out the answer to a question, I am typically about to run from one place to another. If I make a mistake and get the wrong information, it has immediate unpleasant consequences.  I am sure that if I were retired, and not rushing about, I would have a different attitude toward the damn thing.

Police State Pardubice

"I am the Law, and I will interfere with your life as I see fit..."  (Pseudo-Kafka)

At Pardubice's main (and busiest) street, a man crossed the street when the light was red.
Apparently, he got to the other side of the street uninjured, so there were no or few cars.
In the video linked below, we see what happens next.

A policeman (plainclothes but on duty) shouts "Stop", and the man does not.
At that point the policeman throws him on the ground, handcuffs him, and calls for backup.
 (Yes, obviously only a serious criminal would behave like that.  So, it is necessary to get back-up!)

 http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ct24/nejnovejsi-videa/312063-gibs-pri-zasahu-policista-v-pardubicich-nepochybil/

Are Czech policemen taking notes from their American counterparts?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aALArJP4rw

I can't see what harm the man did.  In any case, I see bicycles and cares driving aggressively and risking harm to pedestrians every day.  But the police apparently don't consider that worthy of notice.