What A Wonderful Country!
As I was chewing on my electronic rodent to the point where it actually rolled over and pretended to be dead, just to avoid abuse, and while trying very hard to think of someting witty and clever to write (improvisation is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent deodorant commercial) a thought crossed my mind.
Now, this doesn’t happen very often. Usually it is my mind chasing thoughts, holding them at gun-point and making them cough up whatever it is they are thinking. About. So the sensation of a thought crossing my mind was not unlike being hit by a train. there I was, sitting on the john, all happy and mellow, and suddenly I realized what a marvelous country I live in.
I live in a country where a PM can call a referendum, see an eleven-percent turnout and doesn’t resign. Moreover, he still calls it a resounding victory. He is also caught copying from speeches of foreign leader and still doesn’t resign.
I live in a country where a mayor of a capital can call for a boycott of that very rerendum and survives. Then -when results are in - calls for resignation of the PM. Only a few actually hold the call for boycott against him.
I live in a country where the Attorney General settles old disputes by having the police use excessive force agains a former colleague of hers and she doesn’t resign.
I live in a country where a long-overdue part of a highway is finally opened but is closed only hours later because pieces of concrete start falling of. The minister of transport naturally doesn’t resign.
I live in a country where inflation reached a staggering seven precent and ministers of economy and finance don’t resing. Even more, they’ve nothing to say.
And finally: I live in a chicken-shaped country. Maybe we should let butchers carve it up and form regions 
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Don’t worry: It seems that nowadays all the countries of Europe have a selection of such venal, self serving (and Pontius Pilate-like) politicians and civil servants. My own country especially
You’re not really a member of the EU without some!
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Thank you for putting my mind at ease. I feel much better now
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Er, my pleasure, I think.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
You are still not having it so bad.
Just imagine - I live in that part of the country that no one really cares about - the Ass. Could that be the reason why highway connection is still just a promise. Who would ever want to go and explore the ass?
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Hummm… I could think of a reason or two
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Among the two reasons, could one be somehow related to Kromberški grad and the fine wine they serve there?
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Hummm… I’ve yet to see the Kromberg castle in person, but wine is definitely a good enough reason. Especially the local Cabernet Sauvignon
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
@Mr. P: What would the other reason be? I suspect I could hazard a guess…
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Should I compare thee to a summer taste,
I would compare thee to the deep Rebula
and its strength so virile
that nothing and noone could resist.
Hen, regions, ass, wine… the fil rouge got lost somewhere along the way
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
@Adriaan: Casinos, obviously
@venera: Marlowe, is it?
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Shakespeare, revisited.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate…
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I know… But some would have you believe that Shakespeare often pulled “A Janša” and copied from Marlowe. A lot.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Marlowe is often alleged to have been a government spy. (Wikipedia)
Are we now coming the full circle? This spy thing could easily be connected to some of our politician ( Rupel a spy for the US?). There is only the last step to be made from our politicians to your desperate outrage about this chicken country.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I’ve never seen an eye more blind than the one I come from
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Mr. P: Your leftist propaganda is becoming intolerable. Any respectable citizen uncontaminated by communist indoctrination realizes that anything that could potentially be interpreted as a failure by the present government is either a residue of the five decades rule of the previous totalitarian structures or an intricate vicious plot designed and set in motion by said structures with the sole purpose of discrediting the courageous
men and womenman currently running the country ever so capably. Have you no shame?BTW, chicken wings rule!
July 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Dammit, I live in the ass…
July 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Hey, you’re near the exit!
July 4th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Always the optimist, eh, Pengovsky?
July 4th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hey, if you gotta go down, go down in style
July 4th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
@Mr P: “if you gotta go down, go down in style”
I’ve used that line, but not in this context.
Got the right response though!
July 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
@Adriaan: Wicked! And - again - shameless.
Oy vey, the youth of today…
July 4th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
What a pleasure it is at my advanced age to be referred to, even obliquely, as a member of “the youth of today”
I rejoice!
And quite like the Wicked and shameless taunt as well.
I must be doing something right…
July 5th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Those Ljubljanese highbrows … always thinking about a way to screw the Styrians.
I would recommend that the author get acquainted with the term “Pohorska ikebana”, before coming here on a skiing vacation.