Apie AIDS

WashingtonPost.com pateikia labai įdomų straipsnelį apie AIDS - kaip jis atsirado ir kaip paplito.

A couple of interesting reads

... about Europe's new scapegoats.

One is from the Economist and the other is from the Financial Times.

Here is a quote from the "Financial Times" that describes the mood of a hard working Dutch person:

<< No matter that the Netherlands is the biggest foreign investor in Poland. Wilders doesn’t care. Eastern Europeans – stigmatised by poverty – make the perfect “new Muslims”.

And so now do southern Europeans. A Dutch friend told me that on past holidays in Spain, whenever he drove down a road built with European money he’d think, “I paid for this road.” But nowadays, he says, he looks at the Spaniards walking along the road and thinks, “I’m paying for these people too.” This sentiment is growing, as northern Europeans are asked to bail out southern Europeans. At its crudest, someone like the German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld now feels free to say, “Nobody wants Greece to disappear, but they have really disgusting habits – Italy as well.” >>

Lietuvos draugai

Prieš keletą dienų teko skaityti straipsnelį apie dabartinės Lietuvos aktualijas. Dabar to straipsnelio kažkodėl neberandu bet laiko pamąstyti apie tai kas parašyta buvo. Taigi pateikiu savo nuomonę. Iš principo ten buvo diskutuojama apie lietuvio mentalitetą. Jonas Ohman (labai ilgai gyvenantis Lietuvoje ir labai nusipelnęs Lietuvai žmogus, įdomus bet nesusietas su šia tema jo straipsnelis čia) pateikė įdomią mintį apie tai, kad "tipiško" lietuvio mąstysena yra suformuota baudžiauninko arba partizano mentaliteto. Prekybininko, arba kario mentalitetas yra išnykęs.

Mano nuomone tai tikrai įdomi mintis kuri paaiškina šalies problemas. Iš šios hipotezės išeina kad tipinis pilietis nenori pats nieko daryti (daro tik lazda genamas) ir visko reikalauja iš valdžios ("baudžiauninko tipas") arba bando apeiti/pergudrauti sistemą ir iš to kažką laimėti ("partizano tipas"). To priešprieša yra prekybininkas/karys kuris imasi iniciatyvos ir pats kažką daro nelaukdamas malonės kitų.

Kita mintis buvo kad Lietuva neturi tikrų draugų kaip šalis. Norėčiau kad tas kažkaip išsispręstų. Gal reiktų kažkaip gyvinti paprastų žmonių kontaktus su Latvija? Juolab kad pradžia jau yra ir panašu kad mes latviams įdomūs? (Tarkim Maris Martinsons)

Pabaigai - pora video. Pirmas Jono Ohmano filmas "(Ne)įmanomi pabėgimai"; antras - latvis Lauris Reiniks dainuoja lietuviškai.

LLRA ir Lietuva

Įdomus straipsnelis išreiškiantis V.Landsbergio nuomonę šiuo klausimu.

Reikia pastebėti kad Edward Lucas iš "The Economist" irgi apie tai rašo. Iš komentarų matosi, kad problemos aštrumas mažėja (palyginus su komentarais anksčiau) - ypač kas liečia Lenkijos lenkų nuomonę.

Įdomus pokalbis apie ekonominę situaciją

Su Švente!

Visų pirma, visus sveikinu su Švente!

Na o čia gana įdomus pokalbis su labai Rusijoje žinomu žurnalistu V. Pozner.

Eurovision 2012

The selection to Eurovision 2012 takes place in Lithuania right now. It is about half-way through, and so far I like these guys - 25 year old Vytautas Matuzas, 17(?) year old Evelina Vaitkutė and group Bass Arco. Apparently Vytautas started singing only a couple of years ago in a Karaoke bar. So, so far my vote would go for them ;)


Text is by V.Matuzas from this site.

Everyone can try nobody can stop me anymore
Cause I’ve changed my brain, someone did wake up my soul
Three years ago I was too shy to look at the mirror
Now it’s the present I want you bring me under tree though
Don’t know if its me or its my heart
Started singing in the bars got treated like a star
Far from that I wasn’t raised on the 8 mile
Had a loving family and a big hearted smile
But something was holding my soul back
25 had to pass till I understood that
How dumb it is for someone to love you, to help
When you don’t really do it to yourself
Brave like a rabbit, my real way of learning
Is to pretend to be someone until you’re becoming
The one. Kings are making fears disappear
No more landing gears i’m longing new frontiers

[Chorus]
Just say two words and smile
No matter what they say
I am taking back my life
Step back I’m doing it today

[Verse 2: Vytautas Matuzas]
Sometimes sweet but maybe sour
You just keep breathing every @#$%in hour
Anyway, everything is ours
It’s up to you man, its you who set the bar
The path I chose to ride might be just one in a million
A chance of a failure? I don’t bother considering it
What’s over the rainbow how could you possibly know?
Scary as hell? Yeah, but I have chosen to go

[Chorus]
Just say two words and smile
No matter what they say
I am taking back my life
Step back I’m doing it today

[Verse 3: Vytautas Matuzas]
When I look up in to dark starless sky
I cant see anything. But the smell in my mind
Reminds that the most important things in human being
Are the ones that your eyes could never see
Even though your trust’s my inspiration
It’s such a shame you was too scared to taste it
The thing I’m talking here about is called life
Next time don’t be afraid, just take the goddamn flight
Just take it back, reclaim your life

Žemaitiška dainelė

Įdomus pokalbis su emigrantu

Mano manymu labai gerbtinas žmogus.

Events in Belarus

Here is an interesting video about one of the contributors to the Belarusian opposition site charter97.org:

Daily Telegraph mentions Lithuania in an interesting context

You can read about the problems of the British schools and about an event in the Lithuanian Embassy here. The description of the event in the Embassy is here ( in Lithuanian.)

Naujoji Roma?

Madonnos pasirodymas per 2012 Super Bowl (ko gero svarbiausias metų sporto įvykis JAV)

Įdomus pokalbis apie Lietuvos aktualijas

Kalba finansų ministrė I.Šimonytė.

Olympic poaching

Here is an issue that worries a good part of Lithuanian media today: the former Lithuanian Olympic pentathlon athlete - who apparently is one of the top athletes in the World - Donata Rimšaitė accepted Russian citizenship with hopes of getting more money and representing Russia in 2012 London Olympics. The thing was that she has to be a citizen for 2 years in order to represent her new homeland. Since 2 years have not passed, she needed a special permission from the Lithuanian Olympic committee to represent her new country. It was not granted - apparently because she did not held her end of the bargain - i.e. she took money for the preparation, agreed for conditions for the Olympics etc and then ran over to Russia. On the other hand, Rimšaitė claims that she found the love of her life in Russia - and her way of showing her love to him is accepting the Russian citizenship as soon as she can and participating in the Olympics for that country.

Anyways, as the link above shows, the thing got quite sour, the Russian representative Mr. Aminov is saying all kinds of things right now - so we will see how this will end ;/