They Buldozz Houses, Don't They?

It's almost Christmas Eve and people are feeling the Christmas spirit. Some with the aid of Hollywood movies, some in other ways.
There is no Christmas spirit in real life in Slovenia. Yesterday the President wanted to bring mobile homes for the Strojan family, so that they can spend the Christmas Eve in a temporary home. But the local villagers prevented him.
What kind of Christmas spirit is that? Do Christmas miracles happen only in movies? Is real life really so cruel?
Local people argue that they have some local law forbidding people to camp in their community. I wonder if they would follow the law if anyone else decided to camp there beside the Strojan family?
The state was quick to buldozz the homes of the Strojan family. However, it took the same state a couple of years to stop a family in Ljubljana from illegally changing the inclination of their roof, and there are people in Ljubljana who decided to illegally add another floor to their homes, and they even used their neighbor's land for the workers to walk on while doing it. The neigbors complained, in vain. There was no state inspector preventing the illegal building in that case. The neigbors were told that nothing can be done. Is that hypocrisy or what?
Good Bye, Christmas Spirit in Slovenia.

Who is a Journalist?

It seems that anyone can be a journalist today. Many of those who think they can write, also think they are capable of writing for newspapers. And sometimes the newspapers confirm that, by actually publishing what they wrote.

I am not saying that this is always wrong. After all in blogosphere almost everyone performs some of the roles of journalists. And many bloggers are even convinced that they are better at doing that than mainstream media.

It often happens that people think they can do what architects, builders or real-estate agents (but not doctors) do. They furnish their homes, sometimes they even build them, and more often than not they sell them. Usually, they say, they do this because it is too expensive to hire an architect, a builder a real-estate agent. I guess the same reasoning is in the minds of newspaper publishers who hire non-journalists. The difference is that in the first case, it is the person who performs the role of an architect and so on, who pays the price for his/her inexperience. In the case of journalists, it is the reader who pays that price.

I am not saying that anyone who finished journalism school is a good journalists, and neither I am saying that among non-journalists there are not excellent writers. I am only saying that sometimes I read an article that shouldn't be published at all. It is not well-written, it is clear from its content that the author hadn't had any idea what he/she was writing about, and what angers me most, he/she generalizes, over-simplifies, and sometimes even writes something that would be hard for him to prove (like a false hint by someone with an agenda). All this is not only his/her fault, afterall he/she was only trying to earn some money; it is much more the fault of the editor who published the story.

Sometimes I recognize such stories because I am familiar with the topic. What worries me, are all those stories that I read and believe in, but should't.

Uau, they dared to air that!

The other day we were watching the programme Preverjeno on POP TV. The first story was about hate speech. (This is a common topic of conversation in Slovenia these days. Isn't that sad?)
And after watching it, we commented: "uau, they dared to airthat!" The rest of the sentence remained unsaid: "for how long POP TV will be able to air such stories?" And then it struck us: isn't that awfull that in Slovenia in 2006 we are thinking like that?
Besides, the story on people inspecting the convoy of police vehicles in Grčarice, I first read on Dancing Photography. Borut ended his blog with the following words: "Thank you POP TV for not censoring this!" Well, the media situation in Slovenia doesn't need any further comments, does it?