Skipping school for a better education

Yesterday some tens of thousands of German school students went on the streets to complain about lack of teachers and the poor standard of Germany's education system (recently the duration of school education required for university entry was reduced from 13 years to 12, but they still have to cover the same amount of work). There is much talk of parents forking out for extra classes for their darlings, huge pressure on children and so on.

Oh, I remember it well. We did the same things, for the same reasons, in the early 70s. I always felt a fraud, given that I hated school- so why was I demonstrating for more teachers? It got me out of class!

My first demo was at the tender age of 15. Which was before the minimum school leaving age and therefore not entirely legal. Which would have been fine - had I not been a smart aleck and been in the front of the demo, right in front of the press fotographers. Teachers read newspapers, you know.

But the sky did not fall in! Not that I really cared by then....

To deal with the teacher shortage I swear that half my classmates trained as teachers. Life-time job, all those holidays, those afternoons off....As must have done the rest of that generation in Germany. By the time they finished many could not get jobs as teachers, and even those who did left after a short while - either unable to procure a permanent position or just through fed-upness.

Obama and Georgia

This article suggests that Georgia may feel a little chill from the win of Barack Obama in the US presidential election. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Georgia, or rather its president, has been rather self-satisfied in recent years, only hearing what it wants to hear from foreign governments and international bodies. The article goes on to say:

"Georgia had to meet NATO at least halfway," said
Lincoln Mitchell, a professor of international politics at New York's
Columbia University. "And what it got under the Bush administration was
the constant message: 'Have bad elections? We'll cover for you. Make a
foolish decision and get pulled into a war with Russia? Here's a
billion bucks, don't worry about it. Keep cracking down on media and
civil liberties? It's OK.'"

It's about time things on human rights, social protection including health and I am sure a number of other matters were cracked down on by those bodies Georgia wishes to join. Under current performance Georgia may dream of joining NATO, but as for joining the EU - forget it!

Coffee in Vilnius

The Baltic Times writes a gushing article on coffee houses in Vilnius, and especially the chains we now have here, like Coffee Inn or Double Coffee, where you get 'a decent breakfast along with your morning coffee'.  If you have plenty of time, that is - the service in Double Coffee, whether you are in Kiev or Vilnius, is notoriously slow.  After one morning finding half the staff asleep on the benches in a Kiev branch open 24 hours a day, it kind of put me off a little.

But are these reports really neutral? Did I not hear the other day that journalists get paid by the subjects of the 'research' for writing nicely about them?

Who started the war?

Interesting article here about the Georgia/Russia war. It suggests Georgia started the war, despite Georgia's vehement protestations. International observers (in Tskhinvali?)including a Finn, a Belorussian and a Pole, describe the firing on Tskhinvali as indiscriminate, with at least 48 rockets falling in civilian areas (this is blamed on the inexperience of the Georgian military).

The Georgians, naturally, dismiss this report. 'Who counted these rockets anyway?', they ask. Would have thought it ain't that difficult to count a rocket that landed, would you?

Mrs Palin at her best...

Lovely article on a spoof which she feel for hook, line and sinker...

Vilnius miniatures

I always wondered why the Lithuanian post office stamps mail on the back on the envelope when it arrives. Seemed a bit of a job creation scheme.  But now it's coming in useful, in judging the performance of the post office.

When I returned home around 25 September, and went to my local branch staffed, it seems, by toothless old crones who only speak Russian, to pick up a parcel I was surprised not only to receive a parcel, but also a whole pile of letters. The manageress of the delivery people, as her staff found more and more letters for me, visibly had steam coming out of her ears - did I get the feel she was managing a kindergarten?  Today I found my letter box crammed with letters. Bit surprised. Among them letters from my university dated 16 September reminding me to register for courses which I have been studying for the last fortnight. One or two letters looked a bit crunched.... It occurred to me to look at the back of the letters - the oldest letters arrived in Vilnius on 27 September, the newest on 4 October. Don't send anything perishable by post!

...on a bus yesterday (was shooting all over Vilnius for what I hope was probably a row of pointless medical appointments) I was intrigued to spot the driver of the minibus behind me wearing a seatbelt. It's unusual, but some of them are rather wild drivers, and perhaps he was wilder than most? The picture of apparent safety was a little disturbed by the cardboard cutout of a cannabis leaf dangling from his mirror.

I see Lithuania runs an annual quiz about the Lithuanian constitution (glad we don't do that in the UK...). Here it says that among this years winners are teachers, students and a prison inmate - good for him or her. I wonder if that person's human rights are being properly respected - but he/she should be able to stand up for him/herself.  Presumably people allied to the legal profession are excluded from this quiz, otherwise it would be a bit of a poor show for their profession. It's a good and worthwhile activity (has a flavour of the Soros Foundation about it, no?), but it seems a bit of an anorakish thing to do. But then we also have the national spelling competition every spring, where in townhalls up and down the country people take part in a spelling test (in some ways I fancy that one, always having been a good speller, but I'm not quite sure if my Lithuanian is up to knowing where some words begin and end sometimes).

Changes, changes

So, after the war with Russia, it's time to change the Georgian government again. About time, too - it's lasted for almost the whole year!

The prime minister has been dismissed, after negotiating hard with donors over the 4.5 billion USD donation for Georgia following the war. Remind me again who started it?

The PM (37) is going to be replaced by the current Georgian ambassador in Turkey (35), whose chief qualification for the job is to attract Turkish investment into Georgia.

Georgia, the wonderful investment location.....with an unstable government in an unstable region, a probably declining economy, huge interest rates, no protection against bank collapses....right....