Hrishabh Sandilya

Trouvère to a generation, Hollywood screenwriter, distinguished professor and amongst the ‘100 coolest people in Los Angeles,’ James Ragan has read for six Heads of State, with Bob Dylan, and to a standing ovation from 100,000 people in the USSR. Not a politician, but his politics have long played a role in both his poetry and his life. From protests in the 60s to reading for the Supreme Soviet and at the United Nations, Ragan has always been an astute social commentator and chronicler through his work.  His most recent anthology of poems “Too Long Solitude” was published in 2009 by the University of Oklahoma Press. A summer Prague resident, he talks about President Havel, the current state of America, the survival of the Arts and other things dear to him, in this expansive interview with Hrishabh Sandilya. (more…)

Martin Jan Stránský (Spring 2007)

In fledgling democracies, leaders often achieve greatness by skillfully capturing both the mood of the nation and the requirements of the times. For the Czech people, the former dissident-turned-president Václav Havel became just such a person. Upon his departure from office in February 2003, even many of Havel’s critics were forced to agree that his tenure had been both historic and highly symbolic. Several weeks later, one of Havel’s greatest opponents, the former Prime Minister Václav Klaus was elected by parliament as the country’s new president. (more…)

A nationwide referendum was held in Kenya yesterday to determine whether the country should adopt a new constitution. Voter turn out was high, and according to reports thus far, 66 percent of the votes support the proposed changes. Many hope the new constitution, which will lessen the power of the country’s president, focus on land reform, and create a Kenyan bill of rights, will address many of the political ailments that have plagued the country since its independence in 1963.

Further reading on the referendum voting process and results can be found in the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor.

Hana Švejdarová (Spring 2004)

Many Europeans arriving in the US for the first time might not understand the structure of a typical American city.  A new arrival in the US would ask himself – where does the city actually end? Many Europeans perceive the American city as an inhospitable place with a glut of parking lots, busy streets, and buildings scattered so far apart from each other that one has to drive a car to get from one to the next. However, after office hours, the cities empty out, with the centers becoming oftentimes dangerous at night.  Those with money have long moved to the suburbs, a trend helped by the relatively low cost of running a car and by easy and advantageous mortgages in the US.

Czechs are now also beginning to move out to the suburbs in increasing numbers, at the cost of an often grinding daily commute to Prague, with children’s “school runs“ thrown in as well. American‑style satellite cities, nicknamed “Beverly Hills” by the locals, are emerging in the environs of Prague in places such as Průhonice, Nebušice and Šestajovice. Prague, along with other large Czech cities, is beginning the process of suburbanization that began in the US many years ago.  The current urban conception of the States is therefore a model prototype for the possible consequences of recklessly importing these American customs to the Czech Republic. (more…)

Elena Green (Autumn 2008)

“Let us have a practical, but also a general and a philosophical education. Today, especially, we also need historical and political education. Morality, today, is in large part political morality. Let us not, therefore, separate politics and morals.” Over a century has elapsed since these words were first issued by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk in his Ideals of Humanity. And while today we may use terms like partial knowledge versus key competencies, the task at hand remains the same: to approach education as a humanistic endeavor to produce democratically-minded, thinking and speaking civic participants—not learned robots. And so today, as the Czech Republic stands in a new century and in a new state, she stands also with a new Education Act, which aims to do just that. (more…)

Marissa Miller

In 1899, a Jewish man named Leopold Hilsner was accused of raping and murdering a young Catholic girl in the small village of Polna in southern Bohemia. Immediately after the murder, a great deal of anti-Semitic press surrounded the case and fomented riots and acts of violence against the Jewish community throughout the Czech lands. During this time, the outspoken Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a philosophy professor at the time and future first president of Czechoslovakia, protested the charges that were brought against Hilsner and espoused his support for the Jewish people. Although Hilsner was still convicted of murder, Masaryk’s public defense was a harbinger of future relations between the Czech Republic and the Jewish community – and the future state of Israel. (more…)

Ondřej Jonaš

Projected World GDP 2015

The the bigger the country, the greater its
GDP – projected values for 2015. (more…)

Jan Hartl

1. The basic systematic problem in Czech politics is the fact that our political system was created from “the top down.” Any power hungry person (who was not entirely compromised by their role under communism) could and did enter the political arena. Stories are told about how the first political positions were handed out: “Do you know someone decent who could do… ?” There was no other way of doing it in November 1989. The problem is, however, that the situation is more or less the same today. Individuals still do not enter politics from “the bottom up;” they do not begin at the local level and work their way up through the communal, regional, and parliamentary levels of government. (more…)

Martina Klicperová-Baker (Summer 2009)

A little less than a century ago, the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, expressed that two generations or sixty years would pass before the newly-constituted democratic state of Czechoslovakia saw real democracy. Does the same hold true today for our twenty-year-old democracy? (more…)

Over 100 people marched through the streets of Prague yesterday to show their support for Israel in its ongoing conflict with Palestine. Carrying flags and pro Israel signs, supporters walked from the center of town to the Israeli embassy. Organizers from the Czech Support Israel group said the march was to show Czech support for Israel’s right to defend itself.

This march was seen as a response to a demonstration that was held on Saturday, criticizing Israel and their raid of a ship convoy in international waters that was carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza. Yesterday’s protesters said that this act, which was criticized by the international community, was misinterpreted and Israel was acting only out of self-defense.