EDITOR’S WORD

Dear Readers:

Thank you all who have accepted our new pages and thank you for reading them... We shall be grateful to you for all your remarks, advice and comments so that we can improve our writings. Today you see just the beginning of a new version of our journal…

Some of you reacted with sadness when you learned that you would not get any more printed issues, some of you remarked: ”I won’t be able to take the web pages with me to bed or to any other place.” Well, if you have a printer next to your computer, you may select an article of interest to you and print it out. It will be cheaper than subscribing to a whole printed journal and paying the high cost of postage. Nevertheless we will ask you for some voluntary contribution because even the web pages are not free. They will continue as long as we will be able to pay for them. But - as my colleague Martina Fialkova says in her article - you can join our International Czech Club (Mezinarodni cesky klub), take part in our meetings or become our supporter at a distance… I could tell you about our many scandals that our local newspapers write about and which leave our police and our justice completely unperturbed – it could amuse some of you or disgust others - but instead I have a very important question for you: Shall we continue in our English translations of our articles? Shall we translate some, and if so, which ones, or shall we translate all of them? We do not really know how many of our readers who live abroad read our English articles. We know about our subscribers in the USA and in Canada, but some of our readers tell us that their children or grandchildren like to read the English articles because they have difficulty reading Czech texts. Do they read cultural, historical or other stories, book excerpts, or just practical information? We thank you in advance for any information you can provide for us.

I would like to say, however, a few words about some of the latest news in our papers: The end of the world seems to be approaching! Our Academy of Sciences held a special meeting of experts on this subject and they organized a press conference. To calm the public they stated that while the Maya calendar is mentioning something about this, it does not say anything about the end of the world but only about a certain change that is coming, but that this change will be a positive one. But it will hurt. Really? Something seems to be already happening. It is hurting one corrupt representative who was convicted today of wrongfully appropriating 11 million crowns using some false subsidies as an excuse. He claimed that he was innocent, and that all of it was a political revenge. Well, the Czech Dialogue could use also some political retribution - it would not have to be in the millions - and the journal could continue in its printed form. And there is also bad news. The courts are releasing a man from prison who robbed thousands of citizens of their life savings. He was supposed to serve twelve years but he was released after six years. He did not return any money back to the people, but invested the stolen capital into other thievish businesses. People are protesting… And there is good news: A millionaire (who does not want to be named) is paying for expensive health care for a little sick girl. He said: ”I won’t take the money with me to my grave; I want to help someone.”

And more positive news - the days are getting longer. It is already 5 o’clock in the afternoon and I am just turning on the light.

I wish you all the best.

(Translated by Marie Dolanska)