DUTCH OMBUDSMAN MUST DEFEND THE CITIZENS

OUT OF WHIM, A CAPRICIOUS CLERC
DECIDES TO MALTREAT A SENIOR (DISTINGUISHED)
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
AND NOT A SOUL MOVES A LITTLE FINGER
AGAINST SUCH A MALPRACTICE




In my very modest opinion this is an urgent case for the Dutch national ombudsman. The director of the CBR (drs R.A.L. Verstraeten) allows his medical counsel (X.H. Nguyen) to maltreat me while processing the extension of my driving license. I am 71 of age, have a license for the past 45 years or so, had two STAAR operations on my both eyes this summer, have a document from an eye-surgeon (d-r Floris Hageman) that my eyesight is fine and that the driving license should be extended for 10 (ten) years.

I still do not have it.
That is the caprice of the clercs of the CBR.
Such behavior is intolerable.
I am under medical treatment and must drive every workday for radiotherapy in the AMC, I have explained all that, and the director of the CBR continues to allow his medical advisor, who is NOT an eye-surgeon, to stall the processing of the extension of the driving license.

It is unhuman.
Such a chicanery of people may not be allowed in this country.
There is no point having an ombudsman who does not act upon complaints like this. The bureaucrats feel bolstered and become intolerable. That in turn undermines the legal state.

Why is "The Girl from Macedonia" pissed off?

Tanja Milevska is a journalist.
Her mother is one, a very well informed and sharp correspondent for Macedonian media from Brussels.
Her grandfather and her grandmother were also big time journalists.
In her latest article she sort of whines for the missed opportunity to drag the attention of her colleagues during the recent NATO summit in Lisbon to the "Macedonian question" there unanimously pushed under the rug.
Of what I gathered, she was not given the chance to air her well prepared question at the joint press conference of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and President Karzai of Afghanistan. Since everybody around her knew that "the girl from Macedonia" will have a rhetoric question about Macedonia - she was skipped, her risen hand disregarded.

She felt frustrated.
Eventually, latter, she had seen the light. This is how she tries to declare she is turning a new page in her work.

"There I was in a huge press room with prominent journalists from all over the world fighting to put questions about the new global security challenges, while outside the venue peace activists were demonstrating against nuclear weapons and Portugal was readying for massive protests against poverty…. and all I could think about was the negotiations about Macedonia’s name.

I’m not saying the name issue is insignificant. But it would surely be a good thing if the country were to get out of that narrow hole and take a look at what’s going on outside. If nothing else, it would take some of the drama about the inevitable change to the name of our country. "

Interesting.
I sincerely hope that she will prove with the stuff she files that Macedonia has what to say and discuss with the world apart of the issue with Greek absurd and self-destructive intransigence. She may indeed help many to follow her example.

Serbs join Greeks in attack on Macedonia

The alert against the Serbian kitsch in Macedonia does not have anything racial
as Latas implies because the Serbs and Macedonians are same white race.
There is kitsch everywhere all right, but Serbian kitsch is something different
The Serbian kitsch is, eh, the king of kitsch.
So why did Latas made this up?

There is no doubt that the peaceful and through the course of time stoically enduring Macedonians are again harassed, exposed to a brutal, joint, aggressive pressures and intimidations emanating from the political dens in Athens and Belgrade. This harassment is dangerous for both the region and for Europe as whole. The aim of the intentionally lightly veiled plot is to question the international legality of the Macedonian language, culture and ethnicity, the right of the Macedonian people on their hearth and home, albeit the legality of the otherwise internationally recognized territory of the sovereign countries that 129 UN member-states address as the Republic of Macedonia.

The implications of this synchronized attack on Macedonia are deadly serious.

THE UN SECRETARY-GENERAL MUST EXPLAIN, IN PAINFUL DETAIL,
HOW WAS THIS "MISTAKE" POSSIBLE, WHO'S DONE IT, WITH WHAT
EXCUSE AND AUTHORITY AND WHAT MEASURES WERE TAKEN

The Greek diplomacy and money-laden lobbying groups have succeeded to involve the United Nations administration into a dirty, illogical, losing gambit of sacrificing every single principle of the Charter of the World organization only and only to eradicate the term "Macedonian language" from the UN official ID of Macedonia absurdly referred to as FYROM. The eradication was annulled after the lightning intervention of Mr. Miloshoski, the foreign minister with the secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon. The public still awaits the detailed explanation how was such "a mistake" possible, who executed it and what or who and when with what motivation enticed the UN official to act illegally.

This affair illustrates how imperfect may be the official documents of the United Nations and how easy it is to amend a far reaching texts disturbing or endangering not groups but whole nations. Such an affair may not remain veiled and every single detail of it must be exposed to the full General Assembly of nations.

The proposed line of action is badly needed.
It will, in my opinion, point to the head of the Hellenic state as a culprit in a joint act of defrauding the international institution, the Security Council of the UN, with intention for group or personal profit in the form of influence, power, position, moneys or all of those simultaneously. Mr. Karolos Papoulias, the president of Greece, signed the Interim Accord, an obligatory document that binds Greece NOT to block the other party of that accord (the Republic of Macedonia) from accession to international organizations, But the man said today that Greece will effectively block the admission of RM in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization tomorrow in Lisbon. This is the case for the International Court in the Hague.

Greece, therefore, opposes the will of all the other NATO member-states, 129 UN member-states not out of spite but because of its interests in the future of the Balkans. Those interests are secret and obviously transformed into plans and plots. The first ally in such a scheme are obviously influential circles in the Republic of Serbia. Those circles act ever more aggressively against the stability of Macedonia, their southern neighbor. While one (the northern) part of Macedonia badly suffered more than 80 years under brutal Serbian yoke, the other (southern or Aegean) was ethnically cleansed by savage, atrocious Greek occupation. Until 1941 Greece and the Serbian (Yugoslav) kingdoms shared borders on somebody else's homestead. Both occupiers brought into Macedonia of the Macedonians their settlers, in numerous cases brigands, murderers and gendarmes ruled by a thin layer of tradesmen, bureaucrats and "educators" with nationalistic and expansionist agendas.

The remnants of those settlers are now rabidly active in and against the Macedonian definitive integration within the family of nations under the centuries old name of its population. There is no point evading the fact that a significant majority of Macedonians considered themselves (until the 19-twenties or thirties) as brethren with the Bulgarian folk. There are abundant documents that point out to the definitive formation of the national cognition as separate, distinctive ethnicity after the 19-thirties. Personally, I myself do not mind if the definitive, firm and lasting comprehension of my compatriots as Macedonians begins with the first ASNOM and I do not care of Alexander the Great, the king of Macedon or Samoil, the unfortunate Emperor with his court in Ohrid.

DRAGAN PAVLOVIC or latas, APPEARS AS A CLASSICAL
"AGENT-PROVOCATEUR" WHO ENJOYS INSULTING
THE COMMON SENSE OF THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM
ACTUALLY INCITING ETHNIC INTOLERANCE

But I do care when people today threaten the freedom of speech, intimidate editors and journalists with criminal proceedings when they publish a title pointing to the "Serbian kitsch". So, an editor of daily newspaper, "Vecer" (Evening), scared the with of the Macedonian nation by announcing he rises as a gallant saviour in defense of the Serbian nation, name and honor. The guy is a brazen type who does not mince his words. He is of course a Serb who has been living in Macedonia for years, a capable journalists who dominated the Macedonian tv-programes (he is fluent in the local language) and now edits a popular daily. So, this man, widely known by the nickname Latas, alias Dragan Pavlovic, has written and signed a threat that he will take to court a bunch of people because (according to him) they enticed ethnic hatred and racism.

Well, naives might think that Latas is fighting for larger circulation of "Vecer" or for influence through notoriety. He might. But he is actually the opening the attack from all guns against the rights of his colleagues on a freedom of speech implying that the Macedonian population of this small country is actually a crowd of ethnically intolerant racists who hate the Serbs. This stupidity will be taken up and drummed by the Serbian press. The Greeks will jump on the platform too with "it is not only us, the Serbs are endangered by the Macedonians" and so on and so forth. There are about 1,3 million Macedonians squeezed between something like 16 million Greeks and Serbs, notorious for their ancestors' role in subjugating Macedonia.

All this is synchronized and explodes a night before the NATO summit in Lisbon. Now, I will profess that NATO will disintegrate if Macedonia is not invited to join it. It will disintegrate because Macedonia cannot financially survive as an independent state without some formalized external help. Macedonia has endured 20 years of chicanery but I doubt it can hold on another 20. Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia cannot single-handedly manage Macedonia. This becomes a bundle, a Gordian knot but composed of human emotions and blood, not threads of wool to be cut without profuse bleeding all around.

If Latas files a case against enticing racial hatred, no court in Macedonia will dare dismiss it. But the alert against the Serbian kitsch in Macedonia does not have anything racial, Serbs and Macedonians are same white race. Or are they? There is kitsch all right, but Serbian kitsch is something different, recognizable. There is sure Bulgarian, Dutch, Greek and German kitsch, but Serbian kitsch is, eh, the king of kitsch. So why did he make all this up?

My educated guess is that he was asked to do so.
Maybe, if you comment enthusiastically, I will agree to disclose who do I think instructed this smart guy Latas, the journalists who so many people love to hate.

Is there a Dutch way to blatant corruption?

This summer I have allowed a perfect stranger dig into my precious eyes, one after another. With a pair of pincers he took out first the left lens (the black of my eye, my window to the beautiful world and faces around) and after few weeks the right one. He implanted artificial ones. So that I can see better than the big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood and have my driving license extended (I am just over 70) these two STAAR surgeries were a necessity.

Dr Floris Hageman, a very able and highly recommendable eye-surgeon with the OPSIS center in Amstelveen worked miracles and we parted with him stating that he warrants I will have no problem getting an extension of the driving license because I could now drive without glasses at all. But then came the surprise.

The medicaLadvisor of the Dutch CBR (an acronym for Centraal Bureau Rijvaardigheidsbewijzen) sent me letter demanding that I provide a document from an ophtalmologist that my eye-sight is OK. Tthis is what I wrote back:


Geachte d-r Nguyen,

You have decided to send me a “verwijzing naar een oogarts” because, it appears, you did not trust the report from my huisarts d-r H.L. Kieviet.
That decision of yours is symptomatic. Doctor Kieviet told me that he was reporting that I had two STAAR operations on both eyes this ummer in OPSIS oogartsenpraktijk.
For your information I was operated by Drs. Floris Hageman who specialized as oogarts in the VU Medisch Centrum. Zijn bijzondere aandachtsgebieden zijn hoornvliesproblematiek en de chirurgische behandeling van staar. Drs. Hageman is lid van het Nederlands Oogheelkundig Gezelschap, lid van de European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, lid van de Nederlandse Intraoculaire Implant Club en Fellow of the European Board of Ophthalmology.
If you are an ophthalmologist and an eye-surgeon you might well know d-r Floris Hageman.

I am puzzled why do you want me to pay other €80 (you needn't care that I am a so called "minima" on uitkering by the Rijk) for a new check of my eyes when I received one document on 8 September from the OPSIS of which you have a photocopy included. In my opinion you have not read well the documents sent to you 30 days ago. I have asked the director of the CBR for a speedy processing and explained why.

I think you have done your job poorly or with caprice because you have refused to trust d-r Kiewiet's recommendation last year and after a simple check up in OPSIS which was WITHOUT any surgery, you extended the license for a year incurring only costs but not doing a thing for the safety on the Dutch roads and highways. I doubt that you understand what I am telling you. I demand a five year extension of my driving license right now.

Since I feel myself mistreated by your whimsical decisions do rest assured that I will press for a full investigation in this matter but you cannot withhold the extension of my driving license.

Sincerely
Grozdan Popov

A Dutch horror with T-Mobile

.
T-Mobile Nederland made my life a misery.
Of what I have experienced, I would say that these people acted and behaved with planned, brazen insincerity to trick people into a scheme.
T-Mobile Nederland has advertised that anyone may have an i-Phone 3G for a basic tariff of €29, 95 and my family decided to surprise me with one for my 69-th birthday. They gave me the cash for 24 months and I was besides myself with joy.

Not that I was unaware of the shenanigans of T-Mobile various offices and individuals, but I simply thought that improper or outright irresponsible, improper, harmful or damaging attitude and practice by T-Mobile Nederland is impossible in this social and legal climate. Well, I was totally wrong.

T-Mobile Nedrland bullied me inflicting serious financial and health damage through the services and attitudes of a legal firm, I believe that they, the T-Mobile Nederland, must have bullied other innocent people as well. I believe that this matter must be criminally investigated and I will try to put this post right into the hands of the "officer of justice" or the public attorney who should in his or hers official capacity have to act and investigate the allegation that T-Mobile KNOWINGLY, being fully aware of a criminal situation at its own turf, maltreated, intimidated, scared and inflicted serious psychological harm to innocent customers motivated by indolence, greed, careless attitude or all of these combined.

This is a serious allegation against T-Mobile. Despite I would have never dreamt of extending the 24-month contract with T-Mobile (at the end which the Nokia I used should have been unlocked and I could keep it even if I changed the provider) when it was announced that they had an exclusive contract with Apple for the iPhone I had to chose: either t-Mobile or forget about iPhone. T-Mobile sent me the iPhone for free on understanding that I will continue the subscriber status for yet another two years.

The problems arose instantly. I have signed and written that all I want is the basic monthly subscription of €29,95. Few month latter the invoices rocketed to €89 despite I would have neither calls nor 10 SMS messages per month. When I have written that something is wrong and requested investigation - the boss of customer services of T-Mobile chose not to respond.

Then LINDORFF PURCHASE B.V. from Zwolle, the legal representative of T-Mobile, approached me (in writing) with a demand for a ludicrous payment. They wrote I responded, they wrote some more and threatened me with the courts and I responded, then they fired more threats and my nerves had begun shaking, the whole family was upset and, and this important, the iPhone went dead. Completely dead. Then it would give a sign it is alive but the SIMM would be locked. The expensive machine was (and still is) totally useless.

A friend, lawyer and ex-diplomat who I helped come and settle in this country, told me it was all my fault and I better pay. Since his wife is a big shot with a multinational telephone services provider I was guided to begin believing that T-Mobile was acting like all those other providers, that I have overlooked something.

But, eventually, an engineer in agronomy took the case and in September 2009 pressed the Lindorff B.V. to prove their claim that I was wrong and that I have actually called from the iPhone incurring costs that they claimed they were a step away from collecting through a court order. Suddenly Lindorff B.V. said (over a telephone) that there was an investigation and that T-Mobile had found out that somebody (a criminal gang I assume) was incurring costs to unsuspecting, innocent T-Mobile subscribers and therefore, all the so far demands for payment became nill and void, I owed nothing to T-Mobile and should forget the matter.

The Lindorff B.V. obviously thought that such a stance closed the whole troubled affair. They thought that all their threats and the cut services, all that relentless pressure that lasted for full six months would be, could be so easily forgotten. The Lindorff B.V. guided me to a T-Mobile store in Amsterdamse Port where upon presentation of passport and those people unlocked the blocked SIM. I wanted the same old status of a fixed number subscriber but they were not authorized for such a move.

The T-Mobile CONTINUED, despite its own and formally admitted fault to treat me *with the old, fixed subscription number, as a punished, "prepaid" customer, which is completely illogical. Namely, this iPhone does not come for free with a prepaid status. That is exactly the mess which T-Mobile created.

Thus, I made an ING bank transfer for €20 just to have the possibility to send SMS urgent messages, invitation to be called on that number and keep the machine alive. After only two SMS messages the €20 expired, were eaten up, no trace but the number of the bank transfer. I believe that the thieves who operate within the network of T-Mobile and who have stolen all that money before - are active again. I have the iPhone next to me and notice that somebody is contacting the number and trying to suck money out of it, occasionally a dozen times within couple of minutes.

At the T-Mobile shop in Amsterdamse Port I also bought another prepaid card at €20 for the old Nokia. That money was gone within a day without me calling anybody. I was robbed again. Imagine if there are one million T-Mobile subscriber and if thieves, or T-Mobile self, syphons from every singe one €20 a month? This would amount to a €120 million robbery, a criminal ring and the police should be involved.

This is a case for a very able lawyer who would like to make a big name and big money by bringing the mighty T-Mobile and Lindorff B.V. as their accomplices in what I think is a clear act of tried extortion. Unfortunately, even capable lawyers are unwilling to bring the mighty ones to the courts because of the attitude of the Dutch judges to keep the population in hopeless submissive stupor under the yoke of the financial and administrative might.

Nevertheless I am positive that one nice day, hopefully sooner than latter, that attitude of the Dutch populace will change.

FOUR INTERESTING VIRTUAL FARMERS

This is supposed to develop into something like a review of characters cum proposal for a different game or companionship with some ideas acceptable for people with creativity and similar hobbies.
At this moment all I want is use the great pictorial facility of Blogspot.
The actual text about the authors of these farms, what do I see in Farmville and how do I judge the people who play it - will be here in the days that come.
Thus, if interested, return. Will be fun.

I am talking about
Vesna Lompar
Tim Carey
Lav MGM and
Goran Bojkovski
actually how did they inspire this project of a post.
Take this only as a trailer.

The top ranked of the farms among my 200+ friends is the one in constant transformation and upgrade by its mistress my old time friend Vesna Lompar, a graduate in italian language and literatura (used to recite Dante by heart) and latter journalist with Radio Belgrade. She has been all over the world, I met her in Amsterdam ages ago where she lived and worked with her late husband whatever seemed attractive and we were often partners in travels (Austria, Florida, Jordan, Cyprus) until she decided to return her Dutch passport and settle in elegant comfort in the heart of Belgrade.

Have a look how does Vesna imagine her farm.



Vesna has a large collection of very highly ranked Serbian painters, loves to travel and spoke to me the other day how she succeeded bringing a salaried "housmaister" in the building thus transforming the derelict pile of flats into a clean, very safe (cameras, domophones and so forth) structure.


On the other hand Tim Carey is Englishman. Somebody told me: "Of course, it shows". There is this class-division visible, the high ground for the master and the low lands for the working peasantry! This is not true because I know the guy and he is a hard working European, I think, marketing manager of British American Tobacco company in Amstelveen. We do enjoy Remy Martin and he simply happens to have a spare uncorked bottle now and again, thus demonstrating style and funds, but he is a homey person. His farm has nothing to do with the structures of Lav and Goran.
There I want to make a point.


What Tim would not disclose is how he succeeded elevating the ground and trnfrt quite a persuasive 3-D feel to a virtually 2-D environment. Anyway, here is his comment placed elsewhere about this post:

Interesting idea... Was thinking last night on why the farm looks like it does...
You will have to excuse the crops that appeared (the intention was to have a farm with no crops (ie purely a county retreat)... I needed to generate extra funds to theme for Christmas which messed things up a bit... the hovel over to the right was storing my decorations.
My mathemtical mind was interested in the way you could make 3d effects with 2 dimensional building objects... hence the raised area (which due to the graphics had to be in the top corner).
I then wanted to balance this rigid structure with random trees planted throughout (with the side benefit of hiding those areas of the 3d structure that aren't possible to create using the tools available).
Where the class / English element definitly kicked in was the house... When I first picked this frustrating application I (and a number of friends) set ourselves the goal of getting the mansion... Within Farmville there is no real end to the game and the mansion seemed like a reasonable chequered flag.
With all this in mind - I wonder if it changes perception of the character as demonstrated by the farm? I set myself a clear goal, wanted a clear (and innovative) structure but still wanted an artistic feel to the final design.
Would be intersted to see where this blog goes.... The idea of using characterisation within games sounds interesting...
And finally... ;-) Great Blog !!!

(I am blushing all over)

Now, thew farm of Lav MGM is something different. It has a villa, it has a hell of a lot of items, it is same size, but, well, there is this atmosphere of a Balkan well-off, nouveau riche owner managing it. See how many domestic animals are all over the place and just compare it with Tim's farm where there is not a single hen or pig or even horse.

They may be neighbors all right but they come from two obviously different backgrounds and different cultures. The may both be quite amiable people but their differences will not help them striking lasting friendship: they think and behave differently.

I thought of proposing to those wizards of the Farmville to allow areal views of quadruple farms, actually five would be ideal, that one owner could have a view of the properties of his or hers immediate four neighbors.

But then, they, those software wizards and the money managers behind them, could also enlarge the game towards building the environment consciousness. Like compost production, like wind energy (imagine the lamps are lighted at night time, if it is not too expensive) and the farms stay dark (relatively) during the night (of the central server) but not so if you have your own windmill electric plant.

Sorry, I am being carried away...

Finally, the farm of Goran Bojkovski. My pre-predecessor as a boss of the YNTO (Yugoslav National Tourist Office) for the Netherlands was Petar Bojkovski, a good friend, passed some years ago out of consternation I would say. Goran here would not respond whether he is anyhow relted to that Bojkovski, an ethnic Slovak from Banja Luka who soke some Macedonian because he served his military obligation in Skopje. Anyway.

In a moment I will come back to add some comment over Goran's farm.
PS
PLEASE NOTICE THAT THE PICTURE ENLARGES WHEN YOU CLICK ON IT

THE EXOTIC CUISINES OF THE WORLD

The recipes from the ancient imperial court of Macedonia:

the delicacies of the table of Alexander the Great

Even in hindsight and from a safe emotional distance "The Exotic Cuisines of the World" has been one of the finest,very well prepared and decently supported projects that I have brought to the market. Based on food and drink. the everyday staples of the humankind winged by the enormous political drive and resolution of former Yugoslavia to "export or die" the project had everything needed not only to attract the investor and the consumer alike but to impress them with its transparent, tightly woven legal, creative and commercial structure.

In short, it was bound to be a huge success.

The basis of the project was the export of Macedonan wines to the United States.

At that time Henry Kissinger and Lawrence Eagleburger were pushing very hard every imaginable Yugoslav product to the American market. I know that among the other reasons for their involvement even in day-to-day corporate businesses was a view that without significant exports Yugoslavia could not pay for the military procurement from the United States. Keeping the Yugoslav war machine as dependent on US deliveries as possible was one of the reasons they have embarked the ill-conceived and heavily promoted project of "Yu-go America". It was a flop, of course. But cars made in a Serbia (long ago abandoned "Yugo-Florida") for the American standard is one thing and wine for the taste of millions of expatriates quite another.

Thus, since the disastrous mistakes of the Eagleburger's strategy were already a hard factual lesson it was easy to fathom that there must be a different approach in selling Macedonian wine around California and Nappa Valey. Now the late Robert Mondavi had entertained me, as favour to the State Department, in his mansion and explained very many aspects of the wine industry, his ambitions, the tastes and the whims of the American wine consumer. He knew of the wines from that part of Europe but discarded them as "ethnic" product.

That specific remark was the core of the approach in the promotion of this project.

It had to be shaped in a most presentable form for the Americans of Slavic ancestry. Its content and packaging should make them proud to consume it, to extend it as a gift to their friends, associates, neighbors and relatives. Therefore, the package, a bundle, needed to relay not only on the wine but to the food it is to be consumed with and the mere idea of the promoted food recipes had to be as far removed from the ordinary staple as possible. It had to be associated not with the beans soup or feta cheese but with the food served on the court of Alexander the Great, for example,

That sounded exotic and attractive enough.

The numbers were impressive. There are 2,3 million Americans of generally Balkan ancestry who give at least six million presents annually. A package of three bottles of wine (red, white and rose) with a video-cassette (it was 1987) full of step-by-step preparation recipes interspersed with emotional folklore and vistas topped with a game, three free nights in a resort on the majestic Adriatic.

A film star like Robert Redford would guide through the content of the video and Safeway would be distributing the package.

So, how does one wrap up such a complex project?

To start with most of the wineries in Macedonia used the cardboard gift-box of three 0,7 l. bottles of wine.

The next thing was the video content. I turned to film director Stole Popov, a friend, no relative, and persuaded him to come to the district court and sign a contract that he will produce six films featuring master-chefs from various countries, some folklore, vistas and so forth. The man is an Academy Award nominee in a documentary category and I have promoted his superb film "Happy New '49" as a Yugoslav entry for best foreign language film, an affair that made us friends.

With that contract in hand I went to another friend, now late Gavril Gavrilski, the CEO of Makpetrol or Exxon of Macedonia. He signed a document for Makpetrol to finance export of up to 10 million bottles of wine.

Then another businessman, Dancho Shuturkov, the COO of Makedonija Tabak, came in with a proposal that I accept cash from an investor and if within two months an American firm formalizes a contract about the Macedonian wines - then Makedonija Tabak will be willing to become a partner for the rest of the Exotic Cuisines of the World.

The cash from the investor was a paltry $ 1,500 or two months rent for a fine but unfurnished flat on Larabee Str in West Hollywood.

With that and double of my own money I dawned in Los Angeles with intention to settle there for some time. Only one of the few friends I had in the area and around the country knew about my arrival and he, Steve Pope, a guy desperately trying to make it in films, dully met me on the airport where a Hertz car for a long-term rental was awaiting.

Steve had picked a selection of derelict henhouses as accommodation befitting in his judgement an expatriate from the old country. the guy is rather colorful character with an Actors Guild membership card hand signed by Ronald Reagan. But he knew that he could never be an actor.
((Please click the map to enlarge))

Within a week I had rented under contract the garden-level apartment Nr. 209 at a very decent (garage with dedicated place, swimming pool, jacuzzi) address only a block downhill the tres chique section of Sunset Boulevard. The property there has a wide automatic, sliding iron door to the underground garage and airs a feel of a hacienda. The address on 950 North Larabee Str in West Hollywood, 90069 Ca. was not only respectable because of the neighborhood and all those fine tenants, mainly professionals and single, but because of the easy access to public transport and all the facilities, parks, hospitals, gig supermarkets and vfariety of bookstores, shops and restaurants.

The next day after moving in - I got a telephone 213-652.5597 with a wire extending right down to the pool. I cannot really remember whether there were no wireless machines or whether they were prohibitively expensive, which is illogical from our present feel of the market. The installation of the phone does not require any hassle because it is all done without people coming home and meddling with the line but it took me a day deciding what to phone, how long wire, a recording machine, that sort of stuff.

Since I had a credit card issued in Yugoslavia and cash and the phone number costed something nothing I decided that my own checkable telephone and address is more important for the bank, whichever I chose, than appearing with a request for an account as a stray dog, no checkable and documented fixed address and an open account phone number. So the big woman of Pacific Bell looked at the American Express credit card but opted for the cash.

By noon the next day i had 200 visit cards and decided to open an account with a branch of Bank of America where customers arriving by car could validate their tickets. A subtle message and a chance to drop a line like "Will you please validate this so that I can take this brand new Buick out". This does not seem much, but, then, it does not hurt anybody. I was left with impression that bankers like to know the basics of their clients and it helps to inquire whether they have correspondent banks in South-East Europe,that my funds will come via Stopanska Banka and while you appear to inquire you also supply information. Within an hour I have ordered personalized checks and deposited all my $4500 on it. Well, not exactly: I was left with some 2,500 DM and a handful of dinars which were left in cash.

My electricity and gas was supplied by contract with the Southern Ca. Edison Co. acc. nr. 55-42-616-1458-28 and then, with all these insignificant papers, diligent people issued me a Social Security # 563-95-7192 card (crucially important document for entering the labor market, a huge advantage over millions of people scrambling for work and residence papers. Nobody ever asked me for my coveted Californian ID.

So, within the first 10 days after my arrival, before doing anything else I was established as a perfectly legal alien residing in the USA. I am very proud of that achievement. Ten years before that not even the mighty Yugoslav federal government could influence the Greek smalltime bureaucrats to grant me a resident and working permit in Athens although I was officially elected and sent out there under UN ratified and obliging international agreements representing the Yugoslav National Tourist Office. What ambassadors and deputy foreign ministers could not do in six months with the Greeks I have singlehandedly done it in ten days in the City of Angels swarming with illegals from all corners of the planet.

The summer days in California begin at dawn with sweating the late nights out and go on for ever with almost every minute planned well in advance. My stomach churns when I see these "promoters" sent by the Macedonian government abroad and compare their exorbitantly costly (about $115,000 gross annually) incompetence and inefficiency with the simple daily output clocked by my poor self while in the US. Between six and seven in the afternoon I would have a 3-4 mile slow run along Cynthia, then Elevado, downhill Elm and then eastbound towards home by way of Carmelita till Oakhurst slowly up and dive in the pool. This strategy paid and within a week from every third or fourth porch a casual but good humored "hi there" would greet my appearance. Some of those faces Jackie SImons among others I soon begun meeting and exchanging pleasantries in the Safeway store.

In Hollywood one does not sell wine from Macedonia. One goes to Hollywood to buy film related services.

I have an Academy Award film director under contract to deliver me an almost edited 90 min. film within three months. I need 100,000 video cassettes of top quality. How long will it take you to deliver them, packed in sleeves and how much is the video cassete and how much the sleeve with wrapping? Here you are with my credentials and these are the people who know me in Hollywood..

So after a week, with all the documents safely in my pocket, I appear at Dan Tana's on Santa Monica Boulevard. The guy greets me, he does remember me very well from the time I threw a big lavish party (for the account of the Yugoslav Consul-general from San Frncisco) at his place. He asks what I am doing and I tell him I need two thing: one is a top-quality video-cassette producer for 100,000 copies of a special feature film and a link to Robert Redford's agent who I need for two appearances, 3 minutes introduction three minutes closing statement for a Yugoslav tourist-gastronomy item. We shall pay him with a Lipitzaner stud. Dan Tana begins asking because all this does not make much sense although he is sharp minded as a Wilkinson Sward. http://www.dantanasrestaurant.com/

-What is the film all about?

Then I see Richard Gere and with my best smile I say:

-Just to say "hi" to Richard,- and I go directly to poor Gere.

TO BE CONTINUED

.

Macedonia can outsmart its neighbors

A Macedonian daily published today an opinion that the neighbors of the poor country (Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Kosovo) are tightening the noose around it with an intention to suffocate and then quarter Macedonia. The long (1506 words) article, quite above the internet patience limit, attracted 5232 visits so far and numerous, very angry comments.

One among them tells the author (Dimitar Culev) that he is wrong for blaming the government of Macedonia of confused reaction and total lack of strategy because he himself does not have a clue how to respond to this situation.

This was the straw that broke the back of my patience. I simply must speak out.

Neither the present government nor its predecessors have committed any such crimes that deserve a Balkan-type posse after this peaceful nation whose only crime is the inspiration and the courage to call itself after its own name which now they all contest and claim theirs. My suggestion is that the people of Macedonia and the government must stay calm until the 7th of December when the EU needs to decide about the beginning of the accession talks. Then, in case no such date is set by the EU - two separate actions are needed.

First, the people have to press its government to let them speak out on a referendum about this unbearable state of affairs.

Second, the government, the president, the parliament have to declare their view of the situation in a joint State of the Republic of Macedonia Declaration.

This needs to lead to a proposal for declaring the Republic of Macedonia a visa-free, sort of off-shore country, duty and tax-free entity. A sort of a mixed legislation resembling a combination of Luxembourg, Andorra, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Panama.

Let all the neighbors, Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Kosovars and Serbs travel and sojourn in Macedonia to buy Bayonne ham and Hertz salami, Rolex and Ulisse-Nardin watches, gold in bullion, olive oil, gas, tires, automobile parts and cars, Apple computers and iPhones, Zegna and Armani clothes at prices with AT LEAST 15% discount. Let the government turn Macedonia in the shopping mall of the Balkans.

How will the lost revenue from taxes be compensated?

By explosion of employment, capital inflow and - why not say it - trimming the bureaucracy and the armed forces. Transfer the pressure on the neighbors. Let them maltreat their own citizens returning with piles of purchases from Macedonia. Let them respond how is THAT phenomenon possible.

Make Macedonia the shop-window of all the attractive and necessary goods produced in the world and suddenly available at 30%-35% lower prices than in Salonika or Sofia and 20% beneath those in Tirana, Pristina and Nis where the goods are of dubious provenance.

The Parliament would have to kick upwards or sidewise the stubborn governor of the central bank and open the doors wide for foreign commercial and investment banks. There is a possibility of at least 5000 jobs to open up in that sector overnight.

The remodeling of the entertainment and tourist industry is a must with or without this arrangement. Casinos and all sorts of gambling facilities with red-light sections along the presently sleepy border communities. Legalize soft-drugs like the Dutch. Scrap the stupid law forbidding the farmers to meddle with the poppy, pass the initiative to your starved people, invite Pfizer and Novartis as consultants. SImply. No money, just use the pencil and some of your brains.

That is my proposal to evade the noose your Balkan neighbors are tightening around your neck dear Macedonia.

Robbing the poor pensioners

The orchestrated scam on the property market resulting with the failure of the big bankls in the US last year (also known as the "crisis", "the market crash" and so forth) had wiped out $5,400 billion (€3,590 billion) off the value of the pension systems of the industrialized world. This was reported (without much fanfare) by the OECD few weeks ago.

Now, can you imagine how big pile of money in bills of $5 you would build to make $ 5,400,000,000,000 in cash?

Why bills of $5 and not larger notes, say of $20?

Because a $5 bill buys a retired person bread, milk, pasta and apples, all what is needed for a day.

Maybe that would be a small mountain-size of cash. Maybe not.

But for 1,000,000,000 people the total (?) loss IS about 1100 days (three full years) less life .

In short: a bunch of smart asses fuck-up the system out of greed and one billion people need to perish three years earlier than God allowed them to live.

If you think a little you will probably ask yourselves where the hell was that money placed to perish so quickly in such a short time? If it was in state obligations, US Treasury bills - it would have been safe. Yeah, but it was not.

The managers of the wast majority of pension funds do NOT put the cash formed of monthly contributions of millions of working people in US *or RM) Treasury bills but in equities, stock, shares traded on the stock exchanges of the world.

Why?

Because stock, shares are bigger fun and MAY produce higher return than the fixed rate of return guaranteed by the state, whether USA, China, Macedonia or another. The average pension fund manager actually plays with the savings and lives of millions of people. When those managers goof it on the stock exchange or place enormous sums of money (for retirement benefits of unsuspecting people) then those contributors are duped, stolen, robbed of years and years of savings for some latter, distant day security.

This huge loss of $5,400 billion is irretrievable.

Gone. Perished.

ONLY IN COUNTRIES where the pension funds DO NOT put all of their liquid assets in stock (Norway, Turkey, Switzerland, South Korea and Germany) the pension fund did not lose money but grew. In these countries the pension funds invest only between 10% and a maximum of 20% in shares, in equities. I do not believe that the pension funds managers in either Turkey, South Korea or Switzerland are angels guided by heavenly hand and high morals. Methinks that it is a combination of rules, laws, oversight, control and culture that saved those pension funds from the awesome loss suffered by the other pension funds.

The stupidities of David Pilling on China

The other day Lionel Barber, the editor of Financial Times, disclosed that his main job was to stimulate talent and manage large egos. Since ages ago I was (almost) in the same position as Barber I hereby dare extend an unwarranted advice in a form of a purely facultative suggestion.

Mr Barber might begin downsizing those egos of his columnists by enticing them to read my blog dedicated to quartering FT content. Take for example David Pilling. This guy says:

" If China were to continue to prosper, the dead hand of government would have to be loosened in order to give private enterprise the space to create wealth.

This is a laughable statement.

1. Mr Pilling admits that the People's Republic of China does prosper now. Most of the observers agree with that. This confirms that China has been prospering with the dead hand of the government clenched on the society and the economy. The 1,3 billion citizen have been markedly growing better off and that is not the case with the populations of the countries of the liberal capitalism.

2. Mr Pilling does not explain why it will be impossible to continue prospering with the same dead hand gripping.

3. Mr Pilling suggests that the government in Beijing should give space to private enterprise to create wealth. That is absolute rubbish because the dead hand already and continually creates prosperity and wealth. When the private enterprise gets free hand then wealth disappears in thousands of billions of dollars and other currencies. People are evicted from houses. Millions go unemployed. Pension systems are depleted. The world sinks in chaos and only the traders of Goldman Sachs get rich sucking taxpayers money.

Mr Pilling should have a miniscule ego if he reads, with my modest self next to him, his article once again. Here is another nonsense.

"State owned banks (in the People's Republic of China) which now have foreign shareholders, have suddenly decided that this is the time to lend. This year, they have increased credit in local currency by more than 160 per cent. No one can imagine this is the choice of free agents responding to market signals.

In the US nearly $2,000 billion were (also very suddenly and also in local currency) extended by the Federal Reserve and others to save some big financial institutions while letting other sink. Those hand-outs were actually an unprecedented intervention by the dead hand of the US and other governments, money lent on a long list of conditions. Every single batch of state funds was administrative and totally flawed purchase into the ownership of the banks and insurance companies. In other words the US had nationalized the banks to save them from private enterprise and collapse.

No one imagined that those acts were the choice of free agents responding to market signals. The US market tumbled.

Everybody knew that the Big Money had persuaded the Big Politics to suck the taxpayers' money in order to save the society from chaos by forcing debt to present and future generations.

At a session of the Joint Economic Committee held this week, Republicans escalated their attacks on Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, including a call for his resignation. Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.) revealed the attitude of the House and the American people about the handling of the crisis. "I don't think that you should be fired," he told Geithner. "I thought you should have never been hired."

That is how inflated egos and plain incompetence are handled dear Mr. Lionel Barber of the Financial Times. Learn something from the communists. They, among other methods regularly applied a system of "friendly critic" and publicly expressed "self-critic" after visible blunders of individuals with inflated egos.

Herman Van Rompuy, How Could They?

woensdag 18 november 2009 10:06

herman van rompuy

if I know anything about politics this well matured provincial Herman Van Rompuy, 62, will be elected the first president of the European Union. That will be totally insane but having one Dutchman and another pureblood Luxemburgean (isn't that funny) as candidates, the prime ministers did not have much choice to oppose Tony Blair, by far the best, most global, most gifted from all of them even you put them in a bag.

So I decided to mark the event with a link to a great performance by this amazingly attractive, sensualCamille O'Sullivan who sings a song (titled Jackie( by a long gone Belgian singer-songwriter-composer Jacques Brel.

This is all inter-connected. I have a feeling that many of you have not heard of Jacques Bre. The man died some 30 years ago of lung cancer, but not before he composed "Ne me quitte pas" performed in 400 versions in 29 languages by singers like Ray Charles, Marlene Dietrich, Frank Sinatra, David Bovie, Nina Simone and others. He was a superb, socially very much involved songwriter and fine composer.

I hope that you will click to hear and see Camille O'Sullivan.

She just got 5-star review for a concert in London.

You may accept this as my consolation for this idiotical attitude to elect a president from among a bunch of marginal European prime-ministers. Not members of the European academies, no professors, no philosophers, no writers but day-to-day ephemeral local politicuses of small countries with absolutely no world-stage experience or vision.

Will China Fret After the Threat of the Clenched Fist?

You most probably know that Barack Obama, president of the US, met the other day in Beijing comrade Hu Jintao, president of the People's Republic of China. It was a private meeting. Being well informed bloggers you might also know what did they talk about, though I doubt it. But, I am positive you DO NOT KNOW what was Obama supposed to tell his host during that tete-a-tete exchange of views.

Now, there is this abrasive Martin Wolf, a columnist for the Financial Times, who knows exactly, word-for-word, what should have president Obama (hissing or between glistering fangs) told his Chinese host. Wolf and Financial Times are the mouthpieces of the rotten, avaricious, international, big (dirty and all) money.

If the FT spoke for the sinking, totally insignificant UK it would have been waste of time to deliberate about this article. Those words should have been "some brutal truths" on the following lines.

At first Obama should have sweet parleyed Hu Jintao saying that US believed that "the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations".

Then Obama should have turned more businesslike and declare that the US simply does not care what happens with its primary creditor (China) after investing "incredible" amounts into US currency.

"I am president of the US. I am not going to put our economy into a depression, to protect the value of Chinese savings. After all, nobody in the US asked you to intervene on so massive a scale in currency markets and so accumulate the incredible total of $2,275bn in foreign currency reserves by September of this year, much of it in our currency.

Then, according to Wolf, the American should have unmistakably showed his teeth and growled by saying:.

"You have, I am sure, decided that such lectures mean nothing. What you may fail to understand is the speed with which democracies can shift their attitude from the open hand to the clenched fist. If, over the next year or two, your current account surplus exploded upward, while our deficit did the same, it would be impossible for us to ignore.

All this would not have been of any significance if provided by somebody else in another publication. Martin Wolf speaks for the wolfs and hawks of the international capital and therefore his position indicates the state of the collective mind of the power-shakers. This sort of reasoning is both illogical and false. The pressure on China to revalue the renminbi is more than absurd, it has no market sense. If the renminbi is so blatantly undervalued - why does not the US or the liberal capital managers simply buy as much of the Chinese currency as possible and (when Beijing eventually realizes that it is in Chinese and global advantage to revalue) make huge profit out of that?

To threaten China with a clenched fist is, mildly phrased, both laughable in the current state of affairs and idiotic as a concept of solving complex global disparities.