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January 31st, 2007 issue

Jan Soukup is in danger of losing his Vltava Pub if a rent hike goes through.
Death of a pub
His rent is only doubling and not the 25-fold stated in the article (“Last call,” News, Jan. 24–30). This should be a fair amount considering redevelopment of the area and potential for further tourist business.
Joseph Bukowski

Prague

Editor’s note:
Actually, the article states that the Vltava Pub’s rent is would rise from 23,000 Kč ($1,067) per year to 50,000 Kč per month, which is roughly a 25-fold increase.
Government business
Finally, Parliament has stopped playing games with the country’s future (“Topolánek finally wins confidence,” News, Jan. 24–30). Eight months of having no government is long enough.
Joel Monkarsh
San Leandro, California
Paroubek is right to rebuke Miloš Melčák and Michal Pohanka. What they have done is nothing short of election fraud! I would have been very angry if I had voted for either of them. What gives them the right to ignore the will of the people that elected them? They stood on a Social Democratic platform and the least they owe their electors is to stand by it!
COURTESY PHOTO
A U.S. missile-defense radar base on tap for Czechs worries some.
Alex King
Cambridge, UK
Beneath the radar
As a refugee in Switzerland in 1968 from Czechoslovakia, I am against any military meddling from any foreign country (“U.S. asks to build radar in the ČR,” News, Jan. 24–30). First it was the Nazi Germany, then the Soviet Russia and now it is the U.S.A. who is taking the freedom of this country. The best way for this country is the same system Switzerland has. This would guarantee true independence and freedom for the Czech people. At this moment this state is obtaining the status of a new colony, this time of the U.S.A.
Martin Erban
Winterthur, Switzerland
Secondhand smoke
I’m not against the import of cars regardless of age, but the two-stroke Trabants or Wartburgs should be outlawed! They represent much greater environmental contamination simply because no one really mixes the gas and oil properly. It’s a stinky mess of a car, too slow to keep pace on today’s modern highways.
(“Czechs snapping up imported used cars,” Business, Jan. 24–30)
Jackie Brown
Prague
One for the Gipper
I thought that it was a joke when reading it (“Prague to get Reagan memorial,” News, Jan. 17–23)
Lets get a few things straight here. The free market can also be held responsible for the vast material inequalities occurring globally (and regionally) via processes of capitalist uneven development. I don’t want to get too technical here (God — sorry, “Reagan” — forbid), but free-market capitalism and “shock therapy” can be seen to have wiped out thousands of people’s livelihoods throughout the region. Bohemian brown-coal basin, anyone? The armaments industry in Slovakia?
No wonder the Prague mayor is so ecstatic. Did you realize that the free market means that 20 percent of the Czech Republic’s FDI stock is concentrated within Prague 1 alone? Maybe some of this wealth that is causing such a (localized) celebration among the political right could be redistributed to help those struggling for a living in more “peripheral” regions?!
Just a few ideas in the quest for discursive balance.
Andrew C. G. Cook
Nottingham, UK
Yes, Reagan should have a statue. But it should be marked:
“Well-known war criminal. Wanted for crimes against humanity. Now mercifully dead and buried.”
Almud Alir
Prague
I applaud Prague 6 Mayor Tomáš Chalupa for his leadership in recognizing Ronald Reagan for his key role in the fall of communism. Ironically, as Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis argues, it was Reagan’s belief in a world without nuclear weapons, combined with his understanding of the true nature of communism, that gave the West the courage to confront communism. Soviet leaders understood that in Reagan they faced a man of principle they could not manipulate. The result, as Reagan predicted in his speech at Westminster: Communism has been left on the “ash heap of history.”
Roger Ream
Washington, D.C.
To Mayor Chalupa and Prague 6:
Why not build a memorial that 1) actually attracts visitors (by 1989, Reagan was less popular than Clinton); and 2) better represents the end of the Cold War — by including key figures who were at least as important as Reagan?
These would of course include: Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement; the Greens and anti-nuke movements; Pope John Paul II; Gorbachev and Thatcher; Václav Havel/Charter 77/Jan Palach; and the cultural icons — from Lennon and Kafka to the fax machine.
I’d much prefer to have my photo taken in front of the whole bunch — rather than just with some bronze version of our second-rate U.S. President/B-movie actor. Wouldn’t you?
Andrew Butz
Portland, Oregon
Trust me
Fascinatingly, all the comments published with the article are very critical of Topolánek’s affair, (“Public is tolerant of PM’s adultery,” News, Jan. 17–23) although the article itself describes the Czechs as rather tolerant. … However, it is clear that a comment such as “all men cheat” is a) wrong and b) inappropriate. Already in itself it holds a logical miscalculation, since, well, who would they cheat with?
And, well, no one wants to say “everybody cheats,” right Mrs. Dvořáková? This is ridiculous. And, if somebody really cheats, not knowing the complete background, we miss any justification to morally condemn him/her.
Secondly, it is none of our business what any politician might or might not do in his free time or who he might or might not sleep with, since it is not at all connected to national or international politics. If he is not faithful to his wife, that does not at all mean he is also not faithful to the Czech nation. Mr. Topolánek is having a tough time, and, if he is doing his job OK … what interest should we have in what else he is doing? Everybody has a right to privacy, not only we “ordinary ones.”
Stephan Wojtowytsch
Göttingen, Germany
I don’t care so much about the PM’s affair; I don’t have a very high opinion about Czech politicians in general, but what they do in their private lives should remain private. Having said that, it’s to the Czech public’s credit that they aren’t getting all bent out of shape about it.
Oh, and Ms. Dvořáková, where the **** do you get off making such a generalization about men? Czech women don’t exactly have a clean track record when it comes to fidelity, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say all of them cheat.
Patrick Seguin
Prague
Defending radar
The Czech Republic was offered to join NATO by President Clinton (“Arming for the future and exorcising the past,” Opinion, Jan. 24–30), against the advice of many conservatives (and, if anybody had asked me, I would have recommended against it). But join NATO it did, and with the rights of membership come collective responsibilities.
Your swipes at Bush in this article are, of course, petty, childish, irrelevant, and utterly predictable.
Brant Hadaway
Miami
The president’s analysts
Czechs refuse to face up to sins committed in the name of the republic (Beneš Decrees) (“Wake up, Mr. Klaus,” Opinion, Jan. 17–23); Turks deny genocide against Armenians; Hungarians shift blame for the Holocaust; Serbs believe they are the victims; and so on!
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Peter Sikuta
Budapest
Postwar European principles? What is that except shorthand for a dictatorial socialist secretariat run from Brussels. Klaus is smarter than any number of your contributors. He is not an opportunist but rather a pragmatic and principled Czech who doesn’t want to see the Czech people lose to the EU what they recently managed to get back from the Soviets. Does no one see the irony in the German PM coming to Prague to help consolidate power in a central government?
Martin Smith
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
It would be better for the Czech Republic to give up its power to Brussels than become yet another U.S. satellite. Unfortunately, it may be too late for that. ... Maybe the Czechs will end up with two masters.
Sally Amis
Prague
This article is precise and right to the point. I remember Klaus, when he was still prime minister, contesting the fact that Germans once lived in “his” country. Since then I keep wondering: Is he a liar or plainly uneducated?
Rudolf Pueschel
Mountain View, California
Alternative energy
At these upper-class hotels and health clubs, hook up all those exercise bikes, step [machines] and treadmills to a dynamo (“Think low-tech when dreaming of the future,” Opinion, Jan. 17–23) and the energy exerted could be converted to electricity and be enough to power that building and others. Also, the propane created at the various bars and pubs could also be utilized the same way. The energy problem is solved!
Dushan Lipensky
Chicago
This Czechvar’s for you
I first came to enjoy Czechvar last year after drinking Pilsner Urquell (“Tapping into America,” Business, Jan. 17–23). If the current management are as feisty as my Czech friend, the beer will still have high quality and be a beautiful thing.
Bill Roberts
Vista, California, U.S.A.
I wish to thank Budvar for rewarding its loyal customers in the U.S.
The price of Czechvar increased 45 percent during the week of the announcement of Budvar’s crawling into bed with Anheuser Busch.
Consequently, my purchase and consumption of Czechvar has decreased 100 percent.
As long as they only import it and market it, OK. Just don’t let them influence its brewing or bottling. Price is too high. Import more Czech brands. Thank you.
Jaroslav Cerny
Boone, North Carolina
Bloody ice
Good article — a lot of Europeans have no idea how tough Canadian hockey is on the body (“Across the pond,” Sports, Jan. 17–23). They aren’t used to the body work. I should know. I have a broken hip and three knee surgeries. What I hear from Prague and Bratislava is that the parents are so into seeing their kids make it in the NHL it’s like a drug.
Frank Chyti Jr.
Nashville
Homecoming queen
My mother took 50 years to return to Czechoslovakia because political pressure at the time cut her off from her homeland (“The golden girl,” Sports, Dec. 20–Jan. 2). That and my birth in 1959 is what kept her in the U.S. She competed for the U.S. because Czechoslovakia wouldn’t let her compete for them. Their only Gold winner banned!
The real people never lost their appreciation of Olga Fikotová and vice versa. My mother made her life a smashing success in a land she didn’t even want to stay in. It’s about time the figureheads in Prague woke up and smelled the roses to give tribute to one of their greatest athletes and humanitarians of all time!
I am Mark Fikota Connolly, named after my grandfather František Fikota, proud husband of Ludmila Fikotová. Please come visit me at the Palms Casino table games department in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
Mark Fikota Connolly
Las Vegas
Under review
Does Mr. Faries know how to write a positive review (“Singing of good things,” Night & Day, Jan. 17–23)? For a restaurant that he gives four stars in nearly every category, his review reads scathingly. A tip: The next time you write a positive review (which by my calculation will be in July 2009), try saving the phrase “plebeian high jinks” and comparisons to “smoky Czech pub[s]” until after you tell us, that, you know, maybe the place isn’t totally awful. Or at least tell us that before paragraph four.
Marek Kurlmann
Prague


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