- If you care neither about the deficit, nor about providing public services, it’s actually quite easy to cut taxes.
- When I saw books by Džon Grišam at the bookshop in Montenegro, I was happy that my name wouldn’t have to be changed quite as much for the Serbo-Croatian editions of my books.
- “You judge very quickly,” many people judge me, often rather quickly.
- Romania is offering 85 scholarships for BA, MA and PhD studies plus one year of Romanian classes (which at least for speakers of another Romance language is not too hard).
- A fully revised and updated edition of one of the best books on Latin America has just been published: Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America by Michael Reid. Highly recommended for anyone going to Latin America and interested in more than Machu Picchu and caipirinha.
- In 2017, I have analyzed all your Facebook posts. Those of you who are single are 65% happier.
- Once, I was in Oxford, and fell into a coma.
- I feel sorry for Jesus. His birthday was always on Christmas, so he only got presents once per year.
- On the same note, I feel sorry for people living in countries with only one Christmas. Long live the schism!
- I don’t understand all this glass half-full/half-empty debate. I always drink straight out of the bottle.
- I have come to the sentence “Nemam pojma” in my studies of Serbo-Croatian.
It describes the situation very well. - In 56% of the cases in which I prepare a cup of tea, I forget about it and only rediscover it hours later when I walk into the kitchen again.
- Based on how people feel after talking to me, I have a new business idea:
If you ever need a headache, I can give you one. Only 49 $ and money-back guarantee. - Something for my lawyer friends: some generous PhD scholarships by the University Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy.
- Legal marijuana in Germany is really taking off. Maybe I’ll have to devote one of my popular pages with legal FAQ to that subject.
- In Montenegro, I met a house-sitter, i.e. someone living in a house on behalf of the absent owners, taking care of the plants and pets. “I can do that, too,” I thought, minus the dogs. And I already got the first job. This summer, I will be living in Vienna for two months.
- Remember that I warned you about Bitcoin.
- Yes, Oprah Winfrey gave a good speech. No, she should not run for President because of it. Let’s please have someone again who studied law and spent some time as a Congressperson or in government. I don’t understand the appeal of “outsiders”. Would you include a swimmer in a football team, just because she is an “outsider”? Or pay your barber to take care of your legal problems?
The Happy Hermit 
It’s quite easy to explain by the widespread impression that politicians are a kind of caste without any idea of life ‘outside ivory tower’.
I am not sure this explains it. Because if people are worried about politicians not knowing how much a liter of milk costs or how to punch a bus ticket or how to find an apartment on a small income, they wouldn’t run towards corrupt billionaire moguls like Trump or Berlusconi.
Supplement: I said nothing about whether this impression is true (not very probable, I think), partly true (vastly probable, I suppose) or not at all (which I presume even less probable than the first).
The item was where the appeal of ‘outsiders’ comes from, and in this, judgements of people you happen to meet on the streets are more important than which is truly the case.
12. I thought that it was an early sign of aging… in my case. I feel slightly better that forgettng about a cup of tea is not necessarily correlated with that.
18. Oprah can play a powerful role in politics by throwing her support behind a candidate…. like she did with Obama. I don’t recall her doing so for Hilary R. C.
(Isn’t there a soccer player out there running a country in Africa? It’s probably going to end badly if that’s so.)
12. I think (or I hope) it has more to do wit distraction. I always think I’ll use the few minutes to read a few pages in a book or to read an e-mail, and then I get sucked back into work or procrastination.
18. Exactly, she supported Obama early on when it was still the primaries, and that may have helped him indeed. She could do that for another candidate if she wanted to.
You are right. In Liberia, George Weah was just elected President, with the ex-wife of former president Charles Taylor (convicted for crimes against humanity) as his running mate.
Let’s see what will happen.
Absolutely true about happiness and singleness being correlated. I tell my sons every day to avoid marriage, forever.
Socrates is reported to have said: “Marry or don’t marry, you will regret either.”
18: Couldn’t agree more. She is a show business woman. Trump is also not qualified.
Exactly. She would draw all the media attention, like Trump did in the Republican primary, drowning out serious candidates and proper political debate. (Granted, there are also politicians who are neither serious nor knowledgeable.)
Nice random thoughts! But I’ve got this feeling that Oprah Winfrey will run for President! -;)
I really hope she won’t. It will attract as much media attention as Mr Trump got in the Republican primaries, drowning out all serious candidates and political debate.
It sad, but these days people doesn’t look for intellectual capacity of the candidates, but popularity.
11. Keine Ahnung …. we translated it from your language ;-)
It would have been a better decision (at least for me) to simply adopt the German language as a whole, like Deutschmark and then Euro.
We did the last two of your suggestions :) I think we’ve never been fond of German language that’s why we never adopted it. I guess the feeling is mutual :-)
But to outsiders, Montenegrin and German probably sound equally unintelligible.
Please highlight the word “outsiders” :)