Czechmatediary

The Czech Republic “won” the 25th place out of 30 “competing” European countries regarding its smoking habits. The report included factors such as protection of non-smokers in public places, access to treatment for addicts, regulation of advertising as well as level of taxes on tobacco products. The countries that ranked even lower the CR were:

• Germany
• Austria
• Luxemburg

The author of the article, Ian Willougby, hopes that smoking will be banned all together and brings up a good point:”If the Irish can do it, if the Italians can do it, why can’t the Czechs do it?”

What do you think? Do you think that the Czechs can do it? (more…)

Good news! As it is stated in www.krajane.net, ” Czechs who acquired a new citizenship via marrying a foreigner, still have the right to keep their Czech citizenship”. This decision was released by the Supreme Court (NSS) in 2003. The NSS judge, Lenka Kaniova, explains their decision accordingly: “Novelties such as the European citizenship, globalization and today’s integrated trends lead the world toward a new outlook on the issue of dual citizenship”. Despite this decision, the Czech courts are still overflowing with cases futuring dual citizenship issues. Those people, however, received the additional citizenship before the new law was implemented.

CZ: Dobra zprava! Jak nas informuje www.krajane.net, “Cesi, kteri se v dobe manzelstvi s cizincem stali obcany jine zeme maji i pote narok na ceske obcanstvi”. Toto rozhodnuti bylo vydano Nejvyssim spravnim soudem (NSS) v roce 2003. Soudkyne NSS lenka Kaniova ospravedlnuje jejich rozhodnuti tim, ze dnesni “fenomeny jako evropske obcanstvi a globalizacni a integracni trendy obecne vedou ke zmene pohledu na dvoji obcanstvi”. Ceske soudni sine jsou ale bohuzel stale preplnene radou sporu o statni obcanstvi, ktera vznikla v doble platnosti stareho zakona.

Source: http://krajane.radio.cz/cs/article_detail/1160

Who will be the next Czech president? The elections start February 8th of next year (which is in a couple of months):

• The majority of people (67%) would still vote for Vaclav Klaus (the current president of CR), even though most of these “fans” still complain about his reoccurring arrogance

• potential candidate is also Jan Svejnar, a Czech-American who escaped in the USA when he was 17 years old.

Svejnar’s curriculum vitae sounds pretty impressive. According to www.abcprague.com Jan graduated from the Cornell University where receiving degree in Industrial and Labor Relationships and later obtained a PhD. in Economics from Princeton University. (more…)

The first tangible sign of Christmas was our (the kids) letter to Jesus. Yes, that’s right, in the Czech Republic Jesus brings the presents while Santa is on vacation or something ( I also remember bragging to my fellow classmates at school when I was about 7 years old that I saw Jesus’ feet just as he was flying out of our apartment window). Anyhow, when my brother and I were really little and didn’t know how to write yet, we would draw out the list of things we wanted for Christmas. My list always looked something like this:
1) dog
2) cat
3) Barbie

And I would usually end up getting a bunch of clothes.

Second, getting the Christmas tree. I don’t remember much about that. The only thing I remember is how frustrated my parents would get trying to fit the stem into the tree stand. They kept trimming the stem down but somehow it never seemed to fit! But that is probably just a universal law….

Third, getting the carp. (Speaking of carp, my husband loves this one. He says, “Honey, here in the U.S. carp is actually used as bait to catch real fish…”) That event I remember quite vividly. Since I am a big animal lover, going out and buying a carp was a stressful day for me. I remember feeling sorry for those fish at the seller’s stand, how stuffed they all were in this one tiny bucket with about 6 ounces of water in it. (more…)

The number one deadly diseases such as cancer and coronary illnesses are still a acting out int the Czech Republic but the number of patients dying from them has been decreasing. That’s because the prevention care as well as the quality of medical treatments have greatly improved. The heart surgeries are now available to all people in need, they simply just have to call the hospital in time. The Czech cardiological community also treats the Slovak patients since Slovakia has only 2 Cardiology centrers in the country where as the Czech Republic has 33 of them. The number of transplantations of the heart increased from 34 (in 1993) to 57 (in 2006). Since 2003 the doctors also use the so-called “mechanical heart” which has decreased the heart-related deaths to 1/3 (people don’t have to wait for their donor anymore). What remains to be a problem? The inappropriate way the actual doctors treat their patients. (more…)

If you haven’t tasted vanilla crescents (vanilkove rohlicky) yet you haven’t quite lived your life into the full. They are absolutely the best Christmas cookies this earth has ever had. Despite the simplicity of the recipe some kind of a Christmas magic happens during the cooking process and an art of perfection is born…

My grandma would always make batches and batches of Vanilkove rohlicky so that we wouldn’t run out during the Christmas season. Since we helped ourselves to them about 10 times a day - despite my grandma’s attempts - we ended up being out of them about 3 days after Christmas. Then we had to “get to work” and finish up the rest of the other Christmas cookies; what can I tell you…life was rough back then!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb of unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 Tsp of vanilla extract (more…)
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In order to celebrate the spirit of Christmas my post of today is a very famous animated movie (YouTube) called the Christmas dream. Its author is a world-known Czech animator and film maker Karel Zeman (1910 - 1989). Most of you know of him via the all-time favorite Czech movies such as Vynalez Zkazy (Fabulous world of Jules Verne) or Cesta do Praveku (Journey to Prehistory). Christmas Dream was finished in 1946 and won the award for the Best Animation at the festival in Canes. Although the movie was done more than 60 years ago I just couldn’t believe how sophisticated its animations were! See for yourself… (more…)

The year 2007 brought the highest number of new HIV-infected patients - over 100 people. Even though the number is increasing every year the Czech Republic has one of the lowest number of these patients in Europe. The total number of registered HIV-infected Czechs amounts to 1020 from which 230 have developed AIDS and 130 died. The real number of HIV-positive people is supposed to amount to ten times more than what the registered number is. The leading psychologist Petr Weiss thinks that the reason why the number is still relatively small compared to the other European countries is that CR has a low number of intravenous drug users (the highest risk group).

CZ: Za tento rok pribilo v Cechach pres 100 zaregistrovanych HIV-pozitivnich pacientu. I kdyz toto cislo kazdym rokem roste, je stale jedno z nejnizsich v porovnani s dalsimi evropskymi staty. Celkove je v Ceske Republice zaregistrovano celych 1020 HIV pozitivnich pacientu, z nichz 230 ma AIDS a 130 jich zemrelo. To “opravdove” cislo HIV pozitivnich lidi ma pry byt alespon 10-krat vyssi. Znamy cesky psycholog Petr Weiss pri rozhovoru s Radiem Prahou vysvetluje, ze duvod proc jsou tato cisla stale relativne nizka v porovnani s Evropou je, ze Cechy nemaji velky pocet narkomanu, kteri si drogy pichaji.

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/98171