YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett

I am glad I got into town and got my kilo of suho meso yesterday while I had the chance. There is another big demonstration about the problem of juvenile delinquency planned for 1pm local time. I do think it will be totally peaceful, but I do NOT wish to be anyplace near it.

I got a copy of 'Dani' yesterday, and it came with a little plastic whistle and a red card just like they use to red card soccer players. There was a big ad for people to go to the demonstration which is by the Katedrale.

I totally agree with the people who are upset with juvenile delinquency. For all my relatives at home, again, I do feel fairly safe, I don't go a lot of places where juvenile delinquents hang out, I only eat out at the neighborhood cevapi place or the slasticarni in Bascarsija, I never go alone anyplace that is an actual bar, only with the S.O. Most of my fun outtings are to museums or other places juvenile delinquents never go. My flat is well secured. There are JAILS that don't have such good locks!

That said, juvenile delinquency is serious here. There are not enough places to put people for reform or punishment, whether adults or children, and there is not the money to make it happen. People do a lot of bad stuff before they get locked up. There are still a fair number of people who haven't gotten what they deserve for war crimes, and probably this makes the law less strong. It isn't that people here don't respect the rule of law, they do, in fact in public people here are basicaly very good. People do the best they can. But if someone does something bad and needs to go to chokey, there isn't any chokey to put them in.

As well, legal reforms on all sorts of matters are an ongoing process. Domestic violence was according to everyone I speak with, RARE in all communities here. Now it is very common. I consider domestic violence the mother and father of all other crime. If kids see violence in the home, well that sets the example early. Tackle that problem and a lot of the others will go away given time.

The city of Sarajevo just instituted a curfew with very heavy fines, for juveniles out after a certain hour, now curfew Stateside never really worked, but who knows, maybe it would work here.

Just have to wait and see.

As far as demonstrations to do with Kosovo, nothing in Sarajevo that I know of yet. Banja Luka has had demonstrations, but that is in a Serb majority area. A lot of Bosnian Serbs originally came from Kosovo in the first place.

Here most people do not think the demonstrations in Belgrade were at all spontaneous.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a Democrat, and did not vote for the current president, and that I am not a member of the Condeleeza Rice fan club, but I saw her on the news this morning, Euronews to be exact, and was really pleased with how she handled herself. She was excellent! She said it like it is and just left. That was EXACTLY right. She may not 'get' the Middle East, but she understands about Eastern Europe. She did take a lot of stuff about Russian politics and maybe, just maybe she understands a little bit about this region. In any case I thought she handled that press conference just right.

It is beautiful and sunny today, I am going to do my internet stuff and then go have a nice time doing other stuff.

The S.O. is still in Dubrovnik. He went Monday, and I have not been able to get hold of him. I have successfully called him on my mobile phone before when he was there, so perhaps the network is messed up.