Ova zima ima neke cudne obicaje. Nalaze svima da se zatvore u svoje kuce i stanove, a da izlaze samo ako je bas neophodno. Ako neko slucajno prekrsi ovu zapovest, stize ga kazna. Od promrzlog nosa, do ozbiljnih bolesti. Kao da smo ukleti. Nocu se pretnja pojacava. Ni oni sto moraju ne usude se prekrsiti zakletvu. Pitam se samo dokle ce?

Vec danima ne idem ni na posao. Ulenjila sam se totalno. Imala bih sta raditi i u kuci: pisati seminarski, koji do duse poceh pa zapeh, vezbati svedski, da ne bacam pare uzalud na kurs, srediti malo detaljnije kucu, pocece mi nicati trava iz prasine, i jos puno toga… ali neda  mi se!

My grandmother and her cousin Lula were always in competition with the Colonel.

When I was a boy in the Iowa cornfields (actually we lived in a house), the making of fried chicken happened with blissful regularity. My sister and I would be whisked from kitchen to kitchen to consume fried chicken. I have a distinct recollection of telling Lula that her chicken tasted better than the Colonel's.

Immortality achieved.

With this as a background, I must admit that since those bucolic days of yesteryear until only very recently, I had not paid a single visit on Colonel Sanders (now a license rather than a name) or Kentucky Fried Chicken (as we once knew it, now a mere abbreviation, KFC). During these more than 30 intervening years, this purveyor of extra crispy and coleslaw was off my Fast Food Radar (which, by the way makes, the Hubble Space Telescope look like a Kinder egg sneak-a-scope).

And then the Colonel came to Serbia.

The best thing we can do, in this time of economic crises, is to go shopping.

There has long been an unwritten psychological boon which comes with this. We shop when we are feeling down. We shop when we are feeling good. We feel empowered even if we do not buy anything. The very idea that we COULD decide to exchange money for the good on display before us is a powerful notion.

When people say "supposably" in a sentence, my teeth begin to grind. In the same way, every time I hear people - intelligent people, educated people, intellectual people - using the term "NATO Pact," my head starts to throb. Right there behind the eyes.

Just to be clear: it is called a "pact" because it is an agreement. It is called the Warsaw Pact because it was signed in Warsaw.

In order for me to have taken this photo - which I recently did at a Belgrade toy emporium which will remain Nameless for Legal Reasons - several Stupid Things had to happen.

First the manufacturer had to come up with an idea for a game. He proceeded then to "invent" tic-tac-toe. Realizing, as he must have, that even in the People's Republic of Some Country which will Remain Nameless for Legal Reasons people played this game for centuries already, he had give it a marketing spin. "Let's make it a LEARNING game, Mr. Chang." Mr. Chang (not his Real Name) then thought about it for awhile and came up with this:

I just came back from a conference on business ethics. The panel was quite distinguished and spoke very well of the need for more ethical conduct in business. The conference was organized by AmCham Serbia, presided over by the rapier tongue of Yugoslav Cosic, and included panelists from abroad, from the business community, and from the government. Many good points were made. Many heads in the audience nodded. But, sadly, we do not have these conferences because we are highly ethical beings and market participants.

We have them because we are, generally speaking, stinking liars and crooks.

The expression, "it's like riding a bike" generally means it is something easy and something you do not forget. Whoever said this probably forgot.

The following started out as a letter to a good friend who gave me his mountain bike before absconding to the jungles of South America, but in the meantime has taken on wider significance for me.

LONDON - Asked to say a few words for a documentary on the sharp increases in student fees in British universities, I find that, in retrospect, I gave the opposite opinion to that my actual thoughts. And I spoke too fast.

As if this were not enough proof that PR and positioning preparation were not of vital importance, I also proved to myself the old adage that the doctor is always his own worst patient. In my case, the spin-doctor.

We approach the 2055th anniversary of the death of Gaius Julius Caesar at the hands of his friend Brutus. What has changed in the meantime?

Today, Mr. Caesar would be surrounded by a coterie of armed guards in dark glasses. He would probably not be walking around the forum unprotected and in a bed-sheet all by himself. He might not even talk to Messrs. Brutus, Casca, and Tillius directly, but rather have his people set up discussions (especially as the pretext was a petition which Tillius Cimber wanted to conference about on his exiled brother).

When hunger does not do the trick, let's eat then.

After a week of undue media attention - and, yes, ok, I am part of it regrettably - Toma has come back to the dinner table, seeing that no one else was going to show up at the negotiating table. The spin seems to be that he has called attention to the need for Serbia to move forward. On to the main course, as it were...

If the United States goes bankrupt this afternoon, when will they hold the garage sale?

On the front lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, lines of Sherman tanks on each side ($120,000,000.99 or best offer), the tables have been laid out. Dolly Madison's silverware ($35,000, slightly used), Eleanor Roosevelt's collection of erotic hat pins (Never before seen! Make me an offer!), and the famous Big Stick of Theodore Roosevelt ($18.75, genuine replica) are all on display.

When something happens to change the world, we do not really know about it until the world changes.

Ten years ago, on 9/11, I was in Paris. I was sorting out lots of sportswear overstock and trying to place it enticingly in front of my client's eyes. My client's eyes, however, were glued to the television. I was annoyed. I had just arrived from Rome (he from Belgrade) the night before, we had one day to make this deal, and he was watching TV. I grumbled.

"Something happened in New York," he said.

"If I weren't the president of the republic, maybe I would be dissatisfied and embittered too."

So said Boris Tadic this week, reminding us of our obligation to vote and thereby give voice to our dissatisfaction and bitterness that we all feel because we are not president of the republic.

Hm...

This is terrible.

As much as the city is being held in the grip of Nature and the adamantine grip of her snow, so do I - after having resisted for several days - feel inexorably pulled into the Snow Trap. I have to write about the snow. I do not WANT to write about the snow! I rebel against its banality in subject matter! I push against its encroaching walls!

Yet here we are....