So—is it? But what if we’re not talking about a theoretical politician but about an ultraconservative right-wing chauvinistic tycoon-politician who kicks journalists and threatens people?

Velimir Velja Ilic, the beaten party in the video is perhaps the best known representative of its kind in Serbia, but among the politicians and the political parties here, the difference between the most corrupt and the least corrupt is only in the authority they have at any given moment and the amount of power they are able to misuse. The person giving the precise blow to Ilic’s head is Dejan Stojadinovic, a nobody – a true representative of the people, the un-politician, a man with no connections, no power and no money. According to Dejan’s facebook profile, some minutes before delivering his “protest note” to Velimir Ilic, he was informed that he can’t get a passport because of some bureaucracy issue. In the video, just before mr Ilic makes his sad smiley face you can hear the people’s representative saying the now infamous quote “Sve ste vi ista banda” – You [politicians] are all the same gang. This sentence summarizes the Serbian general public’s feeling towards politicians perfectly. The biggest party in Serbia is comprised of those who refuse to vote, and in a country where nearly everyone and their mother-in-law have their own political opinion on every topic imaginable, it’s a sure sign that something’s wrong. At the top, the corruption is biggest because it’s legal.

At the same time, the economic situation is getting critical. The average salary may be ca 380 Euros per month, but the stats can be fooling. While the tiny group of politicians and their friends are making a killing, a huge chunk of the working population recieves only 150 Euros per month after working eight hours a day, six days a week – basically that means they are making around 75 eurocents per hour. Lately there has been workers’ protests and rumors that the situation is really becoming not only critical but Argentina-type critical.

This is also why Serbian politicians have security guards – not to protect them from a deranged, mentally unstable random attacker or a paid assasin, although those are also good reasons – no, the biggest threat to a Serbian politician’s head these days comes from your average Joe.

Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic were two of the greatest European basketball players of all time. Vlade retired recently, and Drazen, sadly, died back in 1993 in a car crash. Had he lived, he would probably be a household name by now, just like Divac is. After the war broke out in former Yugoslavia, however, [...]

Just when James Cameron thought he will get away with plagiarism, he’s caught! Yugoslavian author Predrag Urosevic claims that his novel from 1984, Tihana iz Erga (Eng: Tihana from Ergo) served as a plot for Cameron’s Avatar. There are at least three similarities with Avatar’s plot, says Urosevic. The man comes to another forest-like planet [...]

This just in: new Serbian Patriarch has been elected – it’s Irinej Gavrilovic of Nis, most moderate of all three final candidates. I guess we should feel lucky.
In other news…
Like most European countries, Serbia is preparing for the most important event of the year, the Eurovision. Instead of national competition this year, the deciders said the best thing [...]

News making rounds in Serbian blogosphere these days: group of 200 intellectuals wrote a letter to the government where they ask for a referendum on whether or not Serbia should join NATO. They believe Serbia should maintain to be “militarily neutral [Serbia], true to herself and her own traditions”. There are couple of interesting elements [...]

comic by xkcd

There’s something about the Belgrade public bus transportation that makes a guy wanna sing – is it acoustics or the fact that the audience can’ get away that easily? Anyway, here we go: same song, same bus performer, two different GSP lines:
Bus nr 16 (line from Karaburma to Pohorska street)

Bus nr 65: (from Zvezdara to [...]

Following the proclamation of this year’s honorary citizen of Belgrade, “24 hours” brings an interesting list of all the previous winners of this prestigious award. So let’s see who do we have here:
1947. Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia
1947. Peko Dapčević, commander of the 1st Partisan army
1954. Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia
1955. [...]