Roots of Conflict & Ethnic Hatred

They don't keep them apart. They merely keep them focused on a common enemy - a new devil to be feared and hated and destroyed. Without a fresh focus, without an Eastasia, a Baron Greenback or a Planet of Spiders to collectively despise, the controlled house of cards collapses.

It the teachings go far enough back, then they are perhaps simply part of our nature, part of who we are. Maybe, just maybe, we are programmed to dislike our strange neighbours. Can you change human nature? Probably not. But you can control it through controlling and focusing the fear and hatred (which is what humans have always done: collectivising and focusing that aggression and fear).
Perhaps now it's time to think of a better way of controlling the seemingly instinctive urge to dislike or distrust those who live beyond your street than simply instilling mass fear.

but the economy is also the integral part of conflict. Take a French, German, and Italian and let them live together in wealthy Switzerland, and they will not fight. Ireland is doing well nowadays, and the conflict seems to be subsiding. Russia is doing fine as well, and some want to join back the Federation.

Controling human nature? What is human nature depends on your view. Some contend that man is born good, others that man is generally bad.

Both views are of course rubbish. Man is born innocent, its society that moulds the man - but yes above all its about upbringing. But you gotta love all those unholy theories about genes and nation dontcha?

Mines a deep crust cheers Mark. Have you been to Pizza Hut in Belgrade BTW? If not please dont bother.

I remember the opening of Pizza Hut in Belgrade. I was living in that neighbourhood at that time and I recall there being uproar in that part of town because, apparently, the site was formerly occupied by an eatery reputed as being the best pizza house in Serbia.
I dunno, global shite.
What say we encourage the Loki owners to open a huge McDonalds-style joint right next to the existing McDonalds on terazija. Play them at their own game.
Would anyone go to mcDonalds?
Yeah, sadly they probably would.

Well yeah but have you seen who their customers mainly are in Serbia? - Children, particularly teenagers.

Here kids roll up and claim your own little piece of the big apple (seeing as you cant go there yourself).

I reckon RM should be outed as a pervert - that aint hard to believe when you look at the way he dresses and his penchant for kids. Whoops that wasnt politically correct was it?

Human nature is selfish at its most basic level. If we could we would murder everyone around us and just have all the females to work for us and give us as many children as we could physically muster ;-)
Back in the real world, it is not beneficial to go at each other's throats simply because of fear that WE will get hurt. So we have evolved not to.
Also, those around you are the ones most genetically related to you (family first, town/village next, then tribe, country, continent, and so on) and it makes sense to group in this way - to protect your genes and if possible take other group's resources from them and use them to multiply your genes further.
Society just moulds him to know WHEN he should help his kin and WHEN he can get away with usurping someone's resources (murder, theft, rape, adultery, you name it) with no serious repercussions to him/herself.
Simple.

Speak for yourself. If you think human nature is selfish that says something about you.

The mass insemination of females (if one goes along with the theory) has got nothing to do with selfishness either its human instinct - we are here after all to procreate.

I think the idea of murdering somebody doesnt even enter a childs mind - until it is taught to them by others.

I certainly spoke for myself and you are free to form your own opinion, but fact is fact. It doesn't say anything about me at all, it is a fact regardless of me liking it or not.
Selfishness IS exactly a human instinct - selfishness is not taught, it is inherent and children are selfish. Control of selfishness is what is taught. It's the "pleasure principle" vs "reality principle" of Freud and much more than that.
What we have a problem with as a society is the disorder, no rules which would firmly say this is right and that is wrong. This breaks the society down into individuals, who each set their right/wrong scale. At the same time we are subtly made to feel that end justifies the means. So we are where we are.

I'm afraid it isnt a fact it remains a theory. It is a fact that you choose to see that theory as a fact though. That does say something about you. As my opinion speaks volumes about me.

To break down what you are saying is that if there wasnt law you (you say man but I presume you include yourself in mankind) would be out bashing women on their heads with clubs, raping, murdering any male rivals etc. Its only the law that restrains you. Why not take it a step further and say that the various wars in the former Yugoslavia were quite logical and that those that didnt take part were in some way the freaks, deviating from mans wicked ways?

And of course selfishness is largely taught. From the second we develop any kind of awareness its made to clear to us that we are defined by our posessions. That is what the current dogma - capitalism is about - encouraging competition / greed.

Capitalism is an extension of the usual jealousies imparted to children by their parents - the neighbours have a mercedes, we must have a better car. Hell if I'm a director of a small firm probably better for me to sack a worker to 'keep up with the Petrovic's'.

I certainly know of the amount of laymans work that has been published on this subject in recent years but that doesnt make this opinion fact.

By the way I'm not a complete behaviouralist, I dont discount some of the behaviour / opinions you mention. However, I believe the overwhelming majority of decisions we make in our lives are due to societal factors and not ones that are somehow born in us.

if you look at the whole thing as a zero sum game, then you try to maximize Darwinian fitness and all that. However, there is also thing called "atruism" that doesn't fit this scheme, and books are written about the origins of altruistic behavior (even animals show it). The situation is clearly more complex than just simple grab - I believe it is called Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in War of Attrition with Random Rewards, or some such BS.

"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins discusses altruism in evolutionary terms (i.e. Darwinian fitness). This has actually been a subject of one of recent blogs by Ivan Marovic. Altruism, while not necessarlily benefiting ourselves as individuals usually has a good chance of benefiting other copies of genes we ourselves carry. Therefore we have more affinity for those closest to us in terms of family, tribe, nation.

if you only look at Darwinian version of it. There are newer works by Feldman, Cavalli-Sforza, Nowak, Doebeli, O. Wilson, etc., and earlier work by Bernardo Huberman (when he was still at Xerox) on Social Dilemmas, that has now spilled over into marketing, with Natalie Glance and Lada Adamic (a female genius from Dalmatia). If you look at Natalie's Thesis (cca 400 pages), you will find that there is very elegant mathematics behind all this.
For instance, why do people sometimes leave a large tip to the waiter in the restaurant they never expect to visit again?

But, I think the essence of the problem was pinned down by Garrett Hardin in 1968 in his paper "The Tragedy of Commons" - you can see it here, but I recommend the original from "Science". I think that for every politician on the planet reading of this paper should be absolutely mandatory.

Well, the answer to the "tip" question is obvious: This act establishes a kind of good relationship between the customers (as a group) and waiters/restaurant personnel (as a group again). The fact that you will never visit the place again doesn't matter - you will instead visit a place where you have never been and where someone else has left a tip without ever returning. So in essence, you are doing a favour to each other (two customers) even though you have never met! You are generally establishing a relationship with waiters, where it is beneficial for them to serve you well. As for the waiters, it is easy to see how they gain in each situation... and a few difficult customers/grumpy waiters don't change the overall picture, as long as they are an exception, rather than a rule.
And then there is also the fact that in most cases it makes a person themselves feel good to leave a tip!

Thank you very much for the article and suggestions, some of which I haven't had the pleasure to read yet!

Have a great day

this is excellent! I read a couple of Lada's papers but wasn't very impressed. I had the impression that she jumped on Per Bak's wagon, but now I realize how wrong I was (and why my Igor will definitely study @ Stanford). Found and will have a look into Natalie's thesis, too.

Again, thanks for pointing this out! Sometimes when you study friction you need to delve into social netoworks...

Bernardo does is always interesting to follow. I actually studied with him (I was a graduate, and he was a post-doc at the same place). Too bad he left physics for science fiction :))

You say:

We are gregarious, social beings by nature. Where there are humans there is society, ergo society is to a degree a part of human nature. And, in nature, conflict between social groups is the norm. For instance, what happens if two groups of monkeys meet in the jungle? Do they offer each other fruit and throw a party? No. They fight for control of the territory on which they find themselves and the losers get their brains eaten.

Bill and Ben are basically a couple of apes and the only reason they don't eat each other's brains out is because the Apes In Charge in Westminster are able to invent a common every time their house of cards comes close to collapsing.

Left to their own devices, Bill and Ben (or two similar blokes who never actually got to meet), would probably eat each other's brains in a shot.

Thus, it is up to the Alpha Apes to come up with an alternative deterrent to this "no technical solution problem" (thanks for that nsarski) as opposed to the current system of creating a continuous stream of common enemies.

But, listen to me carefully, for I shall say this only once.
We need a global shumar (park ranger). For those who know the joke (as, I believe, most do) this is obvious. For those who don't, here it is.

Diary of a Partizan:

Day 1. We kicked the Germans out of the woods.

Day 2. Germans reinforced and kicked us out of the woods.

Day 3. We brought some artilery and kicked Germans out of the woods.

Day 4. Germans increased their supplies of ammunition and kicked us out of the woods.

Day 5. We brought some heavy artilery and kicked Germans out of the woods.

Day 6. Germans used their air power and kicked us out of the woods.

Day 7. Shumar (park ranger) arrived and kicked us all out of the woods.

Faced with the Tragedy of the Commons and other abysmal prospects, we need to have a global shumar who will make reasonable decisions for all of us. Remember how a similar problem was resolved in "Lord of the Flies"? The grown ups arrive, and everything settles back in it's place.

Now, we don't have "grown ups", or a shumar, as the higher power, but we have God! Except, everybody believes in different God, so that won't work. Therefore, lets make ourselves a global God. A giant computer!!! And we don't even have to call Him Hall.

I have to go, but I'll continue with the elaboration of this idea a little later....

(to be continued)

OK, sorry for a slight delay :)))
If you think that this computer idea is crazy, think again. We rely on computers to practically take over flight control for our planes. Why? Because flying is dangerous, and the computer is the most reliable source for decision making in such situations.
To give a different example, I would rather have a computer as a head of FEMA than some horse trader (Michael "You did heckuva job Brownie" Brown), or judge whatever, in the situation when something like Katrina is approaching.
Well, why not extend this to other agencies, and then slowly to almost everything else? Crazy, huh?

Of course, there is a problem who is going to program such computer, but we can decide about that on the next planetary referendum.

Anyway, that's my opinion. If you don't like it, I have another one.

could pose different problems in the future. Asimov has explored the idea to considerable extenct and made it palpable to a popular readership in his Robot series.

The basic challenge is how to create an AI caste of 'servants to humanity' without robotising it or directing it towards an evolutionary dead end.

A species can evolve only if it confronts a challenge and successfully overcomes it. AI can help us a lot with taking the load of our backs in the scope of material needs, but the deeper psychological and social dilemmas that man has been groping with since his dawn have to be resolved by man himself along Jungian lines.

It is here that both science and religion have to fuse and produce a new kind of knowledge that can alow us to reconcile the people's irrational wants (pride, honour, recognition, identity...) within a rational social framework (economic efficiency, developmental progress, material welfare and sustainability).

due to very simple fact: geologists can't be experts. Thank God, everybody seems to be aware of that, :).

Scientists, researchers, maybe, sometimes. Of course, if they are very bright & clever. Experts? Never.

you got me there, Dr Wu :). Not experts.
But now that we have that trifle detail out of the way, my question still stands.

I totally get your point. But, isn't this war on terror (women under veils, russian pirate sites), at least partly, answer to your question? And we haven't even got to the point of halved oil output. Mere reallocation of money and energy resources has shifted world in totally unexpected direction.
You made a very good point today. I sincerely hope that Mr Kusovac (the guy who is desperately trying to re-build his career on anti-Koštunicizam) won't spot your discussion.

is to be believed, we are nearing Armaggedon, and GWB is leading the way. If you don't believe them, tough luck...

Clash of civilizations, indeed.

Do you remember that part of J. Cameron's speech for one of his 11 Titanic Oscars where he likened the brave new world of 1911 to the (Clinton's) world of 1998? I'm not into Oscars, but remember very uncanny feeling I had when I first heard that bit (notorious 'king of the world' speech came later that night).

I remember it. I also remember the Nobel speech last year by Pinter.

General comment here was that Swedish Academy is working hard the whole year to find the biggest US-hater to give him/her the Prize. Talk about trying to understand others...

while what you said -And we haven't even got to the point of halved oil output - may be right, we have reached the peak oil production point. It's all downhill from here.
So, my question was not that hypothetical.

How do we know that it's peak, :D? Who knows what tomorrow brings?

opinions in both directions regarding Hubbert peak. But, I think all agree that it will happen quite soon(if it has not happened already).

Tomorrow brings Armaggedon, given what we know about human nature. :)))

I think that your idea about world government is a possible way out of it. Provided the rulers do not share the Hobbesian view of the world that today's Titans hold.

You persuaded me.

That world government idea is definitely not mine. I am more of an anarchist (i to one najgore, salonske vrste, :)).

Kropotkin? Bakunin? Rasputin? Putin? Do you guys meet anywhere online? I'd like to join ;)

last night. Yes, an armchair anarchist of the worst kind, :). Thing I learnt in Spreadeagle pub is that sometimes it pays to be an armchair scientist, too. Especially if you have insight into what Rosalind Franklin's up to (bastards, I'm sure you will agree!). How does Putin fit into all of this, I really don't know, but you are more than welcome to explain.

it rhymes with the rest of the crowd :)))

As a matter of fact, there was an opinion in NY Times not long ago (Safire, I think), when they played heavily on the Putin - Rasputin rhyme.

And poetic truths are different from other truths. As Sylvia Plat once said: "For me, 2 and 2 will always be 22"). ;D. Ditto for Safire.

Also, as for RF, you know, better than I, that history, including science history, is written by winners.

on the project for reconciliation in South Africa. Reconciliation, btw, is technical term in political sciences. They tried to develop similar kind of institution in Bosnia. The real authority on the subject is Jim Gibson that can be consulted here.

(I'll send you an e-mail, Dr Wu, with some additional details. )

I think I'll have to give up this blogging, at least for a while. This Huberman is great. And yes, it is time for emailing again. Thank you so much, Nadir.

Bio-fuel business is gaining momentum.
I believe that petrol we buy from most refineries contains around 5% of bio-fuel. And industry is moving fast towards 10%.
Apparently, bio-fuels are good investment.
And there is stil a lot to be done on the car efficiency side.

with some intelligence, couple of smart choices, and good will, I believe that the whole problem can be avoided.

Before Chinese tie those loose end in their Tokamak :)

even that is better than Nuckelair (whatever!) Armaggedon :)))

It's nucular! ['nwkjləʁ] :)))

or nuckular? I saw the old spelling "molecyles" for molecules, perhaps this one should be nuckylar - from
"nuckyles"?

Thanks for the correction, anyway :))

I have no idea, actually. :) I pron. it NU-clee-er. GWB doesn't. Heheheh...

(I once took Linguistics as an option, hence the phonetic transcription. Don't be alarmed.)

Take care
M

I've only heard George Walker Bush and Homer Simpson pronounce it nukjular. Papci!

I think Homer J. Simpson's (mis)pronunciation of the word is actually a stab at GWB. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that he's said the word more times over the last 6 years (GWB's term in office) than in the previous 10. It is next to impossible for a guy who WORKS at a nuclear plant to be unable to pronounce the word correctly.

But then again, it's Homer we're talking about. The only guy who's actually dumber than HJS is Peter Griffin. That guy is slower than a cart full of molasses pulled by an asthmatic ant with a skull-splitting hangover.

Speaking of language, Shaw once poked fun at the English language/spelling rules by spelling "fish" like this: ghoti. "Gh" (f; as in enouGH), "o" (i; as in wOmen) and "ti" (sh; as in naTIon).

You speak Serbian well, Mark. What's your biggest issue with the language/grammar?

Take care guys,
M

I could go for the tried and tested complaint and say that the cases are the killer, but in terms of understanding it has to be the slang and jargon. For example, most foreigners who speak good Serbian would struggle to understand a single syllable of the following message: "cao Losmi, evo sljakam k'o crnac za 'dz', al' ipak sam kevi sibnuo soma kinte".
Thankfully, I learnt Serbian on Karaburma and Zvezdara and not in a classroom, so it all makes perfect sense to me.

At least on the Fox channels, they never fail to get some guys from the Army (usually presented as an "analyst") who either don't know or try to imitate the Commander in Chief. Scarry to think that closer they are to the button, the less they know about it. Stupid but sincere. 'Atta boy!

I remember hearing him say nuculer to a southern crowd and a couple of speeches later addressing a northern crowd with the usual pronounciation.

Perhaps he isnt quite as dumb as he appears. On the other hand this doesnt say much good about the US electorate either.

i remember reading an interview where author said, once you talk to him personaly, its hard not to like him, despite everything... you need to kinda pinch yourself, to sober up...
after all he did manage to raise a serious amount of money , for his dubious projects in the past...

i know its no good w/o the link ,ill put it up if i find it, could be interesting to read

Literature:
By Kevin Horrigan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Sep. 10 2006

NBC Anchorman Brian Williams: We always talk about what you're reading. As you
know, there was a report that you just read the works of a French philosopher.

President George W. Bush: "The Stranger."

Williams: Tell us the back story of Camus.

The President: The back story of the book?

Williams: What led you to . . .

The President: I was in Crawford, and I said I was looking for a book to read,
and Laura said you oughta try Camus. I also read three Shakespeares.

Williams: This is a change . . .

The President: Not really. Wait a minute.

Williams: A few months ago you were reading the life story of Joe DiMaggio by
Richard Ben Cramer.

The President: Which was a good book.

Williams: You've been on a Teddy Roosevelt reading kick.

The President: Well, I'm reading about the battle of New Orleans right now.
I've got an eclectic reading list.

Williams: And now Camus?

The President: Well, that was a couple of books ago. Let me look. The key for
me is to keep expectations low.

-- NBC Nightly News, Aug. 29, 2006

"The Stranger," by Albert Camus, was an O.K. book, even though my wife made me
read it. Camus, by the way, is a Frenchman, so you pronounce his name "Al-bear
Ca-moo," which is pretty funny all by itself, although the book itself is
pretty grim.

I liked the book about DiMaggio better. He was an Italian baseball player for
the Yankees in the 1930s and 1940s, and I happen to know a lot more about
baseball than I do about French existentialism, which is what "The Stranger" is
about. When I ran the Texas Rangers, we never had anybody as good as DiMaggio,
but we had a shortstop named Scott Fletcher that my girls liked, so they named
our dog Spot Fletcher. Darned good dog. Died a couple years ago.

Also I know the author, Richard Ben Cramer, because he wrote a book about my
dad's campaign in 1988, and he made a big deal about how I'd complained about
my seats in the Astrodome for the playoffs in 1986. It's another reason you
can't trust the press.

I liked the Shakespeares, too, but I can't remember their names. Bunch of guys,
Danes, Italians, Romans, Englishmen. Swords. Lot of fancy language.

But back to Ca-moo. It's about this guy, Meursault, who lives in Algiers, which
is in Algeria. He goes to his mother's funeral, but it's a drag, and he's happy
when he gets back to Algiers and runs into Marie, an old girlfriend. They go to
a movie, a comedy, and then spend the night together, but she's gone when he
wakes up.

I'm not going to say this sort of thing has happened to me, O.K.? But I know
guys it has happened to, and they say they're pretty relieved. Less
complications, you know?

Anyway, Meursault goes back to work and goes home and runs into a couple of
guys. One of them, Salamano, has a dog. Another guy, Raymond, says he's beaten
up his mistress and asks Meursault to write a letter for him, asking her to
come back. Meursault does, only it turns out that Raymond beats her up again.
The old man's dog runs away, proving he was nowhere near as good a dog as Spot
Fletcher. Then Marie, the girl Meursault went to the movies with, shows up and
asks Meursault if he wants to get married.

About this time they all go to the beach and run into some Arabs, one of whom
is the brother of Raymond's mistress. They get into a fight, and Raymond gets
stabbed, and later Meursault returns to the beach and shoots the Arab.

He gets arrested, and the prosecutor calls him a monster because he went to a
comedy movie the night of his mother's funeral. Also, Meursault says he doesn't
believe in God, so the guy calls him the antichrist. But ol' Meursault adapts
pretty quickly to jail, although he's shocked when they sentence him to the
guillotine. He gets used to it after a while and tells the chaplain that he
doesn't believe in God and that he's O.K. living in world without any purpose.

Some lessons in this book: One, if this is a French masterpiece, then I don't
want to hear the French whine about anything any more. Two, don't go sleeping
around. Three, what'd I tell you about the Arabs? Four, capital punishment is a
good thing, because it not only put this guy, Meursault, out of his misery but
it put the rest of us out of our misery, too.

Five, the war in Iraq made us all safer. Six, keep your expectations low. And
finally, anyone who believes I actually read this book probably still believes
Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

Why is that geologists cannot be experts? You think it is not possible to have a geologist that has high level of knowledge?

Milos

Erm, if I may. It may sound big headed of me, but I am a geologist (professionally) AND an expert... ;-)

dr is probably refering to an infamous gold deposits scam in venezuela, from 1999, i think...
when, but only upon heavily investing, they discovered theres actually none...

either that, or hes a miner

miner... where did you get this idea? you must be one of them it crowd...

sorry, miloš, nothing personal, it's just that I haven't come across expert geologist, yet (and I met quite a few). smart, witty, observant, yes. many. expert, no. think it's in the nature of the science.

my learned colleague...

i have actually met some, and they are experts, but in financial world

"cao Lošmi, evo šljakam k'o crnac za 'dž', ali ipak sam kevi šibnuo soma kinte".

Ciao Milos, here I'm working like a black man for nothing, but nevertheless I sent mother a thousand dinars.

šljakati = to work
dž from ‘džaba’ = free or in vain
šibni = send
keva = mother (see also čale – father)
som = 1,000
kinta = money/or dinars (see also dinđi)

Thanks a lot!

I am sure I would only recognise it as a language similar to Serbian but not Serbian, and I would have been really curious to know which one it is. Very interesting.

Anyway this is my first attempt at participating in 'blogging' This is fun.

But, try this one - many Serbians struggle with this.

bojana dresovi
stos tice boe
ja naivolem dima svig boica kona televizor
madase mislu
kase ogrnemo sas crvene mesto plave dzoke
ima dai natakarimo sve sredom sto igrau lopte i duzmemo i svecko prvenstvo
ima oni brazilci duzute od muke

(written by some Ciga "Grobar").

But I bet Mark would have no problem. As you say many would struggle (I did :) ) but only for a short while. Once you recognise that it is only dictionary that underwent deeper changes.
I envy people who can convey semantics (humour being part of it as well) from short but convoluted pieces, while translating. Like:

"Crncim ko Japanac", rece belac.

Ps: I am still laughing :)

I was recently in Cenral America where they speak Creole English. I had a hard time understanding even the simplest sentences. Like: "Chravl buk eena Kriol ahn Inglish" means "Travel book in Kriol and English".

Wen wi mi-di groa op nobody taught us this.:)

he's working for nothing (almost for free), like black people.

works like a ni**er and is paid like a ni**er.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7466972316844209485&q=radim+ko+crnac&hl=en

That is one of the funniest clips I've seen - ever. The first time I saw it, I almost choked to death. :)))

Unbelievable. And to hear a black guy use the phrase... Hilarious!

But there was another one. I don't know if you remember the black guy (Jamaican?) from Top Lista Nadrealista. The Hepek skit, at the bank.

Dzipalo comes in and "hepekira" the bunch (who were at each other's throats at this point). The next scene, the black guy slowly gets up off the floor saying "Tiiito draaagi." :))) LOL!

Anyway, people in Belgrade use jargon a lot more. A lot more. I grew up in in the north (Zrenjanin) and we never used it *that* much. I mean we used a word or two per sentence, but to have an entire sentence made up of jargon words... no. :)

We did use "som" for a thousand dinars, but also "majmun" (whereas "majmun" meant "dinar", not the amount of dinars /1,000 din.).

Also, we were heavily into the "economy of speech" (e.g. gde = di;). "Keva", "cale" were mainstays, of course. Also "matora" i "matori".

In Novi Sad, they use "gari" for "buddy". I think Belgraders prefer "bato". We used "prika". I mean, if you used "bato" or "gari" in ZR, you'd look like an idiot. It was so rare.

The ZR accent is also very different than the prevalent dialect in Belgrade (it's somewhere between NS and BG; not as drawn out/drawly/whiny as NS, but not as "short" (?) as in Belgrade).

The main difference between BG & ZR (NS) is the syllabic stress. The difference between NS and BG (ZR) is the "length" of the vowels in a word.

tegla (jar) = /'tɛglɑ/. NS = /'teglɑ/
autobus (bus) = /ɑʊto'bʊs/ NS = /ɑʊ'to:bʊs/

Etc. etc.

you might appreciate this:

Two guys, one from Zrenjanin, the other from Zrinjevac were talking about the difference of their language, specifically ijekavski vs. ekavski dialect. So, the guy from Zrinjevac said: "Heck, its the same thing! It doesn't matter if you say "млеко" or "млијеко", it means the same, it's the same!". Then the gentleman from Zrenjanin, after some thought, replied: Yeah, but it's not quite the same thing whether you have sex with "дева" or with "дјева".

Ххахаахахахаххаха :)

Wo wohnst du, енивеј? NS? Something about "nsarski" makes me think of Novi Sad.

Reg's.
m

I endeavor (Dr Wu will kill me for this spelling!) in different fields, mostly science, but I keep my eye on other things as well.

New Now (aka Novi Sad)? No, I'm from Belgrade, but I love Neoplanta (Ujvidek), especially some people in it! Wonderful place, for fun at least.

You forgot Neusatz. :)

No disrespect to our capital meant, but I've always liked NS a tiny bit more. It's like a bigger version of ZR. Laid back... Sort of minding its own business. Totally not overwhelming, etc.

Big Bad Belgrade (don't shoot!) is the complete opposite. To put things into perspective: Novi Sad is 2 1/2 times the size of ZR and Belgrade is 5 1/2 times the size of NS (population-wise).

It's Serbia's heart. It's the capital of SE Europe. It's busy. Something's always going on. The tempo is different. Belgrade has a lot on its mind.

And I've always defended Belgrade, precisely because of these reasons (and many more). Belgrade-bashing is popular up north. Not with me.

It's always nice to drive down to престоница and feel like you belong. I have never felt like a stranger in Belgrade.

Look what I've dug up - it's a satellite photo of my neighbourhood (my building is marked):

Does anyone know the story behind this guy? Where is he - some Cratian holiday resort?

I'm lost. What guy? In Nsarski's post? Zrinjevac is a kvart in Zagreb, isn't it? Or something... a square?

the black guy in the clip

Got ya.