On November 29th, 1945., in Belgrade - The Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia is declared. Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was established as a socialist state during the first meeting of democratically established but Communist-led Parliament with six republics, then. Prime minister was Josip Broz Tito as in 1953 he was elected as president and later named “President for life“. Today was the working day, as usual : )

…is the air - Belgrade AGAIN with high rates of air pollution as fog and humidity (100%) make it worse. This time benzene rate increased especially in downtown of Belgrade which is making some breathing/health problems for citizens.

You’re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax
and all of his friends
may come back.
–The Lorax, Dr.Seuss

Great, great video on past, presence and the future of internet, net neutrality and other issues, including media, companies and influence of the net in our society. All sublimed in 10 minutes, thanks and via P.Jones.

How it feels for a decent girl to be without Serbian version of T1 for more than a 5 days, in the middle of the work? Several options to consider (dial-up included): 1. text messaging also known as smsing (lot of, lot of sms’s); 2. to search for wireless connection (akka nowhere around); 3. communication via phone and negotiations; 4. in lazy hours, the following: taking ridiculous photographs, looking <again> for the Italian worm in broccoli, walking through the city in my comfortable black boots, brainstorming with Linux colleague. And then, after many days of calling and requesting, after many support technicians efforts, came along a guy-wizard called Dimitrije from my providers’ support, fixed all issues, despite Telekoms’ digging the holes in my street, and the fact that in front of my building some of the Serbian film directors are making a film (with all crew, lights, scenery etc). Anyway, good to be again on the the e-highway, thanks to sezampro.

Beside the conference in NC - Blog together at the beginning next year (you are welcome to participate at wiki page), with conference details and program,  another interesting conference within eEurope, in Barselona next spring, on open access/archives, amazon.google/e-publishing/RDA/ and more. I will soon post the links and precise information: all I know is that Danica Radovanovic is gonna lead workshop on Blogs and Wikis.

Ten years ago, we (students then) were protesting for the rights of voting -it was civil and student protest by walking on the streets of Belgrade (1996). Ten years after, some other students protest for other issues.

It happened three days ago: Pancevo, ONLY 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of the Belgrade, prompting thousands of residents to remain indoors as levels of benzene and chlorine in the air soared to 10 times higher than normal.The factories were heavily bombarded during the 1999 NATO air attacks on Serbia over the Kosovo conflict, causing leakage and contamination of both the air and land. Demonstrations were held in Pancevo and Belgrade as well and those who live in downtown of Belgrade, I am recommending you not to go out (though there is no official alert in Belgrade, as I just came from outside, and the toxins in the air make your breath shortnened and strange feeling the lungs.

Little trivia or shall we be serious? The latest (world) news says that famous Indonesian Voodoo practicioner Ki Gendeng Pamungkas threw spells against Bush’s planed visit to Indonesia. Understandable for raven, a snake and a goat, but why broccoli?(: Some nutrition facts.

If you are in Belgrade these days, don’t miss Nikola Tesla Museum and great exhibition of Books from the Library of Nikola Tesla- until Nov.25th. , and check some other exhibitions and legacies. Private books of Tesla are mainly in English and include his book orders for his work, techinical documentation, private notes and correspondancies.All events during the year are on the 150 anniversary of Tesla’s birth.

Another conference on eSociety: The Second International Conference “e-Society.Mk”. Place and time - Skopje, Macedonia; November 15, 16 and 17th, 2006. Topics to be covered: from Freedom of Information and Data Privacy, Online Journalism to Blogging and other new media, Free and Open Source Software. Program of the conference here.

From 14 -19th Nov., ‘06. in Yugoslav Film Archive (in Serbian language popularly known as Jugoslovenska kinoteka) in Kosovska st, downtown of Belgrade, next week is opening the festival of Japanese film, starting on 14.11. with Takeshi Kitano’s film: Kikujiro no natsu (Kikuđirovo leto). Belgrade citizens can enjoy the films of the following authors: Yasuzo Masamura, Masahiro Shinoda, Keisuke Kinoshita, Kon Ichikawa, Akira Kurosawa, Toshiya Fujita,Masato Harada, Yasuo Furuhata. Festival will be closed on 19th Nov.with Kitano’s film Kidzu ritan.

Today, Nov.9th, is International day against fascism and anti-Semitism, as a big day that many bad things have happened and are happening on this ‘cross-road’ of Balkans. Beside, on this day one great, wise, courage, intellectual, methodic professor, good and kind person is born (not knowN on world wide web, yet, as i believe sometimes in ‘old school of modesty’). And I, personally, mark this day with a little piece of art.

Michael Palin, known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python, and now TV traveller, currently filming his new series of ‘Palin’s New Europe’, visited yesterday Belgrade. Palin and his crew have been spotted in various locations in the Balkans and Eastern Europe over the last few months, as he writes in his travel journal. More on Palin’s travels at the offcial web site.

Story on Serbia continues…Today at 1pm, Conference at University of Belgrade, with participants of all state and private universities in Serbia will discuss on accepting the official document for indentation of the existing ‘graduate’ and ‘master’ degree. On the other hand, students organized protest in front of the Plato - Faculty of Philosophy. They require indentation of these two degrees, decrease of student scholarships and some other issues. What will be with students that acquired their graduate and master degree diplomas before Bologna declaration, I hope we will find out soon, as I was this morning at the Dean’s and Postgraduate office at University, and no one is giving any definite information. Here is the link for Department of Education and Skills of Bologna Secretariat with relevant documents for each European country.

In Subotica - Vojvodina, 2 days ago, died mother and her son from hard undernourished, as they were founded in their old house (dead for three days, from starvation, as autopsy professional said). President of Serbia said that noone shall die from starvation, but reality is that fatal poverty and living on the edge of exsistance makes Serbia ‘poor’ country in transition in every aspect. This is one of the reasons for braindrain (many young intelligent people go aborad for work and living) in Serbia and elder population grows. On average, in the world, every five seconds a child dies from starvation. Think about it!
Foreign media do not write about this, but if some of you find link on the net (in English) about this event, please post it as a comment!

Portugese band which music combines old fado and folk music with modern sounds will perform in Sava Centar, 11. November 2006. 21:00, Great Hall - ‘a farewell tour’ and concert of Madredeus. They have several albums and were not that familiar in the 80’s. They became popular in the 90’s outside their country when Wim Wenders, impressed by their music, asked them and used Madredeus music for his film Lisabon Story. They performed three times in Belgrade (as I can recall) and each time was wonderful.

Another great concert at the same place : 19. November 2006., 20:30, Great hall of SC., LEB I SOL (Eng. “Bread and Salt”) was a premier experimental jazz rock ‘n’ roll fusion ex-Yugoslavian band. They were formed in 1976 in Skopje, the present “Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia”, with famous musician and frontman: Vlatko Stefanovski-guitar, vocals, author of music for many films, animated films, short films, ballet. More on Leb&Sol discography here.

Organisation Slobodnakultura.org , tomorrow, Monday, 6th Nov 2006, Gallery of Faculty of Arts - Belgrade (Knez Mihajlova 53) at 7pm, are presenting Creative Commons work and licences, there will be presentation of videos, and discussion on copyrights in art. Program should be here.