Final Word from Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Mirek Topolánek's jeans were so tight when he posed for a gay magazine that it's no wonder his air-deprived brain led him astray. His comments about the church, homosexuals and Jews during the photo shoot weren't in the same category as the inebriated Mel Gibson's a few years ago, but they caused an outrage in the tiny Czech pond. When Topolánek wore a nice-fitting €2,500 English suit to a town meeting with the Council on Czech Competitiveness two weeks ago, he had no excuse for making asphyxial comments. Yet some of his remarks were much more politically astonishing. He admitted, for example, that all the defense deals while he was prime minister - from the Tatra trucks to the Pandur armored vehicles - were rigged. (Jaroslav Plesl first reported a slightly bowdlerized version of this comment in LN.) He also spoke of the racketeering and mafia practices in Prague. Heavy stuff, yet there has been no outrage. If a Czech politician must go, it's almost always for one of the smallest of his sins.[Czech Republic Hilton Steyr General Dynamics corruption Lidové noviny Lui]
Glossary of difficult words
Crimes and misdemeanors - the name of a film by Woody Allen;
misdemeanor - a minor wrongdoing; a less-serious offense than a felony;
deprived - denied of something;
astray - away from the correct path or direction; into error or morally questionable behavior;
inebriated - drunk, intoxicated;
asphyxial - (rare in this usage) deprived of oxygen; suffocating;
bowdlerized - watered-down; having had improper or offensive material removed (Plesl did not mention Tatra or the Pandurs);
rigged - manipulated;
racketeering - the commission of crimes such as extortion, loansharking, bribery and obstruction of justice in the furtherance of illegal business activities.