Final Word from Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Oscar-nominated film "The Social Network" manipulates the personal sentiments of moviegoers as freely as Facebook manipulates the personal data of its users. Viewers are led to believe that being an asshole is somehow illegal or immoral. The same thing is happening to Vladimír Mlynář of PPF. Tomáš Ježek whined on Česká pozice that Mlynář put pressure on him to revise his expert opinion in the matter of PPF's disqualification from the eco-tender. It's almost as if Ježek had never met a lobbyist during his 20 years in public life! Petr Kolář of LN and Jaroslav Plesl of HN jumped on the story and, alternately, nearly predicted Mlynář's ouster from PPF and the ruin of the company's reputation. Meanwhile, there's been no indication in any of this that Mlynář actually did anything illegal or even particularly inappropriate. Okay, so the guy might be a first-class jerk at times, but who in business isn't? If this is truly the worst dirt that can be dug up on Mlynář and his employer, they probably deserve an Oscar for best remake.
Glossary of difficult words
asshole - (vulgar) a jerk; a contemptibly obnoxious person;
to whine - to complain in a childish or bad-tempered way;
ouster - dismissal or expulsion from a position;
remake - a film or piece of music that has been filmed or recorded again and released; the process of undergoing a change of image or appearance.