Final Word from Monday, June 6, 2011
In the movies, when a prominent person gets scammed by a two-bit punk, the policechief works it out with the local mob boss so the stolen property is returned and theproblem goes quietly away. But when John Malkovich has his room at the MandarinOriental in Prague burgled in real life, the news flies around the globe. Prague likesto sell itself as a movie-making town, but it's not overly concerned about its off-thescreenimage. Instead of analyzing the media and guidebooks to understand what iskeeping visitors away, Czech officials spend hundreds of millions on dubious promotion(as LN wrote today). When Prague Assemblyman Jan Kalousek tried to cutoff the money flow, he was suddenly implicated in an insurance-fraud setup. Thetourism problem is painfully simple: Unless the gangsters realize they're shootingthemselves in the foot with their behavior, the country's image will continue to slide.
Glossary of difficult words
Large amounts don't grow on trees ... You've got to pick a pocket or two - sung by Charles Dickens’ character Fagin in the musical "Oliver!";
to scam someone - to swindle, cheat someone;
two-bit - insignificant, cheap or worthless;
punk - a criminal or hoodlum;
dubious - of questionable value;
LN - the article "Česko láka turisty za miliony. Výsledek: jezdí jich méně" is not yet on the internet;
setup - a scheme or trick intended to incriminate or deceive someone;
to shoot oneself in the foot - to inadvertently make a situation worse for oneself;
to slide - to change gradually to a worse condition or lower level.