SETimes.comPluto, we hardly knew you
25/08/2006
Humans can and do modify our perceptions of the world as we learn more, writes a blogger in Belgrade. Also this week: vacationing in Montenegro, Albania's disappearing woodlands and the seemingly immutable problem of school bribery.
By Balkanblogs for Southeast European Times – 25/08/06
Marko at Reluctant Dragon meditates on the recent remapping of the solar system. Sure there are nine planets? And one of them is called Pluto? Think again. Even what we consider hard facts can change in a day, rendering decades of schoolbooks instantly obsolete.
"Of course conspiracy theorists (no shortage of those) could argue this latest change was funded by an international lobby of printers, already rubbing their hands and licking their lips thinking about the profits from printing new textbooks, dictionaries and encyclopedias, but I think there is nothing sinister about it.
"It just proves that science is alive and kicking, thank you very much. And it can still change our world."
Although the laws of nature are beyond our control, we can and do modify our perceptions of the universe as we gain knowledge, Marko continues. "And that's the wonderful thing. It shows us that no system created by man is everlasting and impervious to change no matter how used to it we've become. Sooner or later we learn something new, circumstances change, reality kicks in, and we have to accept it and move on."
The map of Europe also has changed at intervals -- drastically in the 1990s, with the end of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia. This year, Montenegro became the continent's newest state. Pristina-based blogger Kushtrim Xhakli decided to take a road trip there, his first visit in a decade.
"First impressions sent me ten years back when I saw the border in Montenegro -- the border police didn't even check anything and just let us proceed with our way. So nothing changed! Hah!," he writes.
On the other hand, there's the new Montenegro Tunnel, 4260m-long and built to Western European standards at a cost of some 70m euros. It's "really impressive" and also saves considerable time.
But rising tourism brings some less welcome change -- traffic snarls, overloaded roads and beach entrepreneurs "trying to get money photographing kids with large snakes and other animals", Xhakli writes.
In Albania, meanwhile, Flori is worried about environmental changes, particularly the loss of woodlands. "The use for personal profit, and the construction of many buildings without authorisation or any environmental study, is leading to the disappearance of the woods and forests that used to surround Tirana," he writes, citing data from the National Environmental Agency.
Failure by local and environmental authorities to protect the forests is contributing to the problem," Flori adds.
Writing at peshkupauje, Banago Zemërshqiptari would like to see an important change in the school system: a halt to the widespread practice of bribery. At the conclusion of each academic year, he suggests, some students leave with full brains and others with empty pockets.
"How is it possible that after 16 years, this system has not been changed but continues to show up corruption scandals?" writes a commenter. "Nothing has been changed, even with the coming into power of a new government. "
Flux and stability, progress and entrenchment -- that's the world we live in. Join us again next Friday for an array of different blogs and topics.