Funny peculiar

WELCOME to "East of Centre" a new blog by the editors of the admirable Prague-based Transitions Online. Ky Krauthammer has a nice sharp story about the EU trying to run as well as fund an investigative-journalism project. Barbara Frye has a remarkable story about the effect of English libel law on press freedom in Ukraine (if you try to read the Kyiv Post from a UK-based IP address you will now be blocked, as the paper tries to protect itself).

Editor-in-chief Jeremy Druker has a well-judged piece about racist humour and the Roma. Why is that middle-class Czechs who pride themselves on being liberal-minded feel no shame in circulating jokes about Roma that they would never dream of telling about blacks, Jews or other politically-protected minorities? Some of them are funny, but (like Jewish jokes) better when told self-deprecatingly by Roma themselves. (I have written before about the minefield of east European humour.)