Our president died... + white lions and co. - PH

Hello.

Many people not only in the Czech republic are sad, because Václav Havel died today.
Václav Havel (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1c…) was the first president of the Czech republic and nowadays, he was probably the most respected Czech in the world. He was inspiration for many people, he influenced lot of lives. He was not only a politician, but also a writer, philosopher, human right activist and political prisoner. As every strong person with constant opinions, he also had his opponents. To be honest, I was one of them. Although I did not share most of his opinions, although I did not find many his actions right and although he was not a moral example for me, I still respect him and I regret his death. I will never forget, that he fought against totalitarian communist regime in my country and I will be always grateful, that also thanks to him, we are now free modern democratic country with strong relationship with rest of democratic world.

Václav Havel was 75, when he died. In last years, he had several serious health issues, but was still active person. This week, he met his personal friend Dalai Lama and peacefully died only few days later in his sleep.

Václav Havel was very respected person, who was appreciated by many people world-wide.
So his death made breaking news: edition.cnn.com/ (edition.cnn.com/2011/12/18/wor… , edition.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opi…), www.bbc.co.uk/ ......
In my country, thousands of people spontaneously gather on squares, singing and lighting candles for him (www.idnes.cz/, zpravy.idnes.cz/cesi-uctili-ha…).

As I say, I would consider myself his political opponent, but I still respect him.
And his death made me somehow empty today.
Hehe, I remember, when I was a baby, I loved him, he was my personal hero. I even drew a picture for him and got a letter from president's office as a reply. "Our ways" parted later, but I will always remember him as a big person of modern Czech history.

I hope he found peace....  



*


People, as we all know, dA is having an error. It caused that right now, you can see many childish and amateur art attempts on the front page. Seriously, PLEASE, stop posting angry comments under those deviations and another "why the hell is THIS on front page" messages. Those kids are not to be blamed for dA's error. I can imagine how sad and disappointed they must be to find many angry comments under their first art attempts :/ I am also angry that dA does not work, because I can not post anything (I love faves too much to post art without a chance to be noticed ), but those young members really should not get such reactions.
But I believe my watchers are clever enough to not post such messages



*



Today I post photos of white lion Haldir and another big cats from ZOO Bratislava.
Nice fact: Order of the white lion is the highest order in the Czech republic....