Did you know that, on average, it takes ten new year’s resolutions until there is even a small effect in the direction of one of them? That could be a good excuse for not posting my song tonight, but, gentle readers, I will be honest with you: I was not yet able to get it into streaming format. So you will have to bear with me and my computer for a day or so.

Not being able to present you with my musical commentary on the current American Commander in Chief is particularly unfortunate as there are new readers who have been told by a web special of the PBS foreign affairs news programme Frontline World that my blog is focusing on the US and the American elections from a German point of view.

The latter is certainly correct, I am always presenting a German point of view, which is inevitable given that I am German. I would, however, like to emphasize that it is highly unlikely that my view will actually be reflected or even taken into account by those who determine “the” German point of view, aka the German government’s foreign policy – after all, both of us, Germany and me, are entitled to our proper opinion.

With respect to the “American” focus, well, I certainly tried to put in prespective some of the political rethoric that created the alleged rift through “the West”. The rift in through the West is, in essence, a rift through the US, actually one that goes right through the Republican party along the authoritarian/libertarian axis. However, given the particularities of the American electoral math and political system the rift tends to be pronounced rather than bridged. America is a big country, some of whose regions are (for the better or worse) at the leading edge of human/technological development while others still seem to be premodern. A country where it is illegal to sell “neck-massagers” in Alabama while thousands of people gather annully for a masturbate-athon in San Francisco.

It is these differences that usually fall between the cracks of news coverage that tends to focus on labels and statements rather than fundamentals and processes. However, I wrote most of my “corrections” in 2003. So feel free to browse the archives until I present you with GW’s Blues.

And while you’re waiting, gentle new readers, why don’t you head over to afoe – a group blog focusing on European affairs, of which I am a proud (though currently rather silent) contributor.