German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stated today that in his opinion a war against Iraq is not useful for the time being. The middle east conflict should be solved before considering any further action against Iraq.
I have not yet made up my mind concerning a western military intervention in Iraq but to wait until the middle east conflict will be resolved would certainly be a bit longer than useful. Sometimes I wonder whether politicians secretly hate Emil Berliner for inventing the microphone…
About an hour ago I watched the sports news. “Franzi is dead, long live Franziska” was today’s leitmotif. “Franzi”, or Franziska van Almsick, is a German heroine – hailing from east Berlin, she became the first common wunderkind after Germany’s reunification when she, then just fourteen years old, won four medals in the 1992 Olympic swimming competition.
She rose to the stars too quickly, far too early. And so she fell fast and deeply a few years later when she tried to cash in her early fame. Those were the days when she was seen on magazine covers and at fancy parties more often than in the swimming pool. Sydney 2000 therefor became the opposite of Barcelona ’92.
Most people thought her career was over. Another wunderkind who wasn’t able to keep up with the pressures of early success. But the humiliations of losing, ridicule and the subsequent media massacre apparently awakened the Phoenix in herself. And so she spread her wings, jumped back into the poola and began to swim. And now, after two years and a few million lanes she is back where she was once before – today she beat her own world record from 8 years ago.
But with the wisdom of years she had to pay for so dearly today’s success must have been much sweeter. And judging from the pictures of her tears after the race she must have felt the same way.
I really hope she hasn’t taken anything. If she has, her downfall will be faster and deeper than the first – and it will be permanent. If not, she will become a national icon for good. Let’s hope she’s our Lance.
Remember the words of the great Baz Luhrman:
“Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old; and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.”
OK, history teaches us that politicians will philander. For German politics then, this week was certainly historical – this week, a fair amount of well known and less well known politicians fell prey to an unprecedented wave of accusations and subsequent resignations – the most prominent politician to step down was Gregor Gysi, senator for economics in the Berlin state government and the most prominent figure the socialist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) has to offer.
And what is the fuss all about? It’s about Miles & More, the well known frequent flyer programme of Lufthansa. According to the internal rules of the Bundestag, deputies are not allowed to use the miles they received for flights conducted for official business for non-official purposes. But then, normally, their frequent flyer accounts are protected from official inspection by Lufthansa’s privacy rules. No wonder then, that some politicians relied on Lufthansa to protect their privacy from the public and used their miles for private purposes. But somehow, someone was able to obtain this information and so it was subsequently published by Germany’s most infuential tabloid, BILD, with the above consequences.
Have we all gone bonkers? How can we expect anyone of modest intelligence to become involved in high-profile politics if the BILD-Zeitung and other media can ruin their careers with a headline concerning something as unimportant as the discretionary private use of frequent flyer miles.
We know that politicians will philander, fair enough. But if we use a standard like the one used in German politics this week, the statement might become untrue in the future, for the simple reason that there won’t be any politicians left to philander.
The person who has never used a corporate copier or sent and email from the office for private purposes throw the first stone. All others, sit down and be quiet.
Last week I saw the film “Kissing Jessics Stein” (aka “Kissing Jessica” in Germany – note: German film distributors often use parts of the original title instead of a) coming up with something useful in German or using the entire English title. You think this is weird? You are right).
“Kissing Jessica Stein” is a postmodern romantic comedy about a woman, Jessica, in her late 20s who is exploring her sexual horizon by replying to a classified ad by lesbian Helen.
The film depicts in an extremely witty way how she gets involved deeper and deeper in the relationship, eventually comes out as a lesbian to her conservative family and moves in with Helen. In the end, however, she realises that Helen is much more of a friend than lover. Helen, of course, feels the same way and so they split as a couple but remain close friends.
While I really liked the film it made me think about two things. The first of which is the production budget, or rather, the entire history of its making. The two protagonists not only wrote the script while in acting school and later performed it in an off-Broadway theatre. They were actually involved in financing the film’s budget of unbelievable 1m USD. Distributed by Fox Searchlight pictures, the film has grossed about 7m so far in the US alone.
That is a return on investment which should silence all those who bought tech stocks back in october 1999, even if the production budget probably doesn’t account for marketing expenses. Interestingly, I (and no one of those I know who have seen the film) remarked anything negative with respect to its technical perfection. The minimal budget for professionally looking dialogue-based films without stars has apparently come down to about 1m USD thanks to technological advances. This heralds great things for films from smaller markets than the US – even if they won’t be able to keep up with Jessica’s ROI, for most of those films will lack the support of Fox Searchlight’s international marketing clout.
The second thing Jessica made me think about was the amount of estrogene the late nineties and early post millenium years have shed on the screens. The entire Western hemisphere has been familiarised with the most intimate feelings of the likes of Ally McBeal, Carrie Bradshaw, or now, Jessica Stein. We have indulged in their post-post-modern feminism and realised that today’s tv-heroines will tell everybody exactly what they want – even if everybody is no longer interested.
There is a direct line from Sally “having a salad” after meeting Harry to Jessica Stein’s lesbian exercises. I can’t really tell you why, but seeing Jessica Stein trying to convince herself that she can be a lesbian, too, made me realise that the days of estrogene on the screen are likely to end rather sooner than later. All that had to be said has been said by now.
So my bet is a return of testosterone on the screens. But in 2 years we will definitely know more…
Although I had not had a single look at this blog for almost two months, tonight I felt the sudden urge to change the template and make it at least presentable. The HTML used in the template I chose is somewhat awkward, so I think this page will get yet another look in a few days. Stay tunes for new and exciting insights will be published here soon (or so I hope…).
Now I suppose that is the classic starting entry for any blog. But this is not just any blog, this one is mine. Over the recent months, blogging has become a wide-spread phenonmenon, and I have discovered some blogs to be phenonmenal context enriching sources of interpretation, knowledge, and sometimes wisdom. Since we all know that a general tendency to reciprocate probably is the most fundamental form of human interaction I want to do just that – try to add to this web of wisdom what I think I can. It will be up to you, my (future) readers, to decide whether my contribution is worth reading or even as insightful and valuable as some of the contributions I have read. The ones that made me start this blog. I will probably add links later.
This blog is called t -com (or maybe t.com, I will think about it) as an abbreviation and brand for “tobi’s communications”, for (you might have guessed…) I am Tobi or, rather, Tobias Schwarz from Germany. I think that most of this blog will be in English, i order to give my predominantly non-German-speaking international friends a chance to read it. But my comments might occasionally feature links to German and French publications.
I don’t know how often I am going to update this. I have never used a diary, and this is a bit like one, except for the fact that it is going to be less about my emotions and more about my thoughts. Therefore I think the concept fits me rather well…
It is probably too early to say that I will concentrate on certain issues more than on others. Just stick around and see for yourself.
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