German Politics, oddly enough

I’m leaving the country.

You know what? A sizeable portion of Germans are probably truly mad, after all. I have just learnt of a poll result indicating that a third of Germans would support a political comeback of Oskar Lafontaine, the loony left former chairman of the Social Democrats, who blocked each and every economic reform initiative in the 1990s. Yes, *that* Oskar. The “I’m against it, what are we talking about?” Lafontaine.

Frankly, if Lafontaine had been born in the US, he would be advocating Creationism and write op-eds about the failure of science to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the earth is not flat.

I mean, has anyone ever “really” seen the entire globe?

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German Politics

Shorter IG Metall.

“You can be as flexible as you want to, work as much as you want to, earn as much as you want to – but only if we allow it.”

In a move displaying the current hipocrisy of German trade unions in all its beauty, IG Metall, the poweful metal worker union, struck a deal with Siemens AG that will increase working hours in one plant to 40 hours a week – something the union previously claimed would be the end of the world as we know it.

Apparently it’s not – as long as the union’s officials get to decide instead of the people affected…

More via Deutsche Welle.

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US Politics

America’s Echo Chamber

I remember a discussion among several a-list bloggers about “blogs as echo chambers” earlier this year. While I largely agreed with the theory that blogs can become echo chambers – a public sphere simply reflecting and reinforcing opinions already held by readers and writers mutually self-selecting each other for the precise reason of not being confronted with world-view-challenging opinions – I am also quite confident that this risk is particularly important in America – still the dominant part of the world’s blogosphere.

I suppose it would be impossible for blogs to entirely escape the general echo chamber that the American public sphere seems to have become given the apparent progressive ideological division of the country. If you’re not sure what I am talking about, take a look at some of the headlines about the 9/11 commissions interim report about the alleged connections of Saddam Hussein government officials with Al-Qaeda.

Some might wonder why the Bush administration is not changing their talking points in light of the amount of evidence challenging its stance instead of thouroughly demonstrating once again that George W Bush might have a black and white world view except when it comes to telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Maybe Richard Cheney told Mrs Bush to read Machiavelli’s “The Prince” to the President…

But whatever the reason, both men seem to know very well that to keep lying will not do more harm to their reputation than it has already. However, changing the tune now would certainly alienate those on their side of the American echo chamber, those who, for one reason or another, if only to avoid cognitive dissonance, still believe – or pretend to believe – that the administration was not lying all along.

Unfortunately, it is these people that President Bush needs come November, not those who believed he was bending the truth with or without a commission report.

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Allgemein

She.

I don’t know whom Prince had in mind when he wrote “most beautiful girl in the world”. But I can certainly understand that, according to Die Welt, certain experts (whoever that may have been) have decided that he will probably have thought of her. I recently watched Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s again and I have to say their choice would have been mine, too.

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music

Proof that Xavier Naidoo is wrong.

Alright, I’m posting this simply because Xavier Naidoo just sang “There’s nothing as beautiful as you” (that means me, no?) on the radio.

He’s wrong. Clearly wrong. Want proof? Have a look at the ladies competing in this years Miss Universe beauty pageant.

Well, I mean, I have personally witnessed how make-up artists and skilled photographs will turn any reasonably looking human being into an angle-specific Claudia Schiffer/Brad Pitt, but beauty is always nice to look at, no?

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German Politics

She Was Not Surprised?

I’m a little confused about a statement by the Chancellor’s spokesperson, Bela Anda, as reported by Netzeitung.

As you might have heard, yesterday, an unemployed teacher was able to approach Mr Schroeder during a campaign rally in Mannheim and slap him. The Chancellor was, according to Mr Anda, not seriously injured by the “attack” and the perpetrator, who, interestingly, is – and for technical reasons will remain – a candidate for the Social Democrats in next months local elections despite immediate cancellation of his party membership, was released from police custody later in the evening. He faces charges of assault and insult.

Physical attacks on politicians are, luckily, very rare in current German politics – so there it is always surprising to hear about them. Or maybe not – apparently, Mrs Schroeder has been expecting such reactions to her husband’s politics all along – or how else is one to interpret Mr Anda’s statement that she “had been startled but was not really surprised.”

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almost a diary

Miss Piggy in the Box.

Recently, my mother acquired a reprint of an old pre world-war two primary education book as a present for her mother, who learned reading and writing using a similar one. Browsing through the pages printed in 1935, I was not surprised to find nationalism being fed into kids through little stories about heroic soldiers, technologically advanced battle ships, and the like. But there was something that somehow surprised me:

Should you have ever wondered what a pig-drawing looked like in a 1930s Prussian schoolbook, take a look at my careful reproduction.

I am not sure if Miss Piggy in the box is in any way indicative of the mindset of the teachers or the educational system in Germany at the time. It may simply be one abstaction too much. But somehow I can’t help but assume the first alternative is at least partly correct…

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Germany, oddly enough

Not Even Sarcasm.

Usually, I’m less critical of the current state of the German academic reality than most people. This is probably owed to the fact that my experiences within the German university system were rather positive, for I attended one of its shining models, Mannheim University. But I probably have to face the fact that many, if not most students, certainly in the northern German states, are less lucky – as the following quote from the website “oekonomen.de” indicates.

Auf dieser Seite wird den Professoren und Lehrbeauftragten der Hochschule Bremen die Möglichkeit gegeben, ihre Skripten zu veröffentlichen. Dadurch haben die Studenten den Zugriff auf stets vollständige und aktuelle Unterlagen. Dies ist in der Bibliothek nicht immer möglich, da hier vielfach Unterlagen abhanden kommen.

It basically says that the website exists so professors at Bremen University can offer their complete (sic!) lecture scrips to students. The faculty’s or university’s library – for whatever reason – is apparently not able to provide this service.

Should you click on the link to the site, please note the recommendation of Stephen R. Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“. Sarcasm – not usually a German quality, I’d say. So maybe even such a sad state of affairs is good for something… ahh, just reloaded the page and realised their recommendations are rotated by script. So – maybe not even sarcasm.

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