German Politics

The Sarrazin affair: Pissing against the wind.

Getting rid of Thilo Sarrazin as a Bundesbank board member is the political equivalent of pissing against the wind.

This is not going to end the – scientifically absurd and thus intellectually already fnished – debate about possible genetic reasons for the lack of social integration of some ethnicity, it’s gonna kickstart it, although with a different focus: now it’s about freedom of speech, political correctness running wild, and a government praising the “independent decision” of its independent central bank – that statement alone is more harmful to the Bundesbank than anything ever said or written by Thilo Sarrazin. Does anyone read press statements in the Chancellor’s press office? Unbelievable.

Of course, using well established genetic similarities among a majority of Jewish people to prove an unproveable point about ethnically hereditary abilities is going to cause – and rightly so – some major stir in Germany and will dequalify Sarrazin for any serious debate. But that doesn’t mean that debate will stop by firing him… quite the opposite. It will only prove that the German political establishment is willling to be held hostage by someone who makes scientifically ridiculous statements, because it is afraid that the public at large is not able to see through it. It’s a very painful lesson about the way the German political establishment is afraid of its own voters.

And that, quite frankly, is the truly sad realization of the Sarrazin affair.

Standard
almost a diary, traveling

A Passage to India

Well, we all know where Columbus ended up when he tried to find one. Luckily, my friend Marietta actually made it to India, exchanging the colourful sights of Carnival in Mainz for those of Jaipur. She’ll be working for an aid project over there and since not many of the people I know “in real life” have ever started a blog, I would like to use this opportunity to mention “A Passage to India“, where she will chronicle her experience in German and/or English.

Standard
technology

iPad, HyPad.

So, MacTablet day is over, and what have we learnt? Steve Jobs can’t do magic, either. The emphasis Apple put on the iPad’s assumed magical abilities in the official presentation video, in which Apple developers do appear a bit, well, over the top (not to say, enchanted). And, I think, Apple is actually very much aware of the device’s lack of magic – the iPad will cost half of the rumoured prices.

Apart from that – it’s just what everybody expected. A great looking device taking design and UI cues from both the iPhone and the iPod touch, with a proprietary CPU that appears to be relatively fast and economic in its use of energy.  10 hours of battery life in such a sleek device, that’s definitely quite something.

It will be interesting to see whether extended typing will be bearable on the virtual keyboard, but initial reports indicate it’s probably not going to be. The screen is not actually high resolution – 1024*768 in a 9,7” screen is, well just barely above standard. It could be a good screen, but that remains to be seen.

But even so, it is an LED screen, and that’s really something entirely different from the electronic ink technology used by, say, Amazon’s Kindle. Apple’s bookstore will probably sell books, but reading on a backlit device will not be as convenient as it is on an e-ink screen. I don’t think it’s too surprising Amazon’s stock was up after the iPad’s presentation – investors probably realized the iPad won’t kill the Kindle. Currently, alas, there is just no “best of both worlds” – e-ink is not available in colour for mass consumption and neither is any other non-LED based technology.

The iPad apparently also doesn’t feature a camera, so it’s useless for video calls.

But the device’s biggest problem may turn out to be what is Apple’s huge strength in the phone market (- and, if Microsoft is clever, an opportunity to regain lost ground in the market it pioneered  with a “Windows7 tablet PC edition 2010″…): The system is currently closed, and Apple controls who gets to put what on the system. Flash, for example, is not currently supported. And that’s a pretty big problem for a web-surfing tablet, and ‘pretty big’ is probably an understatement.

We’ll see, in three months everyone will be able to do a hands-on test.

Standard
advertisement, oddly enough

No ‘tyrants’ anymore.

According to the Guardian, a British recruitment firm got into a bit of trouble with the UK’s advertising watchdog because one of its radio ads features an apparently German boss whose spoken German is well, slightly, reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s impersonation of Tomenia’s Great Dictator. The ad didn’t go down too well with the Advertising Standards Authority, which eventually pulled it because the humour was “derived from a stereotype at the expense of German people.”

Check out the Guardian’s Mark Sweney’s report on the matter ad listen to the ad yourself – Radio ad banned for implying Germans are ‘tyrants’.

Not that I disagree with the authorities assessment of the use of such a badly sketched stereotype in the ad in theory – but given the cultural importance of Hitler impersonations for the English identity, and assuming  that, by now, most Brits will likely be aware that Hitler is not really the current Chancellor of Germany, I can’t help but wonder to which extent those who came up with the spot, and those who are listening to it, are actually connecting real Germans to such a bad rendition of Chaplin. I doubt that a lot of them were actually thinking, as the authority suggests, “… that German people were more likely to be unreasonable or aggressive to others…” They aren’t – except when it comes to penalties, of course.

But be that as it may, this incident is, of course, really as good a reason as any to link to this compilation of the best moments from Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”  – enjoy.


Standard
German contact ad - "looking for a nice or a mean woman..."
battleofthesexes, sex

Singles, Codes, and Evolution.

Ok, let’s face it. Mating, human mating in particular, is a complex communication process involving all sorts of biological and cultural codes that no one will ever really understand – except with hindsight, when we call it evolution, because that sounds much nicer than ignorance. Hence the proliferation of experts and (particularly paid for) advice on the matter – when no one actually knows anything, then everyone can contribute without ever really being wrong about what codes to use when.

Case in point, tonight I saw a poster ad for a singles’ party at the local university this Friday. Now I suppose some people may live under the impression that studying as a whole isn’t much more than a singles’ party, but apparently, that’s no longer the case – evolution, remember? But it wasn’t the party itself that I found interesting – apparently, the organisers are going to hand out differently coloured ribbons indicating a particular person’s willingness to flirt. While I understand that coloured ribbons or other signs have long played a certain role in identifying potential partners in particular, often sexual, subcultures, where colours are usually codes for the person’s specific preferences, I am a tad bit confused about colours indicating willingness to flirt at a singles’ party for students?

Seriously, how many different kinds of flirting are there that can be usefully differentiated? Well,  I guess I have to go and see evolution with my own eyes to find out…

Standard
German Politics, politics

Auf der Nordschleife in den Graben gefahren.

Felix Schmitt von Bündnis90/Die Grünen RLP kommentiert die “Affäre Billen” der CDU Landtagsfraktion Rheinland-Pfalz und es ist leider wirklich kaum möglich, die Sache anders zu sehen als er, auch wenn ich noch nicht sicher bin, daß das auch impliziert, daß die CDU automatisch keine Chance mehr bei der Landtagswahl 2011 hat, denn Julia Klöckner gegen Kurt Beck ins Rennen zu schicken wird vermutlich noch so einiges verändern, und ihre Wahrnehmung wird wohl auch erst nach der offiziellen Inthronisation als Spitzenkandidatin von den Fraktionsinterna belastet –

“Die CDU wollte mal knallhart den SPD-Skandal um den Nürburgring aufdecken. Sie können es weiter probieren, aber jedes mal wenn sie jetzt die SPD-Landesregierung angreifen werden, kommt der fiese Billen-Konter. Auch in der Öffentlichkeit werden sie den dramatischen Verlust an Glaubwürdigkeit nur schwierig kompensieren können. Aber nicht nur politisch hat die CDU versagt, auch moralisch. Wie wird sich nur der (arme) Peter Dincher fühlen müssen. Er machte den gleichen Fehler, gab aber nach Bekanntwerden sofort sein Landtagsmandat zurück. Gleichbehandlung sieht nun wirklich ganz anders aus.”

Der Rest steht hier – CDU: geistig-moralische Wende vollzogen « WALPODEN5.

Standard
Economics

Dismal Science Update – What kind of economics should we teach?

Hey, maybe the economic crisis will have a bit of a lasting effect on incentives, after all – if only indirectly. On January 20th, the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Department of Economics will hold a public debate entitled “What kind of economics should we teach?” to address some of the more pressing problems of the current economics curriculum –

“The recent global crisis has lead to questions being asked about whether the kind of economics being taught to students in leading economics departments was responsible for the widespread failure to predict the timing and magnitude of the events that unfolded in 2008. Critiques range from an absence of historical context in mainstream teaching of economics to excessive reliance on mathematical models. This panel brings together four leading economists to debate this issue and to discuss what changes in the economics curriculum and the way that it is delivered are desirable.”

To be fair, there are probably worse places for such a debate than the LSE.

Standard
Bürgerrechte, politics, USA

Good Morning America.

The NY Times reports that the American Law Institute, a body made up of about 4,000 judges, lawyers and law professors and mostly dealing with creating structural legal directives to keep the different jurisdictional layers of the American legal system congruent, and also the body

which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital justice system almost 50 years ago, pronounced its project a failure and walked away from it.

Why? According to the NYT they didn’t quite say no to capital punishment as such, but they apparently did say that the American implementation is irretrievably broken –

A study commissioned by the institute said that decades of experience had proved that the system could not reconcile the twin goals of individualized decisions about who should be executed and systemic fairness. It added that capital punishment was plagued by racial disparities; was enormously expensive even as many defense lawyers were underpaid and some were incompetent; risked executing innocent people; and was undermined by the politics that come with judicial elections.

No kidding.

Standard
almost a diary, Economics, German Politics, intellectual property rights, internet, media

Manifestieren.

Im vergangenen April, auf der Republica 2009, habe ich Stefan Niggemeier nach der gnadenlos langweiligen Blogger vs. Journalismus-Diskussion zwischen zwei Radiointerviews zum Thema noch gefragt, ob es ihn nicht langweile, seit Jahren mit den gleichen Leuten immer die gleichen Dinge zu diskutieren. Er meinte schlicht – “ja”.

Aber er begreift diese Diskussionen wohl auch als eine Art öffentliche Dienstleistung, als Bohren verdammt dicker Bretter vor den Köpfen mancher Menschen, die immer größere Schwierigkeiten haben, die sich progressiv virtualisierende Realität in ihre mentalen Interpretationsschemata zu pressen, so wie sie das beim Ausdrucken von Netzinhalten auf Din-A4-Seiten versuchen. Das Netz hat halt keine Seitenbegrenzungen.

Die Überwindung dieses konzeptionellen Grabens und die zumindest tendenzielle Beantwortung der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Fragestellungen, die sich aus der Digitalisierung, dem Informationsparadoxon und der so immer schlechter funktionierenden “unsichtbaren Hand” des Marktes ergeben sind eine Generationenaufgabe, in der man Redundanz vermutlich vor allem als eine Art kognitives Stützrad ansehen muß. In der Wiederholung liegt zumindest ein Teil der Kraft, denn Ideen, die sich nur als Folge von Zeichen, nicht aber in Köpfen manifestieren, sind eigentlich keine. Die Annahme der Aufgabe, mit Redundanz mentale Überzeugungsarbeit zu leisten, ist daher auch ein Zeichen der Anerkenntnis von gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung.

Der Weinerlichkeit des Heidelberger Appels und der Hamburger Erklärung wird heute von einigen Journalisten und Bloggern eine Alternative entgegengesetzt, die Handlungs- und Gestaltungsfähigkeit annimmt, und nicht den Untergang des Abendlandes, sollte bei diesem Internet nicht bald mal jemand den Stecker ziehen. Steht nix Neues drin, klar, und Probleme werden darin auch nicht gelöst. Wie auch? So geht das eben nicht. Das ist ja gerade der problematische Punkt an der Sache.

Aber das Manifest ist – wie die Piratenpartei und wie der Kulturkampf um die Netzsperren in diesem Sommer – ein Zeichen für die in meiner Generation wachsende Erkenntnis, daß man sich nicht mehr unter Berufung auf vermeintliche oder tatsächliche superiore Sachkenntnis oder die nicht seltene Unterträglichkeit von institutionellen Auseinandersetzungen aus diesen heraushalten darf. Der Preis wäre zu hoch.

Und daher werde auch ich das an sich redundante Internet-Manifest mitzeichnen, sobald es die Möglichkeit dazu gibt.

Standard