almost a diary, oddly enough

Less Almost, More Diary.

I have no idea what made me take the test Lillimarleen advertised on her page tonight, but there you go. I usually don’t take “personality tests”, certainly not personality tests that consist of eight questions.

No one has ever been able to pin me down and maybe it’s a good sign that the headhunters who tried to do that by playing a ten minute game have since gone out of business. Anyway, I thought it was time for another slightly more personal entry. So here we go.

Dear almost a diary,

today I did this eight questions personality test on the internet… here’s the result. What do you think?

holding hands

hand holding – you like to be in constant physical
contact with your special someone but you don’t want to take things too quickly.

Hey almost a diary, want to the test, too?

[ brought to you by Quizilla ]

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Allgemein

Frauenparkplatz, II.

Looking at today’s sitemeter, I can safely conclude that someone with a certain readership in the Netherlands must have written a little something about about the latest development in gendered catering that I mentioned in a quicklink on October 14th: The Maennergarten, a place where women can leave their men so they can shop without him wondering about the intrinsic value of the 130th handbag or the 52nd pair of shoes.


That was the executive summary. And as a service to all my newly google-acquired Dutch readers, please find below what I wrote a month ago – ah, and don’t forget to have a look at a fistful of euros for creative coverage of other interesting developments from all over Europe.


“Frauenparkplatz is German for one of the usually well lit and extremely conveniently placed discriminatory parking spots in car parks reserved for female use. A few weeks ago, I saw a comedy programme on German tv take the word literally: Husbands about to run errants parked their wifes on a “Frauenparkplatz”, leaving them holding the parking tickets in their mouths…


Well, maybe it was because of this gag that the Nox Bar in Hamburg has now started a “Maennerparkplatz”, or rather, “Maennergarten”, as in Kindergarten for men: “[f]or $11.80, [they are] offering boy’s games and home-improvement coaching as well as a meal and two beers for men left there for a Saturday afternoon, leaving women free to shop in the city’s swanky boutiques.” I don’t know if this will survive in the long run – but they had 27 parked guys there on the project’s second saturday… who said the German service industry isn’t sufficiently innovative? [via Papascott, noted by AP last week.]

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Allgemein

Good Bye! European Film Awards.

Germany-info, the news service of Germany’s US embassy is claiming that Wolfgang Becker’s “Good Bye! Lenin” is poised to sweep the European film awards which are being handed out on December 6 in Berlin.


The competition for “Best Film 2003” includes Lars von Trier’s “Dogville,” Michael Winterbottom’s “In this World,” François Ozon’s “Swimming Pool,” Stephen Frears’ “Dirty Pretty Things,” and Isabel Coixet’s “My Life without Me.”


Now “Good Bye! Lenin” is certainly a great movie and it deserves all the success it currently enjoys, notably in France, where now more than a million people went to see it on the silver screen. It is being released in 65 countries. Even though 2003 saw a number of eligible movies for a German nomination to the Oscar’s best foreign language movie, it was no surprise at all that “Good Bye! Lenin” won the nomination. It is, also in my opinion, the best German film of 2003.


But having recently seen lars von Trier’s “Dogville” I don’t think “Good Bye! Lenin” is the best European picture this year, I’m afraid. While I’d actually say that all competitors are incommensurable, juries at festivals usually aren’t offered that easy way out. So if I were asked and then forced to make a decision, “Dogville” would be the one. To say this about an epic play where actors knock on imaginary doors of inexistent houses in a town with streets merely painted on the studio floor is quite something for someone like me who usually rolls his eyes whenever I hear of “Brechtian influences” on a movie. So, if you haven’t yet seen “Dogville”, do that. But be prepared to be shocked.


Oh, and while I’m talking about great films ;). “FilMZ” the “Festibal Of The German Film” will be showing “Not The First, Won’t Be The Last”, a short film I act in which was produced by my friend Sebastian Linke.

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US Politics

Why Arithmtics Is Important.

Alternet has the transcript of an interview of Princeton economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman that was conducted by Terence McNally for his programme “Free Forum” on KPFK, a Los Angeles radio station. Of course, Krugman has a new book out (and I’m not talking about the economics textbook he has been writing with his wife Robin Wells) that needs to be marketed. Although The Great Unravelling doesn’t need to be marketed too badly, as it is already on the NY Times bestseller list.


And there’s a reason the book is a bestseller. Not only is Mr Krugman one of the rare breed of economists who did not loose the ability to use words after having been exposed to intermediate economics, he also able to apply the knowledge acquired in said lecture to gain a much clearer understanding of certain things than many others – and write about them. Mr Krugman is a convincing man, because he, as opposed to many of his newly acquired followers on the left, as well as those from the tirghtwho fiercly oppose him, can do his own arithmetic. And this is how he became one of the most influential critics of President Bush’s policies, economic and otherwise, as hailed by a left in dire need of credible backing as hated by the right.


Particularly in recent months, he has been villified by the right-wing US establishment for his alligation that the current administration had not only been lying about pretty much every policy enacted but also that this presidency’s main political objective were to destroy any possible future role for redistributional federal policies by depriving the government of a viable tax base (and thereby, in the long run, effectively lock in the kind of plutocratic autoritarian bourgeouis society favoured by the people in power in the US these days).


It is hard to argue with such assertions without a proper grasp of, well, the numbers he used to come to that conclusion. But his book’s main point is actually not what I found most remarkable in the radio interview mentioned above. What I found most remarkable was his claim that the American media was not reporting as truthful as possible because of a climate of fear – maybe that’s another reason why the US did not fare too well in the latest press freedom report by the NGO Reporters Sans Frontières (#31).


Here’s what Paul Krugman said –


Krugman: … One is that the media are desperately afraid of being accused of bias. And that’s partly because there’s a whole machine out there, an organized attempt to accuse them of bias whenever they say anything that the right doesn’t like. So rather than really try to report things objectively, they settle for being even-handed, which is not the same thing. One of my lines in a column – in which a number of people thought I was insulting them personally – was that if Bush said the earth was flat, the mainstream media would have stories with the headline: “Shape of the Earth – Views Differ.” Then they’d quote some Democrats saying that it was round. Journalistic organizations are afraid of being accused of bias. There’s also a fair bit of low rate intimidation of journalists themselves. I have received a couple of elliptical death threats but they weren’t serious. The real stuff is the hate mail that comes in enormous quantities. Organizations try their best to find some scandal in your personal life and disseminate it. I don’t think a lot of journalists are sitting around saying: “I better not cross these guys, they’ll ruin me.” But they do know that every time they say anything the right doesn’t like to hear, they get the equivalent of a nasty electric shock. They sort of get conditioned not to go there.


Oh yeah, I remember: Land Of The Free, And Home Of The Brave.

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Allgemein

Of Bubbles Burst.

Allegedly, there was a time when former Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff regretted that his main shareholders did not allow him to accept former AOL/Time Warner chairman Steve Case’s offer to merge with Bertelsmann.


Case is said ot have contacted Middelhoff before anyone else when he decided to buy himself some turnover with his pre-burst-internet-bubble-valued stock in 1999. Reportedly, the two men are friends since Mr Middelhoff invested in Mr Case’s then ailing AOL back in 1995 and they joined forces to rival Europe’s national telcos in the end-user ISP business with – never too successful – AOL Europe. The latter company nevertheless became one of Bertelsmanns most profitable investments when then AOL Time Warner decided to buy out the Germans after there merger in January 2000.


Mr Middelhoff’s decision to help out Steve Case in 1995 paid off with 7,5 billion Euros in 2000. Bertelsmann is the only vertically integrated media conglomerate that survived the convergence wars of the late 1990s almost unscathed, not least because of the decision not to merge with AOL bak in 2000. What seemed unwise then, certainly to Mr Middelhoff, does look entirely different today. And in some way, Mr Middelhoff himself says so.


After being sacked as Bertelsmann’s CEO last year, he became a partner with the London based investment house Investcorp and if Sueddeutsche Zeitung is right, it looks like he is once again getting involved with AOL. According to the newspaper, he is one behind the rumours that German T-Online might be interested in buying 70% of (now) Time Warner’s AOL unit for one billion Dollars – roughly 1,3% of the value at which these 70% were quoted at the time AOL and Time Warner announced their merger.


It seems like a strategic fit for the Telecom subsidiary that is eagerly looking to get a piece of the US internet market as well as using the opportunity to get rid of a European competitor, should antitrust not intervene. The purchase would also open up possibilities for further cooperation with T-Mobile’s US unit, which is increasingly engaged in WLAN activities like the StarBucks hot spots, or “t-zones”, the companies’ mobile multimedia venture that, not least, recently helped Charlie’s Angels catch Demi Moore.


But there’s a reason AOL is not too expensive these days: the company has problems getting their broadband services right and has recently lost some of its 25 million clients. T-Online’s success is primarily based in Germany, where its broadband service is almost unrivalled. It is certainly questionable if the company would be as successful on the far less hospitable US market.


Plus, there’s the brand issue. America Online owned by Germans? Or Germans getting rid of AOL as a brand? I’m sure, some pollsters are already asking American consumers interesting questions…

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Iraq, media, quicklink, US Politics

William Safire, once again.

I should really stop reading William Safire’s columns, I suppose. Yesterday, the Ny Times provided the world with another marvel. He’s writing about “The Age Of Liberty”, the new Bush foreign policy theme song, after ensuring the reader that he has indeed read, and re-read “the serious speech in its entirety.”

That’s good news, I suppose, as it implies that even the Republican spokesperson at the NYTimes (if only by accident) acknowledges that “seriousness” is something worth mentioning when President Bush is speaking…

He’s also explaining that, apparently, a rethoric Europeanization is going on in the White House speechwriting offices, one that is, unfortunately, so subtle it has to be explained even to the readers of the NY Times… – “He chose “influential” rather than “powerful” to stress our democratic example.”

But he’s right about one thing: Instead of reading summaries, including his own, one should proceed to reading the real thing. Well, where he’s right, he’s right.

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quicklink, US Politics

George Soros

finally found a reason to live after making money. Not surprisingly, this development involves politics – today he told the Washington Post that defeating President Bush in the 2004 Presidential elections has become “the central focus of [his] life”, as those elections were “a matter of life and death.” So in order to put his money where his mouth is, he already donated 5 million US Dollars to the liberal pressure group moveon.org. (from the Washington Post).

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compulsory reading, Germany, USA

Sophie and Hans Scholl, Our Best.

I’m still not writing much these days because of my broken elbow, but today I just had to say something. Today, Papascott links to Bill Dawson, a US expat, living in and blogging from Vienna, who has written a wonderful post about Sophie Scholl and others who lost their lives in the almost hopeless struggle for human decency during the Nazi regime. For all of you who might not know how and why Sophie Scholl died, I’ll quote from Bill’s post –

“A man lifted her small body and placed it flat on a platform, and a blade from high above came crashing down and severed her twenty-one year-old head from her twenty-one year-old body. Yes, she died on the Guillotine, as did her brother and a close friend on that same day. Her murderers are well-known to us: Die Geheime Staatspolizei, the Secret State Police, the Gestapo. Sophie Scholl was a young lady both of words and of action. She was arrested with her brother Hans on February 18, 1943, one day after that final letter of hers cited above. Their friend Christoph Probst was arrested soon thereafter, and all three were murdered on the same day, February 22, 1943. The Gestapo, though they didn’t know precisely who their prey was, had been hunting them for some time, because leaflets from a group calling itself Die Weisse Rose, the White Rose, had been distributed on multiple occasions in Munich and other cities since the second-half of 1942. On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were observed by a custodian of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich as they quickly distributed leaflets inside an otherwise empty hall of the university. This “loyal” janitor, Jakob Schmied, raised the alarm, and the resistance movement called the White Rose came to an end.”

Bill’s post comes as a reply to the least creative Kraut Bashing article I have come across in quite some time, written by a certain Ralph Peters for the New York Post, the newspaper which started the sophisticated “Axis of Weasels” campaign back in February. On the surface, Mr Peters is concerned with the bulls**t talk given on October 3rd by soon to be former CDU MP Martin Hohmann, but the gist of his argument can safely be induced from the following statement –

“The whopping difference between the Allied occupation of Germany and our occupation of Iraq is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis welcomed their liberation. We had to force freedom and democracy on the Germans at gunpoint.”

Tell that to my mother and my father, who, just like millions of other German kids, took chocolate bars from GIs. Anyway, Mr Peters’ article is not worthy of any extended refutation, which is the only objection I have with respect to Bill Dawson’s otherwise great post – he tries to rationlize Peters’ article by explaining that –

“[i]t’s the disgusting mindlessness of anti-Americanism here in Europe that offends Peters, myself and many others and which makes us want to hit back. With this gargantuan post I simply mean to show that one can both express disgust and disapproval towards the mindlessness here in Europe and at the same time recognize that the condition is not entirely universal.”

Here I can’t quite follow. By putting his post in this context, by saying that there are exceptions to the “current mindlessness of anti-Americanism” in Europe just like Sophie Scholl was an exception to the appaling cowardice that held this country, and much of Europe, in grip during the Third Reich, he – I am almost certain accidentally – gives the impression that these two things were actually comparable – which could not be further from the truth.

Last Friday, ZDF tv broadcast “Unsere Besten” (“our best”), the local version of a BBC programme, that allowed tv viewers to cast votes for 300 “cultural Germans”, including celebrity PR nominations like “German Idol” juror Dieter Bohlen, who was ranked 30th, but excluding Hitler and those in his gang. Sophie and her brother Hans made it to the top ten shortlist from which “the best” German will be chosen, once more fulfilling Thomas Mann’s prediction that one day Germany would build monuments to commemorate the courage of these young people – although putting them on the shortlist of a meaningless tv show was probably not what they had in mind.

Just as the other nominees, from Albert Einstein to Johann Sebastian Bach, Sophie and Hans Scholl were primarily exceptional humans, not Germans. But there is something about them that stands out. Something that Bill captures rather well by saying –

“[W]e tend to learn about such people – who by all accounts seem fairly normal to their contemporaries – only via extraordinary circumstances. Were it not for the fact that she lived – and died – when she did, she may never have become so remarkable that we would know anything at all about her today.”

More than for anyone on the list, for Sophie and Hans Scholl, just as for those whom they represent in our collective memory, being exceptional humans meant being exceptional Germans. They were truly “our best”. So go and vote for them. I did.

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