[Sarcasm] No! Really? How could *that* ever happen? Indeed shocking news from the NYTimes [/Sarcasm] – \”Documents disclosed as part of yesterday’s settlement show how Wall Street firms, in pursuit of investment banking fees, put the interests of their individual clients dead last.\”
With 66 years, your life begins.
When German singer Udo Juergens once had a huge hit singing about the joys of retirement (“with 66 years, your life begins”) he probably thought about long strolls in the mountains rather than Sex and the Single Senior.
From the NYTimes.
AAAAAAAAAAction!
Two weeks or so ago, a friend asked me if I knew anything about the budgetary problems California is facing during the current economic bust given a rapid fiscal expansion during the previus – particularly Sillicon Valley powered – economic boom. Well, I had to admit that my knowledge of US state budgetary affairs is minimal, to be exaggerating. But the good thing is, I am not the European who has to know about these things, as another one is apparently about to tackle the problem.
“[e]veryone knew he would be back, but no one thought it would be this soon. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood action star turned Republican activist, might get a chance to run for governor of California in September, three years earlier than expected.
As the article reports, the budgetary problems have (how surprising) caused a decline in the current governor Gray’s popularity. This has led some activists to try to gather some 900.000 signatures needed to challenge the sitting governor ahead of the end of his term, which would be 2006. So these people apparently decided to ask the Terminator, who was apparently expected to run for governor in 2006 anyway, to run on their ticket now. For a reason:
“Political strategists believe that, after the war in Iraq, Mr Schwarzenegger’s gung-ho, machinegun-toting image would be more attractive to voters than ever. Even historically liberal Californians might elect a Republican, they say.”
But for all his advantages there’s a drawback.
The heavily-accented Mr Schwarzenegger, … makes President Bush look like a natural orator.”
But then again, Ronald Reagan, to make the obvious comparison, even rehearsed press-conferences as President. So isn’t the biggest question of all if the US constitution will be amended again to allow for Arnie as President in, say, 2016?.
Norman Mailer vs. US Feminists
Norman Mailer writes in the London Times that, in his opinion, the US went to war because of tv – but above all, because of women – American feminists, to be precise.
“We understood that our television was going to be terrific. And it was. Sanitised but terrific … There were, however, even better reasons for using our military skills, but these reasons return us to the ongoing malaise of the white American male. He had been taking a daily drubbing over the past 30 years. For better or worse, the women?s movement had had its breakthrough successes and the old, easy white male ego had withered in the glare.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung portrays two web journals about current Middle Eastern affairs
Today, the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung portrays two web journals about current Middle Eastern affairs, zenith – Zeitschrift fuer den Orient and inamo.
US Senator Santorum’s fashistoid remarks
You have probably heard about US Senator Santorum’s fashistoid remarks about homosexuals having no right to privacy for their alleged attempt to destroy “healthy family values”. Himself being gay, Bruce Bawer, an American poet and literary critic living in Olso, does not exactly agree with the Senator here – but being a proud American he is nonetheless grateful for this wake-up call:
“Santorum’s remarks betray an utter indifference to the idea of American liberty. He has spit in the face of every coalition soldier who went to Iraq to fight for freedom, and at every Eastern European who reveres America as the symbolic antithesis of Soviet-era tyranny. And he has confirmed, to a depressing extent, the condescending cartoon version of America that has repeatedly been on display in the European media these past months — the America that is not about freedom at all but about power, pure and simple.”
Harsh, but true, words. Salon.com has got the rest of them.
German private tv stations sue public tv stations
The EUObserver tells us about a possibly far-reaching anti-trust lawsuit by private German tv-stations against public German television stations ARD and ZDF. Should be interesting to follow this.
Quicklinks, Tony Blair, And The Borg
Sorry for the apparent recent lack of updates. Not that there’s not enough stuff I’d like to comment on, I just did not find the time lately.
But there’s exciting news, too. Look to your left, my gentle readers, and you’ll find a seamlessly integrated second blog called “Link Of The Minute.” This is where I hope to post even when I don’t find the time to put my simple opinions into overly complicated writing. The “Quote Of The Minute”, on the other hand, has moved to the right (and will also be blog powered soon, now that I have found a way to integrate more than one blog on one page with Javascript. It’s actually quite simple – here’s how the magic happens.
Alright, more tomorrow. Expect me to be rather critical of the “European-defence-summit” in Brussels tomorrow. The history of this summit is just one more example how elections even in a small country like Belgium could have important international ramifications. But not this time, I suppose, as the US are apparently trying to play divide et impera by beginning to mend things with the German government while bashing France – think of last week’s “there will be consequences, and it will hurt”-statement by Colin Powell, who is coming to Germany in May, and statements from “beltway-insiders” who suddenly seem quite relaxed about the future of US-German relations.
Given this seeming American recognition that it is not in the US’ interest to force Germany to opt for an all-francophone foreign policy, I do not quite understand today’s “resistance is futile”- declaration by the American ambassador to Europe, the British PM Tony Blair.
All he is doing is increasing the perception that the coming world order is indeed one in which Jean-Luc will have to become Locutus of Borg. If this is what he wants to achieve, then fine. But what is really needed right now is someone who explains that a unipolar world would not be a unilateral one.
Especially for the British PM it ould be important in days like these not to repeat the mistake Churchill made after WW2, by outlining three spheres of British interest – being the US’ junior partner, the Commonwealth, and Europe, in that order.
The US never wanted a junior partner telling them how to run the world during the cold war. They wanted to use a British membership in the EU to gain influence in Brussels. Early in the 1960s the US government told the British that they would have their “special relationship” with Germany instead if the UK would not join soon. Well, it took more then ten years to get in, as Général deGaulle understood precisely what was at stake.
So he vetoed the British membership in the EU until the common agricultural policy was finally agreed upon – in a way that favoured France and would seriously disadvantage the UK once it entered the EU. So the British influence in Europe was severly hampered by this and the fact that the 1970s brought economic gloom rather than glory.
To cut a long story short – Churchill’s three spheres seemed to be a good idea back in 1945. But they turned out to be a horrible mistake. And while everyone knows that history does not repeat itself in detail, I might – as I already said last December commenting on Blair’s European ideas and the Turkish application for membership – repeat itself in structure.
Whatever Blair’s judgment about the extent of American primacy in the West – it does not matter at all if resistance is actually futile or not: there will be resistance if it is perceived necessary. Blair’s talk raises the chances it will.
And so it looks like the British government is – again – underestimating the European dynamics. It looks as if Capt’n Tony should have watched more StarTrek – NextGeneration” recently – instead of dubbing “The Simpsons” ;-).
Ah, thinking about all this, a very good book regarding the British-European relations post 1945 is: Stephen George, An Awkward Partner: Britain in the European Community. Well… I liked it a lot.
Oskar Lafontaine and the “loony left”
Whenever people start talking about the “loony left” I can’t help but thinking about Oskar Lafontaine, the former chairman of the Social Democrats and German finance minister who luckily stepped down in March 1999. This week’s English edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeie Zeitung reports that I am not the only one who is being driven mad by his seemingly scheduled attempts to obstruct the government and regain influence in the SPD.
Cocktail at 21 hundred.
NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd explains what the invitation to a Washington cocktail party tells us about the world we live in now: ‘Diplomacy in Washington now runs on military time.’