notes on the first debate

• McCain wants to counter the financial crisis by lessening dependence on foreign oil
  
• McCain wants to be bipartisan (doing a reference to Kennedy being in hospital)
  
• Obama's solution sounds super simplistic ('oversight over the whole thing')
  
• McCain is going to end American capitalism as we know it, no word on how that is feasible
  
• Obama seems to be proud to know the difference between Main and Wall Street considering how often he mentions them
  
• McCain: "Main St is paying the price for the greed in Washington and Wall St"; so populistic this campaign business
  
• McCain: US is still the biggest exporter in the world (no, Germany is)
  
• Mccain attacks the appropriations committee again
  
• McCain will change the American political system, increasing presidential power over Congress through vetoeing earmarked bills
  
• McCain just admitted Republicans failed to reign in spending
  
• Obama apparently earmarked a lot (he didn't even counter attack McCain on that)
  
• Obama attacks well on the relative unimportance of earmarks (in absolute financial terms)
  
• McCain: pork barrel, earmarks, appropriations...god...nothing else to talk about?
  
• good attack on McCain on health care, on his belief in market solutions only, lack of regulation
  
• McCain shoots back with tax cuts, simple tax rules and pork barrel spending, weak...I hope people will see this
  
• McCain: We let spending get out of hand (Bush adminstration and mainly Republican Congress, how dare you attack Obama on that?)
  
• McCain is so exemplary in his issues; I guess that is good politically, but it is so unsatisfactory in the sense that any policy content is missing
  
• I do not believe Mccain has a chance in hell to cut down on defense spending; he is perfectly right on the issue of course
  
• McCain: response to financial crisis: spending freeze on everything but defense spending and veteran entitlements (I know, reading my note just above I am a little confused as well)
  
• we are back to appropriations, gawd, John, come on...
  
• McCain: Lesson of Iraq: We cannot have a failed strategy (great in-depth analysis)
  
• McCain: We will win with honour, so 19th century.
  
• McCain: Iran would have won influence if US had lost Iraq. Iran already has obviously, because of the invasion alone.
  
• Obama: Al Qaieda is stronger than anytime since 2001. No, they are not. Not because of Iraq, but they are definitely not as strong. They are just a buzzword nowadays.
  
• Good point McCain, the next President will not have to decide whether the US should have gone to Iraq but when and how to leave.
  
• Hardball on Iraq by Obama, harsh attacks on the 2003 beginning. Good job.
  
• This whole troop support thing is so lame. The upper class discussing who has more solidarity with the working class actually fighting and dying.
  
• McCain wants to have Paetrus run Afghanistan with the same strategy as Iraq (keyword: Awakening Councils). That is such a dumb suggestion. Completely different countries, completely different circumstances.
  
• Obama wants to reinforce troops in Afghanistan, two bataillons in addition. Bad news for Europe, bad news for Germany. They'll have a hard time saying no to a request for military aid of his.
  
• McCain: You don't say out loud you attack Pakistan (like Obama did), you just do it.
  
• The Pakistanis don't want to go into Waziristan, McCain trying to convince them to do so won't change much. Their government is not strong enough.
  
• McCain doesn't believe in Jesus, he believes in General Paetrus.
  
• Why does Obama say John, but McCain Senator Obama? Racial issue of white people having called blacks by their first name only for decades in order to keep them in their place? Afraid of being conceived of doing that?
  
• Obama: Good job on describing the mess in Pakistan and the failed US efforts there.
  
• McCain: So paternalistic towards Obama (doesn't understand this, that (Pakistan, Musharaff, strategy, tactic)
  
• Now we are becoming really corny, McCain is wearing some dead's soldiers name on his wrist. God, guys, please, politics, issues, policy. Anyone trying to pull this off in Germany would be laughed off the stage. So 19th/20th century, come into the 21st century. Pretty, pretty please. Now Obama is wearing a bracelet too. Honour, blood, national pride and so on. So lucky we (Europeans, Germans in particular) got rid of this shit after 1945.
  
• Even an Iran with nuclear weapons would not mean a second Holocaust.
  
• A league of democracies is bullshit, no China, no Russia? This league would be relevant for another 10 years at most.
  
• Funny how Israel is treated like the 51st state or something in these debates.
  
• Not having negotiations worked real well against Cuba John. Nixon went to China, Roosevelt met Stalin, Kissinger negotiated with the Vietnamese. To refuse to talk to people is not a policy, it is arrogance that doesn't really serve any use.
  
• McCain wouldn't want to meet Zapatero? That is ridicolous. Only one of the best prime ministers in Europe.
  
• It is dangerous to meet and talk to Ahmadinejad? Less or more dangerous than bombing the place? Wish McCain would actually expound on that. Don't believe he has a point.
  
• How did Kissinger become the wise advisor that people feel proud to reference to? His German accent? His failure in Vietnam?
  
• Russia's attack on Georgia. What a failure by the Bush administration to not being capable of responding. Good job by Sarkozy, and good for strengthening the EU's foreign policy, but definitely a sign of things to come (increasingly fading American relevance).
  
• McCain attacks well on this foreign policy stuff. Always referencing his lack of understanding.
  
• The KGB doesn't exist anymore. It's called the FSB Senator McCain.
  
• McCain has spent significative amount of time everywhere in the world apparently, but especially Georgia. My personal estimate would be 3 days.
  
• Energy independence is a myth.
  
• McCain working with Joe Lieberman is not working across the aisle.
  
• Interesting that McCain admits the US used to torture. Not quite sure he is doing that on purpose ('have to make sure we never torture again')
  
• Why does everyone want simplistic solutions for complicated problems? So sad how this works. Both just keep hammering away at their strong points.
  
• Missile Defense is an expensive failure, mainly supported by ex-generals sitting on advisory boards of the military-industrial complex. I thought McCain wanted to reign in spending.
  
• McCain: Obama does not have 'enough experience'. At least he finally came out and said it directly, having referenced to it constantly.
  
• McCain loves the veterans. God damn homosexual.
  
• McCain just directly tried to distance himself from the Bush administration. Not very believable I think, but he tried.
  
• The American dream. You can make it if you try. Social mobility. Just another myth, that is not backed up by numbers.
  
• McCain was a POW. He can be President. No really, that is sufficient as a qualification. They always make it sound like Veterans are angels or something. Crazy.
  
• McCain was good on this, I agree more with Obama of course based on content alone (policy suggestions, the few that were actually mentioned), but McCain was good. But then this is his specialty (foreign policy that is).
  
• I cannot believe they did this in Oxford, Mississippi without ever adressing race.
  
• Are they like not allowed to kiss their wives on stage?
  
• How creepy is McCain's wife? I mean, how much younger is she? How fake does she look (her hair especially, barbie doll)? Scary stuff.
  
• Scary post too, in length especially. If you made it all the way down here I recommend you for it and thanks. Need to do some actual work now.
  

Nationalism once more

Stephen Smith on ESPN goes a long way towards proving that sports journalists are not the brightest, that Americans are nationalistic and that free speech has been replaced by self-censorship in the United States. Thanks for showing the negative image we Americophiles have been trying to dispel for years.

Josh Howard, a far better than average basketball player on the Dallas Mavericks, was filmed at a charity event 'disrespecting' the American national anthem. In his own words: "The Star-Spangled Banner' is going on. I don't celebrate this shit. I'm black." Now, I am not quite clear why this is such a big deal. It is a free country I thought, free speech and stuff, right? Instead, 'it has to stop now' according to Smith and Mark Cuban (the owner of the Mavericks) said 'that the team dealt with Howard at the time of the incident.' 'Howard has the audacity to publicly challenge America's affinity to its own anthem.' I mean how dare he? Don't we all know you are supposed to stare at the red, white and blue teary-eyed through the singing of the anthem? What a sorry state of affairs, if a semi-celebrity is condemned for voicing his personal, political opinion.

Smith continues his rambling by mixing in some references to Howard admitting to smoking weed and its widespread use among NBA-players. I am not quite sure how this invalidates his reasoning on anything else. I assume if he drank Bud Light and watched Monday Night Football he would be considered an upright citizen though. Smith actually has the audacity to call Howard an idiot. I guess that is what not being patriotic makes you.

The funny thing about all that is of course that greater thinkers as Josh Howard would agree (Frederick Douglass' The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro is just one prominent example, WEB DuBois actually moved to Ghana in the last years of his life).

Even J. A. Adande managing a far more level-headed commentary on Howard opens up with talking about America as 'the best country on the planet.' Who are these people? When will they arrive in the 21st century? When will they finally abandon these nationalistic terms that are meaningless in the first place.

I don't think I am doing a good job of expressing myself in this post, but I haven't felt as exasperated with American society in a really long time. I cannot believe this piece of bullshit was published on the front page of espn.com.

State-haters

This trend of nationalizing financial entities in the Unites States (Fanny, Freddie, AIG) really makes me wonder what happened to all those people afraid of the state. Weren't markets supposed to be taken care of themselves on their own? I do realize that the radical argument could be that there still has been too much state-interference and that this is the reason for the current shit hole (excuse my French, am moving to Paris soon, should be allowed to use it) that we seem to be stuck in. Yet, we will most likely (und das ist auch gut so) never have a perfect market (even if that might be an economist's wet dream), we have to adapt to reality then and that means oversight, government regulation and not letting markets completely off the leach. Otherwise, we have crashing financial markets with no one truly knowing who owns or owes what to whom. Truly libertarian markets are as much of an utopia as communism was.

The German government has decided that a likely recession in the US coupled with falling stock indexes and a financial market whom describing as in turmoil sounds like a euphemism will not affect Germany. Gee, thanks Angela and Peer, I'll take y'all's word for it. (taz, Zeit)

Al Gore might have invented the internet (yes, I know, just a misunderstanding, he did contribute valuable political support and never really claimed more, it's pretty funny nonetheless), but McCain was responsible for people who think they are important being able to show it to everyone, he created the _blank">BlackBerry. Thank you Mr McCain.

Finally, I feel like he exaggerates at times (the 'under god' reference for example really has nothing to do with race), but he makes a couple of really valid points on race and racism in American politics. I am growing increasingly worried about Obama's chances for election by the way, the United States' electorate really disappointed me (us, Europeans, the world) in 2004 and I am wary of actually getting my hopes up once more. Furthermore, as I've said again and again, race does matter and it could just tip the scales in favor of McCain/Palin (worst VP-candidate I've ever read/heard about in my life btw, substantially speaking, not in political terms sadly enough). I guess the upside of that would be that the Austin-boy owes me a six-pack if Obama doesn't win.

Schmidts Beweihräucherung

Ich habe diesen Artikel nicht einmal mehr gelesen und werde dies auch nicht tun. Ich finde diese Beweihräucherung Helmut Schmidts einfach furchtbar. Die Zeit benimmt sich ihm gegenüber als ob er der sprichwörtliche Dukaten-scheißende Esel sei. Seine politischen Kommentare sind nichts mehr als persönliche Ansichten, welche ohne argumentativen Hintergrund vorgebracht werden, stattdessen durch Referenzen auf persönliche Kontakte (Kissinger, Carter usw usf) aus einer gottgleichen Perspektive zu stammen scheinen. Einfach furchtbar.

Jiddisch im Berliner Jargon

Seit Ewigkeiten hier nichts mehr geschrieben, hatte meine ersten zweiten Magisterprüfungen die letzten Tage. Heute morgen aber habe ich auf dem Weg zum Flughafen zum ersten Mal seit längerem wieder einfach nur für mich selber gelesen. War schön.

Ich hatte mir Jiddisch im Berliner Jargon oder Hebräische Sprachelemente im deutschen Wortschatz von dem Mitbewohner eines Kumpels letztens ausgeliehen und es dann heute schnell gelesen. Ich finde es nicht besonders schön geschrieben und es ist wirklich sehr kurz, aber die Ansammlung von jiddischen Worten im Deutschen ist beeindruckend und ich möchte einfach nur kurz meine Lieblinge auflisten:

- Mischpoke

- zocken (was ich andauernd benutze)

- malochen

- Schlamassel

- Ische (nicht schön, aber witzig)

- Moos (im Sinne von Geld)

- Zoff

- Ausbaldowern

- Bammel haben

- blauer Montag (der in seinem Ursprung nichts mit der Farbe Blau zu tun hat)

- Chuzpe

- dufte

- Gauner, Ganove

- sich kabbeln

- ein Kaff

- kess

- mauscheln

- Miesepeter

- ein feiner Pinkel

- Reibach machen

- jemanden einseifen

Ich hatte mit einer Freundin in Boston schon eine Liste schöner Worte erstellt gehabt, viele von diesen müßten dort aufgenommen werden.

Zwölf Jahre

I am writing about a book I read in German today (only had the translated version), but I cannot get myself to write in German for some reason. Maybe a way to distance myself, maybe just showing off, maybe I just feel more comfortable writing in English nowadays. I have spent most of the last five-six years doing just that after all. I haven't been very busy on this thing here (the word blog seems so...limiting?), mostly because I spend my life studying for two of the most important exams I've ever taken, and when I say life I mean it.

Anyway, today I again went to the library early in the morning and read a book about the German legislative system. I just couldn't do it anymore after a while though, so I went home instead and finished my subway reading material, Joel Agee's Twelve Years - An American Boyhood in Eastern Germany. Now, this book is special in the sense that I actually know the author. He and his wife are friends of my parents, I have spent time with them in New York and will actually be seeing them this Saturday (the knowledge of which inspired me to finally pick up his book in the first place). So what does this mean? I am not quite sure, maybe that I was positively disproposed towards the book, maybe that I wouldn't have been as critical as necessary if I wouldn't have liked it? I have no idea.

Good news first, I really liked this book. I finished it today in 3-4 hour reading session and spent 30 minutes on the internet afterwards trying to find out more about some of the (real-life) characters. Joel is the son of James Agee (quite the famous writer to have as a father, not very relevant for the rest of his story though) and Alma Mailman/Agee/Uhse. His mom went to Mexico with him where she married a German communist and writer, Bodo Uhse (who himself has an interesting life-story, being a left-wing Nazi in the 1920s only to become a communist in the 30s). The Uhse family (sorry all you label-centered feminists) then moved to the Soviet-occupied zone in 1948. In his novel, Joel, more or less liberally, recounts his years in Germany, the German Democratic Republic actually. Some of it is very personal and in that sense not related neither to the time-period nor the geographic location, his first sexual experiences and his difficulties with them, but also his driftlessness, his lack of direction, of application. Other parts are more directly connected to his unique position an American Jew growing up in Germany in the 1950s, the rigid party rule, the blind obedience for which Germans then (and now) are famous for.

I really liked this book, I can only recommend it to all of you. Especially maybe people that know Germany but don't come from here or at least have managed to gain some kind of an outsider's perspective on it.

Coming of Age in Mississippi

A friend of mine lend this to me (forced upon would be another possibility of describing this transaction) in North Carolina. So, now I've read it and I see why she would have thought I should read it. Anne Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi is The Classic Autobiography of Growing Up Poor and Black in the Rural South. It definitely sounds like a book someone like me (fanatic of the South, race relations, the Civil Rights Movement, Mississippi in particular) should read. All of this is very true too, the only problem is that I didn't find Moody to be such a great writer, which diminished the pleasure of reading her book significantly.

I do have to admit that it was super interesting to have the perspective of someone who grew up in her stature of life. Yet, sadly Moody dwells too long on passages outlining her achievemens in her home-town (how well she worked, studied, how she became prom-queen) which started to bore me relatively fast. Maybe I just spent too much time reading people who cannot stop overboarding their phrases with meaning (which has made it a problem for a while now for me to write coherently and not convoluted), but her writing seemed too straight-forward for me. So, enough complaining. I read this in one session, sitting on the train and I enjoyed myself while doing that. Think I had just been hoping for a deeper more general analysis through an autobiography (the way Franklin does it), what I got instead was the life of a woman. A remarkable woman, fighting against racism, Jim Crow, her own family, her poverty. I would recommend the book more to people that haven't read that much about the South and its recent history yet, than to someone slightly obsessive like me.

Hank Williams - The Biography

I don't think I am sharing anykind of personal insight if I make you (the worthy reader of this publication) aware of the fact that Hank Williams is one of my favorite singers and heroes (whatever that big word may mean) in general. Colin Escott has written an autobiography of the man behind the legend now (such a standard-phrase, had to use it, sorry) together with George Merritt and William Mac Ewen. I feel torn on what the work that they produced. On the one hand it is exhausting to read with a great number of name references that even someone of my knowledge of country/hilbilly of folk (as Hank apparently called it a lot) music simply does not understand. Nashville sidemen, or regional stars and one-hit wonders there are too many. The short introduction that some of these get (because the authors clearly are aware of this knowledge gap) become tiresome after a while and blur together. On the positive side they do a great job of bringing the reader closer to Hank Williams himself, his miserable life before and during fame, his excessive drug consumption, the he doled out and was on the receiving end of. What a character, what a poor man. The music industry in Nashville, which was still being built back then, and its deplorable business aspects receives some spotlight. And finally the unsavory persons circulating around Hank are shown in their sad light. His mother, his first Wife (Audrey) both of whom before and after his death tried to make as much money as possible of him, while especially the latter had stopped caring about or giving him anything years earlier. The lies that they told to make themselves seem closer to the legend. Finally, and a bit more technical, the origin of some of Hank's songs (the non self-composed ones obviously) are focused on, some more material to peruse for me in the future.

So, the Lovesick Blues-boy biography definitely deserves a look at if you understand the beauty that is a Hank Williams song (and as Kris Kristofferson said: If you don't like Hank you can kiss my ass). It'll make oyu have pity on the man that died a wreck at 29 after having given us an immense amount of beautiful music.

La mort dans l'âme

La troisième partie de Les chemins de la liberté, Sartre m'a de nouveau fait beaucoup de plaisir avec son oeuvre La mort dans l'âme. Je trouve bizarre qu'il est retourné sur le style du premier bouquin et qu'il fait semblant d'ignorer la façon dont il raconte l'histoire au deuxième livre. La mort dans l'âme est beaucoup plus facile à lire, il y en a moins de personnage et toute l'histoire est plus compacte, plus dense, plus logique si on veut. Sartre dans cet oeuvre montre comment (principalement) trois français (et tous environs ces trois) agissent quand les allemands conquièrent la France après (et un peu avant) que l'armistice soit signé. Mathieu, l'ancien prof de lettres se trouve au front; Brunet, fonctionnaire Communiste devient prisonnier des allemands et essaie d'organiser ses compatriotes; Daniel, marié mais homosexuel se promène dans un Paris presque vide voyant les allemands venir. Ivich (qui se déteste) et Jacques (qui s'enfouit) et sa femme (qui aime Matthieu, le frère de son mari) jouent des rôles aussi, mais les personnages principals sont Matthieu et Brunet.

Quoi dire? J'ai appris plusieurs mots pérjoratives pour les allemands gâce à ce livre (frisé, fritz, chleuh). J'ai en plus avoir eu le plaisir de comprendre plus les sentiments des français sur la défaite de 1940 (à l'époque en tout cas). Le livre m'as fasciné, Brunet et ses positions ultra-orthodox sur le communisme, Mathieu qui devient un idéaliste soudainement. Je ne peux que vous recommander de lire Sartre, ou ce trilogie. Il m'a donné beaucoup de renseignment historiques (plus des émotions que des faits bien etendu) et j'avais toujours du mal de l'abandonner quand j'ai été en train de le lire.

Un dernier mot, le livre m'as fait revenir des autres bouquin sur la guerre de Hemingway ou Norman Mailer. Faut que je relise quelques d'eux aussi.

Winesburg, Ohio

Well, one of the early classics of American regional writing. Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. I had been hearing about this in literary classes a few times, so when I saw it in a book store here for a mere few bucks I couldn't resist. Anderson recounts the story of a town (Winesburg) and a boy (George Willard) through a dozen short stories each focusing on the life of one of the townfolks. What emerges is a complex, woven net of interacting characters, of life in a small mid-western town. As the author himself explains in the beginning it is a book of the grotesque, all of his characters are suffering from some kind of an affliction. I really enjoyed this short read (150 pages). The only aspect that bothered (or better annoyed) me at times was that Anderson in detailing the coming of age of George Willard deals with issues of masculinity and growing into it that just do not seem valid to the 21st century anymore (or at least not to my understanding of it). Female-male relations especially in regard to sexuality are reduced to a level that is based on clear male dominance, an aspect which takes away from the otherwise existing universality of his characters. He does, beautifully, show the futility of life, the sheer resignation to which people give in (and in this resembles my personal favorite to some extent (or Faulkner actually resembles him considering chronology here)), yet they keep on living, they keep on trying, they keep on being there.

As a merchant Ebenezer was not happily placed in life and he had not been happily placed as a farmer. Still he existed.

San Diego and other random things

So, I flew out to San Diego for the weekend (yeah, I know the jet-set life is real tough), so here I am catching up on a couple of things that I noticed/read along the way. I wish I could pass some kind of judgement on California but three days really is just too short. San Diego was fun, I can see how living there is highly appealing, but I need to go again, for longer to really judge it. Last time I tried judging a city/country after a short vacation, I got torched by a friend even when most of my observations were only meant sarcastically, thus I will simply refrain from doing so here.

• I flew into Denver Thursday evening from the North, sitting on the left of the plane and looking out onto the Eastern plains of Colorado. That place is empty. I mean like empty. There were virtually no houses, few roads, just space. Wide open space. I really need to go out West at some point in my life in order to experience this part of the country.


• Only in the United States: TVs installed above the pumps at a gas station in San Diego.


• I was amazed that on leaving San Diego one can be in the solitude of the desert after an easy 30-40 minutes drive. Again, the West is different, I totally need to check this out at some point.


• Nicholas Carr is putting forth an interesting thesis that the internet is making us stupid. I don't necessarily agree with every point he makes. I still read literature for example, something which he argues he has unlearned because of internet-overusage, and I found the change cited below horrible and never even glance at it. But, I do believe that the skimming of articles, the reading of headlines only has made knowledge more superficial. At the same time people only have to blame themselves for this I believe (just pick up a paper, and no, I don't believe you when you say you don't have the time to read one) and additionaly the shear amount of news has of course increased significantly (I doubt even avid newspaper readers in 1960s had as much of a global vision as we today do) making it virtually impossible to keep up to date on every development in much detail.
  
  When, in March of this year, The New York Times decided to devote the second and third pages of every edition to article abstracts, its design director, Tom Bodkin, explained that the “shortcuts” would give harried readers a quick “taste” of the day’s news, sparing them the “less efficient” method of actually turning the pages and reading the articles. Old media have little choice but to play by the new-media rules.
  

Copperhead Road

One of the cultural/political aspects of the United States I find absolutely fascinating is the us-against-them mentality, of independence from the government, a certain rebellious streak against any kind of strong government. The title to this post is from a Steve Earle song epitomizing this attitude very well (check out the video & lyrics). It is furthermore a sentiment that can be traced through time as well as space in the American history: Thoreau's Duty of Civil Disobedience, the (in)famous right to bear arms, states' rights, Faulkner's Gavin Stevens who in Intruder in the Dust argues for the South to resolve its race issue on its own without Northern (federal) interference.

I thought of this when I had my coffee/newspaper session this morning and the New York Times had an interesting article on a state that was never formed, Absaroka, in the South Dakota/Wyoming border region. So much still unexplored (for me in any case) in regard to American history (and everything else, I know), it's crazy.

Basketball outside the US

Josh Childress a sixth man with Atlanta last season signed with Olympiacos (Tue Hoop & ESPN). Brandon Jennings is also going to play in Europe (True Hoop & ESPN). As a European baller having spent a lot of time in the United States this feels really good. No matter how long the US has not won gold at either the Olympics nor the World Championship (10 years by now?), American arrogance on US basketball prowess has never diminished. Even my educated basketball friends that have been to Europe claim before every Olympics that the US will destroy its competition, pointing to the superior American roster (on a name recognition basis). Of course they are right, LeBron, Carmelo, Kobe, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul (and the list goes on), this will be a collection of great player. That just doesn't mean that they will win. Last time around the Greeks killed the US in the fourth quarter by playing a high pick-and-roll for what seemed like 10 consecutive posessions. Argentina destroyed (and I mean destroyed, I believe they were up by 18 at some point) the US a few years earlier on this advanced and innovative play called back-door screens.

Basketball is not solely an American sport anymore. Period. It might have never been, but that's a different argument. Americans have started going to Europe to make money. Europeans (+ Argentina) have started to beat the US regularly. I am walking on a court in the US and people have more respect once they realize that I am European because they know it'll mean I can shoot.

I just hope at some point people will start to realize that once you step on a court, it's 5 people on each side, and your name don't mean nuttin'. It's how you play (international in this case) basketball. Carmelo Anthony for example will possibly be the best player on the US team again. Kobe or LeBron might be more suited for isolation plays with no one calling traveling on fast break dunks (hi there LeBron), but Anthony adapts better to a (more effective imho) passing game. So, the Americans can lose against Greece, against Russia, against Argentina, against Spain, fuck, against Germany (well, maybe not, but then Dirk and the new German hick Mr Kaman might go off in the same game, you never know). Are they still favorites when it comes down to it? Of course, but so they were the last 10 years. As much as I like American basketball, as much as I follow the NBA (and UNC since last year), as much as I prefer playing in the US over most games in Germany or France, I hope y'all lose, just so you finally begin to realize that the game is not dominated by the US anymore. That's over.

Intellectuals

So, Foreign Policy published a list of the 100 top intellectuals in the world today. People were allowed to vote on this, here are the results now. Funny thing is that I know one of the top 10 (Orhan Parmuk, two I remembered once I had read the descriptions) a few more in the top 20 and only have read something by one (Orhan Parmuk) in the top 20. Embarassing for me to some extent (should have read some Chomsky or Umberto Ecco). The list is also apparently a typical case of regio-centrism, a massive influx of Middle Eastern and Turkish voters assured that 9 of the top 10 are Muslims. Kind of funny how a western publication, usually one to twist lists such as these extremely towards the US and Europe gets played at its own game here.

Lesson to be drawn? Be less Western-centric, read more and more wide-spread.

One point of criticism I should add, a popular vote such as this leads to famous people perceived as intelligent to be featured disproportionately on this list. Al Gore for example, or the highest write-in candidate Stephen Colbert, should not be on there or not as high in any case.

Le sursis

Jean-Paul Sartre de nouveau. Je n'avais aucune idée que son livre, que je m'avais acheté à l'occasion, l'Âge de raison est le premier d'un trilogie. Le sursis appartient à Les chemins de la liberté (et je vais commencer le troisième La mort dans l'ame ce soir). De plus, je n'avais pas d'image de Sartre vraiment. J'en ai connu son nom, sa femme (de laquelle je dois lire quelque chose aussi d'ailleurs) et sa visite à Baader à Stammheim et la façon dont il les (le RAF) a cru leur propaganda. Respect entre un intellectuel célèbre alors, mais rien de plus.

Le sursis a beaucoup fait pour changer de cet avis. Sans exageré, je n'ai pas encore lu trop de livres aussi fort. Putain, si je n'étais pas croyant, je le comparerais à Faulkner. Sartre décrit, utilisant le même personnage qu'au premier bouquin en plus que quelques caractère nouveaux, sept jours en septembre 1938. IL écrit dans une façon très difficile à suivre, échangeant les points de vues des characters au même paragraphes ou même phrases parfois. De plus il y a plusieurs fil de récit, et caractères, beaucoup d'entre eux n'ont pas la moindre relation. Lire ce bouquin, n'est pas alors une tâche facile toujours, mais se concentrant et lisant pendant quelques temps sans pause mérite l'effort.

Sartre réussit à décrire la France, ses caractères dans un temps très difficile, dès 23 jusqu'au 30 septembre 1938, pendant que les accords de Munich ont été négocié. Ses caractères ont peur d'être mobilisé, de la guerre, d'être seul, d'être obligé à partir (de la Tchécoslovaquie), des Allemands. Quelque-uns attendent la guerre plein d'espoir (pour soi-même, pour les juifs allemands, pour les républicains en Espagne), des autres essaient de lutter contre la mobilisation. Tous sont humain, et Sartre a un talent incroyable parfois à décrire ce que ses caractères ressent. Le lecteur ne comprend pas seulement pourquoi les gens réagissent d'une certaine façon, il ressent ses décisions, ses doutes. Surtout la pensée de Mathieu (le caractère principal de la première livre) sur la guerre sont d'une force incomparable. Sartre réussit à faire comprendre le lecteur ce qui s'est passé vraiment dans ces jours où la peur d'Hitler, la peur de la guerre, la mémoire de la première guerre mondiale ont dominé la politique.

Je ne peux pas seulement recommander ce bouquin, il faut que vous le lisiez.

News Update

• Gut für die Umwelt, schlecht für den allgemeinen persönlichen Komfort. Die Flugpreise in Europa gehen wohl wieder hoch. Ich hatte aber irgendwie auch immer ein schlechtes Gewissen mit dem ganzen hin- und herfliegen. (Zeit)


• La récession européenne vient. (LeMonde) Cool, que moi je chercherai un boulot bientôt.


• The cost of going to Heaven hasn’t gone up. Advertisement on a church in Ohio. (Krugman)


• Paul Krugman claims that federal politicans having no idea about Social Security is something that would not surprise him. I find it absolutely scandalous and shocking if true. In this case, John McCain wants to end present-day retirees being paid through the taxes paid by today's workers as he considers this a disgrace (and apparently thinks it is something new). I guess the only possible deduction from this statement is that McCain has no idea what he is talking about. How sad is that?(Krugman)


• The White House issued a truthful press statement, but don't worry, they retracted it right away: Mr. Berlusconi is one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice. (NYT)

Bad Lands

Tony Wheeler, author of Bad Lands - A tourist on the Axis of Evil, is the originator of Lonely Planet who in this book describes his travels to a variety of supposedly evil states (Lybia, Saudi-Arabia, North Corea, Cuba, Albania, Iran, Iraq (the Kurdistan part), Afghanistan and Burma). The book is not a pretty read in the sense that Wheeler is simply not such a great author, but it is interesting where it is a guide book, where he describes what he finds as tourist infrastructure in these countries. Wheeler is at his weakest when he tries to give political analysis of a country in two paragraphs, he also preaches to the choir too much when he derides American hostility against some of these countries. Yet, for the countries I was less informed about (Albania for example, or Lybia) his background information, if very short, was helpful and interesting. Furthermore, some of his observations were simply fascinating and made me go to these countries quite badly (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Albania mainly). The only bad thing I guess then is that I have no money or time to do any of this anytime soon. But, who knows maybe I'll find a job that gets me to these places one day.

News Update

• Ce que la France veut faire sur la PESD pendant sa presidence de l'UE. En bref c'est une version très, très court et simple de mon mémoire. Ils adressent tous les problèmes majeures au tout cas.


• Highly interesting article on the emerging political and economical power Brasil (a little too comparative with Venezuela maybe)


• Herr Gusenbauer wird in der Zeit runtergeputzt. Ich hatte irgendwie immer ein sympathisches Bild von ihm einfach, weil es auf absehbare Zeit der einzige Regierungschef war mit dem ich mich je unterhalten hatte.


• The on-going racism watch. Today, if you sound 'black', you make less money.


• Sarko, more show than substance.

Boston II

• So, after having been here for nearly three weeks I finally found a bad-ass basketball court. It is right next to my work too and in case anyone is looking for me within the next few weeks anywhere from six to nine, you'll know where to find me. Why is it bad-ass? Because there are not so many Asian and white kids playing there as on the other playground that I went to before. It is pure racial stereotyping I realize that, but it strikes me over and over again how much of a difference there exists in this country between black and white (omitting Asians here for a second) ballers. The game is much more serious, everybody plays harder, talks more trash, is faster, more athletic and hits their shots at a higher percentage. Especially in Boston where the black population (downtown in any case) is a small minority, it is noticeable how much of black man's game this is. Maybe places like Indiana are different, but it has definitely been my experience so far wherever I went in the United States.


• Also, if you ever come to Boston. Check out Monday's blues night at Wally's Café. Great show, good musicians (especially one of the sax players and the female(!) Japanese(!!) drummer), nice crowd. A little too modern and funky for me at times, but they covered Junior Wells' Messin' with the Kid, so who am I to nit-pick.

News Update

• The peculiar American obsession with patriotism is really nothing new, whether it be the constant singing of the national anthem at any sporting event, the fervent display of flags by everyone from car dealerships to veterans-turned-homeless-guys. The gigantic flags in fashion now, really are just an expression of this superficial brand of nationalism. That's what it is though, superficial, I ran around Boston yesterday (the 4th of July) asking people how many of the luminaries that signed the Declaration of Independence they knew. Most replied with one only (John Hancock). Shouldn't you at least know about something before you are proud of it?


• The new American embassy in Berlin was unveiled officially yesterday. It is in a very prestigious spot, right next to the Brandenburger Tor. John Kornblum, the old American ambassador to Germany, is quoted in the article as saying: "For some reason, when we asked for our increased security enhancements a lot of people in this city went crazy. We endured all kinds of taunts and demands. ‘What do you Americans think you’re doing?’"
  
  Well, with all due respect, Mr Kornblum your early requests if I remember correctly involve having a security area around the building that would have virtually closed the biggest tourist attraction of Berlin to any visitors. So, yeah, sorry, but I thought that was pretty cheeky as far as security concerns go as well. Definitely, not just an anti-America attitude the way the article portrays it.


• Ever since this Jayhawker I know complained of my too optimistic portrayal of race in the United States, the New York Times has decided to show me that he is right. Seems like I have to rescind this post of mine and become more of my cynic old self in that regard.


• The impact of rising gas prices on the USA is quite incredible. It affects virtually every part of life here. Having read the New York Times daily ever since I came here again it is striking how this country will have to change in the mid- and long-term if these oil prices don't change anytime soon. (1, 2, 3)