madhatter’s coffee.

The Music Publisher’s Association goes on beeing completely crackbrained. Why? Because they now started to bring on action against thousands of ‘illegal’ homepages publishing guitar tabs for playing at home. Why? Because the MPA ist such an altruistic organisation that just cares about the income of their clients. That’s why it calls itself Music Publisher’s Association. The MPA went along the same procedure of every company: they first wrote a letter to the biggest ‘criminal’ because they googled no other person in charge. It is not the first time according to BBC that the publisher’s industry takes action against guitar tab sites on the internet, but it is the first time, that several companies coordinate their action over the MPA.
Lauren Kaiser President of the MPA even wants to jail some of the operators:

throw in some jail time I think we’ll be a little more effective.

Of course. And of course we shall put all those bloggers into jail, who quote all those newssites, because they violate copyright law. Guitar Tabs are not even music sheets. They can be written down by every one who is able to read notes and as violating to copyright laws as the google library project is. What already read crude, when industry rallied against the filesharing networks becomes absurd if one thinks of the consequences in publishing.
What did we originally paid for, when we bought a book? We paid for publishing the book. Not for the book itself. Of course, the writer always got his part, when the publisher sold a book. But that was the deal between the publisher and the artist. Not our deal. Our deal was buying the book and if we cared about things like originality and stuff, we had always the right to chose. Then someone invented copyright, and it sounded good to all artists. Now, they had the possibility to decide who published their books and who not. And that didn’t suit the income of many publishers. So they turned tables: pressure was passed on and they rised the prices for the costs had risen.
And now, we turned the table and using the internet we refused to take costs we did not cause. We reestablished our right of relativly free information which – guess what – does not suit the income of publishers.
So what’s the point of all this? The point is currency. And every artist, who idealisticly fights for his copyright should keep this in mind – if he wants people admiring his art.

Sometimes I just wonder in what kind of state I live. I mean, I am not going to lament about, what kind of state this actually is simply because I don’t know and I think not many are able to give a honest answer to this question.The country I live in is called Federal Republic of Germany and claims to be a western democracy with christian culture. Ok. This country now had one of his citizens, a man named Murat Kurnaz, arrested in Guantanamo. Kurnaz is described as a young man who appartently searched for a meaning in life. Well, don’ t we all?
He found this meaning in an islamic fundamentalism, which could be one reason why he flew to Pakistan only 22 days after 9/11. He was captured there and is transported to Guantanamo. Now, about three years five years later Murmat Kurnaz is realized and found not guilty of terrorism. Well, that’s part of the story, but not the story itself.
The story goes this way: Murmat would have been released by the U.S. government if the German government had consented. They didn’t. In fact they stated, that the had no intrest in returning him from Guantanamo and would have deported him to Turkey in that case. This only got out, when Germany’s secret service, the BND was investigated in course of another affair. Obviously someone inside the government decided against Kurnaz – and for four further years in Guantanamo. It is not important, who this was, but it would be interesting to know why they decided that way. And evidently they didn’t change their minds: after a request of the leftist party, the government succintly replied

The political and iuristic view of this case through the federal government did not change.

The Department of the Interior even imposed a blockade for the entry of Kurnaz, which was only put down because Kurnaz’ German lawyer intervened.
All this is usual political day-to-day work. Nothing which completely freaks the hell out of me. No, what bothers be is the fact, that the former Secretary of State, Fischer and his successor Steinmeier all the time reaffirmed that they would do everything to free Kurnaz.

I took a creative pause for over a week to find new topics – frankly just because nothing happens to me: all friends are doing vacation and I am sitting at home waiting for work to begin. What a marvelous perspective.
Well, now I got a new topic to talk shit about; things I always wanted to comment on but never did. Because they even could be called ancient so everybody already read tons of repeating information and thus my very personal view would only be one more piece of useless bullshit.
However, because this is madhatter’s blog and I am going to be as excentric as my fictional role model, I will talk shit which you and me would both define completely unneccessary – another cup of coffee? Some biscuits?
The Rainbow Orchid is a Webcomic dealing with the typical Indiana Jones-Adventure Style including the “It belongs in a museum”-part. The main story winds around a young guy called ‘Julíus Chancer’ who astonishingly resembles to ‘Tintin’. The “It belongs to a museum”-part comes into action when Julius starts to search for the – guess what? – Rainbow Orchid, ignoring his lamenting mentor and teacher Sir Alfred Catesby-Grey. But I am not going to retell the whole story.
As Julius resembles to Hergé’s Tintin, the whole comic is held in the ‘ligne-claire’-style. Garen Ewing, the creator, even states that it was a concious decision to use the ligne-claire. Nevertheless, Rainbow orchid in some strips lacks the dynamic of Hergé’s original. Some of the scenes look rather static though the action implies a very dynamic movements. Maybe the curly lines Hergé used to indicate fast movements would enhance the style – but heck knows, I am no instance.
But it is worth to cast a look at it. The project officially runs since 1998 but the homepage wasn’t created befir 2003. And if he does an update, it is always a pleasure to look at, although it is only one panel. Which leads back to the start – don’t worry lads, I’m trying to stay up-to-date. And if I don’t there is always some lad reminding me to do so.

Online publicity seems to come en vogue to Since new our chancellor publishes her own podcast. Ahmadinedschad now has his own blog. He seems to lack dicipline in writing, for since publishing his first entry on August, 11th nothing happened on his blog. although
Kourosh Ziabari claims to know, that the database of the blog was hacked and thus the former entries are not reachable. Personally I wonder why there is no single comment on this entry. A very interesting development whas the voting question on “does the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another word war?” First there was an overwhelming majority of about 60% voting, no, but as I look now on the result it is pretty much balanced. Of course, nobody could expect, that the man, who is responsible for censoring iranian bloggers, wouldn’t do so on his own blog, but it needs nevertheless some chutzpa.
During writing this entry I now crawled through some iranian blog directories (containing many blogs not reachable and some that where obviously abandoned) and once more was surprised about the ambivalence of the statements. It is possible to be against violence and to congratulate the Hezbollah to their winning of the war in Lebanon. My favorite blog (in a very positive way) was this one, telling stories from everyday life to explain abstract schemes – something I still have to adapt.

Sometimes I just go off inventing new words. Here is one out of that immense pool: MIDSUMMER CRISIS.
When you finally invented a word in the usual course of things a question starts pushing through your subconcious mess:
What the fuck is this supposed to mean?
The averange student then makes a short grab to get the Longman’s Dictionary of contemporary English and strolls through masses of unasked information just to realize, that a newly invented word cannot already occur in a dictionary.
After doing this three or four times I started to make theories instead about what my precious products of resourcefullness could stand for.
Midsumme crisis, I thought, could be the feeling ine gets if you harmlessly wander through a midsummer’s evening, spontaniously coming aware that you’re the only one strolling around lonely. Then one would have a midsummer crisis. One would have to go to a psychatrist and do a therapy. The therapy would aim for counteracting a last-minute panic. And if the therapy would not apply, one would have to go to a self-help group and talk with all the others about one’s midsummer crisis. One would feel awfully lonely and not very relieved.
And when the autum would come, one would walk through deserted streets with all the couples at home enjoying their time together. One would prepare to become a winter spinster or a december bachelor. And somewhere around new year all the winter spinsters and december bachelors would roll together, built a cocoon to wait for the next summer.

Once upon a time. OK, OK, it is really a little bit late, but hey, I know that nobody really wrote about it so I think it does not really matter, when I am going to write about it, right?
Well, OK then. Some time ago the local liberals here announced a panel discussion about “how much islam is good for germany”. Over the mailinglist of the Joung Socialists I got the info and of course I could not manage not to go there. The liberals of Stuttgart, especially those of the quarter Cannstatt already have something you may call popularity. Though it tends to have a certain haut goutte. The so called “Circle of Canstatt” was a group of nationalistic liberals who constituted themselves after a visit of Jörg Haider, founder of the nationalistic FPÖ in Austria, in 2003. They had connections to all important neonazi parties of Germany and demanded the attention of the German Verfassungschutz. Well, soon after that the liberals threw them out.
However, those liberals now announced the mentioned panel. First of all: the avarange age laid around 70 years. The opinions, too. No, that would be too polemic. In fact, the old chums sounded like a pack of disillusioned youngsters and the avarange age would have been higher without all those Joung Socialist members. They must have been walking around with great ideas about tolerance and liberality, open-mindedness and individuality. Ideas about freedom, peace and happiness. Until they were confronted with something that actually demanded tolerance, open-mindedness and liberality: people with other ideas. Another culture. Another religion. Turkish people.
And suddenly they must have been realizing, that everything they believed in was not their belief. It was merely their intention. It was just something that had sounded okey, maybe even something they believed in, when they were twenty – although that would have meant, that some of them were in opposition to the Nazis back then. Usually people experiencing this have one thing in common: they do a complete turn-around. Which they did.
Now the front line in discussion lead between a very dishomogeneous group of “modern” thinkers, who pleaded for exactly the values the other side claimed to stand for. The fact that only the smallest newspaper accounted for this event does not cast a brilliant shine on the local journalists. Of course, it was not such a big event. But some of them are liberal party members. And even a neo-liberal party should care about this. That it does not is not a sign of dignity. It is a shameful lack of interest.

I promised I would and I did. Mh. Somehow I think I heard this before, but it may als be that my ulmate genious derived this beautiful sentence out of nothing [grin.]

However, you better be thankful for beeing able to read this, for I am sitting here completely drugged to hold down the immense headache that plays a very unharmonic tune inside my brainpan. And no, I did NOT participate in a orgy, however you think of me.
Howsover, I like those days, when life likes to play hazard with me and sends some wonderful headache just when I finally did my exams and long for some distraction. Well, now my whole mental energy is tracted to my cerebral innards. Marvelous, indeed.

How often have I already told you, that I was going to post more constantly and with… lets say, less longer pauses? Well, I admit. I didn’t. I also state. I couldn’t. I gotta work down a whole bunch of life out there in the wilderness of metropolian, ahm, jungle. Yeah. And there was pretty much stuff waiting for me. And I was longing for (stop it) some free time.

Well now this blog probably won’t become the profound and sober view on reality that I planned it to be but instead I will write every (.. second?) day some short shit you can chose to laugh on just to keep yer on the track. And of course there will be some photo of my extravagant past life to illustrate my writings.
Well then lets keep goin’ on!