• One in 8 Million – New York Characters in Sound and Images – The New York Times
  (tags: photography design photos media interview nyt news)

• Twitter / Jahwe
  God twitters. In German. With British Humor. Brilliant.
  (tags: twitter fun nonsense god)

Everything is set. The speeches done, the transition smooth, the commentaries written. Still, there remains one question that’s repeated over and over again: can Obama live up to the expectations he’s raised?

Spiegelfechter focused on one specific problem, which is, the new President being more than just another president in the line of 43 preceding incumbents. People all over the world project their hopes on his promised policies, him being rendered by the Democratic marketing machine as the antipode of a president that polarised the political world in in a way that has hardly been seen since the iron curtain raised.

Allegedly the Obama administration seeks not to be measured to Franky Roosevelt’s 100 days in which he set up the legendary New Deal. However, the inauguration speech clearly drew a direct line to that of his famous predecessor. In switching the tone from a general level to an almost political agenda, addressing several of his plans during the oncoming presidency, he almost copied Roosvelt’s speech from 1933. And he did set many goals: reform of health care and educational system, shift from oil based to regenerative energies till 2010, renovation of the federal infrastructure. That’s not just huge, that’s a New Deal accompanied by an ideological shift towards almost green ideas.

But is it? It would be idle to dwell on interpreting the speech – in a few months we will have the answer. What really matters is the question if there just one interpretation. Or can we suggest that there may be another way, that the ideological shift is a nice-to-have rather than a obligatory element?

Ultimately Jens may still be right: the constellation Obama versus Bush may be no more than a medial projection on what could be just a slight shift in priorities without abandoning general U.S.-paradigms. Time will tell, anyways.

• Subsonic: Free Music Streamer
  Absolutely awsome: that's my personal last.fm, who needs last.fm anyways ;)
  (tags: music stream opensource server)

• 123freevectors
  Free Vector Graphics and mashes for download.
  (tags: design art web free download resource vector)

… are a the most ingenious atavism the the human race still inherits. Especially when it’s raining cats and dogs, and me forgot his umbrella.

They’ve gone completely crazy, so they do. Who? The urban planers in my oh-so-beautiful hometown, of course. I thought Trump-Tower, Stuttgart 21 and the New Fair on the Killesberg were already enough. Big plans for a city having scarcely more than 500,000 inhabitants. Now they published the plans for another exorbitantly expensive architecturally… let’s say: problematic project:

The Da-Vinci-Project will be placed between the Old Market, the Karl’s Square and the buildings of the Breuninger Company. What will be razed though, is not the latter celebration of concrete – it’ll be the the Hotel Silber (Silver). Not that I would specifically argue to preserve a former coordination center of the Gestapo but it’s definitely not the first one to be deconstructed in this area.

Overall, There have been numerous arguments on those projects all boiling down to two quite simple opposing views: there are the people who want to develop the city and believe they alone know best what will work and what won’t. And are those who do believe the city is nice as it is and shouldn’t be changed an ounce.

Since urban planing hasn’t exactly worked out perfect for Stuttgart in the past the criticism of the latter group definitely has its justification. So has the idea of development, you say?

Well, it certainly has, but a third shopping mall being built next to an already existing mall? The second shopping mall in Stuttgart being built in five years? Furthermore, another shopping mall aimed for quite exclusive shops? And founded with tax payer’s money, since the local Ministry of Finance is going to rent 36,000 square metres?

36,000 sqm are more than 50 percent of the planned 55,000. If these are going to be reduced to 45,000 as the building authority demands, it would equal almost 80 percent. Renting is not building it, but that’s even worse: if they would build it, they would at least own it – thus they will have to pay extra: to make the investment financially valuable for the Breuninger GmbH and because they will want to support a local company.
And what’s going to happen to the New Castle, which currently lodges the roughly 1,000 public servants?

On what grounds does the local authority in Stuttgart claim it being reasonably to spend my precious money on this project? On a building that isn’t infrastructurally necessary, economically questionable or even going to be owned by them? Who outsourced his brain this time?

Further reading:
Facts and figures @ STZ
Pictures and dreams @ Stuttgart.de
Counterarguments and accusations @ SÖS.de
More polemic comments @ Stuttgart-blog.net

• SPON: Campusmaut fließt in Lohntüte der Professoren
  Well. now, who's surprised?
  (tags: uni tuition-fees germany)

I love to go boar hunting. I love they way they grunt and pose with their tusks. I love the significance family has for them and how fiercely they protect their kin from any intruder. The way they charge and the  intimidation combination of power and rage they wield on you.

As long as I play an MMORG.

Now they like my compost and I can’t say I would agree. And it is a bit frightening to get woken up by the grunts of quite a numerous horde of boars which obviously find the remnants of my meals far more interesting than I usually do. And don’t ask me how they made it through two other gardens and across the road at 7 am. There’s some serious traffic on that bloody road at seven in the morning – and I counted six boars without the need to sniff at their trails… the way they wandered off into the woods when they heard me coming can only be described as the ultimate form of Gemutlichkeit.

And if there is one thing I have a greater dislike for than boars, then in is boars that practise Gemutlichkeit. Uncooked.

Right. I’m back in Berlin. This could be a wonderful line if the town I had to leave wasn’t Edinburgh. Not that Edinburgh compares to Berlin in any way, but even then – you leave a lot behind. It might not be the ultimate insight, but one year does not only mark you with all those nice wrinkles that make a middle aged man attractive – you leave marks somewhere as well. And since everything man produces he also seems to see as a sort of possession, I definitely lost some stuff.

(And that doesn’t include the 12-year old whisky bottle those bastards took from me at the check-in. I’d forgotten that one litre of schnaps is definitely more than the 50-something mililitres of liquid you’re allowed to take through the controls. (OK, – since this seems to become a longer story, i’m going to start a new paragraph.)
A n d  I find it ridiculous that just after the controls you’re free to buy another bottle. Unfortunately not one that was as good as the one I just got robbed of. I’m sure this bloody security guy just took it because he knew what he held in his hands. Bloody Scots. And sure, how would a duty-free area survive without a security that confiscates every ounce of alcohol before you enter it.
Excuse me. That had to be said. Stream of consciousness it is, isn’t it?)

Anyways… you leave a lot behind. Apart from so obvious things as friends and my Baby … I left home, for example, once again (this seems to develop into my most favorite subject) and the feeling of belonging somewhere. Security also, because suddenly you have to readjust everything – which is language in my case as well – and the side of the street.

You win: a new life.