FBI erwägt Inhaftierte zu foltern Die Welt ändert sich nach 911. Aber nicht immer zum Guten. Wenn die USA dies wirklich tun werden, dann sind sie kein Stück besser als Israel und die islamischen Diktaturen. Die Aufgabe von Kants kategorischem Imperativ ist die Bankrotterklärung des Humanismus. Und sie wird zurückschlagen auf uns. Das Zeitalter der Barbaren rückt näher.

Taking Sides: New Order v. Joy Division Btw in ILM I post as "alex in mainhattan". My post:

Speaking in terms of wine and grapes. It is concentration vs. dilution. Joy Division is a very concentrated almost black wine smelling black currants and pressed from around 40-50 very ripe grapes (songs) of an amazing quality which have been hand-picked. New Order is like a light sparkling wine made of much more grapes (100+) with most of them still unripe. A few are very sweet nevertheless. The bouquet is full of lemons. Especially the electronic production methods do not add to the longevity of this wine. In short New Order's music is more fun but short-lived whereas Joy Division is stronger and for the cave. You won't regret tasting either of these wines. Both should be consumed in moderation.

Blindtesting The I Love Music listening chamber is a great idea to discover new music of performers you have never heard of. Per day a maximum of one music track in mp3 is posted there. The artist and album is not revealed for about a week. Discussion takes place in the respective thread at ILM. You are not supposed to name the artist if you know him. Up to now seven tracks have been posted. The first two have been revealed already. Chamber #2 (forum) is definitely worth a listen. I also liked the two most recent chambers #6 (forum) and especially #7 (forum). I sent a track via e-mail today. Will it show up tomorrow?

Back home The holidays are over and the attacks have begun. Coincidences. They used to fascinate me a lot in the past. Right now they don't mean anything to me anymore. I do not believe in them. A coincidence is a matter of interpretation. Out of the millions of events you pick one and it seems to relate to your own life. Totally random. Selective perception. As long as you think in terms of coincidences you try to make sense of your life.

Bombing Afghanistan is as pointless as rolling Sisyphus's stone up the mountain. The stone will roll back down again and Sisyphus will be in charge of rolling it up again. Afghanistan's Taliban have been supported by the US before and now they will be decimated. But they cannot be eliminated. They are hiding in the mountains and some will survive. They are just a pawn in the game. But a pawn can become very powerful as in chess where it is a potential queen i.e. the dearest piece. And the king is the US. A slow mover but THE piece. Checkmate or stalemate that is the question. The US cannot win this war. They are either going to lose or to draw whatever that will mean.

I had forgotten how nice it was to live in a country where time was so much less precious. Where you are not terrorised by your watch but where people take their time. It must be the light. So bright. The shutters closed so well in our gîte that I was literally blinded by the light the first morning we went swimming in the Mediterranean. A country where people smile and joke and talk. But in the end I felt as a stranger again. Had the feeling that I was only accepted as a cash cow. I was just a tourist. Tourists pay. The native take the money. Grenaches noires are the sweetest grapes I ever tasted. The sweetness almost hurts on the palate. As in almost all holidays there was this bitter aftertaste. Just a preparation for the everyday life attending me in Frankfurt.

Perpignan #1 There will be only very few updates in the following days as Catherine and I are on holiday in the Southern Pyrenees. We have rented a gîte in Saint-Cyprien Plage 30 meters from the beach. The sun is quite discrete and often overshadowed by clouds but there is the sea which is wonderful even at 18 degrees and there are other things in life...

There is something rotten in the United States I can just understand that the WTC towers have been destroyed. But not the Pentagon. Where was the radar system? Any airplane coming too close to the Pentagon should have been shot down immediately. The Pentagon as the nucleus of the military strength of the only remaining superpower must have been the best defended building in the world. What was all this talk about the son of star wars if the US are not even able to put a shield over the Pentagon? I get more and more the impression that the US are just looking for a scapegoat outside of the country. It is a terrible suspicion but it must be legitimate to be outspoken: It could very well be that parts (probably a network of spies) of the CIA are involved in the attacks. The terrorists must have had very sensitive informations to carry out their plot. All the accusations against Bin Laden have never been really substantiated. It all seems speculation. The list of Arab suspects who were in the death planes with at least one person who had nothing to do with it and is still alive (who had reported the loss of his passport a couple of years ago) is 100% dubious. And now Mohammed Atta one of those suspects has supposedly met Iraq intelligence services. To me all these speculations and misinformations seem to be red herrings. Why are there hardly any news on the total failure of the American defense system? That cannot be an accident.

Blogging and reading blogs has become such an idle exercise in the past days. I can't do it. There are no words appropriate for what has happened. Too much empty talk and speculation. There seems to be a terrible equilibrium between the aggressors and the attacked. Both still think in these stupid categories of the good and the bad. The American president who used to be the most powerful person in the world has no clue of what is happening. I feel more qualified as president than him. We are governed by puppets. What can you expect of a dummy? Just a crash.

Ich habe mir schon lange die Frage gestellt, ob man in diese Welt noch Kinder setzen sollte. Da bin ich wohl nicht der Einzige, da in fast allen wohlhabenden Industrie- bzw. Dienstleistungsländern die Geburtenrate sinkt. Nach dem, was jetzt in New York und Washington geschehen ist, ist die Entscheidung für Kinder noch kritischer geworden. Ich sehe die Zukunft der Menschheit nun noch düsterer als vorher. Die Lebenserwartung der Menschheit scheint mir nach diesen Ereignissen nun endgültig geringer geworden zu sein als die eines Menschen. Vielleicht sehe ich zu schwarz, aber düstere Propheten wie Oswald Spengler, der jeder Zivilisation eine relativ konstante Dauer von ich glaube ca. 1000 Jahren zuschrieb, scheinen Recht zu bekommen. Wir sind nun in ein Zeitalter eingetreten, in dem es keine Supermächte mehr gibt. Wir wissen jetzt nicht mehr wer unser Feind ist. Wie einfach und im Nachhinein beruhigend war doch der kalte Krieg zwischen den USA und der Sowjetunion. Die Fronten waren klar. Wieso hat sich so etwas wie vorgestern nicht schon viel früher zugetragen? Das ist die eigentliche Frage. Wir haben bis jetzt so wahnsinnig viel Glück gehabt. Und dabei hat das große Schreckgespenst der Menschheit nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg, die Atombombe, noch gar nicht zugeschlagen. Ich möchte meinen Kopf in den Sand stecken, was unsere Zukunft angeht. Es gibt nun wirklich nur noch das JETZT.

It's the end of the world as we know it

JD and NO again
My favourite blog subtitle is "I start many things and have yet to finish a single one" from somnolence. That describes quite precisely how I proceed usually.
One of the things I have started in my mind which will probably never see the light of the day is a kind of Joy Division "project".
First I would like to research the story and background of each of the 40+ JD songs.
Then give an exact account of what is musically happening in each song (most difficult part for me as I am no musician, Josh is quite good at this).
After that I would like to write about the impact of each song on me. There I am thinking of listening to the songs with eyes closed and writing down spontaneously (a little like in Kerouac's spontaneous prose style which was actually very much inspired by Jazz) what comes to mind. That could be natural phenomenons like rainstorms, earthquakes or buzzing insects but it could also be more abstract. For example the feeling of being locked in a room or losing a good friend.
At the end I would try to interpret song by song from the lyrics.

I feel a little bit ashamed of the fact that New Order shows up first in my best of 2001 list on the left. That is just because it was the last purchase. Somehow I am still looking for this year's grand cru Bordeaux. Get Ready would certainly qualify for a cool, fresh and sparkling viñho verde with the gaz slowly emanating.