You keep what you kill

"Intercultural communication skills" or "cultural knowledge" is an often overrated, but sometimes it's really a good idea to remember where you are. An English teacher has been sentenced to fifteen days in prison in Sudan because she named a teddy-bear "Mohammed" . Fair enough. I don't give a shit. What I do care about is the reaction of the press and of the British government. Why the fuzz? Why the outrage? It's the law of the country. If she is so blatantly ignorant of the law of her host country, she deserves no better. Actually, I think a nice stoning would have been even more entertaining.

Der Tagesspiegel weiß: Lange Zeit, bevor die Nationalmannschaft immer mehr in diese Rolle hineingewachsen ist, stand vor allem Werder für das Gute und Schöne im deutschen Fußball. In den besten Momenten konnte sich die Mannschaft in einen Rausch spielen. Gegen Real kämpfte sie sich am Ende in einen Rausch. Korrekt. Endlich kämpfte sie mal. Vielleicht sollten häufiger die engagierten Spieler spielen anstatt derjenigen, die ihre Frisur spazieren tragen? Wem ist aufgefallen, dass Vander ein millionenfach besserer Fußballer ist als Wiese?

Now here one for the Freudians amongst you: This is what New Year's Eve will look like for me this year (again). Just for weeks to go! Friendly New Zealand instead of cold Germany . At least for four weeks. Love, peace, and harmony.

Ich sehe es ja durchaus kritisch, wenn Helden meiner Jugend auch heute noch Alben machen, aber es gibt positive Ausnahmen: Public Enemy - How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul??? . Who would have thought? Chuck D as powerful as on "It takes a nation of millions ...", Professor Griff, Terminator X, the S1W, and of course Flavour Flav. Unbelievable. There are few groups that can quote themselves without becoming embarassing or annoying, PE is one of them. Especially the comeback of Flavour Flav is worth the album, just as crazy as 20 years ago. The music is on a high level as well, if I didn't know better I would have sworn that "Sex, Drugs & Violence" was produced by Premier. Yeeeeeah, boyyyy, haha!

It's winter again though my calendar still tries to convince me otherwise. Winter means cold, wet, dark. It also means hot chocolate, cake, and heaps of cinnamon. Which more than makes up for dark & wet. Not sure about the cold yet. In the last couple of months I've been so busy I didn't get around to writing regularly. I've also been so angry -work sucks- that I sometimes forgot to enjoy the beautiful things in life. But worst, I forgot to praise, praise, praise The Weakerthans . New album "Reunion Tour" - buy it! Now! It's fantastic. And they're playing at the Lido (Kreuzberg) on Dec 4th (Tuesday) . Be there or be dead. I've been listening to Reunion Tour all morning. My girlfriend had to work early, I finished a stupid presentation for Monday and then I sat down and put the CD on repeat. And here's the completely un-maleish ( Virtute the cat explains her departure . It's probably the greatest song ever written. I know that I've...

Since I spend nearly all of my spare time eating I can recommend quite a few restaurants in Berlin. Here we go, be nice, enjoy: Berliner Kafferösterei: Excellent coffee and chocolate, excellent confectionery, nice atmosphere, friendly people. Definitely a must-visit. I practically live there, they should have my portrait on the wall by now. Besides delicious stuff to eat and drink they also stage interesting events like chocolate or coffee tastings from time to time - check out their website regularly! Sisaket : To me, probably the best Thai restaurant in Berlin. Kien-Du : Another very recommendable Thai restaurant, closer to where I live. Restaurant-Kritik.de Opera Italiana : One of the best Italian restaurants in Berlin, right across the street from Schloss Charlottenburg. Restaurant-Kritik.de Aglio , Hohernzollerndamm. Very good Italian restaurant. Restaurant-Kritik.de Pizzeria Portofino , Kantstraße. Very good Italian restaurant. They have Spanferkel-Pizza. Restaurant-Kritik.de Le...

Envy is a strange emotion: everybody experiences it more or less regularly but people seldom admit it. I'll therefore once again sacrifice some of my precious time to offer my readers a small piece of free emotional research of their deep selfs. In a couple of weeks I'll be enjoying this view: Nice, eh? Since I am probably one of the smartest and most intelligent and surely the sexiest person on this planet, I'm flying once again to my favourite destination, New Zealand. New Year's eve on the beach (or in hospital, should I manage to hurt myself sandboarding the dunes before *g*), hell yeah! I'm really looking forward to those supermarkets !

The "crisis" of the music industry has been filling newspapers, blogs, magazines, and books for some years now. For all those in need of a summary, Berlin daily " Der Tagesspiegel " features a nice article. For those even more in need of a summary, I'll just cite the most relevant passage. After all, it is quite indicative and symptomatic for the state of this fucked up industry that it's not dickhead Smudo or some other jerk bur rather Staiger from RoyalBunker Berlin who has to offer the most poignant insight: Auch Marcus Staiger kennt das Problem. Ihn trifft es noch härter, weil seine Klientel fast gar keine CDs mehr kauft. Er ist Chef des Berliner Hip-Hop-Labels „Royal Bunker“, bei denen auch K. I. Z. unter Vertrag sind, eine der angesagtesten deutschen Hip-Hop-Bands. „Unsere Zielgruppe sind Jugendliche, die nicht mal eine Kreditkarte haben, mit der sie legale Online-Angebote bezahlen könnten, wenn sie wollten“, sagt Staiger. Die Fans seiner Musik sind mi...

Mal im Ernst: Wer kauft oder hört so eine Scheiße? (Dropkick Murphys) Sind das dieselben Leute, die zu Hause Hooliganvideos gucken aber noch nicht einmal wenigstens vernünftiges Sparring irgendwo absolviert haben? Was anderes: Saturday morning. Nachdem ich eine Kuschelattacke des Beagles überlebt habe, beginnt die Spielvorbereitung. Und aus Zeitmangel auch die Nachbereitung. Erstmal die Vorbereitung: Sollte mich nicht wundern, wenn das heute in die Hose geht gegen Karlsruhe. Alle Symptome sind schon da: Leistungsträger nicht bei 100%, Überheblichkeit bei Mannschaft und Fans und ein konterstarker Gegner, der zudem noch stark bei Standards ist. Ich würde fast auf ein Kopfballgegentor (trotz Naldo und Mertesacker) wetten. Soviel zur Vorbereitung. Die Nachbereitung ist wesentlich schlimmer, aber auch einfacher. Eigentlich muss man für das Spiel in Rom dankbar sein, denn es hat hoffentlich endlich den Verantwortlichen die Probleme so deutlich gezeigt, dass sie etwas ändern müssen. Dazu muss...

Juchhu, das wird ein Spaß: