Fragebogen:The Holocaust under my Skin

Danke Germany.I live with the memories and the consequences forever.No hate,only a great and profound pain and fragebogen.
The experience of Nazism is alive in contemporary public debates over subjects as varied as German troops in Afghanistan, the low birth rate and the country’s dealings with foreigners. Why the country seems unendingly obsessed with Nazism is a subject of perpetual debate here, ranging from Germany’s philosophical temperament, to simple awe at the unprecedented combination of organization and brutality, to the sense that the crime was so great that it spread like a blot over the entire culture. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/world/europe/29nazi.html?hp

Life: Mystics See Spirits’ Power

SOLO, Indonesia — As former President Suharto hovers on the edge of death, some people here say it is not doctors and machines that have kept him alive, but an unseen cosmos of mystical forces.The diagnosis among believers here in Solo, the heart of Javanese culture, is that powerful occult forces in his body will not let him go, that certain rituals that would cleanse his spirit have not yet been performed or that nature has not yet signaled that it is ready to receive him.“The power of spirits inside his body is keeping him alive,” said Darsono, 34, a spiritualist here who is said to be able to perform magic, expressing one common view. “Suharto’s life is supported by a mystical power,” added Mr. Darsono, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name.Over the years, according to his aides, he has made frequent visits to sacred places, including mountains, caves, tombs and ruins, and he has taken ritual baths in the ocean and in rivers at places that were believed to hold special powers. He is said to have collected hundreds of sacred artifacts to absorb their magical power.Among them, according to local press reports, is a red stone called a mirah delima, which psychics say can protect its owner from swords and bullets and guard against illness.
Nature, for example, seems to be giving mixed signals.
“It’s not mysticism,” he insisted, as if trying to break through a language barrier. “It’s reality". http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/world/asia/27indo.html?pagewanted=2&ref=world

Kanguru

Kangaroo - The name for the Australian marsupial Kangaroo came about when some of the first white settlers saw this strange animal hopping along and they asked the Aborigines what it was called. They replied with 'Kanguru', which in the native language meant 'I don't know' .

Less Is More:“Dipso, Fatso, Bingo, Asbo, Tesco”

photo by marguerita: A poetic license portrait of the Queen.(Elizabeth)
LONDON — It was a lofty idea: formulate a British “statement of values” defining what it means to be British, much the way a document like the Declaration of Independence sets out the ideals that help explain what it means to be American.Because of the peculiarities of its long history, Britain has in modern times never felt the need for such a statement.What does it mean to be British? How do you express it in a country that believes self-promotion to be embarrassing? And how do you deal with a defining trait of the people you are trying to define: their habit of making fun of worthy government proposals?Nor did it help when The Times of London cynically sponsored a British motto-writing contest for its readers.The readers’ suggestions included “Dipso, Fatso, Bingo, Asbo, Tesco” (Asbo stands for “anti-social behavior order,” a law-enforcement tool, while Tesco is a ubiquitous supermarket chain); “Once Mighty Empire, Slightly Used”; “At Least We’re Not French”; and “We Apologize for the Inconvenience.” The winner, favored by 20.9 percent of the readers, was “No Motto Please, We’re British.”As for the statement of values, Mr. Wills of the Justice Ministry said that the government would soon hold “an extensive and intensive” period of consultation with regular people on what being British means to them. After that, it will convene a “citizens’ summit” of 500 to 1,000 people who will deliberate on the matter. The final decision on the statement will be made by Parliament.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/world/europe/26motto.html?hp

Food for Thought :In reference to Talent &Woman

photos by anna hirte


"It is really tragic when somebody that is gifted and talented is cut down at the early part of their career, because we always think about what more they could have offered the world in terms of their talents"

It is a natural human instinct to want gifted young people to succeed, because talent should be rewarded.

I don’t want is a society that tells me I have to.”from today's story in the NYTimes,an absurd attitude against life and reality. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/fashion/24skin.html?pagewanted=2

Krakow on my mind: The Singing Frog

The Singing FrogAt the corner of Pilsudskiego Street and Retoryka Street, Art-Nouveau style the former Seat of The Music School.
Maybe my mother's spirit is near me.I cannot stop seeing her in my dreams.
And for some reason the singing frog image,from when I saw him in 2004,on my first and only visit so far to Krakow.
I am always drawing the frog.I always remember Yehuda Amihai's poem: The Place Where I Never Was".

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:wnDq3kfTESsJ:jqr.pennpress.org/PennPress/journals/jqr/yehudaamichai.pdf+Yehuda+Amihai(the+place+that+will+never+be)&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us

photo by marguerita

LaFontaine and the Frogs

En exergue ces quatre vers de La Fontaine, extraits de Les grenouilles qui demandent un roi :

Les grenouilles, se lassant
De l'état démocratique
Par leurs clameurs firent tant
Que Jupin les soumit au pouvoir monarchique.

Leafing through my l870s edition of Fables de La Fontaine, a favorite of mine, I couldn't help but notice a subtle parallel between Les Grenouilles qui Demandent un Roi (The Frogs who Demanded a King) and the mentality that led to the outcome of the 17 June parliamentary elections in Bulgaria. As in La Fontaine, the moral of the story is what matters and not so much the specific characters.http://www.ce-review.org/01/23/rozevagreen23.html

Oy.Oy.Oy: Miuccia Prada: Do you have to be so Obvious??

drawing by marguerita

And,now. as Frank would sing, in Strangers in the night.Something in your eyes was so inviting,
Something in you smile was so exciting,
Something in my heart,
Told me I must have you.....................................................................that's all we need.
The man trashed out to the bones.
The man in Ms. Prada’s current vision was domesticated and so passive as to be a neuter.
“It’s about telling your story, telling your truth,” said the musician who remains one of the most novelistic artists hip-hop has produced.
As usual with this designer, there were things to admire: a lean clerical silhouette, the severity of a nearly monochrome palette, the way color and its absence were used to mark out the torso in floating zones. But when designers stop conceding to biological function, they move away from the realm of fashion and into that of social engineering. It is one thing to nudge men toward exploring their girly sides and quite another to suggest they sit to urinate.
http://www.mp3lyrics.org/d/defyance/shadows-in-my-mind/

Vatican News:Pope pulls out of visit to Rome university after outrage at his views on Galileo and science

PopeBenedict XVI last night called off a visit to Rome's main university in the face of hostility from some of its academics and students, who accused him of despising science and defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo.The controversy was unparalleled in a country where criticism of the Roman Catholic church is normally muted. The Pope had been due to speak tomorrow during ceremonies marking the start of the academic year at Rome's largest and oldest university, La Sapienza. But the Vatican said last night it had been "considered opportune to postpone" his visit.The announcement followed a break-in and sit-in at the rector's office yesterday by about 50 students and a furious row over a letter signed by more than 60 of La Sapienza's teachers, asking that the invitation to the Pope be rescinded.The signatories of the letter said Benedict's presence would be "incongruous".
Rightwing opposition MPs were outraged. One suggested La Sapienza, which means "wisdom" or "learning" ought now to be renamed La Ignoranza...

· Galileo Galilei was the Inquisition's most high profile victim. But by recanting his view that the earth moved around the sun, he managed to pay for his defiance of Catholic teaching, not with his life, but his freedom.
Born in Pisa in 1564, Galileo was a polymathic genius - a physicist, astronomer and mathematician who improved both the refracting telescope and compound microscope

· After ridiculing the views of the then Pope Urban VIII in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was ordered to stand trial for heresy in 1633. The judgment found that his view of the solar system was "absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures".

· He spent the rest of his life under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition and died in 1642. It was not until 1835 that his Dialogue was dropped from the Index of banned books.John Hopper

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7188860.stm http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,2241339,00.html