Tag: English


Geschichtsvergessenheit & cool names, rich in history

August 14th, 2013 — 12:44pm

In his State of the Nation address in Parliament this year, [the Namibian] President Hifikepunye Pohamba said in response to questions from Ignatius Shixwameni and Usutuaije Maamberua about colonial names: „Who is Lüderitz in the first place? And we have a region called Caprivi. Something should be done and has to be done.“

Source: Jan Poolman: Namibia: Caprivi Renaming Raises Hackles (30.07.2012)
Comment by the Allgemeine Zeitung: Erwin Leuschner: Lachnummer im Ausland (14.08.2013)

Lüderitz: [Images 1] [Images 2]

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Au jour de hui

April 8th, 2013 — 7:29am

?? ??

Zu vemoody heute. (Wankelmut)
For veymütig i dag. (wistful)
Too wehmodig today. (oh dear)
Woeful, I might add.
(erneut)

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Aporetische Monologe

November 30th, 2012 — 5:15am

Die Aporie (?p???a) beschreibt eine Ausweglosigkeit, Ratlosigkeit, eine Situation, die kein Auskommen und keine Auflösung anbietet, ein Verwirrnis und Abirren und generell, mit Heidegger gesprochen, die Holzwege, die beschritten werden müssen, um im Fortgang des Denkens ihre Unerquicklichkeit zu entbergen.

„The UN vote underscores that the world is run largely by thugs or, at best, people with limited moral vision. […]“

Ich schätze den Dialog sehr, den Austausch an Erfahrungen und Meinungen, die Herausforderung und das Infragestellen eigener und fremder Perspektiven, das mäeutische (µa?e?t???) Streitgespräch, das im besten Sinne Erkenntnis hervorbringt und im schlechtesten Falle lustvolle Volte und Replik, das Kreisen um und Versenken ins Gespräch, worin Fährten gelegt werden und falsche Spuren gelesen, wo Paralogien (pa???????) und Subtexte Kleinode freilegen und den bis dato für unerschütterlich befundenen Erfahrungsschatz subtil, sublim verrücken.

„Disgraceful! We should cut all foreign aid to countries that voted for this and ask the United Nations to remove themselves from our country within 90 days. There is no excuse for our influence to be this low in the world and is a direct reflection on the lack of ability of the president of the United States. Not only is he a traitor to this country but incompetent as well. The reputation of our country could never be lower.“

Wie aber kann in dieser Zeit der partikulären Diskurse, der algorithmisch bestimmten und fein säuberlich abgetrennten parteilichen Sphären, jener prokrastinativen Oase der Selbstbespiegelung und iterierenden Selbstbestätigung, in der jedwede Doxa (d??a) sich zum großen Narrativ auswächst und Weltdeutung und -auslegung frei von Kontrapunkt und Konterkarré, geschweige denn der Kakophonie der Begegnung, affixiert, reifiziert und darüber das Singuläre in der Vielstimmigkeit der einen Wahrheit vergessen macht, wie kann hierin noch das Andere vermittelt und ertragen werden? Alterität gerinnt zusehends zur Alienität, potentialisierte Unübersetzbarkeit.

„The UN is a useless organization. It has accomplished nothing in my lifetime. No war has been stopped. No terrorism has been stopped. No human rights have been protected. The UN is simply a collection of useless ambassadors who predominantly come from radical extremist countries. The only thing the UN is good for is causing traffic jams in NYC and blatantly violating every law and regulation in NYC as well as giving a voice to terrorists and dictators. We would be better off without the institution.“

Was aber sind kommunikative Parallelismen, Kommentare ohne Transfer und Brückenschlag anderes als Amphoren anstelle von Metaphern (µetaf??a?), als Gefäße, die gleichermaßen einfassen und ausschließen, platonischer Dialogizität ermangeln, Idiosynkrasien und Idiolekt, Monolog und Monotonus, welche der Stimme gebrechen und in sich verkehrt bleiben, gekränkt, verkrümmt, egomanisch um sich kreisen und letztendlich – unauflöslich, stumm, aporetisch?

„So it means now that Palestine terrorists are now recognised and endorsed by the useless corrupt UN.“

(All quotes taken from reader comments on this New York Times article on the recognition of Palestine as „nonmember observer state“ by the United Nations General Assembly on 29 November 2012.)

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Anti-German Bias and the New York Times

November 23rd, 2012 — 5:58am

Pulled from two articles published online by the esteemed New York Times on 22 November 2012:

„The euro was established as a common currency with too little preparation and institutional support. And, over the past year, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has been destructively pushing her partners to enact laws that would prolong the recession by setting rigid deficit ceilings, denying countries the fiscal flexibility sometimes needed to revive growth.“ (Editorial: Britain’s Place in Europe)

„Whisper it quietly, but the real champion in the group turned out to be Dortmund. The German club, …“ (Global Soccer: Teams From Germany and Spain Dominate Champions League)

Both reinforce the impression, that a strong and continuing anti-German bias has been prevalent for months (years) now in the New York Timescommentary on the European financial crisis; often outspokenly such as in much of Paul Krugman’s analysis of economic and fiscal policy in the Eurozone, establishing the narrative of a German-dominated and German-rooted austerity folly (and bullying of the Southern periphery) while reeking of self-righteousness1 and myopic sensationalism, at other times highly manipulative in its portrayal of German issues or general topics wherein carefully placed characterisations2 and cheap shots tinge the account (mingling fact and fiction) and fuel anti-German stereotypes.

But let’s rather whisper it quietly, to what lows the Times has sunk…

1: Krugman’s firm and long-standing bias reveals itself already in an comment on the 1990s‘ sick man of Europe which is still available on his MIT-website: Why Germany Kant Kompete.
2: Such as the „Teutonic[s‘] guttural jeering“ (here) or the Germans‘ ex negativo characteristics (lack of passion, flexibility, „individual prowess“) as smugly devised by Roger Cohen.

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Bear

Mai 30th, 2012 — 11:31pm

(i)

To seize the opportunity
I chose not
Not when I’m about to leave the next morning.

Bear with me

Ursus montis crucis berolinensis

(ii)

Why rush along
Afar away
If you are leaving ___ for tomorrow?

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????? sea?t??

Mai 12th, 2012 — 9:57pm

Who comes up in your mind first when you read the following statements?

„He’s not a prankster. He’s a borderline sociopath. And he totally creeps me out.“
„With [him], something is not right. His movements are stilted, his speech is forced and artificial, and he exudes insincerity.“
„[His] chuckling callousness is suspect as is his willingness to adopt seemingly any position on any issue if it will help him gain a temporary advantage.“
„Since he has appeared on the scene I have wondered how anyone could remain so stuck in the year 1961. He seems like a time capsule of everything which was wrong with those times.“
„[H]e is a very strange guy, like a very good but not quite perfected synthetic human being. His face doesn’t match what he is saying. Weird things make him laugh.“

Be honest with yourself!

(Assorted reader comments taken from online op-eds by columnists Gail Collins and Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 12 May 2012)

Nota bene: I stand by my view that Stepford Mitt as Leader of the Free World will at least look very photogenic… On those documentary DVDs detailing the Rise of the East over the West.

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ta???e?

Mai 11th, 2012 — 5:49pm

Wahnwitziges Zeitalter der Beschleunigung – as proven by an item I fetched just from today’s news:

„Investing is a binary activity, and its practitioners are speed junkies. A New Jersey company, Hibernia Atlantic, is spending $300 million to run a new cable across the Atlantic Ocean so that information can travel 5.2 milliseconds faster between New York and London.“

(Joe Weisenthal vs. the 24-Hour News Cycle, New York Times, 10 May 2012, p. 3)

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Anatarctic spelling

Mai 9th, 2012 — 9:53pm

Oh, the irony! In an article on the prospect of rising sea levels as a consequence of global warming, by way of the accelerated meltdown of another Antarctic ice shelf, The Christian Science Monitor drowns its spelling in a tell-tale of our age’s increasing negligence of good publishing practices. Which seem to have fallen out of fashion, mostly and vastly.

This mishap is probably due to the lack of a thorough editing process; and it is a symptom painfully characteristic of the online media’s fast-paced publishing of content in the digital age. Or should I rather call out the industry on its lazy proofreading? Which not only has spread to book publishing, sadly, but also, given the media’s function as communication multipliers, results in one finding after another of deteriorating spelling habits, limited text comprehension and reduced literacy among young readers and digital natives – and ultimately a break with written tradition in Western societies.

CS Monitor misspells

CS Monitor misspells

As if the deluge of misspellings (tantamount to the sea levels rising an additional 4.4 meters by the year 2100 due to the Weddell Sea alone in worst-case scenarios) and the wrecking of both grammar and the world’s unfortified coastlines weren’t enough, though, the article links to a quiz which allows the readers of the Monitor to check their scientific literacy. Hence, even if you should prove as illiterate as an increasing number of media outlets with view to spelling and grammar, you may still make up for it. There is, after all, still some hope willy-nilly amidst all the irony by which this article is fashioned.

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No-d-fr-e

März 9th, 2012 — 1:46am

Problemet med rasisme er ikke faktaene, men tolkningen.
Das Problem des Rassismus stellen nicht die Tatsachen dar, sondern ihre Deutung.

Å vandre langs bokreolen, det er en innbydelse å gå på tur.
Se promener le long de la bibliothèque, sans hâte, c’est une invitation à flâner.

På den tjuefemte time. Festen varer ennå helt kjempefin.
25th hour. Party still going strong. (4.-5. mars 2012)

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‚Vastly inflated‘ does not even come close

Januar 20th, 2012 — 8:25pm

A couple months ago, I wrote somewhat amused about Google’s new reverse image search feature and some of its more entertainingly absurd results.

Well, now as Google have reworked and put into place their new search routines, in addition to a revamp of their homepage, which for the general user appear to work fine (in mysterious ways, though), another example of the inner workings gone awry seems to corrobate the need for wider fine-tuning of the beast and its algorithms.

I found this one while searching for a potential Norwegian dialectal term, which may factor in as Google, in general, seems to consider any language but English somewhat exotic which comes to light when it is acting in its quixotic manner. Just try for yourself:

1. Enter „først og fram“ in the Google search box and press enter.
2. You get: „About 662,000 results (0.11 seconds)“.
3. Take a look at the results and then go to page 2 of the search results.
4. At the top, it now reads: „Page 2 of 12 results (0.25 seconds)“.
5. Say out loud „huh?!“ and take a walk.

NB: The common and correct phrase in Norwegian is „først og fremst“, and although you may find „først og fram“ in the vernacular, it is not recommended for use in written Norwegian. It corresponds to the English „first and foremost“ and is similarly formed and cognate to the German „zuerst und zuvörderst„.

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