Category Archives: Life

Rio to Paris

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As media furiously refrain from speculating, it’s odd to be hoping that a lightning strike, an electrical malfunction, or some combination of both was responsible for the crash of an Air France flight that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean last night while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Because there aren’t a whole lot of other possibilities that don’t involve explosions.

While flying between the two cities is far, far safer than driving regularly in either of them, the stratosphere is an unforgiving environment, and the possibility of deliberate harm is also still out there. A sad day for both countries.

Impertinent Question, 2

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What’s Chinese for cultural destruction?

Over the next few years, [Kashgar] city officials say, they will demolish at least 85 percent of [the city's Old Town, a] warren of picturesque, if run-down homes and shops. Many of its 13,000 families, Muslims from a Turkic ethnic group called the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), will be moved.

Nevermind the Economics, Here’s Eurovision

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It’s that time of year again, and this time all of Europe — except plucky Georgia! — turns to the Third Rome Moscow, home of Eurovision 2009.

In years past, we’ve amused ourselves to no end with the song contest. Here are posts at least as good as some years’ winning songs:

2008
Can’t Resist
2007
Who’s European?
Eurovision: The Quickening
2006
Zombies Finnish First (As a bonus, this post links to an article containing the clause “naked people running through streets of Helsinki, according to magenta-haired Finnish journalist.”)
2005
Andorre, null point (Also? Follow the links to the shoeblog, and then search that site for Eurovision. Captions such as “The Norwegians and their golden camel toe” or “Georgian sword yodelling” only begin to describe the fun.)
2004
Europe Unites in Song

Just in case we’re too drunk stunned busy to liveblog the event itself, consider this an open Eurovision thread.

This Little Piggie Went to Market

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The EU Health Commissioner recommends avoiding non-essential travel to Mexico, and the first case of this variant of swine flu in Europe has been reported in Spain. The WHO has already got its Emergency Committee working; they had their first meeting on Saturday. And the Organization’s web site has an admirably complete set of links – background info, audio of the press briefing and conference, and their long-standing guidance on pandemic preparedness and response. There’s good background at the Flu Wiki.

There’s good news and bad news in this older AFOE post that talks about H5N1 and reviews an excellent book on the Spanish influenza of 1918. The short version: the social conditions that contributed to the death toll of 1918 are not present today; monitoring and international cooperation are much, much better. On the other hand, high mortality among younger adults (rather than among infants and the elderly) is a potential common element of the Spanish flu and this year’s swine flu.

Looks like we’re about to find out how much all the awareness raising and contingency planning that was done for H5N1 was worth.

Re:Publica 2009

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Tomorrow morning, I’ll take a train to Berlin where I’ll attend this year’s Re:Publica 2009 conference. This year’s umbrella theme is “shift happens”, which isn’t too inappropriate, even for the conference itself: What was – in 2006 – started as a small gathering of a couple of Germany’s better known and activist bloggers, has grown into an international web conference with a specific focus on the political aspects of the social web.

From April 1-3 more than 100 speakers will give keynotes and hold workshops – among others Germany’s federal privacy commissioner Peter Schaar, Martin Schallbruch, director of IT at the German Interior Ministery, Stanford’s Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow of boingboing.net, and Mary C. Joyce, the New Media Operations Manager of the Obama campaign. I’ll be blogging from the conference, but will probably do it on A Few Euros More, in order to not clutter the front page of afoe with smaller updates.

If anyone of you, gentle readers, will also be at the conference, and would be interested in a chat or coffee, please feel free to contact me via my fistful email tobias.schwarz _ fistfulofeuros.net. Hope to see you in Berlin.

On the Lighter Side

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Though it does have some relevance to the financial crisis, a brief item from the gentleman who brought you the immensely useful crazification factor:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Hat tip: LGM.

Three Things I Learned Tonight

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You may have known them already:

The Russian word for train station, voksal, is related to the London neighborhood of Vauxhall.

It is considered bad luck in Georgia to take out the trash at night; it is a sign of throwing money away.

In Tbilisi, the Armenian ambassador’s official car was parked outside the residence of the Turkish ambassador.

A small fairytale in times of economic malaise

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Just check this out. The Dutch baseball team beat The Dominican Republic in the WBBC. Not once, but twice! This is like the football team of Luxemburg beating the Brazil squad twice in a row. I like the comment of Dutch coach Delmonico:

“I don’t have big names, but I’ve got some long names,” Netherlands coach Rod Delmonico joked.

And what about this:

Even with all the controversy swirling, the loss to the Netherlands was improbable. The Dutch team has just one major league player on its roster (Marlins pitcher Rick VandenHurk), and he didn’t even play Saturday. Its most celebrated player, five-time Hoofdklasse (Dutch major league) pitcher Cordemans, has never pitched professionally in the United States. As the Hoofdklasse’s highest-paid pitcher, Cordemans earns just $40,000 a year, less than half of what Rodriguez earns each day.

Reminds me of the US basketball Dream Team at the Olympics…

Well, I suppose the WBBC fun will be over soon enough for the Dutch. But, hey, this rocks!

Clause of the Day

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From Michael Lewis’ justly-praised and widely-recommended story of the financial crisis in Iceland

the financial stuff eventually overwhelmed the fish.

He’s in the midst of explaining how fishing guys discovered a currency carry trade and just kept at it. More broadly, though, there are a lot of places where the financial stuff eventually overwhelmed everything else. A world in which GM is a finance company that happens to distribute automobiles, in which world-renowned universities are hedge funds with some teaching attached, and so forth is one that is seriously unbalanced. And now the rebalancing.

From our blogroll, the Iceland Weather Report has been consistently good with the stories of real life after the collapse. Today, the weather is “Another day, another bank failure“.