No long spiel this month - but three shorter ones:

1) About a month ago, on one of my fave radio shows, On the Media, there was a segment on the whistle-blowing predecessors of the subject of the new documentary now in cinemas, Citizen4, and William Binney - whom I'd heard of, because he was asked to testify in the German parliament's security scandal committee currently investigating what truly transpired - & Ladar Levison - whose name I hadn't remembered, but learnt now was the guy who shut down his own e-mail service Lavabit, when encryption keys of his customers were forced from him by US institutions, in order to decrypt future mails passing through his firm's servers. So the man now hiding in Russia had equally courageous examples he could draw inspiration from. After some checking, I found a list of 'blowers in Wikipedia - just look at how often the better known US "watchdog" institutions are mentioned there! All those other people - esp. also Fellwock, Drake & Klein - need to be remembered for all they gave up to "come clean"!

2) I.a. in connection with Obama's slow decadence - cf. prev. blog entry - there's been a lot of talk in media & elsewhere about how many changes in recent years were actually bad ones. But, and Obama actually never promised more than this, change is at its onset neither good nor bad. If it does occur, it usually means a lot of unexpected stuff starts happening as a consequence, problems as well as surprising successes, and it's probably never easy. Just as it may be happening at levels or speeds that most people can't discern. Change is always a risk. Avoiding that risk is basically a definition of what the aims of political conservatives are. So, actually, politically left folk are often just social innovators, prepared to risk the New. Yet people who vote(d) for them never seem to grasp that "good" or "bad" change may follow - they want it only to be "good". -- I propose they haven't really understood what politically embracing change means.

3) A few hours ago, I got a sad, but also funny, life lesson on following one of my mottos - "delay judgement!": I decided to try out a new Döner* joint in nearby Bergmann Street, which street, in the last decade or so, has become a real tourist hot spot for some reason. I stood at the counter after having ordered my veggie Döner with special corn bread "pocket". First thing I noticed was that the guy serving me was a bit of a grouch - o well, everyone can have a bad day. Then a lady arrived, asking timidly whether they sold Döner "boxes" - a "box" usually being a rectangular cardboard enclosure for the food, i.e. no bread. The guy looked at her, turned around and wordlessly started cutting meat from the typical great "meat mountain" turnstile you find in every Döner kiosk or restaurant. The woman looked at me, somewhat at a loss; I smiled encouragingly. Then the taciturn one took out a small empty cardboard box, i.e. he'd taken her question as an order & was now filling it. He asked whether she wanted some fried veggies, too; she ecstatically agreed. So I got to thinking, man & shop gets a demerit, woman a nod for being normal... As if to prove me right, he later behaved a little macho-like toward her. But then the lady in turn made some disparaging remarks about a pair of folks passing by, which quashed my positive take on her... Finally, when walking away from the place, trying to consume my - okay-tasting - Döner, even that wholesome goodie basically fell apart: There's a reason Döner "pockets" are basically bread triangles, with one edge closed - so you don't lose half the contents as you eat it on the run. Well, in the end I've never been so full of bits of food & sauce from just below my beard down to my one shoe! Only because he'd taken the round wholewheat bun and cut it all the way through - like a hamburger bun.

Today is the 7th of October, the 60th day after Obama started attacking IS with bombers or cruise missiles or whatever.

That may sit well with many US citizens. I, unknowing German in a German city far away, am unsure, but leaning toward agreement.

But at least one US citizen isn't happy, a constitutional expert who used to work for Clinton, whose outspoken irritation and arguments I heard on the radio, during NPR's OnPoint, today.

He reminds/instructs us that the US have a federal law since the Seventies, which says the president may use excessive force if the country is clearly threatened (is it in this case?). But (and it's a big BUT): He or she has to get the US Congress's approval within 60 days.

Obama is the 1st president to apparently ignore this law, since it - set up after the end of the Vietnam war, as a "lesson learnt" I assume - took hold. To my surprise, Bush jr. adhered to it - twice! - after 9/11.

So, basically, the USA have a very clear definition of when the country can go to war. (The 3-letter word is not mentioned in the law, but there's a longer exact description - something about "hostilities" etc..) Which is pretty good. Even better: It's clearly defined what the president can & cannot do on his own.

By "good president" Obama - so far - ignoring this law, he's setting a pretty terrible precedent. If it is further ignored - by him, by members of Senate & Congress - as it has been up till now, another "bad president" may just emulate him in future, to spread some sort of untoward mayhem. ("If Obama did it, so can I.") Congress would then have to basically impeach that guy.

The radio hour gave a possible explanation: In four weeks' time, the US mid-terms are on. So Obama, whose popularity is very low at the moment, doesn't want to boost Republican candidates by giving them the chance to make him come to (their) heel. That seems a bad excuse to me, since those same candidates as a rule called for more military intervention against IS.

A sad story to end this day with. A sad development of a once-great man.

That title is figurative - South African nights are generally short, since it's not that far from the equator. But I just saw the film LONG NIGHT'S JOURNEY INTO DAY at a celebratory* weekend at Berlin's House of World Cultures (next to the Chancellor's "washing machine" palace).

It's from 2000 and documents the TRC, which at that time was still going on. A profound attempt at bringing closure, if not always justice, to an ethically ravaged country. (And I didn't forget the "n" there!)

If you've actually lived there (I have, over a decade) and recognise some of the faces as ones that appeared on TV or in newspapers at the time the murders happened, it's heart-wrenching to watch at times. Even should you not have.

If we're all looking at Ferguson or the East Ukraine or elsewhere big boys are playing with guns, watch this documentary and be reminded of how much is destroyed when one human life - with all its complex development up to that moment, all the other people hitched to it more or less tightly - is trodden, shot or stabbed into bloody oblivion.

Although it isn't fashionable nowadays in Africa and elsewhere to do so, I greatly admire the idea of the TRC. But, watching this movie, the TRC does seem to have been ahead of its time by far.

• Tutu, a great talker, but also a very spirited pacifist fighter for what he believes in, seems to be on a mission of bright optimism, removed from the drudge (mostly) of the survivors.
• The perpetrators are essentially trying to save their skins. One was convinced until the end he was doing what was right for "his people".
• The female commissioners were friendly and wise, but in the end probably too aloof.
• The surviving mothers were the true forgivers, although in the final scenes even they show how deeply divisive racism makes everyone involved - they kept asking the black cop, who'd helped shoot their "terrorist" sons, how he could have done this to his "own blood".

I suppose the visual divides humans set up will be with us for a long time yet. Woman/man, dark-haired/blond-haired, dark-skinned/light-skinned... who cares?! In the end, we all do. We fight racism with racism, all the while spreading violence. Which breeds more violence.

We can probably forget the less visible differences ever really becoming as hotly contested: E.g. education, esp. of the political(ly neutral) kind. Even those that are visible in the clothes & environs of the protagonists of these sad stories: E.g. economic elitism vs. poverty.

In the end the feminist Iris Films, who made this foursome of clips on as many TRC cases (a selection from many thousands), managed to point me at one divide, which seems believable: (I misquote Orwell's 1984...) If there's any hope for the future, it lies in the peace-bringing women.

Daughters, journalists, commissioners (perhaps even one or other top politician, with numbers finally increasing!), mothers. Crying for beloved countries. But then getting up, hugging the bloodied once-big boys, moving on.