After a burnout dip of several months and battling with various forms of what seems to be tachycardia, here's another reflection of what is going on unseen above the neckline...

CINEMAXX

One of the most commercial cinemas in the capital, this complex of many(-sized) cinema halls has recently won my attention back a little, because they are finally showing more films in the original (previously: only German or German-dubbed), and now also sport super-comfy recliner seats, with a useful-as-well-as-bothersome tray for drinks etc.. Other than that the vibe as you enter the complex is still that of a well-oiled inhuman machine that extracts your Euros wherever & however it can. It is still the cinema that dials the ads preceding the film louder than anywhere else, probably explaining why the hall you're sitting in is almost empty just before the actual film, to then fill up (unpleasantly) hectically as the film starts.

A cabal of old men

t.b.d.

On the 2nd day into the 2nd year of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, after spending many thoughts and some Euros, as well as 2 parcels (cf. one above, using DHL's free service for any ~20kg parcels prepared with their downloadable special labels), I want to say a few short things about this World-shaking little War. (Short because I am still a pretty dumb layman on what the background causes and current actions are; i.a. since we see the latter mostly through propagandised reports...)

Ukraine - top 10 list of sad realisations after 1 year

In no particular order...

1. Putin & cronies, as well as churchly Kyrill, no longer leave any doubt as to what they have become: A fascist regime. There are so many indications - which we Germans may know best of all: Sending young untrained men to their deaths, apparently upward of 500 a day! Culling all media who try to report truths of e.g. behaviour of Russian troops toward civilians! Deadly disdain for certain groupings within society - LBGTQ, critics, mass-communicated propaganda incl. constant twisting of the "attackers" (exp. the US and Germany!). -- And the "f" word is not coined by me in this case, but by a St. Petersburg city politician, Budberg!
2. In the same video, one gets to know a little some courageous Russians, who are quietly working to unravel the repressions and constant lies. While essentially most Russians live in fear of consequences, these counter-examples are, in my eyes, hope for the future.
3. The invasion has meant terrible deaths for in the order of 100 thousand people so far!! Hundreds of Russian soldiers die every day because their wounds cannot be sufficiently medically treated, due to missing materials and doctors...
4. Currently, demagogic Mrs. Wagenknecht here in Germany is demanding immediate negotiations, as if that's something Putin & his fellow war criminals are offering. She also wants all delivery of military materials to stop right away. And she is also raising the spectre of coming nuclear war, now in every current interview or public speech.
5. So, to put up something against that, check out this TAGESSCHAU interview with an Austrian war expert, who says to momentarily forget tanks and jets etc. - the availability of ammunition, or its dearth, on both sides will determine who may lose the war within the next weeks. Since neither side is producing munitions at war-typical rates, at the moment.
6. Over 100 thousand refugees from the invaded country have settled in Berlin, my home town. They are mostly women and their children, for boys only those up to 15 years in age!
7. My rent, electricity and gas (heating) costs have gone up significantly. A 50 EUR increase in rent fluttered in end of last year, and began at the start of this month.
8. Our national president is holding well-constructed speeches off and on (& visited Kyiv again recently), but it's hard to forget that his & Merkel's appeasement policies a decade ago were so very off target, re what Russia's real plan was. I now reckon the "annexation" of Crimea, 8 years ago, was simply part of that invasion plan.
9. After this war, however the outcome, Russia will be close to financial ruin. No participation in global stock markets, fewer investments, etc.. Elites at the top of the deadly political game will have a yawning nothing below them on the way down to the mass of ever poorer citizens, esp. rural ones!! So Putin will probably not remain in good memories of this crazy miltaristic time, in later years.
10. Let's hope those poorer folk realise the ruse of calling on the Great War against the Nazis for a repeat performance in everyone's head of that past determination, to root out the "fascist terrorists" who were/are running the once-beloved sister Soviet, Ukraine. Once more unto the seeming breach... Goebbels would have been proud!!

Ukraine - a 'Scholzing' retort

Some weeks ago British historian Garton Ash basically reiterated the 'Scholzing' slur on the German chancellor in an article in the GUARDIAN - that he is basically constantly promising things, that he then finds ways not to deliver, or that he simply sets up conditions to be able to delay support. In addition, there is a general tendency in English-speaking Western countries to imply that Germany is de facto in charge of the EU response to the war in Ukraine, but not taking up that mantle - how annoying or even cowardly! (It is said.)

First off, let me say that I voted for this guy, the first time in the last 3 decades that I ever voted SPD, in the last general election. I voted for him because he seemed to me even-handed and pedantic when dealing with crises, and at the time a certain big C was much on everyone's mind (physically on almost everyone's faces, too). In general, on dealing with the Ukraine crisis, I feel he has represented my view on what to do, or how rapidly to implement that. I am not a 100% fan of his, but in this thing I am with him.

Why would a German chancellor proceed carefully? Well, in '89 I remember clearly that the "beast-in-chains" view of a divided Germany was still on several people's lips: After behaving bestially in WW II, Germany was to be kept under control of the 4 winning nations; the division was one way of aiding this goal. So reunification took away one of the hindrances to the beast becoming reanimated again, it seemed to some observers, and fear of a once-again dominating Germany seemed to be in the air in the '90s. Since then, but probably several decades earlier, too, Germany's foreign policy has always included to never have war originate in Germany again. (In fact, this did not prevent many German firms from making much profit by building arms for the world, from hand guns to tanks!)

So this turn-around from despising the German beast (still enchained to some degree) to denigrating the Germans for not leading the war support effort for invaded Ukraine is a little astonishing. Which is perhaps one reason why Scholz and his ministers refrained from sending in too potent offensive weaponry - which is what the Leopard tanks are!

While not having put up as much support as the Americans have, for Ukraine, the Germans have also been one of the major contributors in the European space, in absolute pound for pound terms, including its populace on a personal level (cf. above photo). And we are getting ready to gear up diverse production to deliver stuff faster - material aid, instructions, tanks and, yes, ammunition! (Which cycles back to item #5 in the above list.)

If people like bashing the one guy, Scholz, at the moment, then have them in addition interview the average German, statistically representative-wise, and I predict they will find that most Germans agree with the slow approach. Also because we know that Germany is one of the first places Russian rockets will target in case of an ultimate escalation Putin may yet consider.

If one considers all this, esp. the ammunition-race point from above, I think 'Scholzing' in a positive sense, i.e. fulfilling promises, but step by step, and in sync with nuclear power partners, is exactly what I want my chancellor to continue to do!

Auf Wiedersehen (hopefully, after the end of the war at the latest)!

It's been 12 months of mostly unexpected, partly severe-seeming illnesses - everything but CoVID, so we will omit that in this blog entry, as well! - plus a job change within the last quarter of that dozen, so I have been silent. One reason was also the Ukraine invasion, which left a continuing feeling of incredulity & great sorrow. (Cf. below.)

A lot of pretty serious stuff has piled up, and I have gathered a few backward glances in developments important to me in "chapters" below, but the nearest in a sense have been the events around important - some positively historic! - people this last fortnight:

• End of August, Gorbachev & Ströbele died; one a Russian premier who basically sealed the "fall" of the Soviet union, at the same time making German reunification possible - the other the most famous normal parliamentarian of the Green party, the lawyer Ströbele (cf. an election poster within the last 2 decades, above), who single-handedly "saved" the German Greens from the supposed scandal of repeatedly not having any directly voted-for parliamentarians, as did every other party. He managed to do this from 2002 on, by standing on his particular, partly non-party-conformist manifest, in his Berlin district.

• Trump had to endure a razzia of his Florida resort/home, because as it turned out, he'd decided to keep secret & top secret documents, which weren't his, and may have been seen (illegally) by visiting third parties. Trump's dog star finally seems to be losing his bite, and is barking up against legal odds. But let's not forget, who put him there - Koch millions, & Christian nationalists; and voters who could know better, if they had learnt to consume a spectrum of news sources, instead of low-reputation news channels and a brownish tidewash of (a)social media. Also, I am waiting for the office of the president to be disempowered; Trump's "reign" has shown the world, if not U.S. citizens, apparently, that this concentration of power on one hopefully (!) honourable person has become a seriously bad idea!

• Finally, HRM Elisabeth II died after weeks of illness; the only queen of note I have ever known to any significant degree^ - except perhaps Holland's Beatrix - and so an astonishingly moving vacuum that has formed, inside. I think she could be very strict, but seemed also to be diligent, and truly concerned about keeping what has remained of the Empire together, not for political gain, but it seems to offer a modicum of solidarity in fast-changing, & lately trying, times!

Streaming

I have been a paying subscriber to Netflix since it first appeared in Germany. I sort of like, to this day, the global breadth of offerings this seemingly endless financial fountain for new film (& series) offers, but quite soon after starting got a bitter taste in the mouth when their CEO at the time said in an interview he aimed to destroy cinemas. Probably for this reason, I have never subscribed to another "streamer", since in the end, they all have this aim, it seems; cinemas are still closing down in Germany at an alarming rate (even if this is not quite as apparent here in the capital).

Since important Marvel stuff was in '22 only debuting on DisneyPlus ("D+" from here on in) I talked to a good friend who already had it in subscription, and asked if I could join him now and then to watch some of that stuff - having been a (paper) Marvelite since days of being a wide-eyed 10-year-old! - i.a. also due to the crazily formulated general Terms of Use of D+, much of it unclear. As a give-back, here is a list of worthwhile D+ movies I had promised him at the time:

° SPLASH
° ZOOTOPIA
* Almanya
* Birdman
* Brooklyn
* Color of Money
° Enemy Mine
* Far from the Madding Crowd
* Grand Budapest Hotel
* Hello, Dolly!
° John Carter
* Joy
° Ladyhawke
* Life of Pi
* Master & Commander
° Never let me go
° New Mutants
° Solaris
° Tron
* Westside Story
* Working Girl

These recommendations do not represent universal worth, mostly, but are personal hits, in terms of meaning - perhaps at the time they came out - and impact to/on me. Also having a worthwhile story to tell, something I often find sorely missing in current film fare.

Of the "oldies", Color of Money and Enemy Mine are favourites because they show plain old brilliant casting, and how a story, and the protagonists in it, can turn, and steer the conclusion toward unexpected depths. Apart from that, Color is also brilliantly shot, maybe one of the best "cinematic" films I have ever seen!

Hello, Dolly is the oldest oldie here, and it's to me just a brilliant homage to Barbra Streisand's singing, and introducing her major acting talent, too. (Also an inadvertent homage to Omar Sharif, to the way, in my mind, he really was, also outside the studios...)

Ukraine

Half a terrible year in, I don't know what to say about this, having seen so much atrocious video, heard the pain cried out just a few hundred km's away, read & thought so much about possible motivations... except these short epiphanous visions:

• Russians, as martially inclined and idiotically proud as they seem to be, are probably right to worry about their indefensible ground-level borders with their larger neighbours to the West.
• This does not explain why they have been acting like war criminals in Syria (via the air) and in basically every Ukrainian village & town they briefly occupied, leaving mauled & annihilated civilians in their wake. This they will not live down, for decades on!
• What fools Western nations were to underestimate the hold Russia and a disabled Ukraine have on certain major resources (gas, locally, and wheat, world-wide!). Diversify in future!
• May the people of Kyiv, which I know a little from 2 week-long visits some years ago, and all Ukrainians be allowed to return to some form of industrious normalcy. May both nations get rid of suicidal nationalist tendencies, and old feuds, which have partly fired this conflict.

I wonder if the U.S. are learning the possible lesson here, that Old Putin's Russia is a bleak future they themselves may be heading for. If you give an ice-cold opportunist maximal power to wield an overlarge military as he desires. If this guy leans on a nationalist religious elite, that sanctifies him - and will adopt even the bloodiest political goals to improve its power over people's minds.

Climate change ad extremis

(Warning: A "denier" holds forth!) I am aware that things have been pretty different this year and last - quite hot, mostly dry summers in Germany - but I have never said that current climate behaviour, at least Europe-wide and in Southern Africa, is not unusual. I have, several times over the past 15 years or so, also in this blog, doubted that climate change modelled as developing toward no-return-beyond-this-point scenarios is as certain as many - climatologists, politicians, Greenpeace - say. I don't believe CCC (the first C standing for "catastrophic") is inevitable, or even fully controllable; mainly because the planetary surface (above-ground for several km upward) is a huge and highly complex system, and because we haven't yet fully understood how the world's climate engines - esp. Antarctica - work and will react to temperature increase in the mid term.

I am writing this because I happened upon a pretty noteworthy (German!) YT clip, which sounded very credible, but again used statistically "smoothened" graphs about temperature development over the past centuries, where I am unsure, due to some of the (older) critical literature, whether that smoothing is "factual", and not just mathematical/statistical modelling. And predictions in increases in heat are predicted to a near-fatal-looking degree by a fearful world map going into deep red basically everywhere in the 2nd half of this century; this prediction said to be "just as reliable" as the 'hindcast' from the 80's till today, which I strongly doubt. (Here I'll just mention the mathematical method of Taylor series approximation, as a possible way to 'hindcast' a limited set of N measurements to produce a general temperature function f(t), where t is time; one that may however be totally wrong once N goes way up for future measurements.)

My main challenges are still: Show me how this scientific theory is falsifiable. (If you can't, reliably & in the mid term, it isn't really a hard scientific theory, but just a prediction. The previous climatological one - in the 70s, new ice age apparently imminent - was a major fail.) And once you have shown me, let's set down some 95%-sure or better probable values to be measured in future the way they are now, and see how your theory holds up at that future time. Predict/measure/repeat as is usual in hard science, even if it does take a decade or two; and, should the predictions fail more than 5% of the time, let's de-hype CCC a.s.a.p.!

Until then go easy on the equivalence of CCC and the Holocaust, please. (When applying the description "deniers" to both equivalently...)

YT mobbing

One of the things I really hate about Youtube is that people who mob celebrities get so much "air time" (i.e. appear in "personalised" search results). Until this day, old videos about how hated Brie Larson is "in Hollywood" still pop up regularly, even idiotic ones that predicted how badly her 1st MCU outing would fail.

Recently I thought Ms. Heard, re her U.S. trial versus Mr. Depp, was (and, yes, still is) being hit too hard, based on what little reliable evidence there is that Mr. D. was well-behaved after all. Perhaps it's that I liked Mr. D. more in his early films, and less from his "Pirates" phase onward; in the latter, part of his body & speech acting implies constant drunkenness - personality-changing drunkenness is one of the main challenges Ms. H. presented about where their relationship went (violently, she claims) awry. Perhaps it's that I quite liked her in AQUAMAN, and find it sad that she is now apparently being thrown out, there and in many other film projects.

We are probably not even close to 100% in the know about what really went on. But the reputation cooker in Hollywood and its louder orbits runs hot relentlessly. One reason to think about stepping off the celebrity fan train more often in future!